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Pauline exegesis of the past century was generally the work of protestant specialists. This article considers the changes brought about, concentrating on two individuals who had animated and influenced present day research, E.P. Sanders and H. Räisänen. Without doubt, Sanders, with his theory of covenant nomism, had worked the most to show the primacy of Christology in Pauline soteriology. If his idea of covenant nomism were true, Paul would never have thought that Judaism was a legalistic religion. Rather, the apostle must have seen a covenant nomism in it. The idea of legalism must have had a later origin, and comes from protestant biblical theology. For Sanders, Paul is an adept of covenant nomism, which constructed his christological soteriology on a Jewish basis, and he did not want to criticize the conduct of the Jewish faith, nomism. He did not deny Jewish beliefs, but his Christology dictated his soteriology. Without denying that Christ was the center of the apostle’s soteriology, the article tries to see if Sanders clarified the basic structure of Paul’s thought and its relation to the teachings of the writings of Judaism of the second Temple. The discussion of Sander’s theory, and of those who followed his ideas, shows that the idea they have of second Temple Judaism is too narrow, and this had the consequence of leading them to a bad interpretation of the relation of Paul to the Judaism of his time.