Pauline Anthropology has long been seen as the key to the quest for the human being in New Testament theology. But there are other concepts in ancient Roman and early Jewish religious-philosophical thinking that deserve our attention in this regard. Exegetical analyses of James 1.2–18 and 3.13–18 point to a view of the human being that traces the ability to do what is good back to God's working within and his bestowal of wisdom. Surveys of ethical passages in the Wisdom of Solomon and Epictetus indicate that the origin of ethical decisions can be understood in psychological as well as religious terms. In the light of such anthropological discourses the Pauline argument about the human being in Romans 5–8 can be seen from a new perspective.
