Grace everywhere—but not the same everywhere

To identify a “common pattern” in Second Temple Judaism based on the priority of grace (the covenantal foundation) is to offer a one-dimensional analysis that discovers uniformity only by downplaying every other form of difference. Sanders is right that grace is everywhere; but this does not mean that grace is everywhere the same. Once we scrutinize the meaning of this concept, and disaggregate its Various perfections, we find that our Jewish texts differ not (primarily) in degrees of emphasis on grace, but in the forms of perfection with which they articulate it. Of the five texts we have studied, some perfect grace as incongruous, and others (for good reason) do not. Again, this is not because some “believe in grace” and others do not. We should resist the assumption that grace is by definition incongruous, and that the concept has become “diluted” or “corrupted” when it is not perfected in this form. That assumption is built into modern dictionary definitions of “grace” for historical reasons: it has become integral to Christian views of grace at least since Augustine, under inspiration from Paul. But incongruity is only one possible perfection of grace, and not necessarily present whenever grace-language is employed.—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 319