Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - Re: Jewish origins of apostle

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Jill and Dale Walker <jilldale AT rcnchicago.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Jewish origins of apostle
  • Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2001 12:51:04 -0600

Fred,

Dieter Georgi has a lengthy section on Jewish mission in his book,
The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians. He doesn't approach
the question the way you do, but perhaps his comments will give you
something helpful. And there's Scot McKnight's book, A Light among
the Gentiles, which you may have looked at already.

For my part, I'm uncomfortable with the word "office." I'm not
really sure that's an accurate way to think about Paul's missionary activity.
Also, I think that the different ways apostolos is used in early Christian
literature 1) mitigate the value of postulating any single, Jewish (or otherwise) usage
as an antecedent, 2) make it difficult to talk about a general New Testament
concept of apostleship, and 3) argue strongly against looking only at the
NT and not ECL. Given your interest in rhetoric, it seems more useful to
explore the different ways apostolos is discussed before trying to create
an Ur-concept. I think there are quite distinct discussions in 1 Thess, 1 Cor,
and 2 Cor. Jeffrey Crafton did a nice rhetorical analysis of Paul's apostolic
self-speech in 2 Cor in his dissertation: The Agency of the Apostle: A Dramatistic
Analysis of Paul's Responses to Conflict in 2 Corinthians, JSNTSS 51, Sheffield, 1991.
He differentiated rhetorically how Paul describes his role in 2 Cor 1-9 from 10-13
(agency vs. agent).

Good luck,
Dale Walker




At 03:53 AM 12/8/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear List-members,
>
>As I have said a few months ago am I researching Paul's apostleship,
>particularly in terms of how he exercises power or authority through this,
>using rhetorical criticism and socio-scientific methodology, all against the
>background of the New Perspective. As part of my early research I have been
>trying, rather unsuccessfully I have to say, to locate apostleship in a
>Jewish context. The only suggestion that I have uncovered is one suggested
>originally by Lightfoot in his commentary on Galatians, and then furthered by
>the work of K. H. Rendtorf.
>
>They suggest that apostle may be an equivalent, or even translation, of the
>Hebrew 'saliah', meaning ambassador, or something of the like. However, the
>evidence for this is found no earlier than the Mishnah, which for me is a
>problem as I am not confident of dating this any earlier than Second Century
>CE. What I'm really wondering is whether anyone is aware of earlier
>references to 'saliah', or alternative suggestions for fitting apostle into a
>Jewish context.
>
>I have also been considering whether there is any way of suggesting that a
>missionary (lit. one sent) could be understood to be Jewish in a Diaspora
>setting. Again my research is giving me little joy on this idea. The only
>other idea I have had, and it's really quite a stab in the dark, is that
>apostleship is a development of the prophetic ministry found in large
>sections of the Hebrew Bible. Again I am aware of the problems of this,
>especially considering how Paul himself describes apostleship in his letters.
>My interest is to particularly understand Paul's apostleship, and his
>understanding of the office, over against apostleship in general in the NT.
>
>Regards,
>Fred Rich.
>
>Ph.D. student, University of Sheffield.
>
>---
>You are currently subscribed to corpus-paul as: jilldale AT rcnchicago.com
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to $subst('Email.Unsub')
>




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page