What is amazing to me is the sort of pathetic evidence that is trotted out to support the idea that the inter-testamental Jews believed Abraham was sinless. This is all done, of course, because of the desire to malign inter-testamental Jews as people who taught and believed that one was saved by being good enough to be rewarded by God.

(By the way, if one reads the NT, one finds a great deal of criticism of the Judaism of Jesus’ and Paul’s day. I am not dismissing this. But I am pointing out that the NT is rather obviously missing any charge that the Jews believe they were supposed to find salvation by being good enough to win God’s favor.)

So let me ask, Why isn’t Paul ever used as evidence for this belief? According to Paul

In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Since this is Paul, no one is going to accuse him of disbelieving or forgetting about Abram’s dalliance with Hagar (Galatians 4 makes clear that Paul knew about this) precisely because he considered the barrennes of Sarah’s womb.

For whatever reason, Paul believes it is right to overlook Abraham’s unbelief and portray him as never wavering. So by what right do we determine that earlier writers who overlook the sins of the Patriarch’s are doing so because they really believed these men were sinless? Can we at least make an effort to look at the evidence objectively.

Here is a related blog post from Kevin Bywater.