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  • From: <stephen.finlan AT durham.ac.uk>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Sacrifice and atonement in Paul
  • Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 01:35:35 +0100

The oft-repeated dying formulas found in Paul's letters are
not necessarily sacrificial. Seeley and Stowers prefer to
emphasize the background in "noble death" motifs in Greek
and Roman literature, dying for one's city, dying for Greece,
dying (in Antigone's case) for a religious principle.

I think Stowers, at least, is extreme in his position, however,
when he denies that there is any sacrificial imagery in Paul's
soteriology. Paul uses the phrase for purification sacrifice
or sin offering (PERI HAMARTIAS) in Rom 8:3; there is the
reference to Christ as Passover sacrifice in 1 Cor 5, and
even the HILASTERION used as a metaphor for Christ in
Rom 3:25 is to be understood as part of the sacrificial cult.
It was the lid of the ark of the covenant, the piece of temple
furniture on which blood was sprinkled once a year (on Yom
Kippur) in the supreme atoning or purifying ceremony of
the Jerusalem cult.

Dan Bailey may still be listening here and he may want to say
something about that. He feels that, indeed, the temple
HILASTERION is being referenced here, but he feels that this
is meant to summon up a larger metaphor: Christ as center
of a new temple, the community as the new temple, the
establishment of a new temple as supreme eschatological
manifestation. I find the theory interesting but overly
detailed, too much to ask from one word.

Sacrificial theology in Paul is hotly debated. I think Paul
uses more than one kind of sacrificial metaphor, as well as
non-sacrificial ones (redemption, scapegoat, reconciliation),
and thus causes fierce debates among scholars who want
him to have a single, central metaphor.

Finlan
Durha




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