What Is an Apocolyptic Reading of Paul
Information technology has been official at present for a decade or and so, but there is a skirmish of definition on whether or not "apocalyptic" is the right word to apply the apostle Paul. On the 1 side are those who utilise this term to describe their approach to Paul: E. Käsemann, J.C. Beker, J. Louis Martyn, Martinus de Boer, Beverly Gaventa, and Douglas Campbell.
What we need is a condensed statement of this apocalyptic gospel, and here is a widely-used summary of the apocalyptic gospel past J. Louis Martyn:
If God's thought of good news is a stranger to the circular substitution [quid pro quo], to the corrupted doctrine of the Ii Ways, and to the assumption of the democratic decision, what does it expect like? 2 parts of Paul's answer accept already begun to emerge. (A) God'south good news looks like power, ability that really does something. In and through good-news power, the performative word of the gospel, God is making right what has gone incorrect, doing so, not past the Law, but rather by the faith of Christ [Jesus' faithfulness, not our organized religion in Christ], his death in [sic] our behalf ([Gal] ii:sixteen). (B) God's good news of Jesus Christ is also the power that elicits faith, and that, in then doing, plays its role in God's act of giving the Spirit of Christ. [J. Louis Martyn, "The Apocalyptic Gospel in Galatians," Estimation 54 (2000): 252.]
Now N.T. Wright is not happy with using the term "apocalyptic" this way — for the invasion of grace as the gospel's power by organized religion in Christ. He has contended — well, here's p. 216 of hisPaul and His Recent Interpreters:
All we are left with then is atheological appeal to a scheme which focuses on the imminentparousia (Käsemann), the victory of the cross (Beker), the two 'ages' and the two 'tracks' of 'apocalyptic' (de Boer), the three cosmic 'agents' (God, humans, the powers) (Martyn), the distinction between 'sins' and 'Sin' (Gaventa), or the importance of divine sovereignty over against homo initiative (Campbell) (216).
And so, what to exercise? How do we ascertain apocalyptic? Is it a kind of Barthian-cum-Torrancian theological category/system or is it category of Jewish literature? 1's decision here matters.
I appeal then away from the Apocalyptic Paul people and away from NT Wright's well-aimed criticism and turn instead of none other than the editor of theOld Testament Pseudepigrapha, James H. Charlesworth, in his essay "Paul, the Jewish Apocalypses, and Apocalyptic Eschatology," in the new book edited by Thou. Boccaccini and C.A. Segovia, Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle as a Figure of 2d Temple Judaism (Fortress, 2016), pp. 83-105. When I saw that Charlesworth had an essay on this topic I read it immediately to see how he would approach this trouble of whether or not "apocalyptic" goes with "Paul" every bit many today — and Samuel Adams is the most recent theological approach to this topic — are contending. So, here goes.
I quote:
N. T. Wright admits that many Pauline specialists are dislocated past the concept of "apocalyptic" and that 'salvation-history" and "apocalyptic" can exist "uncomfortable categories," just he wisely affirms that "apocalyptic" denotes "something which Paul really does seem to take made central."' Wright wisely perceives that apocalyptic eschatology involves both a radical newness and a continuous flow of history (so articulate in 4 Ezra and Gal. 4:4-5). [He then affirms JJ Collins, DC Allison, AY Collins, and M.C. de Boer.]
Thus, Paul's apocalyptic eschatology can be comprehended in more than depth past studying the Jewish apocalyptic works and apocalypses that are roughly contemporaneous with him. Within this consensus resides another understanding. Information technology has two dimensions. First, Paul must be understood within Second Temple Judaism, and specifically, with Jewish apocalyptic eschatology. … Second, neither of these vivid New Testament scholars, Käsemann or Beker, showed any real interest in mastering, reading, or comprehending the complex world of the Jewish apocalypses. They did not give us a clear understanding of Jewish apocalyptic thought and how, and in what means, information technology is distinguished from prophecy, mysticism, and that elusive category called "Gnosticism." (84-85) [This is exactly NT Wright's point.]
He so proceeds to define the terms:
Commencement, "apocalypse" is a genre of literature that appeared within Palestinian Judaism sometime afterwards 300BCE.
2d, apocalypticism is the social setting in which the Jewish apocalypses and apocalyptic works outset emerged.
Tertiary, under the distress of occupation, Jews created apocalyptic eschatology that assumes that time has meaning and is linear. The end time will be a return to the beginning of time, when humans walked in the absurd of the evening with God, could talk to animals, and were at peace with themselves in a pleasant state (86).
Two phenomena occurred [when an apocalypse was read]. Showtime, the person was transported from this horrible earth to the heavenly world above, spatially, or beyond time.
The second miracle that occurred was "redefinition." The poor were revealed to be the rich. The conquered were disclosed to be the conquerors. The lost were the found. Thus, the faithful Jews who refused to obey the edicts of the Seleucid kings and Roman governors were willing to be martyred. To be obedient and to die for God and country was to live eternally. Virtually all was redefined past an apocalyptic perception of space and fourth dimension and this redefinition often, depending on ane'southward ain antecedent beliefs, led to a heightened awareness of the demand to live moral lives every bit the judgment was near (87).
[Chiefly, Charlesworth adds:] Non all apocalyptic thought is eschatology, that is, focused on the stop of things or finish fourth dimension. It may exist primarily spatial, focusing our attending on the heavens to a higher place or on far-off and ideal sacred spaces such as Eden, paradise, and the isle of the blessed ones.24 The noun "eschatology" should be reserved to talk over and embrace concepts and terms that are shaped by fourth dimension and the terminate of fourth dimension (87).
Charlesworth touches lightly upon the themes of Paul influenced by apocalyptic: like fullness of time, 2 Cor 12, resurrection, Paul's christology (which he connects to a freshly translated DSS "Cocky-Glorification Hymn," and Paul'south theology of salvation and the cross. His conclusion:
All scholars know that a text must have a context; otherwise, it can mean anything nosotros wish or goose egg at all. The context of Pauline theology and Christology is Jewish apocalypticism and apocalyptic eschatology. In that context, we can explore the meaning of Paul'due south concept of justification, conservancy, reconciliation, expiation, redemption, freedom, sanctification, transformation, new creation, and glorification (100).
Source: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2016/05/03/once-again-what-is-the-apocalyptic-paul/
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