116 Dimensions of Baptism
the same writer later acknowledges Sanders's breakthrough in interpreting
the Palestinian sources.
In many ways it is more reassuring to accept that works-faith dichotomy
which immediately gives the Christian person a feeling of 'lightness' or
superiority over against the Jewish person and is one way of avoiding the
hard questions thrown up by an exclusivist soteriology in a pluralist world.
Much of the strength of Sanders's work lies, not only in his close and
revealing reading of texts which had never before played a prominent part
in Pauline studies, but also in his determination to 'see things as they
really were' in the Jewish religious situation of Paul's own day. And this
is where a springboard is also presented to us, through his underlying phi-
losophical and practical challenge, to 'see things as they really are' in our
own varying contexts.
When we feel the weight of preserving something precious, the enter-
prise of 'seeing things as they really are' becomes harder, but more neces-
sary. This is what for so long militated against investigation into the world
of first- and second-century Judaism in its own terms. It is scarcely sur-
prising that the attempt to see things as they really are with respect to the
multiform Christian convictions of the present day is no less threatening.
To rest content with what seems quite obvious to us does not necessarily
do justice to authorial intent or context. Many sweeping certainties are
increasingly difficult to sustain, and increasingly difficult to hear without
wanting to pose the questions and contradictions. When apparent certain-
ties are held up to close scrutiny, it does not always lead to their complete
overturning, but reveals the 'obvious' claim to be within the limits of
particular age and culture, and this proves to be counter-productive and
misleading if it continues to be used as the only key to truth. But this does
not always help us to acknowledge just how radically uncomfortable is the
process of change, particularly for those (all of us, at times) whose identity
is bound up with the status quo.
When a sense of connectedness shifts gears into the awareness of aporia,
or 'gaps in connections', we are moved into an environment for new growth
and creativity. But in exploring the limits of what we have previously
accepted as given, our faith is troubled and it is not easy to distinguishbetween threat and opportunity. E.P. Sanders's seminal work called into
question the 'quite obviously' of Paul's teaching on justification by faith
alone against the supposed rabbinic doctrine of justification by works. No
wonder that fear of the 'thin end of the wedge' from the pews of some
confessional traditions causes many to hang on to the old 'quite obviously'.
Sanders reads Paul's letters as being full of 'transfer terminology'. For