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Raised a Spiritual Body: bodily resurrection according to Paul
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
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The aim of this study is to understand what Paul means by his statement about the resurrection in I Corinthians 15:44: ‘It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body’. We must examine Paul’s use of the terms body (soma), physical (psychikon and psyche) and spiritual (pneumatikon and pneuma). One of the fullest recent expositions of Pauline usage is Robert Jewett’s Paul’s Anthropological Terms (Brill 1971), which criticises idealistic treatments of the subject and seeks definitions in particular historical settings. This is a sensible approach to the subject, since it allows for both development and contradiction, but it meets with the difficulties that we do not know for certain which of the epistles attributed to Paul are really Pauline; and we know neither in what circumstances nor in which order they were written.
Most sholars agree with Jewett in judging Ephesians, Colossians and the Pastoral epistles to be Deutero-Pauline, and I shall not include references from them in my argument. I have not followed Jewett in attempting to define the development of Pauline thought in terms of an historical schema, but have noted related uses together, in order to show the range of particular kinds of usage more clearly.
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- Copyright © 1985 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 The seminar centred on John Locke's development of Cartesian dualism. Locke himself wrote notes on Pauline epistles (Works of John Locke, vol. III London 1823). Unfortunately, such modern New Testament scholarship unselfconsciously adopts Locke's dualism without realising how far removed it is from the presuppositions of New Testament writers.
2 See M.E. Boring's discussion of this passage in terms of Paul's prophetic status. Sayings of the Risen Lord C.U.P. 1982Google Scholar.
3 See below and II Cor. 3:6
4 Robert Jewett ignores some of these references, and his attempt to identify the spirit as divine rather than human in others is unsatisfactory: Paul's Anthropological Terms Brill 1971 p. 183ff. He admits that Romans 8:16 makes a clear distinction between human spirit and divine spirit but thinks this is a late development. Occasionally, his expositions seem convuluted e.g. I Cor. 5:3–5 on p. 189ff, but this is admittedly a different example.
5 See Robert Jewett's discussion of these passages, p.97ff.
6 Notice that 8:10 reads: ‘The spirit is life’ and not, as the RSV misleadingly translates ‘your spirit is alive.’
7 On Rm. 14:17 see the discussion in C.E.B. Cranfield, I.C.C. on Romans, 1979, p. 840ff.
8 Here Paul makes no distinction between ‘Walking according to the flesh’ and ‘living in the flesh’. Elsewhere, he found it useful to make such a distinction: see II Cor. 10:2–4 and Gal. 2:20.
9 In I Cor. 12:13, Paul expresses the unity of the spirit more fully.
10 Contra Jewett p. 354, who has to admit that the use he supposes Paul makes of Gnostic terminology is found nowhere else in Paul's epistles.
11 In Homer and Aristotle it stands for the ‘vital principle’: for a recent discussion see A.W.H. Adkins: From the Many to the One. London 1970.
12 In Phillipians, 3 cognates of psyche also occur: synpsychoi in 2:2 which RSV translates as ‘being in full accord’, eupsycheo in 2:19 which the NEB translates ‘to cheer’; and isopsychon in 2:20 which J.L. Houlden argues should be translated: ‘I have no one so like myself in my interests’ in Paul's Letters from Prison Pelican 1970.
13 Similarly, the RSV's translation of ek psyches as ‘heartily’ in Col. 3:23 and Eph. 6:6 is better translated ‘in a lively manner’.
14 Paul uses psyche/psychikon in contexts which describe human beings and not animals. The word was used of animals in classical Greek and in the LXX (Gen. 1:30; Lev. 17:11), although it was also used in senses which excluded application to animals. There is no reason in principle why Paul should not have used the term of animals had the subject come up, unless Romans 13:1 is taken to exclude this possibility.
15 See the discussion by C.E.B. Cranfield, I.C.C. Romans Vol. 1 1975.
16 See Romans 7:4 and Jewett's discussion p. 299f.
17 Jewett unsatisfactorily writes off this question as a Gnostic lamentation which Paul used, p. 294.
18 This is not sufficiently integrated into his exposition by Jewett on sarx in Romans 7–8, p. 145ff.
19 But cf. Josephus War VII 349.
20 In comparing fornication with other sins in I Cor. 6:18, Paul describes fornicating as ‘sinning against one's own body’ whereas other sins are ‘outside the body’ (ektos tou somatos). What does this mean since sins like gluttony and drunkenness, mentioned by Paul in this context (I Cor. 6:10) seem against one's own body? Does Paul understand gluttony and drunkenness as sins against one's flesh but not against one's body? This seems to be implied by the contrast between food and sex in 6:12ff. In any case ektos tou somatos in this context does not help to illuminate its use in II Cor. 12:2ff.
21 Philo's use of the term asomatos is similarly far from Pauline usage e.g. On the Cherubim 14, Questions on Exodus II, 51, Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis 2 III 41, On Dreams I 36, The Worse attacks the Better 159, On the Giants 14 and 31, Noah's Work as a Planter 14.
22 In the Septuagint version of Nehemiah 9:26 and Ezekiel 23:35, the expression opiso tou somatos is used: ‘Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind your back and killed your prophets.’ (Neh. 9:26) ‘Because you have forgotten me (the Lord God) and cast me behind your back, therefore bear the consequences of your lewdness and harlotry.’ (Ezek. 23:35).
23 Contra Robert Jewett p. 267f and Conzelmann in his commentary.
24 St. Paul and Dualism in Essays in N.T. Interpretation CUP 1982.
25 See e.g. A. Oepke in TWNTon gymnos, ekduo, parousia and cf. I Cor. 15:53ff.
26 For a different view see the long discussion and references in C.K. Barrett, A Commentary on II Corinthians, Black 1973.
27 Contra Robert Jewett's interpretation, p. 274ff in which he thinks Paul is using Gnostic terminology, and see the references and discussion by A.T. Lincoln Paradise Now and Not Yet CUP 1981 p. 55ff.
28 See P. Geach God and the Soul. R.K.P. 1969, p. 27.
29 See B. Williams Problems of the Self. C.U.P. 1973.
30 e.g. A.T. Lincoln Paradise Now and Not Yet. CUP 1981 p. 55ff.
31 Similar teaching is used extensively in the Deutero‐Pauline epistles, Ephesians and Colossians.
32 Unless ‘in Christ’ is derived from ‘the body of Christ’ as Albert Schweitzer suggested: The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle E.T. London 1931.p. 122f.
33 On the basis of passages like Genesis 50:25; Exodus 13:19; I Sam. 31:13; II Kings 23:18; Amos 2:1 or Ezekiel 37.
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