From self-praise to self-boasting: Paul's unmasking of the conflicting rhetorico-linguistic phenomena in 1 Corinthians

Donahoe, Kate C.

The thesis, entitled “From Self-Praise to Self-Boasting: Paul’s Unmasking of the Conflicting Rhetorico-Linguistic Phenomena in 1 Corinthians,” examines the rhetorical conventions of “boasting” and self-praise among those vying for social status and honor within the Greco-Roman world. While the terminological options for “boasting” and self-praise frequently overlap, a survey of these conventions demonstrates that the ancients possessed a categorical distinction between “boasting” and self-praise, which oftentimes conflicted with Paul’s distinction. Clear examples of this conflict appear in 1 Cor 1:10-4:21; 5:1-13; 9:1-27; 13:1-13; and 15:30-32, where Paul addresses the Corinthians’ overestimation of wisdom and eloquence, redirects the Corinthians’ attention away from loyalties to specific leaders to loyalty to Christ, redefines the standards by which the Corinthians should view themselves and their leaders, counters the Corinthians’ tendency to engage in anthropocentric “boasting,” and affirms his own apostolic ministry. It is the Corinthian community’s inability to grasp the application of theocentric “boasting” which leads Paul to address certain aspects and values of secular Corinth that have penetrated the Corinthian community. Thus, operating from an eschatological perspective, Paul critiques both the Corinthians’ attitudes and the Greco-Roman cultural values upon which their attitudes are based. Through irony, self-presentation, imitation, differentiating between theocentric and anthropocentric “boasting,” and distinguishing between personality and gospel rhetoric, Paul challenges the secular notions of social status, power, wisdom, leadership, and patronage and exhorts the Corinthians to focus their attention on their relationship with the Lord rather than on improving their social status or on increasing their honor.

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"All of you are one" : the social vision of Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:13 and Col 3:11

Hansen, Bruce

Paul's citation of an early baptismal tradition in Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:13 and Col 3:11 is as notable for its prominence in the Pauline corpus as it is for its ambiguity. A survey of the variety of views as to what Paul is denying and, conversely, affirming by this formula highlights the importance of identifying both the broad mythic vision into which Paul has set it as well as the social arrangements he advocates by means of it. This attention to how cultural symbols and stories correlate with social praxis is prompted by insights from the sociology of knowledge. This thesis argues that in each instance Paul deploys the formula to support his vision for social unity in his churches that are composed of members from various social strata and subcultures who in Christ gain a new social identity that they are to express as family-like solidarity. The predominance of kinship terminology and expectations in Paul's exhortations to ecclesial unity lead me to propose a model of ethnic identity construction as appropriate for assessing the role of the baptismal unity formula in its Pauline usage. A reading of each epistle in which the formula occurs demonstrates how the formula serves in each case to epitomize Paul's vision for social unity. Furthermore, the proposed model of ethnic identity formation serves to highlight how Paul warrants that social solidarity by appeal to the believers' fictive, genealogical connectedness and presumed shared origins and essence. Such contextualization of the formula within the social vision expressed in each epistle highlights how Paul patterns the believers' identity on Israel as reconfigured through the story of Christ Jesus' death and resurrection. This assessment of Pauline social identity formation depends on and contributes to apocalyptic understandings of Paul's gospel as well as the social emphasis of the so-called new perspective on Paul.

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The Beginning and Before: Interpreting Creation in Paul and Philo

WORTHINGTON, JONATHAN,DAVID (2010) 

God’s creative activity in the beginning is important to Paul. Yet Paul’s care for and interpretation of it is often unrecognized, occasionally denied, typically left underdeveloped, and sometimes interpreted wrongly. This thesis approaches Paul as an interpreter of his sacred scriptural texts concerning creation. It compares his reading of creation in 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans with those more detailed treatments of the same texts by Philo of Alexandria in his commentary on Genesis 1-2, De Opificio Mundi. The central thesis is this: Paul’s interpretation of creation, like Philo’s in his commentary, contains three interwoven aspects: the beginning of the world, the beginning of humanity, and God’s intentions before the beginning. Chapter 1, “Before the Beginning?,” explores Philo’s view that God’s pre-creational plan involves an architectural blueprint of the universe which enables goodness and beauty and Paul’s view that it involves a crucified Christ and a glory to which God-lovers are redeemed through conformity with this Christ’s image. There we will demonstrate that for Paul, as for Philo, the Before both affects and is affected by his reading of Genesis’ creation texts. Chapter 2, “The Beginning of the World,” establishes how Philo and Paul consider the ontological nature of heaven, earth, and their inhabitants to be beautiful and glorious due to perfect accord with God’s word, intentions, and desires—i.e., an implicit Before. Chapter 3, “The Beginning of Humanity,” investigates how Philo and Paul set the more particular creation of humanity within the larger context of the creation of the world, and how recognizing this aids in our own interpretation of some often misunderstood aspects of their views of Adam. God’s pre-creational “purpose” and “desire” is also an integral aspect of both interpreters’ treatments of the creation of humanity. Paul, like Philo, displays three tightly woven strands within his interpretation of the Beginning.

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Grace, Obedience, and the Hermeneutics of Agency: Paul and his Jewish Contemporaries on the Transformation of the Heart

WELLS, KYLE, BRANDON (2010)

This thesis examines how convictions about gift and grace integrate with conceptions of agency and obedience for Paul and for his Jewish contemporaries. While post-Sanders scholarship has rightly noted the coexistence of grace and works in the Pauline and Jewish literature, it has failed to account for the diverse and sophisticated ways in which those two concepts can coexist. Following recent intertextual studies, this thesis argues that ancient Jews read descriptions of ‘heart-transformation’ in Deuteronomy 30, Jeremiah 31–32 and Ezekiel 36 as the solution to human ineptitude. Paul was no exception and his reading of those texts had a profound influence on his articulations of divine grace and human agency. On Paul’s complex understanding moral competence is dependent upon divine agency and divine and human agencies co-exist and co inhere in, but never outside of, Christ.

Beyond advancing our understanding of the apostle’s agency dynamics, this thesis shows how Second Temple interpretations of texts that concern heart-transformation provide fruitful ways of comparing Paul and his contemporaries’ respective views regarding divine grace, human transformation, and humanity’s ability to obey God. While most Jews in this period did not set divine and human agency or grace and obedience in competition with one another, the precise forms grace took, the functions it performed, the spheres in which it operated, and the qualification for its receptions differed markedly and this would have contributed to vehement disagreements between Jews. Paul would not have been immune from such debates. While his views about grace and agency are not sui generis in every respect, he would have still appeared radical to most of his contemporaries.

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Conversion in Luke and Paul: Some Exegetical and Theological Explorations

MORLAN, DAVID,SCOTT (2010) 

This dissertation explores the conversion theologies of Luke and Paul. For Luke and Paul conversion played an important role in the early Christian experience and in this dissertation we take a fresh look into how they interpreted this phenomenon. We traverse representative texts in the Lukan and Pauline corpus equipped with three theological questions. What is the change involved in conversion? Why is conversion necessary? Who is responsible for conversion? In our theological and exegetical analysis of Luke 15, Acts 2, Acts 17:16-34, Romans 2 and Romans 9-11 we answer these three theological questions, which then builds a theological profile for both Luke and Paul. These profiles provide fresh insight into the theological relationship between Luke and Paul showing significant similarities as well as sharp contrasts between them. Differences emerge concerning their understanding of repentance as well as in the correlation between conversion and creation: for Luke, conversion is the restored imago dei of the original creation while for Paul it is a fresh act by God of New Creation. Similarities surface between Luke and Paul concerning the centrality of Christology in their conversion theologies. While showing a complex relationship between human and divine agency in conversion, both Luke and Paul understand successful conversion to be impossible without the intervention of an agency outside of the pre-convert.

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DIVINE AND HUMAN AGENCY IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM AND PAUL: A COMPARISON OF SIRACH, HODAYOT, AND ROMANS 7–8

MASTON, JASON (2009) 

Recent scholarship on Second Temple Judaism and Paul has maintained that both held “salvation” to be through God’s grace not human obedience. This study challenges this claim. Based on Josephus’ portrayal of the Jewish schools, the Second Temple period appears more diverse than recent scholarship has claimed. One of the key distinguishing factors, according to Josephus, is the relationship between divine and human action. This diversity is revealed in Sirach, the Hodayot, and Paul’s claims in Romans 7.7–8.13. Ben Sira argues that the divine-human relationship revolves around human obedience to the law. He utilises the two-ways tradition to develop his view. He describes God as re-acting to human obedience in judgment. The Hodayot, by contrast, emphasise God’s initiative and his saving actions. Humans are immeasurably corrupt creatures, but God, through his Spirit, predestines some, gives knowledge to them, and purifies them. These divine acts lead to human obedience. The study of Paul’s view on divine and human agency is extremely complex. Romans 7.7–8.13 is used as the way into Paul’s thought. In Romans 7.7–25, Paul portrays the speaker as the human agent of the two-ways tradition. He argues that this view fails to explain the problem of Sin. In Romans 8.1–13, he contends that obedience becomes possible because God has acted in his Son to condemn Sin.

Through the Spirit, God empowers believers to fulfil the righteous requirement of the law. This study challenges the idea that all of Judaism can be explained under a single view of salvation. Recognising the diversity allows one to situate Paul firmly within a Jewish context without distorting either the Jewish texts or Paul.

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Paul, the Oikonomos of God: Paul's Apostolic Metaphor in 1 Corinthians and its Graeco-Roman Context

GOODRICH, JOHN, KENNETH (2010) 

This thesis seeks to elucidate the nature of Paul’s apostleship and apostolic authority by investigating how Paul portrays himself as an oikonomos of God in 1 Corinthians (4.1-5; 9.16-23). Modern studies on the metaphor have failed to ascertain what apostolic attributes are implied by the image and how Paul utilised the metaphor to meet his rhetorical and theological objectives, largely because they neither identify the appropriate source domain of Paul’s metaphor nor conduct the necessary socio-historical research to illumine its application. Utilising a host of ancient sources to reconstruct the characteristics of the regal, municipal, and private administrators bearing this title, this study seeks to identify the metaphor’s source domain and to interpret the relevant Pauline discourses accordingly.

Part 1 surveys the three administrative contexts from Graeco-Roman antiquity in which oikonomoi are most frequently attested: Hellenistic kingdoms (Chapter 2), Graeco-Roman cities (Chapter 3), and private estates and enterprises (Chapter 4). While minor variations existed within these administrative contexts, a general profile is discernable in and constructed for each. Moreover, although the profiles of the oikonomoi serving in these contexts share certain similar social, structural, and disciplinary characteristics, these administrators are also shown to have significant differences.

Part 2 engages 1 Corinthians 4 and 9 seeking to identify and interpret Paul’s metaphor in both discourses. Chapter 5 demonstrates that, of the three source domains examined in Part 1, private commercial administration functions as the most plausible context in which to interpret Paul’s metaphor. Chapters 6 and 7 then utilise the profile of the private commercial administrator as a model to illumine Paul’s apostleship in 1 Cor 4.1-5 and 9.16-23 respectively and explains how Paul employs the image to meet his rhetorical and theological objectives in both passages.

Chapter 8 summarises the argument of the thesis and draws out the implications of Paul’s metaphor for understanding Paul’s theology of apostolic authority.

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Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria

BLACKWELL, BENJAMIN,CAREY (2010)

The aim of this thesis is to explore whether and to what extent theosis helpfully captures Paul's presentation of the anthropological dimension of soteriology. Drawing methodologically from Gadamer, Jauss, and Bakhtin, we attempt to hold a conversation between Paul and two of his later interpreters--Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria--in order to see what light the development of deification in these later writers shines on the Pauline texts themselves.

In Part 1 of the thesis, we analyse how Irenaeus and Cyril develop their notions of deification and how they use Pauline texts in support of their conclusions. Drawing from Ps 82 both writers ascribe to believers the appellation of 'gods', and they associate this primarily with Pauline texts that speak of the experience of immortality, sanctification, and being sons of God. As believers experience this deifying move the image and likeness of God is restored through a participatory relationship with God mediated by Christ and the Spirit.

In Part 2 we then analyse the anthropological dimension of Paul's soteriology in Rom 8 and 2 Cor 3-5, with excursus on Gal 3-4, 1 Cor 15, and Phil 2-3. In the context of believers' restored divine-human relationship through Christ and the Spirit, Paul speaks of believers being conformed to the narrative of Christ's death and life, which culminates in an experience of divine and heavenly glory and immortality.

In Part 3 we offer a comparison of patristic views of deification and Paul's soteriology. While differences are clear, we conclude that Paul's soteriology overlaps significantly with that of these two later interpreters, such that deification is an apt description of the anthropological dimension of his soteriology. At the same time, christosis is probably a better term in today's context to capture his distinct emphasis on embodying Christ's death and life.

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