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  • From: peterson AT austingrad.edu
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Paul's use of MUSTHRION
  • Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 19:39:04 -0700 (PDT)

> Dear List,
>
> I am trying to understand Paul's use of the word MUSTHRION. Someone I
> have been conferring with directed me to Raymond Brown's book The
> Semitic Background of the Term "Mystery" in the New Testament. In a
> recent email they also stated "The language that Paul uses is not
> founded in the Greco/Roman "mystery" religions of the day, but rather is
> understood though contemporary Semitic culture and writings." They also
> included the following quote from Bruce Metzger:
> "[W]ith regard to Paul himself, scholars are coming once again to
> acknowledge that the Apostle's prevailing set of mind was rabbinically
> oriented, and that his newly found Christian faith ran in molds
> previously formed at the feet of Gamaliel."
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.

For a broader and more up-to-date perspective on this, I would look at
both Jonathan Z. Smith's Drudgery Divine and Luke Timothy Johnson's
Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity; Smith includes a critique
of Brown as excessively dependent on a Hebrew/Greek dichotomy, while
Johnson corrects some of Smith's excesses.

Jeff Peterson
Austin Graduate School of Theology




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