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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT home.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Jesus and death
  • Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2000 10:30:13 -0500

JERRY SUMNEY wrote:
 Though this is not quite on the subject of whether Jesus would have died, a few who have commented on this question cite 2 Cor 5:16 as evidence that Paul was not interested in the historical Jesus.  Such easy acceptance of this reading needs, I think, to be reassessed given what I find to be the convincing arguments put forward by many interpreters that show that the phrase "according to the flesh" is adverbial.  This means the verse speaks of a way of knowing, not about what is known (or not known) about Jesus or about how important such knowledge was for Paul.Jerry
 
I, for one, think Jerry raises a very important issue on which  I'd like to see more discussion. I have always taken Paul here to be making a statement about how he has rejected his old (and for want of a better word) Zealotic ideas concerning the Messiah. After all, in the larger context in which the _expression_ appears, Paul seems to be speaking of how the Corinthian community is to become the embodiment of the rightwising way of God which Paul, contrary to his old pre-call way of thinking, himself had come to discover was to be found not as he once expected, in triumphalism, but in the ministry of reconciliation which the historical Jesus manifested.

But is this a legitimate position to take?

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT home.com
 



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