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  • From: "Elli Elliott" <revelli AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: "Corpus-Paul" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Re: Scholars who deny a Pauline divine-Christology
  • Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 19:57:43 -0500

Replying to John Dickson replying to me (Elli Elliott) --

John quotes me:
It's worth considering that the notion of Christ's divinity does not originate in Paul's monotheism so much as in the pervasive polytheistic practice of his world.

He replies:
the above proposal would, it seems to me, face the dilemma of explaining why Paul cast his highest Christology in distinctly Jewish/Scriptural terms (1 Cor 8:5-6; Phil 2:5-11).

Three thoughts/questions in response:

1) Why would we assume that Paul's notion of Christ's divinity originates with Paul?

2) I assume that Paul's communities are predominantly gentiles and that all of this language is emerging from the mix with them. This thinking and articulation is not happening in a hermetically sealed Jewish context.

3) The passages you cite, the one from Philippians in particular, are full of language that refers to the Roman Emperor. The language of Christ's divinity needs to be examined in that context.

Thanks and all the best to Chris in your dissertation work.

Elli





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