Corpus-Paul

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

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