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  • From: christilling AT ukonline.co.uk
  • To: corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Corpus-Paul] Scholars who deny a Pauline divine-Christology
  • Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 10:15:43 +0100

Dear All,

Thank you for your comments thus far and for your friendly welcomes

To Loren Rosson III:

Firstly, thank you for your thoughtful response.

>I take it you
>agree with those like Dunn, Casey, De Jong, and Harvey
>-- that Paul did not believe in the deity of Christ?

I reread what I wrote and decided that this is indeed what it sounded like!
Actually, I would also side with those who affirm a Pauline
divine-Christology and in my doctoral research I am developing a fresh way
of demonstrating just that from Paul's texts. And Richard Bauckham, whom you
mentioned, himself has made a tremendous impression on me (he was one of my
NT undergraduate lecturers and seminar leaders).

>I continue wondering how
>someone like Paul could have believed a man to be the
>Jewish God.

This is indeed a big question! In a similar way I find myself astounded as
to where my research is taking me. It raises the tremendous historical
problem of how Christology developed within the first 20 years of the
church's existence. How did it come to be so high so quickly? However,
someone like Dunn would rather turn this on its head and claim that it is
simply too extraordinary. For him, Paul did not make this (what he sees as
a) decisive break with his Jewish monotheism at all. And, very important for
Dunn, the absence of any evidence that Paul's Christology itself was opposed
by his Jewish (-Christian) opponents (unlike his position on the Torah) tips
the scales against reading too high a Christology in Paul. I'm hoping that
my response to this line of argumentation, in my research, will prove to be
an original way of engaging with Dunn on this point. However, I'll have to
elaborate on that another time.

>Hengel has argued that there was a
>full-blown high Christology within 20 years of Jesus'
>death owing to Hellenic influence.

Are you sure that Hengel attributes a full-blown high Christology to
Hellenistic influence? I was under the impression that he attributed this
explosion to such forces as Wisdom Christology, OT exegesis (particularly of
Psalm 110) and early Christian hymns (particularly Phil. 2: 6-11). But I
will briefly return to this point as I respond to Elli Elliott below.

>Richard Bauchkam,
>as I'm sure you know, is currently working on
>demolishing that idea -- that there was a "Big Bang"
>of high Christology within Jewish thought from the
>get-go, that "Jesus=God" didn't need to await
>Hellenism; if anything, Hellenism is what started
>causing problems for it.

Actually, I don't think this is the original point in Richard Bauckham's
thesis. Towards the end of the 1970s and into the beginning of the 1980s
such a trend had already begun in full force (due to the fresh publication
of the pseudopigraphal material, discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts,
publication of the Qumran literature, a refined understanding of Jewish
rabbinic material for understanding Paul etc.). Many would blame the
influence of W.D. Davies for turning scholarship back to the idea that Paul
is best understood from within a Jewish milleu. However, it appears to me
that this didn't really influence scholarship regarding Pauline Christology
(apart from perhaps a renewed focus on Wisdom Christology in Paul) until
Sanders had shown how important this was in regards to understanding another
aspect of Pauline thinking - justification, righteousness and law etc.
Rather, I think Bauckham's originality is particularly tied up with his
notion of 'divine identity'. In fact, his excellent little book 'God
Crucified' contains a lot of valuable argumentation. My only hesitation with
it is that it is perhaps making certain distinctions within Paul's
Christology rather to theologically subtle. Perhaps I should expand on that
'hesitation' another time.

>It would also be good to address whether or not Paul
>spoke of "faith in Christ" or the "faith of Christ".
>Hays and Johnson argued strongly for the latter, and
>there has been a growing trend to use the
>subjective genitive. While it's possible to maintain
>an equation between Jesus and God in either case, the
>subjective genitive lends itself more easily to "lower
>Christology".

This I found a very interesting comment! Perhaps you could explain why you
think the subjective genitive lends itself more easily to a 'lower
Christology'. Part of my argument in my research will almost certainly
involve examining this point in more detail. Thanks for that helpful
comment, and indeed for all of your thoughts.

To Ellie Elliott:

>I gather that your work is in theology,

Actually, my field of research is NT exegesis and history. However, I
suppose my work is theological in at least two senses: firstly, I am
attempting to reconstruct the theological and Christological convictions of
a historical personality. Secondly, though I doubt I will have the space to
do so in my doctorate, I hope to develop a model for meaningfully
translating Paul's Christological conceptions for us today. While this
enterprise is undoubtedly hermeneutic, it is also profoundly theological, in
my opinion.

>but if you are working in the field
>of historical criticism, you may want to investigate the notion of divinity
>in the early Roman imperial era more carefully before assuming such a
"great
>divide." I have recently found Ittai Gradel's work (English title: Emperor
>Worship and Roman Religion) useful on this issue. Just reading the
>introduction would be a start.

Thank you for these comments and for the book recommendation! Indeed, I will
be returning to these matters later on in my doctorate. I think that Roman
imperial religion (and let us not forget the mystery religions and the cults
of Isis etc.) is important for understanding Paul's Christology in so far as
he designed his Christology to engage critically with them. He was a
missionary and sensitive to the understanding of his audience. Thus, some
sort of engagement with these 'non-Jewish' elements was part of his
missionary endeavour. However, such a 'great divide' is, I believe, clear in
Paul (see Dunn, the Theology of Paul the Apostle, and the first half of
chapter 2).

>It's worth considering that the notion of
>Christ's divinity does not originate in Paul's monotheism so much as in the
>pervasive polytheistic practice of his world.

This is precisely what scholars in the last 20 to 30 years have been arguing
against. Only a couple of rather maverick scholars would continue to hold
such a view. Of course, this was the popular opinion during the reign of the
religionsgeschichtliche Schule. However, the vast majority of major
publications in Pauline Christology would now reject the idea that Christ's
divinity originated in pagan polytheistic practice (cf. works by Bauckham,
Hengel, Dunn, very importantly Hurtado, De Jonge, Fatehi, Turner, Capes,
Kreitzer, Newman, Davis etc. etc.). It is the work of these scholars and
others that show that Paul's language most clearly display a divine (or, in
the case of Dunn and de Jonge, a 'high') -Christology, using language and
thinking structures most directly derived from Paul's Jewish background (and
this is not to draw to sharp a divide between Judaism and Hellenism). Even
Downing, so fascinated with the association between Paul and Cynicism, would
not go as far to say that Paul derived his thinking from Cynicism (see
Cynics, Paul, and the Pauline Churches). Also, see my comments in dialogue
with Loren above.

In your response to John Dickson you argue the following:

>The passages you cite, the one from Philippians in particular, are full
>of language that refers to the Roman Emperor. The language of Christ's
>divinity needs to be examined in that context.

The suggested 'backgrounds' to this text are numerous: some say Wisdom
Christology, others say Adam Christology, others Son of God Christology,
still others the Isaianic 'servant of the Lord' (my personal favourite) etc.
Wright suggests that we do not need to choose between one or the other as
there can be multiple intertextual echoes (although I'm not too sure that
his correct on that point). and so the matter is not simply that of the
Roman Emperor. It may play a part, admittedly. And so, while it is true that
there may be allusions to the Roman Emperor in this text, one must also
notice how Paul expresses his position and his Christology - not in the
language of Hellenism but rather through the use of OT themes (on this see
particularly O Hofius, Der Christushymnus Philipper 2.6-11 Tübingen: Mohr).

And so not only I but the vast majority of scholarship in the last 20 to 30
years concerning Pauline Christology would agree with John Dickson on this
point.

Many many thanks to you all for your comments thus far. I look forward to
seeing how the discussion develops.

All the best,

Chris Tilling

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Chris and Anja Tilling
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