Paul and Apocalyptic

Theologian Preston Sprinkle has been the subject of perennial controversy among a segment of Christians who affirm a traditional sexual ethic. Its most recent iteration was sparked by comments from Rosaria Butterfield. Butterfield is a former lesbian-identifying English professor turned Presbyterian who rejects the term “gay Christian” as a description for Christians who remain same sex attracted even if they do not engage in same sex acts. Sprinkle, who is the president of the Center for Faith, Sexuality, & Gender, has taken a more open-handed approach to such language even as he affirms a more traditional Christian sexual ethic. When Butterfield criticized Sprinkle at Liberty University’s convocation, some of her co-combatants on Twitter snapped into action. Pastor Jared Moore retweeted a clip from her speech with the comment that Sprinkle is a “heretical liar” for claiming that, “same-sex attraction is a sinless temptation, and only a sin if you act on it.” At issue is how one defines sin--as personal guilt or as a force which holds us under its power.

This paper aims to provide a critical evaluation of J. Louis Martyn’s assertion regarding the apocalyptic Paul and to suggest Paul’s apocalyptic Gospel in Galatians by investigating linguistic features and semantic patterns. Martyn understands Paul’s apoc- alyptic gospel within the frame of the Jewish apocalyptic eschatology. The current article, however, suggests that even if we may find the Jewish cultural and religious traces in Galatians, the apostle does not present a stark division between this age(the present) and the age to come(the future), nor does he exhibits a futuristic view of the new era. For Paul, the advent of Christ brought the new age into this age. In this regard, the coming of Christ is the turning point from the past to the present rather than from the present(this age) to the future(the age to come), as presented in the Jewish apocalyptic eschatology. In addition, Martyn views the coming of Christ as an abrupt invasion of God’s time, not necessarily in a continuation of Israel’s salvation history. In contrast, this article maintains that the epochal turn- ing point through Christ should be understood as the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham. To paraphrase, Christ’s epiph- any is not the invasion but the continuation and accomplish- ment of the salvation history of Israel. Paul does not unfold Sonderweg for the Gentile or propose two different covenants to Jews and Gentiles. For Paul, the coming of Christ has con- tinuity with Israel’s history, and it is apocalyptic that God in- augurates a new phase of covenant and fulfillment of salvation.

최근까지 ‘묵시적 바울’의 연구 방식은 유대주의 문헌과 바울서신을 비교하는 것이 지배적이다. 이것은 바울의 묵시사상이 유대주의 종말론에서 기인했다는 전제에서 비롯된 연구 방식이다. 하지만 본 논문은 묵시를 유대주의뿐만 아니라 그레코-로마 사회에 공유되던 문화담화로 제안한다. 묵시는 초월적 공간과 시간에 관한 것이며, 초자연적인 현상에 대한 이해를 포괄한다. 그와 같은 이해는 문화 안에서 공유되며, 그것이 담화의 형태로 구체화 될 때는 유사한 형식과 내용을 나타낸다. 바울 역시 그의 서신에서 묵시사상을 드러낼 때 동시대에 공유되고 있던 문화담화의 틀 안에서 독자들과 대화를 시도한다. 하지만 바울은 문화담화를 공유하는 것에 그치지 않고 자신의 담화가 가지고 있는 이질성을 통하여 메시지를 전달한다. 이와 같은 점에서 본 논문은 상호텍스트적 연구를 통하여 바울의 담화와 문화담화 사이의 이질성을 발견할 때 바울의 묵시사상의 핵심을 파악할 수 있다고 주장한다. 이와 같은 주장을 뒷받침하기 위해 본 논문은 세 가지 대표적인 묵시담화인 ‘승천전승,’ ‘부활과 사후세계,’ ‘악의 기원과 인간의 죄’를 연구한다. 위 담화는 바울의 서신과 유대문헌, 영지주의, 이집트, 헬라, 페르시아 문헌에서 모두 발견되며 역사적 배경, 저자, 독자의 상이성(相異性)에도 불구하고 형식과 표현 및 주제형성에서 공통점을 보인다. 하지만 바울의 개별 담화는 다른 문헌과의 이질적인 요소를 보이며, 그 이질성의 중심에는 그리스도가 있다.

1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 8 indicate that cosmic redemption for Paul involves the liberation of the physical universe and its human inhabitants from the powers that now subject and enslave them. For Paul, as for his Jewish contemporaries, the physical universe and humanity are not separate entities. Human beings are part of the created order. The fate of the one is intimately related to the fate of the other. Human rebellion against God (as exemplified by the story of the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis) has had, and continues to have, severe consequences for human life on earth, including enslavement to destructive powers. Human beings, including believers, cannot repair this situation; only God can. For Paul, the gospel of Christ contains the promise of God’s redemption of humanity along with the physical universe of which humanity is in fact a part. That redemption seems also to entail an ontological transformation on a cosmic scale.

Intertextuality is a hermeneutical strand of poststructuralism. In biblical scholarship, since Hays's influential work Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (1989), the term has also been employed to refer to a later text's interpretation of an earlier text. Regrettably, however, for the past three decades, scholars have failed to come to a consensus on how to understand and apply intertextuality in New Testament studies. Though both literary and biblical studies employ the same term intertextuality, their conception and application of intertextuality differs substantially. Accordingly, this essay will sketch how literary and biblical studies have perceived and utilized the concept of intertextuality. Following this, the study will evaluate these approaches. Finally, the present essay will conclude with a proposal for how to relate intertextuality and New Testament studies that is a cogent middle ground between poststructuralism and biblical studies, thereby compensating for both sides' deficiencies.

Section A addresses Barth’s attempts in the prefaces to his commentary on Romans to explain and to justify his exegetical method in response to the accusation that he was “an enemy of historical criticism”.  Section B treats a specimen of Barth’s exegesis of Galatians as presented in a long excursus of CD IV/1. Does his evidently “theological” exegesis of Galatians also involve historical exegesis in any meaningful sense of the term? Section C looks at Barth’s “apocalyptic” interpretation of both Romans and Galatians and does so primarily in dialogue with two Barth scholars, Bruce McCormack and Shannon Nicole Smythe. The basic argument here is that the development of Barth's thought from his commentary on Romans to Church Dogmatics IV reverses the vector of Paul's own argumentation.

Der Aufsatz prüft die Römerbriefauslegung von Douglas A. Campbell, der in Röm 3,1–9 und 9,27–11,1 einen Wortstreit zwischen Paulus und einem „Lehrer“ identifiziert.  Campbells These stützt sich auf zwei Annahmen: viele Sätze im Römerbrief (besonders an diesen zwei Textstellen) seien ganz unpaulinisch, weshalb sie Aussagen bzw. Fragen des „Lehrers“ sein müssten; die ersten Zuhörer haben den Streit leicht erkennen können, die richtige Intonation der beiden Stimmen durch den/die Vorleser/in vorausgesetzt. Campbells Interpretation der beiden Textstellen (Röm 3,1–9 und 9,27–11,1) ist allerdings grammatisch unmöglich, auch wenn man in Betracht zieht, dass der Brief ursprünglich vorgetragen worden ist.  Demgemäß ist seine Römerbriefauslegung fragwürdig.

What is the place of Christ in Paul’s narrative? This question is central to the debate between a salvation-historical and an apocalyptic reading of Paul. In this essay I analyze these different understandings of Paul’s narrative, arguing that, in the end, both accounts are christologically deficient, ironically, in structurally similar ways. I then offer a third account as an alternative.

Romans 5-8 revolve around God's dramatic cosmic activity and its implications for humanity and all of creation. Apocalyptic Paul measures the power of Paul's rhetoric about the relationship of cosmic power to the Law, interpretations of righteousness and the self, and the link between grace and obedience. A revealing study of Paul's understanding of humanity in light of God's apocalyptic action through Jesus Christ, Apocalyptic Paul illuminates Romans 5-8 and shows how critical this neglected part of Romans was to Paul's literary project.