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The Pauline Conception of the Resurrection Body in I Corinthians XV. 35–54

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Ronald J. Sider
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Type
Short Studies
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New Testament Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , April 1975 , pp. 428 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 428 note 2 Bultmann, Rudolf, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel (2 vols, New York: Scribners, 1951–5), 1, 192–5.Google Scholar

page 428 note 3 Phil. iii. 20–1; Rom. vi. 29; I Cor. xv. 20. Wolfhart Pannenberg notes: ‘Paul must have had the same mental image of the resurrected Jesus [as that of all Christians], for he has described the resurrection of Jesus and that of the Christians to be completely parallel events.’ ‘Did Jesus really rise from the dead?’, Dialog iv (1965), 130.

page 428 note 4 The discussion of Hans Grass provides a good illustration of the problems of continuity and the meaning of ‘body’ in this text. Grass analyses II Cor. v. 1 ff. and then uses that interpretation to explain I Cor. xv. 35 ff. In II Cor. v, the apostle allegedly says that when the present body decomposes at death, the soul is left naked and then reclothed at the Parousia with a totally new body made by a ‘direct, divine act of creation’ (Grass, op. cit. p. 158). There is no bodily continuity, for while the one rots in the grave, the other body is already prepared in heaven. Looking back to I Cor. xv, one can then see that the naked seed corresponds to the nakedness of the disembodied soul. The earthly body is entirely abandoned and replaced by a completely new heavenly body. Grass then concludes that Paul had no interest in the question of empty tombs either in the case of Christians or Jesus of Nazareth (ibid. pp. 163–4). Grass' argument is as good as an illustration of the problem as it is unsatisfactory as an answer. Apart from I Cor. xv, Phil. iii. 20, 21 and Romans viii. 9–30 (especially vv. 11, 22, 23) would appear to provide sufficient ground for challenging Grass' thesis. Further, Grass' procedure is methodologically questionable in that he uses a notoriously difficult passage to interpret a somewhat less obscure section. It would seem wiser to adjudicate the question of the proper interpretation of I Cor. xv independently of II Cor. v.

page 429 note 1 Robertson, A. and Plummer, A., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (I.C.C.; 2nd ed.New York: Scribners, 1916), p. 366;Google ScholarThornton, L. S., The Common Life in the Body of Christ (Westminster: Dacre Press, 1941), p. 262;Google ScholarVos, G., ‘Alleged development in Paul's teaching on the resurrection’, Princeton Theological Review XXVII (1929), 199;Google ScholarAllo, E.-B., Saint Paul, Première Épitre aux Corinthiens (2nd ed.Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1956), pp. 419, 421.Google Scholar

page 429 note 2 Translation 1 d in Arndt, W. F. and Gingrich, F. W., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (4th ed.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 739.Google Scholar

page 429 note 3 Thorton, op. cit. p. 262.

page 429 note 4 Robertson and Plummer, op. cit. p. 369.

page 429 note 5 Bultmann, New Testament Theology, 1, 192–5. For the usage of σ–⋯μα in the LXX, see Kendrick Grobel, ‘σ–⋯μα as “Self, Person” in the Septuagint’, Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann (2nd ed. Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann, 1957), pp. 52–9.

page 430 note 1 Bultmann, New Testament Theology, 1, 198.

page 430 note 2 Bultmann, , ‘Karl Barth, “Die Auferstehung der Toten”’, Glauben und Verstehen: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1933), pp. 60–1.Google Scholar So too Stacey, W. David, The Pauline View of Man (London: Macmillan, 1956), p. 155.Google Scholar

page 430 note 3 Héring, Jean, The First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, trans. A. W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock (London: Epworth Press, 1964), p. 174.Google Scholar

page 431 note 1 See for instance Robinson, J. A. T., The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (London: SCM Press, 1963). pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

page 431 note 2 Eduard Schweizer says that ‘I Cor. 15: 38 is the only verse in which σ⋯μα comes close to meaning form’, T.W.N.T. VII, 1060 (E.T.).

page 431 note 3 Jeremias, J., ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God’, N.T.S. II (1955–6), 156.Google Scholar

page 431 note 4 Hèring, op. cit. pp. 173, 174. See also Conzelmann, Hans, An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament (New York: Harper, 1969), p. 188;Google Scholar and idem, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1969), pp. 333–4.

page 431 note 5 Craig, C. T., Interpreter's Bible, X (Nashville: Abingdon, 1953), 244.Google Scholar

page 431 note 6 Dahl, N. A., ‘The Parables of Growth’, Studia Theologica V (1951), 141.Google Scholar Genesis viii. 22, I Enoch 2–5, Mark iv. 28 etc. support this assertion. V. 38 of I Cor. xv is proof that St Paul too was certainly familiar with the regularity of nature.

page 432 note 1 N. A. Dahl, loc. cit. p. 148.

page 432 note 2 Moffatt, James, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), p. 261.Google Scholar

page 432 note 3 Even Bultmann admits that the analogy of the seed suggests the persistence of the same subject: ‘Karl Barth’, Glauben und Verstehen, p. 59.

page 432 note 4 So rightly, Schep, J. A., The Nature of the Resurrection Body (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), p. 194.Google Scholar Robertson and Plummer (op. cit. p. 370) also insist that the past tense is a reference to the order established at creation. So too Allo, op. cit. p. 422. When Bultmann rejects this view with the comment ‘daβ es für Paulus eine Natur als selbständige Gröβe neben Gott nicht gibt’ (Glauben und Verstehen, p. 59), he both ignores the evidence here (and in xii. 18) and also posits an irrelevant straw man. One does not need to suppose that nature is some vast entity independent of God to find regularity in it. Further evidence that Paul did think in terms of regularity of nature established at creation is provided by a comparison of I Cor. xii. 18 (where exactly the same words, καθὼς ἠθέλησɛν, I are used in reference to the regular way God always arranges the organs of the human body) with I Cor. xii. 11 (where he uses the present tense to refer to God's present bestowal of the gifts).

page 432 note 5 It will be important to stress only those aspects of change and transformation which are clearly stated in the text.

page 433 note 1 SoBarrett, C. K., A Commentary on The First Epistle to the Corinthians (London: A. and C. Black, 1968), p. 372.Google Scholar

page 433 note 2 E.g. I Cor. XV. 21–2; Romans V. 12 ff. See also Cullmann, Oscar, ‘Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?’ Immortality and Resurrection, ed. Krister, Stendahl (New York: Macmillan, 1965), pp. 20–1.Google Scholar

page 433 note 3 ‘Transfiguration from one stage of glory to a still higher stage of glory is by means of reflecting the glory of Christ…At every point, the process is in terms of filial obedience, not of an amoral, unethical, quasi-physical transformation.’ C. F. D. Moule, ‘St Paul and dualism’, loc. cit. p. 113.

page 433 note 4 Héring, op. cit. p. 176.

page 433 note 5 For careful analyses of possible Gnostic influence here, see Conzelmann, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, pp. 338–42; Allo, op. cit. pp. 427–8; Lietzmann, Hans and Kümmel, W. G., An die Korinther I. II (‘Handbuch zum neuen Testament’, no. 9; 4th ed.Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1949), pp. 85–6.Google Scholar In a reply to Käsemann's, Ernst ‘Das theologische Problem des Motivs vom Leibe Christi’, Paulinische Perspektiven (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1969Google Scholar [E.T., Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969]), pp. 178–210, A.J. M. Wedderburn concludes: ‘It will be clear from this exegesis of the Adam-Christ typology in I Cor. 15 that, negatively, there is no need to appeal to Gnostic doctrines to explain Paul's argument.’ ‘The body of Christ and related concepts in I Corinthians’, Scottish Journal of Theology XXIV (1971), 94. For a superb overview of the literature on Gnostic sources for the Pauline conception of σ⋯μα see Jewett, Robert, Paul's Anthropological Terms (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), pp. 230–7.Google Scholar

page 434 note 1 Since v. 45 contains a quotation from Gen. ii. 7, which describes man as created by God, the sole point cannot be that this man was sinful for God did not so create him. Thus part of Paul's point in developing the contrast between the first Adam and the second Adam (and the ‘natural’ body and the ‘spiritual’ body) was to indicate that the resurrection body is more glorious than, and superior to, the ‘natural’ body of the first creation.

page 434 note 2 Charles, R. H., ed., The Apocalypse of Baruch Translated from the Syriac (London: A. and C. Black, 1896), p. 80.Google Scholar

page 434 note 3 So many MSS including 46 and most textual critics; so J. Héring, op. cit. p. 179, and Allo, op. cit. p. 429.

page 434 note 4 Cf. Moule's comment that ‘ “spiritual” (πνɛνματικóς) is a word denoting a quality not of substance but of relationship (cf. Rom. xii. 2; II Cor. iii. 18)’. ‘St Paul and dualism’, p. 108. Later he refers to ‘Paul's consistently moral interpretation of the transformation of σ⋯μα’ (ibid. p. 113).

page 435 note 1 With reference to the meaning of ψνχικóς in v. 44, see the brief comment in Lietzmann and Kümmel, An die Korinther I. II, p. 84: ‘ψνχικóς = σαρκικóς s. zu [I Cor.] 2: 14’.

page 435 note 2 Robinson, W. C., ‘The bodily resurrection’, Theologische Zeitschrift XIII (1957), 99Google Scholar has suggested somewhat sarcastically that the spiritual man was certainly not a ghost. And Héring rejects that ‘Cartesian prejudice’ which would assume that the term ‘spiritual body’ must connote something which lacks substance and extension (op. cit. p. 176).

page 435 note 3 Clavier, H., ‘Brèves remarques sur la notion de σ⋯μα πνɛνματικóν’, The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology, ed. Davies, W. D. and Daube, D. (Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 351.Google Scholar

page 435 note 4 Dahl, M. E., The Resurrection of the Body (‘Studies in Biblical Theology’, no. 36; London: S.C.M. Press, 1962), p. 33.Google Scholar

page 435 note 5 Clavier, loc. cit. p. 347.

page 436 note 1 Jeremias, loc. cit. p. 158.

page 436 note 2 Ibid. pp. 152–3. Barrett, First Corinthians, p. 379 follows Jeremias.

page 436 note 3 Jeremias, loc. cit. pp. 151–2.

page 436 note 4 Ibid. pp. 154, 158.

page 436 note 5 New Testament Theology, 1, 233.

page 436 note 6 See Schep, The Resurrection Body, p. 201.

page 437 note 1 Jeremias, lot. cit. p. 152.

page 437 note 2 See Meyer's comment that ‘from the very outset, then, the idea of mortality and creaturelinessseems to be especially bound up with the phrase [‘flesh and blood’], T.W.N.T. VII, 116 (E.T.).

page 437 note 3 Allo rightly insists that the reason for this fourfold repetition is ‘pour inculquer fortement l'identité du corps ressuscité avec celui qui est maintenant’ (op. cit. p. 434).

page 438 note 1 See Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (London: S.P.C.K., 1962), pp. 305–7.Google Scholar As Davies has shown, the popular Jewish view was exceedingly materialistic and even the more refined spiritual conception was ‘not inconsistent with the belief in the bodily resurrection’ (p. 307). Jewett's insistence (op. cit. p. 266 n. I) that the word ‘body’ is not used in Jewish discussion of the resurrection does not alter Davies' basic point.

page 438 note 2 Thus one must reject Willi Marxsen's statement that in I Cor. xv. 35 ff. ‘the "imperishable" body is described in relation to the terrestrial body as totaliter aliter’. Moule, C. F. D., ed., The Significance of the Message of the Resurrection for Faith in Jesus Christ (London: S.C.M., 1968), p. 43.Google Scholar

page 438 note 3 For a discussion of the methodological problems that would arise if a modern historian wanted to assert the same, see my ‘The historian, the miraculous and post-Newtonian man’, Scottish Journal of Theology xxv (1972), 309–19.

page 439 note 1 The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1907), p. 192.