I'm still in Stephen Westerholm's Perspectives Old and New: The "Lutheran" Paul and His Critics, and I've primarily been inquiring about scholarly perspectives on Paul's approach to the law: Did Paul believe that God gave the law to Israel alone, or that God wanted Gentiles to observe it, too?
One could point out that, according to Paul, all of humanity is under the law's condemnation, which may imply that even Gentiles are under the law's authority. But Westerholm refers to the view of J. Louis Martyn that the Gentiles are under the curse of the law because the law separates Jews from Gentiles, while relegating Gentiles to the ranks of the impious. I did not see a reference to Galatians 2:15 in Westerholm's summary of Martyn, but some have appealed to that verse to show that there was a distinction that some Jews made between Jews and Gentile sinners, as if Gentiles were sinners by virtue of being Gentiles.
Westerholm's quotation of advocates of the New Perspective also contained items of interest to me. There was the view that people could only be righteous as members of the covenant community, as well as the notion that only members of the covenant community can enjoy God's full blessing. But what about the idea within rabbinic Judaism that Gentiles could be righteous and enter the World to Come by simply adhering to the seven Noachide commandments, which means that Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to be saved? Was Paul unaware of this rabbinic view? Was Paul responding to another rabbinic view?
On pages 268-269, Westerholm refers to the Jewish idea that the Torah embodies wisdom, which is universal, implying that Gentiles could have true access to wisdom through embracing the Jewish Torah. Westerholm believes that, for Paul, the Torah was an expression of God's will, which existed before Sinai. According to Romans 4-5, sin was in the world prior to the law, meaning that God had a standard of right and wrong before Sinai, and that the giving of the law only revealed God's standard and made Israel accountable to it, for knowledge of the law makes people officially guilty when they sin. But, for Westerholm, Paul in Romans 2 believes that the Gentiles observe the law's demands whenever they act according to their consciences. The law given to Israel is God's unique guidance of Israel, yet Israel's law contains the standard of goodness that is required of all people, including Gentiles. Gentiles rely on their consciences for the law, whereas Jews have the law in written form, and that enables Jews to instruct Gentiles on moral responsibilities that they both share (yet Paul argues in Romans 2 that Jews have failed in this). I can understand Westerholm's point in terms of moral requirements, such as the ban on murder, adultery, etc. But what would Westerholm say about Paul's stance on the Sabbath, food laws, etc.? Did Paul think that the Gentiles were ever obligated to observe these features of the law?
Perhaps I will see Westerholm's answer to this question as I continue to read.