[This is an
ongoing project that is analyzing N.T. Wright’s 5 volume series, Christian Origins
and the Question of God. This series is widely read and bridges the gap between
the academic and devotional world. It is therefore worthy to be carefully
analyzed so that all readers can understand his key points while at the same
time gaining a critical eye to some of his rather bold claims. This series of
posts are concerning volume 3 – The
Resurrection of the Son of God.]
This chapter of N.T. Wright focuses specifically on 1
Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 4-5. Here, Wright considers these justifiably
crucial passages to understand Paul’s view of resurrection. Alongside some of
Wright’s more usual views that we have seen throughout the book, his most
intriguing argument is the dialogue he sees Paul having in these chapters with
Genesis 1-2. This is his most interesting and convincing element, as well as
his biggest question as to how far this can be pushed.
First, it is not surprising that Wright presents Paul as
suggesting a “now” and “not yet” aspect to eschatology. It is hardly surprising
because he has done this now for a full three chapters. Here he presents this
similarly:
This is the point above all where
Paul is trying to teach the Corinthians to think eschatologically, within
Jewish categories of ‘apocalyptic’ – not of an ‘imminent expectation’ of the
end of the world, but of the way in which the future has already burst into the
present, so that the present time is characterized by a mixture of fulfillment
and expectation, of ‘now’ and ‘not yet,’ pointing toward a future in which what
happened at the first Easter will be implemented fully and the true God will be
all in all.[1]
One can see Wright’s interest in the return from exile in
the messiah having occurred now but its effects still ongoing. Rather than
responding to that here, I recommend one looks at my previous posts about this
that both affirm and question some of these implications.
What I would like to consider is Wright’s argument about 1
Corinthians 15 specifically. Wright argues that this chapter should be seen as
a renewal of creation and that Paul deliberately was pairing this next to Genesis
1-3 in order to accomplish this:
Genesis 1-3 is thus not only a
frequent point of allusion, but provides some of the key structural markers in
the argument. Even in its own terms, there can be no doubt that Paul intends
this entire chapter to be an exposition of the renewal of creation, and the
renewal of humankind as its focal point. When we place it alongside the various
Jewish expositions of a similar theology on the one hand, and Paul’s own
briefer statements studied earlier, it should be beyond argument that this
chapter belongs with them both.[2]
Here, he argues that the hermeneutic that best makes sense
of 1 Corinthians is Genesis 1-3. There is some reason to be convinced by Wright
here. The conversation about Adam is hard to explain in any way aside from
allusions to Genesis. Further, there is good reason to think he is discussing
the creation of a new humanity in Christ. If one discusses creation (or indeed
recreation), then it is logical that Genesis would come up.
Wright, though, emphasizes a few pieces of rhetoric that
more directly show the connection with creation than mere logical inference:
20 But
in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who
have died. 21For since death came through a human being, the resurrection
of the dead has also come through a human being; 22for as all die in
Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23But each in his own
order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24Then
comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has
destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25For he must
reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last
enemy to be destroyed is death. 27For ‘God has put all things in
subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘All things are put in
subjection’, it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things
in subjection under him. 28When all things are subjected to him,
then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in
subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.[3]
Here, Wright suggests, a new creation is indicated and to do
that, it begins through discussion of the original creation (verses 20-22).
Further, he argues that this will be completed through God’s action in creation
as already found in the Hebrew Bible in Psalm 110 “God has put all things in
subjection under his feet.” The idea is that creation has been restrained and controlled
by the omnipotent being.
Wright, has therefore, developed a very interesting argument
about 1 Corinthians as it might be reflected Genesis. One key aspect to him,
though, is that he wants to emphasize that this view is very much Jewish rather
than pagan or philosophical:
In terms of the spectrum of beliefs
in the ancient world, this passage is specifically Jewish rather than pagan; within
Judaism, it is a classic example of resurrection-theology, based on the twin
beliefs in the creator god and his justice. Within this framework of thought,
death is an intruder, a violator of the creator’s good world. The creator’s
answer to death cannot be to reach some kind of agreement or compromise. Death
must be, and in the Messiah has been and will be, defeated (15.26). Anything
other than some kind of bodily resurrection, therefore, is simply unthinkable,
not only at the level of the meaning of individual verses and phrases but at
the level of the chapter’s argument as a whole. ‘Resurrection’ does not refer
to some part or aspect of the human being not
dying but instead going on into a continuing life in a new mode; it refers
to something that does die and is
then given a new life.[4]
Here, I don’t
disagree that Paul’s language fits within continuity with Judaism. However, I
do disagree that as such, it can’t be also related to “pagan” or “Platonic”
thought. Many Jews already had acculturated many of Plato’s ideas and when we
are discussing the power of Death and its satisfaction as a new type of
humanity, it is hard to avoid thinking in terms of Plato’s doctrine of the
forms. One archetype of humanity allows death “Adam” and another allows life “Christ.”
My critique, then, is not that Wright uses Genesis – but that he does not allow
it to go far enough. Just as many Jews read Genesis through the light of Plato,
so, I argue, is Paul in this context doing the same – but here looking not just
at Genesis but its completion in Christ in a new type of being human.
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