New Perspective on Paul  The "New Perspective on Paul" represents a significant shift in the field of biblical studies since the 1970s in the understanding of the writings of the Apostle Paul, due to E. P. Sanders' pioneering 1977 work "Paul and Palestinian Judaism". Paul advocates justification through faith in Jesus Christ over justification through works of the Law. Under influence of the Lutheran and Reformed perspective, known as "sola fide", this was traditionally understood as Paul arguing that Christians' good works would not factor into their salvation – only their faith would count. In this perspective, first-century Palestinian Judaism was dismissed as sterile and legalistic. According to Sanders, Paul does not address good works in general, but instead questions only observances such as circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath laws, which were the "boundary markers" that set the Jews apart from the other nations. According to Sanders, first-century Palestinian Judaism was not a "legalistic community", nor was it oriented to "salvation by works". Being God's chosen people, they were under his covenant. Contrary to what the Protestants thought, keeping the Law was not a way of entering the covenant, but of staying within the covenant. Since the Protestant Reformation (), studies of Paul's writings have been heavily influenced by Lutheran and Reformed views that are said to ascribe the negative attributes that they associated with sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism to Second Temple Judaism. These Lutheran and Reformed views on Paul's writings are called “the old perspective” by adherents of the "new perspective on Paul". The "new perspective" is an attempt to lift Paul's letters out of the Lutheran-Reformed framework and interpret them based on what is said to be an understanding of first-century Judaism, taken on its own terms. In 1963 the Lutheran theologian Krister Stendahl, who is considered by modern scholarship to have been as influential as Sanders in the development of the “new perspective on Paul”, published a paper arguing that the typical Lutheran view of the Apostle Paul's theology did not fit with statements in Paul's writings, and in fact was based more on mistaken assumptions about Paul's beliefs than careful interpretation of his writings. Stendahl warned against imposing modern Western ideas on the Bible, and especially on the works of Paul. In 1977 E. P. Sanders published "Paul and Palestinian Judaism". In this work he studies Jewish literature and Paul's writings, arguing that the traditional Lutheran understanding of the theology of Judaism and Paul was fundamentally incorrect.