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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Paul's Christ: Noble Martyr or Cultic Sacrifice?
  • Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 07:26:50 -0500

Dear Loren,

A glaring example (to me) has always been Rom 7:7-25,
the first half of which (7:7-13) reflects Jewish
thought, the second half (7:14-25) a Greek outlook.
(So I agree with David Seeley when he claims that
"Paul employs Hellenistic language in Rom 7:14-25" in
Noble Death, p 109.) In 7:7-13, Paul invokes the
rhetorical personage of Adam, appealing to Jewish
tradition. "I was once alive apart from the law, but
when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
The commandment which promised my life proved my
death, because sin, seizing opportunity in the
commandment, deceived me, and through it, killed me."
None of this is autobiographical, rather exegetical,
referring to the Genesis story, where Adam, "alive"
and newly created, was placed in Eden (Gen. 2:7-9) and
"commanded" by God not to eat of the tree of life
(Gen. 2:16-17), and whereafter the serpent "seized
opportunity" to further its own ends (Gen. 3:1-5), Eve
complained that she was "deceived" (Gen. 3:13), and
God "killed" humanity with mortality (Gen.
3:19,22-23).

HH: This does not have to refer to Adam, and the "I" is continuative in the chapter, suggesting that it does not.

But in 7:14-25, Paul plays off the rhetoric of pagan
traditions (of course contradicting his Pharisaic
experience in the process). Those without the Spirit
"don't understand their own actions", "doing not the
good they want, but the evil they don't want", etc.
The human plight under the law is miserable and
wretched in a way that calls to mind the anguish of
someone like Medea ("I know what I'm about to do is
evil, but passion is stronger than reasoned
reflection"; so Lloyd Gaston and John Gager), or
perhaps Seneca ("Our petty bodies are mortal and
frail...Behold this clogging burden of a body to which
Nature has fettered me"; so David Seeley).

HH: This part of Romans 7 does not have to borrow from Hellenistic thought, as it simply reflects a human dilemma.

>We also need to remember that Paul sees the vicarious
death and resurrection of
the believer in highly realistic terms. Christ's
death does not simply set and example, provide a
new paradigm for action, or serve as the catalyst for
political events.

Realistic to whom? I'm not sure I see the language
used in Rom 6-8 as realistic in any sense; that's what
apocalyptic mysticism is about. But it could very well
be argued that the mimetic understanding advanced by
Seeley is more "realistic" than the alternative you
describe. Certainly the Maccabean martyrs and
Greco-Roman philosophers considered such a paradigm
realistic. Why not Paul?

HH: Romans 6-8 might not be that realistic, in some sense, but 1 Cor 15 is.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard





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