Second, Hahn’s explanation sounds great (as always!:), but the question is: does it do justice to the text, is it good exegesis? My problems are the following: A) Romans 6 is not an answer to a problem given in Romans 5. Romans 5 itself gives the answer to Romans 5 – it is grace (5:12-21), as communicated by faith, as explained before (5:1 and all of 4). Romans 6 then is the answer to the objection that Paul’s teaching leads to licentiousness. Baptism is mentioned because it provides the basis for a new Christian morality, not because it is the answer to original sin. B) Romans 7 speaks about HE HAMARTIA in the Greek, THE SIN in English. It seems to refer back to the HE HAMARTIA introduced in 5:12, Adam’s sin. So the text seems to support the Protestant view rather than the Catholic. I am open to discussing Trent’s explanation on this. It states that Paul calls concupiscence “sin” here not because it is properly sin but because it comes from sin and leads to sin. I’m not sure if this is too convincing. Why would I call something X that actually is not X but comes from X and drives toward X? I mean I’m not going to call a door a room because it leads a man from a room to a room (and it’s probably produced in a big room somewhere as well:).

Third, it is not right that the New Perspective is interpreting Romans 7 as the “Pre-Christian Paul”. It’s just the opposite! The New Perspective and modern Pauline scholars in general have been insisting against the Old Perspective not to read Rm 7 autobiographically. Think about Stendahl for example and his argument based on Phil 3. Räisänen in Paul and the Law says it can now be taken as granted that Rm 7 is about the non-Christian in general (referencing to Kümmel’s work).

So it’s not all that simple… All of this is said only so that we would find the best and most solid arguments and not misrepresent anything in Pauline scholarship, or worse, in Paul himself.