Chapter Eight: When Paul Saw Jesus

[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’s book focuses on Paul’s experience on the ‘road to Damascus.’[1] Wright’s thesis is that Paul saw the real Jesus appear to him in a bodily (though transfigured) form. He argues against any idea that Paul had some kind of inner vision or that Jesus was simply just a form of light in the sky. This is important for this study because Wright is very interested in discussing what the resurrected Christ consisted of, so this famous example is worth discussing.

On the whole, the point of Wright’s chapter is not about what happened to Paul in “conversion” or “call.” He is interested in what happened on that day that might teach us something about the resurrected body. Whether or not Paul thought of himself as leaving Judaism or not – as is highly contested back and forth among Paul scholars since the development of the “new perspective” - is really secondary to this discussion. Wright’s interest is far more limited – to simply discuss what happened on that road.

First, Wright sets up the challenge – too many people discussing Paul think he had a spiritual experience where Jesus shows up as a disembodied figure of light:

We are told repeatedly that what happened to Paul was that he had an intense spiritual experience; that this involved him ‘seeing’, not with ordinary eyesight but with the inner eye of the heart, a ‘Jesus’ who was not physically present, but who was a being of light (whatever that is).[2]

Wright might be overstating his case here among actual scholars, but in the rhetoric of many Christians, this is in practice, what they actually think. There is some idea that Jesus after his resurrection is a bodiless ether that hovers in the air and whose presence is so brilliant that no one can behold it. Wright, in this chapter, is interested in dispelling that myth – which he attributes more to Michelangelo than to any biblical scholar.

First, Wright rightly focuses on Galatians 1 as his primary source of the encounter. In that passage, there is one tricky line which has caused particular problems in understanding: “But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his graced, was pleased to reveal hi Son en me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.”[3] The key term here is the preposition en which can be translated as either “in” or in a far less common way “to.” The simplest explanation of the text allows for the meaning “in.” This has led some to think that Paul’s experience was really one of inner contemplation rather than an outward experience. Wright addresses this problem directly showing why this is not accurate:

If this is the emphasis of the passage, it seems that Paul is here referring primarily to god revealing Jesus through him, though this requires that first Jesus be revealed to him. This combination rules out the suggestion which is sometimes made, that the word ‘in’ points to a merely ‘internal’ revelation, a ‘spiritual experience’ as opposed to an outward seeing.[4]

Here, Wright makes a good argument that this phrase is used with the following phrase – to proclaim him among the Gentiles.

The bigger challenge is Paul’s use of the term apokalypsis. Many think of this term as presenting a kind of vision of the transcendent realm rather than the actual one. This has led many to think that Paul either did not “really” see Jesus and that this was a spiritual vision, or that the Jesus he saw was something more like Ezekiel’s vision – a wild vision of the only somewhat grounded in reality – no real “bodily” presence would be there at all.

First, the rhetorical needs of Paul’s argument lead him naturally to stress the difference between the ‘revelation’ he received and the possibility that he had ‘received’ his gospel from ordinary human sources, some way down a chain of tradition, in such a matter that the Galatians could then appeal over his head to the original source. This is why he chooses the apokalypsis root to make the point: this was an ‘unveiling’ of the truth itself, indeed, of Jesus himself, not a secondary handing on.[5]

 Here, Wright argues that in context this makes good sense – it is a term that is used to contrast two things – Jesus himself compared with his disciples. There is nothing to suggest that this was in any way “otherworldly.”

He then uses 1 Corinthians 15 as a good example of precisely why he is arguing that his sight of Jesus was the fully bodily Jesus. He argues that the figure he saw was the same figure that had appeared to the disciples. He argues that these were sightings that could be verifiable precisely because Jesus was so real – there was no spiritual ether that was being expressed:

Third, it is noteworthy that [1 Cor.] 15:1-11 as a whole clearly speaks of a public event for which there is evidence in the form of witnesses who saw something and can be interrogated. As we saw earlier, those who have wished to say that the risen Christ was not that kind of being, that the resurrection was not that sort of event, that it did not have that kind of evidence, and that any witnesses would simply be speaking of their own inner conviction and experience rather than the evidence of their eyes, have had to say that Paul has here undermined the point he really should have been making.[6]

Wright is correct here – the whole point in 1 Corinthians is that these sightings were real enough that people could recall them substantively.

Finally, Wright attempts to drive away the myth that Paul must have had a mystical experience because only that would cause someone to change so much of their life in a split second. Wright argues, rightly, that Paul never says he changed anything in a split second. Instead, Wright argues that Paul’s reaction was a logical one (meaning he thought about it) if one accepts that the messiah – rather than reestablishing the state of Israel – was executed as a criminal and cursed by God:

Having persecuted Christianity precisely as a false messianic sect, Paul came face to face (so he believed) with living proof that Israel’s god had vindicated Jesus against the charge of false messianism. God had declared, in the resurrection, that Jesus really was ‘his son’ in this essentially messianic sense…If, then, Jesus has been vindicated as Messiah, certain things follow at once. He is to be seen as Israel’s true representative; the great turn-around of the eras has already begun; ‘the resurrection’ has split into two, with Jesus the Messiah as the first-fruits and the Messiah’s people following later, when he returns.[7]

Wright’s point is that we need to make Paul’s experience far more real in the real world. He was a thinking human and used that logic to figure out his role. He is not saying that the experience was not important – it was singularly important for his life – but that it was not some mystical type Jesus appearing before him. It was the resurrected Christ was fully in a body.

In this chapter, Wright was fully convincing when discussing whether or not Jesus was truly bodily in Paul’s experience. Here, Paul (and even Acts) is very clear that he experienced Jesus in a body. What Wright does not do as much as I expected him to, is to discuss what that tells us about Jesus’ resurrected body. That would lead to many interesting questions. Here, there is some kind of discussion against a rhetorical straw man that I think is very popular in general rhetoric among Christians, but far less widespread among actual scholars of Christianity. 

---

[1] I am well aware that Paul never mentions Damascus, that piece of data is only in Acts 9. However, as Wright points out, he does mention in Galatians that after going to Arabia, he heads “back to Damascus” suggesting that this well could have been the location. RSG 377. However, I use the phrase simply because it is such a common trope and I find it a generally harmless one.

[2] RSG, 375.

[3] Gal. 1:15-16a.

[4] RSG, 380.

[5] RSG, 379.

[6] RSG, 383.

[7] RSG, 394-395.

Chapter Seven: Resurrection in Corinth (2): The Key Passages

[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.  

---

[1] RSG, 333.

[2] RSG, 313.

[3] 1 Cor. 15:20-28.

[4] RSG, 313-314.

Review of William Weinrich, “The Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever: Jesus as Timekeeper” Concordia Theological Quarterly, 78, 3-4 (July/October 2014), 3-16.

This brief article written by William Weinrich in the Concordia Theological Quarterly (CTQ) is a great example of the value that “theological writing” can provide for “historical critical” enquiry and vice versa. Unfortunately, the CTQ is a Lutheran journal and as such, its readership is mostly Lutheran affiliated organizations and very good scholarship in it is not read more widely. This persists despite the fact that many of contributors – mostly faculty at the Ft. Wayne Theological Seminary – have written books that are more widely read in scholarly circles – consider, for example the number of editors of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series which are faculty at the seminary. I write this review, therefore, because I have a foot in both worlds – I can work in “theological” circles just as easily as “historical critical” – indeed, for my own work on the New Testament and its influence, I struggle to see the practical distinction as both have the primary goal of gleaning meaning out of the text (in theoretical discourses, it is very important, but in practical application, the best “theology” and the best “history” are those that construct meaning based upon internal consistency and historical referent). I hope that this brief review will encourage reading of this interesting article.

Weinrich explores the interest of “time” in the Hebrew Bible and how that interest is expressed and expanded the early church. His fundamental argument is that the Hebrew Bible saw humans as being temporal, as Weinrich expounds upon Wisdom: “That is to say that the existence of man, precisely as that which has a future, is characterized by time. Man does not exist in time; rather, man is temporal.”[1] Weinrich goes on to discuss this implication for the history of the early church and the way that “time” is managed. What is incredibly valuable for the historical critic is the way in which Weinrich has presented the framework of thought that was set in motion beginning with the promise to Abraham (or possibly yet earlier) the way in which humans were set as temporal. This framework is the engine of the apocalyptic interest in Jewish and Christian texts in the centuries surrounding the New Testament. This aspect of the Hebrew Bible as expressing humans as temporal is too often assumed in good work on the apocalyptic.[2] Because this article is “theology” it is trying very much to present a full “worldview” or “mindset” that lies behind the application of it in apocalyptic eschatology – a method that is often seen as too “far reaching” or “generalizing” for historical reconstruction.

From the time of Abraham forward (and Weinrich even suggests from creation itself), was a people looking into the future. Weinrich borrows Herbert Butterfield that Israel was always seen as a “timed” people because they were always looking to the future promise that was due them:

As Butterfield noted, “the whole history of the people had been a history based on the Promise.” That is, the future (i.e. the promise) gave structure and significance to the history of Israel. The future, as it were, constantly intruded upon the events of Israel and, in doing so, moved Israel onward toward that very future. Israel was eschatologically determined, and her fulfillment lay beyond her own history.[3]

Weinrich astutely points out that Israel was a people of time. They built their religiosity from the start upon a temporal structure – right now they are promised something in the future.

That temporality always was based upon the end – the future promise would be teleologically fulfilled:

Time stretched out toward the future, for time was not an empty vessel but was laden with meaning. It is important to note, however, that the meaning that filled the moments of time was determined by the final purpose of God. For the Hebrew mind, not the beginning, but the end was decisive.[4]

The way that this can be teleologically fulfilled for meaning in the present depends, as Weinrich points out, that time was not just an empty place holder, but instead time had meaning. This is very much found in the later prophets (such as Jeremiah) wherein time is set as a medium through which God works out his plan. Abraham’s promise will be fulfilled, but it has not been yet because God needs time to be fulfilled with its fullest meaning before it can be concluded.

This makes logical sense why, in the Hebrew Bible, that the meaning was found in history. If a group believes in the divine structure of time as an unfolding of the plan of God, then it matters what has been revealed in the past. Weinrich, once again citing Butterfield explains:

As a temporal, historical being, man is given a life to live. In the Old Testament this life was exhibited by practice and habit that was in obedience to the statutes and commandments of God. Butterfield notes that when the question arose as to why Israel ought to observe the commandments, they did not resort to ethical discourse or philosophical explanation. They appealed yet again to their history.[5]

Here, Butterfield (and Weinrich) are discussing Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy is a call to the past to understand the present. Weinrich is completely correct to suggest that when there was an ethical challenge, they looked the past.

The interesting point is not that they did this, it was how they did this. The goal of the looking back upon the past was a way of setting into their lives structure of God’s divine manifestation of humanity as the expression of God’s action just as much as the progression of time itself. The correlation between the “end of time” and the “end of man” were united. Neither thing would ever “expire” they would instead both reach their telos. They would be fulfilled and a new type of “time” and a new type of “man” would be expected. Weinrich shows this connection:

Not surprisingly then, therefore, according to biblical understanding, when the true Man appears, the fullness of times has likewise come (see Matt 3:17; Gal 4:4). The eschatological end of all times is defined as the eschatological consummation of man.[6]

Here, Weinrich shows a key aspect of the study of both Hebrew Bible and the New Testament – that time and humanity are theologically linked. They both are necessary and are developing toward an eventual telos.

Now, Weinrich is very much doing theology. He is taking this very good insight and then applying it to his view of the role of the Christian church today having time being fulfilled and the measures of times enacted in a new way in Christ:

Thus, there is a continuity, for the history of Israel and the cultic celebrations of its past are not replaced, abolished, or superseded. They yet exist and are celebrated. However, they now exist and are celebrated as that which has found its fulfillment and consummation.[7]

Here, he has rather interesting theological arguments that are worth considering; however, I’d be the first to admit that I am not the one to be considering them. As an exegete, what I am interested in is his theological insights that can help in understanding the texts of the Old and New Testaments.

In the New Testament, nearly all (a few minor exceptions) of the books hold some type of apocalyptic eschatology. There is nearly always an ideal that evil resides in the world as it is. Therefore, the time has drawn short and Jesus will return and destroy all evil in this world so that the people of God can live in harmony with him. This basic idea of apocalyptic eschatology was already present in Judaism and popular at this time. Indeed, there is even a genre of literature called an “apocalypse.” These books are fully in this theological spectrum and have been well defined by scholars. The classic definitions arise from John and Adele Yarbro Collins. They argue that there is a relatively clear definition of an “apocalypse:”

A genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.[8]

To interpret present, the earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority.[9]

Together, these two brief definitions are probably the most popular and most cited definitions of apocalypses available. What is noteworthy is how both of them depend so much on the issue of the temporal. Apocalypses look at time as a unified entity that encapsulates the whole meaning of existence. Time, thus folded up and understood together, provides the key meaning of the human experience.

What is important, then, about Weinrich’s article, is that he shows the attitude behind an apocalypse. Time can only be viewed this way for a group that is suffering (the usual audience of apocalypses), if there is a preexisting theology of time and humanity as inextricably linked. Weinrich shows how this is possible. Therefore, this article is very important and ought to be considered when discussing “worldviews” of the readers of the New Testament.

---

[1] Weinrich, 6.

[2] See for example the work of John Collins and Adele Yarbro Collins – their analysis is excellent, but this understanding of temporality is too often reduced or completely absent.

[3] Weinrich, 9.

[4] Weinrich, 8.

[5] Weinrich, 7-8.

[6] Weinrich, 7.

[7] Weinrich, 11.

[8] John Collins, Semeia, 1979.

[9] Adele Yarbro Collins, Semeia, 1986.

Review of Lourdes Garcia Urena, “Colour Adjectives in the New Testament” New Testament Studies, 61, 219-238.

This brief article points out the important understanding of color in the New Testament based upon the concept of color in the ancient world basing the discussion particularly on Greek concepts of color. The value of this article is that it points out something that is usually not considered particularly important in New Testament studies and shows how color terms should be taken more seriously – particularly in the gospels and letters.

The most important argument that this article presents is precisely how rare color terms are used in the gospels and letters. Whenever something is so rare, when it is used, it ought to be considered carefully. Further, this is nuanced because colors in antiquity are used so differently than colors are used now. Very rarely are colors simply used to provide descriptive detail of a scene in the way of some modern literature. Instead, color is used to suggest a different aspect. Garcia Urena calls this a different ‘reality:’

From this study, it can be deduced that colour is used in the gospels and the letters not so much to allude to the denoted colour of an object, but more to express another reality that transcends literal meaning. Hence, colours are not used with a merely descriptive function, but as a way of connoting another reality characterized by that colour. One could, therefore, suggest that colours in the gospels and the letters play an informative role, telling the listeners/readers about an individual’s rank, his condition or nature, his age; even providing chronological information or conveying a symbolic meaning, since the colour word can denote a different reality.[1]

Color is used to nuance a topic to bring in an entire spectrum of meaning that would be absent without it.

Take, for example, the feeding of the 5000 scene in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark 6:39 reads “He directed them all to sit down in the green (Chloros) grass.” Why does the author include the color here? What does it help to know that the grass is green? The base level would simply suggest it provides a side detail, or that it tells us the time of the year. However, if the goal was simply to be descriptive, the rest of the Gospel of Mark would struggle in that this type of needless side detail to present us a picture is not characteristic of the Gospel. Further, if the author wanted to provide the time of the year, telling us the grass is green is perhaps the most roundabout way of doing that. Instead, something else must be going on. The green grass could be a deliberate allusion to Psalm 23, showing Christ as the good shepherd who provides for his sheep (this being directly before he actually feeds them all). Another possible meaning is that it is an allusion to the eschatological banquet from Isaiah 35 where the desert has been made into green pastures. In some way both of these meanings seem very probable.[2] The color is used to stop and make us think – the Gospel of Mark does not use unnecessary details – it is done to prove a point. On this point, Garcia Urena’s work is an important contribution and a very helpful read.

Where Garcia Urena could have aided his reader is in the way color was expressed in the ancient world. Color in the ancient world was very different from color from today. The palette of  colors was different and the way colors were presented was fundamentally different. There was fundamental similarity between black-red, light-white, blue-green, and yellow-green. There really was not a good sense of terms for other colors and they were most all defined by how much or how little translucent they were.[3] Garcia Urena certainly knows this and applies this concept, but for the audience, it would have been helpful to explain it. For example, Garcia Urena’s very good discussion of “white” (leukos), particularly as it is used to describe the transfiguration scene and the angels/young man at the tomb, it would have helped to explain that the concept of “white” is equally the concept of “bright” – note the language of Jesus’s garment in Matthew 17:2 after the transfiguration: “He was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun and his garments became white like light.”[4] Here, the author emphasizes how incredibly bright this white garment was. However, the term itself – leukos – already has that idea in it. The author uses the term to imply that was the kind of color it was – a “bright white.” Again, Garcia Urena clearly knows this and applies this good concept, but it could have been helpful to make this aspect clear.

The second half of the article focuses on the Apocalypse of John wherein color is used more frequently than any other place in the New Testament. Garcia Urena argue that on the whole, the color is used for a different purpose. In the Apocalypse, it seems that color is used in order to provide the kind of detail and nuance details so that a clear and vivid picture can be created in the mind from an aural presentation of the text:

In view of this study, it can be concluded that the author of the Apocalypse uses colour adjectives for their denotation: their colour. They are used to describe characters, objects and events in a vivid and real way, achieving one of the effects of descrition ut pictura poiesis. The extent of this is such that sometimes the seer recreates scenes in which colour is the predominant element, either through the accumulation of colour adjectives (Rev 6.2-8), or by addition of lexemes which, by nature, express colour (Rev 6.12; 8.7). However, the function of colour adjectives in the Apocalypse goes farther than this. Since this is a text to be read aloud, the repeated and systematic use of colour creates an aural effect in the listeners/readers that gives extra information to help identify the characters, making it easier for them to follow the story.[5]

Here Garcia Urena makes two conclusions – that color is used systematically and idiosyncratically in the Apocalypse. The argument is that in contrast to the other books of the New Testament, color is used here far more in the manner that modern readers are familiar with – color is used to “paint a picture” in the mind of the hearer. This view is not entirely convincing. Ancient authors rarely write in this way concerning color. However, the second point is convincing – that the text uses color systematically. There certainly seem to be clear patterns – different colors are paired with different concepts and ideas systematically throughout. Therefore, whether or not this is specific to an aural culture so the people could have a vivid image in their mind, the far simpler solution is clearly the case – that certain colors anticipate meaning and do so in the same way throughout the Apocalypse so that readers can have a narrative “nod and wink” toward how they are supposed to judge an event that is occurring.

In all, this is a wonderful little article that deserves to be read. Color is one of the seeming “throw away” details that are too often just skipped over. This article reminds us to avoid doing that. In the New Testament there are no throw away details – there are literary nuances that deserve to be considered. What is more, those things that seem unusually unimportant are precisely the things that need further exploration. This article is a nice example of why that is so true.

---

[1] Garcia Lourdes, “Color Words,” 232.

[2] Ibid., 229-232.

[3] Eleanor Irwin, Colour Terms in Greek Poetry (Toronto: Hakkert, 1974).

[4] Garcia Urena, “Colour Terms,” 221.

[5] Ibid., 237.

Metaphors that need to be retired from scholarly discourse – Candidate number one: “Parasite.”

In scholarship, we need to use constructed categories and metaphors – they are simply how one thing can be translated – using the unknown to express the known. However, one needs to be careful how metaphors are used. While we can hide behind the idea that metaphor is the best way to communicate an idea, data does not really show that. In most cases, metaphor is unnecessary for understanding. It is usually not too difficult to simply state an idea in direct language without the use of a metaphor. Metaphor, instead, has a completely different purpose of a mnemonic device. It is usually easier to recall a particular metaphor rather than a robust idea. However, many modern scholars have made this mistake – they somehow think that a metaphor can make a complex thing simple. Something that is complex is complex – no way of translating it differently will make it less complex. In fact, in their attempt to do so, they frequently state things in ways that are foreign to the idea they are expressing. What is worse, it often occurs that the metaphor becomes a “controlling metaphor” and starts to define the points they are trying to express. I argue that just such a controlling metaphor has been used and needs to be abandoned – that of the metaphor of a “parasite” in the realm of ideas and practice. What is meant in the metaphor of a parasite very rarely illustrates the data that it is applied toward, and instead controls and even creates a negative judgment on the material it describes.

To illustrate this point I present the first example of the use of this term from Michael Allen Gillespie discussing post-enlightenment thinking that sought to stray from nominalism, scholasticism, and humanism. Rather, he argues that two seemingly atheistic ideas were presented to solve the problem of free will with a transcendent God – most notably by eliminating the transcendent God. He argues, however, that these views are not actually atheistic at all and are in fact “parasitic” upon religious tradition. Consider his view:

While these strains [i.e. of one group who argued that both natural motion and human motion would spring from a common source and therefore free expression of the will would be driven by an overarching world-spirit that unites all things of the other group of natural scientists who argue that motion of matter as an interplay of natural forces thus predetermining cause and will within that naturalistic framework]of post-Enlightenment thought thus offer different answers to the problem of the antinomy, neither offers (nor can offer) an account of the whole that is both consistent and complete. Each thus produces a partial explanation that achieves coherence by sacrifices completeness or achieves completeness by sacrificing consistency. While both are generally considered to be atheistic from a traditional Christian point of view, each is in fact parasitic on the Christian worldview. This is obvious in the case of the idea of a world-spirit, but it is equally true of the notion of natural causality that derives the certainty of the necessary concatenation of events from the notion of divine predetermination.[1]

Note how Gillespie uses the term “parasitic” here. He argues that because these secular positions – namely positions that are developed from Christian ideas – are parasitic. He argues this because he sees connective tissue not just from the idea that there is a purpose in the world, but that there is actually connection between these solutions and the two Christian positions of humanism and nominalism.

The question, though, is whether this is truly “parasitic.” When the “parasite” metaphor is used, it implies that a view cannot exist without the other view to feed upon (like unto a parasite does a host). Further, it suggests that the view feeds off of the nutrition and body of the previous idea – much like a parasite with a host. What is more, the view can never exist independently – all parasites must have a host – they therefore will either transfer from host to host or keep the host alive enough to use it as a continued source of sustenance. Finally, a parasite is something that is foreign to the host and is introduced from the outside world – suggesting that this view is separate from the original view but somehow subjected itself into the view and exists based upon that original idea.

I do not believe that Gillespie meant to include all of these above points. For instance, the final one is exactly opposite his point – rather than suggesting that post enlightenment views were separate from Christian reformation views, he argues that they were fundamentally the same and came from the same source. Second, it is nowhere clear that the post-enlightenment views could not stand on their own. What is more, it is not at all clear that these post-enlightenment views needed the previous views of nominalism, scholasticism, or humanism to be simultaneously present (as would a parasite) to exist. In fact, Gillespie’s whole point is that they have replaced those views.

When one looks carefully at Gillespie, the only thing that really fits with the “parasite” idea is that it took the ideas from a previous idea (the way a parasite takes nutrition from a host). However, that is where the analogy stops. Gillespie then argues that post-enlightenment views took the ideas and then moved on to be independent ideas – even though they always were indebted to that original group. This is exactly what a parasite does not do. A parasite does not exist on its own. That something has a source which borrows from something previous does not imply a parasite. That simply implies borrowing.

A second example of how this metaphor is used inappropriately is constructive. Consider Christian Smith’s view of how Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (the idea that religion is encapsulated in basic ethics and feeling good)[2] is a parasite upon standard Christian traditions. Smith, to his credit, tries to take the metaphor more seriously and does describe why he bothers to bring it up. Consider the way it is used:

Indeed, this religious creed appears to operate as a parasitic faith. It cannot sustain its own integral, independent life; rather it must attach itself like an incubus to established historical religious traditions, feeding on their doctrines and sensibilities, and expanding by mutating their theological substance to resemble its own distinctive image…These may be either devout followers or mere nominal believers of their respective traditional faiths, but they often have some connection to an established historical faith tradition that this alternative faith feeds on and gradually co-opts if not devours. Believers in each larger tradition practice their own versions of this otherwise common parasitic religion…Each of the believers then can think of themselves as belonging to the specific religious tradition they name as their own – Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Mormon, whatever – while simultaneously sharing the cross-cutting, core beliefs of their de facto common Moralistic Therapeutic Deist faith. In effect, these believers get to enjoy whatever particulars of their own faith heritages that appeal to them, while also reaping the benefits of this shared, harmonizing, interfaith religion.[3]

Here, Smith tries to be responsible with his metaphor. However, serious questions need to be asked as to whether or not this is appropriate. First, nowhere in Smith’s book does he show that MTD cannot exist without traditional faith. In fact, he himself cites a fascinating article on the “paradoxical growth of the liberal church” by Jay Demerath.[4]  Demerath argues that the liberal church’s membership is waning precisely because their worldview is being accepted. People are able to hold their worldview without identifying with the church any longer. MTD then, is no parasite – it clearly can and is standing alone. Second, much like Gillespie, Smith does not take seriously that parasites are from without and work their way into a group. Smith, much like Gillespie, argues that MTD developed precisely from within liberal Protestantism’s attitudes about how God interacts with the world.

Smith does do one thing well – he does try to address the problem of how a parasite feeds off of the host and thereby affects the host. However, his metaphor struggles – how is it that a parasite changes the host and makes it something different? The whole point of a parasite is that it is not the host and does not change the character of the host. That would be less a parasite and more a skin graft – something that was not part of a being which has now become and changed the identity of that being.

It appears that both Smith and Gillespie use the metaphor with the primary purpose of saying that these independent ideas were secondary and their original source was clearly from a previous idea – they simply have been separated so long that people no longer recognize them as such. However, that is precisely what a parasite cannot do.

The problem, here, is one of metaphor. Metaphors can be quite helpful. In fact, they are nearly necessary in good communication. Ellen Muehlenberger shows this clearly in her review of Boin’s Coming Out Christian:

Metaphors are excellent tools for comprehension, to be sure. Seeing a familiar pattern in what is unfamiliar is often the first step toward understanding something new; that pattern can be a handle to hold on to as we explore new and unpredictable territory. Metaphors are able to do this work because they are similar to the target to be explained, but they are by design not identical. Two things are compared, but the two are never a perfect match. Every metaphor comes with limits, places where it stops yielding information, and that is just a feature of the tool: no metaphor can truly account for the thing it is said to be like.[5]

Here this is the reality of every metaphor.

It could be argued that I am being too harsh here; however, the problem is not that the metaphor has limits, it is that the concept of “parasite” has taken over understanding and is controlling the idea rather than illustrating it. Muehlenberger argues this same idea when critiquing Boin’s metaphor of Christians in the Roman Empire being like homosexuals in the modern world “coming out”:

One could think of all of these as just instances of the author being clever — oh, the satire, or even the camp, that lies latent in describing ancient Christians as if they were twentieth-century homosexuals! — but Boin clearly means to do more than just provoke. The concept of “coming out” is necessary to his argument, as it provides the solution to the unresolved historical problem that sits uncomfortably at the center of the book. That problem is simple: if quieter Christians did exist, they left very little evidence of their carefully-calibrated lives. In fact, evidence of Christianity of any sort, strident or respectable, is rather thin for the first three centuries of the common era. But, if there were masses of Christians who simply chose not to be public about their identities — that is, Christians were careful about when and whether they “came out” — then that problem goes away.[6]

Here is what has happened with the “parasite” – it controls the rhetoric. It suggests that the problem of understanding the motivation for a phenomenon is over. Rather than suggesting that the rise of an idea came from varied sources and is using legitimized ideas in a dynamic way, it simply states that a precedent in the past created this thing in the present. This now is no longer illustrating, it is now constraining.

The problem with this is that this type of metaphor reflects a more unsettling attitude. It is the idea that a complex idea can become very simple if we simple view it from the proper angle. Muehlenberger summarizes the issue:

All metaphors have their limits. What, then, is the harm if this one does not live up to its hype? In its reliance on a single, uncomplicated move — applying the language of a modern phenomenon to an ancient one — Coming Out Christian bears a resemblance to a genre of writing that, to my knowledge, has not yet been named but is ubiquitous, especially in new media journalism. This genre depends on the belief that subjects that appear difficult to understand are not, in reality, difficult at all. They simply require a shift in perspective, a tip, a tiny key to unlock them.[7]

This is magic bullet thinking at its worst. It is the idea that if we look hard enough at a complex idea, we will find a particular metaphor that explains it all very simply. It is something that is at best lazy – rather than working hard and challenging ourselves to find new understandings, we can simply find some small little avenue to find understanding without having to go to all the work of understanding. One is essentially asking to gain understanding without learning.

Finally, metaphors have connotations. I have stated above all of the denotations of what a parasite consists of. The connotation, however, is that parasites are “bad.” This connotation is almost certainly what both Gillespie and Smith are hoping for when they use the metaphor. They think that post enlightenment atheistic thought and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, respectively, are negative things that should be avoided – much like parasites. This is the most troubling of the use of the metaphor. It is a way for scholars – who are supposed to approach everything with both a hermeneutic of respect and suspicion – to denigrate something while not actually denigrating it. It is a very clever approach of condemning a practice while claiming to be objectively analyzing it. I am not opposed to scholars taking positions on topics – I think scholarship could use more of that, not less; however, if one is going to make a statement, it is absolutely necessary to actually make the statement. If Christian Smith wants to argue that MTD is a problem, that is fine – but have the courage to actually say that and subsequently own it. Don’t allow a metaphor to provide nods and winks about what is intended.

---

[1] Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 280.

[2] Smith provides five characteristics of MTD:

1. God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die

See Christian Smith, Soul Searching: the Religion and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 162-163.

[3] Smith, Soul Searching, 166.

[4] N. Jay Demerath, “Cultural Victory and Organizational Defeat in the Paradoxical Decline of Liberal Protestantism” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34.4 (1995): 458-69.

[5] Ellen Muehlenberger “Metaphor and Its Limits: on Douglas Boin Coming Out Christian in the Roman World” Book Review. Marginalia Review of Books (http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/metaphor-and-its-limits-by-ellen-muehlberger/).

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

Chapter Six: Resurrection in Corinth (1): Introduction

 [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.]

N.T. Wright’s discussion of Resurrection in Paul continues in this chapter which is his first concerning first and second Corinthians. Here, Wright presents a remarkably convincing depiction of resurrection in the books. The only real problem with his work is that is that he overstates his case to make resurrection the “magic bullet” by which the rest of the books are understood. This is a natural danger to all of us in the academy who are studying a particular topic and is somewhat understandable; however, it still does need to be addressed.

First, Wright correctly asserts that resurrection is a rather important topic in the Corinthian correspondence. Indeed, with 1 Thessalonians 4, it is the standard place wherein readers have found Paul’s message of resurrection. The problem, of course, is trying to untangle what Paul says about resurrection from the sundry items he address in 1 and 2 Corinthians. Wright explains this problem well:

The resurrection – that of Jesus, and that of Jesus’ people – dominates the Corinthian correspondence. Discussion of such a central topic inevitably becomes entangled in all kinds of other issues, some of which are as complex and unresolved today as they were when critical scholarship first began to investigate them.[1]

The key question, that Wright never addresses, is whether one should untangle resurrection from these other issues. His topic is to understand “what Paul thought of Resurrection” though this is a fundamentally difficult task. Wright here seems to fall into the common trap of recognizing that Paul is not a systematic theologian, but then going farther to create a systematic theology for him! If Paul is truly not a systematic theologian, but instead his arguments are occasional, then why are we trying to create a systematic theology for him? Why are we not simply keeping his views in their own situations? Wright should not be castigated too highly for this – he mostly does keep the conversation about the resurrection in the context of the books; however, it is unavoidable that when one asks what did Paul think about (insert topic here), it will result in trying to mash together his various books and take them out of their situations.

 Wright’s focus on resurrection in the Corinthian correspondence shows this focus. He argues that resurrection was the key issue in the Corinthian correspondence. This is a problem. Whenever one says that there was a key issue, then it suggests all the other issues from which one has “untangled” resurrection are somehow less dynamic, or less important. To show the situation, Wright presents a classic view of resurrection and then the critique of it in 1 Corinthians. Note in his presentation how he argues resurrection – one way or another – is the key issue at hand:

A major proposal was made some years ago to address this: that the Corinthians held some form of over-realized eschatology, and were inclined to believe that they were already ‘raised’ in all the senses they ever needed to be. This was then advanced to explain such passages as 4.8 (“Already you’re filled! Already your rich! Without us, you are kings!”), and several other parts of the text. Chapter 15 was written, according to this theory, to put the record straight, and to argue at length for a future resurrection which would show up the present posturing of super-spiritual Corinthians as such ‘puffed up’ boasting.[2]

Many scholars have come round to the view argued by Richard Hays that the problem at Corinth was not too much eschatology but not nearly enough. The Corinthians were attempting to produce a mixture of Christianity and paganism; their ‘puffed up’ posturing came not from believing that a Jewish-style eschatology had already brought them to God’s final future, but from putting together their beliefs about themselves as Christians with ideas from pagan philosophy, not least the kind of popular-level Stoicism which taught that all who truly understand the world and themselves are kings. Paul urgently wanted to teach them to think of themselves, corporately, individually and cosmically, in a more thoroughly Jewish fashion, in terms of the great Jewish stories of God, Israel and the world.[3]

Note that in both cases, arguing for or against this position, he presents resurrection as the key issue which is dividing the community. He argues that the Bultmannian hypothesis that some felt the resurrection was a present rather than future reality is out of date and instead, it is instead the view that many were not taking resurrection seriously enough. In both cases, he sees the major controversy surrounding resurrection.

The problem, of course, with this view is that if there is any particular issue that dominates 1 Corinthians, it is clearly the divided community as the introduction to the letter proclaims “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”[4]  Margaret Mitchell has convincingly shown that the primary issue of the letter was a lack of unity and Paul uses Greek deliberative rhetoric to address that problem.[5] I do not believe Wright disagrees with this, but he certainly does not emphasize it. Instead, he seems to want to argue that the primary reason for the lack of unity is resurrection. Here, he stretches the evidence too far. A cursory reading will show that there were a variety of reasons for the lack of unity within the group.

He argues that in 2 Corinthians he has the same point, but with a different emphasis. He suggests that rather than pushing the group to take seriously the world of the resurrection, instead, he wants to challenge them to see the issue of apostleship as related to the issue of resurrection. Wright explains:

But in much of 2 Corinthians his point, though closely related, is significantly different. Paul has not stopped looking to the future. Far from it. But now, instead of looking to the future and seeing the present as the appropriate preparation for it, he is looking to the future and discovering that it works its way back into the present in ways he had not previously explored, giving hope and strength when neither seemed available by any other means. In both letters, what mattes is the continuity between future Christian hope and present Christian experience. But whereas in 1 Corinthians the movement is primarily toward the future, straining towards the resurrection and discovering what needs to be done in the present to anticipate it, in 2 Corinthians the movement is primarily towards the present, discovering in the powerful resurrection of Jesus and the promised resurrection for all his people the secret of facing suffering and pain here and now.[6]

His issue of suffering and apostleship, are of course united, in that we participate now in the suffering and death of Christ and only in the future will we participate in his resurrection. He maps this out well as he says is a use of eschatology for a pastoral need:

It is important to spell out the logic of what he is saying, because in 2 Corinthians all this is controversial. (a) He believes, as a good Pharisaic Jew, that the creator God raises the dead, in the normal sense. (b) He believes this all the more strongly because he believes that God has already done it in the case of Jesus. (c) He believes that he is living between Jesus’ resurrection and his own future resurrection. (d) He therefore claims, and discovers in practice, that God’s power to raise the dead is at work in the present time, one of its results being that God can and sometimes does rescue his people from what had seemed imminent and certain death. This is inaugurated eschatology in the service of urgent pastoral need.[7]

He therefore suggests that the present is in a unique place.

He therefore fits his apostleship within this framework – an apostleship in which one can expect suffering as we are merely acting within the new creation now and not in the future:

Verse 10 [chapter 9] sums up not only all of 11.21-12.9, but, in a measure the entire epistle: the weakness of the apostle, seen to good effect in all the extraordinary things he has to suffer, is the very point at which he is being identified with the Messiah, and hence the very point also at which the Messiah’s resurrection power comes in the present apostolic life and work, anticipating, by the Spirit, the resurrection which still awaits him.[8]

Here, I agree with Wright in his general view – Paul does discuss the challenge of suffering as keyed to the drama of future resurrection versus present reality of the meaning of being in the new creation as opposed to the view of the superapostles who he believes have completely misunderstood this point.

In all, Wright’s discussion of Paul’s view of resurrection is generally strong. The problem is how it can be construed and strained to create monothetic thinking about Paul that is decidedly unhelpful. Further, a discussion of the “new creation” without discussing the Platonic language of participating “in Christ” seems to be a mistake. Wright nowhere discusses this important point in this chapter and it leaves the reader guessing not as to what the resurrection is, but how anyone can be part of this new creation.

---

[1] RSG, 277.

[2] RSG, 279.

[3] RSG, 279-280.

[4] 1 Cor. 1:11-12.

[5] Margaret M. Mitchell Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Westminster John Knox Press, 1993).

[6] RSG, 300.

[7] RSG, 301.

[8] RSG, 309.