The apostles possessed more empirical supports for their faith than we can ever hope to possess, and certainly their spiritual “report cards” did not suffer for the fact.
The Western Captivity of the Apostle Paul
It is now a commonplace observation among scholars that Paul’s most basic convictions were misrepresented by the most dominant streams of Western theology.
Were the Pharisees “Legalistic”?
If we define legalism as “works righteousness,” then we cannot apply it to the Pharisees, because the Pharisaic understanding of piety was not based upon this concept.