Corpus-Paul

[Robert M Schacht <bobschacht AT juno.com>]

On Tue, 3 Aug 1999 15:15:04 +1000 Craig de Vos
<csdevos AT trinity.unimelb.edu.au> writes:
>Dear Colleagues,
>In working through 1 Cor in preparation for my classes on it this 
>semester I was struck by the wording of 1 Cor 15:10a (CARITI DE QEOU 
>EIMI HO EIMI). This seems  quite striking -- akin to the divine claim 
>in Ex 3:14 (as a direct translation from the Hebrew rather than from 
>the LXX) -- but it is not really touched by the major commentaries 
>(e.g., Barrett, Conzelmann, Fee). I was wondering what others make of 
>it?
>
>Craig

Craig,
I suppose my first question would be, is there any *other* way that Paul
could have expressed the banal point (the  "I am who I am" conventional
translation)?
On the other hand, to support your point about the significance of the
phrase, Paul does seem to talk more than other NT writers about
Christians being "children of God"
(Romans 8):
16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness 
with our spirit that we are children of God,
 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of 
God and joint heirs with Christ-- if, in 
fact, we suffer with him so that we may 
also be glorified with him.

Let's also put this in the context of Jeffrey's query on July 27
regarding 1 Cor 15:3.
The chapter begins with a summary of the Gospel according to Paul, where
we get into the business of Paul's quotation in 1 Cor 15:3 of the early
Christian tradition that
"Christ died for ours sins" (XRISTOS APEQANEN hUPER TWN AMARTIWN), to
quote Jeffrey's message. Note that here "sins" appears to be either
corporate or collective, which leads us to the ambiguity that Jeffrey
wondered about.

But the passage you cite a few verses later seems to focus on an
individual sin-- Paul's persecution of "the church of God" (vs. 9). Is
this merely a digression, or is it part and parcel of the message of
Paul's Gospel? Paul elsewhere declares that Jesus' death was not only
with corporate redemption in mind, but with individual redemption (e.g.,
Gal. 2:20)

Perhaps relevant to both questions is Galatians 4:
4 But when the fullness of time had 
come, God sent his Son, born of a 
woman, born under the law,
 5 in order to redeem those who were 
under the law, so that we might receive 
adoption as children.
 6 And because you are children, God 
has sent the Spirit of his Son into our 
hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"
 7 So you are no longer a slave but a 
child, and if a child then also an heir, 
through God.

This seems somewhat far removed from Macabbees to me.

Bob

Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ


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