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  • From: "Given, Mark Douglas" <mdg421f AT smsu.edu>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Paul's pneumatology
  • Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 08:24:21 -0600

Hope you don't mind me jumping in, Jeff.

Dale is distinguishing between what PNEUMA meant for Paul--very fine
material as similarly conceived by the Stoics--and some Platonists,
Cartesians, etc.--something incorporeal, pure thought, etc. Here's one
of my favorite passages:

"When Paul says that the resurrected body will be a pneumatic body
rather than simply a psychic body or a flesh-and-blood body, he is
saying that the immortal and incorruptible part of the human body will
be resurrected--or, to put it more accurately, that the body will be
raised, constituted (due to divine transformation) only by its immortal
and incorruptible aspects, without its corruptible and corrupting
aspects such as sarx. No physical/spiritual dichotomy is involved here,
much less a material/immaterial one. Rather, Paul has a hierarchy of
essences, probably all assumed to be stuff, but of varying degrees of
density or 'stuffness.' Paul would have thought of ALL of it as
'material'--if, that is, he had been able to thing in such a category
without a material/immaterial dichotomy. At any rate, all the 'stuff'
here talked about is indeed stuff."

That's good stuff. (-; The only way to get the full effect would be to
read the entire chapter in which he goes into detail about the range of
ancient views of the body. That is to say, the conclusion above is VERY
well researched and supported.

Mark

Mark D. Given
Associate Professor
Department of Religious Studies
Southwest Missouri State University
901 S. National Ave.
Springfield, MO 65804


> -----Original Message-----
> From: corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:corpus-paul-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of
> James Ernest
> Sent: Friday, December 19, 2003 10:22 PM
> To: 'Corpus-Paul'
> Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Paul's pneumatology
>
>
> > His particular contribution is to distinguish what PNEUMA meant for
> Paul
> > from Descartes's immaterial _res cogitans_.
>
> Was confusion of Pauline pneuma with Cartesian res cogitans
> previously very common?
>
> -------------------------
> James D. Ernest
> j.d.ernest AT bc.edu
> -------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Corpus-Paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/corp> us-paul
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