Romans: Did Paul steal his material from the Old Testament?

Did Paul even know that he was writing divinely inspired texts? My biggest reason for asking this question is because the claim of the Christian church is that the New Testament is also the written word of God (alongside the texts called the “scriptures” of the Old Testament). Doesn't Paul get the majority of his points from the Torah and prophetic writings?  This blog question can enlighten how some people might view his letter to the Romans. To answer this question, there are a couple questions that need to be answered to provide more contexts.

To who was he writing to & why?

There are a couple theories on the book of Romans I have heard concerning whom this epistle would have been written to. Orello Cone uses Dr. Feine as a reference in his belief that Paul alluded to the Old Testament due to a group of unbelieving Jews. This group could have been harassing the Christian’s saying that they did not know the ways of the Abrahamic Covenant (which they wouldn’t have because they were gentiles). If that is the case, Paul probably had written the letter as an educational teaching of the covenant to the Romans that followed Jesus. James & Ann Hastings also reference Dr. Feine in pointing out that odds are Paul could have wrote this to a Gentile-Christian audience with a small group of Jewish-Christians. The proof in the text they used is how Paul goes on talking about how he gave up man (which is a very open term) to the sin in their hearts while executing his redeeming plan in the world (Romans 1). Paul followed this up teaching about how he Jews are not any better because they knew the law and still rebelled so no one was off the hook when it comes to sin (Romans 3). Paul probably wrote his epistle to a Gentile-Roman audience in order to show that his gospel message was not in contradiction to Torah or prophetic writings, but rather he is pointing out that he knows the Old Testament texts better than these Jews do. Why? Because he believes he’s the one correctly interpreting them!

So why use so much Old Testament?

The scholarly conclusion is that Paul is mainly using the Old Testament to validate his own doctrine and prove that it does not contradict with the “Jewish Bible.” Harold Attridge (of Yale Univeristy’s Divinity School) agrees with the point Dr. Feine makes that Paul is writing this letter to address issues between Gentiles and Jews. Attridge also points out that Paul is mainly using the Old Testament to either further back up his own doctrine or he gives the Old Testament’s true meaning. He further elaborates on why Paul references the Torah so much in his notes:

“So Paul can either be saying: ‘Christ put an end to the law; did it in.’ Or Paul can be saying: ‘Christ is the goal to which the law points.’ (This is how Matthew reads the good news about Jesus). Many words have been written arguing about this translation, but either way one thing is absolutely clear: The law is no longer the way to receive the righteousness of God. (If it were, Gentiles would be excluded from God’s righteousness unless they became Jews, and Paul will have no part of that). Many Christian preachers preach ‘Pauline’ sermons which insist that a right relationship to God is not a matter of striving but of accepting, not of achieving but of receiving. That may well be right, but in this passage Paul is not making a general claim about the strategies for faithful living. He is making a specific claim: Torah obedience is no longer the way to a right relationship with God. Christ is.”

So does Paul try to use the Old Testament to validate his teaching’s authority? Does he use the Old Testament showing his innovation of its message? I tend to lean towards the validation theory and there are great sources to back this up. Jared Ludlow (associate professor of BYU)  does an excellent job of citing how almost every teaching Paul gives can be found in some piece of text in the Old Testament. Take a look at Romans 4 and how Paul is showing Abraham’s blessing before his circumcision to validate his teaching that faith is counted as righteousness (not a physical act of Torah obedience).  Now look at Ludlow’s notes on Paul’s use of Abraham

“Abraham was the great exemplar of receiving promises and blessings to himself and his seed as a result of faith in God, not works of the law (see Galatians 3:6, 8; 16; Genesis 15:6; 12:3, 7; compare Romans 4:3, 9, 22; and Genesis 15:6 [three times]; also Romans 4:17–18; Genesis 17:5; 15:5).”

Conclusion

With all the scholarly sources available, I would say Paul probably didn’t “steal” his material from the Old Testament. I don’t think he was necessarily using the Old Testament as a preaching ground either. If anything, I would guess that Paul was addressing an issue in Rome where either unbelieving Jews (or Jewish-Christians) were going against Paul by their own interpretation of salvation as a means of obeying the law in the Torah. A very similar issue he was addressing in his letter to the Christians in Galatia. Does this mean that this letter wasn’t a divinely inspired piece of literature? No, I wouldn’t say that. If anything I think it might show a sign that Paul was divinely inspired to write new, Hebrew-scripture led truths since Paul did believe Jesus was the fulfillment of the Torah and prophecies. And some might ask (like people probably asked when they were in Paul’s time) where is the proof that these new truths really are new truths? The proof could easily be that his teachings line up with the Old Testament enough to seem reliable to enough people. I wouldn’t say Paul is plagiarizing the Old Testament to teach; but more than likely was using the Old Testament to back up the truths and teachings in the gathered documents that we now call the New Testament.