Rhetoric, History, and Theology: Interpreting the New Testament 9781978709720, 9781978709737, 1978709722

Citation preview

Rhetoric, History, and Theology

Rhetoric, History, and Theology Interpreting the New Testament

Edited by Todd D. Still and Jason A. Myers

LEXINGTON BOOKS/FORTRESS ACADEMIC

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Lexington Books is an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2022 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Still, Todd D., editor. | Myers, Jason A., 1984- editor. Title: Rhetoric, history, and theology : interpreting the New Testament / edited by Todd D. Still, Jason A. Myers. Description: Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “In Rhetoric, History, and Theology: Interpreting the New Testament, the contributors interpret the New Testament and early Christian literature in light of their rhetorical, historical, and theological elements”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021057114 (print) | LCCN 2021057115 (ebook) | ISBN 9781978709720 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978709737 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. Classification: LCC BS2361.3 .R485 2022 (print) | LCC BS2361.3 (ebook) | DDC 225.6—dc23/eng/20220119 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021057114 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021057115 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Ben

Contents

List of Tables

ix

Editors’ Preface

xi

1 Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch Bill T. Arnold

1

2 Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context Amy-Jill Levine

21

3 Why Is John’s Gospel Different? Richard Bauckham

41

4 Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel Gary M. Burge

55

5 The Obedient Son: Jesus’s Sonship in Light of Ancient Honor Conventions Craig S. Keener 6 The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts David A. deSilva 7 Resisting Aristotle: Marital Rule in 1 Corinthians 7 and the Household Codes Judith M. Gundry

77 93

107

8 Sister Phoebe: Ἀδελφή as an Honorific Descriptor in Rom 16:1–2 137 Nijay K. Gupta

vii

viii

Contents

9 Eusebeia as Social Respectability: The Public Life of the Christian Pastor Scot McKnight 10 Rhetoric from the Rusticas: In Search of the Historical Timothy and Implications for the Rhetoric of 1–2 Timothy Jason A. Myers

161

179

11 Onesimus: Still A Runaway Slave Jeffrey A. D. Weima

201

12 Paul and “the Good”: A Survey of the Subject Todd D. Still

231

13 Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More: The Contribution of Rhetorical Analysis Duane F. Watson

243

14 The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God: Theological and Ecumenical Reflections N. T. Wright

257

15 “I am a Christian”: Blandina’s Example of Christian Endurance and Courage Lynn H. Cohick

275

16 The Christology of Jesus: Another Look Thirty Years Later Craig A. Evans

297

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

315

About the Contributors

333

List of Tables

Table 3.1 “Love” in the Gospels Table 3.2 God Loves, Jesus Loves Table 3.3 “Love” in the Gospel of John

ix

49 49 50

Editors’ Preface

Any scholar approaching the New Testament is confronted with a multiplicity of tasks. There is the time period in which the text under discussion was written, the way in which it was written, and the attempted aim(s) of its author(s) in their purpose and plan for producing such a text. In short, when one approaches the New Testament one is met with history, rhetoric, and theology. All three of these domains can be intimidating in their own right, and many have sequestered themselves off into one of the particular aspects of New Testament interpretation. This volume seeks to bring together all three on a variety of texts to show their importance and necessity for interpreting the New Testament. Each of these essays embodies the tasks described above and shows their relevance for interpreting various New Testament texts. The scholars enlisted for such a task are excellent guides on the journey, modeling the practices embodied in the aim of this book, which is to show how history, rhetoric, and theology are interrelated to one another. These three domains are highlighted and reflected in the various essays of this volume. In their own unique ways, the authors and essays raise important questions for critical reflection and show how various tools aid us in understanding the overall form and function of a New Testament passage or topic. The topics of the essays represent some of the more pressing questions in New Testament studies, and the authors adeptly explain the importance of the various discussions surrounding them and their impact on the discipline. Ben Witherington is widely known and highly respected among those who are interested and involved in New Testament interpretation. Indeed, few biblical scholars of any era have been more prolific and have reached more readers in both the church and the academy than he. The varied categories of this honorific volume represent his wide range of interests as well as the impact of his lifetime of scholarship and service. xi

xii

Editors’ Preface

Many were first introduced to Ben Witherington through his early work on women in the New Testament. His groundbreaking doctoral thesis, written under the direction of the learned Methodist New Testament scholar C. K. Barrett at the University of Durham, and later published, ignited investigation into women mentioned in the New Testament and paved the way for subsequent scholars to explore the considerable and invaluable role women played within early Christianity. Ben is best known, however, for his commentaries. Impressively, he has offered substantive, expansive commentary on every single New Testament book—all twenty-seven of them! Indeed, the import and impact of his commentaries for the study and proclamation of the New Testament in churches both in North America and around the world has been vast. That being said, few know that Ben’s desire to write these commentaries stemmed primarily from his concern and heart for theologically sound, exegetically insightful preaching within the Wesleyan tradition. Seeing the dearth of commentaries written from a decidedly Wesleyan perspective, Ben sent out to rectify that problem, and that he did. As a result, a generation of preachers and teachers, both in and beyond Wesleyanism, have been shaped by his commentary work. Undoubtedly, the influence of his commentaries will continue. Rhetorical study as it pertains to the New Testament is another wellknown aspect of Ben’s academic work. He has helped to situate rhetorical study squarely within the field of New Testament and has helped colleagues and students alike to see the New Testament anew in light of ancient GrecoRoman rhetoric, which shapes, in turn, how one thinks and speaks about biblical texts. This collection of essays is offered to Ben Witherington in the celebration of his seventieth birthday, as an expression of gratitude from his friends and colleagues whose own work has been shaped and strengthened by his own. Some essays in this volume are written in light of Ben’s work, while others take up topics that fall within Ben’s wide-ranging interests in the New Testament, theology, and rhetoric. Each essay bears the mark of Ben’s creative insights, his vision for New Testament interpretation, and his love for the church. The authors hope that these essays will be both a source of encouragement to Ben and a testimony to the impact that he has had on New Testament studies. We also trust these essays will offer some insight and provoke more interest in topics that have long occupied Ben. As editors, we are most thankful for the work of the contributors, who graciously and enthusiastically responded to our invitation to honor Ben in this manner and helped to keep this project a secret over many months. We are also especially thankful for Lisa Meister, Todd Still’s graduate assistant at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary, for editing the essays and compiling the bibliographies. We also want to extend a sincere word of thanks to Neil

Editors’ Preface

xiii

Elliott and the team at Lexington Books/Fortress Academic for taking on this project and for helping to bring it to pass. Ben, we join our colleagues and friends in wishing you a happy seventieth birthday as well as ongoing joy and productivity in your life and ministry. Our hope is that this volume will be meaningful to you and valuable to the church and the academy even as your voluminous work has been. Todd D. Still, Baylor University, Truett Seminary Jason A. Myers, Greensboro College

Chapter 1

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch Bill T. Arnold

γνωρίσας ἡμῖν τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ . . . (Ephesians 1:9)

Christians around the world and through the ages agree on this chief postulate of Christian doctrine, as articulated by Thomas C. Oden: “God has taken initiative to make God’s purpose known, to become self-disclosed, [and] to address humanity through human history. The shorthand term for this primary postulate is revelation.”1 In my theological tradition, we believe “that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined in tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.”2 The concept is assumed in our Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed, going back beyond the creed to New Testament times (Rom 1:17–19), which is itself rooted in Israel’s salvation history known in the plagues and exodus event (Exod 1–24). These then are the origins of our doctrine of revelation. While everyone agrees that God’s revelation is foundational to what we believe as Christians, theologians do not agree on the form(s) of revelation.3 Contributing to the lack of consensus is the reality that too few handbooks or introductory textbooks provide adequate biblical foundations for the doctrine, and most treatments of Old Testament revelation focus nearly exclusively on the Sinai revelation of Exod 19–24 and Deut 4.4 Our understanding of divine self-disclosure, therefore, may be impoverished, or at least, less than thoroughly understood, because we have failed to explore the earliest expressions of this concept in the Bible. This failure likely reflects a general failure in the pew and the pulpit to grasp the fundamentals of the self-revelation of God in Scripture. This brief study addresses the problem by investigating, first, the lexical and literary specifics of divine self-disclosure in the ancestral narratives of Genesis, then the relationship of those appearances to the exodus event, and 1

2

Bill T. Arnold

finally, I will offer a few implications of this approach to our constructions of divine revelation and its significance in Christian theology. This investigation will examine the details of two specific appearances of Yhwh to Abraham to discern the nature and consequences of those appearances, in order better to understand their possible connections with the definitive text of divine revelation in the Old Testament, that of the Sinai revelation. This may secondarily offer a contribution to Christian theologizing about divine self-disclosure more generally. DIVINE SELF-REVEALING IN THE ANCESTRAL NARRATIVES OF GENESIS In order to adequately understand the significance of Yhwh’s appearances in the ancestral narratives (Gen 12–36), it will be necessary to review two preliminary matters before turning to the textual details. The first is the consistent and nearly ubiquitous way deities are portrayed in iconographic evidence found in the ancient Near East. Temples and cult sites throughout the ancient world, including Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Anatolian Hittites, exhibited “a remarkable general commonality . . . regarding conceptions of deity and divine presence.”5 That remarkable commonality can be summarized as representing the gods and goddesses in one of four well-attested forms: anthropomorphic, theriomorphic, mixed, or inanimate objects.6 For our purposes, it is enough to observe at the outset of this investigation that, regardless of our interpretation of the ancient perceptions of these images, it was widely assumed the gods could be represented physically and that the sheer physicality of the deity revealed some specific feature of that deity’s powers and persona. The second preliminary matter is the primal instinct associated with writing in the ancient world, which was a mystical or numinous thing, sometimes even magical. The first written texts were mnemonic tools—means for aiding the memory instead of communicating something entirely new. We have reason to believe that most ancient texts were not written in a way that could be understood except by someone who already knew the text well. The first scripts were extremely complex and could only be read and written by specialists with a great deal of training. When the alphabet was first invented, it had no way of indicating vowels so that it still did not reflect spoken language closely. Instead, we might think of the written text as a musical score for a musician who knows the piece well. Some musicians can sight-read better than others, but most would need to know the music well before “reading” the score.7 Even behind the written text, which seemed mysterious and wonderful in its own way, the words themselves were thought to have their own

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

3

power in the ancient world. The power of the written word seemed enhanced by its inaccessibility. Especially in predominantly oral cultures, spoken words had their own power. The religious practices of polytheism in both Egypt and Mesopotamia routinely assumed the reality of performative magic. Such magic sometimes involved a physical action but usually also included the use of words to be recited. In ancient Israel, the emotional power of the spoken word was quite real. For example, the verbal naming of a child at birth was perceived as revealing profound truth about the newborn child (Gen 4:1). Similarly, the pronunciation of God’s name was not to be taken lightly (Gen 32:29; Judg 13:17–18). We will have occasion to return to this topic at the conclusion of this chapter. The textual details of Yhwh’s self-revelation to Israel’s ancestors in Gen 12–36 are relatively straightforward. The first appearance of Yhwh to Abram is paradigmatic for the others. The great progenitor of ancient Israel has obediently abandoned everything in his life that is a source of comfort and security, launching out to a life of uncertainty, and arriving at a place called Shechem (12:1–6). He comes to the oak of Moreh, not as a settler but as a visitor, to a sacred site, the māqôm of Shechem, being most likely a noted cultic site where one could expect to receive divine oracles or revelations (“Moreh” apparently connoting “teacher” or perhaps “diviner”;8 see also Gen 35:4; Deut 11:30; Josh 24:26; and Judg 9:6,37). In this moment, when Abram was likely seeking confirmation that he had acted wisely in obeying Yhwh, the text presents us with the first recorded appearance (12:7). ‫ַויּ ֵָרא יְ הוָה֙ אֶ ל־אַבְ ָ ֔רם ַו ֕יּ ֹאמֶ ר‬ ‫אָרץ הַ ֑זּ ֹאת‬ ֶ ָ‫לְ ַ֨ז ְרע ֲָ֔ך אֶ ֵ ֖תּן אֶ ת־ה‬ “Then Yhwh appeared to Abram, saying, ‘To your seed I will give this land.’”9

The verb wayyērā’, “then [Yhwh] appeared,” is the common root to see (*r’h), here occurring in the causative-reflexive use of the N-stem, with the meaning become visible or appear. With this nuance, the subject, in this case, Yhwh, is at the same time object (or recipient) of the action, which here may also denote permission.10 We might consider a more dynamically equivalent translation, such as “Then Yhwh allowed himself to be seen by/to Abram.”11 To illustrate the general connotation of N-stem *r’h, consider these occurrences in non-theophanic contexts in Genesis. (1) “. . . and let the dry land appear” (wǝtērā’eh; N-stem, jussive, third, fem, singular; Gen 1:9) (2) “. . . the mountain tops appeared” (nir’û; N-stem, perfect, third, common, plural; Gen 8:5)

4

Bill T. Arnold

(3) “. . . and [when] the rainbow is seen in the clouds” (wǝnir’ătâ; N-stem, irreal perfect, third, feminine, singular; Gen 9:14) (4) “[Joseph] presented himself to [Jacob]” (wayyērā’; N-stem, imperfect with waw consecutive, third, masculine, singular; Gen 46:29) Gen 12:7 is the first occurrence of the term in revelatory speech to the ancestors. The substance of the appearance is contained in the words “to your seed I will give this land.” The promises given in 12:2–3 are ambiguous and amorphous until finally given specificity in this utterance. And that is the point of divine revelation in Genesis. When Yhwh appeared to Abram, the common verb of visual-sensory perception, to “see,” is used. But what Abram actually saw is not the point. Instead, we are drawn in this instance immediately to the content of what Yhwh said by the epexegetical use of the next past narrative of the verse, wayyō’mer, “and [Yhwh ] said.” Although this use of the past narrative could serve a sequential connotation—first Yhwh appeared, and then he spoke—the common use of this term, saying, to expand or clarify the immediately preceding clause, is more likely here.12 Alternatively, we may think of the sequential and the epexegetical as working in tandem; “the major fact or situation is stated first, and then the particulars or details, component or concomitant situations are filled in.”13 That seems to be the case here; the content of the divine speech is superimposed on the vision of Yhwh. By diverting the reader away from the vision of God, actually sidestepping the specifics of the appearance of Yhwh itself, the text articulates instead the plans Yhwh has for Abram: promises of seed and land, which counter the fear Abram has of knowing that “at that time the Canaanites were in the land” (v. 6). This territory, which will in time become known as the “promised land,” is inhabited by others, and Abram can only be aware of his tenuous and uncertain status in their midst. The promises of the divine revelation are his only source of comfort and security. The second appearance of Yhwh to Abram using the verb wayyērā’ is similar (17:1). ‫ן־תּ ְשׁ ִ ֥עים שָׁ נָ ֖ה וְ ֵ ֣תשַׁ ע שָׁ ִנ֑ים‬ ִ ֶ‫וַיְ ִ ֣הי אַבְ ָ ֔רם בּ‬ ‫י־אל שַׁ ֔ ַדּי‬ ֣ ֵ ִ‫ַויּ ָ ֵ֨רא יְ ה ֜ ָוה אֶ ל־אַבְ ָ ֗רם ַו ֤יּ ֹאמֶ ר אֵ לָיו֙ אֲנ‬ ‫הִ ְתהַ לֵּ ְ֥ך לְ פָנַ ֖י וֶהְ יֵ ֥ה תָ ִ ֽמים׃‬ When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yhwh appeared to Abram, saying, “I am El Shadday walk before me and be blameless.”

Here again, that which has “become visible” is suppressed by the narrative that drives immediately to the content of divine speech. Whereas we might ask what precisely did Abram see, the text is not interested in sensory details.14

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

5

Yhwh causes himself to be seen by Abram or reveals himself to him, pulling back the curtain of human limitation as it were, allowing himself—even presenting himself—in theophanic certainty. And yet paradoxically, the text shows no interest in what Abram sees. Because of the recurrence of the term in this way in the ancestral narratives, we understand wayyērā’ to become a technical term by means of its unfolding repetitions, denoting intentionally the revelatory appearance of Yhwh to Israel’s ancestors. But in each case, what the patriarch sees is not the issue but rather what he hears. This second occurrence, like that of 12:7, uses wayyō’mer, “and [Yhwh] said” to mark the actual beginning of the revelation. This time, Abram hears Yhwh identify himself as El Shadday, most likely denoting something like “God of the Wilderness.”15 Much more could be said about the revelation of this special patriarchal name, El Shadday, but for our purposes, it is enough to observe that the revelatory speech moves quickly to the volitional string, “walk before me and be blameless.”16 Instead of revealing Yhwh’s future plan for Abram as at 12:7, this occurrence of divine self-revealing begins by giving insight into the character of Yhwh and moves immediately to Yhwh’s expectations for the character of Abram. The blamelessness required here of Abram has both positive and negative aspects, appealing to positive ethical actions and the absence of negative characteristics.17 This call for holiness introduces the covenant relationship Yhwh is establishing with Abram, henceforth known as Abraham, and exemplifies the character of all Israelites in the future, who name Abraham as the father of their faith. These first two occurrences of wayyērā’ are paradigmatic for the others in the ancestral narratives. It gradually becomes a terminus technicus for unique, divine self-revealing in these narratives; an otherwise ordinary word is hereby given extraordinary significance. Yhwh is the Israelite God of miraculous plagues, deliverance from slavery, and covenant relationship. In these ancestral narratives, Yhwh is also the personal God of Revelation for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This specific form of the term occurs again at Gen 18:1 (Abraham again), 26:2, 24 (Isaac), and 35:9 (Jacob). In addition to these six occurrences of the past narrative (wayyērā’), the N-stem of *r’h occurs four more times in Genesis in revelatory contexts: Gen 12:7; 22:14; 35:1; 48:3.18 Yhwh appears to the ancestors at critical junctures of their individual faith journeys in moments for learning more about Yhwh and for making critical, life-altering decisions. The emphasis is never on the physical appearance of that which is seen but on the content of the truth revealed or communicated about God and about the patriarch. In most cases, the “appearance” becomes a verbal communiqué from God instead of a vision of God’s physicality. These communiqués reveal more of the character of God and give direction or comfort to the patriarch. Perhaps, in order to understand why the verb see is used at all, we might think in terms of the concept of divine

6

Bill T. Arnold

accommodation.19 In order for any theophany in the Bronze Age to be legitimate, in all probability, a physical appearance would have been expected. The text intends us to imagine that Abram did, in fact, see God in some form or fashion. But the traditions were developed in a way to minimize that reality as Israelites began to understand the secondary significance of God’s physicality.20 Divine self-revealing to the ancestors is not given in order to satisfy human curiosity about God, but rather to deepen the relationship in a way that inspires the patriarch to press forward in obedience. And this revelation, with its particularizing speech of promises, was enough for Abram. His response? He built an altar and worshipped (12:7b–8).21 THE BOOK OF EXODUS AND THE SINAI APPEARANCE OF Yhwh The ancestral covenant has rightly been called “the Old Testament of the Old Testament.”22 In the canonical flow of things, Yhwh’s relationship with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob adumbrates and prepares for his relationship with Israel. Abraham’s experiences are to mirror theirs; his obedience, sojourns, and his covenant with Yhwh find expression in Israel’s. Not surprisingly then, this concept of God’s self-revelatory communication has profound parallels later when Yhwh reveals himself to Moses and the Israelites. The first occurrence of N-stem *r’h in Exodus is in the account of the angel of Yhwh, who “appeared” (wayyērā’) to Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:2; and cf. 4:1,5). Surely, as one reads from Genesis to Exodus, the use of this technical term for divine self-revealing from the ancestral period is intentional here in Exod 3:2. Indeed, the sheer physicality of the vision and the impossibility of a desert bush burning in such a way without being consumed caught Moses’s attention and drew him into dialogue with Yhwh (Exod 3:3).23 And like the appearances of Yhwh to the ancestors, that which Moses sees is irrelevant to the narrative. The “messenger of Yhwh” (mal’ak Yhwh) is without description despite other appearances in the Hebrew Bible,24 and the “bush” (sǝneh) from which Yhwh speaks is a nondescript shrub, a noun occurring only six times in the Bible (Exod 3:2 [3×], 3,4; Deut 33:16).25 The presence of the bush, however, is not as representation of Yhwh but nothing more than an attention-getter for the wayward Moses. Instead of a description of physical numinous presence, Moses hears a command not to draw closer. Instead, he must remove his sandals because the “place” (or cult site, māqôm, see Gen 12:6; Exod 20:24; Deut 12:2,5) is holy ground. The text assiduously avoids any description of the physicality of Yhwh and refers instead to the messenger’s appearance “in a flame of fire from the center of the bush” (v. 2) and a voice “from the midst of the bush” (v. 4), and further

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

7

to the surroundings, that is, the holy ground around the bush (v. 5). No eye may gaze upon God. The text deflects the question of the physicality of Yhwh by directing attention to what is below, around, or above him (cf. Isa 6:2). In this case, as with the appearances to the ancestors of Genesis, the revelation itself is introduced with an epexegetical wayyō’mer, “and [Yhwh] said,” introducing another predicate nominative for identification: “I am the God of your father” (Exod 3:6). As with the ancestors of old, what Moses sees is not the issue, but rather what he hears; the revelatory “I am . . .” proclamation (and, of course, see Exod 3:14). The book of Exodus has six other occurrences of the verb N-stem *r’h for unique divine revelation. For example, in a passage deliberately linking the Mosaic revelation together with the earlier ancestral covenant, Yhwh declares that he “appeared” (wā’ērā’, past narrative, first common singular) to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shadday but not as Yhwh (Exod 6:3). Interestingly in this context, the verb used for self-revelation is the N-stem of *yd‘; that is, “by my name, ‘Yhwh’ I did not make myself known” (nôdaʿtî; N-stem, perfect first common singular), which parallels and contributes meaning to the N-stem of *r’h under consideration here.26 Beyond these particular lexical specifics, God reveals himself to Israel through pillars of cloud and fire (Exod 13:21–22; Num 9:15–23), theophanies of thunder and lightning and trumpet blast (Exod 19:16), or through divinely approved Urim and Thummim (Exod 28:30; Lev 8:8; Num 27:21; 1 Sam 23:1–6). We conclude from these references that Yhwh is paradoxically a hidden God who reveals himself—a transcendent God of imminence and nearness.27 This survey of the occurrences of N-stem *r’h in Genesis and Exodus suggests they prepare the reader for the great Sinai revelation (Exod 19–24), which itself does not use this particular articulation of self-revealing. And yet, on the occasion of the burning bush revelation, Yhwh assured Moses that Moses would return to Sinai and worship on the mountain with the newly liberated people as a sign that Yhwh had guided, delivered, and protected (Exod 3:12). The Sinai revelation is the fulfillment of that promise and clearly a pinnacle of God’s self-disclosing agenda. In some ways, all that we have surveyed so far—that is, the pattern in which divine appearances are reconfigured by the narrative in order to introduce verbal revelation of God’s will and way—now comes to full expression in the Sinai revelation, even without the use of the N-stem *r’h. We turn now to a brief consideration of this remarkable passage, in which Yhwh comes down on a mountain to reveal himself to Israel. The relatively straightforward literary structure of Exod 19–24 belies an inner complexity making it nearly impossible to read as a continuous narrative.28 The details of that complexity are considerably beyond the scope of the present study, but the following literary units are apparent.

8

Bill T. Arnold

Preparations for the Theophany (19:1–15) Theophany at Sinai (19:16–25) Ten Commandments (20:1–21) Book of the Covenant (20:22–23:33) Covenant Ceremony (24:1–18)

In particular, Exod 19:16–19 itself is a sub-paragraph of the divine appearance at Sinai. Here at the mountain of God, Israel experienced Yhwh in thunder and lightning, thick cloud, trumpet blast, smoke enfolding the mountain, fire, and finally, the violent shaking of the mountain itself.29 Without getting into the details of this pyrotechnic display, it is sufficient to observe that this is a remarkable, and remarkably obscure, example of ancient Near Eastern theophany. As we have seen, ancients expected to encounter deity in humanform, animal-form, or some admixture of the two. This is truly a remarkable “theophany” because, in point of fact, we have no actual theophany at all; this is no appearance of Yhwh as such. What we have is a description of the dramatic effects of Yhwh’s advent, describing what is occurring around, above, and beneath God’s actual physical arrival at Sinai. Like other theophanies we have surveyed, the text carefully avoids any suggestion of the physicality of God. Yet here we actually do have details of what is seen (and heard!) unlike the occurrences of *r’h in the ancestral narratives. Despite the differences with earlier theophanies, the central observation I offer here is that the same pattern is at work in the Sinai narrative; that is, the text minimizes the physicality of God in order to move immediately to the verbal content. In the great Sinai revelation of Exod 19–24, the principle of accommodation allows for much more dramatic and profound descriptions of the effects of Yhwh’s appearance. Yet, the impact of that appearance is nuanced even further in Deut 4, a theological treatise based on this very movement from physical appearance to content-based revelation. This great sermonic discourse asserts that the Israelites of the wilderness generation were eyewitnesses of miraculous events, “signs and wonders,” and “terrifying displays of power,” which they must never forget (Deut 4:9,34–35). They themselves stood before Yhwh at Horeb, while God declared the reason for their presence at the foot of the mountain was to hear his “words” in order to learn to fear him and to teach his words to their children (v. 10). As we shall see, the “words” in view are the Ten Commandments and the legal stipulations and ordinances derived from them.30 One of the central points of the discourse is precisely what the Israelites saw at the foot of the mountain—or more to the point, what they did not see. Standing before Yhwh at Mount Sinai, the Deuteronomy parallel focuses on the blaze and smoke (v. 11) of Exod 19:16–19, leaving off, for the moment, the thunder, lightning, and trumpet blast. In that setting and at that moment, Yhwh “spoke” (wayyǝdabbēr)

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

9

to the Israelites from the midst of the fire (v. 12), which is unprecedented in human history: “has any people ever heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire” (v. 33). Pressing the point, Moses explains “you heard the sound of words” (qôl debārîm) but “you saw no form” (tĕmûnâ, “form, likeness, representation,” that is, no cultic image).31 There was nothing to see—“only a voice.”32 The next verse (v. 13) drives home even further the content of Yhwh’s speech with increasing specificity. He “declared” (wayyaggēd) to the wilderness generation “his covenant” (bǝrîtô), which is here defined as the Ten Words (ʿăśeret haddǝbārîm, aka, the Ten Commandments). The smoke, fire, trumpet blast—all of it—is there merely as a backdrop for the central feature of Israel’s relationship with Yhwh. The covenant, with its life-giving and life-sustaining Ten Words, comprises the sole content of the revelation of Yhwh. All else is an accompaniment in order to make it memorable. And this is remarkably highlighted further by the closing words of v. 13: “then he [Yhwh] wrote them (wayyiktǝbēm) on two stone tablets.” By Yhwh’s own handwriting and signature, the process is now complete (cf. 9:10; Exod 31:28); divine appearance has been minimized in order to move to spoken word of revelation, and from spoken word to written word.33 The introduction to both renditions of the Ten Commandments begins with an assertion of God speaking (Exod 20:1; Deut 5:4).34 And in both cases, the beginning of divine speech is a first-person self-revealing “I am Yhwh your God” (Exod 20:2; Deut 5:6), similar to revelatory speech to the ancestors.35 Critical scholarship on both the Sinai revelation of Exod 19–24 and Deuteronomy’s re-use of these materials has long noted that the Decalogue interrupts the narrative of the Sinai theophany, and this has led to a consensus that the Ten Commandments were secondarily inserted into the narrative.36 Others have shown that, despite the loose connection between the Decalogue and its immediate narrative context, there are nevertheless literary links that may be taken as indications that the Decalogue is critical to the narrative of the book of Exodus in its canonical form.37 While most still assume the Ten Commandments were a later intrusion in the text, a synchronic reading of Exodus 19–24 cannot miss this point. A distinct literary progression from appearance to communication is paralleled in nearly every respect by the ancestral narratives of Genesis. That is, a dramatic, divine self-revelation is quickly minimized in its effects, without specific description of God’s physicality, in order to introduce verbal communication from Yhwh, in which he initiates a covenant relationship. Our doctrine of revelation needs to be mindful of this movement in the text from divine appearance to verbal content. Ultimately, God is not known through the physical or phenomenological context of the Sinai theophany, even for the ancient Israelites. The articulation of the nature of Yhwh in Israel’s covenant and its Ten Words illustrates that he cannot be understood

10

Bill T. Arnold

by means of thunder, lightning, smoke, and fire, but only through the verbal articulation of his covenanting love for Israel, and then only “dimly” and “in part.”38 As Christopher Wright puts it, “The very heart of Israel’s creedal faith is addressed to their ears (in explicit contrast to their eyes—‘you saw no form’) as something to be heard and heeded—a disclosure of reality that is both propositional and relational.”39 This investigation has confirmed, through an examination of the lexical and syntactical specifics of Yhwh’s appearances in Genesis and Exodus, what was observed many years ago by James Thomson regarding the twofold nature of divine revelation in the Old Testament: Everywhere in the Old Testament the activity of God as a medium of His selfdisclosure is wedded to the Word of God. So closely connected are they that the act and the Word are sometimes synonymous; and if not identical, they are simultaneous. It would seem that often the activity without the Word could not be a medium of revelation.40

IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR UNDERSTANDING OF REVELATION AND SCRIPTURE In an earlier era of biblical interpretation, it was commonly and widely assumed that Jewish authors of the post-exilic period killed the vibrant religion of Israel’s prophets, and entombed it in the law. Wellhausen’s famous dictum that the law of Moses was not “the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel” but rather “for that of Judaism” was a turning point in biblical interpretation.41 His language for early Judaism’s law was often laced with themes of death, dying, and decay: The great pathologist of Judaism [the Apostle Paul] is quite right: in the Mosaic theocracy the cultus became a pedagogic instrument of discipline. It is estranged from the heart; its revival was due to old custom, it would never have blossomed again of itself. It no longer has its roots in child-like impulse, it is a dead work, in spite of all the importance attached to it, nay, just because of the anxious conscientiousness with which it was gone about. At the restoration of Judaism the old usages were patched together in a new system, which, however, only served as the form to preserve something that was nobler in its nature, but could not have been saved otherwise than in a narrow shell that stoutly resisted all foreign influences.42

In another place, Wellhausen opined that “it is a thing which is likely to occur, that a body of traditional practice should only be written down when

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

11

it is threatening to die out, and that a book should be, as it were, the ghost of a life which is closed.”43 Of course, Wellhausen’s position has been widely critiqued because of his embedded anti-Semitism, and his failure to allow the possibility that legal materials (oral or written) may originate early in a society’s history.44 In light of the results of this brief investigation, quite the opposite of Wellhausen’s view should be said of early Judaism and its impulse to become a religion “of the book” (as said often in the Quran’s “people of the book”). In fact, we might suggest that, instead of the gradual killing of Israel’s religious vitality, it was the great insight and genius of the exile, or perhaps later with the scribe Ezra and the Jews of the post-exilic period, that the proponents of earliest Judaism realized the intent of divine revelation all along, and therefore it is to Judaism’s credit that they preserved, copied, and continued to develop the written Torah. In this case, we owe a great debt to Judaism, and we understand the Apostle Paul, not as Judaism’s “great pathologist,” as though he were diagnosing all that was wrong with Judaism, but as the first framer of a new Judaism in light of the arrival of the Messiah. At the outset of this investigation, I observed that writing and text composition in the ancient world was a nearly mystical or numinous thing. At some point in Israel’s history, an important transition occurred from the power of speech to the power of the written word. The advent of the written text as a source of authority was transformative. Now, a recorded text could be just as authoritative and powerful as a spoken word. We cannot know precisely when this idea first took root in ancient Israel, but the book of Deuteronomy dramatically reflects the process, as a written Torah of Moses meant to replace God’s copy of the Ten Words, and indeed, the man Moses himself.45 God wrote laws on stone tablets; Moses wrote the Torah in a book. Like the stone tablets, the Torah is deposited with the priests in the Ark of the Covenant, which means of course, it is not accessible. But Deuteronomy is available. The book of Deuteronomy has become a surrogate for another book—the Torah, and for the prophet Moses himself. At some point in history, Old Testament believers came to value the authority of written texts as few cultures before them had. The transition from the power of speech to the power of the written text provides insight into the very origins of the Old Testament itself. The newly inscripturated word was almost immediately accepted as a text with its own innate religious authority. And this also helps us understand the concept of “Scripture” and why it remains so central for the church today. We believe “that this world is not self-explanatory and that some communication from beyond it is necessary to explain it.”46 That communication is itself divine revelation. The biblical data indicate a movement in the text from divine self-revealing or appearance to divine verbal articulation of God’s purposes and plans for, first the

12

Bill T. Arnold

ancestors, and then for all Israel. In fact, the data investigated here suppress or minimize the physicality of those appearances as part of an intense focus instead on verbal communication with humanity. These earliest expressions of divine self-revealing in the Bible add depth-perception and perspective to the Great Tradition of ancient Israel preserved in the Sinai revelation itself.47 There is a homiletical payoff to all this. These appearances to Abraham and Moses are warnings that we humans have not changed much since their day: our lust for the sensational means we miss the profound. Rather than striving to behold what is not suitable for mere humans to attain, we should celebrate with Christians everywhere and in all centuries, the word that God “has made known48 to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:9–10, NRSV).49 And like Father Abraham and Moses, the Apostle Paul responded to God’s revelation with praise and thanksgiving (Gen 12:7; Exod 24:1; Eph 1:3–14), modeling for us the proper Christian response to divine revelation. NOTES 1. Thomas C. Oden, Systematic Theology, Volume One: The Living God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987), 17, and on the distinction between general and special revelation, see pages 17–26; Beth Felker Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014), 33–39; and specific to the Old Testament, see Dale Patrick, The Rhetoric of Revelation in the Hebrew Bible, OBT (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1999). This chapter was originally a paper presented at Asbury Seminary’s annual Interdisciplinary Colloquium (October 13, 2017), and dedicated to the memory of Mr. Paul S. Amos. It first appeared in print in The Asbury Journal 73, no. 2 (2018): 85–103. Ben Witherington III was in the audience at the colloquium and was immediately enthusiastic about the study’s data and conclusions. It was gratifying to see the published version cited liberally in his next opus, Biblical Theology: The Convergence of the Canon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019). Its inclusion in the current volume testifies to Ben’s thorough grounding in the Hebrew Scriptures and their continuing significance in his own work, and for contemporary theology and ethics more generally. As the opening paragraph suggests, an in-depth familiarity with revelation as a chief postulate of Christian doctrine is fundamental to one’s theological system. It is hoped this wider distribution of the data points in the Pentateuch will contribute to Ben’s ongoing project of doing theology for today’s Christian readers. 2. The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016 (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2016), §105, page 82, emphasis added. 3. So, for example, should we think of revelation as propositional doctrine, history, inner experience, dialectical presence, new awareness, or symbolic mediation?

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

13

See Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992); Victor I. Ezigbo, Introducing Christian Theologies: Voices from Global Christian Communities, 2 vols. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013), 1:36–54. While this brief investigation makes no attempt to resolve these questions unequivocally, the textual data presented here address divine self-disclosure in the Pentateuch as a combination of the first two of these options. 4. Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker, OTL, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), 1:37–38 and 58; Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology (New York: Harper, 1962), 1:8. In recent decades, Walter Brueggemann and John Goldingay have reinvigorated the discussion of Old Testament theology by focusing on the narrative theology of the Hebrew Scriptures, following the canonical order of a series of divine acts, or in Brueggemann’s case, an adaptation of the biblical metaphor of “trial,” Israel’s own testimony about Yhwh. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997); John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology, 3 vols. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003, 2006, and 2009). Neither, however, has adequately addressed the intentionality of God’s self-disclosure to Israel’s ancestors in Genesis. Brueggemann explores God as the subject of Israel’s utterance, which is (metaphorically) stated in the sentence as the unity of testimony, having an active and transformative verb (which we may think of as causative Hiphils), and a direct object, the one transformed by the action, constituting the full sentence of Israel’s testimony, which then becomes or is taken as revelation. (We cannot address here the problem of historicity or ontology in Brueggemann’s approach, which raises altogether different sets of questions.) Yet surprisingly, even when he specifically addresses the verbs used in Israel’s predicative theologizing about God, Brueggemann fails to take up the significance of Yhwh’s “appearance” to the ancestors. Israel’s core theologizing is marked by verbs of transformation; God “creates,” “promises,” “delivers,” “commands,” and “leads” (145–202). In Brueggemann’s model, “testimony becomes revelation,” by which he means that the “testimony that Israel bears to the character of God is taken by the ecclesial community of the text as a reliable disclosure about the true character of God” (121–22). To his categories, I propose adding “Yhwh, the God Who Reveals (Himself),” and without denying entirely his “transportation from testimony to revelation,” I also believe the concept of revelation itself was more central to Israel’s core theologizing, and that this can be seen by observing the use of another verb in the books of Genesis and Exodus, as we shall see. Goldingay helpfully focuses on the narrative sequence, following the order of God’s acts: God began, started over, promised, delivered, sealed, gave, accommodated, wrestled, preserved, and sent. Although he takes up the topic of Yhwh’s appearances to the ancestors, he too fails to capture the degree to which the text characterizes self-revelation in Genesis as paradigmatic for later Israel. He seems to equate the collocation under discussion here as literally “visual” in some way, although he does not explain what he has in mind (1:247). He also mistakenly avers that Gen 17:1 (treated below) “is the first report of Yhwh’s appearing to anyone” (1:247). In some ways, this investigation is intended to supplement their work. The closest I have found to the approach advocated here was fifty years ago in a book by J. Kenneth Kuntz, who emphasized both the “visual and

14

Bill T. Arnold

audible aspects of divine manifestation” in the Old Testament; The Self-revelation of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967), 40–41, and see further 52–56, 62–65, and 120–21. 5. Michael B. Hundley, Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East, SBLWAW 3 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 363. 6. Hundley, Gods in Dwellings, 342–43. On the concept of “theophany” or the appearance of God, Jörg Jeremias has investigated certain Old Testament texts as representative of a distinct literary genre (Judg 5:4–5; Deut 33:2; Hab 3:3; Ps 68:8–11; Mic 1:3–4; Amos 1:2; Ps 46:7, and Isa 19:1); Jörg Jeremias, Theophanie: Die Geschichte einer alttestamentlichen Gattung, WMANT 10 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1965). Jeremias describes such appearances as intrusions into the life of Israel, exhibiting Yhwh’s ferocious power; the divine presence “comes” (bw’) from a specific place, with disruptive and cataclysmic intrusions in nature, and leaves a changed situation. The ancestral appearances covered here are related, although “come” is not part of the formula. See Bill T. Arnold, NIDOTTE 1:615–18; Jeffrey J. Niehaus, “Theophany, Theology of,” NIDOTTE 4:1247–50. 7. For this metaphor, see David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 4–5; and John Barton, The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the Biblical Canon, Hulsean Lectures 1990 (London: SPCK, 1997), 129. 8. Some have proposed “plain” or “valley”; DCH 5:188; and see Yoel Elitzur, “Moreh,” NIDB 4:140. On the other hand, the evergreen kermes oak (Quercus coccifera) covered large areas of the central hill country in antiquity, and the oak “of the valley” is unlikely. We know that trees held religious significance throughout the ancient Near East as physical symbols of divine presence; Othmar Keel, Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near Eastern Art and The Hebrew Bible, JSOTSup 261 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 20–48. 9. All translations are the author’s unless otherwise designated. 10. The so-called tolerative variation of the reflexive N-stem; Bill T. Arnold and John H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), §3.1.2,c; Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 390–91. 11. So Yhwh is both the subject and object of causative-reflexive, and thus the initiator and topic of the action, and yet the role of Abram is critical too as the recipient of the revelation. William J. Abraham has rightly described the notion of “reveal” as an achievement verb, that is, divine revelation is a successful undertaking only when it is actually achieved or accomplished. In this way, “divine speaking and human sensitivity together bring about divine revelation.” William J. Abraham, Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 89. 12. Arnold and Choi, Guide, §3.5.1,d; Waltke and O’Connor, Introduction, 551– 52; Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 2nd ed., SubBi 27 (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2006), 364. 13. Waltke and O’Connor, Introduction, 551.

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

15

14. One is also reminded that Yhwh does not see as mortals see because he looks upon the heart; 1 Sam 16:7. 15. Ernst Axel Knauf, “Shadday,” DDD2, 749–53; Ernst Axel Knauf, “El Šaddai— der Gott Abrahams?” BZ 29 (1985): 97–103. This predicate nominative (or, copularcomplement) for identification is paralleled by similar syntax for divine disclosure at 15:1 and 15:7, showing the variety of speech possible for unique divine revelation; Arnold and Choi, Guide, §2.1.2 and 5.1.1,a. 16. The two here are likely hendiadic, “walk blamelessly before me”; Bill T. Arnold, Genesis, The New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 169. 17. For details, see Arnold, Genesis, 169. 18. For the significance of the occurrence at 22:14 in wordplay on the name “Yhwh will provide,” see Arnold, Genesis, 207–8. The N-stem of *r’h occurs a total of fourteen times in Genesis, six in the past narrative, and four in other forms, all in theophanic contexts, and an additional four times in non-theophanic contexts listed above. By contrast, Jacob’s dream of God’s ziggurat (Gen 28:10–22), like a highway to and from heaven, does not use N-stem *r’h for “appearance,” but includes a theatrical display. Perhaps the literary intent here is precisely to draw such a contrast with Abram, for initial revelation to Jacob comes as a dream, and included pyrotechnic effects made possible because it was only a dream. Again, much can be explained by way of divine accommodation, and especially to the would-be patriarch, Jacob. See Arnold, Genesis, 251–56. 19. God’s revelation to us is not always straightforward. On Calvin’s view of accommodation, see Jones, Practicing Christian Doctrine, 32: As one cares for an infant, God’s revelation is something like the lisping way we speak to small children, that is, “God is wont in a measure to ‘lisp’ in speaking to us,” and that “such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity.” 20. In the rest of the OT, we have only one instance of God’s form appearing, and that to none other than Moses himself (Exod 33:12–34:9). Elsewhere, in contexts in which God appears to humans, a form of the “messenger/angel” of Yhwh/God appears; for example, Gen 16:7; 21:17; 22:11; Judg 13:3. 21. Israel had a priestly tradition on “seeing God,” which likewise never stressed what was actually seen. This may be the tradition’s way of guarding against iconic tendencies, although some have assumed a “primitive” associative experience or a mediated presence through the cultic apparatus; Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 428–29, n.32. However, in our examples, the ancestor often built an altar immediately following the appearance, so that we have a different tradition with different assumptions at work. The cult apparently had nothing to do with these appearances, at least not initially. One should also note that, in Genesis, “a divine revelation engendered faith in the first Patriarchs”; Herbert C. Brichto, “On Faith and Revelation in the Bible,” HUCA 39 (1968): 35–53, esp. 44. 22. R. W. L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism, OBT (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992). 23. Note the recurrence of *r’h five times in Exod 3:2–4, plus one occurrence of the noun mar’eh, “appearance.”

16

Bill T. Arnold

24. The Yhwh/Elohim occurs sixty-six times in the Old Testament, not only as a messenger delivering God’s words but as an agent authorized to perform them. As in this text, the messenger is often indistinguishable from God himself; see D. N. Freedman and B. E. Willoughby, “‫ מֲלְ אָ ְך‬- mal’ak,” TDOT 8:308–25, esp. 317–20. 25. Perhaps a multicolored bramble bush, Cassia obovate; HALOT 2:760; DCH 6:172. 26. In addition, we have four occurrences in the perfect, third person, masculine, singular, in which cases Yhwh, or the glory of Yhwh, is said to have appeared (Exod 3:16; 4:1,5; 16:10), and one occasion in which Yhwh declares that his face will not be seen (Exod 33:23). Thus, the N-stem of *r’h in revelatory contexts occurs seven times in Exodus, in addition to eight additional occurrences in non-theophanic settings: Exod 13:7[2×]; 23:15,17; 34:3,20,23,24 (and cf. 1 Sam 3:21). 27. Arnold, Genesis, 135–36. It seems entirely possible that earliest Israelite perceptions thought of Yhwh as having human-form, although von Rad says this is the wrong way of thinking about it, as though ancient Israel “regarded God anthropomorphically” when in reality the reverse is true; Israel “considered man as theomorphic”; Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (New York: Harper, 1962), 1.145, and see 219. 28. Thomas B. Dozeman, Commentary on Exodus, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 432–35; John I. Durham, Exodus, WBC 3 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), 258–60; William Henry C. Propp, Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 141–54. 29. The mountain “trembled” (v. 18, wayyeḥĕrad; G-stem past narrative of *ḥrd) exceedingly (NRSV’s “violently”), which creates wordplay on the trembling of the people at the crescendo of trumpet blast (wayyeḥĕrad; v. 16). 30. And the specific phraseology here is critical, as Yhwh asserts in Deut 4:10 that the moment is one in which he will cause Israel to hear the words; wǝ’ašmiʿēm, H-stem of *šmʿ. 31. Not denoting a particular shape, but any shape or visible form at all; HALOT 4:1746; DCH 8:640; E.-J. Waschke, “tĕmûnâ,” TDOT 15:687–90. 32. The preposition zûlâ after a negated clause excludes the possibility of anything beyond the object of the preposition; HALOT 1:267; DCH 3:97. 33. Near the conclusion of Moses’s discourse, we have the remarkable v. 36, emphasizing the two perspectives of the revelation: from heaven, Yhwh made Israel hear his voice in order to instruct them, and upon earth, Yhwh showed them (*r’h, H-stem) the fire and they heard his words. 34. In Deuteronomy’s version, Yhwh spoke face-to-face with Israel from the midst of the fire, just as he had with Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:4). Moses’s experience of Yhwh at Sinai had now become the experience of every Israelite. On the relational nature of divine revelation, see John N. Oswalt, “Discipleship and the Bible: Foundations,” in Discipleship: Essays in Honor of Dr. Allan Coppedge, ed. Matt Friedeman (Wilmore, KY: Teleios and Francis Asbury Press, 2017), 1–11, esp. 2–3. 35. Again, predicates nominative for identification, as we saw in Gen 15:1,7; 17:1, and elsewhere in the ancestral narratives.

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

17

36. For a survey of the problem from Wellhausen to the present, see Dozeman, Commentary on Exodus, 419–24 and 469–72; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 141–54. Childs assumed the Decalogue’s great antiquity through oral tradition, despite its current literary location stemming from late redactional activity; Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1974), 391–92. 37. Dominik Markl, “The Ten Words Revealed and Revised: The Origins of Law and Legal Hermeneutics in the Pentateuch,” in The Decalogue and Its Cultural Influence, ed. Dominik Markl, Hebrew Bible Monographs 58 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013), 13–27, esp. 14–19; Brichto, “Faith and Revelation,” esp. 47–48. 38. It may be true that the nature of Yhwh cannot be understood by other means because of “His immaterial and spiritual essence,” but that may not have been the ancestor’s experience, who may have indeed seen a physical reflection of his nature. Shalom Albeck, “The Ten Commandments and The Essence of Religious Life,” in Ten Commandments in History and Tradition, ed. Ben-Zion Segal (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990), 261–89, esp. 265. My point here is that the text has assiduously suppressed that aspect of divine revelation. 39. Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), 463. 40. James G. S. S. Thomson, The Old Testament View of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1960), 13. 41. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 1; repr. of Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885), trans. of Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, 2d ed. (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1883). 42. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 425. 43. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 405, n.1. For penetrating assessment of Wellhausen’s view of Judaism as Israelite religion after it has died, see Jon Douglas Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 10–15. 44. Bill T. Arnold and David B. Schreiner, “Graf and Wellhausen, and Their Legacy,” in A History of Biblical Interpretation, Volume 3: The Enlightenment through the Nineteenth Century, eds. Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 252–73, esp. 263–65; Moshe Weinfeld, The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel, VTSup 100 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004). 45. Jean-Pierre Sonnet, The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy, Biblical Interpretation Series 14 (Leiden, NY: Brill, 1997), 246–59. 46. John N. Oswalt, The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 12. We must therefore also reject the old classical liberalism and its understanding of revelation as “human insight into religious truth, or human discovery of religious truth,” in which case the inspiration of the Bible is only its power to inspire religious experience; see Bernard L. Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of Hermeneutics, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1970), 64–65.

18

Bill T. Arnold

47. The authors and final redactors of the Pentateuch envisioned a Torah that was literarily closed at the time of Moses’s death because there would be no divine revelation after Moses (Deut 4:2; 13:1 [Eng 12:32]). From that point forward, it was the task of priestly scribal scholars to interpret the Torah as the only divine basis for faith. It is also possible that prophetic circles of the post-exilic period believed, to the contrary, that divine revelation continued into the days of the exilic and postexilic prophets. See Eckart Otto, “Scribal Scholarship in the Formation of Torah and Prophets: A Postexilic Scribal Debate between Priestly Scholarship and Literary Prophecy—The Example of the Book of Jeremiah and Its Relation to the Pentateuch,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 171–84. 48. γνωρίσας, aorist, active, participle of γνωρίζω, “make known, disclose; know.” 49. Cf. Rom 1:16–17; Heb 1:1–4, 2 Tim 3:16–17.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abraham, William J. Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Albeck, Shalom. “The Ten Commandments and the Essence of Religious Life.” In Ten Commandments in History and Tradition, edited by Ben-Tsiyon Segal and Gershon Levi, 261–89. Publications of the Perry Foundation for Biblical Research, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1990. Arnold, Bill T. NIDOTTE 1: 615–18. ———. Genesis. New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Arnold, Bill T., and David B. Schreiner. “Graf and Wellhausen, and Their Legacy.” In A History of Biblical Interpretation, Volume 3: The Enlightenment through the Nineteenth Century, edited by Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, 252–73. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2017. Arnold, Bill T., and John H. Choi. A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Barton, John. The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the Biblical Canon. Hulsean Lectures. London: SPCK, 1997. Brichto, Herbert C. “On Faith and Revelation in the Bible.” Hebrew Union College Annual 39 (1968): 35–53. Brueggemann, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1997. Carr, David McLain. Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Childs, Brevard S. The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary. The Old Testament Library. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1974.

Divine Revelation in the Pentateuch

19

Dozeman, Thomas B. Commentary on Exodus. The Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2009. Dulles, Avery. Models of Revelation. 2nd ed. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1992. Durham, John I. Word Biblical Commentary 3: Exodus. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1987. Eichrodt, Walther. Theology of the Old Testament. Translated by J. A. Baker. Vol. 1. 2 Vols. The Old Testament Library. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1961. Elitzur, Yoel. “Moreh.” NIDB 4: 140. Ezigbo, Victor I. Introducing Christian Theologies: Voices from Global Christian Communities. Vol. 1. 2 Vols. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2013. Freedman, D. N., and B. E. Willoughby. “‫ מֲלְ אָ ְך‬- Mal’ak.” In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. 8: Lāḵaḏ - Mōr, edited by Gerhard Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, translated by Douglas W. Stott, 8: 308–24. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2007. Goldingay, John. Old Testament Theology. 3 Vols. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2009. Hundley, Michael B. Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East. Writings from the Ancient World Supplements Series/Society of Biblical Literature 3. Atlanta, Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Jeremias, Jörg. Theophanie: Die Geschichte Einer Alttestamentlichen Gattung. Wissenschaftliche Monographien Zum Alten Und Neuen Testament 10. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1965. Jones, Beth Felker. Practicing Christian Doctrine: An Introduction to Thinking and Living Theologically. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2014. Joüon, Paul, and Takamitsu Muraoka. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. 2nd ed. Subsidia Biblica 27. Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2006. Keel, Othmar. Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 261. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Knauf, Ernst Axel. “El Šaddai—Der Gott Abrahams?” Biblische Zeitschrift 29 (1985): 97–103. ———. “Shadday.” DDD2, 749–53. Kuntz, John Kenneth. The Self-Revelation of God. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1967. Levenson, Jon Douglas. The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993. Markl, Dominik. “The Ten Words Revealed and Revised: The Origins of Law and Legal Hermeneutics in the Pentateuch.” In The Decalogue and Its Cultural Influence, edited by Dominik Mark, 13–27. Hebrew Bible Monographs 58. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013. Moberly, R. W. L. The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism. OBT. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1992.

20

Bill T. Arnold

Niehaus, Jeffrey J. “Theophany, Theology Of.” NIDOTTE, 4: 1247–50. Oden, Thomas C. The Living God Systematic Theology, Volume 1. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1987. Oswalt, John N. “Discipleship and the Bible: Foundations.” In Discipleship: Essays in Honor of Dr. Allan Coppedge, edited by Matt Friedeman, 1–11. Wilmore, Kentucky: Teleios; Francis Asbury Press, 2017. ———. The Bible among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009. Otto, Eckart. “Scribal Scholarship in the Formation of Torah and Prophets: A Postexilic Scribal Debate Between Priestly Scholarship and Literary Prophecy— The Example of the Book of Jeremiah and Its Relation to the Pentateuch.” In The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance, edited by Gary N. Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson, 171–84. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2007. Patrick, Dale. The Rhetoric of Revelation in the Hebrew Bible. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1999. Propp, William H. C., ed. Exodus 19–40: A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary. The Anchor Bible 2A. New York: Doubleday, 2006. Rad, Gerhard von. Old Testament Theology. Translated by D. M. G. Stalker. New York: Harper, 1962. Ramm, Bernard L. Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of Hermeneutics. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1970. Sonnet, Jean-Pierre. The Book Within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy. Biblical Interpretation Series 14. Leiden, New York: Brill, 1997. Thomson, James G. S. S. The Old Testament View of Revelation. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1960. United Methodist Church. The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church 2016. Nashville, Tennessee: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2016. Waltke, Bruce K., and Michael Patrick O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Waschke, E. J. “‫ ִתּמּונָה‬- Temuna.” In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. 15: Šakar - Taršîš, edited by Gerhard Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, 15: 687–89. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006. Weinfeld, Moshe. The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel. Vetus Testamentum Supplements 100. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Wellhausen, Julius. Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Translated by J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885. ———. Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1994. ———. Prolegomena Zur Geschichte Israels. 2nd ed. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1883. Witherington III, Ben. Biblical Theology: The Convergence of the Canon. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Wright, Christopher J. H. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004.

Chapter 2

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context Amy-Jill Levine

Ben Witherington III inaugurated academic study of Gospel women. While I was being dissuaded in graduate school from writing on this topic, Ben was defending his Durham dissertation, in 1981, on Women and Their Roles in the Gospels and Acts. With the publication of the revised dissertation, Women in the Ministry of Jesus, in the prestigious Cambridge Monograph series,1 followed by the publication of two more books on women2 and (almost) countless pages attending to women in all the books of the New Testament, his work continues to be cited. Not only should Witherington receive credit for this earlier work, he should also be celebrated for updating the work in light of more accurate understandings both of the diversity of rabbinic commentary and the difficulties of using this material to reconstruct first-century Jewish life.3 On the combined subject of the women in Luke’s Gospel, Witherington and I reached different conclusions in our commentary. For Witherington, the message is a positive one: Luke neither restricts women to domestic service nor regards women as second-class disciples. I suggest that Luke offers at best a “double message”4 that recognizes women’s contributions to the spread of the gospel and at the same time relegates women to supporting rather than leadership positions.5 I find myself sympathetic to Barbara E. Reid, Shelly Matthew, and other “feminists who have argued that the praise for Mary as ‘having chosen the better part’ is not praise for a woman disciple but rather a sign of Luke’s preference for docile women over active ones.”6 This essay continues the discussion of Luke 10:38–42 in light of (a) the change in reading the passage for allegorical or typological import (e.g., reading Mary and Martha as types of active and contemplative ecclesial participation)7 to a theological focus, couched in historical terms, that makes Jesus a counter-cultural hero or social justice warrior who rescues Mary and Martha 21

22

Amy-Jill Levine

from Jewish misogyny; (b) Luke’s finding table service a lesser calling for the apostles, but any sort of “ministry” too difficult for a woman; (c) the literary convention of hospitality, which complicates any focus on gender; and (d) a reading of Mary and Martha in light of the lawyer who tests Jesus and the responding Parable of the Good Samaritan that does not require making Judaism look bad in order to present an admirable Jesus. THE COUNTER-CULTURAL JESUS Many recent studies proclaim Luke 10:38–42 to be “counter-cultural” or “transgressive” against a misogynist Judaism represented by Martha’s practice. This approach, as well as its use of a reconstructed antithetical Jewish context to support it, is relatively new in the history of Christian interpretation, although interpreting the pericope in an adversos Ioudaios way is not. Patristic and medieval commentaries on Mary and Martha offer allegorical readings of the contemplative (Mary) vs. the active (Martha) life, and variations on that theme.8 At times, the allegories do have an anti-Jewish mode, such as Origen’s reading of Mary as representing the gentiles (who have the single law of love) while Martha, distracted, represents the Jews (so Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John 79.6),9 but the point is not designed to make Jesus counter-cultural. The transgressive readings appear to be products of more recent political sensibilities. The modernist turn from the allegorical approach to the historical one created a crisis for Christian theology. If the Gospels are not eyewitness reports, if they can be analyzed by the same tools applied to non-Christian materials, and if rationalism rules out the supernatural, why follow Jesus? To answer this question, Christian biblical scholars increasingly determined that Jesus should be understood as the hero who comes to do away with an ossified Judaism. The transgressive Jesus is the most recent iteration of this response. Such readings against a negative foil have not only Christological value but they also have political cachet. The more the status quo becomes offensive to select constituencies, the more the transgressive Jesus fills a need. For some readers, Jesus’s encounters with Mary and Martha show a resistance to gender roles. Kathleen Corley aptly summarizes what she calls the “standard Christian reconstruction” in the following terms: “Especially popular is the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38–42), commonly described as showing Jesus’ acceptance of a woman as a rabbinical student: In complete opposition to Jewish tradition, Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and receives instruction.”10 The argument works for both liberal and conservative readers (I am using these terms loosely). For the conservative reader, Luke does not make an argument for women’s ordination or even leadership, but Luke does improve

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

23

women’s status vis-à-vis Judaism by recognizing women’s right to be taught. For the liberal, Jesus endorses Mary’s equality with the male disciples even as Luke, representing later trends in the church, shuts down Martha’s diakonia, her ministry. Four examples demonstrate both the popularity of this view and the different means by which it is supported. In 1984, Witherington read the pericope as indicating the “radical nature of the Gospel and why it dramatically affected women’s status especially in first-century Palestine”11 given “the uniqueness both of Mary’s activity and of Jesus’ attitude about it when compared to Jewish attitudes about women disciples and their proper role in the home”; indeed, “for a rabbi to come into a woman’s house and teach her specifically is unheard of.”12 Consequently, Luke 10:38–42 and John 11–12 speak to “women’s new freedom to be disciples and be taught by a rabbi with the freedom to take up the roles of a servant, roles which were forbidden by the rabbis to women who had servants (as Mary and Martha probably did).”13 Similarly, he finds subversion in the fact that Peter’s mother-in-law serves (διηκόνει) Jesus, “a task which some rabbis felt was inappropriate for women, especially the matron of the house” because “in a Jewish context . . . women were not allowed to serve at meals if men were in attendance, unless there were no servants to perform the task.”14 The comparison can be questioned for at least five reasons. First, Jesus is not a “rabbi” in the same sense that Akiva or Judah ha-Nasi are rabbis; he predates them, and he is not part of their circle. Thus, to use rabbinic literature to determine the role of Jewish women in Galilee in the first third of the first century is already a stretch. Not only did Jesus live half-a-century earlier than the Tannaim, he is an independent charismatic teacher. Second, Jewish teachers do meet with women in their homes, as we see with the merchants who spoke to the women of the royal house of Adiabene.15 Third, it is possible that Jesus is related to Mary and Martha, and rabbis speak to women in their own families (exemplary are the stories of Rabbi Meir and his wife Beruriah). Fourth, the rabbis themselves tend to teach in study halls and outdoors, and not in private homes. Finally, to be “liberated to serve”—or in today’s terms, to be liberated to be a slave—is not much of a liberation. Presuming that women always serve while men do not, James F. McGrath offers a new version of the subversive reading: “In this cultural context, there is no expectation that the men ought to help with household activities such as food preparation, serving guests with the food once it is prepared, or any other household chores for that matter.”16 Omitted are notices of male slaves who wait at table (e.g., Luke 17:8; Luke 12:37 depicts the master serving the slave; Luke 7:44–46 presumes the host’s responsibility for bathing, kissing, and anointing). Ignored are the disciples, who provide food at the miraculous feedings (Luke 9:12–17). Overlooked is the jailer who “set

24

Amy-Jill Levine

a table before” (παρέθηκεν τράπεζαν) Paul and Silas (Acts 16:34). Omitted are the (male) disciples who prepare the Passover (22:13) and Jesus (22:17, 19–20) who “serves” [at table] cf. 22:27, ἐγὼ δὲ ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν εἰμι ὡς ὁ διακονῶν. Reading Mary as the subversive figure, McGrath suggests that she taught Jesus “that women could learn in the manner that had previously been reserved almost exclusively to men.”17 Were the scene a study hall, the argument would have more traction. Were Mary a vocal student who asked questions or participated in discussion, the argument would have more traction. But the idea that Jesus had to learn that women were worthy of being taught in their own homes is a stretch. For a third example, now distinguishing domestic duties from spiritual needs, Dorothy Lee proposes, “No longer confined to the domestic sphere, women here are liberated from responding endlessly to burdensome demands that prevent them from caring for their own spiritual needs. Jesus does not make such demands nor restrict women to their traditional role.”18 Yet the scene is less about personal spirituality than about hosting a guest. Meeting with Jesus in the home is a one-off, just as the Samaritan’s stopping to help the victim (see below) is a one-off. Martha will go back to serving. Mary will likely help. To presume women were “restricted” to a “traditional role,” in their own homes, removes from these women any sense of agency even as it can suggest that they need a man, however divine, to clue them about their own needs. Finally, one can be spiritual and serve. The fourth example, from Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce, extrapolates beyond the singular case of Mary and Martha to aver, “Women approached [Jesus] and broke barriers that kept them in the background or else in separate spaces.”19 Not only did Martha face “the barrier that kept women at bay, busy ministering to guests”20—how such service is a barrier remains unstated—but also women broke such barriers by leaving their houses to following Jesus (citing Mark 15:40; Luke 8:1–3). Problems here are manifold. First, most homes in Galilee did not have separate women’s quarters. Second, Jesus replaces both men and women householders with his own authority, and then he leaves; thus, Martha is in the same role as Jairus, whom Jesus also replaces as master of the house. But there is no reason to presume that domestic arrangements changed when he left, save in cases when husbands (e.g., Peter) and sons (e.g., James and John) left their homes to follow him. Third, there is no good evidence that women were overnighting with Jesus and his male apostles. The final Passover journey to Jerusalem (Mark 15:40) in a group was a singular occasion; “following Jesus” and “providing for him” (Luke 8:2–3) does not mean leaving one’s home for weeks or months; one can follow in situ.21 Jesus does disrupt the household of Mary and Martha, but he does not change a social system. He disrupts because he is a guest, and guests are, by their presence, a disruption.

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

25

This Jesus who displays his “radical” or “subversive” mission in encountering Mary and Martha finds his way into popular culture. An internet search with the keywords “Martha,” “Jesus,” “radical,” and “Judaism” yields, among others, the following: “Jesus was rejecting centuries of Jewish traditions. Jesus was showing Martha and Mary, along with His disciples, that the gospel of the Kingdom was open to both men and women.”22 Another blogger offers the standard contrasts: “To give you some perspective, a famous rabbi in the First Century, Rabbi Eliezer, is known for saying things like, ‘Instructing a woman in the Law is like teaching her blasphemy’ and ‘Let the Law be burned rather than entrusted to a woman.’”23 The author could just as easily have cited Ben Azzai, who says, “A man is required to teach Torah to his daughter” (m. Sota 3:4; cf. b. Sota 21b), the same Mishnah in which R. Eliezer states, “Whoever teaches Torah to his daughter is as if he teaches her sexual satisfaction.” The translation “blasphemy” is not quite an apt rendering of tiflut. The reference to burning the Torah is j. Sotah 3:4, 19a. Better, the author could have learned that rabbinic literature is prescriptive rather than descriptive, that R. Eliezer flourished in the early second century, that R. Eliezer is known for his minority opinions, and that it is bad history to compare negatives to positives. I am not claiming that first-century Jewish life was an egalitarian wonderland. I am claiming both that there is no reason to find a woman seated at the feet of an honored guest in her own home and that negative comparisons to the rabbis, seen in Witherington’s earlier work but not in our recent Luke commentary, are historically and ethically inappropriate. Despite claims that “Luke gives us a Jesus who wants to change the place of women in the spiritual landscape,”24 no landscape changes; it begins in the home and ends there. Martha will continue to serve/minister, and Mary will continue to listen/learn. There is no reason to think that Martha will henceforth abdicate her household responsibilities. Luke earlier connected women and house-based serving in describing Peter’s mother-in-law as “serving” Jesus and the others in the household (Luke 4:39, διηκόνει αὐτοῖς). Further, there is no compelling reason to restrict the women who served as patrons for the movement to food preparation–‒Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s estate manager, Susanna, and many others who were “serving them (διηκόνουν αὐτοῖς) out of their resources” (Luke 8:2b–3). Such serving may have included providing home hospitality, obtaining food, making connections with other possible patrons, promoting the cause. There is also no reason to think that Mary suddenly gained agency or discovered she was interested in learning from a visiting relative, friend, or teacher. Yet scholarly and popular commentaries insist that Jesus “affirmed her right and power to choose a thing of which women were socially and religiously deprived,”25 since “Mary’s listening is non-traditional since she

26

Amy-Jill Levine

is entering an arena that is normally reserved for (free) men.”26 Again, this “arena” is her own house. Had Luke wished to press the matter of women’s engagement, then Jesus would be depicted as inviting Mary to recline with him at table (cf. Gospel of Thomas 61): Jesus said, “Two will repose on a couch: one will die, one will live. Salome said, “Who are you, O man? Like a stranger (?) you have gotten upon my couch and you have eaten from my table.” “Jesus said to her, ‘It is I who come from that which is integrated. I was given (some) of the things of my father.’ ‘I am your female disciple. . . .’”27 Claims that Mary’s location by Jesus’s feet indicates “a place of honor and insight in this Gospel (5:8; 7:38; 8:35, 41; 17:16; cf. Acts 22:3)”28 are generous. First, none of these scenes depicts Jesus’s teaching another. In 5:8, Peter “fell at Jesus’s knees” (προσέπεσεν τοῖς γόνασιν Ἰησοῦ , which is not a sitting position) and begs Jesus to leave him, “for I am a sinful man.” Luke 7:38 offers the woman from the city who is “standing behind [Jesus] by his feet” (στᾶσα ὀπίσω παρὰ τοὺς πόδας). She is the object of Jesus’s lesson to Simon, not the recipient of his teaching. Rather, Jesus tells Simon what the woman already knows. In 8:35, Luke describes a man who had been demonpossessed; the point of his sitting is not to listen to Jesus’s instruction, since none is given, but to contrast the calm with his earlier erratic behavior. Luke 8:41 describes Jairus as falling at Jesus’s feet (πεσὼν παρὰ τοὺς πόδας [τοῦ] Ἰησοῦ); again, no teaching. In 17:16, another healing, Luke depicts the Samaritan man with leprosy again falling at Jesus’s feet (ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον παρὰ τοὺς πόδας). In no case do we see “active listening” or even Jesus’s instruction. Nor is “standing” or “falling” the same thing as sitting. Finally, Acts 22:3 offers Paul’s comment that he was “at the feet of Gamaliel instructed” (παρὰ τοὺς πόδας Γαμαλιὴλ πεπαιδευμένος). This verse comes the closest to Mary’s so-called discipleship role, but it doesn’t match well either. Paul’s situation is one of ongoing study; Mary sits without explicit notice of paideia. Mary “sits beside” (παρακαθεσθεῖσα) Jesus’s feet (10:39), which is a placement comparable to the position signaling instruction (καθέζομαι) displayed by Jesus in the Temple (2:46), the Sanhedrin members listening to Stephen (Acts 6:15), and Eutychus listening to Paul (20:9). However, whereas Jesus both learns and teaches, the Sanhedrin profits nothing from Stephen’s teaching and Eutychus is bored to death. Consequently, in Luke-Acts, to be “at the feet” of someone can signal discipleship, but it always signals the impression of an unequal status. The best example here is the placement of the corpses of Ananias and Sapphira at the feet of Peter (Acts 5:10, ἔπεσεν δὲ παραχρῆμα πρὸς τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐξέψυξεν). The couple are not model disciples. Pirkei Avot 1:4 quotes Yose ben Yoezer saying, “Let your house be a gathering place for sages, and wallow in the dust of their feet, and drink in

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

27

their words with gusto.” Nothing here prohibits women in these homes from serving or listening to those sages. Yet rarely do the rabbis “sit at another’s feet.” The late midrash Shir haShirim (Song of Songs) Rabbah 1:3 mentions that Rabbi Akiva arrived late at the study hall, and that room had to be made for him. “He came and sat at the feet of Rabbi Eliezer.” But for the most part, the rabbis debate teaching rather than just sit and listen. Women listened to teaching, as Nehemiah 8:2 indicates: “The priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding.” To read Jesus as liberating Mary, in her own home, to a position of sitting by his feet, is optimistic. Rather, we can take Mary’s listening as a positive indication, but not a transgressive or counter-cultural one. The listening is part of the program of the travel narrative: it is what all followers do. Warren Carter points out that “the verb used to denote her listening (ἠκούεν, 10:39) appears in 10:16 as an antonym for ‘rejecting’ the disciples, Jesus, and God, and hence, as a synonym for ‘receiving’ them. It also appears in 10:23–24 in Jesus’ blessing on disciples who ‘see’ and ‘hear.’ Earlier, it describes the desired response to Jesus and his teaching (8:8,15,21; 9:35).”29 The subversive Jesus fills the need non-theistic Christians have. If Jesus is not literally the incarnate deity who died, rose, and ascended (as Luke reports), then his hero status is secured by his counter-cultural identity: he is the only person in his environs to empower women. Even in cases where Mary, because of her silence, is “less than an ideal model” for women “who wish to pursue theological studies,”30 Jesus is still read as counter-culturally progressive. For example, once he is seen to disrupting gender roles, he can be seen as rejecting homophobia, heterosexism, transphobia, and so on. This transgressive Jesus also serves conservative readers convinced of the literal truths of Christological claims as well as the New Testament teachings forbidding women to preach or teach. Such readers can find Jesus not an egalitarian Jesus, but nevertheless a savior who rejects a (reconstructed) Jewish society that would not permit women to learn Torah. Thus, he presumably changes the status quo from misogyny to complementarianism. None of this invented history is needed. Instead of constructing an artificial first-century Jewish context, Ranjini Rebera shows how a present-day contextual reading of Luke 10:38–42 can shed allow the text to speak to Christians (and others). In some cases, the historical-critical approach does not deliver the pastoral response that congregations need.31 WOMEN AND MINISTRY In years past, scholars regarded Luke as progressive on women’s issues. They were not without evidence. Luke depicts the annunciation to Mary, her visit to

28

Amy-Jill Levine

Elizabeth, and her revolutionary Magnificat. Additional distinct stories regarding women include the prophet Anna in the Temple; the widow of Nain; the women patrons including not only Mary of Magdala but also Joanna, Susanna, and many others; the woman from the crowd who hails Jesus and the daughters of Jerusalem who weep for him. Only Luke’s Gospel presents the parables of the importuning woman and the woman who loses her coin. However, quantity of references is not the same thing as quality of material. Luke omits Mark 7:24–27/Matthew 15:24–28, the account of the SyroPhoenician/Canaanite woman who overcomes Jesus’s reluctance to exorcise her demon-possessed daughter. Luke replaces the woman who anoints Jesus’s head with the “woman from the city who was a sinner” (7:26) who stands behind Jesus while he reclines on a dining couch, anoints his feet, and then wipes up the ointment and her tears with her hair. Thus, how one understands Luke 10:38–42 will depend on how one understands Luke’s view of women. By describing Martha as “turned around by much ministry” (Luke 10:40, περιεσπᾶτο περὶ πολλὴν διακονίαν; the NRSV translates as “distracted by many tasks”), Luke may be suggesting that women should not hold ministerial office.32 Luke’s wording can be read as showing that women did hold such office, firmly in place by the time of the Gospel’s composition, given Paul’s use of διάκονος (Romans 16:1 cf. 1 Corinthians 3:5–6; 2 Corinthians 6:4; 11:15, 23; Philippians 1:1), although Luke does not use the nominative form. Conversely, there is no necessary reason to insist that (the literary figure) Martha represents all women. To make this move is already a scholarly guess. Along with the comparison of the depictions of Mary and Martha to those of Luke’s other women characters, comparing Luke’s uses of daikon terminology also shows a negative valuation of women’s active service. For Martha, serving of any sort is too difficult; for the apostles, serving at table is at best of second-order import. The apostles conclude that they should be doing something other than serving at tables (διακονεῖν τραπέζαις; Acts 6:2; cf. 6:1); their claim indicates that men served at table. However, the dominant meaning of the diakonia word group is not in terms of table service,33 and it need not signal what women do. Acts uses the noun in terms of the work of the movement, where the NRSV often translates ministry (e.g., 1:17, 25; 20:24; 21:19 cf. 11:29), “serving” [the word] (6:4), or “mission” (12:25). The last use in Acts is at 19:22, where Paul identifies Timothy and Erastus as “two of the ones who minister/serve” (δύο τῶν διακονούντων αὐτῷ; the NRSV gives the bland but not inaccurate “helpers”). Thus, to restrict Martha’s “ministry” to table-service would be inconsistent with the rest of the two-volume work. Jesus’s critique of Martha for being “worried” (μεριμνᾷς) also worries me. Luke uses the term elsewhere to preempt the disciples’ fear about

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

29

having to defend themselves in the public square (12:11), to foreclose their concerns about “what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear” (12:22), and about adding an hour to their lives (12:25–26). These are all concerns that a man of privilege can face. The man who has never worried about where his next meal is coming from or who has the rhetorical education to speak in public can easily absorb such comments. The single mother (like Martha or Mary?) who needs to feed and clothe her children and who has not had access to formal education will worry. If she doesn’t, there is something wrong with her. Jesus’s advice, especially in a late first-century context and to an ideal reader, a male patron named Theophilus, is gendered. The gendered implication of this concern for worry is reinforced in Acts 6:1–6, which shares several points of contact with Luke 10:38–42. Again, we find along with attention to service (diakonia), the competition between serving in a meal setting and doing something “more important.” The scenes both begin with complaining: Martha complains to Jesus about Mary’s leaving her to serve; the Hellenists complain (to the apostles in the Jesus role) against the Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the “daily service” (τῇ διακονίᾳ τῇ καθημερινῇ [Acts 6:1]; the NRSV translates διακονίᾳ in terms of “food distribution”). The Twelve do not consult with the community; rather, they proclaim that their role is not to “neglect” (καταλείψαντας) the “word of God” (τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ); “to serve at tables” (διακονεῖν τραπέζαις, Acts 6:2) thus is competition for serving “the word.” Similarly, Mary “neglects” the ministry in which Martha is involved (κατέλιπεν διακονεῖν, Luke 10:40). Single women, women opposed to other women, ecclesial mediators, language of service and neglect and word, a table setting—the passages must be read together.34 While she recognizes that Luke models the “silent female disciple” as well as the dismissal of Martha’s diakonia, Bernadette Escaffre concludes, “the connections between Luke 10:38–42 and Acts 6:1–7 show . . . that Luke portrays Jesus as a teacher who does not wish to deprive a female pupil of the opportunity of listening to his words in order to give her the task of serving at tables.”35 I find the opposite reading more compelling. Acts depicts a congregation who can find seven men to do what women like Martha could have done. The comparison erases the role of women both as ministers of the word and as ministers at the table. That Luke never depicts the seven men as actually serving at table shows how unimportant such service is. THE TYPE-SCENE OF HOSPITALITY It is a commonplace in biblical studies that women are associated with the household and men are associated with the public sphere. The commonplace

30

Amy-Jill Levine

requires nuance: the home could function as public space (the public/private divide may be more a matter of time than of place), and women were not restricted from appearing outside the home. The household is a place where feminist inquiry still finds room for discussion: is the household a place of constraint and confinement or one of openness given women’s role especially in house-churches?36 Marinella Perroni correctly notes that the household setting of Luke 10:38–42 “places the story at the borderline between familial and ecclesial dimensions.”37 These borders are broken, but not in a way that leads to women’s leadership. Familial relations are broken as the sisters do not communicate with each other; Jesus steps into the role of householder by having the final word on issues of behavior, and Martha’s diakonia is discounted. Luke 10:38 begins, “He himself entered into some village, and some woman named Martha received him” (αὐτὸς εἰσῆλθεν εἰς κώμην τινά· γυνὴ δέ τις ὀνόματι Μάρθα ὑπεδέξατο αὐτόν). “Received” implies “into her house” and connotes hospitality shown by a host. Zaccheus, like Martha, “welcomes” (ὑπεδέξατο, 19:6) Jesus. In Acts 17:7, Jason “had welcomed” (ὑποδέδεκται; the NRSV gives “entertained” Paul and Silas). Finally, according to James 2:25, Rahab the prostitute “welcomed” (ὑποδεξαμένη: the NRSV here offers “welcome” rather than “entertained”; just as well) the messengers (ἀγγέλους) sent by Joshua.38 Josephus speaks of Melchizedek’s “welcoming” (ὑποδέχεται) Abraham (Ant. 1.180), and so on. Hospitality is not a gender-restricted duty. Thus, by taking away the import of diakonia from Martha, Jesus does not call her away from a gender-determined role. He rather tells her that the “welcome”—which for him means attention to his teaching—has the higher priority. In our commentary, Witherington and I identify Martha as the “Householder.”39 This identification commends her comparison with other women householders and patrons, including the widow of Zarephath who provides food and lodging to Elijah (1 Kings 17), the “great woman” of Shunem who hosts Elisha (2 Kings 4), Peter’s mother-in-law who serves Jesus (Luke 4:38–39), and Lydia, Paul’s host (Acts 16:14–15). In all these cases, women are in contact with men, and conversation was likely involved. Martha welcomes Jesus, which is what Jesus says householders are to do when receiving itinerants in his name (δέχωνται, 10.8). But Jesus does not follow the markers of his own missionary instructions: he does not greet her with a message of peace (10:5); to the contrary, his presence disrupts whatever peace had existed. He does not “eat and drink” whatever is provided (10:7); to the contrary, he disrupts Martha’s service, which might include food preparation. He does not cure the sick unless we count Martha’s frustration as a sickness, and he does not announce that the kingdom has come near

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

31

(10:9), unless we take his presence as indicative of the kingdom. The scene is thus a variation on the theme, with an irregular guest. Martha begins as the ideal householder, but she violates the convention of host, just as Jesus violates the conventions of guest/missionary, by complaining to the guest and by demanding that he resolve the problems in the household. Nor is Mary one who offers peace. She leaves Martha at best frustrated; she listens, but she does not act on that listening. To locate Mary, Martha, and Jesus in terms of other hospitality scenes shows their variations on the theme. Placed in the context of householder, Martha along with Mary receives intertextual elaboration on at least four counts. First, the comparison highlights the fact that unlike the widow of Zarephath and the Great Woman of Shunem, Martha has no children. Both householding widows from the Tanakh advocate for their medically endangered sons, and Peter’s motherin-law, also located in a house, must have had a daughter, despite the fact that Luke makes no mention of her. The lack of husband and children but the presence of a sister increases the irony of Luke 10:38–42: these other mothers had reason to be distracted (sick children; fever), but Martha did not; these other women had no sisters (or indeed other women mentioned) to help. In comparison, Martha is in a relatively comfortable position. She apparently “needs” nothing. Second, we see the move from unnamed to partially named to the full name among the followers of Jesus, a move accompanied by the shift away from relations defined by marriage to alternative relational constructs. The widow is introduced by her location: “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you” (1 Kings 17.9). More detail emerges with Elisha’s patron: she is a “great woman,” she has both a son and a husband, she appears to control the family finances such that she built the prophet an apartment. Finally, either she or her husband had fertility problems. Peter’s mother-in-law is located in Peter’s house (οἰκίαν Σίμωνος). In all three cases, the women are identified by marital status: widow, wife, mother-in-law. With Martha, the focus changes to a named woman-householder with a named sister. That shift from marital status as principal identity marker continues with the female-identified households of Tabitha/Dorcas (Acts 9.36–42) and Lydia. Tabitha/Dorcas is a patron of widows, but Luke does identify her not as widow, wife, or mother-in-law, but as disciple (μαθήτρια, Acts 9.36). Lydia is first located at the “place of prayer” where women gather (Acts 16.13). Named women are increasingly associated with the role of householder-patron. The appeal to ideal readers—perhaps wealthy women who might like to have their names preserved as generous benefactors—may be in sight.

32

Amy-Jill Levine

Third, Martha begins the move from a male-focused setting to a femalefocused one. Peter’s mother-in-law may be living with her daughter, but Peter’s wife appears in the canon only by implication in 1 Corinthians 9:5 as the “sister wife” (ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα) of Cephas. In Martha’s household is her sister Mary. This same configuration appears in John 11, where Martha is the (apparent) head of the household, and Mary sits until being called. That “many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother” (John 11:19) suggests that Martha welcomed at least some into her home. The shift also keeps the women home. This sororal focus reappears with the widows in Tabitha/Dorcas’s house. While Lydia’s household (ὁ οἶκος αὐτῆς) may include men, she is nevertheless in charge, as indicated both by the notice of “her” household and by her unopposed invitation to Paul. Fourth, the various accounts of hospitality raise question of motive. Elijah imposes on the widow of Zarephath to provide hospitality by demanding, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand” (1 Kings 7:10–11). In 2 Kings 4:8–10, the Great Woman welcomes Elishah: “One day Elisha was passing through Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to have a meal. So whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for a meal. She said to her husband, ‘Look, I am sure that this man who regularly passes our way is a holy man of God. Let us make a small roof chamber with walls, and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that he can stay there whenever he comes to us.’” The Deuteronomic historian does not depict the woman as doing the work herself. Given her wealthy status, the people doing the “serving” would be servants or slaves. Both widow and wife also receive benefactions from the prophet, from food supply in Zarephath to conception in Shunem to the healing of a child in both locations. Although Peter’s mother-in-law does not invite Jesus to the home, Jesus has been in Peter’s company. The depiction of benefaction continues when Jesus provides a healing. Thus, when Luke depicts the mother-in-law as “serving” Jesus and the others in the household (Luke 4:39, διηκόνει αὐτοῖς), the model is one of reciprocity. Her serving anticipates the serving of the non-householding patrons in Luke 8:1–3, who serve in response to having been “cured of evil spirits and infirmities” (αἳ ἦσαν τεθεραπευμέναι ἀπὸ πνευμάτων πονηρῶν καὶ ἀσθενειῶν). The Gospel offers no prior information about the sisters’ relationship to Jesus. Although Jesus was traveling with others (Ἐν δὲ τῷ πορεύεσθαι, 10:38), only he enters the unnamed village and receives Martha’s welcome. There is no evidence that the disciples prepared his way, as they would do later in finding a place to eat the Passover (22:8). Nor is there notice of an

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

33

invitation, such as Jesus receives from his Pharisaic hosts such as Simon in 7:36 (Ηρώτα δέ τις αὐτὸν τῶν Φαρισαίων ἵνα φάγῃ μετ’ αὐτοῦ). Consequently, Jesus’s entry into the house, Martha’s welcome, and the familiarity with which he and Martha speak suggest a past relationship: perhaps they are relatives, or friends within a network. If they are relatives or friends, then again we have no reason to see Jesus as doing anything countercultural. The setting becomes one of familial or friendship demands. The other women householders in Luke-Acts do not serve. Dorcas/ Tabitha, dead through most of her story, does not serve. Lydia does host Paul, but Luke never describes her as “serving” either implicitly or explicitly. Women’s service, for Luke, appears appropriate when it is done in reciprocation for a beneficence provided by Jesus or his representatives, but Luke has no sanction for women’s engaging in an independent, non-reciprocal diaconal ministry. The women in Luke 8:1–3, Mary and Martha, and the other homebound women are best seen as “sedentary supporters,”40 childless women of independent means, seen outside of male accompaniment, showing loyalty to Jesus and his followers rather than, primarily, to members of their own family. GOOD SAMARITAN AND NOT-SO-GOOD HOUSEHOLDER Witherington long ago pointed out the thematic connections developed by Luke’s narrative arrangement: “the Good Samaritan parable (10:25–37) gives an example of how to serve and love one’s neighbor; Luke 10:38–42 teaches that the ‘one thing necessary’ is not first service, but listening to and learning from Jesus . . . and the Lord’s Prayer (11:1–4) give[s] an example of what is to be heard and learned from Jesus.”41 In the comparison of Luke 10:38–42 with the earlier parable, the “countercultural” model reappears: Comparing Martha to the “Torah scholar” who serves as the foil for the run-up to the parable of the Good Samaritan, one commentator states that “Jesus’ response to each of his petitioners is counter cultural.”42 Another concludes, “one meets the startling teaching of Jesus that love of neighbor means thorough care for anyone in trouble: ‘anyone,’ in turn, means enemy as well as friend, and this care extends to care given to the ‘ritually impure.’ There is little support for Jesus’ definition of ‘neighbor’ in traditional Israelite teaching, when he includes in it such figures as prostitutes, tax-collectors and, generally, ‘sinners.’”43 A third pursues the connection between the parable and the story of Mary and Martha by offering a similar contrast between “official Judaism” that “excluded its least, lost, lame from belonging to the Israel of God.”44

34

Amy-Jill Levine

Among the problems with such views: the parable has nothing to do with ritual impurity; Jesus spends some time restoring people to ritual purity, tax collectors are not forbidden from the Jerusalem Temple, Jesus is never seen in the company of a prostitute, and Jesus did not invent social justice.45 What this “official Judaism” is goes undefined, but it seems to be an alternative version of what used to be called Spätjudentum. New name; same stereotype. Such negative constructions of Judaism, more of the counter-cultural Jesus, do not help with either history or theology. However, the connection of Mary and Martha to the parable or, to the question of love of neighbor, does offer one new reading. The juxtaposition of texts shows the importance not only of the “what” in terms of what must be done, but also the “when.” The parable is about a temporal priority; so, it will become clear, is the story of Mary and Martha. The lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:28) is a very good question; it also opens up several connections to Luke 10. Leviticus 19:17–18 mandates, “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” This material can be seen as helpfully informing Luke 10:38–42, but not in the ways some scholarly and popular literature has in contrasting Jewish “Law” with Christian “Grace.” Jesus’s rebuke of Martha fits within the context of the Levitical love commandments. Rebuking is what neighbors do. That Jesus repeats Martha’s name suggests that the rebuke was made in a tone of affection rather than condemnation. The question is not, however, as some commentators insist, concerned with legal minutiae or casuistry. Nor is it an epitome of Jewish xenophobia, given the correct reading that “neighbor” in the lawyer’s question means fellow Jew. The lawyer asks a very good question. All groups need to know who are insiders and outsiders. If Israel is to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), then it must remain distinct. However, love is never restricted to neighbors. Leviticus 19:34a mandates, “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” The conclusion to be drawn from the comparison of the Parable to Luke 10:38–42 is that despite legitimate questions, whether asked by the lawyer or asked by Martha, at times the questions do not matter. Other issues—a wounded body by the side of the road; a guest in the household—must take priority. Mary’s “better part” or even “one thing worthy” need not be a dismissal of Martha’s (or anyone else’s) service. The salient issues are the time and the place. When the context is saving a life, nothing else matters. Only one thing is needed: to provide that body what it needs to live. When the

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

35

context is hosting not just a guest but “the Lord” (Luke’s use of the title cannot be ignored), by extension, the same concern remains. Only one thing is needed: to provide that Lord what he needs to live, which are, as the Gospels consistently note, “ears to hear.”

NOTES 1. Ben Witherington III, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitudes to Women and their Roles as Reflected in His Earthly Life (SNTSMS 51; Cambridge: University Press, 1984), 51. 2. Ben Witherington III, Women in the Earliest Churches (Cambridge: University Press, 1988); Women and the Genesis of Christianity (Cambridge: University Press, 1990). 3. Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Luke. New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). For an early critique of Witherington’s study, see Adele Reinhartz, “From Narrative to History: The Resurrection of Mary and Martha,” in Amy-Jill Levine (ed.), “Women Like This”: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World (EJL 1; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 161–184. That she focuses on his work shows its importance. 4. Turid Karlsen Seim, The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke-Acts (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2004). 5. Levine and Witherington, Gospel of Luke, 226. 6. Barbara E. Reid and Shelly Matthews, Luke 10–24, Wisdom Commentary (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2021), 355, and n. 24 for similar interpretations. Similarly, Marinella Perroni concludes from her analysis of Luke 8:1–3 and 10:38– 42, that “Luke manifests an evident penchant for marginalizing women in discussing ecclesial organization rather than in presenting the mechanisms of salvation” (“Disciples, Not Apostles: Luke’s Double Message,” in Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni [eds.] and Amy-Jill Levine [editor of the English edition], Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1 [Atlanta, SBL, 2015], 173–213 [176]). Perroni develops this point in “Discepole di Gesù,” in Adriana Valerio (ed.), Donne e Bibblia: Storia ed esegesi (Bologne: Dehoniane, 2006), 197–240. 7. See comments and sources cited by Bernadette Escaffre, “Martha,” in Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni (eds.) and Amy-Jill Levine (editor of the English edition), Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1 (Atlanta, SBL, 2015), 363–385 (365). 8. See the summary in Susan Rakoczy, “Martha and Mary: Sorting Out the Dilemma,” Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998): 58–80; David Grumett, “Action and/or Contemplation? Allegory and Liturgy in the Reception of Luke 10:38–42,” Scottish Journal of Theology 59, no. 2 (2006): 125–139. 9. Cited in Tommy Wasserman, “Bringing Sisters Back Together: Another Look at Luke 10:41–42,” Journal of Biblical Literature 137 (2018): 439–461 (452).

36

Amy-Jill Levine

Commenting on “Origen Hom. Luc. frag. 72; John Chrysostom On Martha, Mary and Lazarus [PG 61:701]; Cyril of Alexandria Comm. Joh. 11.2”) of Martha as the “legalistic” or carnal synagogue and Mary as the “spiritual” church, see Mary Ann Beavis, “Mary of Bethany and the Hermeneutics of Remembrance,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 75 (2013): 739–755 (742). 10. Kathleen Corley, Women and the Historical Jesus: Feminist Myths of Christian Origins (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2002), 9, 10. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza made the same observation about the anti-Jewish “feminist apologetic interpretation” in “A Feminist Critical Interpretation for Liberation: Martha and Mary: Lk. 10:38–42.” Religion and Intellectual Life 3.2 (1986): 21–36 (28). 11. Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus, 103. 12. Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus, 100, 101. 13. Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus, 116. 14. Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus, 68, 101. Witherington cites, in support of this generalization, “B.T. Kid. 70a; Nashim VIII, Kiddushin, 335–336” (190 n. 136). Kiddushin 70a describes an incident regarding Rav Yehuda in Nehardea: the setting is the third century, and hundreds of miles away from Mary and Martha. The Talmud reports, “Rav Nachman said to [Rav Yehuda], Let my daughter Donag come and pour us drinks. Rav Yehuda said to him, This is what Shmuel says: one may not make use of a woman for a service such as this. Rav Nahchman replied: she is a minor.” The rest of the account concerns Rav Nachman’s interest in the women in his family, and Rav Yehuda’s reluctance. See https://www​.sefaria​.org​/Kiddushin​.70a​ ?lang​=bi. Nashim is the name of a seder (order) of the Mishnah, containing the tractates Yevamot, Ketubot, Nedarim, Nazir, Sotah, Gittin, and Kiddushin (the seventh tractate). Kiddushin 335–336 also is unclear. These references come from StrackBillerbeck by way of Leonard Swidler, Women in Judaism: The Status of Women in Formative Judaism (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1976). 15. For other examples of men teaching women, although from a different social class, we might consider the relationship of the wife of Pheroras to the Pharisees (Josephus, War 1.571) or the Jewish merchants who instruct the women of the royal house of Adiabene according to Josephus (Ant. 20:34–35). 16. James F. McGrath, What Jesus Learned from Women (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021), 138. 17. McGrath, What Jesus Learned from Women, 145. 18. Dorothy Lee, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), 53. 19. Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce, “In and Out of the House: Changes in Women’s Roles fomr Jesus’s Movement to the Early Churches,” in Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni (eds.) and Amy-Jill Levine (editor of the English edition), Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 299–320 (307). 20. Destro and Pesce, “In and Out of the House,” 308. 21. See Amy-Jill Levine, “Women Itinerants, Jesus of Nazareth, and HistoricalCritical Approaches: Reevaluating the Consensus,” in Kathy Ehernsperger and

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

37

Shayna Sheinfeld (eds.), Gender and Second Temple Judaism (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020), 45–64 and the earlier version of this essay, “John Meier, Women, and the Criteria of Authenticity,” in Vincent Skempt and Kelley Coblentz Bautch, Jesus as a Figure of History and Theology: Essays in Honor of John P. Meier (CBQMS; Washington, DC: Catholic Univesity of America, 2021), 90–113. 22. Colleen Frank, “Martha: Distracted or Disciple?” Tomorrow’s World (October 2016), https://www​.tomorrowsworld​.org​/woman​-to​-woman​/martha​-distracted​-or​ -disciple. 23. Kat Armas, “Mary, Martha and Cliché Christianese” (October 2017) at https:// katarmas​.com​/blog​/2018​/8​/2​/mary​-martha​-and​-clich​-christianese. The same quotes, none with primary source citation, can be found at “Lion’s Path Way: Mary and Martha 9.25.16 Sermon” (https://lionspathway​.com​/2016​/09​/21​/mary​-martha​-9​-25​ -16​-sermon/). 24. Kate Cooper, Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women (New York: Overlook, 2013), 42, cited in McGrath, What Jesus Learned, 141 n. 6 25. Rosemary Haughton, The Re-Creation of Eve (Springfield: Templegate), 30, cited in McGrath, What Jesus Learned, 141 n. 6. 26. Christopher R. Hutson, “Martha’s Choice: A Pastorally Sensitive Reading of Luke 10:38–42.” Restoration Quarterly 45.3 (2003): 139–150 (145). In a permutation of this claim, Perroni suggests that the followers of Jesus came to find women’s silent listening to teaching a problem, “a circumstance giving rise to conflicts that could only be settled by an authoritative warning issued by the resurrected one himself” (Perroni, “Disciples, Not Apostles,” 182). 27. See Corley, Women and the Historical Jesus, 60. 28. Lee, Ministry of Women, 52–53. 29. Warren Carter, “Getting Martha out of the Kitchen: Luke 10:38–42 Again,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58, no. 2 (1996): 264–280 (268). 30. As described by Hutson, “Martha’s Choice,” 140. 31. Ranjini Rebera, “Polarity or Partnership? Retelling the Story of Martha and Mary from Asian Women’s Perspective,” Semeia 78 (1997): 93–107. 32. See, for example, Luise Schottroff, Lydia’s Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History of Early Christianity (B. and M. Rumscheidt. trans.; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995), 205–218. 33. Carter, “Getting Martha out of the Kitchen,” 269–271, who follows J. N. Collins, Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 73–191. 34. A hint of this connection may be found in Bernard of Clairvaux’s connecting Jesus’s comment to Martha about her worry to Paul’s being “burdened with care for all the churches” (Bernard of Clairvaux, “On the Different Employments of Martha, Mary and Lazarus,” in St. Bernard’s Sermons on the Blessed Virgin Mary (Chumleigh: Augustine, 1984), 36-02, cited in David Grumett, “Action and/or Contemplation? Allegory and Liturgy in the Reception of Luke 10:38–42.” Scottish Journal of Theology 59, no. 2 (2006): 125–139 (132 and n. 28)). 35. Escaffre, “Martha,” 368 (italics original), 367.

38

Amy-Jill Levine

36. Amy-Jill Levine, “Preface to the English Edition,” in Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni (eds.) and Amy-Jill Levine (editor of the English edition), Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1 (Atlanta, SBL, 2015), xvii–xxxi. 37. Perroni, “Disciples, Not Apostles,” 182. 38. On Luke’s use of δέχομαι as indicating “openness of the word and work of God,” see Carter, “Getting Martha out of the Kitchen,” 68. 39. Levine and Witherington, Gospel of Luke, 273. For discussion of the textcritical problem concerning whether εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτῆς was part of the original text given its absence from, inter alia, Codex Vaticanus (B)—whether we can speak of an “original text” is another issue—or whether it is a later addition, see Wyant argues for its original placement in part given “theological and cultural concerns surrounding Martha as homeowner” (1). Wyant also cites Jutta Brutscheck, Die MartaMaria Erzählung: eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung zu Lk 10:38–42, BBB 64 (Frankfurt: Hanstein, 1986). 40. Ben Witherington III, “On the Road with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and Other Disciples—Luke 8:1–3,” ZNW 70.3/4 (1979). See Levine, “Women Itinerants.” 41. Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus, 100. 42. Hutson, “Martha’s Choice,” 143. 43. John J. Kilgallen, “Martha and Mary: Why at Luke 10,38–42?” Biblica 84, no. 4 (2003): 554–561 (557). Escaffre, “Martha,” 366, adduces the parable to make similar comparison on the “dangers of wrongful behavior . . . the narrator portrays the negative consequences that occur when listening is stifled by daily cares.” 44. Robert Wall, “Martha and Mary (Luke 10.38–42) In the Context of a Christian Deuteronomy,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 35 (1989): 19–35 (23); he is following J.A. Sanders, “The Ethic of Election in Luke’s Great Banquet Parable” in J. Crenshaw and J.T. Willis (eds.), Essays in Old Testament Ethics (New York: Ktav, 1974), 247–271. 45. See Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York: HarperOne, 2014).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Armas, Kat. “Mary, Martha and Cliché Christianese.” October 2017. https://katarmas​ .com​/blog​/2018​/8​/2​/mary​-martha​-and​-clich​-christianese. Beavis, Mary Ann. “Mary of Bethany and the Hermeneutics of Remembrance.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 75 (2013): 739–755. Brutscheck, Jutta. Die Marta-Maria Erzählung: Eine Redaktionskritische Untersuchung zu Lk 10:38–42. BBB 64. Frankfurt: Hanstein, 1986. Carter, Warren. “Getting Martha out of the Kitchen: Luke 10:38–42 Again.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58.2 (1996): 264–280.

Mary, Martha, Jesus, and Their Jewish Context

39

Collins, J. N. Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Cooper, Kate. Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women. New York: Overlook, 2013. Corley, Kathleen. Women and the Historical Jesus: Feminist Myths of Christian Origins. Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2002. Destro, Adriana, and Mauro Pesce. “In and Out of the House: Changes in Women’s Roles From Jesus’s Movement to the Early Churches.” In Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni (eds.) and Amy-Jill Levine (editor of the English edition), Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1. Atlanta: SBL, 2015, 299–320. Escaffre, Bernadette. “Martha.” In Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni (eds.) and Amy-Jill Levine (editor of the English edition), Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1. Atlanta: SBL, 2015, 363–385. Frank, Colleen. “Martha: Distracted or Disciple?” Tomorrow’s World. October 2016. https://www​.tomorrowsworld​.org​/woman​-to​-woman​/martha​-distracted​-or​ -disciple. Grumett, David. “Action and/or Contemplation? Allegory and Liturgy in the Reception of Luke 10:38–42.” Scottish Journal of Theology 59.2 (2006): 125–139. Haughton, Rosemary. The Re-Creation of Eve. Springfield: Templegate, 1994. Hutson, Christopher R. “Martha’s Choice: A Pastorally Sensitive Reading of Luke 10:38–42.” Restoration Quarterly 45.3 (2003): 139–150. Kilgallen, John J. “Martha and Mary: Why at Luke 10,38–42?” Biblica 84.4 (2003): 554–561. Lee, Dorothy. The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. Levine, Amy-Jill. “John Meier, Women, and the Criteria of Authenticity.” In Vincent Skempt and Kelley Coblentz Bautch (eds.), Jesus as a Figure of History and Theology: Essays in Honor of John P. Meier, CBQMS; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2021, 90–113. ______. “Preface to the English Edition.” In Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni (eds.) and Amy-Jill Levine (editor of the English edition), Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1. Atlanta: SBL, 2015, xvii–xxxi. ______. Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi. New York: HarperOne, 2014. ______. “Women Itinerants, Jesus of Nazareth, and Historical-Critical Approaches: Reevaluating the Consensus.” In Kathy Ehernsperger and Shayna Sheinfeld (eds.), Gender and Second Temple Judaism. Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020, 45–64. Levine, Amy-Jill, and Ben Witherington III. The Gospel of Luke. New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Lion’s Path Way. “Lion’s Path Way: Mary and Martha 9.25.16 Sermon.” https:// lionspathway​.com​/2016​/09​/21​/mary​-martha​-9​-25​-16​-sermon/.

40

Amy-Jill Levine

McGrath, James F. What Jesus Learned From Women. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. Perroni, Marinella. “Discepole di Gesù.” In Adriana Valerio (ed.), Donne e Bibblia: Storia ed esegesi. Bologne: Dehoniane, 2006, 197–240. ———. “Disciples, Not Apostles: Luke’s Double Message.” In Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Marinella Perroni (eds.) and Amy-Jill Levine (editor of the English edition), Gospels Narrative and History, The Bible and Women, New Testament 2.1. Atlanta: SBL, 2015, 173–213. Rakoczy, Susan. “Martha and Mary: Sorting Out the Dilemma.” Studies in Spirituality 8 (1998): 58–80. Rebera, Ranjini. “Polarity or Partnership? Retelling the Story of Martha and Mary from Asian Women’s Perspective.” Semeia 78 (1997): 93–107. Reid, Barbara E., and Shelly Matthews. Luke 10–24. Wisdom Commentary. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2021. Reinhartz, Adele. “From Narrative to History: The Resurrection of Mary and Martha.” In Amy-Jill Levine (ed.), “Women Like This”: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World, EJL 1. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. Sanders, J. A. “The Ethic of Election in Luke’s Great Banquet Parable.” In J. Crenshaw and J. T. Willis (eds.), Essays in Old Testament Ethics. New York: Ktav, 1974, 247–271. Schottroff, Luise. Lydia’s Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History of Early Christianity, B. and M. Rumscheidt (trans.). Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995. Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. “A Feminist Critical Interpretation for Liberation: Martha and Mary: Lk. 10:38–42.” Religion and Intellectual Life 3.2 (1986): 21–36. Seim, Turid Karlsen. The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke-Acts. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2004. Swidler, Leonard. Women in Judaism: The Status of Women in Formative Judaism. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1976. Wall, Robert. “Martha and Mary (Luke 10.38–42) In the Context of a Christian Deuteronomy.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 35 (1989): 19–35. Wasserman, Tommy. “Bringing Sisters Back Together: Another Look at Luke 10:41–42.” Journal of Biblical Literature 137 (2018): 439–461. Witherington III, Ben. “On the Road with Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and Other Disciples—Luke 8:1–3.” ZNW 70.3/4 (1979): 243–248. ______. Women and the Genesis of Christianity. Cambridge: University Press, 1990. ______. Women in the Earliest Churches. Cambridge: University Press, 1988. ______. Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitudes to Women and their Roles as Reflected in His Earthly Life. SNTSMS 51. Cambridge: University Press, 1984. Wyant, Jennifer S. “Giving Martha Back Her House: Analyzing the Textual Variant in Luke 10:38b.” Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 24 (2019): 1–11.

Chapter 3

Why Is John’s Gospel Different? Richard Bauckham

Why is the Gospel of John different from the other three Gospels? Most people who are reasonably familiar with the Gospels realize that John is different, even though they may find it hard to put their finger on the difference. Of course, it is important to observe that all four of the Gospels are different from each other. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each have their own version of the story of Jesus and perspective on Jesus. It is also the case that there are important ways all four Gospels are similar to each other. This can be highlighted by comparing these four canonical Gospels alongside some non-canonical Gospels, such as the so-called Gnostic Gospels from Nag Hammadi. All four canonical Gospels tell the story of Jesus from, at the latest, his baptism through to his resurrection. The Gnostic Gospels do not tell the story of Jesus at all. Most of them take the form of post-resurrection dialogues, in which the risen Jesus talks with a group of his disciples, revealing esoteric truth that he had not taught during his public ministry. In contrast to those Gospels, the canonical four look strikingly alike. John is much more like the three Synoptic Gospels than it is like any non-canonical Gospel. Nevertheless, within the broad similarity of all four canonical Gospels, and even in the light of the differences between the other three Gospels, John still looks more different from the other three than they do from each other. HOW IS JOHN DIFFERENT? I shall not attempt to catalog all the differences between John and the Synoptics, but will comment on a few, beginning with differences that are most often given much attention. 41

42

Richard Bauckham

Far Fewer Things Happen in John Miracle stories are a good example. Mark, the shortest Gospel, has eighteen, Matthew twenty, Luke eighteen, and John only eight. This is not because miracles are not important to John. On the contrary, they are very important. But from the range of stories that he could have told, John has selected the most impressive examples and (from his point of view) the most significant. This enables him to give those he selects more attention, telling the story at greater length and bringing out the significance of these events that John calls Jesus’s “signs.” John is quite explicit about his selectivity. In the two-stage conclusion to his Gospel, he makes the point first in relation specifically to the miracles (“Jesus did many other signs . . . that are not written in this book” [20:30]) and then more generally (“There are also many other things Jesus did” [21:25]). Whereas Matthew and Luke cram as much material as they can into their Gospels, abbreviating Mark to make space for many other traditions, John pursues a quite different approach to writing a Gospel. Drastic selectivity gives John the space in his Gospel for two key things: storytelling and reflective interpretation. John is a brilliant storyteller, and there is nothing in the other Gospels like his long stories of the raising of Lazarus or Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman. Unique to John are the series of one-to-one encounters and dialogues with a range of very different characters (Nicodemus, Pilate, Peter, and others). They combine skillful characterizations with an attractive and oblique means of theological comment on the story of Jesus.1 John’s Gospel Has a Jerusalem Focus One reason the story John tells feels different from those of the Synoptics is that there are fewer individual events. Another is that in John, Jesus is in Jerusalem far more than he is in the other Gospels. John’s Jesus spends a lot of time at the center of Jewish life (the center of the world, in Jewish eyes), engaged with the rulers of the Jewish theocracy and taking part in the Temple festivities where everyone came together to celebrate in symbolism the story of God with his people. John’s Gospel Has a Well-Defined Plot Another difference between the narrative of this Gospel and those of the Synoptics is that John’s story is plotted so that one thing leads to another. The other Gospels have elements of plot, but John has more coherently structured his narrative so that we are led on through the story and see things moving

Why Is John’s Gospel Different?

43

toward its climax. For example, in the series of visits of Jesus to Jerusalem, we see the opposition of the Temple authorities building up until the raising of Lazarus provides the final provocation that leads them to plot his death. Despite his profound theological understanding of Jesus’s death, John also provides a more convincing account than the Synoptics do of the reasons why, on an ordinary historical level, Jesus was put to death. Jesus in John’s Gospel Speaks in Ways That Are Both Similar to and Different from the Synoptic Gospels On the one hand, there are distinctive ways of speaking that John’s Jesus shares with the Jesus of the other Gospels. He calls himself Son of Man; he does not call himself Messiah. He addresses God as Father and speaks of being sent by God, and he speaks in figurative sayings (though they tend to be more explicitly allegorical than the Synoptic parables). On the other hand, some of the characteristic ways in which John’s Jesus speaks are found not at all or only very rarely in the Synoptics: he prefers the term “eternal life” to “the kingdom of God,” so frequent in the Synoptics; he uses the imagery of light and darkness; he refers to himself as the Son in relation to the Father much more than Jesus does in the Synoptics. It is important to realize that there are real similarities as well as significant differences between the way Jesus speaks in the Synoptics and in John. A clue to the reason for that is the fact that some of the distinctive language appears in John when he is writing on his own account, as he does in the Prologue, and not reporting words of Jesus. So is John different in that he freely puts his own words into Jesus’s mouth, attributing his own theology to Jesus? I think that if we recognize both the similarity and the difference, it would be better to say that John’s Jesus expresses himself along with John’s reflective interpretation of what Jesus said and meant. Jesus Is Unequivocally God John’s Gospel is the only one to use the word “God” of Jesus. It does so three times—twice in the Prologue and once in Thomas’s confession at the climax of the story—thus framing the whole narrative. How much of a contrast with the Synoptics is this? Many scholars, myself included, have been reassessing the Christology of the Synoptics and arguing that, in fact, all of them have a high Christology, ascribing fully divine identity to Jesus. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that this is more implicit in the Synoptics and more explicit in John. At the same time, it is important that John’s Jesus is equally clearly human. No other Gospel lays so much emphasis on Jesus’s physical fragility and human emotions. So the difference from the Synoptics may be better

44

Richard Bauckham

expressed: John is more explicit and reflective than the Synoptics about the divine and human identity of Jesus. That is certainly not an exhaustive catalog of John’s differences from the Synoptics (we shall encounter some more soon), but it gives some indication of what needs to be explained.2 WHY IS JOHN DIFFERENT? A popular account of the differences between John and the other Gospels is that the Synoptic Gospels are more historical, while John is more theological. This simplistic notion will not do because it underestimates both the degree to which the Synoptics are theological and the degree to which John is historical. Most recent studies of the Gospels would support that. Yet the influence continues of a long scholarly tradition of considering John not as history but theology. Most (though not all scholars) have been reluctant to accuse John of inventing a pack of historical lies and trying to pass them off as history, like the bad historians parodied by Lucian in his How to Write History. So it has been common to suppose that John did not intend to write history and should not be read as such. His stories are not accounts of the past, but symbolic narratives created for the sake of their theological meaning. Some have claimed that he writes a kind of poetry that should not be mistaken for historical prose. But such a view cannot be sustained once we place John’s Gospel in its ancient literary context. Bad historians of the time, those who freely invented material, nevertheless wrote historiography. They wrote works that could be easily recognized, by their literary genre, as history. The fact is that, generically, John’s Gospel is, like the Synoptic Gospels, a bios, a biography, a life of a famous person, comparable with other Greco-Roman biographies that we know. All the differences we have noticed between John and the Synoptics make John’s a somewhat different way of writing a life of Jesus, but no less a life of Jesus than the others. The so-called Gnostic Gospels that are not lives of Jesus are generically quite different. Ancient biographies were a specific kind of historical literature. But I would go further than putting the Synoptics and John in the same category. I would say that there are features of John that to contemporary readers or hearers would have made John seem more like good history than the Synoptics:3 First, John’s Gospel is notable for its geographical and chronological precision, something that ancient readers expected in good historical writing. In John’s Gospel, we always know where Jesus is, sometimes very precisely (e.g., not just in the Temple in Jerusalem, but in Solomon’s portico [10:23]), and we always know, within a matter of months, when the events occur, because John has a clear chronological scheme marked by the Jewish festivals. Among the Synoptics, only Mark has anything approaching John’s

Why Is John’s Gospel Different?

45

topographical precision, while the Passover at the end of the story is almost the only chronological marker they provide. Second, for the ancients, eyewitness testimony was essential to historical writing, and the best qualified historian was someone who had himself been an eyewitness of some of the events he recorded. John’s is the only Gospel that actually claims, in its conclusion (21:24), to have been written by an eyewitness whose presence at some of the events he explicitly notes. Third, I should also mention John’s practice of apparently putting words into Jesus’s mouth. This was not essential to good history, but it was well within the recognized conventions of the writing of history in the ancient world. History was expected to include speeches, but, of course, very often the historian had no means of recording the actual words of a speech or even of summarizing them. So the expectation was that the historian attribute to the character words that were appropriate to the person and to the occasion. Readers or hearers of John’s Gospel could well understand that he could have drawn on the traditions of Jesus’s sayings to create realistic discourses and dialogues. So the answer to the question why John’s Gospel is different is not that it is not history. John is a life of Jesus, a bios, like the Synoptics, but, compared with them, a bios with a difference. I suggest that we could sum up the reasons for this difference in three factors: First, John’s Gospel is written from a perspective outside the circle of the Twelve. Mark’s Gospel, which I am convinced was based primarily on Peter’s eyewitness testimony, is a Gospel from the perspective of those three disciples who evidently formed a kind of inner circle of the Twelve: Peter, James, and John. Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels are expanded versions of Mark’s Gospel, versions largely of the tradition of the Twelve, even if they also draw on some other sources. John gives us a different perspective on the story of Jesus, that of the Beloved Disciple (“the disciple Jesus loved”). To my argument at this point, it is crucial that I do not believe that the Beloved Disciple is John the son of Zebedee, as traditionally maintained. With many other scholars, I think the Gospel portrays the Beloved Disciple as a disciple of Jesus who is not one of the Twelve, but one of those many other disciples Jesus had.4 He was evidently a disciple who lived and stayed in Jerusalem, not traveling around with Jesus as the Twelve did. He was close to Jesus, not in the sense that Jesus marked him out for leadership, as he did Peter, James, and John, but in a personal sense. He was Jesus’s best friend. Moreover, when we look at the other disciples of Jesus who are prominent in John’s Gospel, we find that many of them are either members of the Twelve who never appear as individuals in the Synoptics or disciples who do not appear at all in the Synoptics: Philip, Thomas, Nathanael, Lazarus, and Nicodemus.5 It is worth noticing that Nicodemus and Lazarus, as well as Martha and Mary,

46

Richard Bauckham

lived in or near Jerusalem. It looks as though these are the circle of disciples to which the Beloved Disciple, after the resurrection, belonged. His Gospel is written from his and their perspective. In my view, this is one of the things that makes John’s Gospel so very interesting. Here we see Jesus from a perspective outside the circle of the Twelve. Jesus is seen as it were, from a different vantage point among those who had known him. Second, John’s Gospel is written from a perspective of a perceptive witness, the Beloved Disciple. We need to notice how this disciple is portrayed in the Gospel. He is not said to be present very often, but he is there at the most important events: the last supper (next to Jesus), the crucifixion (the only male disciple with the women), the empty tomb, and the appearance of the risen Jesus by the Sea of Galilee. He is said to be close to Jesus, called the disciple Jesus loved. (John says that Jesus loved all his disciples [13:1], this description of the Beloved Disciple must indicate a particular affection, like Jesus’s love for the Bethany family [11:5].) In comparison with Peter, the Beloved Disciple proves more perceptive. At the empty tomb, he believes that Jesus has risen, with only the evidence of the tomb to go on (20:8). In the boat, he recognizes that the man on the shore is Jesus (21:7). In the closing verses of the Gospel, much is made of the idea that, unlike Peter and the others, the Beloved Disciple is to “remain,” not necessarily until Jesus comes, but as a long-lived witness to Jesus (21:22–23). At the end of his long life, he writes his Gospel, the result of his lifelong reflection on what he had experienced with Jesus in his youth. Many scholars, of course, do not agree that the Beloved Disciple himself wrote the Gospel. Would an eyewitness have written a Gospel like this, a narrative that embodies so much theological interpretation? I think it may be that, precisely because of his closeness to Jesus, the Beloved Disciple may have felt authorized to interpret Jesus in ways that went beyond the testimony of the other disciples. We should never forget that all history is interpreted history. No disciple of Jesus could have given us some bare un-interpreted collection of facts. The question is whether John’s interpretation takes us away from the reality of Jesus or further into the reality of Jesus. I think he wrote his Gospel because he thought he had a distinctive witness to bear, a witness that takes us further into the reality of Jesus. Third, and finally, it is this distinctive interpretation of Jesus and his story on the part of the Beloved Disciple that makes the Gospel different. Some readers familiar with the scholarly literature on John may expect me at this point to talk about the Johannine community. Many scholars have explained the difference of John’s Gospel by claiming that it reflects the life and history of a particular Christian community, a community isolated from the rest of the Christian movement, that developed an outlook and theology that we see reflected in the Gospel. I think this Johannine community is a figment of

Why Is John’s Gospel Different?

47

the imagination of Johannine scholars. Of course, John’s Gospel was written somewhere in some community or communities. I take the traditional view that it stems from Ephesus, where the Beloved Disciple lived in his old age. But there is no good reason to think that it was written in some isolated backwater of the Christian movement (Ephesus was a major center). I do not think its author wrote for his own community, but for the Christian movement generally, expecting his Gospel to circulate around the churches, as Mark’s Gospel at least had already done. I attribute the distinctiveness of the Gospel to its author, a writer of genius and insight, who, on the basis of the specific ways in which he and the disciples he was close to had known Jesus, developed a powerful theological reading of the Gospel story all his own. So: exit the Johannine community. Reenter the Beloved Disciple.6 THE JOHANNINE INTERPRETATION OF JESUS In the rest of this essay, I shall sketch the prominent outlines of this Gospel’s interpretation of the story of Jesus, which I will finally sum up by calling it the Gospel of Love. Who Is Jesus? In terms of the Christological titles John highlights: 1. Jesus is the Messiah, a title that means the King of Israel and focuses on Jesus’s relationship to Israel and the promises of God to his people. 2. Jesus is the Son of God or the Son of the Father. This Gospel has a very strong focus on the unique filial relationship of Jesus with the Father. 3. Jesus is God, which means, among other things, that the relationship of Jesus the Son to the Father is a relationship within the unique identity of the one God. These titles say plainly who Jesus is, but the Gospel also has a profusion of metaphorical, symbolic, or enigmatic ways of saying who Jesus is, for example, in the “I am” sayings. While the figurative language of the Synoptics focuses especially on what the kingdom of God is, the figurative language of John focuses on who Jesus is and who he is for his people. What Does Jesus Do? He reveals God, and he gives eternal life. These are the two dominant ways in which John speaks of the salvation Jesus brings. They are not prominent

48

Richard Bauckham

themes in the Synoptics. It is distinctive of John that he highlights these two aspects of what Jesus came to do: he came to reveal God and to give eternal life, which is participation in the very life of God. How Can Jesus Do These Things? Ultimately, he can do so only because he is God. Only God can reveal God. Only God can give the divine life, the birth from above. More specifically, Jesus can reveal God and give eternal life because he is the divine Son of the Father. As the Son who reflects in himself the glory of the Father, he can reveal who God really is: the glory of God. As the Son who shares the eternal divine life with the Father, as the one who uniquely has life in himself (as the Gospel puts it), the Son can give life to others. How Does Jesus Do These Things? How does Jesus reveal God and give eternal life? John’s account of this is intensely focused on the cross. From chapter 1 onward, in many ways, often riddling and enigmatic, John is pointing readers forward to the climactic event of the cross and exaltation of Jesus. The most striking feature of John’s understanding of the cross is that it is the event in which the glory of God is revealed. The theme is introduced in those famous words of the Prologue: “the Word was made flesh and lived among us and we [I think John means primarily himself, the Beloved Disciple] have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son” (1:14). At this point in the Gospel, readers do not yet know it, but those words point forward to the cross, where Jesus is glorified, and God is glorified in him. There are preliminary revelations of the glory throughout the Gospel narrative, but it is at the cross that the glory of God is climactically and fully seen. How can this be? How can the suffering and death of Jesus be glory? How can the cross show us who God is? This distinctively Johannine puzzle has a distinctively Johannine answer: The Key to It All Is Love The key to it all is the self-giving love of God. The Father gives his Son to death so that the world may have eternal life, and thereby the extraordinary extent and the amazing nature of God’s love are revealed. JOHN’S GOSPEL AS THE GOSPEL OF LOVE We are so used to the idea that the story of Jesus is all about God’s love that it may be surprising to find that that is a distinctively Johannine interpretation

49

Why Is John’s Gospel Different?

of the story of Jesus.7 The statistics of word usage in the Gospels are very revealing. Table 3.1 gives the data for usage of the two verbs meaning “to love” (agapaō and phileō) and the noun “love” (agapē). All these words are much more common in John than in the other Gospels. They are used in various ways, but in a majority of cases, for people’s love for God and people’s love of other people (as in the two great commandments). Table 3.2 shows that the Synoptic Gospels never refer to God’s love except in the word God speaks at the baptism and transfiguration of Jesus when he calls Jesus “my beloved Son” (using the adjective agapētos). They never say that God loves anyone else, and only in one instance do any of these three Gospels say that Jesus loves anyone (Mark 10:21). By contrast, the Gospel of John uses these words twelve times to refer to God’s love (for the world, for Jesus, for the disciples) and seventeen times to refer to Jesus’s love for God his Father and for his disciples. So it appears that the Synoptic Gospels do not tell us that the story of Jesus is the story of God’s love for the world, that Jesus reveals God’s love, or that God’s love reaches us through Jesus. What should we do with this difference? We might go in search of aspects of God’s love in the Synoptic Gospels: mercy, forgiveness, compassion, generosity. We might look for God’s love in the acts of Jesus: his healings, his communication of God’s forgiveness, his Table 3.1  “Love” in the Gospels

agapaō agapē phileō

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

8 1 5

5 1 1

13 0 2

37 7 13

Table 3.2  God Loves, Jesus Loves

agapaō   God loves   Jesus loves agapē   God’s Love   Jesus’s Love agapētos   (God’s Beloved Son) phileō   God Loves   Jesus Loves

Matt

Mark

Luke

John

0 0 1 0 0

0 1 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

10 11 7 1 3

3 5 0 0

2 (+1) 1 0 0

2 (+1)* 2 0 0

0 13 1 3

*(+1) indicates the use with reference to the beloved son in the Parable of the Vineyard (Mark 12:8; Luke 20:13).

50

Richard Bauckham

death for others. If we did so, John would be helping us to see what is there in the other Gospels. I suggest that when John makes the theme of God’s love and Jesus’s love the key to the whole story of Jesus, he is doing something that he does in other ways too: he is making explicit what the Synoptics leave largely implicit. As a result, John has given us not only his own distinctive Gospel. He has also given us, in his Gospel, ways of reading the other Gospels. Knowing from John that God’s love is what the story of Jesus is all about, we find that in the Synoptics too. It then seems very clear that what Jesus is doing in the Synoptics is enacting God’s love for us, and that his death in the Synoptics is where we see God’s love most fully. Most Christians reading the Synoptics probably do think that. They see that God’s love is what Jesus and his mission are all about. But in that case, whether they know it or not, John has helped them to see God’s love in the Synoptics. I said earlier that the question to ask about John’s distinctive interpretation of Jesus is whether it takes us away from the reality of Jesus or further into the reality of Jesus. I think that when John shows us that the key to the whole story of Jesus is God’s love, the whole of the Christian tradition is united in believing that John thereby takes us deeper into the reality of Jesus. OUTLINES OF THE STORY OF GOD’S LOVE IN JOHN’S GOSPEL In table 3.3, I have divided John’s Gospel into two parts. The table shows how the three keywords for “love” are overwhelmingly concentrated in chapters 11–21. But what the earlier chapters do have are two programmatic texts of great importance for reading the whole Gospel as the story of God’s love. The first of these, in the Prologue, we may not initially recognize because it does not actually contain any of the words for “love.” But the topic is there because the Prologue and only the Prologue prefers the word “grace” (charis), a word used nowhere else in the Gospel. In 1:14, 17–18, John is linking the incarnation of God in Jesus to God’s revelation of himself to Moses, which for the Hebrew Bible was the definitive revelation of God’s character (Exod 33:17–34:8). Moses was not able to see God’s glory; he was allowed Table 3.3  “Love” in the Gospel of John

agapaō agapē phileō

Chapters 1–10

Chapters 11–21

5 1 1

32 6 12

Why Is John’s Gospel Different?

51

only to hear God proclaim his character (Exod 34:6–7). In Jesus, according to John, we can see what Moses could only hear. In Jesus, we see who God is. So when John says “full of grace and truth” (1:14), he is echoing the keywords of the Old Testament description of God. In many modern translations these are “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” John translates those words as “full of grace and truth.” Thus, John does say, in the Prologue, that Jesus revealed God’s love, but he does so in such a way as to affirm: that was already the character of God in the Hebrew Bible. Jesus does not reveal some new God, but in Jesus, we can actually see, expressed and embodied, the divine love that God made known to Moses. The second programmatic reference to God’s love is the famous John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” It is justly famous because it perfectly summarizes John’s interpretation of the story of Jesus. Those two programmatic statements point forward to the later chapters of the Gospel in which God’s love and Jesus’s love become explicit and frequent themes. It is not until chapter 11 that the Gospel speaks of Jesus’s love, a theme that then continues through to Jesus’s prayer to the Father in chapter 17. In chapter 11, we learn that Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus (11:5, cf. 36). Clearly, this is the kind of love that someone has for their friends. It is a particular love. But John uses this story to preview, as it were, the love that takes Jesus to the cross. By traveling to Bethany and bringing Lazarus back from the grave, out of his love for Lazarus and his sisters, Jesus risked his life. In fact, in John’s narrative, the raising of Lazarus is the pivotal event that triggers the determination of the Jewish authorities to put Jesus to death and so actually leads to the cross. In this context, it is highly significant that Jesus’s emotions are so strongly evoked. It contains the famous verse, “Jesus wept” (11:35) and other expressions of deep emotion (11:33, 38). “See how much he loved him,” say the onlookers (11:36). Jesus’s love for Lazarus is visible. It is God’s love in very human form, translated into the affective reality of human love. The passion narrative proper in John begins in chapter 13 with these opening words: “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Here the object of Jesus’s love is widened to “his own who were in the world,” and the story from here onward tells how he carries through that love to its ultimate point, when he lays down his life for his friends (15:13). In the context of that story also occurs Jesus’s commandment to the disciples that they should love one another (13:34; 15:12). In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus quotes from the Torah (Lev 19:18) the commandment to love

52

Richard Bauckham

one’s neighbor as oneself. He makes it one of the two great commandments (Mark 12:28–31). In John’s Gospel, that Mosaic commandment is paraphrased as “you should love one another.” When Jesus first gives that commandment to the disciples, immediately following the last supper, he calls it a new commandment (13:34). How can it be a new commandment when in fact it comes from Leviticus? The answer, I think, is not in the words “love one another” but in the clause that Jesus adds: “just as I have loved you.” This is the added value by comparison with Leviticus and with the Synoptic Gospels, which never, as we have noticed, speak of Jesus’s love for the disciples. John, who stresses Jesus’s love for his disciples, deepens the meaning of the love commandment by tying it to the example of Jesus’s own love. In chapter 13, “just as I love you” most obviously refers back to Jesus’s washing of the disciples’ feet, an example Jesus has already said the disciples should follow by washing each other’s feet (13:14–15). It defines love as prepared to take the role of the slave, not considering any act of service beneath its dignity. But when Jesus repeats the love commandment in chapter 15, “just as I have loved you,” he refers to his example in laying down his life for his friends. Love is defined as being prepared even for this ultimate sacrifice. There is no greater love (15:12–14). So, in John’s reading of the story of Jesus, the commandment to love one another refers not just to the love that God or Jesus commands. It is the love that Jesus enacts and exemplifies. When we recall that John includes no other ethical teaching of Jesus, but he sums up all that Jesus requires of his disciples in that respect as love, it is of the greatest significance that he roots the very meaning of the love commandment in the story of Jesus’s love for his friends. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS I will conclude this brief reflection on John’s Gospel as the Gospel of love with two further comments. First, since it is God’s love that Jesus reveals and enacts in human form, it is significant what kind of human love John highlights. When he wants to depict God’s love incarnate, the reflection of the Father’s love in the human life and death of the Son, the kind of human love he chooses to depict is friendship, the affective love of the friend who will risk his life for the friends he loves, as Jesus does for Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and who will go intentionally to death for the sake of his friends, as Jesus does for the disciples he calls friends. Second, I think we can now see how significant it is that the author of the Gospel calls himself “the disciple Jesus loved.” In ordinary terms, it means that he was Jesus’s best friend. But it tells us too that it was in this experience of Jesus’s friendship that the Beloved Disciple came to understand what

Why Is John’s Gospel Different?

53

it meant for God’s love to be made visible human reality in Jesus. It is what enabled him to write a Gospel we can call the Gospel of love.8 NOTES 1. See Richard Bauckham, Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 13–17. 2. For discussion of some other differences, see Bauckham, Gospel of Glory, 188–197. 3. Here I am summarizing arguments I made in chapter 4 (“Historiographical Characteristics of the Gospel of John”) of Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007), 93–112. 4. For my understanding of the identity of the Beloved Disciple, see Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, 33–91; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (2nd edition; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 358–411, 549–589. Ben Witherington and I agree that the Beloved Disciple was not one of the Twelve, but we differ as to his actual identity. 5. Martha and Mary are a similar case. In the Synoptics they appear only briefly in Luke 10:38–42. 6. See Richard Bauckham (ed.), The Gospels for all Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998); Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, 10–25, 113–123. 7. I have dealt briefly with the theme of love in John’s Gospel in Gospel of Glory, 64–69. 8. This essay was first published in a French translation: “Pourquoi l’évangile de Jean est-il different des autres?,” Hokhma 118 (2020), 35–50. It is a pleasure to dedicate this original English version to my good friend Ben Witherington.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauckham, Richard. Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2015. ———. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2017. ———. “Pourquoi l’évangile de Jean est-il Different des Autres?” Hokhma 118 (2020): 35–50. ———. The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007. ———, ed. The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Chapter 4

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel Gary M. Burge

Today it is commonplace to view John’s Gospel as more than a mere recitation of events that took place during Jesus’s life. Indeed John as well as the other Gospel writers are correctly viewed as theologians in their own right. John is fully aware of his intended audience, conversant with the cultural and historical forces surrounding him, and quite willing to use this literary platform we term a “Gospel” to contribute to the church of his day. Of course, this view of John does not necessitate that we neglect the historical value of his record. It simply requires that we read John alert to the subtleties of his presentation and sensitive to how John’s Gospel may have been viewed and used within his first audience.1 A significant theme in Johannine theology is John’s understanding of revelation and how this affects his theological template for discipleship. This is different from the observation that is at least as old as Bultmann that the chief work of Christ in this Gospel is revelation and not the cross.2 Indeed, the first fruit of the incarnation in John’s mind was the revealing of the Father. The cross is chiefly a place where Christ is “lifted up” (to use John’s language) so that he might be revealed to all the world (3:14–15). But in the present discussion, I am thinking about something different. I believe that John has highly formed views on how revelation is the distinguishing mark of normative Christian experience. Some would call it the appropriation of wisdom or a template of discipleship. But perhaps John would be happier if we called it prophetic revelation—or even an awakening to deep insight about commonplace realities. Of course, other elements are a necessary part of this discipleship template, such as faith, right confession of Christ, and ethical transformation (embodied in the love command). But I would submit that these features are a byproduct of a revelatory experience which is one of the first endowments of the Spirit. 55

56

Gary M. Burge

I am convinced that the letters of John provide ample evidence that John’s followers celebrated ecstatic, pneumatic experiences, and foremost among these was the gift of prophecy through which newly revealed truths were accessible. John’s perspective on experiential revelation is presented with a consistent, unified rhetorical strategy that is as applicable to a reader today as it was to John’s intended audience. His rhetorical strategy creates tensions and crises for anyone who reads his story for the first time. And these crises of understanding do not spring from the preparation (or pre-understanding) or failings of the modern or ancient reader. They are built into the literary drama of the text itself. Readers or hearers of John’s gospel encounter this strategy at four levels. A brief summary follows here. First, think for a moment of John’s Gospel as theater. Characters within John’s drama may (or may not) experience this revelation through their encounter with Christ. John invites us to watch characters on his literary stage to see what will result. Actors enter the stage, encounter Christ, and then through this, we learn about Jesus and the failings or successes of those who appear. We see this quite clearly, for example, in Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus. If Nicodemus cannot understand earthly things, then how will he be able to comprehend heavenly things (3:12)? Nicodemus has not yet crossed some bridge; he has not yet gained what is needed to comprehend the truth of things either on this earth or beyond it. In a word, he has no access to the revelation necessary to probe the meaning of the rebirth he has been offered. Of course, Nicodemus reenters the narrative later, first defending Jesus and then contributing to his burial. But we can see that he is simply orbiting the truth, intuiting something great is near, but unable to probe beneath its surface. Perhaps he is (as Raymond Brown once suggested) the type of person John has in mind in 12:42: authorities who believe—but due to fear, fail to confess it because they might be dismissed from the synagogue since they love human praise more than God.3 These characters are potential disciples for whom the challenges of belief and the social risks of discipleship are being displayed. And yet incomprehension characterizes their lives. They illustrate a template that John has in mind for discipleship. Second, John is aware of his reader (or “his intended audience”), and he invites us to experience the same revelatory tension found among his characters, such as Nicodemus, in the narrative. We too have glimpses of a deeper reality, and we too find ourselves experiencing perplexity no less daunting than that found in the rabbi. John helps us with asides, and he coaches our understanding realizing fully that we too are being called to belief just like Nicodemus was.

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

57

But we, too, experience inadequacy in our understanding. We, too, are orbiting the truth, curious about the identity and purpose of the lead character. We, too, are potential disciples, and we experience in our reading/hearing John’s template for discipleship. John knows we are there, and he has a strategy for us. Third, John hints at his own experience through narrative addenda in the Gospel. He points forward to an hour following Christ’s glorification when comprehension is possible—and he ties this capacity to the gift of the Spirit. At last in the Farewell Discourse, John gives away the game, telling us (and the disciples)—if we can comprehend it—what the hour of glorification actually offers. The Spirit-Paraclete will offer a renewal of understanding and an awakening to the realities found in Christ. Not only will the Spirit recall what Jesus has said (14:26), but the Spirit will also lead the believer into new heights of understanding, revealing to him or her things not understood before (16:13). Fourth, we can examine how this view of the Spirit, discipleship, and revelation affected John’s own writing and living. Thanks to the post-Easter gift of the Spirit, John’s own understanding of Christ and history had been altered. And no doubt this experience has contributed greatly to his writing up of the Gospel and helps explain why John is substantially different from the Synoptics. But it also laid the framework that ultimately might undo the very community he built. REVELATION AND JOHN’S LITERARY DRAMA We know that one of the foremost characteristics of John’s literary drama is the presence of irony and misunderstanding. There is extensive literature on John’s use of this literary form; its relation to Synoptic parables; and its possible origin in Jewish apocalyptic, wisdom, or Hellenistic riddles.4 Most scholars locate about eleven misunderstandings in the Gospel, but with a wider definition of them, the list is much longer. In 1948, Oscar Cullmann published one of the earliest studies which offered a long list of Greek words in John that have a double or ambiguous meaning.5 Words such as temple (naos), above/again (anōthen), lift up (hypsoō), and king (basileus) each contain both a heavenly and an earthly meaning, and this, according to Cullmann, is a key to unlocking the Gospel. This phenomenon of ironic misunderstanding leads to an “insider/outsider” view of the world and subsequently has led many interpreters in the 1970s and 1980s to think that the form was simply a cipher for the Johannine community’s exclusive sectarian ownership of the truth.6 More recently, Bruce Malina has used this phenomenon to identify the social location of John’s followers and concludes that the Johannine community had

58

Gary M. Burge

anti-social tendencies.7 Jerome Neyrey thinks of this language as politically subversive and finds in it more evidence of a “community in revolt.”8 In 1982, Don Carson severely criticized such views, and after a careful literary analysis of “misunderstanding” concluded that there was not a predictable literary motif at work in John’s Gospel superimposed on the narrative.9 However, while he defended against those who deconstructed these sayings, little attention was given to John’s theological use of them. Characters enter the stage of the Johannine theater in darkness. Frequently they fail to understand the historical circumstances swirling around them— such as Caiaphas, who thinks he can save his nation from the Romans if Jesus dies, but does not realize that this death will save the nation in yet another way (11:50). Pontius Pilate’s queries about kingship and truth employ no irony, but they uncover the same lack of comprehension (19:33,38). Matters become more acute when public groups meet Jesus directly and listen to his claims. The Jewish leaders in 2:20 think that Jesus-the-architect will build a temple in three days. In 7:35, these leaders think that Jesus’s departure must refer to a permanent trip into the Diaspora. And in 8:31ff, this same crowd thinks that the slavery and freedom Jesus outlines are historical and not spiritual. These examples of misunderstanding are typical and appear throughout the Gospel. However, they are not there simply for dramatic effect. They are an index of spiritual capacity, a signal of how little the world can comprehend not only the things that come directly from God but also how little the world comprehends its own reality. Thus at Cana, it is not surprising that the wedding party cannot comprehend what has just happened. Nor can Nicodemus comprehend rebirth. It is not that these people exhibit an unwillingness to understand. It is rather that they are unable. They stand on the Johannine stage dumbstruck, blindfolded, intuiting that something is there, but unable to see beyond their own darkness. It is not surprising that John refers to the miracles of Jesus as semeia. Of course, the signs are judicial evidence serving a Johannine forensic motif, but more, the signs are symbols that bear a meaning deeper than they at first appear, miracles whose meaning is cloaked to all but a few. Call them parables wed to power. Most actors in the drama never transcend their own misunderstanding. For them, voices from heaven are only thunder and no more (12:29). This is, of course, the tragic, surprising climax to the dialogue with Nicodemus. But there are others who choose to have faith, who—despite their initial failings—decide to remain with Jesus. They choose to believe, and suddenly we see them exhibiting a struggling comprehension, unlike the others. At once, the early followers of Jesus in chapter 1 come to mind—Andrew, Peter, Nathanael, and Philip. However, in this case, they are given the wisdom needed by a prophet. God’s messenger, John the Baptist, identifies

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

59

Jesus accurately, bears witness to him, and introduces his followers to him. Therefore, even though these four men grasp this reality, the catalyst for their awakening begins with another, a prophet, someone sent by God. In John’s theological framework, if left alone, these men would doubtless fail to recognize Jesus or decide to follow him. The woman of Samaria in chapter 4 provides another example. She does not know the identity of her guest, but she remains with him despite his moral probing and asks for the living water he offers. Suddenly we find her identifying Jesus as a prophet (4:19) and speculating if he is the Christ (4:29); even her entire village names Jesus correctly (4:42). The blind man of chapter 9 is one more example. He will not deny his experience with Christ despite its costliness, and before long, we meet him among the theologians of Jerusalem defending Jesus’s origins with God. Even in chapter 12, many suspect that the thunder is not thunder at all but the voice of an angel (12:29). Two paradigms of encounter thus work side by side on the Johannine theatrical stage. Both grapple with misunderstanding. Even at the well in Samaria, the woman stumbles on the meaning of “living water.” But one group breaks through, sometimes believes, and gains a glimpse of truth. The disciples in John illustrate this well. They misunderstand about “food” in Samaria (4:31), and they misunderstand about Lazarus who “sleeps” (11:12). But they remain with Jesus, sustain their encounter, and eventually begin to gain glimpses, true though incomplete glimpses, of who he is and what is happening. Jesus exhorts them in Bethany on the porch of Lazarus’s tomb that if they believe, they will see the glory of God (11:40). For us, this is foreshadowing even though the disciples do not see it. If they believe, they will also see that in the cross Christ’s glory may be glimpsed again. These two positions explain why following many of the dramatic narratives in the Gospel, the people who meet Jesus on John’s stage divide. That is, some actors who discern good things, who intuit God at work are at odds with those who see nothing. Or, in a few cases, this latter group suspects something sinister. In chapter 6, the disciples struggle with what Jesus teaches, and those who sustain belief remain while others fall away (6:66). Chapter 7 models this behavior for us dramatically. Some say that Jesus is a good man, while others are convinced he leads people astray (7:12). Some speculate that he is the Christ but acknowledge that many want to kill him (7:25, 31). Some label him a prophet or the Christ, while others dispute his origins and try to arrest him (7:44). These divisions are happening simultaneously, lending the impression that once characters enter the stage and meet Jesus, they are immediately separated, some gaining glimpses of understanding, others being left in the darkness. No doubt John’s conclusion of the Book of Signs in chapter 12 is one key. Within this chapter, 12:37–40 should be seen as a watershed in the theology

60

Gary M. Burge

of the Gospel. Jesus’s public work is completed; his signs have been displayed in the world; his discourses have been delivered. And yet, the signs, for the most part, have been rejected. His own people failed to believe the messenger sent by God. We were warned that this would happen in John’s opening Prologue, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (1:11). John echoes the thinking of other NT writers when he leads us first to Isa 53:1. Isaiah 53 provided the earliest Christians with a poignant description of the Suffering Servant whose role helped interpret the anguish and suffering of Jesus. And 53:1 sums up the Servant’s rejection. Neither his words (“what we have heard”) nor his deeds (“what the arm of the Lord has done”) have found any reception in Israel. John then takes us to Isaiah 6:10, which must have become the classic NT explanation for Israel’s rejection of Jesus. Paul cites it in his final speech in Acts (28:26–27), and the Synoptic Gospels use it to explain why the people cannot comprehend the parables of Jesus (Mk 4:12; Lk 8:10; Mt 13:13–15). The theological message of 12:38–40 is thus anchored to Isaiah’s experience. God called Isaiah to speak to Israel but forewarned him that his words would find no acceptance. People would hear, but fail to understand—they would see but fail to comprehend. Therefore, Isaiah did not fail, but instead he fulfilled God’s purposes. Likewise, Jesus did not fail, but he was continuing the prophetic experience of Isaiah. Isaiah did not prophesy that this would be Jesus’s experience (though he saw Jesus’s glory, 12:41)—Jesus is simply mirroring or completing what Isaiah described in his own time. Jews should therefore hear John’s words and see them as an exhortation to repent of their disbelief and turn to the messenger who can save them. The intention of John (and indeed Isaiah) is not to provide a rigid deterministic explanation for unbelief. In fact, it is doubtful if biblical writers like Isaiah or John were thinking about a philosophical causality as some would argue for it today. In John’s Gospel, God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are held together consistently.10 Jesus calls for people to believe (12:36), and we learn that many do indeed make this choice (42). Throughout the Gospel, John never compromises the demand Jesus makes for decision and faith. However, John is describing what we might call a “judicial” hardening that settles on a people who are already in the darkness. When revelation comes, we must believe. However, if we refuse to believe, the light disappears (12:35f), and when God’s light departs the world, the darkness (which is the default state of the world) closes over unbelieving hearts. In John’s literary drama, this is why Jesus disappears and hides in 12:36b. A forewarning of this behavior already comes in 10:40 after Jesus concludes his debates with the Temple leadership. Jesus moves to a remote place “across the Jordan” out of reach. But in chapter 12, he literally steps off the

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

61

stage, exiting the theater, and his contact with public Judaism ends. The curtain closes. And our final scene in the Book of Signs is the crowd in Jerusalem left alone without him and the messiah’s cry, now faceless, echoing from behind the narrator’s commentary (12:44–50). It is also important to see that in John’s mind, incomprehension and rejection are hopeful in the plan of God. God’s sovereignty looks to accomplish wider purposes: In Isa 6:11–13, blindness must remain until the thoroughgoing judgment of God on Israel is complete (“until the cities lie in waste”). In John’s understanding, the hardness of Israel is likewise purposeful: for through Christ’s rejection, salvation will be won for Israel at the cross and the glory of God revealed. Unbelieving Jews will crucify him. Moreover, through their refusal, the gospel now comes to the rest of the world. The good shepherd both lays down his life and locates other sheep not of “this fold” (10:16–17). The bread that Jesus will give for the life of the world will be his flesh (6:51). Paul makes the same claim in Rom 9:22–33. God is at work sealing judgment in the present in order to achieve a long-term salvific purpose. REVELATION AND JOHN’S READER As a reader of John’s Gospel, I am confronted with the same challenge to believe as are the characters on the stage (20:31). But it is interesting to ask: What are John’s assumptions concerning my relationship to this experience of revelation? What is John assuming about my capacity as a hearer/reader to understand and discern? The actors in his drama are confronted with the disarming paradox of revelation, which they cannot penetrate without divine help. But once they believe, once they sustain engagement with God, enlightenment dawns. Is John telling me that the same is true for us as well? John is aware of his audience, and he often writes insulating us from the perplexing experiences of the actors. This can be seen through the numerous so-called asides where John coaches our understanding of basic geographic or historical details.11 He is actually mentoring us through his story. He translates Aramaic or Hebrew words such as rabbi, messiah, and Golgotha. He explains topography (such as the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem), Jewish customs (such as the water jars in Cana); he explains links to the gospel tradition (such as: “This was before John was imprisoned,” 3:24); and he explains scripture fulfillment (just note the frequent phrase, “this happened in order . . .”). He clarifies for us statements made by Jesus (such as 6:71, “He meant Judas, son of Simon Iscariot”), he explains Jesus’s supernatural knowledge (“. . . for Jesus knew all people,” 2:24), and he numbers events for us (such as the signs). He even explains in his narrative why people make mistakes—as in 20:14, “Mary did not realize it was Jesus.”

62

Gary M. Burge

These are “protective interventions.”12 John intervenes in the text of his Gospel, giving his audience (as it were) a “stage bill,” which allows them to see and understand things not yet known by the actors. For example, in the first misunderstanding, when Jesus cleanses the Temple, he says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (2:19–21). The metaphorical use of temple is lost on the crowd, but John does not want us to be similarly victimized by the metaphor. He resolves the tension for us, giving us the right meaning, “Jesus was referring to the temple of his body” (21). However, in the second formal misunderstanding (the Nicodemus story), John supplies no intervention or resolution for the reader. Nicodemus must be born “again” (Gk., anōthen), and we are left as perplexed as the rabbi, wondering how to make sense of this odd command. Of course, readers with good memories may recall John’s comment about rebirth in 1:13. But as chapter 3 unfolds, we cannot penetrate the meaning of rebirth. In order to recreate this experience, one has to read John 3 for the first time without any pre-understanding coming from Christian experience. Anōthen becomes inexplicable, and Nicodemus’s confusion is our confusion too. The same is true in chapter 4 when Jesus refers to living water. Like the woman, I too may realize that ritually useful, running (or living) water is not easily available in the valleys around Shechem. No help is provided until many chapters later when we come to 7:39, and John explains that living water actually refers to the Holy Spirit. But within the narrative itself, within the dialogue between the woman and Jesus, I sit and listen as an outsider, as confused as the woman. This is John’s rhetorical strategy for us. As a reader, I am alerted that meaning can be missed, that there is information beyond my grasp, which John knows. He prods my curiosity, prompting me to look beneath the obvious, to see within the signs things that are not obvious. In a word, John mentors me. And then, on occasion, he leaves me to my own resources, feeling the ambiguity of the actors on the stage. What does it mean to see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man (1:51)? I don’t know. What does it mean to see the Son of Man lifted up (3:14)? I don’t know either. Above all, we note: John is not willing to help me when I meet these details in his story. There is no protective intervention. If he had given me no aid whatsoever in my incomprehension, I would have never known that there was more to seek, more to explore. But he has given me a glimpse to prod my curiosity, to force me to look deeper. A similar phenomenon can be seen in John’s use of the Old Testament. Rather than supplying his audience with the explicit citations so common in the Synoptics, John alludes to texts and themes, thereby veiling the symbolic intertextual possibilities. Richard Hays refers to these as “echoes” of Old Testament texts, accessible only to those who share a significant body of insider information that permits access to their meaning.13 The originating

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

63

text and the evoked text are linked in some cases by verbal parallels or some rhetorical emphasis, but in John’s case, the nuances of this evocation are extremely subtle. Intertextual connections in John are a matter of considerable debate14 and scholars are unclear how to explain them. Edwin Freed once argued that John’s formula citations come from the Masoretic Text or one of the Targums. Günter Reim and Maarten Menken today have said the same. Bruce Schuchard thinks John is using a Greek Old Testament text that is shared by his audience but that John shapes it to serve his own agenda, alluding to Aramaic traditions at his disposal. But beyond text citations, there is the matter of these echoes, suggestions of symbolic connections to the Old Testament that evade our grasp. Craig Koester has recently attempted to give criteria by which these symbols can be decoded and intertextual links confirmed, but the fact remains that such a program is elusive.15 A good example of this can be found in the betrothal motif likely at work in John 2, 3, 4, 12, and 20. The Baptist introduces Jesus as the bridegroom (3:29), and this motif then is sustained with the female characters in subsequent chapters. A fascinating treatment of this is available in Ann Winsor’s study, A King Is Bound in the Tresses, where she finds motifs from the Song of Songs when Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus in 12:1–3 and when Mary of Magdala meets him in the garden in 20:1–18.16 Winsor locates no less than sixty verbal and thematic parallels to the Song of Songs. For instance, the fragrant perfume of John 12:3 may point to the bag of myrrh in Song 1:13 and the many allusions to scent. A recent dissertation on this motif in John offers a persuasive argument linking Genesis 29, Jeremiah 33, the Song of Songs, and the messianic use of Psalm 45—the marriage of God’s anointed king—with key stories in the Fourth Gospel (namely, the wedding at Cana, the woman at the well, the Bethany anointing, and the encounter in the tomb garden). The author writes that John weaves together “bridegroom prophecy, a betrothal narrative, and erotic poetry” to create a portrait of Jesus as a “bridegroom-messiah, the epitome of the bridegroom in Jer. 33:10–11, of the patriarch Jacob in Gen. 29:1–20, of the beloved king in the Song of Songs—and the royal bridegroom in Ps. 45.”17 Literary theorists such as Michael Riffaterre prefer to underscore how writings create meaning by introducing distortion or displacement in an otherwise coherent narrative.18 These are called “ungrammaticalities”—textual enigmas that cause reader confusion and thus reader input. These glitches in the text become “stumbling blocks whose meaning becomes clear only at a deeper level of reading; although they seem to obscure, they are a key to understanding.”19 However, the ungrammaticality really becomes a poetic sign that in some other system, within the framework of another context, the “confusion”

64

Gary M. Burge

becomes clear. Winsor says, “The alert reader becomes aware that an unusual text is not a mistake, but a reference to another text, requiring one to seek a new relational paradigm.”20 Two examples will suffice. What does it mean that Mary of Bethany wipes the ointment on Jesus’s feet with her hair (12:3)? I am perplexed. What does it mean in 20:17 when Mary of Magdala is told not to hold on to Jesus when there is no signal in the text that she has done so? I am perplexed again. In each case, there must be an evoked text—or context—that will enable us to discover meaning. The key here is how intertextuality is working in John and to simply note its effect on me as a reader or hearer. Some are deeply skeptical about a betrothal motif and its links to the Song of Songs and wonder if it is plausible. But at that moment of dispute, we experience precisely what John anticipates. John leaves the reader to his or her own resources, not helping, not explaining, but simply assuming that a reader standing in the right place, holding the right supplemental information, belonging to the right community will be able to understand the deeper meaning of his stories, be they elusive allusions to the Old Testament or echoes of subsequent Christian thinking. John forces me to search for the referent text that makes everything comprehensible. A second strategy John employs to mentor his reader is by offering what might be termed “hierarchies of meaning” within his discourses. In chapter 6, for example, we can trace the meaning of the term “bread” as the narrative evolves. First, we learn that this is commonplace bread served as a meal. And with it, Jesus feeds 5,000 men. Then we understand that this is metaphorical bread which reaches back to the manna offered by Moses. And at a third and final level, the bread of life becomes Christ himself, consumed in the Eucharist (as many interpret it) for our salvation. There is bread—there is manna—there is Eucharist; three levels of use, each elevating the word’s definition to a higher level. While the actors in the story struggle with these meanings, likewise, the reader is an observer as well, who learns that meaning must be discerned and elevated—and for many, its highest stages are an impossible reach. In 6:66, even disciples fall away—and the same ominous warning belongs to us. The danger is presented: if we gain a true glimpse of what is really happening, of who Christ really is, it may be too much for us who look with unaided vision. In chapter 8, the same levels of meaning organize the many misunderstandings that drive this chapter. First, the story debates the merits of physical lineage through Abraham. Jewish ancestry at a most basic level occupies the center of the argument. Next, we learn that the question of ancestry is really about spiritual lineage inasmuch as Jesus is really from God (and conversely, his opponents are from “the devil”). This ancestry is ethical and is determined by one’s intentions. And finally, we are lifted to the climactic level when

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

65

we learn that Jesus is not only “from God” but is the great “I AM” whom Abraham has seen (8:57–58); three levels, three meanings of ancestry. Again I am mentored by the director of the drama. I can see from afar the progressive intellectual and spiritual challenges weighing down the actors. I watch them struggle. And divide. And fall away. And I observe the select few who remain and embrace the profundity of this revelation. It is exhilarating and tragic at the same time. And I realize that John is watching me from the edge of the curtain, wondering what is happening within the audience, within me. Will I become a stone thrower or a believer? A third strategy John uses on his intended audience is he employs what I term an “invisible Christology” in his drama. The full identity of Christ may be veiled to actors on the stage, but I can see more. I can draw together threads that are beyond their grasp and gain a comprehension they cannot. This is most apparent in the catalog of titles for Jesus that appears with some frequency in select Gospel narratives. For example, in 1:35–51, Jesus’s first disciples obediently come to him and each one acknowledges some true aspect of who Jesus is. However, the audience enjoys the privilege of seeing the whole, of listening to the observations of disciples first in Judea then in Galilee. And by the time we reach 1:51, we have heard the following catalog of titles uttered by different people: Jesus, Lamb of God, rabbi, Christ, messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph, Son of God, King of Israel, Son of Man. A catalog such as this is no accident. It launches the gospel and shapes my reading. As the Baptist introduced his followers to Jesus, enlightening them through his witness, so now, John has done the same for me, setting the stage for my thinking, shaping my thoughts as I observe, readying me for faith. He is a divine witness—just like the Baptist—and John’s gospel is my tutor for faith. Wherever faith dawns in this Gospel, the Christological catalog resurfaces. Nothing like it appears with Nicodemus in chapter 3, and this should be taken as an important interpretive clue most commentators miss. But it returns in chapter 4, where characters (including the woman) draw from the original exhaustive catalog to define Jesus. He is a Jew, a prophet, Christ, ego eimi, messiah, rabbi, and savior. The actors cannot hear this list as a list—only the audience can because we have the benefit of possessing the whole, of hearing each person in the scene separately and clearly. The list disappears for four chapters but resurfaces again in chapter 9. A blind man who refuses to deny his experience of healing offers a litany of titles: Jesus is “Siloam” (or the sent one, as John cleverly coaches us), he is prophet, Christ, from God, Son of Man, and the Lord—worthy of worship. Is this man on his way to becoming a disciple? Has faith been engaged, and now, insight gained? Indeed. In sum, John has presented me with an experience parallel to that of the actors on stage. I am confronted with revelation I barely understand. I am

66

Gary M. Burge

coached in some things such as the use of stone jars and the names of seas— and I am left alone in others. John suspends me, leaving many of the most profound answers in abeyance. John’s audience is perhaps best paralleled by the disciples in chapter 1, where a guide, a prophet, directs their discipleship to Christ and introduces him. John serves his reader in the same way. John is my guide. But as with Andrew and Peter, we have to believe what we are given in order for more comprehension to come. REVELATION AND JOHN’S PROMISE We have seen that incomprehension not only describes the actors on the Johannine stage, but it also describes my experience as I occupy my place in the audience and attend to the drama. Meanings elude me. Worse yet, I realize that I am missing something, that my apparent comprehension is insufficient to catch the nuance of the story. It is one thing to be oblivious to what is being said; it is quite another to hear it and know with certainty that there is more, but you cannot grasp it. My third question asks: What was John’s relationship to this comprehension? Did he also labor under the ambiguities of this mysterious Christ? He is probably the Beloved Disciple in the narrative, and in this respect, the story presents him as a model disciple. But unlike the other Gospel writers, John gives us specific clues to his experience. He writes describing events before “the hour of glorification” but then gives a proleptic view that says any misunderstandings were subsequently corrected. In 2:22, for instance, John, as narrator, tells us, “When therefore Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” John has thus embedded in his gospel hints that signal his overcoming these obstacles of knowing and understanding. This explains the regular cadence of the term “hour” (Gk., hora) in the Gospel (some 26 times). Jesus says, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (4:23). This hour, of course, is the hour of glorification, but its repetition in the Gospel has its effect, forcing me to look forward, to anticipate some new watershed, some new era that will dissipate the tension that springs from the ambiguity of not knowing, of misunderstanding. Perhaps the greatest sign in the Gospel that is subject to misunderstanding is the cross. Of course, John wants us to understand that the cross is not simply a thing of infamy, but a place of glory. The magnitude of this error is of such importance, however, that John allocates 25% of his Gospel to explaining it. Jesus’s Farewell Discourse offers a sustained explanation, but as we see time and again, the disciples fail to comprehend. “Lord, where are

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

67

you going?” Thomas asks (14:5). “Lord, show us the Father!” Philip urges (14:8). Even as we near “the hour,” the actors again are confused, and their attempts to get Jesus to clarify himself bring no relief. Instead, we hear cryptic, confusing answers from Jesus that seem to circle back on themselves. “A little while and you will see me no more; again a little while and you will see me” (16:16). Even this gives no relief. Within this discourse, however, Jesus repeats the expectation that a time is still future when a theological resolution will be theirs. Jesus remarks typically, “The hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in figures, but tell you plainly of the Father” (16:25). Immediately the disciples express bravado, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not in any figure!” (16:29). But Jesus promptly rebukes them (“Do you now believe?”) and underscores the limitations of their knowing and of their discipleship (16:31–32). This awakening, this time of clarity and knowing, this capacity to understand, has not yet arrived, and so they must be reminded of their limits. One prominent feature of the Farewell Discourse is the five promises of the Spirit-Paraclete. Here, it seems, is the secret that John has been holding throughout his Gospel. Just as the promise of living water in the Book of Signs is interpreted as the Spirit in 7:39, now we learn in the Book of Glory that the Spirit will bring the sought-after hermeneutical relief. The Spirit will not only recall to memory what Jesus has said, but the Spirit will be a teacher (14:26), interpreting these things as well. Therefore, there will be an aid, sent by the Father and the Son, who will bring clarity to incomprehension and insight where there has been darkness. Moreover, the Spirit will be a guide, opening up new truths not seen before (16:12) and permitting true prophetic insight into the reality of the world and the things of God (16:13). Jesus remarks, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” It seems clear from a passage such as this that John anticipates nothing less than a prophetic ministry, an anointing that brings not merely insight into what Jesus has said, but new information, revelations unheard before.21 John 16:12–13 thus becomes a template of experience, a model of what John himself must have known, a legitimizing experience that enabled him to write as he did and to expand upon the story of Jesus as he felt at liberty. It is no surprise that the climax of the Gospel, the last draw of the curtain, resets the stage in a closed Jerusalem room. Here Jesus distributes the Spirit and commissions his followers (20:22). This is now the experience that enables John to gain a grasp of things he never before experienced. And as a gift now distributed to all those who believe, who have sustained

68

Gary M. Burge

their encounter with Christ throughout the narrative of the Gospel, this story becomes the story which is offered to John’s audience as well. Therefore, while John presents the reality of Christ as impenetrable to both the actors and the intended audience, he presents himself—as narrator—holding a place of privilege, as someone who is writing from the other side of “the hour,” who has already experienced the Spirit-Paraclete and now comprehends things that can barely be explained. He is thus qualified to be a mentor, to open to us this story. But he is also handicapped in his storytelling because he knows that his audience likewise needs to believe and experience the Spirit in order for them to fully understand. So John holds out the possibility of his own experience to the actors—Nicodemus can be born again, the woman can find living water, blind men can see—and in the same manner, he holds out the same to his audience, which likewise lives on the other side of the hour. But unlike the actors—and here is the critical difference—the audience can now access those things which were only possibilities to those within the drama. REVELATION AND JOHN’S EXPERIENCE John-as-narrator is therefore already heir to the promises of the hour. It only remains to see how this experience of the Spirit, this awakening of reality, affected his own thinking and writing. The first and most profound index of John’s experience is in the Gospel itself. In their zeal to shore up John’s commitment to history, conservatives have been reluctant to acknowledge this one aspect of John’s presentation of Christ. But it is an aspect that sets this Gospel apart from the Synoptics most clearly. The Fourth Gospel presents a view of Jesus that elevates him above the Christological categories of the other Gospels. This is a view that is not exploratory, that does not begin with the more fundamental elements of Judaism such as Nazareth and fulfilled messiahship. This is a matured vision of Christ, a vision that is penetrating and elevated, that underscores the supernatural elements of Jesus’s personhood. It is not without reason that scholars have tried to link this Gospel with religious currents in the Hellenistic world and, for some, to see in John a docetic Christology. This high Christology is why scholars such as D. Moody Smith conclude that in some fashion, John’s theology presupposes as axiomatic certainty elements of an early Christian credo or kerygma.22 John’s views of God, Scripture, Jesus, and tradition are all distinctly Christian, and elements found here can be traced to other writings of the New Testament. For instance, John’s view of the Christian community (or the church) that stands over against the synagogue is well defined. Those who have faith in Christ are distinct from

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

69

those who remain in Judaism. Thus, John is writing from a theological position, drawing on that position and coaxing his readers to inherit that position. This is also the reason that an increasing number of scholars today have revisited their understanding of John’s literary relationship with the Synoptics. Some still hold to the old view that John had access to Mark, but today others have nuanced this position arguing that John presupposes that his audience is acquainted with Mark or the stories contained in Mark—which is an entirely different matter.23 John is again writing from a matured theological position, conversant with the language and the traditions of the church and now representing them and taking them further. Perhaps one of the distinctive elements in John’s theology, that is, the element that gave John the authority to reframe the portrait of Jesus and to probe his divinity so boldly has come through his own experience of the Holy Spirit. It is reasonable to assume that the promises of the Spirit given in the Gospel were experienced by John and his community. The conflicts and defense in 1 John indicate that John’s community had a deep and abiding place for the Spirit. His gospel now offers sustained promises for transformation and worship, recollection of the tradition and illumination, even the Spirit-guided unveiling of things to come. It is, therefore, the Spirit that is the catalyst for understanding Jesus Christ in a new way, that enables comprehension of the more profound things, and that separates those who truly understand Christ from those who do not. It is then the Spirit that brings new revelation to the believer, who aids in his or her discovery of the true meaning of the signs of bread and water, who rekindles an interest in Jesus’s words and who guides their meaning. If there is any doubt that such revelation was indeed a marker of discipleship in the communities inspired by these writings, we simply need to look at what happens later in time when First John was written. Suddenly we meet charismatic teachers who claim to bear the Spirit and use that anointing as a justification to further reframe Christology in a manner John deems unacceptable (4:1–3). John’s first solution is to point his besieged churches back to objective tradition (e.g., “what was in the beginning,” 1:1; 2:7, 13, 24; 3:8, 11), but this cannot be his most effective strategy. Instead, he must point them to their own Spirit-experience. On the one hand, he can say, “Let what you heard in the beginning abide in you” (2:24), but this is quickly supplemented by recalling them to their “anointing which teaches all things” (2:27) and their ability to discern and test the spirits that occupy these teachers. SUMMARY Personal experiences of revelation, therefore, or perhaps we can refer to it as prophetic illumination, formed a central feature of discipleship in John’s

70

Gary M. Burge

theological framework. The ability to comprehend the deeper mysteries of God, indeed to comprehend the true meaning of Christ, can only come through the Spirit of Truth. John’s own community lived within this pneumatic framework, and here is the key: John brought this theological framework into the rhetorical strategies of his own Gospel. The Gospel of John, therefore, is a drama that provokes its audience to come to grips with its own lack of understanding. It shows actors who stumble humorously and tragically, and as they do, they instruct us about the ludicrousness of the world’s claim to wisdom. To know and to understand, to unveil the signs, to comprehend the bread of life, to walk in the light and not stumble—these are gifts of the Spirit, benefits enjoyed only by those who have faith and who have been indwelt by Christ-in-Spirit. THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS The theological implications of John’s treatment of discipleship and revelation are both suggestive and provocative. Return for a moment to my metaphor of the theater. When the Johannine curtain closes, we hear the narrator tell us that his screenplay is a mere sampling of the many signs worked by Jesus. It is at this point, after the applause has quieted, when we see Kevin Vanhoozer and Anthony Thiselton sitting together. Vanhoozer rises and asks the awkward question: “Is there any meaning in this drama?”24 John looks on from the margins of the stage, now he is stepping back, returning to center stage after his final bow and exit—and you cannot tell if he is experiencing pleasure or utter panic. Who is this man in the audience? And is he ruining or enriching the drama? John’s Gospel speaks directly to the post-modern emphasis on the indeterminacy of meaning. Most interpreters of John’s Gospel confirm or deny the symbolic meaning of its elements by locating referents within the Jewish or Christian settings of the first century. Ambiguities only remain so until we’ve done the spadework needed to uncover analogies now lost to the modern mind. Others rely closely on a literal reading of the text that parses its verbs and organizes its clauses, urging that the text itself has a recoverable meaning intended by the author and controlled by the exegetical method. There is one meaning here, and you can find it, they claim, if you simply do your homework. But it is at this moment that the third-century commentator on the Fourth Gospel, Origen, rises to his feet in the theater (and here I have completely thrown chronology to the wind). He is joined by his contemporary, Hippolytus, who is visiting from Rome. Origen wonders if Vanhoozer’s question alone puts in doubt the man’s faith. Anyone who cannot see the

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

71

true meaning beneath the surface is likely not in the community of believers, Origen announces. He argues vehemently that there is a “carnal” reading of a text and a “spiritual” reading of a text. One is held by the rough hands of worldliness, and the other has been illumined by the grace of divine inspiration. He points (as is his habit) to Paul’s discussion of the veil laid over Jewish minds when they cannot see Christ in the Old Testament. Origen quotes Paul from 2Cor 3:14–17: For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds; but when a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Shamelessly promoting his newly published homilies on the Bible, Origen argues that the mysteries of the Bible are recoverable only from within the community of faith. When Christ comes to the well in John 4, it is no different than Jacob and Rachel (Gen 29) or Moses and Zipporah (Exod 2). It is at wells and waters where brides are found, and so, the church, represented in the woman of Samaria, is united with Christ, as Christ’s bride, in the water of baptism. But Vanhoozer objects, asking the great scholar where controls might be found that might limit the scope of possibilities for meaning. You simply cannot abandon the text itself and the hermeneutical constraints given within that text. Water is water, and how do you know when it is more? But Origen heads him off. Such readers of the Bible (he says) are “literalists,” outsiders—readers who could not see the true meaning of a text because it is seen through the eyes of faith and the experience of the worshipping community. Origen asks Vanhoozer what sort of divinity faculty would hire him. Vanhoozer suspects he knows what Origen is really saying: that meaning is in the hands of the bishops. But he holds his tongue. The debate is silenced when John raises his hand. “Meaning does lie beneath the surface, but those who live in the darkness cannot have the fullness of it. Truest meaning is only given by the Spirit. However, the Spirit gives nothing that has not already been given by Christ; the Spirit says nothing that has not already been said by Christ. The Spirit never contradicts what was said ‘in the beginning.’ We must always return to what was in the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and touched with our hands.” But little does he know that two men, new friends, are sitting in the back rows. A cloaked man named Valentinus has turned to a charismatic leader calling himself Montanus and whispers, “So how far afield will the Spirit

72

Gary M. Burge

take us? Did not Christ say during his farewell that there were many things to be revealed that had not been heard before?” But no one overhears them. But John continues, targeting Vanhoozer directly. The truest meaning is not found in front of a text or behind the text. Meaning is seen through the text. The text itself is the referent to every possible meaning and cannot be separated from it. The Spirit recalls what Jesus said in history— and guides us unerringly into its deepest meaning. However, access to this meaning is not possible with the unaided eye, no matter how skilled it may come to the text. Everyone who lives in the world exists in the hermeneutical darkness of the world where miracles are only signs and words become parabolic. The Spirit gives life. The flesh is of no avail.

The theater lights come up. Valentinus rushes excitedly from the theater, looking for followers of John. Montanus buys a Paraclete souvenir in the theater lobby. Vanhoozer worries what may lie ahead. NOTES 1. An earlier draft of this essay appeared in J. Lieberman, ed.; Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 235–254. Used with permission. 2. R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (ET: London: SCM, 1955), 2:52. J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 63, comments on Bultmann, “His fundamental insight, from which he never wavered, was that the central theme of the gospel is revelation.” See M. Turner, “Atonement and the Death of Jesus in John—Some Questions to Bultmann and Forestell,” Evangelical Quarterly 62 (1990): 99–122. 3. R. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979), 71–81. 4. See D. Carson, “Understanding Misunderstandings in the Fourth Gospel,” Tyndale Bulletin 33 (1982): 59–92 and the literature there. Also Earl Richard, “Expressions of double meaning and their function in the Gospel of John,” New Testament Studies 31 (1985): 96–112; and William T. Pyle, “Understanding the Misunderstanding Sequences in the Gospel of John,” Faith and Mission 11, no. 2 (1994): 26–47. 5. O. Cullmann, “Der johanneische Gebrauch doppeldeutigen Ausdrücke als Schlüssel zum Verständnis des vierten Evangeliums,” TZ 4 (1948): 360–372. 6. Trond Skard Dokka, “Irony and sectarianism in the Gospel of John,” New readings in John, JSNT Suppl. Series 182 (Sheffield, Eng: Sheffield Academic Pr, 1999), 83–107. 7. B. Malina, “The Gospel of John in Sociolinguistic Perspective,” H.C. Waetjen, ed., Protocol of the 48th Colloquy (Berkeley, CA: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1985).

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

73

8. J. Neyrey, An Ideology of Revolt (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1988). 9. D. Carson, “Understanding Misunderstandings in the Fourth Gospel,” Tyndale Bulletin 33 (1982): 59–92. 10. D. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981). 11. For a comprehensive study, see T. Thatcher, “A New Look at the Asides in the Fourth Gospel,” Bibliotheca Sacra 151 (1994): 428–439; and J. O’Rourke, “Asides in the Gospel of John,” Novum Testamentum 21 (1979): 210–19. 12. R. A. Culpepper, The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1983). 155. 13. R. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1989). 14. E. Freed, Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John [Studien zum Neuen Testament 11] (Leiden: Brill, 1965); G. Reim, Studien zum Altestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangeliums [SNTS Monograph Series 22] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); B.G. Schuchard, Scripture Within Scripture: The Interrelationship of Form and Function in the Explicit Old Testament Citations in the Gospel of John [SBL Diss. Series 133] (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1992); M.J.J. Menken, Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form (Kampen: Pharos, 1996). 15. C. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995). 16. A. Winsor, A King is Bound in the Tresses: Allusions to the Song of Songs in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Lang, 1999). 17. Jocelyn McWhirter, “The Bridegroom and the People of God: Allusions to Biblical Texts about Marriage in the Fourth Gospel,” unpublished dissertation, Princeton Seminary, 2002. 18. M. Riffaterre, Semiotics of Poetry (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1978). 19. Winsor, A King is Bound, 8. 20. Ibid., 9. 21. G. M. Burge, The Anointed Community. The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1987). 22. D.M. Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 79. 23. R. Bauckham, “John for Readers of Mark,” The Gospels for All Christians. Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, ed. R. Bauckham (Edinburgh/Grand Rapids, MI: T&T Clark/Eerdmans, 1998), 147–172. 24. K. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

74

Gary M. Burge

Bauckham, Richard. “John for Readers of Mark.” In The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, edited by Richard Bauckham, 147–72. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998. Brown, Raymond E. The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times. New York: Paulist Press, 1979. Bultmann, Rudolf. Theology of the New Testament. London: SCM, 1955. Burge, Gary M. The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1987. Carson, Donald A. Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspective in Tension. Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox, 1981. ———. “Understanding Misunderstandings in the Fourth Gospel.” Tyndale Bulletin 33 (1982): 59–92. Cullmann, O. “Der Johanneische Gebrauch Doppeldeutigen Ausdrücke Als Schlüssel zum Verständnis des Vierten Evangeliums.” Theologische Zeitschrift 4 (1948): 360–72. Culpepper, R. Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1983. Dokka, Trond Skard. “Irony and Sectarianism in the Gospel of John.” In New Readings in John, edited by Johannes Nissen and Sigfred Pedersen, 83–107. JSNTS Series 182. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. Freed, Edwin D. Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John. Studien zum Neuen Testament 11. Leiden: Brill, 1965. Hays, Richard B. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1989. Koester, Craig R. Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1995. Lieberman, J., ed. Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Malina, B. “The Gospel of John in Sociolinguistic Perspective.” In Protocol of the 48th Colloquy, edited by H. C. Waetjen. Berkeley, California: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1985. McWhirter, Jocelyn “The Bridegroom and the People of God: Allusions to Biblical Texts About Marriage in the Fourth Gospel.” Princeton Seminary, 2002. Menken, Maarten J. J. Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel Studies in Textual Form. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology 15. Kampen: Pharos, 1996. Neyrey, Jerome H. An Ideology of Revolt: John’s Christology in Social Science Perspective. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1988. O’Rourke, J. “Asides in the Gospel of John.” Novum Testamentum 21 (1979): 210–19. Pyle, William T. “Understanding the Misunderstanding Sequences in the Gospel of John.” Faith and Mission 11, no. 2 (1994): 26–47. Reim, G. Studien zum Altestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangeliums. SNTS Monograph Series 22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.

Hermeneutics, Revelation, and the Drama of St. John’s Gospel

75

Richard, Earl. “Expressions of Double Meaning and Their Function in the Gospel of John.” New Testament Studies 31 (1985): 96–112. Riffaterre, Michael. Semiotics of Poetry. Advances in Semiotics. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1978. Schuchard, Bruce G. Scripture Within Scripture: The Interrelationship of Form and Function in the Explicit Old Testament Citations in the Gospel of John. Dissertation Series/Society of Biblical Literature 133. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1992. Smith, D. Moody. The Theology of the Gospel of John. New Testament Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Thatcher, T. “A New Look at the Asides in the Fourth Gospel.” Bibliotheca Sacra 151 (1994): 428–39. Turner, M. “Atonement and the Death of Jesus in John—Some Questions to Bultmann and Forestell.” Evangelical Quarterly 62 (1990): 99–122. Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1998. Winsor, Ann Roberts. A King Is Bound in the Tresses: Allusions to the Song of Songs in the Fourth Gospel. Studies in Biblical Literature 6. New York: Peter Lang, 1999.

Chapter 5

The Obedient Son Jesus’s Sonship in Light of Ancient Honor Conventions Craig S. Keener

Modern readers, rightly emphasizing Jesus’s deity, often overlook frequent expressions of Jesus’s submission to the Father. First-century Christian writers often apply to Jesus earlier biblical texts about YHWH (e.g., 1 Cor 1:8; 8:6; Phil 2:11), yet distinguish him from the Father, sometimes even with claims that the Father is greater than the Son (e.g., John 14:28; 1 Cor 15:28). Such statements do not diminish claims in the same sources for Jesus’s divine identity (e.g., John 1:1; 8:58; 20:28; 1 Cor 8:6), but they do suggest that he and the Father play somewhat different, while complementary, roles in the salvation of humanity.1 Jesus’s title as the Son reveals his intimacy and connection with the Father, so that one cannot honor the Father while disregarding the Son (see, for example, 1 John 2:23). Yet it also entails the Son’s honoring (or glorification) of and obedience to the Father. The earliest audiences may have grasped such cues more quickly than many modern readers since we are more accustomed to “Son” as theological language and since, in our context, filial obedience and even honor are less prominent associations when we think of fathers and sons. This is not to suggest that the Evangelists’ depictions of Jesus’s filial fidelity are mere accommodations to ancient culture; Jesus defied many cultural conventions, and the logic of honoring parents not only is biblical but it is sufficiently transcultural to suggest that an ethic of dishonoring parents would be the aberration. Nevertheless, sensitivity to how ancient Mediterranean audiences would have thought about honoring parents may sensitize modern Western readers to how the Evangelists’ first audiences heard such claims.

77

78

Craig S. Keener

This fresh essay, then, will trace some ancient thoughts about honoring and obeying parents. I hope that in the process, this article will also honor Ben Witherington. While Ben is, of course, far too young to be my parent, he has long been one of my mentors. MUTUAL LOVE BETWEEN THE FATHER AND THE SON The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. (John 3:35)2 The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing . . . (John 5:20) . . . but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. . . . (John 14:31) As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you . . . (John 15:9) . . . you loved me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24)

One of the key emphases in NT depictions of the relationship between the Father and the Son is their mutual love. It is, in fact, the Father’s deep love for his Son (e.g., “beloved son,” Mark 1:11; 9:7) that communicates the deep personal cost the Father paid in giving his Son for the life of the world (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10). Such love between fathers and sons is assumed more often than explicitly emphasized in ancient literature. Mutual love between parents and children was naturally common;3 “How sweet is harmony of child and parent!” some opined.4 Such love could not “be destroyed except by some execrable crime,” Cicero concluded,5 and we read of fathers and sons eager to die for one another.6 They should treat one another as they wished to be treated.7 Because it came somewhat naturally, however, it probably occasions less ancient Mediterranean comment than commands to honor parents. This observation may make frequent Johannine affirmations of the love between the Father and Son all the more significant (cf. also Matt 11:27//Luke 10:22). One may pause to allow one caveat: some regarded other, less virtuous peoples as unkind to parents. Romans complained about converts to Judaism abandoning family ties.8 R. Akiba reportedly witnessed a gentile leaving his aged father to be eaten by a dog.9 (Still, rabbis praised the gentile Dama son of Nethinah for his piety toward his father.)10 A skeptic, regarding all ethics as culturally relative, claims that Scythians cut their fathers’ throats once they

The Obedient Son

79

reach sixty.11 But such reports are exceptional, and most come from detractors of those criticized. THE SON HONORS THE FATHER . . . so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. (John 5:23) Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him. (John 7:18) Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.” (John 8:49) “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4)

The expectation of filial honor is not limited to the ancient Mediterranean world,12 but it was certainly pervasive there.13 Duty to and honor of parents was considered innate,14 and many felt that no well-raised youth would honor another man higher than his father.15 Philosophers valued the honor of parents,16 from Epicurus17 to those in the Platonic tradition18 to Stoics19 and Pythagoreans.20 One should honor parents before siblings and sometimes apparently even country,21 though others ranked country before parents:22 “To the majesty of country even the authority of parents, which is equated with the divinities of the gods, subjects its power.”23 Honoring parents often ranks in civic duties immediately after fearing the gods24 (or, for Jews, after God).25 In the Ten Commandments, the honor of parents (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16) holds the pivotal place between commandments listing duties toward God (Exod 20:3–11; Deut 5:7–15) and those toward people (Exod 20:13–17; Deut 5:17–21).26 Thus first-century Jews writing in Greek declare that the law commands honoring parents directly after God;27 although debates about the greatest commandment flourished (cf. Mark 12:28),28 many regarded the greatest commandment as honor of parents.29 Many gentiles insisted that one should honor parents as one would honor the gods;30 honoring parents thus teaches how to honor the divine.31 Fathers were from Zeus, the god of fathers,32 and mortal fathers were images of the gods.33 Some Diaspora Jews also regarded parents as images of God, “copies and likenesses of the divine power.”34 Even a traditional Judean source declares that one’s father is like God (or possibly lords) to him.35 For Philo of

80

Craig S. Keener

Alexandria, parents stand midway between human and divine: although they are mortal, they are begetter-creators like the divine, to their children what God is to the world.36 For later rabbis, the honor due to parents might equal that of God,37 and God himself might count it such.38 In Jewish tradition, honoring parents was a fundamental ethical principle (Exod 20:12; Lev 19:3; Deut 5:16),39 sometimes illustrated by behaviors observed in or attributed to biblical characters.40 Later rabbis elaborated stories about honoring parents, sometimes even using a filial-pious gentile as an illustration.41 Some emphasized particularly explicitly that one should honor both parents;42 noting that one biblical passage mentions father before mother (Exod 20:12; cf. Deut 5:16) and another the reverse (Lev 19:3),43 later rabbis opined that Scripture thus enjoined equal honor for both.44 Some early Jewish traditions elaborate such special love for the mother.45 Later rabbis deem it only a small deed for a son to let his mother use him as a footstool for her bed, and insist that a son should grant even a mother’s most extreme wishes.46 Differences between parents do sometimes emerge. One Stoic teacher advised greater love toward the mother but greater honor toward the father.47 Because society entrusted mothers with more care for young children,48 they sometimes appear as more affectionate and compassionate figures than fathers.49 In Roman culture, however, mothers could also be strong authority figures;50 obedience to them was less enforceable legally than obedience to fathers,51 but any disagreement must be expressed as respectfully as possible.52 Particularly virtuous was a child who honored even unkind parents.53 CARING FOR PARENTS A key element of honoring parents was caring for them in their old age. That this emphasis is missing in depictions of Jesus’s relationship with his Father requires no explanation since the Father is immortal. Nevertheless, it bears some discussion for the sake of revealing the extent to which the ancient Mediterranean world took seriously the honoring of parents. Caring for parents was seen as an obligation to repay them, since one owed one’s existence to them.54 One should seek to repay the cost of nurture55 or the mother’s pregnancy and birth pangs.56 Some Romans cited as a dramatic illustration a daughter who breastfed her imprisoned mother or father.57 Since parents were their children’s greatest mortal benefactors, however, complete reciprocity toward parents was impossible.58 Some later rabbis insisted that even one’s greatest attempt to honor parents was not the tiniest fraction of what one owed.59

The Obedient Son

81

Such honor could be expressed by avoiding giving parents grief60 or by menial tasks such as washing parents’ feet and serving them.61 Most importantly, however, honoring parents required caring for them in their old age, as recognized pervasively in antiquity,62 including in Jewish63 and other Mediterranean cultures.64 Failure to care for parents was despicable,65 punishable by laws both human66 and divine. Tannaim emphasized honoring parents not so much for small children but for adult ones because their focus was on caring for parents in their old age.67 PUNISHMENTS AND REWARDS For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. (John 10:17) For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son.” . . . But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, . . . You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” (Heb 1:5, 8–9) In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. (Heb 5:7–9)

Although the matter is debatable, the aforementioned passages might suggest a reward for filial obedience and respect. In any case, punishments and rewards, whether from human society or from deities, at least underline further the seriousness with which ancient society took honoring parents. Socrates reportedly shamed a man for violent anger toward his mother;68 anyone disrespectful to parents was barred from office in classical Athens.69 Children should not charge fathers in court.70 Among gentiles, a son’s striking a father could warrant cutting off the son’s hands.71 In Scripture, the act warranted death (Exod 21:15),72 as did cursing a parent (Exod 21:17).73 Josephus declares that Scripture prescribes execution for even attempting unjust behavior toward parents or failing to provide for them.74 Ingratitude75 or lack of natural affection76 toward parents, dishonoring a mother,77 or abusive language against an aged father78 all warranted divine judgment; once children stopped honoring parents in their old age, Hesiod expected humanity would soon be destroyed.79 Jews also believed

82

Craig S. Keener

that dishonoring parents merited divine judgment,80 even death;81 Josephus declares God’s anger toward those insolent to parents.82 By contrast, those who honored and obeyed parents would be rewarded. From the human side, those who honored and cared for parents might reap the same from their children,83 whereas those who dishonored parents might reap the same from their children.84 The same was true for the divine side. “Whoever respects his parents . . . during his life,” Euripides claims, “is dear to the gods both in life and after death.”85 A Jewish sage declared that kindness to an aged father “will be credited to you against your sins.”86 Scripture attached the promise of long life to honoring parents (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16);87 some construed the promise of life attached to biblical commandments,88 including this one,89 as mortal longevity, whereas others applied it, both for other commandments90 and this one,91 to eternal life. For most later rabbis, the promise apparently covered both longevity and resurrection life.92 THE SON OBEYS HIS FATHER For I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me. (John 12:49–50)

In many cultures, one key aspect of honoring parents is obeying them.93 Filial obedience was expected in both Jewish94 and wider Greco-Roman societies.95 Both orators96 and most philosophers97 honored this virtue. In practice, this demand was greater for minors, but deference was customary even for adult children.98 A Jewish sage opined that one should serve one’s parents like slaves to their masters (Sir 3:7). Although the sentence was undoubtedly rarely executed, Scripture prescribed capital punishment for severely rebellious sons (Deut 21:18–21).99 Some explored the limits of obedience, giving priority to the state,100 to teachers101 and philosophic wisdom,102 to general moral standards,103 or, for Jews, to the Torah.104 Thinkers debated whether one should obey an order when it seemed in the better interests of the order’s giver not to do so.105 A Stoic praised Heracles as a son of God who went about doing his will.106 Scripture especially applies Jesus’s obedience to his submission to death, the highest possible level of obedience. Jesus’s submission to his Father’s will concerning the cross is expressed in the language of sonship (Mark 14:36), language apparently widely known among early Christians (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6).

The Obedient Son

83

No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father. (John 10:18). He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Phil 2:8) It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Heb 2:10)

The context of Heb 2:10 is Jesus’s suffering of death (2:9). Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered (Heb 5:8), again referring to his death (5:7; though him “learning” from it also suggests his resurrection). Jesus’s sacrificial death is likely entailed in his obedience also in Rom 5:19. THE SON IMITATES HIS FATHER Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.” (John 5:19–21)

The idea of imitating deity was widespread, including among gentile thinkers.107 Jewish thinkers could draw on either or both biblical (Lev 11:44–45; 19:2; 20:26) and Hellenistic thought when encouraging imitation of God.108 In Philo, humans are the image and imitation of God,109 and the greatest good for mortals is imitating the eternal God.110 But Jesus’s imitation of God is expressed precisely as a Son to his Father. It was commonplace that children bore the image or likeness of their parents.111 Children would imitate their parents.112 One who teaches his son will seem to survive death because his son carries on in his way (Sir 30:3–6).113 A postbiblical retelling of the sending of the spies to Jericho identifies them as Caleb’s sons and urges, “Imitate your father, and you also will live.”114 Obedient children naturally imitate parents, including their heavenly Father (1 Pet 1:14–16).

84

Craig S. Keener

CONCLUSION Although modern Western readers may miss the connections between Jesus honoring and obeying his Father, on the one hand, and Jesus’s identity as the Father’s Son on the other, ancient hearers would be more likely to catch the connection, especially when Jesus’s Sonship is explicit in the context. Jesus honors and obeys his Father, fulfilling his role as God’s Son to the fullest extent. His obedience extends even to the point of death. In so doing, Jesus as God’s Son also provides a model for believers who through him have become God’s children (cf. Gal 4:6; Heb 2:10). We, too, must live for our Father’s honor, devoting our lives to him in faithful obedience.

NOTES 1. Cf. Craig S. Keener, “Subordination within the Trinity: John 5:18 and 1 Cor 15:28.” 39–58 in The New Evangelical Subordinationism? Perspectives on the Equality of God the Father and God the Son. Edited by Dennis W. Jowers and H. Wayne House (Eugene: Pickwick, 2012). Although not the focus of this article, I do recognize that sonship carried additional connotations, such as a messianic dimension. 2. For the sake of consistency, all Scripture quotations in this article follow the NRSV. 3. Cf. Philo Spec. Laws 2.239 (innate); the admonition in Dicta Catonis, collection of distichs line 2; Cato Distichs 3.24; examples in Pliny Nat. 7.36.121. Exceptions were, of course, known (Eurip. frg. 751.6; 908.2–8; 950; 952). An Isis aretalogy claims that Isis instituted love of parents (New Docs 1, §2, p. 20). Elsewhere in antiquity, compare Confucian ethics in Oh-Young Kwon, 1 Corinthians 1—4: Reconstructing Its Social and Rhetorical Situation and Re-reading It Cross-Culturally for KoreanConfucian Christians Today (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 201. 4. A papyrus of maxims of Menander from 2–3 CE in Select Papyri (LCL 3:261). 5. Cicero De Amicitia 8.27 (LCL 20:139). 6. Suetonius Aug. 13.2. 7. Hierocles Fraternal Love 4.27.20 (in Abraham J. Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, a Greco-Roman Sourcebook [LEC 4; Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1986], 94). 8. Tacitus Hist. 5.5. 9. Sipre Deut. 81.4.1–2. 10. B. Qid. 31a; Deut. Rab. 1:15; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2. 11. Sextus Empiricus Pyr. 3.210, 228. 12. See, for example, Confucius Analects 28–31, 34–35, 81 (1.11; 2.5, 6–7; 4.18–19; 13.20).

The Obedient Son

85

13. For example, Euripides frg. 852.3–5; 852a; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 8.53.1; Aulus Gellius 2.15; Hermogenes Inv. 3.7.150; Diogenes Laertius 1.37, 60; 6.2.65; 7.1.120; 8.1.22–23; 10.1.9; Heraclitus Hom. Prob. 78.3; Symmachus Ep. 1.1.1. Romans also emphasized honoring the memory of deceased kin; see Fanny Dolansky, “Honouring the Family Dead on the Parentalia: Ceremony, Spectacle, and Memory,” Phoenix 65 (1–2, 2011): 125–157; elsewhere, cf. Confucius Analects 28 (1.11); 29 (2.5). In practice, however, relations between Roman fathers and their sons were sometimes strained (Lewis A. Sussman, “Sons and Fathers in the Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian,” Rhetorica 13 [2, 1995]: 179–192). 14. Rhet. Alex. 1, 1421b.36—1422a.2 (noting that this is also what is “just” [1421b.36], as in Eph 6:1); Cicero Inv. 2.22.65. 15. Lucian My Native Land 3. 16. For example, Eunapius Lives 461. 17. Diogenes Laertius 10.1.9. 18. Plato Laws 4.717B; Plutarch Educ., Mor. 7DE (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 31). 19. Hierocles One’s Country (Stobaeus Anth. 3.39.34; cf. Stobaeus 4.27.23 in Pieter W. van der Horst, “Hierocles the Stoic and the New Testament,” NovT 17 [2, 1975]: 156–60 [157]); Musonius Rufus 16.100.23–24 (Lutz; cf. Pieter W. Van der Horst, “Musonius Rufus and the New Testament,” NovT 16 [4, 1974]: 306–315 [312]). 20. Philostratus Vit. apoll. 1.13, on Apollonius; Diogenes Laertius 8.1.22–23, on Pythagoras; cf. Iamblichus Pyth. 17.71 (and 30.180). 21. Cf. the list of duties in Cicero Inv. 2.22.65. Valerius Maximus 5.4 treats piety toward parents before piety toward siblings (5.5) and country (5.6). 22. Hierocles Parents 4.25.53 (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 91). On the ambiguity in Hierocles, see Ilaria Ramelli, Introduction and Commentary, Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts (trans. David Konstan; SBLWGRW 28; Atlanta: SBL, 2009), lxxix-lxxx. 23. Valerius Maximus 5.6. pref. (LCL 1:513). 24. Solon (in Diogenes Laertius 1.60); Euripides frg. 853; Isocrates Demon. 16, Or. 1; Pythagoras in Diogenes Laertius 8.1.23; Iamblichus Pyth. 30.175; Stoics in Diogenes Laertius 7.1.120. After gods and country, Hierocles Parents (Stobaeus Anth. 4.25.53); On Marriage (Stobaeus Anth. 4.79.53). 25. Sib. Or. 3.593–94; Philo Spec. Laws 2.235; Ps.-Phocylides 8; Syriac Menander Sentences 9–10; cf. Jub. 7:20. 26. The following prohibition of murder (Exod 20:13) is elsewhere grounded in humans being created in God’s image (Gen 9:6). For distinctions between humanward and Godward commandments, see, for example, Philo Spec. Laws 2.62–63; E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1992), 192–195; in the rabbis, E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1985), 249. 27. Philo Spec. Laws 2.235 (but cf. 2.261); Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.206. 28. Cf. discussion in Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels (Philadelphia, PA: Society of Biblical Literature, 1951), 174; Joseph Bonsirven,

86

Craig S. Keener

Palestinian Judaism in the Time of Jesus Christ (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964), 29. R. Akiba came closest to Jesus’s teaching (Sipra Qed. pq. 4.200.3.7; Gen. Rab. 24:7). For some commandments as heavier than others, see, for example, Sipra VDDeho. par. 1.34.1.3, par. 12.65.1.3; b. Men. 43b; Ab. R. Nat. 1, §8B; Matt 23:17, 19, 23; cf. Gustaf Dalman, Jesus-Jeshua: Studies in the Gospels (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 64; Robert M. Johnston, “‘The Least of the Commandments’: Deuteronomy 22:6–7 in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity,” AUSS 20 (1982): 205–215 (207); David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 496; on Philo, Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2 vols.; 4th rev. ed.) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 2:277; among gentiles, see, for example, Hermogenes Issues 87.2–9; Philostratus Ep. Apoll. 96. Still, no matter of the Torah was “light”; see m. Ab. 4:2; Sipra Qed. pq. 8.205.2.6; Sipra Behor. par. 5.255.1.10; Sipre Deut. 96.3.2; Ab. R. Nat. 35, §77B; Matt 5:19. 29. See Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (trans. Israel Abrahams; 2 vols.; 2nd ed.) (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979) 1:350; Craig S. Keener, . . . And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1991), 116; esp. Johnston, “Least of the Commandments,” 207; cf. Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.206. 30. Aeschines Tim. 28; the Isis aretalogy in New Docs 1, §2, pp. 11, 17; cf. Valerius Maximus 5.6. pref.; Iamblichus Pyth. 21.100; the second century CE papyrus in Select Papyri 1:321 (Rev. Ég. 1919, p. 204.27–28). 31. Iamblichus Pyth. 8.39. Feelings toward mortal parents help one approach the immortal parent, Zeus of fathers (Dio Chrysostom Or. 12.42). 32. Epictetus Diatr. 3.11.5; cf. Josephus Ant. 4.262; Eph 3:15. 33. Plutarch frg. 46; Hierocles Parents 4.25.53 (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 91). For aged men, cf. maxim 2 in Select Papyri 476–477, §116. 34. Philo Spec. Laws 2.2 (LCL 7:307). 35. 4Q416 f2.3.16. 36. Philo Spec. 2.224–25. By propagating, they imitate God (Decal. 51; cf. 119– 120); for propagation as a divine quality, cf. also Hierocles On Marriage (Stobaeus Anth. 4.67.24). 37. B. B.M. 32a, bar.; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2. Cf. George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (2 vols.; New York: Schocken, 1971), 2:132. 38. B. Qid. 30b,bar. 39. Jub. 7:20; Sir 3:6–8; 7:27; Let. Aris. 228; Philo Drunk 17; Sipre Deut. 81.4.1–2; b. Sanh. 66a, bar.; Gen. Rab. 1:15; 36:6; 39:7; Deut. Rab. 1:15; Mark 7:10; 10:19; Eph 6:2. Cf. further also C. G. Montefiore and Herbert Loewe, eds., A Rabbinic Anthology (New York: Schocken, 1974), 500–506; Shemuel Safrai, “Home and Family,” JPFC 2:728–92 (771); Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC 42; Dallas: Word, 1990), 401; Rikk E. Watts, “Mark,” pages 111–249 in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson) (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 168–169. The principle could extend to parents-in-law (Tob 10:13) and stepparents (Ps.-Phocylides 180).

The Obedient Son

87

40. Jub. 29:14–20; 35:1–6, 12–13; T. Ab. 5 B; T. Jud. 1:4–5; Gen. Rab. 36:6; negatively, Jub. 35:10–11. 41. B. Qid. 31a; Deut. Rab. 1:15; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2. 42. Cato Distichs 3.24; cf. Sir 3:2–4; Syriac Menander Sentences 94–98. 43. For word precedence not always suggesting priority, cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus Comp. 5. 44. Mekilta Pisha 1.28; Bakodesh 8.28–36; Gen. Rab. 1:15; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2. By contrast, 4Q270 f7.1.13–14 honors fathers far above mothers. 45. For example, Tob 4:3–4; Safrai, “Home,” 771. 46. B. Qid. 31b; y. Peah 1:1, §8; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2. 47. Hierocles Siblings (Stobaeus Anth. 4.84.23). 48. Julia Pizzuto-Pomaco, “From Shame to Honour: Mediterranean Women in Romans 16” (PhD diss., University of St. Andrews, 2003), 51. In Euripides frg. 1015, a mother loves more than a father because only she knows for certain that the children are hers. 49. 4 Macc 15:4; John J. Pilch, “Parenting,” 145–148 in Handbook of Biblical Social Values (ed. John J. Pilch and Bruce J. Malina; 2d ed.) (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998), 147. 50. Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Mother (Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1988), 6–7, 227. 51. Dixon, Mother, 181, 234. 52. Dixon, Mother, 180–182. 53. Publilius Syrus 8; Appian Hist. rom. 3.2; b. Qid. 31a; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2. 54. Xenophon Mem. 2.2.3; Diogenes the Cynic in Diogenes Laertius 6.2.65 (contrast Diogenes Ep. 21); Iamblichus Pyth. 8.38; 4Q416 f2.3.17; Philo Alleg. 1.99; Decal. 117–118; Spec. Laws 2.233–34; Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.206; Ab. R. Nat. 35, § 79 B; b. Qid. 30b, bar.; 1 Tim 5:4; cf. Urbach, Sages, 1:218–219. 55. Hesiod Works and Days 188–189; cf. Menander Samia 698–702. 56. Sir 7:27; Tob 4:4; Syriac Menander Sentences 97–98. 57. Valerius Maximus 5.4.7; 5.4. ext. 1. That is, she gave them what her mother gave her. 58. John M. Barclay, Paul & the Gift (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 72, noting Seneca, Ben. 3.29–38; cf. Philo Alleg. 3.10; as benefactors, Spec. Laws 2.3, 229. 59. b. Qid. 31b; esp. Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2. 60. Let. Aris. 238; cf. Tob 4:3. 61. Hierocles Parents (Stobaeus Anth. 4.25.53); One’s Country? (Stobaeus Anth. 4.79.53); for serving them as masters, see 4Q416 f2.3.16–17. Philo, Good Person, 36, doubts that good parents would demand such servitude; in Hypoth. 7.3, they govern children for their good. 62. In the ancient Near East, see Bruce Wells, “Exodus,” 1:160–283 in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament (5 vols.) (ed. John H. Walton; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 233; in other cultures, see, for example, Confucius Analects 30 (2.7). 63. Sir 3:12–13; 4Q416 f2.3.15, 19; Philo Decal. 117–118; Good Person 87; Gen. Rab. 39:7; cf. Tob 4:3–4; y. Peah 1:1, §8; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2; Montefiore and Loewe,

88

Craig S. Keener

Anthology, 500–306; C. G. Montefiore, The Synoptic Gospels (2 vols.; 2nd ed.) (New York: KTAV, 1968), 2:226; J. Duncan M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970), 110; cf. Prov 28:24; Bonsirven, Judaism, 147; Urbach, Sages, 1:346; Watts, “Mark,” 168–169. 64. Hesiod WD 188–189; Aeschines Timarchus 28. 65. For example, Lysias Or. 31.20–23, §§188–189. 66. Cf. Seneca the Elder Controv. 1​.1​.int​ro; 1​.7​.int​ro; 7​.4​.int​ro; a lawsuit against a daughter who failed to provide, in P.Enteuxeis 26; disinheritance for disobedience in Quintilian Inst. 7.1.14; [Decl.] 283.1; Lucian Disowned esp. 22; in classical Athens, cf. Gerhard Thür, “Kakosis,” 7:6 in Brill’s New Pauly. 67. Safrai, “Home,” 771; J. G. Harris, “Rabbinic Responses to Aging,” Hebrew Studies 58 (2007): 187–194. 68. Diogenes Laertius 2.29. 69. Xenophon Mem. 2.2.13. 70. Quintilian [Decl.] 372.1; Sopater Division of Questions 220.11—223.11. 71. Seneca Controv. 9​.4​.int​ro; Quintilian [Decl.] 358 intro; 362 intro; 372 intro. The alleged Roman law might be a fiction created for declamation exercises, but striking a parent was reprehensible (cf., for example, Aristophanes Clouds 1332–1333), and the penalty does appear elsewhere (Hammurabi 195). In Athens striking a parent merited exclusion from sanctuaries (Gerhard Thür, “Kakosis,” 7:6). 72. Syriac Menander Sentences 90–93 regards beating a father as inconceivable; in 82–85, beating a mother merits lack of burial. 73. B. Sanh. 66a qualifies this penalty. Rabbinic law, perhaps in view of Roman domination, generally eliminated capital sentences in practice. 74. Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.206, 217. 75. Xenophon Mem. 2.2.14. 76. A second-century CE Isis aretalogy from Asia in Frederick C. Grant, Roman Hellenism and the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1962), 132. 77. Cf. calamity in Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 8.53.1. 78. Hesiod Works and Days 331–332. 79. Hesiod Works and Days 182–185. Cf. 2 Tim 3:1–2. 80. Sib. Or. 1.74–75. In Sib. Or. 2.275–76 (possibly a Christian interpolation), the judgment on those who disobey or talk back to their parents is eternal; in Apocalypse of Peter, Ethiopic 11, those who disobey parents will burn in hell. 81. Syriac Menander Sentences 20–24. 82. Josephus Ant. 4.262. 83. Thales (in Diogenes Laertius 1.37); Philo Decal. 117; cf. Isocrates Demon. 14, Or. 1; Sir 3:12–15. 84. Jub. 37:5, 11. 85. Euripides frg. 852.1–2 (trans. C. Collard and M. Cropp, LCL 8:479). 86. Sir 3:12–15, here esp. 15 (NRSV). 87. The promise is highlighted, for example, in Philo Spec. Laws 2.261; Eph 6:2. 88. 1QS 4.7; 11Q19 65.5; Ps.-Phocylides 229–230; b. Ber. 13b; Ta’anith 20b; Megillah 28a; y. Taan 4:2, §8; Gen. Rab. 59:1; Num. Rab. 11:4; cf. Sipre Num 115.5.6; Eccl. Rab. 3:2, §3.

The Obedient Son

89

89. 4Q416 f2.3.18–19; Sir 3:5–6; L.A.B. 11:9. 90. 4 Ezra 7:21; y. Hag. 2:1, §9; cf. 1QM 1.9. 91. For example, y. Peah 1:1; 1:4, §2; Qid. 1:7, § 6; Deut. Rab. 1:15; Ab. R. Nat. 40 A. 92. For honoring parents, cf. m. Peah 1:1; Sipre Deut. 336.1.1; b. Qid. 39b; y. Peah 1:1; 1:4, §2; generally, t. Hul. 10:16 (MS-TPTTG, 181–182); b. Men. 44a; cf. m. Ab. 4:1. 93. For example, Ptah-Hotep 565 (ANET2, 414); in India, according to Philostratus Vit. apoll. 2.30; cf. Aelius Aristides Defense of Oratory 189, §58; Pilch, “Parenting,” 145. Elsewhere, see Confucius Analects 28 (1.11); 29 (2.5); 34 (4.18). 94. For example, Philo Cain 146; Jos. 12; Spec. Laws 2.236; Pesiq. Rab. 23/24:2; cf. 4Q550 f1.1; J. Duncan M. Derrett, Jesus’s Audience: The Social and Psychological Environment in Which He Worked (New York: Seabury, 1973), 35. 95. Euripides Alope frg. 110 (Stobaeus 4.25.29); Archelaus frg. 234 (Stobaeus 4.25.19); Xenophon Apol. 20; Menander Samia 711–712; Polybius 7.8.9; Aulus Gellius 2.7; Eunapius Lives 493. 96. Isocrates Nicocl./Cypr. 57 (3.37); Rhet. Alex. 1, 1422a.30–32. 97. Hierocles Parents (Stobaeus Anth. 4.79.53). 98. Quintilian Decl. 257.3–4; Dixon, Mother, 234, among Romans. 99. Also 4Q525 f14.5–6 (largely reconstructed); 11Q19 64.2–6 (quoting); Philo Drunk 14; Spec. Laws. 2.243, 253 (cf. Names 206); Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.206. Josephus applies this penalty even to failure to support parents (2.206) or any injustice toward them (2.217). 100. Valerius Maximus 2.2.4 (cf. 5​.6​.pr​ef.); Aulus Gellius 2.2; cf. Quintilian [Decl.] 375 intro. 101. Isocrates in Theon Progymn. 3.93–97 (Butts). 102. Zeno (in Diogenes Laertius 7.1.33); Musonius Rufus 16, p. 100.20–21; 102.14–16, 21–24; 104.30–32; 104.37–106.1. 103. Quintilian [Decl.] 271.1, 3; 333.12–13; Libanius Narration 6.1–2; cf. Quintilian [Decl.] 257 intro. 104. 4 Macc 2:10; b. B.M. 32a; cf. Deut 13:6; 1 Sam 19:2, 11–16; 20:32–34; b. Qid. 31ab; later, Qur’an 31.15. Gen. Rab. 39:7 explains that a direct but unique divine command also provided an exemption in Gen 12:1. 105. Musonius Rufus 16 passim (esp. 16, p. 100.27–31; p. 102.28–30, 33–35); Aulus Gellius 1.13 (cf. 2.7). 106. Epictetus Diatr. 2.16.44. 107. Cicero Tusc. 5.25.70; Seneca Dial. 1.1.5; Musonius Rufus 8, p. 64.14; Epictetus Diatr. 2.14.12–13; Dio Chrysostom Or. 3.82; Ps.-Heraclitus Ep. 5; Maximus of Tyre Or. 35.2. James B. Rives, Religion in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 41, adds Apuleius On Plato and his Doctrine 23. 108. For example, T. Ash. 4:3; Sipra Qed. par. 1.195.1.3; Tg. Ps.-Jon. on Lev. 22:28; Matt 5:44–45; Eph 5:1. A king should imitate God’s benevolent attributes in Let. Aris. 188, 190, 192, 208–210, 254, 281, an idea that appears in the Greek tradition at least as early as Xenophon Cyr. 6.2.29. 109. Philo Creation 139. 110. Spec. Laws 4.73.

90

Craig S. Keener

111. P.Oxy. 37 (AD 49); Silius Italicus 2.633–635; Artemidorus Onir. 1.13; Ps.Dionysius Epideictic 2.264–65; Menander Rhetor 2.6, 404.27–28; 407.9, 22–24; Macrobius Sat. 2.5.3; Gen 5:3; 4 Macc 15:4. For specific examples, see Pliny Ep. 8.13.2; Suetonius Julius 52.2; Fronto Ad M. Caes. 5.53 (68); Ad Antoninum Imp. 1.3; fictitiously, Philostratus Hrk. 52.2; Aristaenetus Erotic Letters 1.19.25–26; 2.6.7. This helped expose adultery; see Ps.-Callisthenes Alex. 1.21; Macrobius Sat. 2.4.20; 2.5.9; Wis 4:6; Ps.-Phocylides 177–178; Lev. Rab. 23:12; Num. Rab. 9:1. Some believed that what a woman envisioned during intercourse shaped the fetus (Soranus Gynec. 1.10.39; Heliodorus Ethiop. 4.8). 112. Isocrates Demon. 9, 11–12; Rhet. Alex. 1, 1422a.30–32; Cicero De Re Publica 6.16.16; Sallust Jug. 10.8; Seneca Ep. Lucil. 84.8; Pliny Ep. 8.13.2; 8.14.6; for ancestors more generally, Aeschines Fals. leg. 75; Lysias Or. 2.61, §196; Cicero Sest. 68.143; Plutarch Dem. 14.2; Tacitus Agr. 15; for teachers, for example, Seneca Controv. 9.3.12–13; for parents, teachers, and the like, Iamblichus Ep. 14, lines 8–10 (Stobaeus Anth. 2.31.122); for an eldest brother, 4 Macc 9:23. Elsewhere, cf. Confucius Analects 28 (1.11). For children’s propensity to learn by imitation, cf. W. Martin Bloomer, “Quintilian on the Child as a Learning Subject,” Classical World 105 (1, 2011): 109–137. 113. Perhaps too narrowly, Joachim Kügler, “Der Sohn als Abbild des Vaters. Kulturgeschichtliche Notizen zu Sir 30,4-6,” BibNotiz 107–108 (2001): 78–92, attributes this idea to Greco-Egyptian wisdom tradition. 114. L.A.B. 20:6 (OTP 2:329); the Latin is imitamini.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barclay, John M. G. Paul and the Gift. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2015. Bloomer, W. Martin. “Quintilian on the Child as a Learning Subject.” Classical World 105, no. 1 (2011): 109–37. Bonsirven, Joseph. Palestinian Judaism in the Time of Jesus Christ. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964. Dalman, Gustaf. Jesus-Jeshua: Studies in the Gospels. New York: Macmillan, 1929. Derrett, Duncan M. Jesus’s Audience: The Social and Psychological Environment in Which He Worked: Prolegomena to a Restatement of the Teaching of Jesus (Lectures at Newquay 1971). New York: Seabury Press, 1973. ———. Law in the New Testament. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970. Dixon, Suzanne. The Roman Mother. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. Dolansky, Fanny. “Honouring the Family Dead on the Parentalia: Ceremony, Spectacle, and Memory.” Phoenix 65, no. 1/2 (2011): 125–57. Euripides. Fragments. Translated by Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp. Loeb Classical Library 506. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008. Flusser, David. Judaism and the Origins of Christianity. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1988.

The Obedient Son

91

Grant, Frederick C. Roman Hellenism and the New Testament. New York: Scribner, 1962. Harris, J. G. “Rabbinic Responses to Aging.” Hebrew Studies 58 (2007): 187–94. Hierocles. “Fraternal Love.” In Moral Exhortation a Greco-Roman Sourcebook, edited by Abraham J. Malherbe. Library of Early Christianity 4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1986. Johnston, Robert M. “‘The Least of the Commandments’: Deuteronomy 22:6–7 in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity.” Andrews University Seminary Studies 20 (1982): 205–15. Keener, Craig S. . . . And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 1991. ———. “Subordination Within the Trinity: John 5:18 and 1 Cor 15:28.” In The New Evangelical Subordinationism?: Perspectives on the Equality of God the Father and God the Son, edited by Dennis W. Jowers and H. Wayne House, 39–58. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2012. Kügler, Joachim. “Der Sohn als Abbild des Vaters. Kulturgeschichtliche Notizen Zu Sir 30,4–6.” BibNotiz, 107–108 (2001): 78–92. Kwon, Oh-Young. 1 Corinthians 1–4: Reconstructing Its Social and Rhetorical Situation and Re-Reading It Cross-Culturally for Korean-Confucian Christians Today. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2010. Lincoln, Andrew T., David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, and Bruce Manning Metzger. Ephesians. Vol. 42. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1990. Malherbe, Abraham J. Moral Exhortation: A Greco-Roman Sourcebook, edited by Wayne A. Meeks. Library of Early Christianity 4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1986. Montefiore, C. G. The Synoptic Gospels. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. New York: KTAV, 1968. Montefiore, C. G., and H. Loewe, eds. A Rabbinic Anthology. New York: Schocken Books, 1974. Moore, George Foot. Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim. Vol. 2. Schocken Paperbacks on Jewish Life and Religion. New York: Schocken Books, 1971. Pilch, John J. “Parenting.” In Handbook of Biblical Social Values, edited by John J. Pilch and Bruce J. Malina, 2nd ed., 145–48. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1998. Pizzuto-Pomaco, Julia. “From Shame to Honour: Mediterranean Women in Romans 16.” PhD Dissertation. University of Saint Andrews, 2003. Ramelli, Ilaria. Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments and Excerpts, translated by David Konstan. Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Greco-Roman World, v. 28. Atlanta, Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009. Rives, J. B. Religion in the Roman Empire. Blackwell Ancient Religions. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. Safrai, Shemuʾel. “Home and Family.” In Compendia Rerum Ludaicarum Ad Novum Testamentum: The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography,

92

Craig S. Keener

Political History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions, edited by Shemuʾel Safrai, M. Stern, David Flusser, and W. C. Unnick, 2: 728–92. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1987. Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1985. ———. Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1992. Smith, Morton. Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Society of Biblical Literature, 1951. Sussman, Lewis A. “Sons and Fathers in the Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian.” Rhetorica 13, no. 2 (1995): 179–92. Thür, Gerhard. “Kakosis.” In Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, edited by Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Christine F. Salazar, and David E. Orton, Vol. 7. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2002. Urbach, Ephraim E. The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, translated by Israel Abrahams, 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1979. van der Horst, Pieter W. “Hierocles the Stoic and the New Testament.” Novum Testamentum 17, no. 2 (1975): 156–60. ———. “Musonius Rufus and the New Testament.” Novum Testamentum 16, no. 4 (1974): 306–15. Watts, Rikk E. “Mark.” In Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, 111–249. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007. Wells, Bruce. “Exodus.” In Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament, Vol. 1, edited by John H. Walton, 160–283. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009. Wolfson, Harry Austryn. Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Volumes I and II. 4th ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1968.

Chapter 6

The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts David A. deSilva

The Gospel of Luke and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, together lay out the story of God’s mission in the world of the first century CE. The story of this mission takes place in the midst of the early Roman Empire. It begins during the reign of Augustus and extends as far as the reign of Nero—though we only hear the names of Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius in the course of the story, and always quite tangentially (Luke 2:1; 3:1; Acts 11:28; 18:2). It is the story of a mission that is decidedly uninterested in the mission of the early Roman Empire and the missions of various other groups and parties active in that world. As we read Acts, we learn of several Jewish freedom fighters, would-be leaders of insurrections hoping to change the story of Judea and to sideline Rome’s mission in that region in favor of a nationalistic mission of independence. Early in Acts (5:36–37), Gamaliel makes reference to the revolt led by Judas the Galilean in connection with the imperial census taken under Quirinius, the legate of Syria, and the movement led by Theudas, who led a large mass of followers to the Jordan River in the expectation of a new parting of the waters and divine conquest of the land currently under Roman domination.1 Later in Acts, when Paul is arrested, the commander of the barracks in Jerusalem wondered if Paul might be the Jew from Egypt “who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand assassins (Sicarii) out into the desert” (21:38), another abortive revolt quickly put down by the Roman governor just a few years prior.2 These revolutionaries grounded their mission in a particular story, believing that God’s former acts of deliverance—notably in the Maccabean Revolution that led to the formation of an independent kingdom for a brief span—on behalf of Israel would be repeated

93

94

David A. deSilva

in the present conflict against Roman domination and lead to a restored kingdom of Israel. It appears that one man formerly enamored of this story and the mission it supported—Simon, “known as the Zealot” (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13)—detached himself from it and found himself caught up in another story, another divine mission. The chief priests and leading elites that constituted the Sanhedrin throughout the period of Jesus’s ministry and the activity of Jesus’s apostles in Judea were also people on a mission rooted in a particular story. In their case, the story focused on the covenant originally forged at Sinai and on the Temple that was so central an organ for the covenant’s ongoing operation, and their mission was to preserve both Temple and covenant as the indispensable and unsurpassable venue for the mediation of God’s favor and blessings for the people. Of all the other stories and missions, theirs is the one to which Luke gives the greatest outright attention, no doubt because the story and mission of the Jesus movement clashed so directly with theirs. Indeed, Luke’s story from Jesus’s indictment and occupation of the Temple after his triumphal entry through the sermon of Stephen can be read as a story of the shift of divine authority from the Temple administration to the apostles and the shift of divine presence and power from the Temple to the Spirit-empowered community of Jesus’s followers.3 Luke knows that if followers of the Christ were truly and fully to invest themselves in seeking the kingdom of God and in living out their allegiance to Jesus as their Lord, they would need to divest themselves fully from their investment of themselves in alternative, essentially incompatible stories and missions. Luke’s primary audience is none other than the members of the communities of faith whose early formation is the subject of the Acts narrative. What are Christians in Pisidian Antioch or Ephesus or Philippi or Corinth “hearing” when they hear Luke and Acts read to them in their assemblies? How does it transform (or, at least, reinforce for them) their identity and location in “story and mission” in their world? How can recovering this experience help us to hear the implicit challenge of Luke and Acts in our location? Reflecting on the dominant story about divine mission in the world of these early Christians leads to a very different reading of Luke’s Gospel and Acts. Luke appears to work in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to displace that dominant story to make room for the new story of how the God of Israel is accomplishing his good ends through the mission of Jesus and of the early church, inviting Christians to locate themselves in the world no longer in terms of that dominant story, but rather in terms of the story of God’s kingdom. This essay introduces that dominant story about the divine mission in the world, examines the ways in which Luke must be heard to subvert that story, and finally explores the ways in which Luke’s agenda in this regard bequeaths an agenda to us to take up in our setting.

The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts

95

REWRITING THE “SAECULAR” IDEOLOGY I use the somewhat archaic word “saecular” to describe “ideology” here because I mean to denote the ideology that belonged to the age in which Luke wrote and into which all his readers or hearers had been born. It was certainly not a “secular” ideology in the more common sense of “not religious, that which is not set apart as ‘sacred.’” The “saecular” ideology was also a deeply religious one with its own body of faith claims, symbolically enacted in its own rites and liturgies. The dominant story in the world of Luke’s audience is the story of the mission of Rome as the fulfillment of a divine plan for the world. One of the great evangelists of the Gospel of Rome was Virgil, a poet in Augustus’s court and author of the Aeneid, the court epic of the Augustan age. The public story of Rome begins with the fall of Troy, from the ashes of which emerges the hero, Aeneas, whose divinely appointed mission would be to plant the seeds of a world empire. The Aeneid celebrates the destiny of Rome, glimpses of which throughout the epic encourage the hero Aeneas on to the end of his quest. Jupiter, the king of the gods, promises that the Romans would “rule the sea and all the lands about it” (Aen. 1.236–37). Jupiter announces that Rome’s destiny would be to “bring the whole world under the rule of law” (Aen. 4.232), a mission that it came ever closer to fulfilling throughout the first and second centuries CE with each new conquest, an achievement it preserved with each suppression of a new revolt. The fruits of this mission were widely celebrated as “stability and security” by creating “a single, unwavering cycle and world order of peace” (thus Plutarch, “On the Fortune of the Romans” 2 [Moralia 317]). The power of Rome was visually portrayed in the image of the goddess Roma, the visible representation of the “order,” the “rule of law,” the “peace,” and “stability” that Rome’s imperial rule brought. She was often featured on the reverse of coins; she is more prominently visible in the cult statues throughout the Mediterranean. Roma was given the epithet Aeterna, an epithet that persists to this day when we hear Rome called “the Eternal City.” Thus, Rome’s supporters and propagandists advanced the bold claim that Rome’s mission and destiny were unchanging and everlasting, in contradiction to all the lessons of world history. According to this widely celebrated story, divine Providence— the provision of the gods for the good ordering of the world—was at work in the rise and reign of Rome, and it was particularly at work in the rise and reign of Augustus and his successors. Augustus, formerly known as Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, brought an end to three major rounds of civil wars—in two of which he was a major player. But, as the last man standing, it was he who restored “peace” to the whole world and, indeed, set in place a far more stable “peace” than had been known prior to the onset of the civil wars.

96

David A. deSilva

Chance has preserved a marvelous snapshot of how this dominant cultural story about a divine mission was articulated and celebrated in the Roman province of Asia in the Priene Calendar Inscription from 9 BCE.4 The location of this snapshot in the Roman province of Asia; the area of what is now Western Turkey that contained cities with churches born of the Pauline mission like Ephesus, Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea; is significant. In the twenty-second year of the reign of the Emperor Augustus, the Provincial Council of Asia invited proposals for the best way to honor Augustus for the gifts he had brought to the world. Paullus Fabius Maximus, provincial governor at the time, offered the winning proposal, namely, that the birthday of Augustus should become the official “New Year’s Day” of the calendar year since his coming marked the beginning of a new era of peace and order. The Council agreed that this should indeed be done, because Providence . . . has set all things in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior [sōtēra], both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things well, and because he, Caesar, by his appearing [epiphaneis], . . . surpassed all previous benefactors and leaves posterity no hope of another surpassing what he has done, and because the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good news [euangeliōn] for the world that came by reason of him.5

The word from the inscription translated as “good news” here is a form of euangelion, the same Greek word that appears no fewer than seventy-five times in the New Testament (whether translated as “good news” or “gospel”). This inscription lauded Augustus as Providence’s provision for the “highest good” of the people, a ruler whom Providence “filled with excellence for the benefit of humanity.” It hailed him as “savior,” one whose gifts to humankind no one would ever surpass in the future, and as a manifestation of the divine (as the verb epiphanein was typically used to speak of the appearing of a god or goddess among or to mortals). The word “savior” here admittedly comes from a portion of the inscription that had to be reconstructed, but Augustus, like other generally beneficent emperors, was frequently hailed as “savior,” as in the inscription over the temple of Augustus and Roma on the Athenian acropolis, located just behind the great Parthenon. The word was part of the stock repertoire of acclamations of the emperor. Another particularly important term in this repertoire is “son of [a] god.”6 After the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Roman Senate declared him to have become a god. Their decision was based, among other things, on the testimony of reliable witnesses to have seen a new star appearing in the heavens; an image frequently represented thereafter on the coins of Julius’s

The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts

97

adopted son and successor, Octavian—who would shortly come to be named “Augustus.” Temples were erected in Rome and throughout the eastern provinces to this new deity. Thus, Octavian became “son of the divine Julius,” and this title divi filius, “son of the deified one,” would be featured prominently in every inscription and on every coin connected with Octavian. Augustus was given divine honors during his life and, predictably, officially consecrated a god after his death, allowing his own adopted son and successor, Tiberius, to continue the tradition of being styled “son of a god.” Nero, Titus, and Domitian were all also able to make use of this title after the divinization of Claudius and Vespasian. In an inscription from a triumphal arch in Gerasa (modern Jerash) honoring the Emperor Hadrian, he is lauded, among other things, as “son of the God Nerva Traianus.” This particular inscription shows us something important: if there was any distinction in Latin between the deus (god) and the divus (deified one), that distinction disappeared in the Greek-speaking world, where the divus and deus were both simply rendered theos, “a god.”7 It is in the midst of such a world that Luke’s archangel Gabriel appears to Mary to announce that she will give birth to a child who “will be called ‘Son of God’” (Luke 1:35), a status that the voice of God itself confirms at both Jesus’s baptism and transfiguration (Luke 3:22; 9:35). It is in the midst of such a world that Luke’s anonymous angel appeared to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem to deliver an alternative announcement of good news: “The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord’” (Luke 2:10–11 NRS).8 When Luke speaks of the birth of Jesus, the “son of God,” as the “good news” concerning the appearing of a “savior” who will benefit “all people”—a story in which Augustus now appears offstage merely as the person drawing up a census to make sure he can get his tribute from all the subject peoples of his empire— his readers would have understood the political implications of his proclamation of Jesus’s place in the divine scheme of things. Very significantly, Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius are introduced into the narrative only as background scenery, at most as part of an explanation for how the events that really matter in the divine story and mission unfolded. Thus, Augustus is named only as the cause of Joseph and Mary’s migration to Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’s birth (Luke 2:1); Tiberius is named in connection with providing something of a date for the beginning of the ministry of John, Jesus’s forerunner (Luke 3:1); and Claudius is mentioned only as the person during whose reign a famine would occur and whose expulsion of the Jews from Rome landed Prisca and Aquila in Corinth where they would make Paul’s acquaintance (Acts 11:28; 18:2). They are not presented as being themselves the agents of the divine, and they are themselves far removed

98

David A. deSilva

from the arena of divine action. The Christian gospel was thus very much a counter-gospel. It declared how God was intervening for the benefit of all humankind and offered a corrective thereby to how the majority of people in the Roman world had thought that the divine had intervened for the benefit of all humankind, through whom, and to what end. There is a “divine Providence,” to which Luke refers most often as “the plan of God” (Luke 7:30; Acts 2:23; 4:28; 13:36; 20:27), behind the countergospel. This “plan” was announced in the Scriptures of Israel and was put in effect in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and in the mission of the disciples whom he commissioned: “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:44–47 NRSV)

It is also a divine plan with a universal scope, the goal of which is to unite people from Israel and all the nations together into a new political entity, the “kingdom of God” that is thematic throughout Luke-Acts.9 Jesus had outlined the strategy by which this invasion and annexation would take place: What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. (Luke 13:18–19 NRSV) To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened. (Luke 13:20–21 NRSV)

Unlike Rome’s forging of an empire through heavy-handed military conquest and political coercion, God’s kingdom would insinuate itself everywhere as yeast works through a lump of dough until it has taken over the whole. This is precisely the process that we see beginning in the narrative of Acts as the seed is planted within or the yeast worked into city after city in the northeast quadrant of the Mediterranean region. And, of course, every kingdom has a “Lord” to whom allegiance, and to whose commands obedience, is ultimately due. Luke proclaims the crucified and risen Jesus as this “Lord,” acting as the vice-regent of God in this kingdom—this empire that God is forming out of former subjects of “all

The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts

99

the kingdoms of the world” (Luke 4:5) through the mission of the apostles and the sealing of the Holy Spirit. Acts becomes “the story of an alternative worldwide kingdom that miraculously survived the crucifixion of its king by a Roman procurator on Golgotha and could not be destroyed when its capital, Jerusalem, was burned down by the Roman emperor, for it had long before spread all over the Roman world.”10 It is a narrative with an open ending—not just the open-ended conclusion to Paul’s story in Rome, where he is left “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ . . . unhindered” for two years (Acts 28:30–31), but the open expectation of the return of this Lord to establish that kingdom in all its fullness. The powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. (Luke 21:26–27 NRSV) Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1:11 NRSV) [God] has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:31 NRSV)

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this alternative gospel is the eager expectation that the man sentenced to death on a Roman cross and exalted to God’s right hand until God makes his enemies his footstool (Acts 2:35, reciting Ps. 110:1) will indeed return and every rival, every enemy, will be subject to him and his rule. He will not remain safely out of the way in the realm outside of human history, but will interject himself once again to take final and absolute control of that history. REWRITING “SAECULAR” GEOGRAPHY Luke’s neutralizing of Rome’s ideology—its presentation of its own role and importance in the unfolding drama of this world—is evident also in how Luke presents the geography of God’s story and mission, and particularly how he allocates “gravity” in his map. There can be no doubt that Jerusalem stands at the center of Luke’s map. All four Gospels, of course, place the climactic action of Jesus’s last week in Jerusalem as a matter of public record, but Luke begins Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem as early as Luke 9:51, about two-fifths the way into the narrative:

100

David A. deSilva

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke will not let his readers lose sight of the fact that the actions of the next ten chapters occur “on the way to Jerusalem”: Jesus went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. (Luke 13:22 NRSV) Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem. (Luke 13:33 NRSV) On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. (Luke 17:11 NRSV) Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.” (Luke 18:31 NRSV) He went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. (Luke 19:11 NRSV)

After Jesus’s resurrection, Luke departs from the tradition of the other Gospels by not speaking of the disciples returning to Galilee at any point. In Mark, for example, the message is sent to the disciples: “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:7 NRSV). In Matthew, the encounter between Jesus and his disciples in Galilee is actually narrated (Matt. 28:16–20). In John’s Gospel as well, the disciples are found having relocated to the Sea of Galilee after the initial resurrection appearances in Jerusalem (John 21:1–23). In Luke, however, Jesus appears to the disciples in Jerusalem and tells them: “see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49 NRSV). The disciples must remain in Jerusalem because just as it was the focal point for Jesus’s mission of redemption, it will also be the center from which God’s mission to all nations will break forth. This is underscored once again, in Jesus’s summary of the witness of the “hope of Israel” as attested in its Scriptures: “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46–47 NRSV). Acts, then, opens in Jerusalem, Samaria with Luke reminding the readers why: “While staying with them, Jesus ordered them not to leave Jerusalem,

The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts

101

but to wait there for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). Immediately prior to his ascension—in Luke, from the Mount of Olives immediately across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem—Jesus says: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NRSV). This programmatic statement creates an expectation in the hearers that, as Acts unfold, this commission will be fulfilled. The propriety of such an expectation is confirmed as the story of the apostolic mission proceeds: bold and effective witness to what God has done in Christ and the summons God has issued in Christ happens first in Jerusalem (Acts 1–7) and moves out into Judea and Samaria (Acts 8–9): “The church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers” (Acts 9:31 NRSV). From here, the witnesses begin to move out beyond Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria toward “the ends of the earth.” What we notice as we read on, however, is that Luke does not speak of Thomas’s mission to India (if that tradition is reliable), the eunuch’s possible evangelistic activity in Ethiopia, and the like. Rather, Luke speaks of the steady progression of the witness to God’s kingdom moving further and further out from Jerusalem in the direction of Rome—first through Syria and Cilicia, then through Cyprus and Anatolia, then through Macedonia and Greece. And just as Luke’s Jesus began his journey to Jerusalem quite early, Paul similarly sets his face to go to Rome as early as Acts 19:21: “Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, ‘After I have gone there, I must also see Rome’” (Acts 19:21 NRSV). We are reminded of this divine necessity throughout Paul’s legal trials which, ironically, become the means by which he arrives in Rome, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” for two whole years (Acts 28:30–31). The expectation for the story of Acts raised by Jesus’s declaration that his witnesses would reach “the ends of the earth” is fulfilled, most ironically, as this witness proclaims the good news in Rome. One scholar has written: “Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire—it would have been absurd to describe the power center of the Roman Empire with the label ‘end of the earth.’”11 This is no more absurd, however, than to claim that one of Rome’s crucified victims was, in fact, the agent at the center of God’s pre-determined plan for the redemption of Israel and the gathering of the Gentiles, the agent through whom and in whose name “the kingdom of God” would take shape in response to the proclamation of God’s mighty acts in Jesus Christ, beginning “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria,” and extending “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NRSV).12

102

David A. deSilva

LUKE’S ONGOING CHALLENGE IN REGARD TO STORY AND MISSION I have dwelt on the linear stories and the horizontal maps at such length to show how Luke was hard at work making room in the Roman world for God’s story and God’s mission. A great deal of the public conceptual space was occupied by Roman imperial ideology and many of the inhabitants of the empire’s cities enthusiastically “occupied” that conceptual space, embracing and advancing that ideology. Every last one of Luke’s readers and hearers were nurtured in that world and had been extensively exposed to that ideology—and many, if not most of them, would have been among those who enthusiastically embraced it. They had to stop believing in one gospel, one proclamation of “good news,” if they were fully to embrace and live from the other gospel proclaimed by Luke and his peers in the name of Jesus Messiah and if they were to fall in line with the One God’s mission in the world. They needed to cease to take their bearings from one story along with its preoccupations, its trajectory, its mission, and begin to take their bearings from— and live to advance—another story with its preoccupations, trajectory, and mission. Where Luke’s Gentile readers see themselves in the narrative, they are leaving behind—perhaps indeed remembering their own leaving behind of—those practices that marked their embeddedness in that alternate story of the gods who had brought about peace and order for the world in the rise of Augustus—the Savior, Lord, and divine son of a divine father—and his successors. Paul’s messages to the people of Lystra and to the council that met on the Athenian Areopagus encapsulate this fairly well. If Gentiles respond favorably to those who proclaim God’s mission in the world and accept the invitation to become part of that story and mission, they must cease “to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals” (Acts 17:29) and “turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:15). As long as they continue their involvement in idolatrous religion and the worldview it supports, they cannot participate in the alternative story of divine providence; they remain mired in the conceptual groping that marked “the times of human ignorance” and continues to mark those who reject the proclamation of the One God’s new initiatives on humanity’s behalf (Acts 17:30). There was nothing salvific in that former period—quite contrary to the dominant story—apart from the subtle traces of the providence of the One God in creation (Acts 17:24–27). And—it also seems to me—the people of the twenty-first century have to work just as hard to make room in our world, in my own case, the world of the United States of America, for God’s story and God’s mission. We are bombarded with stories every day from conservative and liberal media

The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts

103

framed from concern with our nation’s story and its contested future, stories that invade—or that we promote on—our social media feeds. We need to think clearly about whether it is our mission to get fired up about the things that these media want to fire us up about, or whether we need to attend more conscientiously to a different mission that takes its bearings from the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of the age. The national story of race and the various ideologies it has spawned, for example, continues to divide people from one another here, but it must cease to divide Christians of one range of colors from Christians of another range of colors. We are called to live from a different story, the story of a different political entity, God’s kingdom, that has made us parts together of one body, and live into a different future together. We are pushed—and often push those around us—into supporting the mission of one of two political parties as if either one would bring salvation to the nation. But God’s mission is not going to be accomplished by either political party or advanced by our investment of ourselves in getting any political party into power. At best, we can try with our voting to promote the conditions that will least hinder God’s mission. God’s mission is advanced and accomplished through God’s people, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Acts gives us a picture of the church as a powerful, energetic, effective, ever-expanding body that is both the result of God’s mission and the vehicle for God’s ongoing mission. That picture challenges us to stop waiting for the secular systems around us to accomplish the good we long to see and to become ever more completely that powerful, energetic, effective, ever-expanding body through which God accomplishes that good. It calls us to stop sidelining ourselves as the church, politely lobbying the secular powers to do what is right, and to take over the doing of what is right as we respond with our full investment of ourselves and our resources to the Holy Spirit’s direction and visions for us. What we read of the story of God’s mission in Acts is just the beginning. The story begun there has expanded—and that mission’s reach has expanded—across the centuries and across the continents to arrive at the point where we have been incorporated into that story along with our sisters and brothers ransomed, by this point indeed, from every nation, language, tribe, and people group. Just as Acts was a sequel to Luke’s Gospel, there is a grand sequel to Acts—any good account of the history of the church’s mission, preferably one that gives lavish attention to the work of the Holy Spirit throughout the majority world rather than one that supplies merely the “Church History” component of a Western Civilization class. Granted, this is a story in which rulers and colonizers and venial people have co-opted the church’s mission for their own ends—and thus a story full of poignant warnings to help us become more vigilant in this regard now. But it is also a story in which the Holy Spirit has broken loose from those ends to reassert God’s mission again and again.

104

David A. deSilva

And in regard to maps: we wake up, move about, and lie down to sleep in a country that is very much concerned about its borders—in the days of the Trump administration, particularly preoccupied with those borders and with inscribing those lines more concretely. I have the distinct impression that we typically think about (and are led by most media to think about) the stories in our world in terms of how our country is impacting other nations, how what is happening in those nations is impacting our country, about our nation’s interests as the lens through which we look at what is happening globally, and the filter through which our media prioritize what they put before our eyes to look at in the first place. How radically different is the map configured in accordance with God’s interests and God’s mission in the world. It remains a map with Jerusalem conceptually at the center—not because of any misplaced Zionist ideology, but because Jerusalem remains the historic “ground zero” of the explosion of God’s work in the world through God’s Anointed One, Jesus. Every one of us has been invited into the people whose story began there, not here. I suspect that a focal theater of action in that story now is far removed from Washington, DC, and from the obsession with border walls, and is to be found in spaces far removed from the center of our nation’s conceptual map of the world (i.e., the map that places our own nation at the center of our concern!), far beyond our borders. It is probably, rather, to be found in those places where the church is most actively and wholeheartedly engaged in precisely the same mission of God that we see driving the plot of Acts forward from beginning to end. It is in the explosive expansion of God’s kingdom into South America, Africa, and the Far East. It is in the courageous and costly witness of our sisters and brothers across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia who say, with the apostles, “We must obey God rather than human authorities.” It is in the struggle for daily survival and finding some modicum of safety that untold millions in our world face, who need to have the good news of God’s kingdom brought to them and who need to be embraced by the care of the global citizenry of that kingdom. But if we are to be part of that effective citizenry, we will need to make a great deal of room for God’s story and God’s mission through intentional divestment of our attention and energies from the stories and missions to which we are being otherwise constantly recruited.

NOTES 1. On Judas the Galilean, see Josephus, B.J. 2.117–119; A.J. 18.1–10, 23–25; Martin Hengel, The Zealots (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 76–145; on Theudas, see Josephus, A.J. 20.97–99; Hengel, Zealots, 229–230.

The Story and Mission of God in Luke-Acts

105

2. See the conflicting accounts in Josephus, B.J. 2.261–63; A.J. 20.167–172; Hengel, Zealots, 231–232. 3. This was the subject of my first published article, “The Stoning of Stephen: Purging and Consolidating an Endangered Institution,” Studia Biblica et Theologica, 17, no. 2 (1989): 165–184. 4. The full text is available in translation in Frederick W. Danker, Benefactor (St. Louis, MO: Clayton Publishing House, 1982), 215–222. 5. Frederick W. Danker, Benefactor (St. Louis, MO: Clayton Publishing House, 1982), 215–222. 6. See the important study by Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in its Social and Political Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 31–85. Peppard includes an in-depth study of the Gospel of Mark against this background (Son of God, 86–131). 7. Further on the public narrative of the “gospel” of Roman imperial ideology, see John D. Crossan, “Roman Imperial Theology,” pp. 59–74 in Richard Horsley, ed., In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance (St. Louis, MO: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008); David A. deSilva, Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation’s Warning (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2013), 21–32. Two exceptionally important studies of the archaeological, artistic, and ritual contexts of imperial ideology are S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990). 8. Luke admittedly shows a preference for the verb “to announce good news” (εὐαγγελίζεσθαι) over the noun “good news” (εὐαγγέλιον), though he does use the latter on occasion. Peter speaks of his proclamation to Cornelius as “the message of the good news” (τὸν λόγον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου; Acts 15:7); Paul speaks of his being commissioned “to testify to the good news (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον) of God’s favor” (Acts 20:24). 9. For “kingdom of God,” see Luke 4:43; 6:20; 7:28; 8:1, 10; 9:2, 11, 27, 60, 62; 10:9, 11; 11:20; 13:18, 20, 28, 29; 14:15; 16:16; 17:20–21; 18:16–17, 24–25, 29; 19:11; 21:31; 22:16, 18; 23:51; Acts 1:3; 14:22; 19:8; 28:23, 31; for “kingdom,” referring to the same, see Luke 11:2; 12:31–32; 22:30; Acts 20:25. 10. Brigitte Kahl, “Acts of the Apostles: Pro(to)-Imperial Script and Hidden Transcript,” p. 149 in Richard Horsley, ed., In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance (St. Louis, MO: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008). Kahl argues that Luke writes to provide a “safe history” of Jesus’s ministry and the movement birthed in his name, seen particularly in the presentation of Paul as a law-abiding citizen of the empire, while also preserving something of the subversive tradition Luke inherited. While there is something of both sides in Luke’s narrative, I find the greater weight to be on the subversion of the dominant cultural ideology than accommodation to the same. 11. Eckhard Schnabel, “Jesus’ Missionary Commission and the Ends of the Earth,” p. 53 in Lexham Geographic Commentary: Acts through Revelation (ed. Barry Beitzel; Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).

106

David A. deSilva

12. The Judean author of Psalms of Solomon 8 also appears to have spoken of Rome as “the end of the earth”: “He brought someone from the end of the earth, one who attacks in strength; he declared war against Jerusalem, and her land” (Psalms of Solomon 8:15), referring to Pompey the Great, the Roman senator and general who came to intervene in Judean affairs in 63 BC.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Crossan, John Dominic. “Roman Imperial Theology.” In In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, edited by Richard A. Horsley, 59–74. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. Danker, Frederick W. Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field. St. Louis, Missouri: Clayton Publishing House, 1982. deSilva, David A. “The Stoning of Stephen: Purging and Consolidating an Endangered Institution.” Studia Biblica et Theologica 2, no. 17 (1989): 165–84. ———. Unholy Allegiances  : Heeding Revelation’s Warning. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2013. Hengel, Martin. The Zealots: Investigations Into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period From Herod I Until 70 A.D. Translated by David Smith. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989. Kahl, Brigitte. “Acts of the Apostles: Pro(to)-Imperial Script and Hidden Transcript.” In In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, edited by Richard A. Horsley, 137–56. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. Peppard, Michael. The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in its Social and Political Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Price, S. R. F. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Schnabel, Eckhard. “Jesus’ Missionary Commission and the Ends of the Earth.” In Lexham Geographic Commentary on Acts Through Revelation, edited by Barry J. Beitzel, 51–67. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018. Zanker, Paul. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1990.

Chapter 7

Resisting Aristotle Marital Rule in 1 Corinthians 7 and the Household Codes Judith M. Gundry

The household codes in Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Peter, and Titus require wives to “submit yourselves to your own husbands,” and husbands to “love your wives,” “not be embittered against them,” “live with them according to knowledge as with a weaker vessel,” and “show them honor even as fellow heirs of the grace of life.”1 Some scholars argue that these gender-specific requirements are accommodations to broader “patriarchal” or “kyriarchal” social norms, thus a step back from the egalitarianism of the itinerant Jesus movement and the earliest Christian communities.2 Others argue that there are elements of resistance to these norms in the household codes and their immediate literary contexts.3 The present article attempts to contribute to this ongoing discussion on the significance of the household codes for early Christian views on women by interpreting the exhortations to wives and husbands in the light of ancient discussions about the type of ruler that is appropriate to the marital association.4 I shall explore Aristotle’s views on marital rule in the Politics5 and the reception of those views in Epicureanism (represented by Philodemus), Neopythagoreanism (represented by Callicratidas), and 1 Corinthians 7 as interpreted here.6 Aristotle’s topos of household management is widely considered to provide the closest parallels to the household codes.7 And as argued below, 1 Corinthians 7 is a critical engagement with Aristotle’s topos of household management. Here I shall suggest that Paul’s depiction of marital rule in 1 Corinthians 7 is best compared with Aristotle’s “political rule,” or rule over those who are naturally equal, characterized by the rotation of the ruler and the ruled. I shall then compare (1) Aristotle’s descriptions of marital rule as 107

108

Judith M. Gundry

political, in one case, and natural, in the other, (2) Callicratidas’s description of three types of marital rule (despotic, guardian, and political), and (3) Paul’s depiction of marital rule in 1 Corinthians 7, which I shall argue is political rule.8 Then, I shall ask whether the household codes agree with Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, or Aristotle and Callicratidas, and what implications can be drawn for the origin and function of the household codes and the question, to what extent they accommodate to “patriarchal” or “kyriarchal” social norms vis-à-vis women. STATUS QUESTION IS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD CODES On the majority view today, the household codes are adaptations of Aristotle’s topos of household management (Politics 1.1253b.1–14),9 which is attested in Hellenistic sources dating from the second century BCE to the first century CE.10 Although there are no precise parallels to the household codes in any of these sources, there are significant points of agreement11 that have convinced most scholars that this tradition is the origin of the household codes. They have no antecedents in the First Testament, the teachings of Jesus, or the undisputed letters of Paul, according to most scholars today.12 There are no serious challenges to this view of the origin of the household codes which has prevailed since the mid-1980s, with the exception of James W. Thompson’s relatively brief discussion in his recently published monograph, Moral Formation According to Paul: The Context and Coherence of Pauline Ethics.13 Thompson avers that the household codes have “numerous antecedents” in “commonplace moral values” in Greco-Roman antiquity, the Torah, and Wisdom literature.14 But most especially, the household codes are the product of “natural developments” within early Christianity: “The household codes of Colossians and Ephesians codify succinctly many of Paul’s earlier instructions,”15 while the Pastoral Epistles’ moral advice has “elements of both continuity and discontinuity with that of the undisputed Pauline letters.”16 Thompson cites 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Cor. 11:2–16, and 1 Cor. 14:34–36 as Paul’s earlier instructions on family relations and the hierarchical relationship between women and men that were then “codified” in the household codes. But the only significant verbal link with the household codes is found in 1 Cor. 14:34–35, “let [women/wives] be submissive, just as the Law says, and if they want to learn anything, let thus ask their husbands at home.” The Pauline authorship of these verses however is rejected on a variety of grounds by a great many scholars.17 So Thompson’s argument is particularly weak at this point. Furthermore, 1 Cor. 11:2–16 refers to women praying and prophesying

Resisting Aristotle

109

(in the assembly) like men, without forbidding the women to fulfill the same roles as men, and merely requiring the women to cover their heads and the men to keep theirs uncovered; whether covering the head implies a subordinate role or just a mark of female identity is disputed.18 So here, too, Thompson’s argument is weak. Finally, it is not clear why Thompson cites 1 Corinthians 7 as instructions which the household codes “codify succinctly,” since there are no gender-specific roles or requirements in the earlier Pauline text. Unfortunately, Thompson does not argue for any of these views. Thompson also dismisses the suggestion that an “external crisis” occasioned the emergence of the household codes as without persuasive support.19 Yet scholars agree that at least some of the Corinthians were practicing sexual abstinence (1 Cor 7:1) and not marrying (1 Cor. 7:27, 36–40) or were divorcing (1 Cor. 7:10–16), all of which could be perceived as in contradiction to the expectations associated with household management in Greco-Roman society and that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 7 to answer their letter touching on these issues. Moreover, in his response, Paul refers to “the impending distress” and the “shortened time” before the end of “this world” whose form is already “passing away” (1 Cor. 7:26, 29, 31), which suggests that a heightened sense of the nearness of the end and the tribulation, combined with the baptismal tradition that “there is no longer male and female” in Gal. 3:28, may have led to radically different attitudes toward marriage, sex, and procreation in the Corinthian community that conflicted with those of their broader environment. So Thompson’s suggestion of the early Christian origin of the household codes is hardly a compelling alternative to the Hellenistic origin of those codes. The real weakness of the majority view, in my opinion, is the lack of explanation for the numerous “striking divergences” of the household codes from Aristotle’s topos of household management, which are noted but not accounted for by Balch:20 the omission of a “concern for money, for household income”21 and the discussion of the city; the mention of wives before husbands, and slaves before masters; the use of the direct address to the subordinate members, implying their moral capacity; the exhortation to give thanks to God (rather than the gods). Some of the household codes also substitute “tyranny” with “justice” in the master/slave relationship (1 Pet. 2:19–23; Col. 4:1) and reject the subordination of the wife to the husband’s religious inclination (1 Pet. 3:1).22 The common divergences of the household codes from Aristotle’s topos may suggest a common early Christian source, modified for different (apologetic or otherwise) purposes. There is no prima facie reason to think that the early Christians began engaging formally with Aristotle’s topos on household management only when they perceived an “apologetic requirement” to do so. The household codes thus need not have emerged ex nihilo at a time when it became “irresistible” to “fulfill the apologetic requirement to

110

Judith M. Gundry

demonstrate responsibility household management,”23 but instead as adaptations of an earlier Christian tradition that was critical of Aristotle’s topos and as partly continuous with that critical tradition. This possibility has not yet been explored in scholarship on the household codes, which is characterized by the attempt to establish the continuity in the tradition that emerged from Aristotle’s writings on household management within which these codes can be situated. But this methodology runs counter to the evidence for inconsistency and resistance in the reception of Aristotle beginning in the first century BCE and continuing into the first century CE and beyond, as seen below. THE RECEPTION OF ARISTOTLE IN ANTIQUITY AND DAVID L. BALCH’S RECONSTRUCTION OF ARISTOTLE’S TOPOS OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT AS THE ORIGIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD CODES Aristotle’s works, though mentioned only sparsely for two centuries after his death,24 came back into circulation in the early first century BCE, at the latest, as part of “a broader cultural development calling for a return to the ancients.”25 Some Hellenistic sources make explicit references to Aristotle, showing his influence on particular philosophers: Panaetius of Rhodes (Stoic philosopher, second half of the second century BCE) and Tyrannion of Amisus (grammatikos active in Rome at the time of Pompey) are both called a “lover of Aristotle” (φιλαριστοτέλης); Nicolaus of Damascus (advisor and friend of King Herod of Judea and the emperor Augustus) is called an “admirer of Aristotle” (ζηλότης Ἀριστοτηλου); and Strabo (64 or 63 BCE–24 CE, student of Boethus) uses the term “to engage in philosophy in the manner of Aristotle” (φιλοσοφεῖν καὶ ἀριστοτελίζειν).26 Aristotle’s influence on Stoic ethics has been shown.27 But there is a remarkable amount of discontinuity and disagreement in the reception of Aristotle’s ideas during this “return to Aristotle.” As Andrea Falcon observes, the interpretation of Aristotle’s writings and ideas in antiquity was characterized by selectivity, diversity, and resistance: “[There was no] straightforward reinstatement of Aristotle’s philosophy starting with Andronicus of Rhodes in the first century BC and culminating in Alexander of Aphrodisias in the second half of the second century and beginning of the third century AD.”28 Instead, there was a “selective” appropriation of Aristotle’s thought and the placing of accepted ideas “into a different theoretical context.”29 The “return to Aristotle” was “informed by a strong philosophical agenda” and intended as a contribution to larger philosophical debates, resulting in “different, and often competing, interpretations of

Resisting Aristotle

111

Aristotle.”30 There was even “resistance to Aristotle,” although it “appears to have been a minoritarian position in antiquity.”31 But Balch notes relatively few disagreements with Aristotle’s topos among his interpreters and attributes no significance to these disagreements for his reconstruction of the purported Hellenistic source of the household codes. Instead, Balch establishes the points of agreement in the comparanda—the three household pairs, reciprocal obligations, and the theme of submissiveness by wives, children, and slaves. These texts are cited to show “awareness” of Aristotle’s topos among various philosophical schools and Hellenistic Jewish writers that “his ideas were available to persons who were not technical philosophers as late as the Roman period”32 and demonstrate “the continuity of the Aristotelian topos.”33 The disagreements with Aristotle or among the comparanda show nothing, for Balch. Specific examples are cited below. Balch notes the “objections” of the Epicurean Philodemus “to Theophrastus’ treatment of the topos”:34 He [Philodemus] disagrees with Theophrastus’ opinions about wives. Philodemus objects: Why is it that man must first be concerned about marriage when one can live a happy life without a wife (29,7–11)? Why does Theophrastus think that the manner of living with a wife (τροπῆς γαμετῆι) properly belongs to the topic of household managing (29,12–15)? Philodemus says little about raising children, but he does object to Theophrastus’ discussion of slaves (30,6–34,4). Should a man first obtain slaves, instead of, as Hesiod says, a house and a wife (30.13–18 [21–26])? Philodemus objects to Theophrastus’ treatment of how to handle property (34,7). He then presents his own views on the topos (38,2–73,20). Philodemus is not concerned about how to live well at home . . . but about how to use and keep one’s property (38,5–9). The philosopher should be concerned about riches (38,17–19).35

But Balch concludes simply that “Philodemus’ treatise demonstrates that the topos on household management with its concern for ruling, or the functions of wife and slaves in the house, for the art of child-rearing, for acquiring and maintaining money for the support of the household, was widely known in the first century B.E.” (my emphasis).36 Balch might have concluded that Aristotle’s topos was subject to strongly divergent or selective interpretations. Similarly, Balch notes Ariston’s (mid-third century BCE) dismissal of Aristotle’s “department of philosophy” that is concerned with how to conduct oneself toward a wife, how to bring up children, and how to rule slaves as “of slight import,” according to Seneca (Ep. 94.1–3). But Balch

112

Judith M. Gundry

draws no implications from this critique except that it evidences awareness of the Aristotelian origin of the topos: “Despite the fact that the age was eclectic, several philosophers who used the topos show an awareness of its Aristotelian origin, philosophers such as Areius Didymus, Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, and Seneca himself.”37 Balch’s extensive citation of Didymus’s summary of Aristotle’s topos of household management in Epitome leaves out evidence for what D. Brendan Nagle has called “significant modifications” of Aristotle’s views, which appear throughout this summary.38 For example, Aristotle insists that the difference between the household and the city is not one of numerical sizes, but kind;39 but Didymus writes that “the household seems to be a small city, if, of course, marriage brings the increase that is wished for and the children grow up and, coming together in pairs, another household comes into being and so a third and a fourth, and from these a village and a city” (148.5). Aristotle construes the city as the supreme association “for the good life,” or political activity to complete the human being; but Didymus writes that a city consists of a number of such persons which is adequate for a self-sufficient life . . . such that the city is neither wanting in fellow-feeling nor readily despised, and is provided with the things necessary for life without shortage and so adequate for defending itself against foreign invaders. (150.5–9) Didymus agrees in a literal sense with Aristotle that “humans are by nature political animals [φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῷον ἄνθρωπος]” (147.25), but Didymus apparently means that they are “social” animals: “Cities were established . . . because humans are by nature social [διὰ τὸ φύσει κοινωνικὸν εἶναι τὸν ἄνθρωπον], and . . . for the sake of advantage [διὰ τὸ σύμφορον]” (150.1–3).40 Instead of informing the reader of these major differences, Balch states that Didymus retains its [the topos’s] Aristotelian structure; it still has four parts: fatherhood, marriage, mastership, and moneymaking (II.149,10–12 Wachsmuth; cp. Aristotle, Pol. I 1253b 6–8). The nature of the authority exercised within these relationships is still a concern (II.148,15–16 Wachsmuth). And finally, the house is still related to the city. (II.148,6–7 Wachsmuth)41

Balch concludes that Didymus’s summary “is quite similar to the NT codes of household ethics”:42 (1) “[they share] a concern for authority in the household,” (2) “the classes which constitute a household are listed,” and (3) “‘women, children, and slaves’ are mentioned in the same order as in Colossians and Ephesians.”43 Balch also appeals to eclectic Stoic, Hellenistic Jewish, and Neopythagorean sources, which are “close in time and place” to the New Testament writings44 to show “awareness” of Aristotle’s topos of household management, particularly the three household pairs, the theme of

Resisting Aristotle

113

submissiveness by wives, children, and slaves and the theme of rule by the husband, father, and master. For example, Philo “agreed with Plato on the identity of city and house management” and disagreed with “Aristotle’s view that a ruler in the state governed differently from the master of a household.”45 For Philo equates the two rulers: “Household management can be called a kind of state management (politeia) . . . the household manager is identical with the statesman, however much what is under the purview of the two may differ in number and size” (On Joseph, That Is, The Life of the Statesman 38–39).46 Balch draws no implications from Philo’s disagreement with Aristotle. Balch overlooks Philo’s and Josephus’s modification of Aristotle’s notion of the marital relationship: Wives must be in servitude [δουλεύειν] to their husbands, a servitude not for the purpose of any assault whatsoever [πρὸς ὕβρεως μὲν οὐδεμιᾶς], but promoting obedience in all things [πρὸς εὐπείθειαν δ᾿ ἐν ἅπασι]. (Philo Hyp. 7.31) The woman, says the Law, is in all things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive [ὑπακουέτω], not for the purpose of assault [μὴ πρὸς ὕβριν], but that she may be directed [ἀλλ᾿ ἵν᾿ ἄρχηται]; for the authority [τὸ κράτος] has been given by God to the man. (Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.199)

These Hellenistic Jewish writers limit the husband’s rule over the wife by excluding the purpose of “assault” and requiring “promoting obedience” or “being directed.” By contrast, Aristotle does not place such a limit on the husband’s rule over the wife. Balch concludes: Aristotle’s outline of household submissiveness was adapted by Hellenistic rhetoric; and Josephus and Philo assimilated it to the extent that it was used to praise Moses’ laws! Both Philo and Josephus claimed that Plato read and copied Moses’ ideas, but in this case the reverse was true: Philo and Josephus were reading Aristotle (or Plato) into the Pentateuch.47

Balch finds the closest parallels to the household codes in the Neopythagorean moralist sources, which “reflect” Aristotle’s topos on household management, and are “similar in terminology” or “ideas” to Aristotle’s Politics or Didymus’s Epitome, and “continued the concern for the relationship between the ‘house’ and the city’” and “the concern for the duties of slaves” in the classical topos.48 Balch’s article on “Neopythagorean Moralists and the New Testament Household Codes” makes an “attempt to collect the similar material in the two traditions,”49 but little attempt to note the divergences from Aristotle’s topos.

114

Judith M. Gundry

For example, Balch cites Ocellus On the Nature of the Universe 136.27–39: Families are parts of cities, but the composition of the whole and the universe derives its subsistence from the parts. It is reasonable, therefore, that as the parts are, so likewise will be the whole and the all which is composed of them.50 But Balch does not mention the contrast with Aristotle’s view that the household and the city are different kinds of associations, not simply different in numbers.51 Furthermore, Balch notes that Callicratidas (105,10–106,1 Thesleff) uses Aristotle’s three kinds of “rule,” but modifies the terminology.52 There is no discussion of the contrast between Callicratidas’s three kinds of rule [ἀρχάν] over a wife, namely, despotic, guardian, and political (On the Happiness of Households; Thesleff 106, 1–1053), and Aristotle’s view that it is appropriate to “rule” (ἄρχειν) “politically” (πολιτικῶς) over a wife, but “in a kingly way” (βασιλικῶς) over a child (Pol. 1259a40-1259b5; see my discussion below). Balch concludes that “the classical topoi [concerning city and household governance] as they appear in Plato and Aristotle were available in the Roman age” and “known and discussed by Middle Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans, Hellenistic Jews, and Neopythagoreans.” But he does not conclude that there were deep disagreements and discrepancies between those who used these topoi which are relevant to the question of the origin of the household codes, which appear to contribute their own disagreements and discrepancies. In short, Balch’s reconstruction is skewed in favor of his hypothesis of the origin of the household codes. The argument is circular: the household codes originated in a tradition that can be reconstructed as explaining the origin of the household codes. A different hypothesis can be wagered, I suggest, by foregrounding the diversity and resistance in the “return to Aristotle” both in the comparanda and in the household codes. Thus I call for a new investigation of the origin of the household codes. I launch this investigation below, and in a future discussion, I shall continue it. 1 CORINTHIANS 7: AN EARLY CHRISTIAN ENGAGEMENT WITH ARISTOTLE’S TOPOS OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT? The household codes’ “striking divergences” in concert from Aristotle on the topic of household management are best explained by a common source that diverges from and/or resists Aristotle’s topos. Below, I explain why 1 Corinthians 7 can be taken as that earlier, resistant, quasi-anti-Aristotelian tradition. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul mentions the same three household pairs and orders the relationship of one of those pairs, namely, the husband/wife pair,

Resisting Aristotle

115

as James D. G. Dunn observed already in his 1996 article on the household codes.54 The husband/wife pair is mentioned throughout the chapter; the father is implicit and the child is explicit in 7:14 (“your children”); the master is implicit and “slaves” are explicit in 7:21–23. Dunn did not conclude, however, that 1 Corinthians 7 is “structured teaching on household management,” as he did for the household codes55—although he may have implied so. For Dunn claimed that in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul “indicates how the relationships of the three groups should be ordered.”56 But that turns out to be an overstatement, since Paul only orders the marital relationship.57 There has been no discussion, to my knowledge, of the relation of 1 Corinthians 7 to Aristotle’s topos of household management since Dunn’s article first appeared. Building on Dunn’s inchoate suggestion that Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 is engaging with Aristotle’s topos of household management, I wish to argue in favor of that suggestion by appealing, in addition, to an argument from semantic domains. Aristotle uses the language of the ruler and the ruled to describe the household pairs: The science of household management has three divisions, one the relation of master to slave, of which we have spoken before,58 one the paternal relation, and the third the conjugal—for it is a part of the household science to rule [ἄρχειν] over wife and children (over both as over freemen, yet not with the same mode of rule [τῆς ἀρχῆς], but over the wife to exercise political59 rule and over the children kingly;60 for the male is by nature better fitted to command [ἡγεμονικώτερον] than the female (except in some cases where their union has been formed contrary to nature) and the older and fully developed person than the younger and immature. (Pol. 1259a40-1259b5)

As seen above, for Aristotle, the ruler in the household rules by virtue of natural superiority to the ruled.61 Again, with particular reference to the man and the woman, he states: Also, as between the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject (ἔτι δὲ τὸ ἄρρεν πρὸς τὸ θῆλυ φύσει τὸ μὲν κρεῖττον τὸ δὲ χεῖρον, τὸ μὲν ἄρχον τὸ δ᾿ ἀρχόμενον). (Pol. 1254b14-16)

The household codes’ use of similar language to admonish wives, children, and slaves is partly what links them to Aristotle’s topos: to “be subject” (ὑποτάσσεσθε; ὑποτασσόμεναι; Col. 3:18; Eph. 5:21–22; Tit. 2:5, 9), “obey” (ὑπακούετε; Col. 3:20, 22; Eph. 6:1, 5; 1 Pet. 3:6), “respect” (φοβῆται; Eph 5:33), and “serve” (δουλεύοντες) (Eph. 6:7).62 These terms are equivalent to Aristotle’s “be ruled” (ἄρχεσθαι). The role of “ruling” is not explicit here, rather, implicit in the reciprocal obligations to “love”

116

Judith M. Gundry

(Col. 3:19; Eph. 5:25, 28, 33), “not be embittered against” (Col. 3:19), “live in an understanding way as with a weaker vessel” (1 Pet. 3:7), “not provoke to anger” (Col. 3:21; Eph. 6:4), “raise with discipline and instruction” (Eph. 6:4), “deal justly and fairly” (Col. 4:1), and “give up threatening” (Eph. 6:9). That is, despotic rule is ruled out (including despotic rule over slaves!). In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul uses like terms for rule and being ruled when referring to the reciprocal obligations of wives and husbands in the sexual relationship and in general. But by contrast to Aristotle and the household codes, Paul ascribes the same role to the wife and the husband, as emphasized by the use of the numerous, synonymously parallel formulations: Let the husband render what is due [τὴν ὀφειλὴν ἀποδιδότω] to his wife, And likewise, [let] the wife [render what is due] to her husband. For the wife does not continuously exercise authority [ἐξουσιάζει] over her own body, but her husband [also exercises authority over her body], And the husband does not continuously exercise authority [ἐξουσιάζει] over his own body, but his wife [also exercises authority over his body]. Stop defrauding [μὴ ἀποστερεῖτε] each other. The married man customarily devotes care to what is worldly, seeking to serve [ἀρέσῃ]63 his wife, and he is divided.64 The married woman customarily devotes care to what is worldly, seeking to serve [ἀρέσῃ] her husband. Are you bound [δέδεσαι] to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed! Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife! A woman is bound [δέδεται] to her husband for as long as he lives, but if he should die, she is free to be married to whomever she wishes, only in the Lord. (7:2–5, 10–16, 27, 32–34, 39)

Both the wife and the husband are characterized as rulers, or those who “exercise authority” (ἐξουσιάζει), and both the husband and the wife are characterized as the ruled, or those who “serve” (ἀρέσῃ).65 Similarly, Paul admonishes the husband and the wife jointly to fulfill their obligations as the ruled: “Render what is due [τὴν ὀφειλὴν ἀποδιδότω] to each other” (7:3),” “do not keep defrauding each other” (μὴ ἀποστερεῖτε ἀλλήλους; 7:5).66 Likewise, Paul can describe the man as one who “is bound,” or betrothed, as well as the woman as one who “is bound” (δέδεσαι/δέδεται), or married. Paul’s use of the language of ruling and being ruled here situates his parenesis in relation to ancient discussions on the kind of rule that was appropriate to the marital association. But this has thus far escaped notice in scholarly discussions of 1 Corinthians 7.

Resisting Aristotle

117

POLITICAL RULE AMONG EQUALS, AND TWO VIEWS ON MARITAL RULE Paul’s ascription of the ruling function to both the husband and the wife in 1 Corinthians 7 corresponds best, in my view, to the type of rule which Aristotle calls “political.”67 It is characterized by the rotation of the ruler and the ruled among those who are free and equal:68 It is true that in most cases of political rule, the ruler and the ruled interchange in turn (for they tend to be on an equal level in their nature and to have no difference at all), although nevertheless during the period when one is ruler and other ruled they seek to have a distinction by means of insignia and title and honors. (Pol. 1.1259b5–9) ἐν μὲν οὖν ταῖς πολιτικαῖς ἀρχαῖς ταῖς πλείσταις μεταβάλλει τὸ ἄρχον καὶ τὸ ἀρχόμενον (ἐξ ἴσου γὰρ εἶναι βούλεται τὴν φύσιν καὶ διαφέρειν μηθέν), ὅμως δὲ ὅταν τὸ μὲν ἄρχῃ τὸ δ᾿ ἄρχηται ζητεῖ διαφορὰν εἶναι καὶ σχήμασι καὶ λόγοις καὶ τιμαῖς.

Aristotle thinks that the “period” of rule should be the same among equals as a matter of justice: Similarly therefore it is wrong for those who are equal to have inequality, owing to which it is just for no one person to govern or be governed more than another, and therefore for everybody to rule and be ruled alike in turn. (Pol. 1287a17–19)69 ὁμοίως τοίνυν καὶ τὸ ἄνισον τοὺς ἴσους,  διόπερ οὐδένα  μᾶλλον ἄρχειν ἢ ἄρχεσθαι δίκαιον, καὶ τὸ ἀνὰ μέρος τοίνυν ὡσαύτως.

Paul’s synonymously parallel instructions on husbands’ and wives’ ruling and being ruled can be taken as, in effect, prescribing what Aristotle describes as “political rule,” or the kind of rule that is characteristic in associations of those who are free and equal and rotate between ruling and being ruled. Granted, Paul does not refer explicitly to a “period” of rule, or to the “interchange” of the ruler and the ruled. But there is hardly any other way to take his affirmations that each one “exercises authority” over the body of the other, that neither “continually exercises authority” over their own body (in the sexual relationship), and that each strives to “serve” the other. Thus, for Paul marital rule is political rule; it alternates between the husband and the wife because they are equal (as regards the function of ruling), and this is just, for they are equal. I am not, of course, suggesting that 1 Corinthians 7

118

Judith M. Gundry

is literarily dependent on Aristotle’s Politics, but that his ideas about marital rule were available to Paul in popular form, just as they were to the authors of the household codes. In support of this suggestion, both Aristotle and his Neopythagorean interpreter Callicratidas refer to political rule over a wife.70 In Pol. 1259a401259b2, Aristotle states, self-contradictorily, that a man should rule over a wife “in a political way” (πολιτικῶς): For it is a part of the household science to rule [ἄρχειν] over wife and children (over both as over freemen, yet not with the same mode of rule [οὐ τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον τῆς ἀρχῆς], but over the wife to exercise political rule (πολιτικῶς) and over the children kingly [βασιλικῶς].71

This statement is immediately followed, however, by the statements, “for the male is by nature better fitted to command [ἡγεμονικώτερον] than the female” and “the male stands in this relationship to the female continuously [ἀεί]” (Pol. 1259b10–11). Thus, while political rule over a wife, which is not permanent, is appropriate to their relationship (as both free and equal in significant ways), political rule is contradicted by the permanent rule of the male over the female (alluding to their unequal roles in sexual reproduction; see below). Callicratidas echoes Aristotle by referring to “political rule” over a wife as that “according to which both the governor and the governed establish the common advantage” and that results in admiration and love, by contrast to other kinds of rule over a wife: Since therefore the husband rules [ἄρχει] over the wife, he either rules [ἄρχει] with a despotic, or with a guardian, or in the last place, with political rule [τὰν ἀρχὰν πολιτικὰν ἄρχει]. But he does not rule over her with a despotic power: for he is diligently attentive to her welfare. Nor is his rule of her entirely of a guardian nature; for this is itself a part of the communion [between the man and wife]. It remains, therefore that he rules over her with a political rule [τὰν πολιτικὰν], according to which both the ruler and the ruled [ὁ ἄρχων καὶ ὁ ἀρχόμενος] establish [as their end] the common advantage. . . . Those husbands therefore that rule [οἱ . . . τὰν . . . ἄρχοντες ἀρχὰν] their wives despotically are hated by them, but those that rule them with a guardian authority are despised by them. For they appear to be, as it were, appendages and flatterers of their wives. But those that rule them politically [οἱ δὲ τὰν πολιτικὰν] are both admired and beloved.” (Thesleff, 106,1-10)

It is unclear whether the man who rules in a political way over a wife alternates with her, and is ruled by her, or whether Callicratidas simply means

Resisting Aristotle

119

that the ruler and the ruled co-determine their common advantage without rotating roles. The flat contradiction in Aristotle’s statements about marital rule noted above has been addressed in numerous classicist studies.72 D. Brendan Nagle suggests that “Aristotle is bothered by the fact that normally, in political rule, one citizen succeeds another”; but Nagel does not explain the contradiction.73 Leah Bradshaw argues that it can be explained by women’s lack of prudence (φρονήσις), “the quintessential ruling virtue.”74 Prudence assumes the strength to control emotions in order to make right judgments.75 But for Aristotle, women are “less able to impose their judgements on their emotions” than men, for example, endure pain and fatigue (N.E. 1150b).76 For the deliberative faculty (τὸ βουλευτικόν) of the female is “without authority” (ἄκυρον; Pol. 1260a13–14). Furthermore, Aristotle thinks that human females experience great pain in childbirth, more than females of other species.77 So “if women are overcome for much of their adult life by the pain of bearing children, then this might be good reason why women could not, in Aristotle’s view, ‘master’ their bodies and passions with reason.”78 Second, prudence requires a domain for making decisions and issuing commands, but women lack such a domain.79 Hence, wives have no “hope of taking their turn at rule” in “the political partnership of husband and wife,”80 and are “continually” under the rule of the male. In a parallel argument about women’s absence from the city, the association of equals, in the Politics, Arlene Saxonhouse argues that, for Aristotle, “we can reach this state of equality only when the necessities that demand differentiation have been met,”81 and these necessities include women’s roles of childbearing and child-rearing: As workers captured by the necessities of existence, lacking the leisure to participate in such discourse, cannot be part of the citizen body, neither can the female, who, because she is nourishing the youth with her body, lacks such leisure. For Aristotle, then, the exclusion of women [from the political association] is based in part on their unequal leisure time, their role as the preservers of the household and the bearers of the youth.82 . . . So long as there continue to be females to keep the race in existence, there will be, for Aristotle, hierarchy, authority, and inequality—the family.83

Saxonhouse is alluding to Pol. 1252a27–28: The first union of persons to which necessity gives rise is that between those who are unable to exist without one another, namely, the union of the female and the male for the continuance of the species [οἶον θῆλυ μὲν καὶ ἄρρεν τῆς γενέσεως ἕνεκεν].

120

Judith M. Gundry

The marital association thus has the same purpose as “the first union of persons,” namely, to continue the species. It is within the household that the female makes a distinctive and necessary contribution: “Within the family, the role of the female, that task assigned to her because of her special abilities, is . . . preserving what has been acquired [life itself], providing for stability.”84 In the same context, Aristotle refers to the second union, which is analogous to the first, and is explicitly hierarchical: And the union of natural ruler and natural subject [ἄρχον δὲ καὶ ἀρχόμενον φύσει] for the sake of security [διὰ τὴν σωτηρίαν] (for one that can foresee with his mind is naturally ruler and naturally master [τὸ μὲν γὰρ δυνάμενον τῇ διανοίᾳ προορᾶν ἄρχον], and one that can do these things with the body is subject and naturally a slave; so that master and slave have the same interest [τὸ δὲ δυνάμενον τῷ σώματι ταῦτα ποιεῖν ἀρχόμενον καὶ φύσει δοῦλον · διὸ δεσπότῃ καὶ δούλῳ ταὐτὸ συμφέρει]). Thus the female and the slave are by nature distinct. (Pol. 1252a31–1252b2)

“From these two associations then is first composed the household” (Pol. 1252b 10–11), “the association” “that comes about in the course of nature for everyday purposes” (Pol. 1252b13–14).85 The distinct cognitive ability of the natural master (foresight) parallels the superiority of the male “by nature.” The distinct physical ability of the natural slave (being able to do certain things with the body) parallels the distinct physical ability of the female. The household “as a realm of hierarchy stands in contrast with the city as a realm of equality,”86 which “exists for the good life” (Pol. 1252b31), and where the natural differences are less visible, for they play no role in the purpose of the city. The “rule” of the man, who is “better fitted by nature to command than the female,” can thus be construed as a euphemism for the male role in the continuance of the species. Household management as ruling over a wife, children, and slaves is targeted toward specific goals: sexual reproduction, production, and the preparation of the young for their future roles in the city. These require a cognitive ability which the female, the child, and the slave lack. Not only this form of household management but also the enforcement of “the law governing matrimony and reproduction” (Pol. 1334b30–1336a3) is necessary, as Saxonhouse notes, so as “to serve the state in the matter of producing children” (Pol. 1335b29–30). This law can be summarized as follows: The ages of husband and wife must match, so that one will not be able to be reproductively active when the other can no longer function in this capacity. Thus, since he [Aristotle] sees 70 as the age for men’s declining sexual potency

Resisting Aristotle

121

and 50 for women, he suggests that the man be 20 years older at the time of marriage . . . reproduction [must] not begin at too young an age, when deformed offspring (including women) are likely to be born. . . . Once conception has taken place, the female is to exercise her body, but not her mind, for her body must be strong in order to give strength to the growing child, just as something growing draws from the earth.87

It is clear, then, that Aristotle’s hands are tied: although he thinks that a man should rule over a wife “in a political way,” implying not permanently, but alternately ruling and being ruled for the same amount of time, Aristotle cannot endorse this most appropriate kind of rule in the marital association, lest it fail to serve its purpose. For wives who rule cannot, by nature, exercise the foresight to ensure the continuance of the species, much less, maximize sexual reproduction for the good of the city. Their (fertile) bodies must be placed under the control of the cognitively superior male. The same understanding of sexual reproduction as the purpose of the marital association, by means of the rule of the husband over the wife, is found in Aristotle’s later interpreters, as I shall demonstrate in a future study. MARITAL RULE AND THE PURPOSE OF THE MARITAL ASSOCIATION IN 1 CORINTHIANS 7 Paul’s hands are not tied, by contrast to Aristotle’s, for Paul is not concerned about the continuance of the human species. Rather, he is concerned about avoiding sexual immorality and advises those who “burn” and “lack selfcontrol” that “it is better to marry” (1 Cor. 7:9; cf. v. 2; 1 Thess. 4:3–5).88 This purpose does not depend on a natural ruler and a natural subject joining forces to accomplish a common goal. Paul thus has no reason to characterize the marital relationship in terms of natural rule (or aristocratic rule) instead of political rule. Marital rule, for Paul, is rule by the right to rule among equals, and is characterized (implicitly) by the rotation of ruling and being ruled between husband and wife. The Origin and Function of the Household Codes Reexamined The goal of this chapter, as stated earlier, is to situate the household codes in relation to ancient discussions on marital rule and to assess what kind of marital rule is implied in the household codes’ requirement that wives submit themselves to their own husbands. Does it mean that wives are to submit themselves to their husbands because they are better suited by nature to command than females (natural rule)? Or does it mean that wives are to submit

122

Judith M. Gundry

themselves to their husbands as equals, who alternately rule and are ruled (political rule)? To answer this question, we can appeal to the household codes’ striking divergences from Aristotle’s topos of household management, for example, the omission of nature and the discussion of the city. The household codes do not identify the husband as the “natural” ruler, or the wife as the “natural” subject. Nor do they refer to the male and the female as distinct, with the exception of 1 Pet. 3:7 (“with the wife as a weaker vessel” [ἀσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει τῷ γυναικείῳ]). And except for 1 Tim. 5:14, the household codes do not require the woman to marry and bear children (τεκ νογονεῖν), and there, only “so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us,” rather than as necessary for the continuance of the species and the future of the political association. These divergences can be explained by the hypothesis that the household codes originated in an earlier Christian tradition on household management that was resistant toward Aristotle’s topos and construed the husband and the wife as political rulers, or as having equal access to rulership. That tradition can be identified with 1 Corinthians 7 as interpreted above. Support for this suggestion is found in the Ephesian household code, which begins with the exhortation, “submit yourselves to one another [ὑποτασσόμενοι89 ἀλλήλοις] in reverence to Christ,” and is followed by the exhortation, “wives to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (Eph. 5:21–22). Many interpreters have argued that the first exhortation to “submit yourselves to one another” is determinative for the following exhortations to wives and husbands. Not only should the wife submit to the husband, as explicitly stated, but the husband should submit to the wife.90 But others have argued that “submit yourselves to one another” is not two-way submission, but one way: wives to husbands, children to parents, and slaves to masters.91 If, however, the household codes originated in an early Christian tradition that advocates political rule in the marital association, or the rotation of the ruler and the ruled, as argued above, it seems plausible that the admonition to submit to one another in Eph. 5:21 echoes that sentiment, and hence, the wife’s submission to the husband is submission to a political ruler as an equal and does not exclude but includes the husband’s submission to the wife.92 CONCLUSION 1 Corinthians 7 is a critical engagement with Aristotle on the topic of household management. This Pauline text is most likely the origin of the household codes. They omit crucial features of Aristotle’s topos of household management in agreement with Paul’s earlier teaching. Their requirement that wives submit themselves to their husbands is not grounded in natural or creational

Resisting Aristotle

123

differences between the man and the woman, as explicitly in Aristotle’s topos. Therefore, this requirement should not be interpreted to refer to a fixed role. Rather, Eph. 5:21 favors taking this requirement to refer to a variable role or to the relationship of the husband and the wife as equal partners, who both rule (alternately), in effect, as “political rulers.” Hence, it is necessary to reexamine the common view that the household codes as a group represent a negative development for women away from the egalitarianism of the Jesus movement and the earliest Christian communities.93 While that may be true of some of the household codes, it does not appear to be true of the Colossian or Ephesian household codes. Furthermore, it is necessary to reexamine the complementarian interpretation of the household codes as endorsing distinct and unequal roles for women and men without contradicting their equal personhood or nature. Harold W. Hoehner compares this view to the equality of the ruler and the citizen in countries today and adds that Aristotle Pol. 1259b.1–18 expresses “this same sentiment.”94 But Hoehner fails to note that Aristotle requires the rotation of the ruler and the ruled in political associations of equals, so that justice is served. Aristotle thus cannot be cited for the complementarian interpretation of the household codes, on which “the lines of authority are given to the husbands/ wives” and “the woman is exhorted to choose to be submissive”95—not to choose to rule alternately with the man! Nor is there any evidence that this view existed in antiquity, as it does on contemporary Christian circles.

NOTES 1. Col. 3:18–4:1; Eph. 5:21–6:9; 1 Pet. 2:11–3:12; 1 Tim. 2:8–15; 5:1–2; 6:1–2; Tit. 2:1–10; 3:1. The present study interacts selectively with the vast amount of secondary literature on the household codes. For a survey of this scholarship, see Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Beyond Identification of the Topos of Household Management: Reading the Household Codes in light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of the New Testament,” NTS 57 (2010): 65–90. On the household codes appearing in some of the later Christian literature, see Gretchen J. Reydams-Shils, “Clement of Alexandria on Woman and Marriage in the Light of the New Testament Household Codes,” in Greco-Roman Culture and the New Testament: Studies Commemorating the Centennial of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, ed. David E. Aune and Frederick E. Brenk (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 113–133. 2. So, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 251–284; eadem, “Discipleship and Patriarchy: Towards a Feminist Evaluative Hermeneutics,” in Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1985), 65–92; Ephesians (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), 92; Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle

124

Judith M. Gundry

Paul (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 1983), 76; Margaret Y. MacDonald, The Pauline Churches: A Socio-historical Study of Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Writings, SNTSMS 60 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 102–103; Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Ephesians,” in The Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 341; further secondary literature cited in Elna Mouton, “On the Implied Rhetorical Effect of Ephesians 5:21–33,” in Neotestamentica 48 (2014): 163–185. 3. See MacDonald, “Beyond Identification” for a survey of such approaches. The question of accommodation is tied to the purpose of the household codes, which MacDonald also addresses. An apologetic purpose was suggested by James E. Crouch, The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haustafel, FRLANT 109 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972), 124; David L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter, SBLMS 26 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), on the basis of 1 Pet. 3:1–2. But the other household codes are not explicitly apologetic, hence, the skepticism of some scholars, e.g., Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 358: “The precise reason for the early Christians’ taking up this topic originally and the exact relation between inner and outer social tensions in such a move, must remain matters of conjecture”; idem, “The Household Code and the Wisdom Mode of Colossians,” JSNT 74 (1999): 93–112; similarly, with respect to the Ephesian household code, Timothy G. Gombis, “A Radically New Humanity: The Function of the Haustafel in Ephesians,” JETS 48 (2005): 317–330. 4. In Book I of the Politics Aristotle distinguishes between kinds of associations (made up of the ruler and the ruled) and kinds of rulers. He says that the ruler of the city is of one kind and the ruler of the household is of another kind; hence, to understand the city, one must analyze its individual parts and their individual rulers (Pol. 1.1, 1252a16-23). Furthermore, within the household, there are different kinds of rulers (Pol. 1260a9–14). See, further, David J. Riesbeck, “Aristotle on the Politics of Marriage: ‘Marital Rule’ in the Politics,” The Classical Quarterly 65 (2015): 134–152: 136. 5. For a general discussion, see Dana Jalbert Stauffer, “Aristotle’s Account of the Subjection of Women,” The Journal of Politics 70 (2008): 929–941; Robert Mayhew, “Rulers and Ruled,” in A Companion to Aristotle, ed. Georgios Anagnostopoulos (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), 526–539. I limit my discussion largely to Aristotle’s views on the marital association and marital rule in the Politics, for I intend to focus on the political dimension of the relation of the man and the woman, and Aristotle’s views on hierarchy and authority. 6. I reserve for a future discussion the reception of Aristotle’s views on marital rule in Stoicism (represented by Didymus) and Second Temple Judaism (represented by Josephus and Philo). 7. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 34: “[Arist. Pol. 1253b1–14] is the most important parallel to the NT codes. It demonstrates that the pattern of submissiveness (cp. The three pairs I Col 3:18–4:1) was based upon an earlier Aristotelian topos ‘concerning household management’; the discussion of these three relationships in a household was not a Jewish or Christian innovation.”

Resisting Aristotle

125

8. Aristotle makes contradictory statements on marital rule in the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics; see below. 9. See also Nicomachean Ethics 1160a23–1161a10; 1134b9–18. 10. See Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive; idem, “Household Codes,” in GrecoRoman Literature and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres, ed. David E Aune, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 25–50; idem, “Neopythagorean Moralists and the New Testament Household Codes,” ANRW II.26.1 (1992): 380– 411; Klaus Thraede, “Ärger mit der Freiheit: Die Bedeutung von Frauen in Theorie und Praxis der aten Kirche,” in “Freunde in Christus werden . . .” Die Beziehung von Mann und Frau als Frage an Theologie und Kirche (Berin: Burckhardthaus, 1977), 31–181; idem, “Zum historischen Hintergrund der ‘Haustafeln’ des NT,” in Pietas: Festschrift für Bernhard Kötting, ed. Ernst Dassmann and K. Suso Frank, JAC Ergänzungsband 8 (Munich: Aschendorff, 1980), 359–368; Dieter Lührmann, “Neutestamentliche Haustafeln und antike Ökonomie,” NTS 27 (1980): 83–97. 11. The following agreements between Col. 3:18–4:1; Eph. 5:21–6:9; Arist. Politics 1.1253b.1–14; and other Hellenistic sources indirectly influenced by Aristotle are noted: (1) the household is composed of three basic pairs, the husband/wife pair, the father/child pair, and the master/slave pair; (2) each pair can be divided into the ruler and the ruled; (3) submissiveness is the obligation of the ruled, namely, the wife, child, and slave; David L. Balch, “Household Codes,” ABD 3: 318–21: 318; idem, Let Wives Be Submissive, 33–62. 12. Eugene Boring, “Household Codes,” NIDB 2.905. Despite Ben Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, SNTSMS 59 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), “Can we talk about a pre-NT household table that is the oral source or even the literary predecessor of the NT tables?” The question is rhetorical. Two earlier studies arguing for the Christian origin of the household codes based on Lukan traditions or as a de novo creation of Paul proved unconvincing; see Karl Heinz Rengstorf, “Die neutestamentliche Mahnungen an die Frau, sich dem Manne unterzuordenen,” in Verbum Dei Manet in Aeternum: Eine Festschrift für Prof. D Otto Schmitz zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag am 16. Juni 1953, ed. Werner Foerster (Witten: LutherVerlag, 1953), 131–145; David Schroeder, “Die Haustafeln des Neuen Testaments: Ihre Herkunft und ihr theologischer Sinn” (D.Theol. diss., Hamburg Universität, 1959); Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 726. David C. Verner, The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles, SBLDS 71 (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1983), 87–106 argued that the household codes derive their form from an external source but contain specifically Christian influences. Cf. Betsy J. Bauman-Martin, “Women on the Edge: New Perspectives on Women in the Petrine Haustafel,” JBL 123 (2004): 253–279, who assumes the early Christian origin of the household codes, but does not identify it. 13. James W. Thompson, Moral Formation According to Paul: The Context and Coherence of Pauline Ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 189–206. 14. Thompson, Moral Formation, 194, argues that the parallels in Greek philosophical and political sources to be too imprecise to serve as evidence for the Hellenistic origin of the household codes. The “closest analogies,” in his view, are

126

Judith M. Gundry

found in Jewish legal and wisdom traditions; similarly, Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, 42–47. 15. Thompson, Moral Formation, 194. 16. Thompson, Moral Formation, 201. 17. For discussion, see Philip B. Payne, Man and Woman One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 217–267. 18. For discussion, see Judith M. Gundry-Volf, “Gender and Creation in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16: A Study in Paul’s Theological Method,” in Evangelium– Schriftauslegung–Kirche: Festschrift für Peter Stuhlmacher zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Otfried Hofius, et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 151–171. 19. Thompson, Moral Formation, 193. 20. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 96–97; idem, “Neopythagorean Moralists,” 393–408. 21. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 96, suggests that the Petrine household code may omit wealth-getting partly because in interreligious marriages, which are in view here, the Christ-believing wife would have had little control over wealth creation and management. But Balch provides no evidence for this claim. Nor does it explain why the other household codes omit wealth-getting, since there is no reference in the other codes to interreligious marriages. In private correspondence, Robert H. Gundry has suggested to me that the critique of covetousness in Col. 3:5–7 may partly explain this omission from the Colossian household code. 22. Balch, “Household Codes,” 319. 23. Pace James D. G. Dunn, “The Household Rules in the New Testament,” in The Family in Theological Perspective, ed. Stephen C. Barton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 56. 24. Whether or not the relative paucity of references to Aristotle in the earlier Hellenistic period should be taken as evidence that Aristotle was not influential (so F. H. Sandbach) is debated; Andrea Falcon, “Introduction,” in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity, ed. Andrea Falcon, Brill’s Companions to Classical Reception, vol. 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 1–9: 1. According to Robert W. Sharples, “Aristotle’s Exoteric and Esoteric Works: Summaries and Commentaries,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 94 (2007): 505–512: 505, it is unlikely that Aristotle’s esoteric works were completely inaccessible in the period that preceded the standard edition produced by Andronicus of Rhodes sometime in the first century BCE. Sharple maintains that “a popular understanding of Aristotle” continued to exist based on intermediate sources or doxographical summaries, alongside “the Aristotle of the esoteric works and with the Aristotle of the exoteric, published writings” (507–508). 25. Myrto Hatzimichali, “The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BC,” in Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoreanism in the First Century BC: New Directions for Philosophy, ed. Malcolm Schofield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 1–27: 1. See his reexamination of the disputed tradition that Andronicus of Rhodes produced a standard edition of Aristotle’s works in the first century BCE; similarly, Michael Frede, “Epilogue,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic

Resisting Aristotle

127

Philosophy, eds. K. Algra et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 772–776; Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 37–38 (on the reemergence of Aristotle’s writings) and 38–59 (on the reception of Aristotle by the Peripatetics, Philodemus, Didymus, Cicero, Josephus, Philo, and the Neopythagoreans). 26. Andrea Falcon, “The Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity,” in Oxford Handbooks Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1–19: 6–7; DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935314.013.54. 27. For Aristotle’s influence on Stoic ethics—whether directly or indirectly through Theophrastus—especially in the Epitome of Stoic and Peripatetic Ethics and the Magna Moralia, see A. A. Long, “Aristotle’s Legacy to Stoic Ethics,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 15 (1968): 72–85. Robin Weiss, “The Stoics and the Practical: A Roman Reply to Aristotle,” College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations 143 (Ph. D. thesis, 2013), vi–vii; https://via​.library​.depaul​ .edu​/etd​/143, points to Cicero’s assumption that “the Stoics share much in common with Aristotelians,” and his attempt to “understand the significance and extent of the Stoics’ attempt to distance themselves from that same tradition.” 28. Falcon, “The Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity,” 6–7. 29. Falcon, “Introduction,” 8: “A selective acceptance of his [Aristotle’s] philosophy was by far the most common position in the post-Hellenistic period.” In Falcon’s study, the Hellenistic reception of Aristotle (Theophrastus, Critolaus, the Epicurean Garden, the Stoa) is distinguished from the post-Hellenistic reception of Aristotle (the Peripatetic tradition) and the period “beyond the Peripatetic tradition” (Antiochus, Cicero, Ps-Pythagorean treatises, Middle Platonism, Galen, Plotinus, et al.) prior to late antiquity. 30. Falcon, ibid., 1–9; eadem, “Aristotelianism in the First Century BC,” in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity, ed. Andrea Falcon, Brill’s Companions to Classical Reception, Vol. 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 102. 31. Falcon, “Introduction,” 8–9, citing the Platonist Atticus (second half of the second century CE) for resistance to Aristotle. 32. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 45. 33. Ibid., referring to the Great Ethics, Didymus, and perhaps Chrysippus. Similarly, Lincoln, “The Household Code,” 357: “the continuity of the discussion of household management, retaining its Aristotelian outline down into the later Roman period.” 34. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 39. 35. Balch, ibid., 39–40. Balch observes that Philodemus is following his teacher Epicurus (Diog. Laert. 10.119–20). See also David L. Balch, “Philodemus, ‘On Wealth’ and ‘On Household Management’: Naturally Wealthy Epicureans Against Poor Cynics,” in Philodemus and the New Testament World, ed. John Fitzgerald, Dirk Obbink, and Glenn Holland (Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill, 2003), 177–196. 36. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 40. 37. Balch, ibid., 52. 38. D. Brendan Nagle, “Aristotle and Arius Didymus on Household and Polis,” in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 145 (2002): 198–223: 199, 2009 notes “significant modifications” of Aristotle’s doctrine throughout Epitome.

128

Judith M. Gundry

39. Aristotle maintains that “those who think that being a statesman (politikon), king, household manager, and master are the same, do not speak well, for they believer each of these differ not in kind, but in whether [the ruled] are many or few: e.g., [the ruler] over a few is master; over more, a household manager; over a still larger number, a statesman or king—as if there were no difference between a large household and a small city” (Pol. 1252a7–16); by examining the parts of the city we can determine that there is “a difference in kind” between the city and the household, and “different kinds of rulers” that are appropriate to these different kinds of associations (Pol. 1252a17–23). Balch, “Neopythagorean Moralists,” 393, comments simply that “Aristotle . . . observes that the ‘city’ is composed of ‘houses.’” 40. See Eckart Schütrumpf, “Didymus’ Epitome of the Economic and Political Topic,” in Arius Didymus on Peripatetic Ethics, Text, Translation, and Discussion, ed. William W. Fortenbaugh (New York/London: Routledge, 2018), 255–291: 279: “Didymus cuts the etymological and conceptual connection with polis and does no longer view man as ‘part of the polis’ as Aristotle had stressed.” 41. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 43. 42. Ibid., 41. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., 51. For the view that Neopythagorean texts can be dated within the same general period as the early Christian texts, see Balch, “Neopythagorean Moralists,” 391. 45. Ibid., 52. Similarly, Philo’s view that parent/child relations are analogous to master/slave relations conflicts with Aristotle, for whom “such an understanding of parenthood is inappropriately tyrannical” (ibid., 54). 46. Balch, ibid., 54. Balch (ibid., 53–54) sees both Platonic and Aristotelian influences in Philo’s interpretation of the decalogue in The Decalogue, 165–167; Spec. Laws 2.225–27. 47. Balch, ibid., 55. Balch (56) suggests that Hellenistic Jews like Philo and Josephus may have had access to Aristotle’s ideas about household management through a handbook like that of Didymus’ Epitome. 48. Balch, ibid., 56–58; also idem, “Neopythagorean Moralists,” 392. Similarly, Balch, ibid., 391, comments that “the Neopythagorean texts show the influence of earlier Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic thought.” 49. Balch, “Neopythagorean Moralists,” 392. See the section entitled “A Comparison of Neopythagorean and New Testament Household Ethics” (392–408). 50. Thomas Taylor, trans., Ocellus Lucanus, On the Nature of the Universe (London, 1831). 51. See n. 43 above. 52. Balch, “Neopythagorean Moralists,” 391. 53. Both here and below, I cite the edition of Holger Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, Acta Academiae Aboensis Ser. A., Humaniora 30 (Abo: Abo Akademi, 1965), by page and line, and the translations in Balch, “Neopythagorean Moralists,” 392–408. 54. Ibid., 56. 55. Ibid.

Resisting Aristotle

129

56. Ibid. 57. Paul advises the free not to enslave themselves to human beings (7:23), and the slave not to “worry about it,” “if you were called as a slave,” “but if you are able to be free (viz., manumitted), make use [of freedom; 7:21].” This assumes that the direct object to be supplied in 7:21a is “freedom,” not “slavery.” 58. Aristotle has already given an extensive discussion of the despotic relationship in connection with wealth-getting, his fourth department of household management, and perhaps the most important. 59. My translation of πολιτικῶς. 60. My translation of βασιλικῶς. 61. Cf. N.E 1160b23–1161a10. 62. In addition, 1 Pet. 2:13; Tit. 3:1 prescribe submission to human rulers. 63. With Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, SPS 7 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 29: “‘Please his wife’ or ‘please her husband’ [in 1 Cor. 7:33– 34] suggests obedience . . . [it] should not be understood moralistically or psychologically. It reflects a social situation in which an individual is fully subservient. . . . The married man has obligations toward the wife to whom he is bound in a relationship of mutual submission (cf. 7:3–4).” With David Instone-Brewer, “I Corinthians 7 in the Light of the Graeco-Roman Marriage and Divorce Papyri,” TynB 52 (2001): 101–116 at 108; idem, “1 Corinthians 7 in the Light of the Jewish Greek and Aramaic Marriage and Divorce Papyri,” TynB 52 (2001): 225–243: 233–234, the expressions, ἀρέσῃ τῇ γυναικί and ἀρέσῃ τῷ ἀνδρί, probably allude to well-known marital obligations mentioned in Palestinian Jewish and Roman marriage contracts from the first and second centuries CE. Even if one prefers a narrower sexual sense of ἀρέσκω in 1 Cor. 7:33–34, it refers to fulfilling sexual obligations in marriage; Hans-Josef Klauck, 1. Korintherbrief, NEBNT 7 (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1984), 57; William Loader, The New Testament on Sexuality (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 212–214. In support, Theodor Nägeli, Der Wortschatz des Apostels: Beitrag zur sprachgeschichtlichen Erforschung des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1905), 40, notes that “ἀρέσκω is used frequently in honorary documents to express interest in accommodating others by meeting their needs or carrying out important obligations,’ almost in the sense ‘serve,’” which “contributes a tone of special worth and dignity” to relationships defined by serving (cited in BDAG, s.v. ἀρέσκω 2.a). Pauline usage supports the translation, “serve his wife” or “serve her husband”: in Gal. 1:10, ἀνθρώποις ἤρεσκον is antithetical to Χριστοῦ δοῦλος ἤμην: “I am a slave of Christ”; in Rom. 14:18, ὁ δουλεύων τῷ Χριστῷ (“one who serves Christ”) is parallel to εὐάρεστος τῷ θεῷ; in Eph. 6:5–6, ὑπακούετε (“obey”) is qualified by μὴ . . . ὡς ἀνθρωπάρεσκοι [“people-servers”] ἀλλ’ ὡς δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ ποιοῦντες τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκ ψυχῆς. For a discussion of the parallel expression in 1 Cor. 7:33–34, μεριμνᾷ τὰ τοῦ κόσμου, see Judith M. Gundry, “Anxiety or Care for People? The Theme of 1 Corinthians 7:32–34 and the Relation between Exegesis and Theology,” in Reconsidering the Relationship between Biblical and Systematic Theology in the New Testament: Essays by Theologians and New Testament Scholars, ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds, Brian Lugioyo, and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, WUNT 2.369 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 111–130.

130

Judith M. Gundry

64. “Divided” has the sense of being obligated to two “masters,” a wife and the Lord. Cf. 7:22, where all are slaves of Christ or freed-persons (with obligations to the Lord), and the slave of a human is also a slave of Christ. 65. Paul’s use of repetitive, synonymously parallel formulations in 1 Corinthians 7 referring to wives and husbands is best explained as a rhetorical means of opposing the kind of nature-based household management found in Aristotle’s topos. 66. Granted, in 7:2–5 Paul is referring to rule and subjection in the sexual relationship, but in 7:32–34 and 7:27, 39 there is no explicit reference to the sexual relationship. 67. On political rule in Aristotle, Leah Bradshaw, “Political Rule, Prudence and the ‘Woman Question’ in Aristotle,” Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 24 (1991): 557–573; William J. Booth, “Politics and the Household: A Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ Book One,” History of Political Thought 2 (1981): 203–226. 68. Arist. Pol. 1255b23: “Political rule is [rule] over the free and equal” (ἡ δὲ πολιτικὴ ἐλευθέρων καὶ ἴσων ἀρχή). “Equal” here means “having roughly the same virtues, the same amounts of wealth, the same habits and education,” or significantly similar; Bradshaw, ibid., 563. 69. On the problem of the internal consistency of Aristotle’s discussion of political rule in Book 3 of the Politics, see Mayhew, “Ruler and Ruled,” 537: “Aristotle’s account of kingship creates problems for anyone attempting to present a completely coherent picture of his political philosophy.” But for our purposes here, whether or not Aristotle was consistent does not matter, but whether and how his ideas about “political rule” were received. 70. Scholarship on the household codes has not devoted any attention to Aristotle’s reference to “political rule” over a wife. 71. Cf. Arist. N.E. 1134b9–18: “Justice between husband and wife is domestic justice in the real sense, though this too is different from political justice.” 72. Cf. Riesbeck, “Aristotle on the Politics of Marriage,” 134–152 (other secondary sources cited there); Clifford Angell Bates Jr., Aristotle’s “Best Regime”: Kingship, Democracy, and the Rule of Law (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 75. 73. D. Brendan Nagle, The Household as the Foundation of Aristotle’s Polis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 169. 74. “Prudence is the only virtue peculiar to the ruler” (ἡ δὲ  φρόνησις ἄρχοντος ἴδιος ἀρετὴ μόνη; Pol. 1277b26–7); Bradshaw, ibid., 558. 75. Prudence “deliberates about variable things, especially political matters and household affairs” (cf. N.E. 1140b), and “what is expedient as a means to an end” (cf. N.E. 1143a); Bradshaw, ibid., 560–566. 76. Bradshaw, ibid., 567 (citing John M. Rist, The Mind of Aristotle: A Study in Philosophical Growth [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989], 152–153); similarly, Karen Margrethe Nielsen, “The Constitution of the Soul: Aristotle on Lack of Deliberative Authority,” The Classical Quarterly 65 (2015): 572–586; Riesbeck, “Aristotle on the Politics of Marriage,” 142. 77. “Human females suffer more than other animals in giving birth” (G.A. 775a), except for tribal women, who “find delivery an easily business. And so do women everywhere who are used to hard work” (G.A. 775a); Bradshaw, ibid.

Resisting Aristotle

131

78. Bradshaw, ibid., 569. 79. Bradshaw, ibid., 561, 570. Prudence “requires the opportunity to make decisions and issue commands” (cf. N.E. 1152a) and “can be exercised only in practical conduct and from a position of authority” and ability “to produce results.” 80. Bradshaw, ibid., 563. 81. Arlene W. Saxonhouse, “Aristotle: Defective Males, Hierarchy, and the Limits of Politics,” in Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory, ed. Mary Lyndon Shanley and Carole Pateman (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), 32–53: 45. 82. Saxonhouse, “Aristotle: Defective Males,” 48. Similarly, Nagle, The Household, 169 suggests that the effective cause of the “deficient” deliberative faculty in women was a “lack of opportunity,” resulting from the greater demands on them in sexual reproduction and childcare. Saxonhouse objects to characterizations of Aristotle’s family as “a dark recess of subordination and domination” in which women are “little more than an instrument for transferring property from one family to another and for giving birth to future protectors of the religious rites of a particular family,” and prefers to characterize it as “a pre-political condition incorporating into itself many of the elements of unity and friendship” and containing “the origins and springs of friendship, of political organization and justice.” Similarly, Nagle, The Household, 128, 158f., 270f., 293, 308f., 315, points to Aristotle’s view that women should attain virtue, be educated, and perform other roles in and for the household than just bearing children and that women may have “belonged in some way to the polis” as members of households (ibid., 19). Cf. D. Nagle, “Aristotle and Arius Didymus on Household and Polis,” 198–223. 83. Saxonhouse, “Aristotle: Defective Males,” 46. 84. Saxonhouse, ibid., 48. 85. For a succinct discussion of the household as the pre-political community, neither non-political nor political, and as satisfying natural “neediness,” see Vilius Bartninkas, “The Pre-Political and the Political in Aristotle’s Politics,” Problemos 85 (2014): 18–29, esp. 22. 86. Saxonhouse, “Aristotle: Defective Males,” 48. 87. Saxonhouse, ibid., 49. Similarly, the law-code of Ps.-Charandos (probably fourth to first century BCE; Stobaeus, Anthology 4.2.19, 2462.30) defines the reciprocal obligations of husbands and wives for the purpose of facilitating the production of legitimate children. 88. I take 1 Thess. 4:3–5 to refer to avoiding sexual immorality by having marital sex, not by practicing sexual abstinence. 89. The participle can have imperatival force (BDF §468 [2]), as translated here. 90. So, e.g., J. Paul Sampley, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 117 et al. Alternatively, some understand the command, “submit yourselves to one another,” to refer to the submission only of the subordinate members of the household codes to their superiors. 91. Hoehner, Ephesians, 724. 92. In several other studies on the household codes, scholars have appealed to discontinuity between the household and other aspects of the letters. For example, see

132

Judith M. Gundry

Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Can Nympha Rule this House? The Rhetoric of Domesticity in Colossians,” in Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities, ed. Willi Braun, Studies in Christianity and Judaism 16 (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier, 2005), 102: “Similarly, despite the same requirement in the Colossian household code, the letter refers to the woman Nympha as leader of a house-church (Col. 4:15)”: Angela Standhartinger, “The Origin and Intention of the Household Code in the Letter to the Colossians,” JSNT 79 (2000): 117–130: 130: “[The] discontinuities and contradictions [between the household code and the rest of the letter suggest] an interpretive guide to reading the household code against the grain and contextualizing it within the epistle as a whole”; Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Slavery, Sexuality and House Churches: A Reassessment of Colossians 3.18–4.1 in Light of New Research on the Roman Family,” NTS 53 (2007): 94–113: 113: “the slave perspective” is partly reflected in the Colossian household code; eadem, “Beyond Identification,” 67: “[The household codes] are best understood as encoding both culturally compliant and culturally resistant elements.” 93. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 251–284; eadem, Ephesians (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), 92. 94. Hoehner, Ephesians, 726. 95. Hoehner, ibid, 724, 726.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Balch, David L. “Household Codes.” In ABD, 3. 318–321. ———. Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter. Society of Biblical Literature 26. Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1981. ———. “Neopythagorean Moralists and the New Testament Household Codes.” In Aufstieg Und Niedergang Der Römischen Welt, edited by Wolfgang Haase, 380–411. ANRW, II.26.1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1992. ———. “Philodemus, ‘On Wealth’ and ‘On Household Management’: Naturally Wealthy Epicureans Against Poor Cynics.” In Philodemus and the New Testament World, edited by John T. Fitzgerald, Dirk Obbink, and Glenn Holland, 177–196. Supplements to Novum Testamentum, v. 111. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2003. Bartninkas, Vilius. “The Pre-Political and the Political in Aristotle’s Politics.” Problemos 85 (2014): 18–29. Bates Jr., Clifford Angell. Aristotle’s “Best Regime”: Kingship, Democracy, and the Rule of Law. Political Traditions in Foreign Policy Series. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. Bauman-Martin, Betsy J. “Women on the Edge: New Perspectives on Women in the Petrine Haustafel.” Journal of Biblical Literature 123 (2004): 253–279. Booth, William J. “Politics and the Household: A Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ Book One.” History of Political Thought 2 (1981): 203–226. Boring, M. Eugene. “Household Codes.” In New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 2 (2007): 905.

Resisting Aristotle

133

Bradshaw, Leah. “Political Rule, Prudence and the ‘Woman Question’ in Aristotle.” Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 24 (1991): 557–573. Cohick, Lynn H. The Letter to the Ephesians. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing, 2020. Collins, Raymond F. First Corinthians. Sacra Pagina Series 7. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1999. Crouch, James E. The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haustafel. Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, heft 109. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972. Dunn, James D. G. “The Household Rules in the New Testament.” In The Family in Theological Perspective, edited by Stephen C. Barton, 43–66. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996. Falcon, Andrea. “Aristotelianism in the First Century BC.” In Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity, edited by Andrea Falcon. Brill’s Companions to Classical Reception. Vol. 7. Leiden: Brill, 2016. ———. “Introduction.” In Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity, edited by Andrea Falcon, 7:1–9. Brill’s Companions to Classical Reception. Leiden: Brill, 2016. ———. “The Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity.” In Oxford Handbooks Online, 1–19. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935314.013.54. Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. “Discipleship and Patriarchy: Towards a Feminist Evaluative Hermeneutics.” In Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation, 65–92. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1995. ———. Ephesians. Vol. 50. Wisdom Commentary. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2017. ———. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad, 1983. Fowl, Stephen E. Ephesians: A Commentary. The New Testament Library. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012. Frede, Michael. “Epilogue.” In The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, edited by Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld, and Malcolm Schofield, 772–776. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Gombis, Timothy G. “A Radically New Humanity: The Function of the Haustafel in Ephesians.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48, no. 2 (2005): 317–330. Gundry, Judith M. “Anxiety or Care for People? The Theme of 1 Corinthians 7:32–34 and the Relation between Exegesis and Theology.” In Reconsidering the Relationship between Biblical and Systematic Theology in the New Testament: Essays by Theologians and New Testament Scholars, edited by Benjamin E. Reynolds, Brian Lugioyo, and Kevin J. Vanhoozer, 111–130. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. 2. Reihe, 2.369. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Hatzimichali, Myrto. “The Texts of Plato and Aristotle in the First Century BC.” In Aristotle, Plato and Pythagoreanism in the First Century BC: New Directions

134

Judith M. Gundry

for Philosophy, edited by Malcolm Schofield, 1–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Hoehner, Harold W. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2002. Instone-Brewer, David. “1 Corinthians 7 in the Light of the Jewish Greek and Aramaic Marriage and Divorce Papyri.” Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001): 225–243. ———. “I Corinthians 7 in the Light of the Graeco-Roman Marriage and Divorce Papyri.” Tyndale Bulletin 52 (2001): 101–116. Kelly, J. N. D. A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. New York: Harper Row Publishers, 1963. Klauck, Hans-Josef. 1. Korintherbrief. Vol. 7. Die Neue Echter Bibel - Kommentar zum Neuen Testament mit der Einheitsübersetzung. Würzburg: Echter-Verlag, 1984. Lincoln, Andrew T. Ephesians. Word Biblical Commentary 42. Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1990. ———. “The Household Code and the Wisdom Mode of Colossians.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 74 (1999): 93–112. Loader, William. The New Testament on Sexuality. Attitudes Towards Sexuality in Judaism and Christianity in the Hellenistic Greco-Roman Era. Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012. Long, A. A. “Aristotle’s Legacy to Stoic Ethics.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 15 (1968): 72–85. Lührmann, Dieter. “Neutestamentliche Haustafeln und antike Ökonomie.” New Testament Studies 27 (1980): 83–97. MacDonald, Margaret Y. “Beyond Identification of the Topos of Household Management: Reading the Household Codes in Light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of the New Testament.” New Testament Studies 57 (2010): 65–90. ———. “Slavery, Sexuality and House Churches: A Reassessment of Colossians 3.18–4.1 in Light of New Research on the Roman Family.” New Testament Studies 53 (2007): 94–113. Mayhew, Robert. “Rulers and Ruled.” In A Companion to Aristotle, edited by Georgios Anagnostopoulos, 526–539. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy 42. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009. Nägeli, Theodor. Der Wortschatz des Apostels: Beitrag zur Sprachgeschichtlichen Erforschung des Neuen Testaments. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1905. Nagle, D. Brendan. “Aristotle and Arius Didymus on Household and Polis.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 145 (2002): 198–223. Nielsen, Karen Margrethe. “The Constitution of the Soul: Aristotle on Lack of Deliberative Authority.” The Classical Quarterly 65 (2015): 572–586. Pangle, Thomas L. Aristotle’s Teaching in the Politics. 2nd ed. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Reydams-Shils, Gretchen J. “Clement of Alexandria on Woman and Marriage in the Light of the New Testament Household Codes.” In Greco-Roman Culture and the New Testament: Studies Commemorating the Centennial of the Pontifical

Resisting Aristotle

135

Biblical Institute, edited by David Edward Aune and Frederick E. Brenk, 113–133. Supplements to Novum Testamentum, v. 143. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Riesbeck, David J. “Aristotle on the Politics of Marriage: ‘Marital Rule’ in the Politics.” The Classical Quarterly 65 (2015): 134–152. Rist, John M. The Mind of Aristotle: A Study in Philosophical Growth. Phoenix Supplementary Volume Series 25. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. Saxonhouse, Arlene W. “Aristotle: Defective Males, Hierarchy, and the Limits of Politics.” In Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory, edited by Carole Pateman and Mary Lyndon Shanley, 32–53. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. “Discipleship and Patriarchy: Towards a Feminist Evaluative Hermeneutics.” In Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation, 65–92. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1995. ———. Ephesians. Vol. 50. Wisdom Commentary. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2017. Schütrumpf, Eckart. “Didymus’ Epitome of the Economic and Political Topic.” In Arius Didymus on Peripatetic Ethics, Text, Translation, and Discussion, edited by William W. Fortenbaugh, 255–291. New York; London: Routledge, 2018. Sharples, Robert W. “Aristotle’s Exoteric and Esoteric Works: Summaries and Commentaries.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 94 (2007): 505–512. Standhartinger, Angela. “The Origin and Intention of the Household Code in the Letter to the Colossians.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 23, no. 79 (2001): 117–130. Stauffer, Dana Jalbert. “Aristotle’s Account of the Subjection of Women.” The Journal of Politics 70 (2008): 929–941. Thesleff, Holger. The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period. Vol. Humaniora 30. Acta Academiae Aboensis Ser. A. Abo: Abo Akademi, 1965. Thompson, James W. Moral Formation according to Paul: The Context and Coherence of Pauline Ethics. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2011. Thraede, Klaus. “Ärger mit der Freiheit: Die Bedeutung von Frauen in Theorie und Praxis der aten Kirche.” In Die Beziehung von Mann Und Frau Als Frage an Theologie Und Kirche, 31–181. Berlin: Burckhardthaus, 1977. ———. “Zum historischen Hintergrund der ‘Haustafeln’ des NT.” In Pietas: Festschrift Für Bernhard Kötting, edited by Ernst Dassmann and K. Suso Frank, 359–368. JAC Ergänzungsband 8. Munich: Aschendorff, 1980. Verner, David C. The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles. Society of Biblical Literature 71. Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1983. Weiss, Robin. “The Stoics and the Practical: A Roman Reply to Aristotle.” College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations 143, 2013. https://via​ .library​.depaul​.edu​/etd​/143. Witherington III, Ben. Women in the Earliest Churches. Society for New Testament Studies 59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Chapter 8

Sister Phoebe Ἀδελφή as an Honorific Descriptor in Rom 16:1–2 Nijay K. Gupta

INTRODUCTION It was only in the last few decades that biblical scholarship more fully recognized the neglect of a key figure of early Christianity, the woman named Phoebe that Paul commends in Romans 16:1–2. Today, there are now major studies and monographs dedicated to understanding the background, identity, status, and ministry of Phoebe.1 She was not simply a person mentioned in a set of greetings buried at the end of Paul’s long letter to the Romans. Rather, it is almost universally acknowledged that Phoebe was a leader in the Christian community in Cenchrean and delivered this important letter to the Roman believers on Paul’s behalf. Aside from carrying the letter to them, she had some other business in Rome, though the precise circumstances are unclear (Rom 16:1–2). Nevertheless, as Paul’s respected associate, fellow Christian, and special visitor among the Roman churches, Paul commends her in the strongest terms possible. Not only does he call her a διάκονος (“deacon” or “minister”) of the Cenchrea church but also a προστάτις (“patron” or “benefactor”) to himself and many others. There is some debate over the meaning of these terms, especially as applied to Phoebe in this context, and we will discuss these further below, but Paul used a third term to describe Phoebe that has received almost no scholarly interest: ἀδελφή. The meaning of this word is quite clear, “sister.” But its rhetorical use here has largely remained unexamined in Romans scholarship. In this essay, we will fill that need and propose a thesis hitherto not argued at length: that ἀδελφή serves as an honorific title alongside διάκονος and προστάτις.2 When commentators have had the occasion to comment 137

138

Nijay K. Gupta

on ἀδελφή in relation to Phoebe, the vast majority of scholars take this as a simple reference to her shared Christian faith.3 But this reading does not capture the rhetorical patterns that can be detected when Paul commends his associates. Like the other descriptors, ἀδελφή was meant to ascribe honor to Phoebe before a group to whom she was not previously acquainted. Unlike the other descriptors, ἀδελφή did not explicate a specific role or type of activity. The title ἀδελφή put Phoebe and Paul in close association, as ministry colleagues, and would have put confidence in the Roman believers to respect her as they would if he himself were visiting. This seems to be easily demonstrable when we put together that he called for them to roll out the red carpet for her, so to speak, not least because she has been a benefactor for Paul (Rom 16:2). We will begin with a (necessarily lengthy) discussion of the state of scholarship on Phoebe to properly understand her status, role(s) in the Christian world, relationship with Paul, and relationship (or orientation) toward the Roman churches. Then we will look more carefully at kinship and siblingship relationships and metaphors in the ancient world more broadly, and then in Paul’s letters in particular. Finally, we will consider how Paul sometimes used ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή as an honorific title for particular Christian leaders for specific rhetorical reasons. Again, the case will be made that Phoebe is called ἀδελφή, not simply because she is a Christian, but because she is honored as a respected co-worker with Paul, sent to the Roman churches in his stead to deliver this letter and carry out other important work. STATE OF THE DISCUSSION OF PHOEBE IN ROM 16:1–2 While Paul’s overall commendation of Phoebe is clear—she is praised as a gracious leader and generous patron—the details of what Paul writes are highly debated. Here we will cover five elements of her identity: (1) διάκονος, (2) προστάτις, (3) (possible) letter carrier, (4) (possible) letter interpreter, and (5) (possible) lector. To begin with, we can briefly consider Phoebe’s basic identity and background. “Phoebe” is a Phrygian name meaning “bright, radiant as the moon.”4 Paul makes it clear she is from the city of Cenchraea, a seaport on the Saronic Gulf close to Corinth. Based on her aid to Paul “and many others,” as well as her ability to travel by herself, it is also often presumed that she was a well-educated widow.5 Joseph Fitzmyer conjectures that Phoebe was a freed slave.6 How did Paul know Phoebe to begin with? Acts places Paul in Corinth for over a year (Acts 18:11). It is likely that the gospel spread to nearby Cenchrean. She may have come to host a Jesus community in her home.7

Sister Phoebe

139

Διάκονος It is difficult to discern exactly what kind of role or position Paul had in mind when he used διάκονος in reference to Phoebe, but it is certainly incorrect to imagine her merely as some kind of behind-the-scenes “servant.”8 Richard Longenecker is correct to infer that Paul’s usage here implies “some type of active leadership in a Christian congregation at Cenchraea.”9 It is misleading and perhaps also anachronistic to refer to Phoebe as a “deacon,” as διάκονος probably denoted not so much an “office” as it did a certain respected function. Susan Mathew prefers to translate διάκονος as “minister.”10 In terms of what role she played, Dunn proposes that it was a “ministry of hospitality.”11 Theodoret of Cyrus imagined that Paul himself was a receipt of her hospitality, sheltering him (and others) for a period of time.12 Another perspective is that Paul was specifically referring to Phoebe’s ministry service as a courier of his letter to the Romans.13 We will address this courier role further below, but it seems unlikely Paul would describe Phoebe as minister/servant of the Cencheaen church if her primary function was performing a personal favor for him.14 More likely, she had several leadership responsibilities, and one of them was her ability to aid his ministry by delivering this letter for him.15 It is hard to disagree with Osiek’s assessment that “the most impressive female historical character in Paul’s letters is Phoebe.”16 But not only is it said she was a διάκονος, but also a προστάτις, another heavily debated term. Προστάτις Some translations have opted for the language of “helper” to convey this term in English (KJV, NASB, RSV), but recent research has rightly pointed to this term’s connection to patronage and benefaction. Phoebe was Paul’s “benefactor” (NIV, NRSV) or “patron” (ESV). This probably entailed the material and social support that Paul received from her while he was in Corinth and Cenchrean.17 One might think it impossible for a man (Paul) to have a female patron (Phoebe), but such social relationships did exist even if uncommon.18 For a relevant example, a stele found near Corinth identifies the patronage of a woman named Iunia Theodora who gave aid to certain Lycians in Corinth. R. A. Kearsley comments, Iunia Theodora “not only appears to be acting independently, she is living a very public life circulating freely with the high-ranking, predominantly male world of government and commerce in Corinth.”19 Does that mean Paul was Phoebe’s client? As a recipient of her benefaction, yes, he was indebted to her in a way. But there is strong evidence that προστάτις can be applied to relationships between equals where there is mutuality and reciprocity.20 Why does Paul mention Phoebe’s role as

140

Nijay K. Gupta

προστάτις at all in his letter to the Romans? Her benefaction shows her care for and generosity with Paul, and her social status as a woman who used her wealth and means to support the gospel ministry. Before we move on, I wish to underscore a point made by Luke Timothy Johnson about Paul’s description of Phoebe in Romans 16:1–2. If her name were not unmistakably feminine, we would be able to detect nothing in Paul’s characterization of her that did not match that of the “leading men” in Corinth. (1 Cor 16:15–18)21

LETTER CARRIER AND LETTER INTERPRETER Again, it is virtually certain the Phoebe delivered the letter to the Romans on Paul’s behalf.22 Not only does Paul’s commendation fit the kind of introduction an author might give to a letter carrier, but we also have some Greek manuscripts of Romans that contain a subscription like “through Phoebe” (35, 201), “through Phoebe the διάκονος” (42, 90, 216, 339, 462, 466*, 642), and one that describes the letter as written by Tertius and delivered by Phoebe (337).23 Peter Abelard24 comments on this tradition, and Calvin takes it as fact (“Phoebe, to whom he gave this Epistle to be brought to them”).25 There have been a number of studies in recent scholarship that have explored the roles and social dynamics of private letter carriers.26 We know that Paul made it a habit of sending his letters, not by paid courier, but through trusted friends.27 In Peter Head’s important study of letter carriers based on evidence from the Oxyrhynchus papyri, he concludes that often these couriers acted, not just as delivery persons, but agents or representatives of the sender. On occasion the named letter-carrier did function in some way or another to “represent” the sender, to expand on details within the letter, and even to expound or reinforce the primary message of the letter in oral communication. The clearest examples of such a role or function focus on reinforcing the main message of the letter, and not on the exposition of obscure details.28

When it comes to Phoebe in particular, Head reasons that she, like his other trusted colleagues, played a role in the “communication strategy of Paul, offering a personal representative to present his letter.”29 They were mediators of the sender’s authoritative instruction.30 There is also evidence that if they were returning to the sender, they would bring back reports or decisions made by the recipient(s); though in the case of Phoebe, there is no specific mention of her return.31

Sister Phoebe

141

Lector Did Phoebe read the letter aloud to the churches in Rome? More and more, scholars are finding this likely, though there is no explicit evidence in this case.32 Yet, given how rhetorically dynamic Paul’s letter was, and that Phoebe was already going to act as Paul’s proxy or agent, she is the most likely candidate for the role of lector. One final question to consider: What was her business in Rome? There are two main options that scholars consider. One option is that she was there on personal business, perhaps aiding with legal matters of a client or friend in Rome, and Paul sent his letter with her as someone already planning a journey to Rome. If it is personal business, there are several who view the use of πρᾶγμα as a reference to legal help.33 Craig Keener considers the possibility she was involved in trade, given her residence in a port city.34 Jewett, though, has made a case that she was in Rome for ministry purposes. As a wealthy and independent woman, she did not need lodging or hospitality from the Roman churches as such. Rather, Jewett finds it more likely that the “matter” she was attending to “has an integral relation to the purpose of the letter,” namely acting as a patroness of the Spanish mission.35 Jewett also believes that the named persons in Romans 16 were being recruited as advisers and supporters of this new mission.36 For my part, I agree with Jewett in general that it makes the most sense that Phoebe was in Rome primarily for ministry purposes. After all, if she was simply delivering the letter and needed lodging, Paul could have made such a request in a separate letter to one set of leaders. Thus, Paul’s commendation of Phoebe plays a strategic role in inviting the cooperation of the churches in her ministry plans while she was in Rome. Now we can further investigate the meaning and function of the language of “sister” in Paul’s recommendation. PHOEBE AS HONORED ἈΔΕΛΦΉ Again, interpreters tend to skip over this descriptive word ἀδελφή in Rom 16:1, but when they do address it, it tends to be seen as a simple nod to her sharing in the Christian faith with Paul and the Romans. For example, Charles Cranfield takes ἀδελφή here as a reference to Phoebe’s “membership in the Christian community.”37 Fitzmyer takes it one step further by saying that Paul had to make this (fellow Christian) identification to prove she was not an imposter.38 But there are numerous reasons to question this reading and consider other reasons why Paul called her ἀδελφή here. First, Paul refers to Phoebe as a διάκονος for an ἐκκλησία, which clearly identifies her, not only as a true believer in Jesus, but also a church leader; thus ἀδελφή would be redundant. Second, she was carrying the letter to the

142

Nijay K. Gupta

Romans, a responsibility that almost certainly they would have suspected would be carried out by a trusted fellow Christian. Third, there appears to be a particular pattern of usage when Paul used ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή as a descriptor for a named individual. For women, for example, he does so only here and in reference to Apphia (Phm 2). The argument we will make is that ἀδελφή in Romans 16:1 is (1) an honorific use of metaphorical sibling language, and (2) specifically and strategically employed here to present Phoebe as someone acting as Paul’s trusted proxy. Thus, to say she is a “sister/sibling” is to say she is “someone just like me.”39 In order to properly make this case, we will examine sibling language in the ancient world, the use of sibling metaphors in early Christianity, and make a case for an “honorific” (subset) use of sibling language in certain rhetorical circumstances in Paul’s letters. Then we will again return to Rom 16:1 to see how this language functions in that socio-literary context. THE SIBLING RELATIONSHIP IN THE ANCIENT WORLD In the last few decades, there have been numerous helpful studies examining the unique sibling bond in the ancient world.40 Scott Bartchy explains that the brother/sister relationship was one of the most intimate and resilient bonds in the Greco-Roman world, even stronger than the marriage relationship.41 While the general aim in life for a man or a woman was acquiring honor, they were discouraged from competing with their biological siblings.42 They were taught, instead, to protect and care for each other. Beryl Rawson explains the perspective articulated by Valerius Maximus about the special bond between siblings: [They] are born in the same house, they use the same cradle at infancy, they have parents in common, are protected by the same prayers, and derive the same distinction (gloria) from their ancestral images. This bond antedates all those who come later—wife, children, friends, relations—and cannot be displaced by these.43

Because of the vividness and common experience of this sibling relationship (and the importance of the family and household in the Roman world in general), it makes sense that “brother” became a metaphor for a close bond even with non-family members. Philip Harland has discovered occurrences of siblingship imagery in guilds in the Greek East.44 When an association

Sister Phoebe

143

member referred to a fellow member as “brother,” this seemed to indicate a bond of affection and in-group identity, as if the association was another home.45 In Peter Arzt-Grabner’s study of the Greek documentary papyri, he detected several instances of metaphorical brotherhood language. But for our purposes, it is interesting that Arzt-Grabner also found a couple of metaphorical uses of ἀδελφή.46 We will now examine the use of siblingship imagery among early Christians as attested in the New Testament. SIBLING AND KINSHIP LANGUAGE AMONG EARLY CHRISTIANS It is easily noticeable that the early Christians were fond of using kinship language for their communal life.47 As one key example, Paul used ἀδελφοὶ fourteen times in 1 Thessalonians alone.48 Probably this kinship language (among a corpus mixtum of believers) derived from the pervasive Christian emphasis on the “Fatherhood” of God and the unique “Sonship” of Jesus (1 Thess 1:1, 3, 10). As Paul explains in Romans, believers are destined to conform to the image of the Son in order that Jesus the Son might become the firstborn among many new brothers and sisters incorporated into this special family through his own sonship (Rom 8:29). To the Galatians, Paul refers to their adoption, which involves the endowment of the Spirit of God’s Son, crying “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:6). By and large, Paul’s use of ἀδελφός reflects a sense of affection and mutuality among the “household of faith” (Gal 6:10). Notice how Philemon is called to treat his estranged slave (now returned) Onesimus as more than a slave, even a beloved brother (ἀδελφὸν ἀγαπητόν) in the Lord (i.e., from the perspective of Christian faith). Most studies of early Christian selfidentification dwell on this (intimacy/mutuality) use of Paul’s siblingship language, and for good reason, because it is a recognizable dimension of this social image. However, what is often left out of the discussion, or severely neglected, is a less common but still detectable use of metaphorical sibling language in Paul, namely, as an honorific title in the rhetorical context of praise or commendation. ἈΔΕΛΦΌΣ/ἈΔΕΛΦΉ AS HONORIFIC TITLE As noted above, it is widely recognized that Paul regularly used ἀδελφός as a term describing a fellow Christian (e.g., 1 Cor 6:6; 7:15; 8:11, 13; 1 Thess 4:6). Less common are instances where Paul used ἀδελφός as a descriptor

144

Nijay K. Gupta

with a named individual. In virtually all cases where this happens, Paul was commending or honoring a respected co-worker or Christian leader.49 For example, at the very end of Romans, Paul extends to the Roman believers greetings from certain believers that are with him at the time of writing: Timothy (“my co-worker”; ὁ συνεργός μου); Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater (“my compatriots”; οἱ συγγενεῖς μου); Gaius (Paul’s host; ὁ ξένος μου καὶ ὅλης τῆς ἐκκλησίας); Erastus (“city treasurer”; ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως); and “the brother Quartus” (Κούαρτος ὁ ἀδελφός; 16:21–23). By adding key descriptors to each person, he was displaying their honorable status. What can we say, then, about Quartus? Scholars are unsure about why he is called ἀδελφός. Dunn insists it simply means “fellow believer.”50 Jewett argues that it would be quite a deflating ending of the letter to give Quartus such a meager Christian description compared to the other descriptors used for the other named believers. Thus, Jewett posits that Quartus is linked to Erastus, specifically as Erastus’s actual brother.51 But in that case, for the sake of clarity, one would have expected the pronoun αὐτοῦ. Given the pattern of honorific descriptors Paul uses for all the other people mentioned, it makes the most sense that ἀδελφός is likewise an honorific title, pointing to Quartus as a respected Christian leader and co-worker of Paul. In 1971, E. Earle Ellis made the most extensive case for a subset use of ἀδελφός by Paul in reference to fellow ministry leaders (i.e., “co-workers”).52 In texts like 1 Corinthians 16:19–20 and Philippians 4:21–22, he detected that Paul was using the language of “brothers” as a more particular group than the church at large. They appeared to him to be fellow leaders in the Christian mission. Evaluations of Ellis’s proposal have been mixed.53 Part of the reason that there has been doubt or hesitancy regarding Ellis’s argument is his lack of method for determining when this subset use (“brother(s)” = “co-workers”) is relevant. Paul Trebilco has sharpened Ellis’s approach by linking the more professional use of ἀδελφός with occasions where specific people are named. On such occasions, Paul “seems to give the person so named a position of authority of some sort.”54 We will seek here to extend the arguments of Ellis and Trebilco by testing the following theory against the evidence from Paul’s letters. We propose that (a) ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή is an honorific descriptor identifying respected Christian leadership when used with a named individual, and (b) it is used in two types of situations in particular: general respect and specific commendation when someone serves as a proxy for or representative of Paul. One of the drawbacks of Ellis’s argumentation is his overly synthetic study of the evidence from the New Testament. That is, Ellis did not distinguish usage in one type of rhetorical context over another. We will take note of not only how Paul presents honor to an individual using ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή, but also why.

Sister Phoebe

145

General Respect Paul demonstrates a certain patterned usage of combining ἀδελφός with a proper name, especially in epistolary prescripts and final greetings. It would appear that the purpose of this titling is to attribute honor and respect to certain respected people and ministry colleagues, especially to glorify them in the eyes of the intended letter readers. In letter prescripts, Paul uses ἀδελφός as descriptors for Sosthenes (1 Cor 1:1) and Timothy (2 Cor 1:1; Phm 1; cf. Col 1:1). Given how well known Timothy was as a ministry colleague of Paul, it makes little sense for ἀδελφός simply to identify him as a fellow believer. Likewise, Paul’s final greetings were rhetorical occasions to recognize certain friends and co-workers. We already mentioned Quartus (Rom 16:23), but Apollos is also called “brother” in the final words of Paul in 1 Corinthians (1 Cor 16:12). Three other occasions are worth noting here under the category of “general respect.” First, you have the incidental mention of “my brother Titus” in 2 Corinthians 2:13. What would be the point here of calling Titus ἀδελφός if it means fellow Christian? After all, he was already known in person to the Corinthians (2 Cor 12:18). He is here recognized as a respected ministry coworker (which makes good sense in light of his role in the collection; 2 Cor 8:6, 16, 17, 23). Second, Paul refers to Philemon as ἀδελφός (vocative) twice in his letter (Phm 7, 20). Given the nature of that short letter, it makes good sense that this was a term of respect (as a fellow leader) as well as a term of endearment. In Philippians, Paul is effusive with praise for Epaphroditus, whom Paul was sending back to the Philippians community and commending for his devotion to the gospel and service to himself (Phil 2:25–30).55 He is called by Paul “co-worker,” “fellow soldier,” and “brother” (τὸν ἀδελφὸν; 2:25). As we know that the Philippian Christian community sent Epaphroditus as their representative to Paul (2:30), again it makes little sense that the descriptor ἀδελφός is added to refer to his shared faith. Alongside “co-worker” (συνεργόν), ἀδελφός refers to his ministry partnership with Paul.56 One can easily note the overlap of descriptive terminology in the way Paul honors Epaphroditus (brother, co-worker, fellow soldier) and the way he addresses Philemon, Apphia, and Archippus (co-worker Philemon, sister Apphia, fellow soldier Archippus; Phm 1–2).57 On the subject of Paul’s letter to Philemon, we can also add the prescript mention of “sister Apphia” to this category of general respect (Phm 1).58 This is an important case study, as it is a rare instance (not only in Paul but also the whole NT) where ἀδελφή is used as a metaphorical descriptor for a named person (Phoebe serving as the only other instance).59 Anna Maria Wajda notes

146

Nijay K. Gupta

that Apphia is noteworthy as the only woman Paul names as an addressee in a letter.60 The mention of Apphia as “sister” neither implies she is Philemon’s sister nor that she is merely a fellow Christian (in that case, why name her at all?). Wajda argues that our interpretation of Apphia as ἀδελφή should be influenced by the fact that Paul calls his colleague Timothy “brother” (ἀδελφός; Phm 1) and later refers to Philemon as ἀδελφός as well (7, 20).61 In the prescript itself, Bonnie Thurston and Judith Ryan note that each person named is described with some kind of honorific title. Philemon is called “dear friend and co-worker,” Archippus “fellow soldier,” and Apphia “sister” (Phm 1–2). In this rhetorical context, it makes perfect sense that ἀδελφή serves as a title of leadership: “Paul’s descriptions . . . place all of them within the circle of the apostle’s missionary companions.”62 Commendation of Messenger/Proxy The second rhetorical context in which we find the personalized honorific descriptors ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή is in situations where Paul is introducing or commending a messenger or apostolic proxy sent out by him or on his behalf.63 In 1 Thessalonians, Paul notes how he had to leave these believers abruptly and was concerned about their well-being. While in Athens, he dispatched Timothy on his behalf, “our brother and co-worker” (3:2). It is clear in this context that Timothy was sent as a substitute for Paul’s own presence. Paul commends Timothy as someone like Paul, a respected colleague that can faithfully carry out apostle-like responsibilities.64 There would be no reason for Paul to refer to Timothy as ἀδελφός simply to describe him as a fellow Christian in this letter. By the time he writes it, they already received him as a visitor, so they would know his Christian faith and his Christian leadership. Thus, it makes better sense to treat ἀδελφός and συνεργός as parallel or combined descriptors (especially as they are governed together by one definite essay). The idea that Paul would send Timothy as a proxy in ministry is reinforced by the way Paul commends him in Philippians 2:19–23. He worked side by side with Paul, like a son with a father, for the sake of the gospel (2:22). This metaphor made clear the Pauline agency of Timothy. In 2 Corinthians, we have another rhetorical situation where Paul commends several messengers. One is Titus (2 Cor 8:16–17). Paul adds: “With him we are sending the brother (τὸν ἀδελφὸν) who is famous among all the churches for his proclaiming the good news” (8:18). Paul explains that this unnamed ἀδελφός was appointed by the churches to accompany Paul in the work of the collection (2:19). Along with this unnamed ἀδελφός, Paul mentions another “brother” delegate (8:22). Why does Paul not name them? It is unclear and debated among scholars,65 but the fact that Paul used ἀδελφός to describe them is telling nonetheless. They are not simply “brothers” as in

Sister Phoebe

147

fellow believers, but they are respected colleagues with Paul in the work of ministry.66 This fits a pattern of Paul’s use of ἀδελφός whereby he employs it as an honorific or commendatory designation to praise a messenger, colleague, or proxy.67 “SISTER” PHOEBE After looking more carefully at Paul’s uses of ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή, we have demonstrated that he had more than one rhetorical use for this descriptor in relation to believers. On the broadest level, he frequently referred to Christians in general as “brothers and sisters.” This is also prevalent, of course, outside of Paul (e.g., Heb 3:1; James 1:2; 2 Peter 1:10; 1 John 3:13; Rev 6:11). But we can also detect a more specialized use of ἀδελφός/ ἀδελφή, especially when it modifies a named individual.68 In some situations, the commendation is more general, as in a co-sponsor of a letter (2 Cor 1:1), or to honor the recipients (Phm 1–2). In other cases, ἀδελφός/ ἀδελφή functions as an honorific descriptor to show respect for a colleague of Paul’s whom is being or will be sent to the letter recipients (e.g., 1 Thess 3:2). In the case of “sister” Phoebe, she was clearly in the second category. She was sent by Paul in her capacity as a Cenchrea διάκονος to carry his important letter and carry out business there, probably in relation to Paul’s mission. It was a normal custom to commend such agents. And Paul does so at length, not least in his description of her as προστάτις.69 Where does ἀδελφή fit into this? It is simply not likely that this was merely Paul’s way of noting her Christian faith, as most commentators (who discuss at all the “sister” reference) claim. He need not have done that at all, because he calls her a διάκονος a few words later. It makes more sense that Paul was using ἀδελφή as an honorific descriptor, presenting this agent as a respected and praiseworthy co-worker and a more than suitable representative of his ministry.70 In this particular case, calling her “sister” would be akin to saying that she is a proper substitute for his own presence. Just as the Thessalonian church may have been disappointed not to have Paul himself return to them, so Paul commends Timothy as his “brother” who is present with them (1 Thess 3:2).71 Just as the Philippian church may have wanted to see Paul rather than Epaphroditus alone, so Paul commends “brother” Epaphroditus (Phil 25). Just as the Romans wished for an official visit from Paul, a trip he has had to delay more than once (Rom 1:11–13), so he commended Phoebe in one of the most honorable ways, as “sister,” as someone just like himself, a sibling mission partner well capable of carrying out key elements of his ministry in Rome.72

148

Nijay K. Gupta

It is instructive, perhaps even essential, to recognize how rarely Paul used ἀδελφή with a named individual, the only other case being Apphia (Phm 2). And in that case, it is clear he was honoring individually the three named recipients of the letter: Philemon, Apphia, and Archippus (regardless of whether these three were related biologically or by marriage or not).73 If, in fact, Paul was using ἀδελφή as an honorific descriptor on such occasions, how did scholars miss this before? While honorific titles were expected in commendation-like situations, we do not see ἀδελφή often as a descriptor. But based on how Paul used ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή rhetorically in honoring/commendation sections of his letters, we can detect a clear pattern where ἀδελφός/ἀδελφή + proper name almost always reflects honorific respect.

CONCLUSION Phoebe is remarkable as an early Christian for several reasons. She is the only named διάκονος in the entire New Testament. She is also the only person called a προστάτις. Furthermore, as we have demonstrated, it was a rare honor to be named “sister” of Paul, a respected ministry co-worker and trusted confidant. On a number of levels, this is historically valuable, but as Cynthia Westfall reminds us, it is also remarkable that Paul says such things of a woman. In the Greco-Roman culture, though there were exceptions, it was not considered proper to give women public recognition. Therefore, a woman could accomplish feats and function in a variety of roles for which a man would be commended, but on her tombstone, she would be commended for conforming to the stereotypical roles of wife and mother and for spinning wool. However, Paul is countercultural because he commends women in the same way as men and for the same things for which he commends men.74

NOTES 1. See Joan Cecilia Campbell, Phoebe: Patron and Emissary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009); Paula Gooder, Phoebe (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018); see Susan Mathew, Women in the Greetings of Romans 16.1–16, LNTS 471 (London: T&T Clark, 2013), 65–84; recent shorter treatments that spotlight the social agency of Phoebe include Beverly Gaventa, When in Romans (Grand Rapids. MI: Baker, 2016), 6–14; Scot McKnight, Reading Romans Backwards (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019), 3–6.

Sister Phoebe

149

2. By “honorific title,” we do not mean a title that is in name only and offers no positional substance. When Paul refers to Phoebe as διάκονος, he clearly presents her as a functioning community leader. Our interest here is in how this term, ἀδελφή, is part of Paul’s commendation, employed to boost her profile before the Roman believers; for a discussion of honorific titles and their uses in ancient discourses, see Bernadette Brooten, “What is an Honorific Title?” in Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue, Brown Judaic Studies 36 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), 7–10. 3. We offer further discussion below, but for now, Barrett’s brief remark is representative of most Romans commentaries: “Phoebe is described as ‘sister,’ that is, a Christian”; see C.K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans, Revised Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 258. 4. Robin Gallagher Branch, “Female Leadership as Demonstrated by Phoebe: An Interpretation of Paul’s Words Introducing Phoebe to the Saints in Rome,” In Die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi 53, no. 2 (2019), 1–10, at 2. 5. Katherine Bain, Women’s Socioeconomic Status and Religious Leadership in Asia Minor in the First Two Centuries C.E. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014), 110. Often, comparisons are made between Phoebe and the Lydia of Acts; see Mary R. D’Angelo and Ross Shepard Kraemer, Women & Christian Origins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 208–209; Christine Schenk, Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017), 33; Carolyn Osiek, “What We Do and Don’t Know about Early Christian Families,” in A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Chichester, UK: Blackwell, 2011), 203. 6. Joseph Fitzmyer, Romans, AB 33 (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 729; following Heinrich Schlier, Römerbrief, HTKNT (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 441; cf. also Robert Jewett, Romans, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), 943. 7. See Joseph L. Rife, “Religion and Society at Roman Kenchreai,” in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society, ed. S. Friesen et al. (Boston, MA: Brill, 2010), 390; cf. also L. Michael White, The Social Origins of Christian Architecture (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 106. 8. The same language (διάκονος) is used for Jesus (Rom 15:8; Gal 2:17), Paul’s ministry (2 Cor 3:6; 6:4; 11:23), Apollos (2 Cor 3:5), and government leaders (Rom 13:4). In acts, διακονία describes apostolic ministry (see Reid, 82). 9. Richard N. Longenecker, Romans, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 1064; note John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 30; cf. Valerie Griffiths, “Romans,” in The IVP Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. Catherine C. Kroeger and Mary J. Evans (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 645. 10. Mathew, Women, 74; so also Philip Barton Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 61. Note the Vulgate: in ministerio ecclesiae quae est Cenchris. 11. James D.G. Dunn, Romans, 38b (Waco, TX: Word, 1988), 2.887; cf. Brendan Byrne, Romans, SP 6 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 448. 12. IER, Migne PG 82 col. 220. 13. See Terry L. Wilder, “Phoebe, the Letter-Carrier of Romans, and the Impact of Her Role on Biblical Theology,” SWJT 56, no. 1 (2013): 43–51.

150

Nijay K. Gupta

14. See James Walters, “‘Phoebe’ and ‘Junia(s)’—Rom 16:1–2, 7,” in Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity, ed. C. D. Osburn, Vol. 1 (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1993), 167–190, at 181. 15. See Barbara Reid, Wisdom’s Feast: An Invitation to Feminist Interpretation of the Scriptures (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), 83; Carolyn Osiek, “The Politics of Patronage and the Politics of Kinship,” BTB 39, no. 1 (2009): 143–152; cf. Lynn Cohick, Women in the World of Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009), 305. 16. Osiek, “What Do We Know and Don’t Know About Early Christian Families,” in A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, ed. Beryl Rawson (Chicester, UK: Blackwell, 2011), 198–213, at 203. 17. See Osiek, “The Politics of Patronage and the Politics of Kinship,” 149. 18. See Amanda Miller, “Cut from the Same Cloth: A Study of Female Patrons in Luke-Acts and the Roman Empire,” Review & Expositor 114, no. 2 (2017): 203–210. 19. See R.A. Kearsley, “Women in Public Life in the Roman East,” Tyndale Bulletin 50, no. 2 (1999); see also Jill E. Marshall, Women Praying and Prophesying in Corinth: Gender and Inspired Speech in First Corinthians, WUNT 2.448 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 49–50. 20. Erlend D. MacGillivray, “Romans 16:2, προστάτις/προστάτης, and the Application of Reciprocal Relationships in New Testament Texts” NovT 53 (2011): 183–199; so also Mathew, Women, 79. 21. Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 233. 22. See Elsa Tamez, “Phoebe, Bearer of the Letter to the Church in Rome, Explains Romans 12:1–2,” Reformed World 67, no. 2 (2017): 4–12. 23. See Ben Witherington III and Darlene Hyatt, Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 379; also Arland Hultgren, Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 569. Richard Longenecker examines, but stops short of supporting, the notion that Tertius was Phoebe’s slave or paid scribe, and that he accompanied her to Rome; see Introducing Romans: Critical Issues in Paul’s Most Famous Letter (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 11–13. 24. Peter Abelard, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, trans. Steven R. Cartwright (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 90. 25. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, trans. John Owen (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 542. 26. Peter Head, “Letter Carriers in the Ancient Jewish Epistolary Material,” in Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon, ed. Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 203–219; idem., “Named LetterCarriers among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri,” JSNT 31 (2009): 279–299; Lincoln H. Blumell, “The Message and the Medium: Some Observations on Epistolary Communication in Late Antiquity,” JGRChJ 10 (2014): 24–67. 27. Tychicus (Col 4:7); Onesimus (Phm 12); see Blumell, “The Message and the Medium,” 67. 28. Head, “Named Letter-Carriers,” 297. 29. Head, “Named Letter-Carriers,” 298.

Sister Phoebe

151

30. See also Blumell, “The Message and the Medium,” 24–67; Allan Chapple, “Getting Romans to the Right Romans: Phoebe and the Delivery of Paul’s Letter,” Tyndale Bulletin 62 (2011): 195–214. 31. But for some evidence in Paul, note the representative role played by Timothy in Thessalonica (1 Thess 3:5–6). 32. Scholars who mention Phoebe as lector include Philip Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 23; Witherington, Romans, 23. 33. See Dunn, Romans, 2.888. 34. Craig S. Keener, Romans, NCCS (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011), 183. 35. Jewett, Romans, 946. 36. Jewett, Romans, 947. 37. See Charles Cranfield Romans, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), 2.780; also U. Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer, EKK 6 (Zürich: Benziger, 1982), 3.131; Wayne Meeks, First Urban Christians, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 86; Jewett, Romans, 944; A. Katherine Grieb, The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God’s Righteousness (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 144; Christopher Bryan, A Preface to Romans: Notes on the Epistle in Its Literary and Cultural Setting (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 34; Thomas Schreiner, Romans, BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), 786; Longenecker, Romans, 1064. 38. Fitzmyer, Romans, 729. 39. We are not proposing that Phoebe was an apostle on equal footing as Paul; rather, that she is a respected ministry leader worthy of representing Paul in Rome in certain capacities. 40. See especially Peter Arzt-Grabner, “‘Brothers’ and ‘Sisters’ in Documentary Papyri and in Early Christianity,” RivB 50 (2002): 185–204; Reidar Aasgaard, ‘My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!’ Christian Siblingship in Paul, JSNTSup 265 (London: T&T Clark, 2004); Karl O. Sandnes, “Equality within Patriarchal Structures: Some New Testament Perspectives on the Christian Fellowship as a Brother or Sisterhood and a Family,” in Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor, ed. Halvor Moxnes (London: Routledge, 1997), 150–165; Scott Bartchy, “Undermining Ancient Patriarchy: The Apostle Paul’s Vision of a Society of Siblings,” BTB 29 (1999): 67–78; Joseph H. Hellerman, “Brothers and Friends in Philippi: Family Honor in the Roman World and in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,” BTB 39.1 (2009): 15–25; cf. Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, “‘Who Are My Mother and My Brothers?’: Family Relations and Family Language in the Gospel of Mark,” The Journal of Religion 81.1 (2001): 1–25. 41. Bartchy, “Undermining Ancient Patriarchy,” 68. 42. Bartchy, “Undermining Ancient Patriarchy,” 72. 43. Beryl Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 244; see Valerius Maximus 5.5. Rawson is quick to point out, though, that large age gaps were relatively common in families in Roman antiquity, largely due to the high rate of infant mortality, so that intimate bond was not as common as it was an ideal or cultural value (Rawson, Children and Childhood, 249).

152

Nijay K. Gupta

44. Philip Harland, “Familial Dimensions of Group Identity: ‘Brothers’ in Associations of the Greek East,” JBL 124, no. 3 (2005): 491–513. 45. Harland, “Familial Dimensions,” 513. 46. Arzt-Grabner, “Documentary Papyri,” 187–188; citing P.Mich. III 202 (105 CE) and P.Ant. II 93,11 (4th cent. CE; could be Christian author). 47. See especially Aasgaard, My Beloved Brothers and Sisters; Paul Tribelco, Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011), 16–76. 48. See Trevor Burke, Family Matters: A Socio-Historical Study of Kinship Metaphors in 1 Thessalonians, LNTS 247 (London: T&T Clark, 2003); on 1 Corinthians, see Mary Katherine Birge, The Language of Belonging: A Rhetorical Analysis of Kinship Language in First Corinthians, CBET 31 (Leuven: Peeters, 2002); on Romans, Dirk Venter, “The Implicit Obligations of Brothers, Debtors, and Sons (Romans 8:12–17),” Neotestamentica 48, no. 2 (2014): 283–302. More generally, see Larry Hurtado, “Earliest Expressions of a Discrete Group-Formation among Jesus Believers,” Estudios Biblicos 75, no. 3 (2017): 451–470, esp. 454–456. 49. The only exception I could find (re: ἀδελφός + named individual, not honorific) is Acts 9:17, where Ananias first addresses Saul/Paul (Σαοὺλ ἀδελφέ). 50. Dunn, Romans, 2.911. 51. Jewett, Romans, 984. 52. E. Earle Ellis, “Paul and His Co-Workers,” NTS 17, no. 4 (1971): 437–452. 53. For unfavorable views, see Ralph Martin, 2 Corinthians, WBC 40 (Waco, TX: Word, 1986), 275, 503; Dunn, Romans, 911; Thomas Schreiner, 1 , 2 Peter, Jude, NAC 37 (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 405; for favorable, see Leon Morris, The First and Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 25; Bruce, 1–2 Thessalonians, WBC 45 (Waco, TX: Word, 1982), 134, 135; Murray Harris, 2 Corinthians NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 600. 54. See Trebilco, Self-Designations, 23. Trebilco is clear with this caveat: “The use of brother or sister in itself, does not have the connotation of ‘co-worker’; and the term has not become a title or a shorthand way of referring to an office or to particular tasks” (23). He treats 1 Cor 16:12 as a rare exception to the naming norm. 55. See Keown, Philippians (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), 2.35. 56. So Hellerman writes: “Although ἀδελφός is applied to all Christians, (a) μου and (b) the συν-prefixed words that follow underscore a special surrogate sibling bond between Paul and Epaphroditus, one forged in the shared work and conflict of the gospel ministry” (Joseph Hellerman, Philippians, EGGNT [Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2015]), 156; see too Davorin Peterlin, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians in the Light of Disunity in the Church (NovTSup 79; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 186. 57. Bonnie Thurston and Judith Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, SP 10 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009), 218. 58. There is a text-critical question here, as some Greek manuscripts read “our dear Apphia” rather than “our sister”; see Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke, The Letter to Philemon, ECC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 254.

Sister Phoebe

153

59. Key studies of Apphia are as follows: Nicholas Quient, “Was Apphia an Early Christian Leader?” Priscilla Papers (2017): 10–13; D. Tolmie, “The Reception of Apphia in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries,” Acta Theologica 36 (2016): 283–301; Anna Maria Wajda, “Apphia: The Addressee of the Letter to Philemon,” Ruch Biblijny i Liturgiczny 70, no. 1 (2017): 39–51; cf. Wendy Cotter, “Women’s Authority Roles in Paul’s Churches: Countercultural or Conventional?” NovT 36 (1994): 350–372. 60. Wajda, “Apphia,” 40. 61. See similarly Alicia Batten in Elsa Tamez et al., Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Wisdom Commentary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017), 238; also Barth and Blanke, Philemon, 254; cf. Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon: “Deliberate placement of ‘the sister’ in tandem with ‘the brother’ for Timothy could suggest some parity with respect to importance and/or influence within the community” (212). 62. Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 217. 63. Note the commendation language of Tychicus, the letter carrier, in Colossians and Ephesians (Col 4:7; Eph 6:21). In both letters, he is described using a combination of διακονός and ἀδελφός. So Margaret MacDonald: “References to him in these works [Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Timothy, Titus] may be intended to legitimize his role as an authentic representative of the apostle”; Colossians and Ephesians, SP 17 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 351. For an example outside of the Pauline corpus, see 1 Peter 5:12: “Through Silvanus, whom I consider a faithful brother, I have written this short letter to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God”; so Paul Achtemeier, “The identification of Silvanus as ‘the faithful brother’ (τοῦ πιστοῦ ἀδελφου) in all probability belongs to the common ancient custom of commending the one who delivers a letter, a custom reflected in early Christian letters. . . . It assures the recipients that the one who delivers it is a reliable manager”; 1 Peter, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 351; see similarly the assessment of J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter, WBC 49 (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 307. 64. See Ernest Best, A Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, BNTC (London: Black, 1972), 132; Gene Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians, PNTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2002), 159; Jeffrey Weima: “The first title ‘our brother’ is quite likely not merely an expression of endearment but also a technical term used by Paul to refer to someone engaged with him in the work of Christian ministry, as a ‘co-worker.’ This more restricted sense of the common term adelphos is supported by a number of texts where ‘brother(s)’ appears to be distinguished from church membership as a whole”; 1–2 Thessalonians, BECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2014), 209. 65. Witherington offers the possibility that these two were Timothy and Apollos; Ben Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 422; Ralph Martin speculates about three other options: Luke, Barnabus, or Aristarchus, Ralph Martin, 2 Corinthians, WBC 40 (Waco, TX: Word, 1986), 275. 66. Hans Dieter Betz argues that Paul is using a familiar cultural connotation of the metaphorical use of ἀδελφός used in “honorary declaration”; Betz cites here Cicero

154

Nijay K. Gupta

Ep. Fam. 13.1.5: “Pomponium Atticum sic amo, ut alterum fratrem”; see Hans Dieter Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul, Hermeneia (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1985), 72. 67. See Trebilco, Self-Designations, 23–24. I concur, though, with James Hughes that we don’t have to discount the socio-rhetorical function that ἀδελφός could play in cultivating “interchurch solidarity.” Among the possible commendatory titles he could have used, ἀδελφός does capture a sense of household unity; see James T. Hughes, Eccesial Solidarity in the Pauline Corpus: Relationships between Churches in Paul’s Letters (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019), 120–121. Stephan Joubert rightfully adds that Paul was clearly concerned in this context with showing moral integrity and responsibility with this money; he shows respect for these appointed “brothers” and honors their role in faithfully discharging their roles in the collection; see Joubert, Paul as Benefactor: Reciprocity, Strategy, and Theological Reflection in Paul’s Collection, WUNT 2.124 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000; reprinted by Wipf & Stock, 2016), 186–188. 68. Second Corinthians 8:18, 22 would be an unusual exception where the individuals are not actually named, but they are clearly being commended. 69. Aasgaard observes that she was given prominence as the first person in Paul’s commendations and greetings in Rom 16:1, which makes her more noteworthy; My Beloved Brothers and Sisters, 298n.52. 70. Jeremy Punt argues that the combination of ἀδελφή, διάκονος, and προστάτις naturally leads the reader to see each of these as titles of honor: “Paul did not often use the title [ἀδελφή] for individuals, and there is little doubt that great respect was garnered by its use”; see Punt, “(Con)figuring Gender in Bible Translation: Cultural, Translational and Gender Critical Intersections,” HTS 70.1 (2014): 1–10, at 6. 71. Punt, “(Con)figuring Gender,” 6. 72. Robin Gallaher Branch lays out a case for viewing the ministry agency of Phoebe as parallel to that of Paul’s “brothers” Tychicus, Timothy, Onesimus, Philemon, Epaphroditus, and Titus; “Female leadership as Demonstrated by Phoebe: An Interpretation of Paul’s Words Introducing Phoebe to the Saints in Rome” in In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi (2019): 1–10, especially pp. 3–5. 73. As argued by Sara Winter, “Paul’s Letter to Philemon” NTS 33 (1987): 1–15, at 2. 74. Cynthia Westfall, Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 223.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aasgaard, Reidar. ‘My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!’: Christian Siblingship in Paul. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement 265. London: T&T Clark, 2004. Abelard, Peter. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Steven R. Cartwright. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Fathers of the Church

Sister Phoebe

155

Medieval Continuations, v. 12. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011. Achtemeier, Paul J., and Eldon Jay Epp. 1 Peter: A Commentary on First Peter. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1996. Ahearne-Kroll, Stephen P. “‘Who Are My Mother and My Brothers?’: Family Relations and Family Language in the Gospel of Mark.” The Journal of Religion 81, no. 1 (2001): 1–25. Arzt-Grabner, Peter. “‘Brothers’ and ‘Sisters’ in Documentary Papyri and in Early Christianity.” Rivista Biblica 50 (2002): 185–204. Bain, Katherine. Women’s Socioeconomic Status and Religious Leadership in Asia Minor: In the First Two Centuries C.E. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2014. Barrett, C. K. The Epistle to the Romans. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1991. Bartchy, Scott. “Undermining Ancient Patriarchy: The Apostle Paul’s Vision of a Society of Siblings.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 29 (1999): 67–78. Barth, Markus, and Helmut Blanke. The Letter to Philemon. Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000. Batten, Alicia J., Elsa Tamez, Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, and Claire Miller Colombo. Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Barbara E. Reid. Vol. 51. Wisdom Commentary. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2017. Best, Ernest. The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians. Black’s New Testament Commentaries. London: A & C Black Limited, 1972. Betz, Hans Dieter, and George W. MacRae, eds. 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. Birge, Mary Katherine. The Language of Belonging: A Rhetorical Analysis of Kinship Language in First Corinthians. Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology 31. Leuven: Peeters, 2002. Blumell, Lincoln H. “The Message and the Medium: Some Observations on Epistolary Communication in Late Antiquity.” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 10 (2014): 24–67. Branch, Robin Gallagher. “Female Leadership as Demonstrated by Phoebe: An Interpretation of Paul’s Words Introducing Phoebe to the Saints in Rome.” In Die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi 53, no. 2 (2019): 1–10. Brooten, Bernadette J. “What is an Honorific Title?” In Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue. Brown Judaic Studies 36. Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1982. Bruce, F. F. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Vol. 45. Word Biblical Commentary. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1982. Bryan, Christopher. A Preface to Romans: Notes on the Epistle in Its Literary and Cultural Setting. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Burke, Trevor J. Family Matters: A Socio-Historical Study of Kinship Metaphors in 1 Thessalonians. Library of New Testament Studies 247. London: T&T Clark, 2003. Byrne, Brendan. Romans. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1996.

156

Nijay K. Gupta

Calvin, John. Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans. Translated by John Owen. Bellingham, Washington, DC: Logos Bible Software, 2010. Campbell, Joan Cecelia. Phoebe: Patron and Emissary. Paul’s Social Network. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2009. Chapple, Allan. “Getting Romans to the Right Romans: Phoebe and the Delivery of Paul’s Letter.” Tyndale Bulletin 62 (2011): 195–214. Cohick, Lynn H. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2009. Cotter, Wendy. “Women’s Authority Roles in Paul’s Churches: Countercultural or Conventional?” Novum Testamentum 36 (1994): 350–72. Cranfield, C. E. B. The Epistle to the Romans. The International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975. D’Angelo, Mary Rose, and Ross Shepard Kraemer, eds. Women and Christian Origins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Dunn, James D. G. Romans. Word Biblical Commentary 38b. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1988. Ellis, E. Earle. “Paul and His Co-Workers.” New Testament Studies 17, no. 4 (1971): 437–52. Esler, Philip Francis. Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Romans. The Anchor Yale Bible 33. New York: Doubleday, 1993. Gaventa, Beverly Roberts. When in Romans. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2016. Gooder, Paula. Phoebe: A Story. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2018. Green, Gene L. The Letters to the Thessalonians. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2002. Grieb, Katherine. The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God’s Righteousness. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. Griffiths, Valerie. “Romans.” In The IVP Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by Catherine Clark Kroeger and Mary J. Evans. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2002. Harland, Philip. “Familial Dimensions of Group Identity: ‘Brothers’ in Associations of the Greek East.” Journal of Biblical Literature 124, no. 3 (2005): 491–513. Harris, Murray J. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2005. Head, Peter. “Letter Carriers in the Ancient Jewish Epistolary Material.” In Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon, edited by Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias, 203–19. London: T&T Clark, 2009. ———. “Named Letter-Carriers Among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31 (2009): 279–99. Hellerman, Joseph H. “Brothers and Friends in Philippi: Family Honor in the Roman World and in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 39, no. 1 (2009): 15–25.

Sister Phoebe

157

———. Philippians: Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament. Edited by Andreas J Köstenberger and Robert W Yarbrough. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman, 2015. Hughes, James T. Ecclesial Solidarity in the Pauline Corpus: Relationships Between Churches in Paul’s Letters. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2019. Hultgren, Arland J. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2011. Hurtado, Larry. “Earliest Expressions of a Discrete Group-Formation Among Jesus Believers.” Estudios Biblicos 75, no. 3 (2017): 451–70. Jewett, Robert, Romans: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2007. Johnson, Luke Timothy. Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Reading the New Testament Series. New York: Crossroad, 1997. Joubert, Stephan. Paul as Benefactor: Reciprocity, Strategy and Theological Reflection in Paul’s Collection. Vol. 2. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 124. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. Kearsley, R. A. “Women in Public Life in the Roman East.” Tyndale Bulletin 50, no. 2 (1999): 189–211. Keener, Craig S. Romans: A New Covenant Commentary. New Covenant Commentary Series. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade, 2011. Keown, Mark. Philippians. Vol. 2. Bellingham, Washington, DC: Lexham Press, 2014. Longenecker, Richard N. Introducing Romans: Critical Issues in Paul’s Most Famous Letter. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2011. ———. The Epistle to the Romans. The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016. MacDonald, Margaret Y., and Daniel J. Harrington. Colossians and Ephesians. Vol. 17. Sacra Pagina Series. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2000. MacGillivray, Erlend D. “Romans 16:2, Προστάτις/Προστάτης, and the Application of Reciprocal Relationships in New Testament Texts.” Novum Testamentum 53 (2011): 183–99. Marshall, Jill E. Women Praying and Prophesying in Corinth: Gender and Inspired Speech in First Corinthians. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe 448. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Martin, Ralph P. 2 Corinthians. Vol. 40. Word Biblical Commentary. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1986. Mathew, Susan. Women in the Greetings of Romans 16.1–16: A Study of Mutuality and Women’s Ministry in the Letter to the Romans. Library of New Testament Studies 471. London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013. McKnight, Scot. Reading Romans Backwards: A Gospel of Peace in the Midst of Empire. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2019. Meeks, Wayne A. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. Second edition. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003. Michaels, J. Ramsey. 1 Peter. Edited by David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, and Ralph P. Martin. Vol. 49. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1988.

158

Nijay K. Gupta

Miller, Amanda. “Cut from the Same Cloth: A Study of Female Patrons in Luke-Acts and the Roman Empire.” Review & Expositor 114, no. 2 (2017): 203–10. Morris, Leon. The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1991. Osiek, Carolyn. “The Politics of Patronage and the Politics of Kinship.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 39, no. 1 (2009): 143–52. ———. “What We Do and Don’t Know About Early Christian Families.” In A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, edited by Beryl Rawson. Chichester, UK: Blackwell, 2011. Payne, Philip Barton. Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2015. Peterlin, Davorin. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians in the Light of Disunity in the Church. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 79. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Punt, Jeremy. “(Con)Figuring Gender in Bible Translation: Cultural, Translational and Gender Critical Intersections.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 70, no. 1 (2014): 1–10. Quient, Nicholas. “Was Apphia an Early Christian Leader?” Priscilla Papers (2017): 10–13. Rawson, Beryl. Children and Childhood in Roman Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Reid, Barbara E. Wisdom’s Feast: An Invitation to Feminist Interpretation of the Scriptures. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016. Rife, Joseph L. “Religion and Society at Roman Kenchreai.” In Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society, edited by Steven J. Friesen, Daniel N. Schowalter, and James C. Walters. Supplements to Novum Testamentum, v. 134. Boston: Brill, 2010. Sandnes, Karl O. “Equality Within Patriarchal Structures: Some New Testament Perspectives on the Christian Fellowship as a Brother or Sisterhood and a Family.” In Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor, edited by Halvor Moxnes, 150–65. London: Routledge, 1997. Schenk, Christine. Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2017. Schlier, Heinrich. Der Römerbrief: Kommentar. Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, Bd. 6. Freiburg: Herder, 1977. Schreiner, Thomas R. 1, 2 Peter, Jude. The New American Commentary 37. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman, 2003. ———. Romans. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament 6. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 1998. Tamez, Elsa. “Phoebe, Bearer of the Letter to the Church in Rome, Explains Romans 12:1–2.” Reformed World 67, no. 2 (2017): 4–12. Thurston, Bonnie, and Judith Ryan. Sacra Pagina: Philippians and Philemon. Edited by Daniel J. Harrington. Vol. 10. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2009. Tolmie, D. “The Reception of Apphia in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries.” Acta Theologica 36 (2016): 283–301.

Sister Phoebe

159

Trebilco, Paul R. Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Venter, Dirk. “The Implicit Obligations of Brothers, Debtors, and Sons (Romans 8:12–17).” Neotestamentica 48, no. 2 (2014): 283–302. Wajda, Anna Maria. “Apphia: The Addressee of the Letter to Philemon.” Ruch Biblijny i Liturgiczny 70, no. 1 (2017): 39–51. Walters, James. “‘Phoebe’ and ‘Junia(s)’—Rom 16:1–2, 7.” In Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity, edited by Carroll D. Osburn, 1: 167–90. Joplin, Missouri: College Press, 1993. Weima, Jeffrey A. D. 1–2 Thessalonians. Edited by Robert W. Yarbrough and Robert Stein. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2014. Westfall, Cynthia Long. Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2016. White, L. Michael. The Social Origins of Christian Architecture: Building God’s House in the Roman World : Architectural Adaptation Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Harvard Theological Studies 42. Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1996. Wilckens, Ulrich. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament: EKK. Bd. 6 Der Brief an die Römer. Zurich: Benziger, 1982. Wilder, Terry L. “Phoebe, the Letter-Carrier of Romans, and the Impact of Her Role on Biblical Theology.” Southwestern Journal of Theology 56, no. 1 (2013): 43–51. Winter, Sara. “Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” New Testament Studies 33 (1987): 1–15. Witherington III, Ben. Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1995. Witherington III, Ben, and Darlene Hyatt. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A SocioRhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004.

Chapter 9

Eusebeia as Social Respectability The Public Life of the Christian Pastor Scot McKnight

Reverend Huff played golf at our public course, and I often saw him on the course when I was a youngster. At the golf course, he was shown respect, and he deserved it, not just for his great golf game. He was a man of dignity. His character shone through his conversations and his pastoral skills in learning everyone’s name. When he called me “Scot,” my chest swelled just a bit. Reverend Huff, an African American pastor from the east side of my hometown, an area beyond downtown, across the train tracks and the Pecatonica River, on the way out to rural communities, was respected from the east side all the way to the golf course on the west side because he was a minister of the gospel whose life was marked by goodness and justice. Those days of social respect for ministers are gone in much of the United States, so I dedicate this essay to my friend Ben Witherington as he and I teach pastors in the hope that their calling may once again discover social respect.1 ONE WORD One term in the Pastoral Epistles (PEs) will consume the space allotted for this essay, and that term is eusebeia and its cognates (eusebeō, eusebēs). The NRSV translates this word group with the term “godliness” almost every time but with “religion” or “religious life” twice (1 Tim 3:16; 5:4). The NIV 2011 knocks out “religion” in 1 Timothy 3:16 and uses “godliness” in all other instances. The CEB uses godliness as well but has “holy living” at 1 Timothy 4:8, 6:11, 2 Timothy 3:12 and “respect” at 5:4 and “religious” in 2 Timothy 3:5. In Ben Witherington’s brief excursus on this term, a kaleidoscope of its nuances becomes visible as he offers a comprehensive, balanced discussion that shows the term points us to both belief and behavior, with special 161

162

Scot McKnight

emphasis on reverence.2 Others, like Luke Timothy Johnson, translate it as “piety” while the most recent study of the term by Christopher Hoklotubbe renders it in a way that parts company with the translation “godliness” by contending it means “civilized piety.”3 I. Howard Marshall, in his massive commentary on the PEs, states that the term eusebeia “is of major significance . . . because of its importance for an understanding of the author’s view of the Christian life and ethics.”4 He’s right about that. Marshall’s brief Forschungsbericht on the term in scholarship on the PEs excavates other translations and meanings: from God-honoring behaviors to churchly morality to good Christian citizenship to the more Greco-Roman senses of piety, that is, a respect for social orders, and finally into a combination of religious knowledge and moral conduct.5 Marshall’s conclusion is that the term points to “the whole of Christian behaviour” since it is rooted in Christ’s redemption.6 In spite of Marshall’s erudition on the term, his final observation in his excursus that the term may have been chosen to connect with the Roman sense of pietas opens the door to more than he allows.7 Hoklotubbe’s study takes us to the next level. The translation “godliness” concerns me. There was a time when godliness pointed to a full-blown Christian life and, in particular, the Wesleyans at times have used godliness for social acts of charity and justice. However, for most today, the term “godliness” is narrowly individualistic in one’s relation with God, one’s personal sanctification, and one’s refusals to participate in sin. A godly person is holy, and holiness for most is defined as separation from sin. When we use the term “godliness,” we need to know what “God” means and in what sense we as individual persons are to be god-like, but I don’t believe eusebeia moves in that register. Not that godliness is a bad translation. Even as a decent rendering, however, it seems to fall short and lead us into concerns not present in the PEs’ dynamic use of the term. It surprises me that the translations of today are so out of touch with the scholarship on this term in standard reference books and commentaries. EUSEBEIA AND PIETAS A recent study of the PEs explored multiple connotations of the rhetorical use of eusebeia in its imperial context and sheds light on the term and what the apostle is doing with this term.8 (What terms do has shaped the career of our honoree, and I wish here to express my gratitude to him for his contributions to my own understanding of the New Testament’s rhetoric.) The recent study I am referring to is by Christopher Hoklotubbe, mentioned above and called Civilized Piety, deserves this inadequately brief summary to set the context for our own sketch of Paul’s concerns with social respectability. I will simply

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

163

record some of his observations with light commentary.9 The numbers in parentheses are pages in his book. I agree with his conclusion that the PEs fit into a “number of attempts to navigate the dicey waters of imperial prejudices toward the Christian movement and to institutionalize a particular ecclesial structure, complete with behavioral norms that pertain to women and slaves” (2), and their particular behaviors in the early Christian movement were at least at times provocative if not subversive of imperial culture. The Roman approbation of “piety,” which neatly transcribes the Latin pietas, does not have the singularly private sensibility that the term “godliness” or “piety” has in much of Christendom. Here we encounter a turn off the common path: “Piety” was a particularly important virtue within the ancient Mediterranean world. . . . According to Cicero, pietas is “the feeling which renders kind offices and loving service to one’s kin and country” [citing Inv. 2.53.161; LCL/ Hubbell] and arises from “the knowledge of the gods” [citing Nat. d. 2.61. 153; LCL/Rackham]. Whereas in the Roman period the Greek eusebeia tended to signify both a reverent attitude toward and proper ritual conduct before the gods, the Latin pietas encompassed an affectionate dutifulness directed also to one’s parents, homeland, and emperor. Pietas was the fulfillment of one’s filial, religious, civic, and imperial obligations that sustained reciprocal relationships between kin, neighbors, allies, and contracting parties as well as demonstrated reverent loyalty toward country, divinity, and ruler.10

Disputes can arise, of course, in the transfer of a Greek term into Latin or of the implicitness of a Latin meaning in a Greek use of a term, but we can pause long enough here to recognize that both the Latin and the Greek term transcend what is often meant today by “godliness.” The Latin and Greek terms, which were not identical but overlapping, suggested one’s family, one’s civic responsibilities, as well as one’s religious rituals. To be eusebēs or pietas was to be a good citizen in the Roman world, and to be a good citizen meant respectable participation in the network of the Roman way of life, including its religious rituals.11 Piety, as Hoklotubbe observes, was political. Under Octavian (Caesar Augustus), the term pietas took on major significance in the attempt to restore some kind of tradition as the lack of the virtue was used to explain the cause of the civil wars that preceded him. Hoklotubbe’s summary: “Within imperial ideology, pietas signified a loyal devotion to the gods, the nation, and family, which coalesced with Augustus’ vision of restoring Rome’s ancestral traditions and values (mos maiorum) and its moral grounding. Rome’s citizens and provincial subjects were conceptualized as an enlarged familia that owed due pietas to Augustus, the ‘father of the nation’ (pater patriae).”12 What is more, this virtue of pietas was deemed

164

Scot McKnight

to mark Romans out from the rest of the world as it offered to the world Virgil’s Aeneid as Rome’s official narrative. Pietas is what made Romans good Romans. Hoklotubbe again: Many elite Romans understood pietas to be the distinctive quality of the Roman nation that set Romans apart from all other nations and explained why the gods sustained Rome’s imperial dominion. Within this elite discourse, non-Roman foreigners or barbarians were suspected of practicing an excessive pietas or superstition (superstitio), which was often perceived as posing a threat to Rome’s own ancestral traditions.13

He continues in a way that immediately connects us to Judaism and the nascent Christian movement underway in western Asia Minor.14 Neither Judaism nor the way of Christ fit silently into the system. The beliefs and practices of both Jews and Christians were susceptible to such racially charged prejudice and . . . such stigmatism could lead to social ostracism and sometimes physical violence.15

Now the heat: “Rome’s esteem for pietas and concern against superstitio frame the imperial situation of the Pastoral Epistles’ own appropriation of piety and its negotiation of imperial authority and culture.”16 Jews and Christians (Jewish or not) were often on the defensive because they were accused of lacking pietas. One need only think of the language about Christians from the pens (and lips) of Tacitus (Ann. 15.44), Suetonius (Nero 16.2), and Pliny the Younger (Ep. 10.96.8). Tacitus is worth quoting: Nero fastened the guilt [for the conflagration] and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hand of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition. (Everyman’s Library/Church and Brodribb)

Josephus, using eusebeō, passed on the same barb from a critic, saying that “we [Jews] do not employ just laws or worship God as we should” [mēte ton theon eusebein hōs prosēken; Ag. Ap. 2.125; Barclay], but Josephus counters that “we possess laws that are extremely well designed with a view to piety” [eusebeia; Ag. Ap. 2.146; Barclay]. The apostle’s choice of the term eusebeia then is rhetorically charged. “The problem, then, that the Pastoral deployment of piety sets out to solve

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

165

is, How could Christians show themselves to be loyal and obedient subjects to the Roman Empire and good neighbors to their peers without compromising the integrity of their exclusive devotion to a countercultural Jewish messiah who had been crucified by the Romans?”17 At the rhetorical level, then, the use of this Greek term in the PEs “appropriates contemporary ideas about piety in order to construct a culturally dignified and civilized Christian identity for his audience to embody so that the ekklēsia might better navigate the treacherous waters of popular prejudices among their neighbors.”18 To comprehend the apostle’s use of the term eusebeia, then, one must set the expressions of the PEs in the Greco-Roman world of what makes for piety. It is not cheeky to say it had little to nothing to do with Bible reading, contemplation, and personal prayer. It had everything to do with one’s civic life. Hoklotubbe sallies forth with a similar point: the use of this term is “not simply . . . some banal description of Christian devotion to God but . . . [is] a much more contested and politically charged claim that played an important part in inventing a civilized Christian subject.”19 My conclusion: it was impossible, or close enough to it, for the term eusebeia to take on such importance in the PEs and not have one eye, if not with a complete shoulder turn, looking at the Roman sensibilities about pietas. We are close now to the manner of Reverend Huff from the introduction above. What the term seems then to suggest in the PEs is social respectability in one’s religious practices. Thus, “godliness” and “holy living” may simply be too Christian to carry the weight of the context of the PEs.20 The PEs advocate a Christian civic respectability. To offer a tantalizing and undeveloped suggestion, Augustus wanted the nobles of Rome to marry and to have children, and one wonders if the apostle’s instruction that women “will be saved through childbearing” (1 Tim 2:15) might at least tip its cap toward this newly minted Roman sensibility. We now dip into the uses of eusebeia in 1 Timothy to harvest the fruit of Hoklotubbe’s study, with one eye on the importance of pastors today nurturing a character that is socially respectable, and with some added suggestion to Hoklotubbe’s work. Eusebeia in the PEs The term and its cognates occur a dozen times though that word stem is not all there is to the idea of pietas/eusebeia in the PEs. Our paper will restrict direct comments to 1 Timothy, on whose occurrences we dwell, but in the sweep of the texts, occasionally call others in for support.

166

Scot McKnight

1 TIMOTHY 2:2 The first occurrence of eusebeia is 1 Timothy 2:1–2, where we read, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all eusebeia and dignity.” The opening act for the Christians of Ephesus is to pray for everyone, beginning with the emperor! The reason given is nothing less than a peaceful existence, which makes prayer a strategy for living “so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all eusebeia and dignity” but seemingly also for evangelism (2:3–7). As with Romans 13:1–7 and 1 Peter 2:13–17, one of the earliest Christian strategies to cope with Roman power and suspicion about superstitious people was to turn their worship toward Rome in prayer and sacrifice. Josephus tells us that Jews had been sacrificing to the emperor since the days of Augustus: “The Jews replied [to Petronius] that they offered sacrifice twice daily for Caesar and the Roman people” (B.J. 2.197). The words of 1 Timothy 2 then emerge from the Jewish strategy and become for the apostle the rhetoric of acceptable, socially respectable eusebeia. They are Roman; they are Christian—at the same time. That is, they are conducting their faith as civilized piety as they connect their Christian habitus to the Roman habitus. In their prayers, the emperor is given special status, which reminds those praying of their location while it connects as well with their neighbors’ own eusebeia with respect to the emperor. There is here something that can be construed as subversive,21 even if quietly so. There is an evangelistic undertone to the wording that follows. Also, “in the sight of God our Savior” may well counter the use of the same honorific (Savior) for such persons as Julius Caesar and Augustus and later for Hadrian (cf. 1:10; 4:10; Titus 1:4; 2:10, 13; 3:4, 6).22 And not only does the apostle call God the Savior, but he stands with the one-God conviction of Judaism modified by Christian belief about Jesus in “there is one God; there is also one mediator [emperors were priests, too] between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:5–6).23 Perhaps these words in 1 Timothy 2 are nothing but advocating socially respectable, acculturating conduct; it is at least that. Probably more. 1 TIMOTHY 3:16 WITH 4:7–8 Civilized piety eusebeia in the PEs may be, but the term remains profoundly Christian. In the second appearance of the term, the content is defined (in a hymn, poem, or Christological summary) as nothing less than the gospel about Jesus Christ: “Without any doubt, the mystery of our eusebeia is great,”

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

167

which goes on to speak of Christ’s incarnation and vindication and proclamation and the ascension of Jesus the king/Messiah (3:16). This term with deep roots in Roman pietas in this singular instance in 1 Timothy cannot simply be an instance of acculturation, accommodation, or assimilation. When the term is spelled out as the “mystery” (mystērion), a term that spans the world of Jewish (raz) and Roman religions, the apostle has to be seen as making an all-encompassing claim: “our” eusebeia distinguishes Christians from Roman pietas and the lines that follow detail the content of that eusebeia. That this occurs in the “household of God” (3:15),24 defined now as the “church of the living God,” which is then further defined as the “pillar and bulwark of the truth”—well, then social respectability it may be, but under that term is a deep conviction that is both counter-cultural and subversive. Some might call this a “hidden transcript.”25 To be sure, the apostle has just defined the household of God in terms of women and men,26 both of whom are to conduct themselves in ways that conform to Roman pietas as well as Christian morality (2:1–15), then in terms of bishops and deacons with women deacons (3:1–12), along with widows (5:3–16), and this “household of God” (3:15) professes and embodies this eusebeia, but at every step along the way it is all being redefined and reworked with God as Savior and Jesus as the king. It seems impossible to this writer not to see some subversion in the use of eusebeia with such content smack-dab in the middle of instruction to the “household of God.” To use the words of Michel de Certeau, Rome’s “strategy” of pietas/eusebeia becomes a “tactic” by the apostle and the Christians in western Asia Minor.27 Though Hoklotubbe is intent on resisting the theme of subversion or resistance in how the term eusebeia is appropriated, when he speaks of it as a “sly” civility, the notion of subversion is not that far from what he means by “sly.”28 Sly and shrewd and wise are not synonyms, and sly suggests subversion. Subversion, however, does not have to have any conscious anti-imperial design. Instead, they subvert through the tactic of “peaceful and quiet lives” (2:2) as they live out a life in the “household of God” (3:15). Notice now 1 Timothy 3:16: He was revealed in flesh,    vindicated in spirit,       seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles,     believed in throughout the world,       taken up in glory.

Each of the lines is a statement about Jesus, but the intended order is not immediately clear. First, the order could be seen as chronological for lines

168

Scot McKnight

1–5, with line 6 seemingly about the ascension, and thus a strange ending for something apparently chronological. Yet, line 2 appears to be about the resurrection (and ascension; cf. 1 Peter 3:18: “made alive in the Spirit”). Lines 4 and 5 are about the Pauline mission, while line 6 restates in our view line 2 (cf. 1 Peter 3:19?). Others think the order could be two sets of three lines (1–3, 4–6; so NRSV), the first three about his incarnation state and the second set of three lines about his exalted state. If one entertains the speculation of positing an early Christian tradition edited by the apostle, one could argue that the mission lines (4, 5) are added by Paul, leaving a fairly straightforward chronology: incarnation, resurrection, ascension, gaze, and ascension to glory. A third take is that there are three couplets that stand in comparison to one another: flesh and spirit, angels in heaven and nations on earth, recognition as belief in the world and heavily glory. Rather than placing these pairs in juxtaposition, it may be better to see the integral and complementary relationship between each pair, such as line 1 leads into line 2, line 3 is fulfilled by line 4 (especially if angels are taken to be the apostolic messengers, cf. Matt 24:31), and line 5 is completed by line 6. In this, there is a rough chronology from Christ’s birth to ascension, but the confession is ultimately ordered according to theological importance as revealed to the church in the gospel, similar to the hymn in Philippians 2:5–11. That these short poem-like lines are called the eusebeia suggests that for the apostle, eusebeia is nothing less than Christoformity.29 The believers in western Asia Minor are to see their behaviors in the household of God as emerging from the paradigm of life in Christ and conforming to that life, which indicates especially a life of rejection leading to final vindication (cf. 2 Tim 2:8–13). Christoformity is not the same as the cross-shaped life (cruciformity) at work at times in Paul,30 but it is only one step to the side since “vindication” indicates that Jesus died and was raised by God, and Christoformity seeks to be conformed to the whole Christ. Eusebeia then is not reducible to what one believes, but instead, the term expresses the entire network of what one believes as well as how one lives.31 Alongside 1 Timothy 3:16 stands 4:7–8: “Have nothing to do with profane myths and old wives’ tales. Train yourself in eusebeia, for, while physical training is of some value, eusebeia is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” Here the term counters false teaching, something that appears routinely in all three of the PEs. So vital is correcting false teaching that the letter all but opens with polemics against the teachers (1 Tim 1:3–20). In fact, the apostle cannot seem to stay away from saying something when he wants to move on: 1:3–4 is interrupted by 1:5, which leads to 1:6’s return to the false teachers; 1:8 instructs about the law of Moses; and 1:12–17 is about the mission and gospel of Paul, but again he turns to the false teachers in 1:18–20. They appear throughout the letters. Our

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

169

point is that eusebeia is used by the apostle in 1 Timothy 3:16 and 4:7–8 for the truth of the gospel over against some false teachers. Eusebeia is valuable, he tells Timothy, both for this life and the Age to Come. And, 1 Timothy 4:7 instructs Timothy to “train yourself in godliness [eusebeia],” for in “civilized piety.” “Train yourself” reminds of v. 6’s “nourished on the words of faith,” only this time the language shifts to an athletic register (cf. Titus 2:12). While Jews often avoided the nakedness—the term behind “train yourself” is gymnazō, naked men in training—involved in athletic training in Greek and Roman cities like Tiberias,32 the prevalent public athletic contests, including even in Jerusalem itself, made the images of athletics common tropes (cf. Heb 5:14; 12:11). The “good servant” is to focus training in godliness [eusebeia], not physical competition nor intellectual dominance, and in this way lead the community of faith in both correct teaching and a faithful life. Once again, eusebeia is not reducible to theology or practice, but is a powerful expression of “lived theology.”33 As said above, such a vision of eusebeia leads to eternal life (1 Tim 4:8). 1 TIMOTHY 5:4 The apostle’s words in 1 Timothy 5:4 conform to the Roman sensibility for pietas as a network connecting family and public life with cultic acts of worship and prayer. Thus, in the apostle’s words about Christian support of widows (5:3–16), we read, “If a widow has children or grandchildren, they should first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some repayment to their parents; for this is pleasing in God’s sight” (5:4). Three forms of support are seen in this passage: (1) family support (5:3–8), (2) an apparently official church list of widows who were supported (5:9–10), and (3) perhaps wider family members caring for widow relatives (5:16). One theme shapes the whole: compassion. Christians care for others, especially family members, and that means especially the vulnerable widow. At work in this social condition was also the reality of a dowry, given by the bride’s father to the groom, and upon the death of her husband, the dowry was retained by the widow. That dowry is not mentioned in this text, but we could assume for at least some of the widows that such a dowry had been used up, and the widows were now in need of relief and routine support. Paul labels such compassion, care, and support of widows in one’s family and in the household of God with the term eusebeō, and nothing could be more conforming to the Roman sense of pietas than respect for one’s elders and family. But in distinction to Roman pietas that is shaped toward the parents, this is Christian eusebeia because the family support is expressed in both Jewish and Christian language. How so? In both being “repayment to their

170

Scot McKnight

parents” (5:4; cf. Exod 20:12; Mark 7:9–13) and in being “pleasing in God’s sight” (1 Tim 5:4). Denial of needed support is, for the apostle, denial of the Christian faith (5:8). This instruction, being named as eusebeia even with clear Christian overtones, still turns the attention of those in assemblies in western Asia Minor toward their common Roman way of life. Acculturation plus is what I would call it. Justin Gill suggests it is “subtle subversion” or “sanctified appropriation” or “holy assimilation.”34 That the apostle cares about civilized piety in the household of God becomes fully evident in restricting the list of official/real widows to ones who have been married but once (5:9). The Greek expression henos andros gunē is a rough and ready translation of one of Rome’s famous virtues for women: univira, a one-man-woman.35 Such a virtue is seen in Laudatio Turiae, while this Latin term on tombstones, in praising the virtue of a woman, expressed an Augustan ideal for women: to remain married to the same husband and, in the case of his death, to remain unmarried until she died.36 That the apostle requires this for a widow indicates conformity to a Roman ideal and a desire for social respectability. Acculturation for sure. Yet, the apostle one-ups the Augustan ideal in a counter-cultural way: he requires a corresponding onewoman-man for bishops and deacons (3:2, 12; Titus 1:6). There remains another instance of Roman ideals that can be read as in tension with the univira idea. In 1 Timothy 5:11–15, we read about “younger widows” whom the apostle urges through Timothy to be married and have children, and having children was part of the Augustan ideal for restoring traditional Roman values. His words are consistent with Roman pietas when he says, “So I would have younger widows marry, bear children” and “manage their households,” and turns the heat up with his view of Christian eusebeia when he justifies such pietas with “so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us” (5:15). This is for the apostle a paradigmatic expression of socially respectable religious behaviors. Acculturation plus yet again. 1 TIMOTHY 6:3, 5–6 With a new wrinkle, we return in 1 Timothy 6:3, 5–6 to the use of eusebeia that makes it an all-encompassing expression for theological orthodoxy and consistency of practice. That is, for what can be called a faithful lived theology (cf. 3:16; 4:7–8). We quote: Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with eusebeia, is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

171

for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that eusebeia is a means of gain. Of course, there is great gain in eusebeia combined with contentment. (6:2b-6)

To begin with, of the three uses, the first taps into how the term was used in 3:16 and 4:7–8: a summary for gospel fidelity and a lifestyle consistent with the paradigm of Christ, a lifestyle arising from a disciplined use of one’s body and time. Here eusebeia is as wide in sense as at 3:16, expressing as it does “the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ” (6:3). Eusebeia can be a term then for the gospel itself (cf. Titus 1:1), and those who counter the gospel about Jesus are “conceited,” and here again, we tap on the verses in the PEs that speak of opponents to the apostle’s gospel. The wrinkle is that some in Ephesus believed they could exploit the Christian sense of eusebeia for financial gain: “imagining [or thinking, supposing] that eusebeia is a means of gain” (6:5; nomizontōn porismon einai tēn eusebeian). One can easily imagine someone liking the notion of social respectability as a Christian because it would lead to social connections and profit. If eusebeia can be said to be useful for the “present life” (4:8), one might reason that its usefulness could be profit. “Simony” is the church’s name for such a prosperity gospel (cf. Acts 8:14–24). The opponents of Paul that appear throughout 1 Timothy have been discussed at length, some thinking they are outsiders infiltrating the church while others think they are insiders contaminating the church. This text suggests insiders.37 The apostle flips it: of course, some use a fraudulent sense of eusebeia for gain, but there is “great gain” in eusebeia. But instead of greed, the Christian sense of “gain” is “contentment,” which is explained as living on what one has rather than on the basis of what one wants. The apostle records words often cited in the history of the church: “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” and because of such greed, some—he has his eye on these false teachers—“have wandered away from the faith” (1 Tim 6:6–10, citing 6:10).38 It is not impossible here that the apostle has his eye on wealthy donors seeking to buy status in Ephesus. Acculturation here seems to have gone off the rails, and Paul calls them to get back on track. Once again, the apostle ties theology to practice and, in so doing, conforms to Roman pietas while keeping his eye on a singularly Christian version of what eusebeia should mean for the assemblies of Ephesus. Navigating and negotiating are the arts of Christians in the first century seeking to live in what Revelation will call “Babylon,” or Rome and its way of life.

172

Scot McKnight

1 TIMOTHY 6:11 Our final passage summarizes the apostle’s exhortation to Timothy in terms of virtues both distinctively Jewish and Christian but compatible with Roman pietas. Here are his words: But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, eusebeia, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.

While we ought not to attribute the Aristotelian form of virtue ethics to the apostle, one ought not to deny the formative power of habits/practices.39 Anyone wanting to be a “man of God,” or better, “human of God” (anthrōpos, used here, has a more general meaning than the limited anēr, meaning “man” or “male” or “husband,” as used in 2:8, 12), can find wisdom in the apostle’s instructions. The expression recalls ’ish ’Elohim from the Hebrew Bible (J. Goldingay’s The First Testament has “supernatural man”) and thereby connects Timothy’s role in Ephesus to some of Israel’s noble mediators of God’s Torah and prophecies.40 One could think more widely still and find that this language refers to any person who walks the line of the gospel faithfully (see 2 Tim 3:17).41 However, the expression may be seen in contextual connections, our concern is the list of virtues, virtues that stand in contrast to Aristotle’s famous list in Nicomachean Ethics and the list of Theophrastus’s Characters. Timothy’s habits are to be “righteousness,” a thoroughly Jewish category of thinking, I believe,42 and eusebeia, and “faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” Righteousness and eusebeia then are near-synonyms here in the sense that they are conformity to the will of God as revealed in Christ, while both tap on the sense of iustitia and pietas in the Roman way of life. The final four terms emerge more forcefully in the Christian moral registers. With “love,” one is hard-pressed not to notice that for both Jesus (Mark 12:28–32 pars) and Paul (1 Cor 13), love is the preeminent virtue while it is not listed first here. It is not that Paul was obligated to place love first in every list, but his own words made love the preeminent ethic (e.g., Rom 12:9; 13:8, 10; Gal 5:6, 13, 22). The apostle then turns to two more habits: “endurance,” or resilient allegiance to King Jesus, and “gentleness,” a word (praüpathia) that differs from the Greek terms commonly translated as “gentleness,” which are praüs (see 1 Cor 4:21) or epieikeia (2 Cor 10:1). There is a common placement of endurance together with faith and love in the apostle’s virtue lists (Titus 2:2; cf. 1 Thess 1:3) and is a similar triad to the other Pauline trio of hope, faith, and love. In our passage, the rare term praüpathia points at the moderating and subduing of passions, particularly

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

173

quarrelsome or violent passions, as Timothy seeks to address the false teachers. Put differently, the apostle is doing what he has been doing: affirming Roman pietas with Roman-sounding terms while also raising the bar of moral living consistent with Christian faith. CONCLUSION Eusebeia treads turbulent waters in the PEs and serves to emphasize the importance of Christians in western Asia Minor to practice their faith in the public sector in a manner that can be seen as Roman pietas. Yet, at the same time, they are to live out a Christian eusebeia that stands in contrast to Roman cultic ideals and imperial adoration, tied as they are both into the network of the Roman way of life. To be a respectable citizen in Ephesus required conformity to some Augustan ideals that connected family, land, emperor, and a worship that honored Rome and its gods. For the apostle to summarize a new kind of Christian existence as eusebeia was no sleight of hand but fully conformable as well to how Jews at times lived in the diaspora and how the early Christians were learning to live in the Empire (Rom 13:1–7; 1 Pet 2:13–17). Such eusebeia conformed to Rome’s “strategy,” but it has been seen above that for the Christians, the summing up of Christian existence as eusebeia was at times a “tactic” of subversion. To use the Greek equivalent of the Latin pietas for the gospel and for a way of life that mapped onto the way of Christ was to subvert Roman pietas with a Roman-sounding but Christaffirming eusebeia. Hoklotubbe’s monograph steers toward an accommodating and acculturating system of navigation, but his “sly civility” suggestion makes the waters slightly more turbulent than acculturation. If he has in his grip the lion’s share of the argument, there is something hanging out of his grip that suggests that the lion did not get it all. Subversion of Roman pietas through Christian eusebeia leads toward evangelism and a new group, the household of God or the ekklēsia that cannot but be an alternative way of life. A sly civility remains civil, and that means the apostle expected Timothy to exhort the believers, and especially their leaders, to a responsible and socially respectable manner of life that both avoided trouble with the authorities and gained their approval for the characters forming in this new social group. If pastors today would learn how to live in our turbulent waters as the leaders of the Pauline churches were to live, we might learn that the way of Reverend Huff can become the way for us again today.

174

Scot McKnight

NOTES 1. I am grateful to Justin Gill, with whom I have been working on a commentary on the PEs, for his suggestions on this paper. As well, I thank both Lynn Cohick and Christopher Hoklotubbe, who graciously offered comments. 2. Ben W. Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy and 1–3 John (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), 99–102. 3. Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, AB 35A (New York: Doubleday 2001), 3–10; T. Christopher Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety: The Rhetoric of Pietas in the Pastoral Epistles and the Roman Empire (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017). This essay is an interaction with the exceptional study of Hoklotubbe, who points toward the evidence of the ancient world. 4. I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles, ICC (London: T&T Clark, 1999), 135. 5. Marshall, 136–38. 6. Marshall, 142–44. Quoting p. 143. 7. Marshall, 144. 8. It would take a study twice as long as the entire study here to sort through the evidence in the Roman and Greek worlds pertaining to these terms. I shall rely here on Hoklotubbe. 9. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety. 10. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 5–6. 11. Drew J. Strait, Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles (Lanham, MD: Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2019). 12. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 15. 13. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 16. 14. For an excellent sketch of its dominant city, Ephesus, see Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007). 15. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 16. 16. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 16. 17. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 11. 18. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 7. 19. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 12. 20. The authorship and dating of the PEs will never reach a consensus in scholarship. I am persuaded that Paul is at some remove though in some sense also the author, though the meaning of “author” is flexible. Furthermore, it is a historical fact that the terms at work in this paper (pietas or eusebeia) have the same senses at the beginning of the Empire as they did under Trajan and Hadrian, and the latter two emperors are featured in Hoklotubbe. See Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 17–25. For a complete discussion of authorship and date, see Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 57–92. On authorship in general, see E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2004).

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

175

21. Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, NICNT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006), 169. Not all agree; cf. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 74–76. 22. For some inscription evidence, see one who thinks it is evidence of “acculturation” in Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius, 360. 23. Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003); Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008). 24. On Roman, aristocratic families of the period, Mireille Corbier, “Family Behavior of the Roman Aristocracy, Second Century B.C.–Third Century A.D.,” in Women’s History and Ancient History, ed. Sarah B. Pomeroy, trans. Ann Cremin (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 173–196. 25. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, rev. ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992). 26. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 83–93. 27. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984). 28. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 216. 29. Scot McKnight, Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church, Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2019), 4–8. 30. Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009); Michael J. Gorman, Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul’s Theology and Spirituality (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2019). 31. Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 499, 523. 32. H.A. Harris, Greek Athletics and the Jews, Trivium Special Publications 3 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1976). On Jews and nudity, Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (New York: A.A. Knopf, 2007), 278–79. 33. Charles Marsh, Peter Slade, and Sarah Azaransky, eds., Lived Theology: New Perspectives on Method, Style, and Pedagogy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 34. See footnote 1 above. 35. Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 204–5. See also Lynn H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 104–105. 36. Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). Some eighty inscriptions have this term or terms like it. Extensive study shows a variety of terms all revolving the same conviction: “In the inscriptions the woman who, at the time of her death, had been married only once may be entitled to the epithet univira, or univiria or unicuba, uniiuga or unimarita” (p. 233).

176

Scot McKnight

37. Dillon T. Thornton, Hostility in the House of God: An Investigation of the Opponents in 1 and 2 Timothy, BBRSuppl 15 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2016), 70–81, 247–248. 38. Hoklotubbe, Civilized Piety, 129–40. The suggestiveness of Hoklotubbe’s study on wealthy patronesses cannot be explored here. 39. Dru Johnson, Knowledge by Ritual: A Biblical Prolegomenon to Sacramental Theology, Journal of Theological Interpretation Supplements 13 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2016). 40. See Deut 33:1; 1 Sam 9:6; 1 Kgs 13:1; 2 Kgs 1:9–13; 4:1. 41. Marshall sees a both-and; Timothy is the embodiment and exemplar of what is to be done by all Christians, particularly those under his leadership. See Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 656–57. 42. Benno Przybylski, Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought, SNTSMS 41 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 2008. Cohick, Lynn H. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2009. Corbier, Mireille. “Family Behavior of the Roman Aristocracy, Second Century B.C.–Third Century A.D.” In Women’s History and Ancient History, edited by Sarah B. Pomeroy, translated by Ann Cremin, 173–96. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1984. Goldingay, John. The First Testament: A New Translation. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2018. Goodman, Martin. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2007. Gorman, Michael J. Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 2009. ———. Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul’s Theology and Spirituality. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2019. Harris, H. A. Greek Athletics and the Jews. Trivium : Special Publications 3. Cardiff: University of Wales Press for St. David’s University College, 1976. Hoklotubbe, T. Christopher. Civilized Piety: The Rhetoric of Pietas in the Pastoral Epistles and the Roman Empire. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2017. Hurtado, Larry W. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 2003.

Eusebeia as Social Respectability

177

Johnson, Dru. Knowledge by Ritual: A Biblical Prolegomenon to Sacramental Theology. Journal of Theological Interpretation Supplements 13. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2016. Johnson, Luke Timothy. The First and Second Letters to Timothy. The Anchor Yale Bible 35A. New York: Doubleday, 2001. Marsh, Charles, Peter Slade, and Sarah Azaransky, eds. Lived Theology: New Perspectives on Method, Style, and Pedagogy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Marshall, I. Howard. The Pastoral Epistles. International Critical Commentary. London: T&T Clark, 1999. McKnight, Scot. Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church. Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2019. Przybylski, Benno. Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Richards, E. Randolph. Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004. Scott, James C. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Rev. ed. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1992. Strait, Drew J. Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019. Thornton, Dillon T. Hostility in the House of God: An Investigation of the Opponents in 1 and 2 Timothy. Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplements 15. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2016. Towner, Philip H. The Letters to Timothy and Titus. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2006. Trebilco, Paul. The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2007. Treggiari, Susan. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges From the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. Witherington III, Ben. Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A SocioRhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy and 1–3 John. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2006.

Chapter 10

Rhetoric from the Rusticas In Search of the Historical Timothy and Implications for the Rhetoric of 1–2 Timothy Jason A. Myers

The historical person of Timothy appears at several places within the New Testament.1 Timothy is mentioned in every one of Paul’s letters except Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus. Timothy appears throughout the letters of Paul as his co-worker and fellow counterpart in ministry. Timothy not only travels with Paul, but is sent by him and perhaps also helps shape some of Paul’s letters. Timothy is first mentioned in Acts 16:1–2 in a description of Paul’s endeavors at Lystra on his second missionary journey. Timothy is described as a son of a believing Jewish woman, but whose father was a Greek (16:1). It is here that Luke notes that Timothy was well spoken of by the believers of both Lystra and Iconium (16:2), two towns within the Lycaonian region. One might think that this passing mention about Timothy’s hometown might seem like an insignificant historical detail, but this would be a mistake. Such a detail sheds light on a related fraught issue in NT studies: the letters to Timothy often thought to be non-Pauline. Despite his frequent appearance in the NT, the person of Timothy is largely neglected within the discussion of 1–2 Timothy. This is no doubt because the question of authorship of these letters looms large on the interpretive landscape.2 Dunn notes, “Their value [the letters] in effect bypasses the question of the historical status of Timothy.”3 Indeed the bypass is all but necessary if the documents are pseudonymous. For within this position, not only the author, but the recipient of the letter(s) is a fictive element.4 Previous interpretations have not seriously considered the social and rhetorical realities that shaped the nature of the communication with the historical person of Timothy as a recipient of Paul’s correspondence. Timothy’s Lystran background shaped not only the problems he faced in Ephesus but 179

180

Jason A. Myers

also the simplistic rhetoric found in 1–2 Timothy. First, this paper will show that recent treatments of 1–2 Timothy have neglected the historical background of Timothy. Second, to fill this lacuna, this paper will offer a historical portrait of Lystra and the larger Lycaonian region to construct a historical background for Timothy. This background will be placed into the larger context of a rural-urban divide that influenced many ancient persons and consequently factored largely into the local situation that Timothy faced in Ephesus. Third, it will be argued that the historical background to the historical Timothy affects the style of rhetoric we find in 1–2 Timothy. Specifically, Paul, as a good rhetorician, shaped his rhetoric to meet the educational level of his audience (Timothy), and this may explain more fully than before the differences in the style and “sound” of these letters. WHAT HAPPENED TO TIMOTHY? Since the consensus of scholarship argues that the letters of 1–2 Timothy are pseudepigraphical, the issue of the recipient becomes nonexistent, and a reconstruction of the implied recipient takes its place. The letters are held as a fictitious construction of both sender and receiver, and the letters alone are the object of investigation. Following this, a majority of scholars offer no comment on the historical Timothy and those that do direct their investigation toward the literary function of the recipient vis-à-vis the community behind the letter.5 Within this position, there is a priori no need to investigate Timothy as the named recipient or his Lystran background. In contrast, a small but growing minority of scholars who hold to Pauline authorship of 1–2 Timothy give more attention to the historical person of Timothy.6 Karl P. Donfried argued at the 2006 Colloquium Oecumenicum Paulinum that “1 Timothy needs to be interpreted against a far more complex and tightly woven map of early Christian interconnections and interrelated developments than the thesis of a pseudepigraphical writing permits.”7 This statement, combined with the work of Luke Timothy Johnson and Ben Witherington III, perhaps signals a small, but resistant, tide in biblical scholarship. Even for those who hold Pauline authorship, this has not led to an interest in the historical Timothy and especially his geographical background and status.8 A few examples will illustrate the problem. In his 1955 Tyndale New Testament lecture on the Pastoral letters, Donald Guthrie focuses the entirety of his lecture on Paul without a reflection on Timothy as addressee.9 Likewise, C. F. D. Moule, in his 1965 Manson Memorial lecture, noted that “perhaps the hardest feature to fit into the setting I am proposing is the portrait of Timothy himself”; however, he offers no comments on the historical situation of either Lystra or Ephesus.10 Another

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

181

example is Quinn and Wacker in their commentary, who note the high standing of Timothy in his “locality” but offer no further comments on the historical makeup of that “locality.”11 Further, Philip Towner’s seemingly hopeful section on “The Historical Character of the Letters to Timothy and Titus” also disappoints, as he focuses exclusively on Ephesus with no mention of Lystra, even though he notes, “Paul’s concern that Timothy’s youth, unimpressive presence, and lack of confidence would affect his reception by the churches.”12 One queries, what specifically was “unimpressive” about Timothy’s presence? The neglect of Timothy’s historical background in a discussion of 1–2 Timothy is not due to our lack of understanding concerning the person of Timothy, as several scholars have noted important features of Timothy’s “personality.”13 In these reconstructions, opposition to Timothy is either a result of biology (Timothy’s youthfulness is assumed to be a negative characteristic) or theological in character (opposition from false teachers). There is limited discussion of the social factors affecting the relationship between Timothy and Ephesus. There remains room to explain how certain sociohistorical realities may have shaped the opposition. One final example is George W. Knight, who notes three prominent aspects that stand out from the portrait of Timothy from the letters of Paul.14 First, Timothy had a strong religious background which included training in the Christian faith that led to a prominent and well-respected position within the local Lycaonian churches of Lystra and Iconium (2 Tim 1:5–6; 3:14–17; Acts 16:1–3). Second, regarding his relationship with Paul, Timothy was a trusted and faithful co-worker that could be given very difficult tasks at various Pauline outposts throughout Asia Minor (Phil 2:19–24; 1 Thess 3:2, 6; 1 Tim 1:18; 6:20; 2 Tim 1:2; including the letters themselves). Third, an interesting portrait is revealed concerning his personality from the NT, namely his “apparent timidity and need for encouragement” (1 Cor 16:10–11; 2 Tim 1:7, 8; 2:1, 3; 4:12, 14, 16; 6:20).15 However, in Knight’s portrayal, we begin to see an often-missed feature in discussions of the historical Timothy. One wonders in Knight’s analysis if there is any connection between the first and third features of Timothy’s personality? Specifically stated, what reason might stand behind the success and prominence of Timothy in Lystra and Iconium with the inverse situation in Corinth, Ephesus, and other large metropolitan cities? It is here that many have missed an important feature, Timothy is successful in his hometown among people like himself, and he faces opposition in the urban arenas of Corinth and Ephesus. What might account for this? My argument is that that the social background of Timothy as a former resident of Lystra contributed to both his success in Lystra and subsequent adversity when sent to Ephesus. What has been neglected in previous research is the

182

Jason A. Myers

social divide between the rural and the urban landscapes of the ancient world that contributed to this disparity in Timothy’s reception. When Timothy leaves his hometown to carry forth tasks for Paul, he brings with him his social background as a rural person, and as will be shown below, this could be an obstacle for urban people.16 It is social factors such as the rural-urban divide that are critical to understanding the “portrait” of Timothy, and this illuminates some of the problems he faced in Ephesus. The previous portraits have been incomplete as they have failed to deal with the larger social realia that contribute to the makeup of the ancient person, specifically geography. Such a lacuna on a fully informed and socially constructed biography of Timothy and Lystra stands in stark contrast to the recent attempts to understand the social world of early Christianity, 1–2 Timothy notwithstanding. The importance of social factors in shaping the faith communities of the early Christian movement has been stressed by many.17 A small clue is picked up in the work of Elsa Tamez, who notes that the letter deals with “a diversity of tensions, not just concerning different doctrinal positions but regarding power struggles of various kinds.”18 Even though much research has been done to reconstruct the social world of the New Testament and 1–2 Timothy, little work has been done regarding the primary source material on Lystra and the ancient rural-urban divide in the Greco-Roman sources as they relate to the New Testament. As will be shown below, according to ancient sources, Lystra and the Lycaonian region were far from being identified as “civilized” regions. The evidence from the primary sources bears out an important distinction of my argument. The region would have recalled for most people the sense of rebellion or unruliness, as this is the attitude the region evoked by Rome and others. Further, the area was known far more for its rusticity and remoteness than as a place of urbane and therefore civilized persons. A critical need remains to build a profile of not only Lystra but one that utilizes the rural-urban divide that dominated the Greco-Roman worldview to understand Timothy and the letters to him. The task before is threefold. First, as much as historically possible to identify how Lystra is defined in ancient sources. Second, supplement the picture of Lystra with the wider available data of the Lycaonian region. Third, set this data within the social reality of the rural-urban divide of the Roman world. EVIDENCE FOR LYSTRA Primary literary evidence for Lystra is limited, with few references relating directly to the character of the colony. Most often, Lystra appears in a list of

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

183

towns or villages, such as in Pliny’s Natural History 5.42, where it appears as one of the towns in the province of Galatia. Given such limits, it is inevitable that this study must cast a wider net to gain a better understanding of Lystra. The data on Lystra must be supplemented by what we know of the larger Lycaonian region, which will follow in the subsequent section. However, the literary sources are only one source of data for constructing the identity of this ancient town. Archaeological and numismatic evidence also contribute to our understanding of Lystra.19 Given the limited literary evidence for the town of Lystra, we begin with a survey of the archaeological evidence. Lystra would have borne the title Colonia Iulia Gemina Felix Lystra when it was founded in 25 BCE as an outpost of the Roman Empire.20 The title of the colony is also important for the reconstruction of the town. LVSTRA appears to be an attempt to Latinize the city from its Greek name Λύστρα. The title “gemina” indicates that it was founded with two legions. Levick estimates that Lystra may have had approximately 1,000 men as a colony, and thus the general impression from the evidence suggests that Lystra remained an agricultural community.21 The colony seems to have been established to safeguard various veteran colonies in the region. As the southernmost colony, Augustus saw Lystra as a base for his campaigns against the tribes of Taurus.22 Barbara Levick notes that the sites that were chosen by Augustus for settlement of army veterans in Asia Minor were for the most part “remote and lonely,” the only exception being Antioch.23 Lystra would have protected routes that could have been used for invasions through the Taurus Mountains. Living on the outskirts of the Roman region hindered the Romanization of Lystra. According to D. S. Potter, “Lystra probably retained its character as a frontier town throughout its history and, despite its Italian foundation, it became very much a Lycaonian town, rather than a Roman one.”24 Some of the most important archaeological discoveries are the inscriptions found at Lystra.25 There are more inscriptions from Lystra than from any other minor colony. Levick’s study shows that out of the over hundred inscriptions found, thirty-five are in Latin, albeit very poor Latin. This does not reveal a largely literate community as about 58% of these inscriptions are tombstones.26 All this evidence points firmly in the direction aptly summarized by Levick, “The impression that Lystra creates is of an active and prosperous community, not one to care much for its status as a Roman colony, a thriving, rather rustic market town.”27 Also illuminating are Strabo’s comments on another rural region, and his assessment bears directly on the residents of Lystra. Strabo notes about the Dorians who also live in a “most rugged country” and “lacked relationships with outsiders” (Geogr. 8.1.2). In commenting on another group, he mentions that the difficult environmental factors led the people to be seen as an “indigenous

184

Jason A. Myers

people, who always occupied the same country, since no one drove them out of their country or even desired to possess it” (Geogr. 8.1.2). Like the groups mentioned by Strabo, we have similar environmental conditions for Lystra. The town was also part of a larger rural region known for farming and rugged terrain. From the environmental features of the region, Strabo argues that different dialects resulted from the region’s lack of interaction with other people groups. In a parallel fashion, according to Acts 14:11, the residents of Lystra also spoke the dialect of the larger Lycaonian region (Λυκαονιστὶ).28 EVIDENCE FOR LYCAONIA In contrast to the limited information we have on Lystra, the larger region of Lycaonia is well documented in ancient literature.29 The most recent survey of the region has been done by Cilliers Breytenbach in his 2011 article entitled “The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in Asia Minor: First Steps to a New Harnack.”30 The information concerning the region surrounding Lystra will also help shed light onto the socio-historical location of Timothy, as Breytenbach remarks, “Historical space has its own history. It is socially constructed, politically organized, and culturally determined.”31 Lycaonia’s own political history bears out the triad of Breytenbach’s description.32 In the second half of the second millennium BCE, Lycaonia was under the control of the Hittite empire. Lycaonia then transferred between Phrygian to Cappadocian control up through the seventh century BCE, until the entire region was under the control of Alexander the Great in 333 BCE. After Alexander’s death, the region came under Seleucid control. In 188 BCE, the Romans gave the region to the kingdom of Pergamum. In 37 BCE, Antony gave the entire region to his ally King Amyntas of Galatia. Finally, in 25 BCE, the region came under the control of Augustus, and he divided it into two parts and founded Roman colonies on existing Greek cities. The eastern portion was given to the king of Cappadocia.33 The western half of Lycaonia was established with two Roman colonies of veteran soldiers, one of which was Lystra.34 The region of Lycaonia had a tumultuous relationship with the Romans. Early in the Roman period, the region along with Galatia appeared to be outside the control of Pompey but was eventually brought under his rule.35 During the time of the Triumvirate, the region had backed Antony in opposition to Julius Caesar.36 As history would show, the Lycaonians backed the wrong leader and were eventually brought under the control of Julius Caesar. Here we begin to see the rift that was at the heart of the Lycaonian region; it was not only a region that backed the wrong historical figures but also a region that resisted any control from the outside.

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

185

The entire region seemed to evoke this rebellious and unruly attitude throughout its history.37 Xenophon recounts that in 401 BCE, Cyrus gave the entire region of Lycaonia over to the Greeks to be plundered as a result of the fact that it was a “hostile territory.”38 For much of antiquity, the Lycaonians represented a stronghold in the mountain plains of the region and were often characterized as brutes and barbarians.39 Livy further described them as “tyrants,”40 while Strabo characterized the area as a “dwelling of robbers.”41 Cicero offers derogatory remarks concerning the character of the inhabitants of the region, where a Lycaonian is unworthy of receiving some type of honor.42 The entire Lycaonian region brought to mind the notions of ruggedness, scarcity, and bareness. Strabo calls them mountaineers at one point, and further states, “the mountainous plains of Lycaonia, are cold and bare, affording pasture only for wild asses; there is a great scarcity of water, but wherever it is found the wells are very deep.”43 The primary sources indicate that Lycaonia was a difficult region to inhabit and control and did not have an honorable reputation among those outside the region. Several coins bear out this picture as they typically feature the image of an emperor wearing military dress and holding a spear. Such coins could function as propaganda reminding the region of the military power of Rome. Turning to Timothy’s hometown of Lystra, the city that Paul found in Lystra was not just a local Lycaonian village, rather it was a “local Lycaonian . . . population which had been interacting with the Roman legions and their auxiliary units for almost two generations.”44 Although the town had been founded with veteran soldiers, they had left sometime before 7 BCE, and it appears that some veterans had stayed in the surrounding area. Likewise, the onomastic and iconographic evidence confirms the literary evidence of a small town “sustained by [a] subsistent agricultural economy.”45 Breytenbach lists several features that confirm this rural identity, and these include spindles, distaffs, axes, and pruning hooks on tombstones that indicate an environment of sheep farming and rural wool industry.46 This is the setting of Lystra, Timothy’s hometown and the social status he carried with him. Anyone who had heard of Lystra or at least the Lycaonian region would be reminded of this rugged backdrop, or perhaps it may have even been reflected in Timothy’s own patois or rough speech. This was the frontier region that was far beyond the reach of the sophisticated urban centers, and the ancient literature bears out this disdain and distinction. THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE RUS/URBS DIVIDE Now with a grasp of the nature of the city and regions of Lystra and Lycaonia, we can now bring this into conversation with an important feature of the

186

Jason A. Myers

Roman Empire: the rural-urban divide. The ancient literature is abounding in what we will call the rural-urban social divide.47 Most of our literature comes from one side of that divide, namely, the urban-elite. The urban-elite often look pejoratively on those from outside their urban centers. We can surmise that many of those who dwelt in urban centers carried with them the same attitudes toward those from rural areas and towns that dotted the ancient Mediterranean world. In the classic study by Ramsey, he acknowledged that these categories of rural and urban are necessary as they allow us to understand “the mention . . . on almost every page . . . of prejudice, servility, isolation, pride, shame, friendship, indifference, contempt, loyalty, despair, or exclusiveness” and give us a glimpse into the “social feelings and the sense of place in antiquity.”48 The notion of a social and therefore a status divide is not just a modern one, but reveals an underlying ancient mythology to explain the development of cities themselves and their inhabitants. Strabo again provides helpful commentary on this social issue, riffing on Plato, he notes: three kinds of communities were established; the first on the heights of the mountains, consisting of a simple and savage race, who had taken refuge there through dread of the waters, which overflowed the plains; the second, at the foot of the mountains, who regained courage by degrees, as the plains began to dry; the third, in the plains. But a fourth, and perhaps a fifth, or more communities might be supposed to be formed, the last of which might be on the sea-coast, and in the islands, after all fear of deluge was dissipated. For as men approached the sea with a greater or less degree of courage, we should have greater variety in forms of government, diversity also in manners and habits, according as a simple and savage people assumed the milder character of the second kind of community. There is, however, a distinction to be observed even among these, as of rustic, half rustic, and of civilized people. Among these finally arose a gradual change, and an assumption of names, applied to polished and high character, the result of an improved moral condition produced by a change of situation and mode of life.49

According to Plato, and thus Strabo as well, the communities that formed after the “great deluge” found refuge at various spots: the top of a mountain, the shadowy part of a mountain, the plains, and then finally those that moved to the sea and formed a polis. The underlying assumption present in the quote is that those who stay farther away from the coasts are less courageous than those who moved toward the sea. Plato also connects the character of persons with their physical location. The people who were courageous enough to move out of the mountainous regions also showed a more developed character and better moral

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

187

conditions. Indeed here we see the threefold divide of “rustic, half-rustic, and civilized people.” The terminology of the continuum differs from our expectations. We might expect a continuum of rustic to city, but Strabo presents us with a social commentary, the continuum moves from rustic to civilized. The people that live in the urban centers, who have the developed moral and philosophical character, are the civilized, in stark contrast to those who are rustic or rural. Indeed, the term humiliores, or more humble, was applied to the poor most of whom worked in agriculture.50 Cicero also reflects this social status in his own work. Apart from a few positive comments, to which we shall return below, there is an overwhelmingly pejorative attitude toward the rural within Cicero.51 In one of Cicero’s orations, we see that he castigates two individuals for their rural behavior: Saxa and Capho themselves rustic (rustici) and clownish men, men who never have seen and who never wish to see this republic firmly established, are tampering with the ignorant classes; men who are not upholding the acts of Caesar but those of Antonius.52

Cicero can use the label of rustici to identify two men whom he opposes and sees as inhibiting the progress of the Republic. Not only does he call them “rustics” but he also applies to them the pejorative adjective of “clownish,” no doubt in contrast to being sophisticated. The term rusticas functions as a derisive label to objectify one’s opponent as unsophisticated and therefore opposed to the “acts of Caesar.” Those from rural areas were often considered to be unruly and rebellious. Might Timothy have been seen in a similar way? Could those in Ephesus have looked down on him as a rusticas as one who was “inhibiting” the Ephesian church from becoming what the false teachers advocated? One wonders if such social polemics faced Timothy in Ephesus? One section in Cicero’s Epistulae ad familiares highlights one of the few ways the term rusticas could be applied in a non-disparaging way. In Fam. 16.21, Cicero remarks, “You are a man of property! You must drop your city manners: you have become a Roman country (rusticas) gentleman.” Although not every mention of rusticas is negative, it is the way in which Cicero’s logic flows that is revealing. The key Roman appellation brings prestige to the term rusticas. It is the prestigious Roman who, with enough wealth, can afford to buy a country villa that can reframe the term rusticas. We know that the inverse situation of someone coming from a rural area to the city could not be afforded the same respect. As Cicero himself notes, “You see how all of us are looked down on who come from the country towns.”53 It is not inconceivable that Timothy, the rustic Lystran, faced similar obstacles. As Timothy crosses the rural-urban social divide, he would face similar sentiments from those in the church at Ephesus and that these negative

188

Jason A. Myers

associations went much farther than has been previously assumed toward the problems Timothy faced. Although later than the time of Timothy in Ephesus, such negative attitudes are also seen in the work of Apuleius of Madauros.54 In slighting comments on Aemilianus in his Apologia, he notes that the “rusticity” of Aemilianus surpassed even the “Virgilean shepherds and cowherds.”55 The rustic heritage of Aemilianus is something that, for Apuleius, cannot be changed. Regardless of how Aemilianus had attempted to leave behind his rustic heritage, it was still a matter of his social identity, and indeed for Apuleius, something that he had been all along. Once again, we see the detrimental attitude of a rustic person as someone who is seen as a barbarous peasant. One further section in the Apologia is helpful for this study. Apuleius continues in his derisive attack on Aemilianus when he notes a solution. It is this solution that typifies the outlook of urban elites toward their rustic neighbors: If you had only read this book, Aemilianus, and, instead of devoting yourself to the study of your fields and their dull clods, had studied the mathematician’s slate and blackboard . . . you would assuredly, in your desire for the acquisition of knowledge, look into the glass and sometimes leave your plough to marvel at the numberless furrows with which wrinkles have scored your face. The reason for this is that your rustic occupations have kept you in obscurity, while I have been occupied by my studies, and so the shadow cast about you by your insignificance has shielded your character from scrutiny. (Apuleius, Apol. 10.6)

The rural-urban divide is seen in one’s use of time and activities. The rustic person can only devote so much to literature and arithmetic, as he must be dedicated to the tasks of cultivating the fields. However, the urban-elite, unencumbered by manual labor, can spend much of their time devoted to such philosophical tasks.56 It is interesting that Apuleius even notes the physical effects of the rural lifestyle, as seen in the darkened face and wrinkles. Did Timothy have any of these physical features? Perhaps it was not only Timothy’s accent that would have given away his rustic upbringing. Regardless of whether Timothy had any of these tell-tale signs of being a rustic, the notion of time and study is important in our regard. As we think of the way the rhetoric works in 1–2 Timothy, might Timothy’s background as a rustic have limited him in any way from pursuing studies in rhetoric? Further, might this have affected the style of the communication between him and Paul? Although we will address this issue in much more detail later on, suffice it to say now, the rhetoric we have in 1–2 Timothy has often been noted as simplistic, and we may now begin to venture why. Perhaps Timothy was unable to pursue rhetoric to the same degree as his counterparts in Ephesus, or even as Paul or Luke himself, precisely because of his rustic obligations to

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

189

the field and flocks? Perhaps it was, in Apuleius’s words, “the study of your fields and their dull clods” that held Timothy back in pursuing a rhetorical education and thus affected the style and argumentation Paul chose for this letter? Returning to Ramsay MacMullen’s short but insightful study highlights many of the important distinctions between the rural and urban social worlds. As MacMullen notes, the term “Urbanitas opposed not only rusticitas but peregrinitas as well.”57 Socially speaking, those outside the social identity provided by the urban setting were seen as foreigners. This status of a foreigner was no doubt due to the nature of the “outsider” as one who lived outside the polis and was not considered able to fulfill the responsibilities of a good citizen.58 As MacMullen notes, “it is not surprising to find in them [writers] many contemptuous references to yokel accents and lack of education.”59 Of interest for our study of Timothy and Lystra is MacMullen’s recounting of a story of Juvenal, for who nothing was “more ridiculous than the farmer who tries to pass as a product of the schools of urban elegance and cultivation.”60 Perhaps this is the view of those in Ephesus toward Timothy? If the style of the rhetoric of the letter is any indication of the social status and education level of Timothy, one could envisage such a situation from the letters. Also of importance is MacMullen’s indication, also supported by Acts 14 that, “Once outside [of Rome], however, a thickening accent gradually gave way, mile by mile, to a total ignorance of the master tongues.”61 Certainly, Acts 14 testifies to such a conclusion, and perhaps Timothy himself carried such an accent that identified him to his Ephesian churches as one of rural descent. We must continue further into the construction of the rural peasant and the “Roman man” as socially constructed, yet conflicting images. Jerzy Kolendo has written on the peasant in the Roman world, and Andrea Giardina has given an apt description of the “Roman man” within the Roman world.62 Kolendo has raised the importance of social relations raised by the terms “urbs” and “rusticas.” The term rusticas opposes the term urbs and was not restricted only to the peasant, but was applied more broadly to describe the simple and modest. Kolendo argues that the term could be used pejoratively in the sense of an “‘oaf,’ ‘uncouth,’ ‘uncivilized,’ lacking in urbanity . . . and in this instance as in others, the terminology reflects true social relations.”63 Indeed such terms as “rusticas or agrestis were applied: [to] non urbanized peasants, shepherds, and, more generally, all who lived in the great outdoors.”64 In contrast to the uncouth peasant is the “Roman man.” Andrea Giardina states that “city dwellers resisted recognizing as their peers any individuals . . . who . . . were too far removed from urban standards of civil behavior.”65 Drawing on the work of Quintillian, she notes that one’s distance from an urban center indicated one’s state of barbarity.66

190

Jason A. Myers

As we return to Lystra, we ought to note that although Lystra was a colonia, this is certainly not what Quintillian or other ancient writers considered a true polis, as there appears to be no true Latin equivalent for the Greek term polis.67 Even though Lystra carried the title of colonia, it lacked the social status of a city, and thus its inhabitants, as borne out in the archaeological evidence, are more readily identified as rusticas. The ideas of the urbanus in contrast to rusticas have been shown by Louise Revell to reflect the competing ideologies of their respective settings and to transcend the mere physical setting. As she states, Even the language of urbanism subtly negated the validity of competing ideologies as it was not value-free. . . . The concepts of urbanus and rusticas each had implications beyond their simplest meanings of dwelling. Urbanus, on the one hand, incorporated the positive qualities of elegance, refinement, and intelligence; on the other hand, rusticas included the negative qualities of roughness, simpleness, and boorishness.68

Revell rightly highlights the social implications of residence in the construction of one’s identity. The terms themselves are not neutral in the ancient sources but reflect these contrasting ideologies. She states further that “urbanism encompassed more than the idea of a place to dwell: it also incorporated the ideology of the correct way of living a life.”69 It is these qualities that defined both the rusticas and the urbanus and contribute to a social profile of Timothy and the church in Ephesus. Those in Ephesus reflect the identity of those as urbanus, and as the prototypical “outsider,” Timothy embodies his place of origin as a rusticas. One can see how Timothy seeking to instruct those in Ephesus would run into problems as he endeavored to teach them. RHETORIC FROM THE RUSTICAS: IN SEARCH OF THE HISTORICAL TIMOTHY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE RHETORIC OF 1–2 TIMOTHY Given the social and rhetorical realities that shaped Timothy, what might we expect regarding rhetoric from Paul to Timothy? When the Pastorals are exposed to rhetorical treatments it is typically geared toward micro-rhetoric.70 One of the issues that has beleaguered the Pauline authorship debate is the issue of “style” or argumentation in 1–2 Timothy. Little room has been given to the rhetorical aspects of the letters and specifically the recipient of Timothy.71 In other correspondences, Paul reflects a high degree of rhetorical education in his work. 1–2 Timothy does not reflect a high degree of

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

191

rhetorical style, and thus scholars have held that this proves that these two letters cannot have been written by Paul. We need, however, to flip the logic on its head and look at the question from the other way around. Rather than assuming simple rhetoric negates high rhetoric authors, perhaps the simple rhetoric tells us more about the audience than it does the author. Rhetoric was, of course, aimed at persuading an audience. What if that recipient of such a discourse was less educated or even uneducated in rhetoric? How would this shape the form of the argument? From Aristotle to Quintilian, the audience was key to the composition and delivery of a rhetorical speech.72 Without an audience to persuade, there was no rhetorical task. The audience was the focus of every rhetorician and an important factor in dictating the style and form of argumentation.73 One’s rhetorical aim was shaped primarily by the audience that was in view. George Kennedy argues that the author’s choice of style “seems to reflect . . . his perception of his function, his subject, and the audience he intends to reach.”74 Questions like these shaped the rhetor’s task, and an accurate understanding of the audience was paramount in the approach of the rhetorician. The rhetor must make careful choices based on his hearers and his desire for them. To misdiagnose the issue is to lose the audience and thus fail at the task of a rhetorician. Aristotle discusses the adaptability of speech to the audience when he states, “People always think well of speeches adapted to, and reflecting, their own character: and we can now see how to compose our speeches so as to adapt both them and ourselves to our audiences” (Rhet. 2.13.16). Several issues are important for our study of 1–2 Timothy. Aristotle notes that the well thought out speech will be adapted to the audience. This affects not only the delivery but also its composition. If the letter reveals anything, it is that the audience (Timothy) of 1–2 Timothy cannot endure full-blown arguments of macro-rhetoric. Rather what we see at work in the Pastorals is the simple micro-rhetoric of the enthymeme.75 Quite revealing is that the section on adaptation of rhetoric to audience in Aristotle comes directly after a section describing the “emotions, habits, ages, and fortunes” of a young person (Rhet. 2.12–13). Critically, how does one adapt the speech to someone who is young? The section also discusses the character of a young man (Rhet. 2.14). I note several similarities between Aristotle’s Rhetoric in his remarks on a youthful person and the letters of 1–2 Timothy. Aristotle remarks that the “young person” is someone who: 1. Of bodily desires, “chiefly obey[s] those of sensual pleasure and these they are unable to control” (2.12.3; 1 Tim 4:12; 5:2; 6:4–5) 2. “is changeable in their desire . . . they desire with extreme ardor, but soon cool . . . for their will is keen rather than strong” (2.12.4; C.f. 1 Tim 1:19; 4:14–16; 6:20; 2 Tim 1:6–8)

192

Jason A. Myers

3. is passionate, hot-tempered, and carried away by impulse (2.12.5; C.f. 1 Tim 3:2) 4. “ha[s] everything to hope; which makes them easy to deceive” (2.12.8; 1 Tim 5:3–16, 22) 5. is prone to excess, indeed, “all their errors are due to excess” (2.12.14; 1 Tim 4:12) Indeed, Aristotle’s entire discussion of the emotions and habits of a young person is pertinent for understanding Paul’s statements directed to the character of Timothy in 1–2 Timothy as noted above. All of these features are expressed so that the rhetorician will know how to adapt his speech to the young person to persuade them of the desired goal. Paul seems to be engaged in the same endeavor, adapting his work to the level and character of Timothy as a young man. If ancient rhetoricians argued that some audiences are uneducated and thus the rhetor must adapt his speech, what effect should this have on our interpretation of the style and mode of argumentation in 1–2 Timothy? If anything, the mode and model of argumentation, as simple micro-rhetoric, should point us in the direction of a person who is only familiar with the elementary rhetoric of the progymnasmata. If my argument has afforded us any insight, Timothy appears to be the benighted individual who, given his socio-historical background, has lacked any real opportunity to engage with the canons of rhetoric. Thus, the rhetoric and argumentation of 1–2 Timothy should not point us in a direction of a non-Pauline author, but that of a non-typical Pauline audience. As argued above, the historical Timothy has not been considered in great detail by any previous treatment. Considering the preceding section, the audience was the most determinative factor in shaping the rhetorical discourse. It is this point of the recipient of Timothy that has not been considered in the debate concerning authorship. Future research needs to consider the important role the audience played in shaping the rhetorical discourse. In our study, the audience in view is the historical Timothy, a former resident of the rustic town of Lystra, who had not received advanced rhetorical training. Given the background of the historical Timothy, it should come as no surprise that the rhetoric we find in the Pastorals is simplistic and reflects the non-typical Pauline audience.

NOTES 1. Acts 16:1, 3; 17:14–15; 18:5; 19:22; 20:4; Rom 16:21; 1 Cor 4:17; 16:10; 2 Cor 1:1, 19; Phil 1:1; 2:19; Col 1:1; 1 Thess 1:1; 3:2, 6; 2 Thess 1:1; 1 Tim 1:2, 18; 6:20; 2 Tim 1:2; Phlm 1:1; Heb 13:23.

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

193

2. Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelman, The Pastoral Epistles, trans., Philip Buttolph and Adela Yarbro (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1972), 1. “Any judgment as to what the Pastorals are and intend to be depends in great measure upon the question of authorship” (1). 3. James D. G. Dunn, “1 & 2 Timothy,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible: 2 Corinthians–Philemon, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 782. 4. J. Christiaan Beker, Heirs of Paul: Their Legacy in the New Testament and Church Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 36. “The letters’ pseudonymity is twofold, involving both author and addresses.” 5. A small sample Dibelius and Conzelman, The Pastoral Epistles (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1989), 1–14. J. L. Houlden, The Pastoral Epistles (London: SCM, 1976), 15–44; Lewis R. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 57–59; Jürgen Roloff, Der Erste Brief an Timotheus (Zürich: Benzinger, 1988), 21; Michael Wolter, Die Pastoralbriefe als Paulustradition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 239; 69; Michael Prior, Paul the Letter-Writer and the Second Letter to Timothy (Sheffield: JSOT, 1989); Lorenz Overlinner, Die Pastoralbriefe: Kommentar zum Ersten Timotheusbrief (Basel: Herder, 1994), xxvii–xxvix; Frances Young, The Theology of the Pastoral Letters (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 4–5; Dunn, “1 & 2 Timothy,” 775–787; Benjamin Fiore, The Pastoral Epistles: First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2007), 6; 27–28; 131–132; Elsa Tamez, Struggles for Power in Early Christianity: A Study of the First Letter to Timothy, trans., Gloria Kinsler (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2007), xxiii. 6. See further Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 55–90; Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy, and 1–3 John Vol 1 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), 23–37, 49–74. This is, of course, not to neglect the eighteen centuries of commentators who held Pauline authorship before Schleiermacher (1807) and Eichhorn (1812) posited their views and its subsequent rise to “scholarly dogma.” 7. Karl P. Donfried, “Rethinking Scholarly Approaches to 1 Timothy,” in 1 Timothy Reconsidered, ed. Karl P. Donfried (Belgium: Peeters, 2008), 168. 8. J. N. D. Kelly, The Pastoral Epistles: Timothy I & II, Titus (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 1–2; Ceslas Spicq, St. Paul, Les Épitres Pastorales (Paris: Gabalda, 1969), 47–53; Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1988), 2; Thomas C. Oden, First and Second Timothy and Titus (Louisville: John Knox, 1989), 4; George W. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 8ff; Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 94–96; Samuel Ngewa, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 8–9. Only holding a historical recipient is Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 653–655. C.f. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 356–359. He holds that only 2 Timothy is an authentic Pauline document. 9. Donald Guthrie, The Pastoral Epistles and the Mind of Paul (London: Tyndale, 1955), 12ff.

194

Jason A. Myers

10. C. F. D Moule, “The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles: A Reappraisal,” BJRL 47 (1965): 436. 11. Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 55. 12. Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 37–40; 52. 13. Spicq, Les Épitres Pastorales, 51–53; Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, 94–96; Witherington, Letters for Hellenized Christians, 181–186. An excellent survey of the canonical evidence to challenge this portrait of Timothy as timid is Christopher R. Hutson, “Was Timothy Timid? On the Rhetoric of Fearlessness (1 Corinthians 16:10–11) and Cowardice (2 Timothy 1:7),” BibRes 52 (1997): 58–73. 14. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles, 8. Indeed much of what we find in Paul’s letters is his defense of Timothy as a fellow worker. In 1 Cor 16:10–11, Paul feels the need to tell his Corinthian congregation to not “despise” (ἐξουθενέω) Timothy if he comes to Corinth. In 1 Tim 4:12, Timothy himself is instructed to let no one “despise” (καταφρονείτω) his youth. Both in 1 Cor 16 and 2 Tim 1:6–8, Paul discusses the need for the removal of Timothy’s fear and timidity among the different churches. These obstacles to Timothy’s success in various locales stand out all the more once the ruralurban divide is recognized. 15. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles, 8. 16. On New Testament envoys, see the intriguing article by Margaret M. Mitchell, “New Testament Envoys: In the Context of Greco-Roman Diplomatic and Epistolary Conventions: The Example of Timothy and Titus,” JBL 111 (1992): 641–662. 17. Leander Keck, “On the Ethos of the Early Christians,” JAAR 42 (1974): 435–452; John E. Stambaugh and David L. Balch, The New Testament in Its Social Environment, ed. Wayne A. Meeks (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986); Richard L. Rohrbaugh, ed. The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996); Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, Third Edition: Revised and Expanded ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2001); Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity: Third Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003); Hans–Josef Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003); Edwin A. Judge, “The Social Pattern of the Christian Groups in the First Century,” in Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E. A. Judge, ed. David M. Scholer (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2008), 1–56. 18. Tamez, Struggles for Power, xxiv. 19. A summary of the Greek and Latin inscriptions can be found in B. H. McLean, Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Konya Archaeological Museum (London: The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 2002). 20. There is considerable debate concerning the establishment of Lystra as a colony. Ramsey MacMullen and others have taken the traditional position that it was founded in 6 BCE based on the numismatic evidence. However, Levick and others have argued that this coin has been misdated and that a date of 25 BCE is much more likely.

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

195

21. Levick, Roman Colonies, 94–96. 22. AYBD, 4:426. 23. Barbara Levick, Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor (New York: OUP, 1967), 56. 24. AYBD, 4:426. 25. Spicq Les Épitres Pastorales, 47 notes that the name “Timothy” or “one who honors or fears God” is “very common in the literature, especially the inscriptions of Asia Minor, Lycaonia, Pisidia and papyri.” 26. Levick, Roman Colonies, 153–154. 27. Levick, Roman Colonies, 154. 28. See the excellent article on the Acts account by Dean P. Béchard, “Paul among the Rustics: The Lystran Episode (Acts 14:8–20) and Lucan Apologetic,” CBQ 63 (2001): 84–101. His article is an excellent treatment of the Acts account, but of course 1–2 Timothy is outside his purview. 29. Diodorus Siculus, Bib. Hist. 18.5.4; Pliny the Elder, Nat. 5.25; Strabo, Geogr. 2.5.39; 8.1.2; 12.1.1, 12.4.10, 12.6.2; 14.2.29; Plutarch, Pomp. 30.2.4, Eum. 10.2.1; Xenophon, Anab. 1.2.19; 7.8.25; Dionysius Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 2.1.2; Cassius Dio, Hist. rom. 49.32.3; 53.26.3. 30. Cilliers Breytenbach, “The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in Asia Minor: First Steps towards a New Harnack,” EC 2, no. 4 (2011): 547–552. This five volume set will appear as The Expansion of Christianity in Asia Minor, and two of the volumes will be focused on the Lycaonian region. By the end of 2012, the group hopes to have a database giving access to ICAM (Inscriptiones Christianae Asiae Minoris). 31. Cilliers Breytenbach, “The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in Asia Minor,” 547–552. 32. Martin Goodman, The Roman World: 44BC–AD180 (New York: Routledge, 1997), 237–240. See also Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J.A. Talbert, eds., The Romans: From Village to Empire (New York: OUP, 2004), 342–344. 33. Strabo, Geogr. 12.1.4; 12.2.7; 14.5.6; Dio Cass. 54.9.2. 34. Der Neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike, s.v. “Lykaonia.” 35. Plutarch, Pomp. 30.2. 36. Plutarch, Ant. 61.2. 37. Note the general attitude of Strabo, “In the midst of the heights of the Taurus, which are very steep and for the most part impassable, there is a hollow and fertile plain which is divided into several valleys. But though the people tilled this plain, they lived on the overhanging brows of the mountains or in caves. They were armed for the most part and were wont to overrun the country of others, having mountains that served as walls about their country” (Geogr. 12.6.5). 38. Xenophon, Anab. 1.19. 39. See Xenophon, Anab. 3.3.23; Cyr. 6.10–11; Strabo, Geogr. 12.6.2. 40. Livy, History of Rome, 38.45.9. 41. Strabo, Geogr. 12.6.2. 42. Cicero, Fam. 3.10 “At that crisis, indeed, such was his steadfastness, such his magnanimity, that, to say nothing of crediting some Phrygian or Lycaonian, as you

196

Jason A. Myers

did in the case of the legates, he would not believe malevolent remarks about me even from men of the highest rank.” 43. Strabo, Geogr. 2.5.32; 12.6.1. 44. Strabo, Geogr. 549–550. 45. Strabo, Geogr. 551. 46. Cilliers Breytenbach, “The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in Asia Minor,” 547–52. 47. Too many examples could be given, but see the following: Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 31.162–165; 35.11 48. Ramsay MacMullen, Roman Social Relations: 50 B.C. To A.D. 284 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), viii–ix. 49. Strabo, Geogr. 13.1.25. 50. David Cherry, ed. The Roman World: A Sourcebook (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), 4. 51. One such positive example is, Cicero. Off. 1.35.129. 52. Cicero, Phil. 10.10.22. 53. Fam. 3.15. 54. See David E. Aune, The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christianity Literature and Rhetoric (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 56–57. 55. Apuleius, Apol. 10.6. 56. This point of view may not have been entirely Roman as a similar point is made in Sirach 38:24. 57. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 31. 58. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 32. 59. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 30. MacMullen also notes, “the peasant’s belief in strange gods and stranger rustic spells—all these the city man tried to keep at a distance” (47). 60. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 30. 61. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 46. 62. Andrea Giardina, “Roman Man,” in The Romans, ed. Andrea Giardina (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), 1–15; Jerzy Kolendo, “The Peasant,” in The Romans, ed. Andrea Giardina (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), 199–213. 63. Kolendo, “The Peasant,” 199. 64. Giardina, “Roman Man,” 6. 65. Giardina, “Roman Man,” 7. 66. Quintillian Inst. 1.11.6; Giardina, “Roman Man,” 7. 67. Peter Garnsey and Richard Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014), 26. “No Latin word for city (civitas, municipium, colonia, res publica) has the ideological potency of polis”. 68. Louise Revell, Roman Imperialism and Local Identities (New York: CUP, 2009), 47. 69. Revell, Roman Imperialism, 48. 70. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles.

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

197

71. For a survey of the rhetorical treatments of the Pastorals, see Mark Harding, What Are They Saying About the Pastoral Epistles? (New York: Paulist Press, 2001), 82–94; Ben Witherington, New Testament Rhetoric (Eugene: Cascade, 2009), 158–176. 72. James E. Porter, Audience and Rhetoric: An Archaeological Composition of the Discourse Community (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992), 4. 73. Contra Troy W. Martin, “Entextualized and Implied Rhetorical Situations: The Case of 1 Timothy and Titus,” BibRes 45 (2000): 5–24. He argues that, “Pseudonymity facilitates enormous flexibility in the creation of the situations portrayed in these letters” (1). 74. George A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1984), 32. Interestingly Kennedy goes on to state that both Luke and Paul probably could have written in Attic Greek if they had chosen to. 75. An excellent survey of this rhetorical feature is Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aune, David E. The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Béchard, Dean P. “Paul Among the Rustics: The Lystran Episode (Acts 14:8–20) and Lucan Apologetic.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 63 (2001): 84–101. Beker, J. Christiaan. Heirs of Paul: Their Legacy in the New Testament and the Church Today. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 1996. Boatwright, Mary T., Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J. A. Talbert. The Romans: From Village to Empire: A History of Rome From Earliest Times to the End of the Western Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Breytenbach, Cilliers. “The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in Asia Minor: First Steps Towards a New Harnack.” Early Christianity 2, no. 4 (2011): 547–52. Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. Edited by Marion L. Soards and John Collins. The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Cancik, Hubert, August F. Pauly, and Helmuth Schneider, eds. Der Neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1996. Cherry, David, ed. The Roman World: A Sourcebook. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2001. Dibelius, Martin, and Hans Conzelmann. The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. Edited by Philip Buttolph and Adela Yarbro. Hermeneia Commentary on the Bible. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1972. ———. The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. Edited by Philip Buttolph and Adela Yarbro. Hermeneia Commentary on the Bible. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1989.

198

Jason A. Myers

Donelson, Lewis R. Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 1986. Donfried, Karl P. “Rethinking Scholarly Approaches to 1 Timothy.” In 1 Timothy Reconsidered, edited by Karl P. Donfried. Colloquium Oecumenicum Paulinum 18. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2008. Dunn, James D. G. “1 & 2 Timothy.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible : 2 Corinthians– Philemon, edited by Leander Keck. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2000. Fee, Gordon D. 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus. Understanding the Bible Commentary Series. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1988. Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003. Fiore, Benjamin. The Pastoral Epistles: First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus. Edited by Daniel J. Harrington. Sacra Pagina, v. 12. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2007. Garnsey, Peter, and Richard Saller. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2014. Giardina, Andrea. “Roman Man.” In The Romans, edited by Andrea Giardina, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, 1–15. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Goodman, Martin. The Roman World 44 BC-AD 180. The Routledge History of the Ancient World. New York: Routledge, 1997. Guthrie, Donald. The Pastoral Epistles and the Mind of Paul. London: Tyndale, 1955. Harding, Mark. What Are They Saying About the Pastoral Epistles? New York: Paulist Press, 2001. Houlden, J. L. The Pastoral Epistles. London: SCM, 1976. Hutson, Christopher R. “Was Timothy Timid? On the Rhetoric of Fearlessness (1 Corinthians 16:10–11) and Cowardice (2 Timothy 1:7).” Biblical Research 52 (1997): 58–73. Johnson, Luke Timothy. The First and Second Letters to Timothy. The Anchor Yale Bible 35A. New York: Doubleday, 2001. Judge, Edwin A. “The Social Pattern of the Christian Groups in the First Century.” In Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E. A. Judge, edited by David M. Scholer, 1–56. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2008. Keck, Leander. “On the Ethos of the Early Christians.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 42 (1974): 435–52. Kelly, J. N. D. The Pastoral Epistles, Timothy I & II, Titus. Edited by Henry Chadwick. Harper’s New Testament Commentaries. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Kennedy, George A. New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism. Studies in Religion. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Klauck, Hans-Josef. The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to GraecoRoman Religions. Studies of the New Testament and Its World. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003.

Rhetoric from the Rusticas

199

Knight, George W. The Pastoral Epistles. The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992. Kolendo, Jerzy. “The Peasant.” In The Romans, edited by Andrea Giardina, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, 199–213. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Levick, Barbara. Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. MacMullen, Ramsay. Roman Social Relations 50 B.C. to A.D. 284. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1974. Malina, Bruce J. The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. 3rd ed. revised and expanded. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. Martin, Contra Troy W. “Entextualized and Implied Rhetorical Situations: The Case of 1 Timothy and Titus.” Biblical Research 45 (2000): 5–24. McLean, B. H. Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the Konya Archaeological Museum. Regional Epigraphic Catalogues of Asia Minor 4. London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 2002. Mitchell, Margaret M. “New Testament Envoys: In the Context of Greco-Roman Diplomatic and Epistolary Conventions: The Example of Timothy and Titus.” Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992): 641–62. Moule, C. F. D. “The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles: A Reappraisal.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 47 (1965): 436. Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. Paul: A Critical Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Ngewa, Samuel. 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. Africa Bible Commentary Series. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009. Oden, Thomas C. First and Second Timothy and Titus. Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox, 1989. Overlinner, Lorenz. Die Pastoralbriefe: Kommentar zum Ersten Timotheusbrief. Basel: Herder, 1994. Porter, James E. Audience and Rhetoric: An Archaeological Composition of the Discourse Community. Prentice Hall Studies in Writing and Culture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1992. Prior, Michael. Paul the Letter-Writer and the Second Letter to Timothy. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 23. Sheffield: JSOT, 1989. Quinn, Jerome D., and William C. Wacker. The First and Second Letters to Timothy. Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000. Revell, Louise. Roman Imperialism and Local Identities. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Rohrbaugh, Richard L. The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1996. Roloff, Jürgen. Der Erste Brief an Timotheus. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 15. Zürich: Benziger, 1988. Spicq, Ceslas. St. Paul, Les Épitres Pastorales. Paris: Gabalda, 1969. Stambaugh, John E., and David L. Balch. The New Testament in Its Social Environment. Edited by Wayne A. Meeks. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1986.

200

Jason A. Myers

Tamez, Elsa. Struggles for Power in Early Christianity: A Study of the First Letter to Timothy. Translated by Gloria Kinsler. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2007. Towner, Philip H. The Letters to Timothy and Titus. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006. Witherington III, Ben. Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A SocioRhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy and 1–3 John. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2006. ———. New Testament Rhetoric: An Introduction Guide to the Art of Persuasion in and of the New Testament. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2009. Wolter, Michael. Die Pastoralbriefe als Paulustradition. Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, heft 146. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988. Young, Frances. The Theology of the Pastoral Letters. New Testament Theology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Chapter 11

Onesimus Still A Runaway Slave Jeffrey A. D. Weima

INTRODUCTION “A text without a context is just a pretext for making the text say what we want it to mean.” This is not only one among the many clever maxims or crafty puns frequently found in the writings of Ben Witherington1 but also a hermeneutical principle controlling his scholarship. As signaled by the subtitle “A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary” of his numerous New Testament commentaries, Witherington spends much effort devoted to exploring the historical context or social setting of any given biblical text, thereby demonstrating the crucial role that such an examination has in the proper interpretation of scripture. In this essay, I hope to follow the lead of my esteemed colleague by examining one crucial and highly disputed part of the historical context of Paul’s letter to Philemon: its occasion. For almost two millennia, the specific situation which gave rise to the apostle writing this letter was never in doubt: the letter to Philemon deals with the case of Onesimus, a runaway slave whom Paul is attempting to reconcile with his justly angry master. In recent times, however, this traditional “runaway slave” hypothesis has been strongly questioned. No less than four new and competing theories have been proposed, one of which has become so popular that it has arguably now become the most widely held position among recent commentators. I will survey and evaluate these alternative explanations, moving from the least likely to the most probable. This careful analysis will not only demonstrate the significant weaknesses of these competing reconstructions but also show that the runaway slave hypothesis, though not completely free from criticism, remains the best explanation of the “context” in which this brief biblical “text” ought to be understood, thereby 201

202

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

avoiding any “pretext” for making the letter to Philemon say what we want it to mean rather than what the apostle intended to say.

THE “ESTRANGED BROTHER” HYPOTHESIS Synopsis The most innovative of the alternative explanations about the occasion of the letter is the “estranged brother” hypothesis. Dwight Callahan2 resurrects an interpretation found already in a few nineteenth-century abolitionists: Onesimus is not a slave but the natural brother of Philemon with whom he is at odds.3 Callahan advances his bold new thesis by questioning what concrete evidence exists in support of Onesimus being a slave. In no place in the letter are the two names of Philemon and Onesimus conjoined in any possessive construction, nor is Philemon referred to as “lord” (kyrios) or “master” (despotēs). Thus, the only possible evidence in support of Onesimus’s servile status is found in verse 16a: “receive him no longer as a slave but more than a slave.” Callahan claims that “the keyword in this verse is not ‘slave,’ doulos, but ‘as’ (hōs), in that it indicates a virtual, not an actual state of affairs” (p. 10). He bases this claim on the parallel between the use of “as” in verse 16a and the immediately following verse (17b: “receive him as me”). Just as Onesimus in verse 17b is to be received as Paul’s virtual presence and not as the actual Paul, so the hōs in verse 16a indicates that Paul is speaking not of Onesimus’s actual status as a slave but of Philemon’s scornful attitude toward his sibling, Onesimus, and thus Onesimus’s virtual status in his brother’s eyes. If there is no evidence in the letter itself for the servile status of Onesimus, from where did such a view originate? The traditional view “can be traced back to the imaginative and ingenious hypothesis of John Chrysostom. What was speculation, with indications of tentativeness (‘Thus it would seem . . .’) on the part of one influential exegete, eventually became the dogmatic presupposition for the subsequent tradition of interpretation” (p. 16). Evaluation The estranged brother hypothesis, though clearly involving a fresh new interpretation of the letter to Philemon, must be judged ultimately as implausible. First, although it is possible to see the particle hōs in verse 16 (“no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother”) as introducing a virtual, rather than actual, state of affairs, this meaning is not probable. The same particle is used in an earlier verse (v. 9: “I, as Paul”) to refer to a real state of

Onesimus

203

affairs, and that is the more natural reading here in verse 16. Additionally, the use of the term “brother” elsewhere in the letter as a designation for a spiritual brother (vv. 1, 7, 20) makes it doubtful that the same word in verse 16 is meant to refer to a blood brother, especially given the fact that there are no other indications in the sentence that this is the intended meaning. Callahan also provides no evidence of individuals of that day referring to others of their own social class (let alone their own siblings) by the term “slave” in a non-literal, derogatory manner. Second, verse 16, which plays such a crucial role in Callahan’s thesis, may well be an example of the stylistic figure which has been called “dialectical negation.”4 It refers to statements of the form “not A, but B” when the meaning is “not so much A as B.” In other words, the initial negation is not to be taken literally. If verse 16 is an example of this literary device, then Paul here does not deny that Onesimus is a slave (contrary to Callahan’s claim) but only that his status as a slave should now be less important in Philemon’s dealing with him than his status as a “beloved brother.”5 Third, a number of statements in the letter make little sense if Onesimus is Philemon’s brother. For example, Paul’s assertion that Onesimus was “formerly useless to you but now he is useful to me and to you” (v. 11) is rather perplexing if Onesimus is Philemon’s sibling but readily understandable if he is his slave. Similarly, Paul’s reference to Onesimus as “serving me on your behalf” (v. 13) fits his status as a slave but not as a blood brother, since siblings do not normally “serve” on behalf of each other. Or again, Paul’s seeking of permission from Philemon to do something with respect to Onesimus (v. 14) fits well with a slave relationship between the two men, whereas a sibling relationship makes such a request improbable. Paul’s personal guarantee to repay any debt that Onesimus might owe (v. 19) is also perplexing if Onesimus is Philemon’s blood brother. A sibling relationship would imply that Onesimus, like his well-to-do brother (a status evident in his ability to host the whole church [vv. 1–2] and in his generosity to believers in Colossae [vv. 4–7]), comes from a wealthy family and would not likely need the imprisoned and financially strapped Paul to pay back any debt which he owed to Philemon. Fourth, the fugitive slave hypothesis likely antedates Chrysostom, whom Callahan holds responsible for the origin of the traditional view. Margaret Mitchell has argued that Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, the Marcionite Prologue to the Pauline letter, Ambrosiaster, and the Apostolic Constitutions all demonstrate that the idea of Onesimus as a slave goes back before Chrysostom.6 Despite Callahan’s attempts to minimize the testimony of these texts, it appears that the traditional view about the servile status of Onesimus goes back further and was more widely held in the early church than Callahan is willing to concede.

204

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

THE “COMMISSIONED SLAVE” HYPOTHESIS Synopsis In contrast to the estranged brother hypothesis, which has failed to gain the published support of any biblical scholars beyond its original proponent,7 a small group of commentators has argued that the slave Onesimus was not running away but had been sent to Paul. Although these scholars differ over specific details of the letter, they have in common the conviction that the slave Onesimus was commissioned by either an individual (Philemon or Archippus) or the church of Colossae to bring to Paul a message, gift, or help during the apostle’s captivity. This “commissioned slave” hypothesis was proposed by John Knox in his 1935 commentary on the letter to Philemon8 and was the first significant scholarly challenge in almost two millennia to the view that Onesimus was a runaway slave. Knox proposes that the owner of the slave Onesimus and of the house where the Colossian church met was not Philemon but Archippus.9 Knox further argues that the ministry or service mentioned in both the letters to Philemon (v. 13b: diakonē) and to the Colossians (4:17: diakonia) involves the slave owner Archippus releasing Onesimus to go and serve Paul in his imprisonment: “What is this diakonia of Archippus? . . . He was Onesimus’ master; through Philemon and the church, he is asked to give him up for Paul’s service.”10 Some fifty years later, the thesis of Knox was picked up and developed at greater length by Sarah Winter.11 She raises a question that reveals the primary weakness with the traditional interpretation of Onesimus as a runaway: How did the slave come to be in prison with the apostle? Winter answers that question by proposing that “Onesimus was with Paul in prison because the former had been sent by the congregation in Colossae.”12 This reconstruction of what happened is supported by the loose nature of Paul’s house arrest in Rome in which visitors like Onesimus would not only be allowed but were necessary to provide the apostle with food and other basic necessities. Further support lies in the parallel situation recorded in Philippians, where the congregation in Philippi sent Epaphroditus to Paul in order to deliver a financial gift and to stay on in Rome in order to assist the apostle as he carried on his various ministry tasks while under house arrest (Phil. 4:18; also 2:25–30). The commissioned slave hypothesis has also been advocated by Craig Wansink as part of his monograph study of Paul’s imprisonments.13 Wansink reviews a variety of ancient sources which demonstrate how prisoners depended on family members and friends outside the prison to bring them food and daily sustenance. This common practice lies behind the Philippian church’s act of sending one of their members, Epaphroditus, to assist Paul

Onesimus

205

during his captivity. Another example of this practice can be found in connection with Ignatius of Antioch, the early second-century bishop who was arrested and on his way to Rome to be executed. In a couple of suggestive parallels to the letter to Philemon, Ignatius asks the Ephesians if Burrhus, whom they sent to help the church father, could stay with him longer (Ign. Eph. 2.1; cf. Phlm. 13), and shares with the Smyrnaeans that Burrhus “has in every way refreshed me” (Ign. Smrynaeans 12.1; cf. Phlm. 7, 20). Wansink concludes: “Any hypothesis which explains how Onesimus and Paul came to be together needs to take Paul’s imprisonment into account. It seems most reasonable that Philemon sent Onesimus either to deliver support or to serve the imprisoned apostle.”14 Evaluation In response to the key question of how the slave Onesimus ended up joined with the Apostle Paul, the commissioned slave hypothesis15 offers a more definitive answer than the tentative and varied explanations typically presented in the traditional view. This one strength, however, is more than offset by several problems. First, the need to have someone trustworthy from the tri-churches of the Lycus Valley—Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis—deliver a financial gift or offer help to the captive Paul is undermined by the fact that an important representative from those churches, Epaphras, had already traveled to the apostle and was currently with him (Phlm. 23; Col. 4:12–13). Second, even if there was a need to send the apostle additional help beyond that provided already by Epaphras, an unconverted and “useless” slave like Onesimus would not at all be a strong nominee to commission for such an important task.16 As Brian Rapske notes: “It is hardly conceivable that a nonbeliever, as Onesimus was before coming to be with Paul (Phlm 10), would have been entrusted with such an important spiritual responsibility. Nor would his ‘uselessness’ have commended him to his master as a trustworthy candidate for such a task.”17 Third, the explanatory comment of verse 15a (“For perhaps for this reason he was separated from you”) appears to contradict a scenario where the slave Onesimus was sent with the permission and full blessing of Philemon to minister to the imprisoned Paul and thus ended up parted from his master. Rather, as Douglas Moo observes, “this passive form strongly suggests that Onesimus left Philemon without the latter’s consent.”18 Fourth, the command of verse 17 (“Receive him as you would receive me”) further implies that some kind of fallout existed between the master and the slave. Commenting on this verse, Peter Arzt-Grabner states that “one has to presume a negative circumstance, something that did not run well between

206

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

Philemon and his slave Onesimos. . . . This demand would be utterly senseless if Onesimos were sent to Paul as a man of confidence!”19 Fifth, the legal language of verses 18–19 (“If he has wronged you or owes you anything, charge that to me. I, Paul, write this in my own hand. I will repay it”) strongly suggests that Onesimus, far from successfully fulfilling his mission of being sent by Philemon to serve the captive apostle, had instead wronged his master in some way. John Barclay states: “Paul candidly admits the possibility that Onesimus may have wronged Philemon or may owe him something (v. 18), though he is willing to take responsibility for that debt himself. It is almost inconceivable that Paul should mention such negative details concerning his protégé unless they were a major obstacle in the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus.”20 Sixth, the impressive rhetoric of the letter seems like overkill for a situation where Paul supposedly is requesting that Onesimus be allowed to continue doing what Philemon had originally sent him to do, namely, serve the apostle’s needs in prison. I have carefully documented from an epistolary point of view how Paul skillfully adapts every major unit of this letter—the opening, thanksgiving, body, and closing—so that the persuasive force of his correspondence is greatly enhanced and powerful pressure is placed on Philemon to agree to the apostle’s requests.21 Ben Witherington has similarly observed from a rhetorical point of view how Paul in this letter is “pulling out all the stops, including combining references to persuasion and command and playing the emotion card repeatedly, to give [his] discourse the necessary weight to achieve its goal.”22 Such extraordinary persuasive effort—this “exquisite rhetorical tour de force”23—seems excessive to get Philemon to do something that he has previously commissioned Onesimus to do but is not only very appropriate but also necessary to motivate the slave owner to do a very difficult thing such as forgive Onesimus for some serious offense.

THE “MEDIATOR-SEEKING SLAVE” HYPOTHESIS Synopsis Another challenge to the traditional view of Onesimus as a runaway slave was raised by Peter Lampe in 1985 in a brief, three-page article.24 Lampe draws attention to Roman legal texts which describe how a slave, who has incurred the anger of his master and fears not being treated by him fairly in the matter, could travel to a third person, ideally a friend of his master (amicus domini), who could serve as a mediator and so help the slave be reconciled to his master. In such a circumstance, the slave should not be viewed legally as a fugitive (fugitivus). Lampe argues that this is the probable historical situation that

Onesimus

207

occasioned the letter to Philemon: “To sum up, Onesimus, in all likelihood, had caused some material damage, and anticipated a burst of anger by his master. He therefore went to the apostle, a friend of Philemon (Phlm 6,17), in order to win Paul over as an advocate and mediator in the conflict. Instead of running away, he wanted to return home and restore peace.”25 Lampe cites three Roman legal texts in support of his new proposal. The first claims to record the opinion of Proculus, an important Roman jurist from the early part of the first century. This opinion comes to us third-hand from the jurist Ulpian (c. 170–228), who cites Vivianus (c. 89–117), who in turn describes what Proculus had earlier stated about the legal status of a runaway: The same [Vivianus] says that, when Proculus was asked about one who had hidden at home in order to find an opportunity to escape, he said: although he could not yet be seen to have run away, being still at home, he was nonetheless a fugitive; but if he had hidden only until his master’s anger abated, he would not be a fugitive, just as the one who, when he realized that his master wanted to whip him, took himself to a friend whom he induced to intercede for him. (Digest 21.1.17.4)

The legal opinion that a slave who leaves to seek a friend of his master in order to have him mediate on his behalf should not be judged as a fugitive is further supported by Vivianus: If a slave leaves his master and comes back to his mother, the question whether he be a fugitivus is one for consideration; if he so fled to conceal himself and not to return to his master, he is a fugitivus; but he is no fugitivus if he seeks that some wrongdoing of his may be better extenuated by his mother’s entreaties. (Digest 21.1.17.5)

The third legal text comes from Julius Paulus, another distinguished Roman jurist who lived in the late second and early third century: “A slave who takes himself off to a friend of his master (ad amicum domini) to seek his intercession is not a fugitive” (Digest 21.1.43.1). Lampe cites as additional support for his proposal the letter by Pliny the Younger (61–112), which, in his opinion, “depicts a scenario that exactly matches the situation underlying the Letter to Philemon.”26 Although this letter of Pliny is often cited by commentators on Philemon and thus well known, it is still helpful in this review and evaluation of Lampe’s thesis to be reminded of its contents: C. Pliny to Sabinianus, Greetings. Your freedman, whom you had mentioned as having displeased you, has come to me; he threw himself at my feet and

208

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

clung to them as he could have to yours. He cried much, begged constantly, even with much silence; in short, he has convinced me that he repents of what he did. I truly believe that he is reformed, because he recognizes that he has been delinquent. You are angry, I know, and rightly so, as I also recognize; but clemency wins the highest praise when the reason for anger is more righteous. You once had affection for (this) human being, and, I hope, you will have it again. Meanwhile it suffices that you let me prevail upon you. Should he again incur your displeasure, you will have so much more reason to be angry, as you give in now. Allow somewhat for his youth, for his tears, and for your own indulgent conduct. Do not antagonize him, lest you antagonize yourself at the same time; for when a man of your mildness is angry, you will be antagonizing yourself. I fear that, in joining my entreaties to his, I may seem rather to compel than to request (you to forgive him). Nevertheless, I shall join them so much more fully and unreservedly, because I have sharply and severely reproved him, positively threatening never to entreat again on his behalf. Although I said this to him, who should become more fearful (of offending), I do not say it to you. I may perhaps have occasion to entreat you again and obtain your forgiveness, but may it be such that it will be proper for me to intercede and you to pardon. Farewell. (Epistles 9.21)

This letter supports the distinction between a runaway and non-runaway made in the Roman legal texts cited above, since Pliny is acting in the role of “the friend of a master” (amicus domini) who is seeking to mediate a dispute between the wealthy Sabinianus and his freedperson, a slave who had been manumitted but was still working for his former owner and had recently done something to incur his wrath. A few years later, Lampe’s thesis was embraced by Brian Rapske: “Far from blindly running away from his master, Onesimus is in fact purposefully running to a friend of the master in the hope that, through the friend’s intervention, he might be happily restored to his master.”27 Rapske seeks to supplement Lampe’s thesis by demonstrating Paul’s clear qualifications to serve the mediating role of an amicus domini and by providing a concrete historical example of how Caesar Augustus once played this role, albeit not by means of a letter but an oral command. The Roman emperor was dining at the home of Vedius Pollio when one of his slaves accidentally dropped and broke a crystal drinking glass. When the incensed master, in a fit of anger, ordered the slave to be thrown into the estate’s pool of man-eating lampreys, the slave threw himself at the feet of Augustus, imploring the emperor not to be pardoned but simply to be killed in a more humane manner. Augustus then ordered Vedius Pollio to do three things: to pardon his slave, to have all the remaining crystal drinking glasses be broken immediately, and to fill in the pond of deadly fish (Dio Cassius, Hist. 54.23.2–5). Rapske argues that Augustus’s action on behalf of a slave ought to

Onesimus

209

be viewed as a mediating role of “the friend of a master” and serves as another parallel for the role that Paul is playing in his letter to Philemon.28 In the subsequent years after the publications of Lampe and Rapske, this new explanation of the letter’s occasion has gained more and more supporters.29 In fact, this “mediator-seeking slave” hypothesis has been embraced by so many recent commentators that it qualifies for the status of being the new traditional view. As Don Carson and Douglas Moo observe: “But the option that has gained the most support holds that Onesimus was not, in legal terms, a ‘fugitive’ (fugitivus), or runaway slave, but a slave who, having put himself in the wrong with his master (perhaps through misappropriation of funds; cf. v. 18), was seeking mediation through Paul, a ‘friend of the master’ (amicus domini).”30 Evaluation The strength of the mediator-seeking slave hypothesis is that it provides a clear and certain answer to the important question of how Onesimus and Paul ended up together while the apostle was in captivity. Nevertheless, not only can significant concerns can be raised about the use of Roman legal texts and the letter of Pliny to interpret the situation at work in Paul’s letter to Philemon, but this theory also faces additional problems. Problem with Using Roman Legal Texts Significant methodological concerns can be raised about the uncritical use of Roman legal texts to interpret what was happening in the situation involving Onesimus, Paul, and Philemon.31 First, it is important to recognize that the Digest records academic law (law in theory), which may not have always been followed in the application of law (law in practice). Albert Harrill asserts: “The deliberations of the jurists were academic games having little to do with the practice of law.”32 This distinction between law in theory and law in practice can be illustrated still today in diverse societies around the world. In the United States, for example, the laws in theory concerning the authorized use of firecrackers do not match well with public behavior on civic holidays; similarly, in the Philippines, the laws in theory concerning weight restrictions for sugarcane trucks do not match well with the overloaded vehicles actually driving on the roads. Thus, it cannot be assumed that the law in theory which distinguishes between the slave who is going to “the friend of the master” from the slave who is running away was a law that was followed in practice. Second, there is evidence that the distinction in law between a mediatorseeking slave and a runaway slave was lost on most people of that day.

210

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

Vivianus, one of the three key Roman jurists cited by Lampe, refers to “the common belief of lay people” that “a slave who without the master’s consent stays away for a night is a fugitivus,” even though by law that belief is not necessarily true, since one first has to determine the slave’s purpose by acting in this way (Digest 21.1.17.4). This leads Barclay to state: “Thus the technical distinctions drawn by Roman jurists may not correspond to common presumptions, according to which slaves were not to be trusted and any absenteeism was likely to be given the worst construction. Thus it is a moot point how much Roman law has to do with the realities of social prejudice, especially (in this case) among ordinary provincials in Asia Minor.”33 Third, the last part of Barclay’s statement raises another potential problem, namely, whether Roman law would be known and operative some 1,300 miles from the imperial capital in the city of Colossae. In Italy and Roman colonies possessing ius Italicum, Roman law applied to those who had citizenship. In the various provinces, however, the situation was much more complex and involved a varying mixture of indigenous legal customs, Hellenistic law and Roman law.34 Is it likely that a fine distinction in Roman law between a mediator-seeking slave and a runaway slave would be known by Onesimus living in the rather remote region of the Lycus Valley and that this knowledge motivated his unauthorized travel to Paul? Problem with Using the Letter of Pliny Lampe argues that Pliny’s letter should be viewed as an example of how a “friend of the master” might intercede on behalf of a slave or freedperson with the goal of restoring that individual to his owner or patron, and that the situation at work in Pliny’s letter is parallel to the situation in Paul’s letter to Philemon. The problem, however, is that there is a striking difference between the two letters: whereas Pliny’s letter contains a fulsome statement about the freedperson’s remorse and does so very early in the document, Paul’s letter does not. The absence of any statement of regret on Onesimus’s part is significant and undermines the supposed parallel that exists between the letter of Pliny and that of the apostle.35 As N. T. Wright observes: We should have expected Paul to explain that he [Onesimus] was now sorry. But that, on the analogy of Pliny’s letter, is precisely what we should expect, not in a letter about a runaway slave (an apology, however sincere, might well not be enough to allay a master’s proper, and socially demanded, legal redress), but in a letter from an amicus domini intervening in a dispute. The absence of apology counts, not in favour of the amicus domini theory, but against.36

Onesimus

211

Problem of Distance and Time The mediator-seeking slave hypothesis faces a serious problem of both distance and time: How far can a slave travel to find “a friend of the master,” and how long can he/she be gone doing so? It strains plausibility to believe that this Roman law would allow Onesimus to travel over 1,300 miles to Rome—a trip that would require his unexcused absence from Philemon not only for a lengthy amount of time but also at a significant financial cost. In weighing the choice between this scenario and that of the runaway slave hypothesis, Carson and Moo note: “But perhaps the difficulty of thinking that Onesimus would have gone as far as Rome to seek mediation is greater than the difficulty of explaining the encounter between Paul and Onesimus.”37 The counter-argument to this objection, of course, is to claim that the imprisoned Paul was not in far-off Rome but in nearby Ephesus. The fact that there are no texts inside or outside the New Testament that explicitly state that Paul was ever imprisoned in Ephesus has not stopped many commentators in recent years from adopting this position. There is not space in this essay to demonstrate both the weaknesses of a conjectured Ephesian imprisonment and the compelling evidence of a known Roman incarceration for Paul.38 It is important, however, to clarify the meaning of Paul’s reference in the letter closing of Philemon to the preparation of a guest room (v. 22), since this verse is frequently cited as strong or even decisive evidence of an Ephesian imprisonment.39 Paul’s statement here is hardly a “throwaway remark” given “in the more relaxed mood of the conclusion,”40 but part of the carefully crafted persuasive techniques that the apostle has been deliberately employing in every part of this letter. The statement of verse 22 involves the use of an apostolic parousia—a literary device that Paul employs to make his parousia or “presence” more powerfully felt so as to exert his authority over his readers.41 This verse says less about the proximity of Paul’s location visà-vis Philemon than about the additional pressure the apostle is placing on the slave owner to accede to his request in the letter, since Paul plans on traveling to Colossae to see first-hand what Philemon has done. But even if the problem of distance is pushed aside by an unconvincing appeal to an Ephesian imprisonment, the mediator-seeking slave hypothesis still faces the problem of time. Once Onesimus came into contact with the incarcerated Paul, two things happened that almost certainly involved some passage of time: the slave became a Christ-follower (v. 10), and he then helped Paul long enough to prove himself so “useful” (v. 11) that the apostle wanted to keep the slave with him (v. 13). The passage of time is also implied in Paul’s statement in verse 15 that Onesimus was perhaps parted from his master “for a time” (pros hōran) in order that he might have him back “forever” (aiōnion). Although the choice of the vague expression “for

212

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

a time” (compare 2 Cor. 7:8; Gal. 2:5; John 5:35) stems from the desire to create a sharp contrast with the word “forever,” it nevertheless also suggests that Onesimus spent some time with Paul before returning to his master. This poses a problem for the amicus domini theory, since the intention of the slave determined whether he was a fugitive. As Stephen Llewelyn observes: If the slaves fled elsewhere first or did not approach a mediator immediately, then they were deemed fugitives by their actions. It did not count, if after fleeing a fugitive had a change of heart and sought the intervention of a mediator.42

Therefore, the length of time that Onesimus was away from Philemon without permission and with Paul would cause his action to be viewed not as the legal act of going to “the friend of a master” but the illegal act of running away. Problem of the Negative Portrayal of Philemon Another weakness of the mediator-seeking slave hypothesis is that it requires a negative portrayal of Philemon that is not supported by the text and also undermines the theological significance of this letter. If Paul is, in fact, playing the role of “the friend of the master” who is mediating between Onesimus and Philemon, then either the slave has wronged the master or, conversely, the master has wronged the slave. The guilty party in this broken relationship can hardly be Philemon in light of Paul’s fulsome praise in the thanksgiving section for Philemon’s faith and love directed not only to Christ but also to fellow believers in the Colossian congregation and how the slave-owner has refreshed the hearts of the members of the church which meets in his house (vv. 4–7). That the blame belongs to Onesimus is strongly suggested by the first-class condition in verse 18 (“If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything”) as well as Paul’s promise of paying to the slave-owner any debt that he is owed seemingly due to Onesimus’s wrongful action (v. 19).43 But though the evidence strongly supports the option that Onesimus has victimized Philemon rather than the reverse scenario,44 both possibilities portray the slave owner in a negative light: either Philemon has treated his slave in such an inappropriate manner that the slave is forced to run away to Paul to ensure that he gets fair treatment, or Onesimus has wronged his master in some way and cannot trust his master to deal with him fairly and so is forced to flee to Paul for help in the matter. This negative portrayal of Philemon undermines the value or theological significance of the letter. In the traditional runaway slave hypothesis, Paul appeals to the victimized slave-owner to do something quite unexpected and very counter-cultural: not to treat Onesimus according to the letter of

Onesimus

213

the law, which entitled him to punish his slave in whatever way he desired, but instead according to the principle of love by forgiving his slave and recognizing him a beloved brother in the faith. This radical call to love and forgiveness is downplayed in the mediator-seeking slave hypothesis where the Christian slave-owner is asked to do something more mundane, namely, not to overreact to the situation, as it is implied that he has done in the past, but to treat Onesimus fairly. It is doubtful that such an unremarkable request would account for the great degree of affection with which this brief letter has been held in the history of the church or explain its inclusion in the canon.45

THE “TRUANT SLAVE” HYPOTHESIS Synopsis Yet another challenge to the traditional view of Onesimus as a runaway slave is based on the distinction between a “fugitive” (fugitivus) and a “truant”46 (erro). This alternative reconstruction has been championed by Peter ArztGrabner in a number of his writings.47 On the basis of documentary papyri and ostraca, which record contracts related to the sale of slaves, as well as the discussions of the Roman jurists, he describes the difference between a fugitive and a truant this way: A general distinction between a fugitive slave and a truant must have been quite common throughout the Roman Empire. The decisive criteria in respect of this distinction was the slave’s attitude towards the master: A fugitivus was defined as a slave who had run away with the intention of never coming back, and of staying away from the master forever, whereas an erro was a slave who could prove his/her original intention of returning to the master’s household, albeit later than allowed or expected.48

In his reconstruction of the historical situation that occasioned the writing of the letter to Philemon, Arzt-Grabner argues: “As before, he [Onesimus] has left the house of his master roaming around. He did not escape.”49 It is important to note in this reconstruction a key difference between the truant slave hypothesis and the mediator-seeking slave hypothesis: Onesimus does not leave the household of Philemon with the specific purpose of going to Paul and soliciting the help of this “friend of his master” but instead is a truant slave, wandering around away from home without the permission of his master. Thus, advocates of the amicus domini theory are wrong, as some do, to cite the work of Arzt-Grabner in support of their view.50 In fact, Arzt-Grabner

214

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

explicitly states that “there is also no clear evidence that Onesimus, intentionally and directly, went to Paul to ask him for help.”51 Evaluation The truant slave hypothesis helpfully draws attention to a distinction between a fugitive slave and a truant slave that NT scholars had not been aware of as they considered different ways of explaining Onesimus’s action of leaving Philemon’s household and so being separated from his master. Nevertheless, this new theory takes away the one important advantage that all three preceding views have over the traditional runaway slave hypothesis, namely, providing a clear answer to the question of how Onesimus and Paul ended up together. Arzt-Grabner can only postulate that Onesimus was a “notorious vagabond” and that “it is possible that a member of the Christian community in the city where Paul was currently imprisoned, had taken Onesimus to visit Paul in his prison cell, and that the subsequent events had developed from that occasion.”52 The truant slave hypothesis also faces the same problem of distance and time as that of the mediator-seeking slave hypothesis: How far can a slave wander away from home and how long can he/she be gone doing so? The Roman legal texts confirm what common sense would suggest: a slave could not travel without the master’s permission far or for a long time without being viewed as running away. The jurist Ulpian (c. 170–223) distinguishes a truant slave from a fugitive slave as follows: “However, if we wish to be accurate, we define a wanderer (erro) as one who does not indeed run away but frequently indulges in aimless roaming and, after wasting time on trivialities, returns home at a late hour” (Digest 21.1.17.14). It is impossible to believe that a 2,600-mile trip from Colossae to Rome and back again requiring several weeks of travel would qualify as returning home “at a late hour.” Quite the opposite, an unauthorized trip of that great distance and prolonged time by a slave would naturally be viewed as the slave running away.53 Although a conjectured Ephesian imprisonment for Paul has been proposed in response, this alternative location for the apostle’s captivity, as has been noted above, faces significant difficulties. An additional problem is that the Roman legal texts, though clearly distinguishing between a fugitive slave and a truant slave, also reveal that these two categories could be easily confused.54 It was this confusion that led later jurists to clarify the situation. For example, the quote from Ulpian above was meant to clear up the ambiguity resulting from what the earlier jurist Labeo (died c. 10 CE) had said about an erro being a “petty runaway” (pusillum fugitivum) and a fugitivus being a “great wanderer” (magnum erronem; see Digest 21.1.17.14), thereby implying that an erro and fugitivus are simply

Onesimus

215

less and greater degrees of the same offense. Arzt-Grabner himself concedes: “When searched for and caught, both truants and fugitives were treated (almost) equally, most probably because the authorities could not, and were not expected to, distinguish between the different attitudes, but were only concerned with returning the slaves to their masters.”55 Thus, it may be legitimately questioned whether the distinction between viewing Onesimus as a truant slave rather than a fugitive slave would have been recognized by either the Apostle Paul or the slave-owner Philemon, and also whether this distinction would have made any practical difference in the handling of the situation.56 THE “RUNAWAY SLAVE” HYPOTHESIS The feasibility of the runaway slave hypothesis rests on its ability not only to respond to the common criticism that there is no explicit reference to Onesimus’s flight but also to demonstrate that runaway slaves were a widespread occurrence in the ancient world and that this problem serves as the most probable historical context in which the letter to Philemon ought to be understood. No Explicit Reference to Onesimus’s Flight The starting point for each of the four alternative hypotheses about Onesimus reviewed above is the absence of any explicit reference in the letter to Philemon that the slave has run away. Knox, for example, opens his study of the letter to Philemon by asserting that the traditional runaway slave interpretation is only a “tentative theory” because “it rests upon no explicit statement of the letter itself.”57 This common criticism of the runaway slave hypothesis, however, ought not to be given too much weight. First, it involves an “argument from silence,” and so any conclusion drawn solely from the absence of any mention of Onesimus’s flight is suspect. Second, an explicit reference to Onesimus’s act of running away is not only unnecessary (since Philemon was obviously well aware of what Onesimus has done) but also offensive and at odds with the diplomatic language that Paul has been carefully using throughout the letter. As Chrysostom observed already a long time ago, “He [Paul] does not say, ‘for this cause he fled,’ but ‘for this cause he was parted’: for he would appease Philemon by a more euphemistic phrase.”58 Particularly in the honor-shame culture of the ancient world, it would have been insulting for Paul to have written something explicit such as: “Hey, Philemon! Forgive Onesimus for having stolen so much property from you and having run away. Then send him right back

216

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

to me. Okay?”59 Paul’s letter to Philemon in this regard is similar to that of Pliny who likewise never identifies any specific wrongs that the freedman of Sabinianus has done but instead refers generically and less offensively to his “fault” and “guilt.” Third, the elliptical expression “he was parted from you” (v. 15) is not only a diplomatic way of referring to Onesimus’s act of running away, but it also allows Paul to recast the slave’s bad behavior as something that is part of God’s providential plan. This verb choice likely involves the use of the “theological passive”—the use of the passive voice where the unspoken agent of the action is assumed to be God.60 As Eduard Lohse states: “The passive verb ‘he was separated from’ plainly intimates that God’s hidden purpose may have been behind this incident which has caused Philemon so much annoyance.”61 The persuasive force of recasting Onesimus’s flight as part of God’s providential plan is great, since it suggests that any rejection by Philemon of the apostle’s request would involve a rejection not merely of the human Paul but more significantly of the divine God and his sovereign purpose. Thus, although Paul’s letter to Philemon does not contain any explicit reference to Onesimus’s act of running away, it does contain an implicit reference that skillfully adds to the persuasive forces at work throughout the letter. Problem of Runaway Slaves in the Greco-Roman World The strongest evidence in support of the runaway slave hypothesis is the fact that runaway slaves were a widespread problem in the ancient world of the New Testament and that this reality provides the most probable context in which the letter to Philemon ought to be understood. Space constraints permit us here to survey only a very small sample of the impressive documentary evidence that highlights the common problem of slaves fleeing their masters.62 These few sample texts have been chosen because they not only deal with runaway slaves but also contain other possible parallels with details found in Paul’s letter to Philemon. UPZ 121 (156 BCE) The 25th year, Epeiph 16. The slave of Aristogenes, the son of Chrysippus, an ambassador of Alabanda, has run away [later hand: in Alexandria]. Name: Hermon, alias Nilus. Nationality: Syrian, of Bambyke. Age: about 18, of medium height, clean-shaven, sturdy in the leg, with a dimple in the chin, a mole on the left of the nose, a scar above the left corner of the mouth, tattooed on the right wrist with two foreign characters. He has stolen three mnaieia of coined gold, ten pearls, an iron ring on which are a flask and strigils. He is wearing a cloak and an undergarment. Anybody bringing him back will receive two [later

Onesimus

217

hand: three] talents in bronze; [anybody doing so] by indicating that he is [in asylum] at a temple one [later hand: two] talent; [anybody doing so by indicating that he is] with a substantial person who is subject to the law, three [later hand: five] talents. And anybody wishing to give information may do so to the governor’s representatives. There is also one Bion, the slave of Callicrates, one of the chief officers at court, who has run away with him: short, broad-shouldered, thin in the leg, with blue-grey eyes. He also has run away with a coat and a slave’s small coat and a woman’s box worth six talents. Anybody returning him will receive the same as for the aforesaid. Information may be given about him also to the governor’s representatives.

This is a public notice dealing with two slaves who have not only run away from their masters in Alexandria but also stole a number of items—the same situation envisioned for Onesimus in the run away slave hypothesis. Runaway slaves often were guilty of theft which they needed to finance their flight. The detailed description of the items taken by these two slaves, along with the careful listing of multiple distinguishing physical features, is intended to aid the capture of the runaways when they attempt to sell or trade their stolen goods. The reward for returning either one of the two runaways is initially listed as two talents which amount to approximately two year’s wages for a common laborer. This generous reward suggests that a runaway slave resulted not only in a loss of honor for the master but also in a significant loss of income, which explains the great anger of slave owners toward fleeing slaves and the great effort they put into getting such runaways back. The slaves Hermon and Bion were apparently not caught quickly and so the reward was later increased. PSI 570 (252 BCE) [Lost Name] to Zenon. Greeting. If you are well and otherwise fare as expected, [it would be fitting. I] myself [also am well]. Menandros who brings you this letter [is known to us. He is a soldier] in the cavalry of Alkippos. [His slave has run away and] is in the Limne. Therefore, you would do well to [send the local] gendarmes to whatever village the slave is now in that [he might be dispatched] securely. Yet also let them escort him [. . .] to make haste [. . .]. Farewell.

This letter is part of the Zenon archive—the large collection of documents connected with Zenon, who served as a key employee of Apollonios, an important and powerful advisor to Ptolemy II. The sender of this letter, whose name is lost at the beginning of the papyrus, asks Zenon for help in the apprehension of a runaway slave currently living in his district in the city of Philadelphia. The letter is brought to Zenon by Menandros, an acquaintance

218

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

of the writer, just as Paul’s letter to Philemon was delivered by Tychicus, a representative of the apostle who was also carrying letters from Paul to the churches at Colossae (Col. 4:7–9), Laodicea (Col. 4:15–16), and Ephesus (Eph. 6:21–22). Two other documents from the Zenon archive include memorandums that similarly request help from Zenon in recovering slaves who had fled their masters: P.Lond. 2052 (ca. 241 BCE) deals with four adult males from the same household who seemingly had planned and executed their escape together, and BGU 1993 (after 256 BCE) concerns two slaves from the same household who ran away together. These three documents provide additional evidence for the widespread nature of the problem of runaway slaves. The fact that all three documents do not make clear what role Zenon is expected to play in these matters has been explained as “an indication of how the flight of slaves was an everyday occurrence.”63 Cicero, Ad Fam. 13.77.3 (46 BCE) Marcus Cicero sends warmest greeting to Publius Sulpicius, imperator. . . . I beg of you with more urgency than usual, in view of our friendship and your continual devotion to me, that you particularly exert yourself in the following matter: my slave Dionysius, who had charge of my library which is worth a great deal of money, stole a large number of books and, believing he would not get away with it unpunished, ran away. He is in your province. Both my friend Marcus Bolanus and many others saw him at Narona, but they believed him when he asserted that I had manumitted [i.e., freed] him. If you should see to returning him to me, I can’t tell you how grateful I would be. It is a small thing in itself, but has made me very upset. Bolanus will tell you where he is and what can be done. If I should receive the fellow back through your agency, I shall consider that you have done me a very great favor.

A slave of Cicero by the name of Dionysius had stolen books from his master’s library in Rome and fled to the coastal city of Narona in the province of Illyricum. This prompts Cicero to write a letter to Sulpicius, who is in command of Roman forces in that region, seeking the help of this powerful figure to capture his runaway slave and have him returned to his master. There are potential parallels to Paul’s letter to Philemon not only with a runaway slave who has stolen property of his master but also in Cicero’s skillful use of rhetoric in reminding Sulpicius of their close friendship as a persuasive means of motivating him to obey his request. The slave’s clever lie about Cicero granting him his freedom—clever because it is a plausible thing for a slave owner to grant to a slave around thirty years old and so tricked Cicero’s friend Bolanus and others into believing him—also raises the possibility that Onesimus may have made the same false claim to any along his escape

Onesimus

219

route or in Rome who may have raised questions about his status or ongoing absence from his master. P.Oxy. 1423 (fourth century CE) Flavius Ammonas, officialis on the staff of the prefect of Egypt. To Flavius Dorotheus, officialis. Greeting. I order and depute you to arrest my slave called Magnus, who has run away and is staying at Hermopolis and has carried off certain articles belonging to me, and to bring him as a prisoner together with the head-man of Sesphtha. [2nd hand] This order is valid, and in answer to the formal question I gave my consent.

An official belonging to the staff of the Roman governor of Egypt had a slave named Magnus who both ran away and stole certain unidentified items of his master. The fact that the pilfered items are not individually listed may be due to the fact that the slave owner already knows that the runaway Magnus is now living in the city of Hermopolis. He thus writes to another official on the governor’s staff who presumably lives closer to Hermopolis than he does and solicits his help in recovering the fleeing slave and the stolen goods. He also asks the other official to arrest the person in charge at the village of Sesphtha, likely because he had in some way provided help to the fugitive. In addition to yet another example of a runaway slave whose flight also involves the theft of his master’s possessions, this letter provides an additional parallel to Paul’s letter to Philemon. The closing line of P.Oxy 1423 ends in an autograph: whereas everything up to this point is written in the hand of the secretary, the sender of the letter, Flavius Ammonas, writes the last line in his own hand, thereby personally authorizing the document. In a similar way, everything in the letter to Philemon up to verse 18 has been written in the hand of Paul’s secretary, but in verse 19, the apostle takes over and brings his letter to a close by personally writing: “I, Paul, write this in my own hand.”64 Summary It must be stressed again that the texts surveyed above represent only a very small sample of the large body of evidence that could be marshaled together to establish what a significant problem runaway slaves were in the GrecoRoman world. To cite but one expert on slavery in the ancient world: “As in modern slave societies, willful escape by the slave was one of the most important acts by which resistance to slavery manifested itself in the slave society of Rome. . . . Nor is it accurate to describe flight in the later period only as an intermittent problem for the Roman authorities, for all the indications point to exactly the opposite conclusion.”65

220

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

HOW DID ONESIMUS END UP WITH PAUL? The one outstanding question that the runaway slave hypothesis faces is to explain plausibly how the fleeing Onesimus ended up with the incarcerated Paul. The scenario in which the fugitive slave is caught and placed in the same jail cell as the apostle must be rejected as impossible. As a captured slave, Onesimus would have been held in custody in primitive conditions (perhaps an ergastulum—a slave prison) for only a brief time before the authorities sent him back to Philemon as they were required by Roman law to do (Digest 11.4.1). In this situation, it would have been impossible for Paul to intervene on the slave’s behalf and “send” him back to his master (Phlm 12; Col 4:8–9). Paul, in keeping with his status as a Roman citizen, was not in a jail cell but his own rented apartment where he was under house arrest and could still receive guests and carry on his ministry with the help of associates (Acts 28:16, 30–31). This looser form of imprisonment (custodia libera) is confirmed by Paul’s inclusion of the greetings of those who were with him: Timothy (Phlm 1), Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke (Phlm 23–24). An alternative scenario in which the fugitive Onesimus has a hard time surviving on his own and, out of desperation, seeks the help of Paul, whom he knew from the apostle’s relationship with his master, is possible. Although logic suggests that a runaway slave would never go to someone who was currently in trouble with the Roman authorities, a desperate situation might well have required a desperate action. More plausible yet is the scenario in which one of Paul’s associates, like Epaphras, who, as pastor of the Colossian house church already knew Onesimus, encountered the fleeing slave and brought him to Paul. The apostle not only supplied Onesimus with his physical needs but also shared the gospel with him. After perhaps discussing the situation with the other Christ-followers with him and believing that he understood God’s will in this tricky situation, Paul was willing to risk his own vulnerable legal position by not reporting the fleeing slave to the local authorities but instead seeking to reconcile this newest brother in the faith with his Christian master. It is impossible, of course, to know with certainty what exactly happened. Nevertheless, this reconstruction is historically possible and gains credibility from the relative strengths of the runaway slave hypothesis compared to the multiple weaknesses faced by all the alternative theories. CONCLUSION There are compelling reasons why the runaway slave hypothesis has been the consensus view not only of the earliest church fathers but until recently also

Onesimus

221

of biblical commentators for almost two millennia. The only real weakness of this traditional view is its tentative and varied explanations of how the fugitive Onesimus ended up with the captive Paul. This one weakness has provided an opening for alternative hypotheses to be considered: Should Onesimus instead be regarded as an estranged brother, a commissioned slave, a mediator-seeking slave, or a truant slave? Our careful review and evaluation of these competing theories have demonstrated that, though some are more convincing than others, they all face a number of significant problems that ultimately make each of them untenable. Furthermore, the lone weakness of the traditional view is not a fatal flaw, since historically plausible explanations can be given as to how the runaway slave and the incarcerated apostle came to be together. Therefore, the runaway slave hypothesis remains the best explanation of the historical context in which this letter ought to be understood. The interpretation of the short and subtle letter to Philemon must begin by properly identifying its occasion. The specific initial event which eventually prompted Paul to write this letter is that a slave of Philemon has fled his owner’s household. Despite all the alternative explanations to the contrary, Onesimus is still a runaway slave.

NOTES 1. B. Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical World of the New Testament, Vol. 1: The Individual Witnesses (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 41. It is not clear who originally authored this aphorism, since it occurs in slightly altered forms and is cited by a number of different contemporary writers. 2. A. D. Callahan, Embassy of Onesimus: The Letter of Paul to Philemon (The New Testament in Context; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997). Callahan originally presented his novel thesis in an article, “Paul’s Epistle to Philemon: Toward an Alternative Argumentum,” HTR 86, no. 4 (1993): 357–376. 3. J. A. Harrill (Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social and Moral Dimensions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 168 claims that the assertion that Onesimus was not a slave was first advocated by Albert Barnes (An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (Philadelphia, PA: Perkins & Purves, 1846), 318–331, with the result that this interpretation is often called the “Barnes Hypothesis.” 4. See Heinz Kruze, “Die ‘dialektische Negation’ als semitisches Idiom,” VT 4 (1954): 385–400; M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek Illustrated with Examples (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963) §445; A. H. Bartelt, “Dialectical Negation: An Exegetical Both/And,” in “Hear the Word of Yahweh”: Essays on Scripture and Archaeology in Honor of Horace D. Hummel, ed. D. O. Wenthe, P. L. Schrieber, and L. A. Maxwell (St. Louis: Concordia Academic, 2002), 57–66. 5. I thank Al Wolters of Redeemer College for his insights on the possible use of this literary device.

222

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

6. M. M. Mitchell, “John Chrysostom on Philemon: A Second Look,” HTR 88, no. 1 (1995): 135–148. For Callahan’s response to Mitchell, see HTR 88, no. 1 (1995): 149–156. 7. Note, however, the tentative proposal of B. Longenecker Philippians and Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2016), 157 that Philemon and Onesimus may have been half-brothers: “In this scenario, Philemon was an offspring of his father’s wife, being the legitimate heir of the household; Onesimus, on the other hand, was an offspring of one of his father’s slaves, therefore being a slave of Philemon’s household despite being biologically related to him.” 8. J. Knox, Philemon Among the Letters of Paul. A New View of Its Place and Importance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935). The references below are to the revised edition: New York/Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1959. 9. Knox, Philemon, “Chapter III: Philemon and Archippus,” 56–70. 10. Knox, Philemon, 69. Note also Knox’s earlier statement: “The entire letter is concerned with a diakonia. A slave owner is asked to give up a slave for Christian service” (pp. 57–58). 11. S. C. Winter, “Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” NTS 33 (1987): 1–15. See also her earlier essay, “Methodological Observations on a New Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” USQR 39 (1984): 203–212. 12. Winter, “Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” 3 (emphasis is original). Note also the following assertion made in the introduction to her essay: “(T)he slave Onesimus is with Paul in prison because he was sent there by the individual addressed in the main body of the letter (probably Archippus) on behalf of the Colossae church; Onesimus did not run away” (p. 1). 13. C. S. Wansink, Chained in Christ. The Experience and Rhetoric of Paul’s Imprisonments (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 175–199. 14. Wansink, Chained in Christ, 198. 15. In addition to Knox, Winter, and Wansink, other proponents of the commissioned slave hypothesis (though differing in various details) include Wolfgang Schenk, “Der Brief des Paulus an Philemon in der neueren Forschung (1945–1987),” ANRW II/25, no. 4 (1987): 3439–3495; R. E. Galze, Jr., “Onesimus: Runaway or Emissary?” The Theological Educator 54 (1996): 3–11; S. S. Elliott, “‘Thanks, but no Thanks’: Tact, Persuasion, and the Negotiation of Power in Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” NTS 57 (2010): 51–64; and D. W. Pao, Colossians & Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 343–347. 16. Pao (Colossians & Philemon) counters this point by asserting that (1) Onesimus likely had already undergone a nominal conversion to Christianity as part of belonging to the household of the believing Philemon so that “the description of Onesimus as becoming Paul’s son should therefore be understood as a rededication” (p. 347); and (2) “the word ‘useless’ is a wordplay on Onesimus and should not be taken as an absolute statement concerning the value of Onesimus” (p. 346). 17. B. M. Rapske, “The Prisoner Paul in the Eyes of Onesimus,” NTS 37 (1991): 188–189 (emphasis original). The same criticism is made by others: for example, J. M. G. Barclay, “Paul, Philemon and Christian Slave-Ownership,” NTS 37 (1991):

Onesimus

223

164; M. Barth and H. Blanke, The Letter to Philemon. A New Translation with Notes and Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 228. 18. D. J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 366. 19. P. Arzt-Grabner, “The Case of Onesimos: An Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon Based on Documentary Papyri and Ostraca,” Annali di storia dell’esegesis, 18, no. 2 (2001): 605. 20. Barclay, “Paul, Philemon and Christian Slave-Ownership,” 164. Similarly, James Dunn (The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996] 303, n. 8) states that Winter’s proposal that Onesimus had been sent on behalf of the Colossian church to Paul “ignores the clear allusion to past wrong and the weighty legal language of vv. 18–19” (emphasis original). 21. J. A. D. Weima, “Paul’s Persuasive Prose: An Epistolary Analysis of the Letter to Philemon,” in Philemon in Perspective. Interpreting a Pauline Letter (ed. D. F. Tolmie; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2010), 29–60; also idem, Paul the Ancient Letter Writer. An Introduction to Epistolary Analysis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2016), 205–235. 22. B. Witherington III, The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians. A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Captivity Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 87. 23. So G. F. Wessels, “The Letter to Philemon in the Context of Slavery in Early Christianity,” in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter (ed. D. F. Tolmie; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2010), 161. 24. P. Lampe, “Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ des Onesimus,” ZNW 76 (1985): 135–137. Lampe expanded this hypothesis in his later commentary on Philemon: “Der Brief an Philemon,” in Die Briefe an die Philipper, Thessalonicher und an Philemon (N. Walter, E. Reinmuth and P. Lampe; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 203–232. Lampe’s new hypothesis was anticipated already by H. Bellen, Studien zur Sklavenflucht im römischen Kaiserreich (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1971), 18, 78. 25. P. Lampe, “Affects and Emotions in the Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon: A Rhetorical-Psychological Interpretation,” in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter (ed. D. F. Tolmie; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2010), 65. 26. Lampe, “Rhetoric of Paul’s Letters to Philemon,” 63. 27. Rapske, “The Prisoner Paul in the Eyes of Onesimus,” 195–196 (emphasis original). 28. Rapske, “The Prisoner Paul in the Eyes of Onesimus,” 198–199. J. Fitzmyer (The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [Anchor Bible 34C; New York: Doubleday, 2000] 23) also cites this story as one of the reasons he supports the thesis of Lampe. 29. So S. S. Bartchy, “Philemon, Epistle to,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol 5 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 309; M. Wolter, Der Brief an die Kolosser. Der Brief an Philemon (Gütersloh/Würzburg: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1993), 228–231; I. H. Marshall, “The Theology of Philemon,” in The Theology of the Shorter Pauline Letters (with K. P. Donfried; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993),

224

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

177–178 (hesitantly); H. Balz, “Philemonbrief,” TRE 26 (1996): 489; J. MurphyO’Conner, Paul. A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 177; N. H. Taylor, “Onesimus: A Case Study of Slave Conversion in Early Christianity,” R&T 3 (1996): 226–228; H. Hübner, An Philemon. An die Kolosser. An die Epheser (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 33–34; Dunn, Philemon, 304–305; Barclay, Colossians and Philemon, 101–102 (a change from his earlier position despite his recognition of the danger of simply accepting the Roman legal opinions); Fitzmyer, Philemon, 20–23; C. Frilingos, “‘For My Child, Onesimus’: Paul and Domestic Power in Philemon,” JBL 119, no. 1 (2000): 91; W. Eckey, Die Briefe des Paulus an die Philipper und an Philemon: Ein Kommentar (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2006), 150; E. Reinmuth, Der Brief des Paulus an Philemon (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006), 15–16; M. Turner, “Human Reconciliation in the New Testament with Special Reference to Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians,” EuroJTh 16, no. 1 (2006): 39–40; M. F. Bird, Colossians and Philemon: A New Covenant Commentary (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009), 27–29; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2013), 8–9; D. A. Campbell, Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 255; M. Ebner, Der Brief an Philemon (Ostfildern: Patmos; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 133–134; J. White, “The Imprisonment That Could Have Happened (and the Letters Paul Could Have Written There): A Response to Ben Witherington,” JETS 61, no. 3 (2018): 544–555; G. K. Beale, Colossians and Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2019), 368–369; D. F. Tolmie, “The Ethics of the Letter to Philemon,” Neotestamentica 54, no. 1 (2020): 50, note 6. 30. D. A. Carson and D. J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament—Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992, 2005), 591. 31. See J. A. Harrill, “Using the Roman Jurists to Interpret Philemon. A Response to Peter Lampe,” ZNW 90 (1999): 135–138. Lampe responds to Harrill’s objections in “Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” 64. 32. Harrill, “Using the Roman Jurists,” 137. 33. Barclay, Colossians and Philemon, 102. See also Harrill, “Using the Roman Jurists,” 137. 34. See the fuller discussion in S. R. Llewelyn, “The Government’s Pursuit of Runaway Slaves,” New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, Vol. 8: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1984–85 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 42. Also Harrill, “Using the Roman Jurists,” 137. 35. See the discussion in Llewelyn, “The Government’s Pursuit of Runaway Slaves,” 41–42, who notes: “It seems almost essential to the genre [of a letter of mediation by an amicus domini] to include some overt expression of or allusion to remorse.” 36. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 9 (emphasis added). 37. Carson and Moo, Introduction to the New Testament, 591–592. 38. See B. Witherington III, “The Case of the Imprisonment That Did Not Happen: Paul at Ephesus,” JETS 60, no. 3 (2017): 525–532. 39. Wright (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 8), for example, states: “The matter is clinched, for me, by Paul’s proposal of a visit to Philemon in the near future (verse 22).”

Onesimus

225

40. Dunn, Colossians and Philemon, 247, 245. 41. For more on the use of the apostolic parousia here and elsewhere in Paul’s letters, see Weima, Paul the Ancient Letter, 113–119; 231. 42. Llewelyn, “The Government’s Pursuit of Runaway Slaves,” 42–43. 43. The label “the aggrieved slave” hypothesis given by some to “the friend of the master” theory (so B. W. Longenecker and T. D. Still, Thinking Through Paul: A Survey of His Life, Letters, and Theology [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014] 214) is misleading, since it wrongly implies that the slave Onesimus has been treated unfairly by his master Philemon. 44. Contra C. H. Felder (“The Letter to Philemon,” The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 11 [Nashville: Abingdon, 2000] 887) who asserts that “there is greater warrant” for the scenario in which “Onesimus’s only offense was leaving the household of a master—Philemon—who had abused him in some way.” 45. Nordling (“Onesimus Fugitivus,” 119) concludes his defense of the traditional runaway slave hypothesis by noting: “The ultimate danger of the ‘new’ interpretation is that it could turn a letter which manifestly ‘breathes the greathearted tenderness of the apostle’ (Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, p. 638) into a rather dispassionate, non-theological transaction between Paul and Onesimus’ owner.” 46. The Latin erro is variously translated in these discussions into English as “truant,” “vagabond,” “vagrant,” “roamer,” “wanderer,” and into German as “Herumtreiber.” 47. Arzt-Grabner, “The Case of Onesimos,” 589–614; idem, Philemon (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 101–118; idem, “Onesimus erro: Zur Vorgeschichte des Philimonbriefes,” ZNW 95 (2004): 131–143; idem, “How to Deal with Onesimus? Paul’s Solution within the Frame of Ancient Legal and Documentary Sources,” in Philemon in Perspective. Interpreting a Pauline Letter (ed. D. F. Tolmie; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2010), 113–142. 48. Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus?,” 133. 49. Arzt-Grabner, “The Case of Onesimos,” 607–608. 50. Campbell (Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography, 255), for example, states: “I still find Lampe’s (1985a) suggestion persuasive—that Onesimus was not a runaway (fugitivus) but rather a ‘truant’ slave (erro), appealing to a ‘friend of the master’ (amicus domini) for an intervention into a difficult situation” (Arzt-Grabner is cited below in a footnote). Others who conflate the two theories include Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 8–9 and S. McKnight, Letter to Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 38 (though he rejects this view). 51. Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus?,” 134. Note also his statement some nine years earlier: “Heinz Bellen and Peter Lampe referred to a somewhat similar, but in certain points very different situation” (“The Case of Onesimos,” 606, note 94 (emphasis added). 52. Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus?,” 134–135. 53. This point seems to be conceded by Arzt-Grabner in his comment: “Practically, it [the place of Paul’s imprisonment] could not have been very far from Philemon’s residence” (“How to Deal with Onesimus?,” 134, n. 92).

226

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

54. See the fuller discussion of this point by J. G. Nordling, “Some Matters Favouring the Runaway Slave Hypothesis in Philemon,” NeoTestimentica 44, no. 1 (2010): 89–90. 55. Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus?,” 133. 56. Arzt-Grabner claims that this distinction would make an important difference in the degree of the slave’s eventual punishment and also the level of trust the master would have in the slave in the future (“How to Deal with Onesimus?,” 133). 57. Knox, Philemon Among the Letters of Paul, 17, 18. Note also Callahan (Embassy of Onesimus, 5): “Nowhere is it explicitly stated that Onesimus had run away.” Fitzmyer (Philemon, 17), as a representative of the mediator-seeking slave hypothesis, states: “Paul nowhere in the letter says that Onesimus has ‘run away.’” Arzt-Grabner (“The Case of Onesimos,” 605), the founder of the truant slave hypothesis, asserts that “there are no explicit hints [for the runaway slave hypothesis] in the text.” 58. Chrysostom, “Homily 2 on Philemon,” translation from J. B. Lightfoot, The Epistles of St. Paul: Colossians and Philemon (London: Macmillan, 1875), 340. 59. J. G. Nordling, Philemon (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004), 142 (emphasis original). 60. This interpretation of v. 15 goes back to at least the time of Chrysostom, “Homily 2 on Philemon” and has been recognized by many subsequent commentators. 61. E. Lohse, Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (Hermeneia; Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1971), 202–203. 62. The following section draws heavily from the helpful survey of Egyptian papyri reviewed by Llewelyn, “The Government’s Pursuit of Runaway Slaves,” 9–46. See also Nordling, “Onesimus Fugitivus,” 101–104, who discusses three important papyri documents. 63. Llewelyn, “The Government’s Pursuit of Runaway Slaves,” 22, who cites R. Scholl, Corpus der ptolemäischen Sklaventexte (Stuttgart: Frans Steiner Verlag, 1990), 181. 64. For more on the autograph in Paul’s letters generally and its significance here in Phlm 19 specifically, see Weima, Paul the Ancient Letter Writer, 193–194, 228. 65. K. R. Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 B.C.–70 B.C. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 32, 37. W. L. Westermann (The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity [Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1955] 107) similarly states: “The problem of runaways (fugitivi, errones) was a serious one in all parts of the Empire.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY Artz-Grabner, Peter. “How to Deal with Onesimus? Paul’s Solution Within the Frame of Ancient Legal and Documentary Sources.” In Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter, edited by D. Francois Tolmie, 113–42. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010.

Onesimus

227

———. “Onesimus Erro: Zur Vorgeschichte Des Philimonbriefes.” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 95 (2004): 131–43. ———. Philemon. Papyrologische Kommentare Zum Neuen Testament. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. ———. “The Case of Onesimos: An Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon Based on Documentary Papyri and Ostraca.” Annali di storia dell’esegesis 18, no. 2 (2001): 589–614. Balz, H. “Philemonbrief.” TRE 26 (1996). Barclay, John M. G. Colossians and Philemon. T&T Clark Study Guides. London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004. ———. “Paul, Philemon and Christian Slave-Ownership.” New Testament Studies 37 (1991): 164. Barnes, Albert. An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Perkins & Purves, 1846. Bartchy, S. S. “Philemon, Epistle To.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 5, edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Bartelt, A. H. “Dialectical Negation: An Exegetical Both/And.” In “Hear the Word of Yahweh” Essays on Scripture and Archaeology in Honor of Horace D. Hummel, edited by Horace D. Hummel, Dean O. Wenthe, Paul L. Schrieber, and Lee A. Maxwell, 57–66. St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing, 2002. Barth, Markus, and Helmut Blanke. The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary. Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000. Beale, G. K. Colossians and Philemon. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2019. Bellen, H. Studien zur Sklavenflucht im römischen Kaiserreich. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1971. Bird, Michael F. Colossians and Philemon. New Covenant Commentary Series. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2009. Bradley, K. R. Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 B.C. – 70 B.C. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Callahan, Allen Dwight. Embassy of Onesimus: The Letter of Paul to Philemon. New Testament in Context Commentaries. Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1997. ———. Embassy of Onesimus: The Letter of Paul to Philemon. NT in Context Commentaries. Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1997. ———. “John Chrysostom on Philemon: A Response to Margaret M. Mitchell.” Harvard Theological Review 88, no. 1 (1995): 149–56. ———. “Paul’s Epistle to Philemon: Toward an Alternative Argumentum.” Harvard Theological Review 86, no. 4 (1993): 357–76. Campbell, Douglas A. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2014. Carson, D.A., and Douglas J. Moo. An Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1992.

228

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

Chrysostom, John. “Homily 2 on Philemon.” In The Epistles of St. Paul: Colossians and Philemon, translated by J. B. Lightfoot. London: Macmillan, 1875. Dunn, James D. G. The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1996. Ebner, Martin. Der Brief an Philemon. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, Band XVIII. Ostfildern: Göttingen: Patmos Verlag ; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017. Eckey, Wilfried. Die Briefe des Paulus an die Philipper und an Philemon: Ein Kommentar. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2006. Elliott, S. S. “‘Thanks, but no Thanks’: Tact, Persuasion, and the Negotiation of Power in Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” New Testament Studies 57 (2010): 51–64. Felder, C. H. “The Letter to Philemon.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible: Second Corinthians—Philemon, edited by Leander E. Keck, Vol. 11. The New Interpreter’s Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. The Anchor Bible 34C. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Frilingos, C. “‘For My Child, Onesimus’: Paul and Domestic Power in Philemon,” Journal of Biblical Literature 119, no. 1 (2000): 91–104. Galze Jr., R. E. “Onesimus: Runaway or Emissary?” The Theological Educator 54 (1996): 3–11. Guthrie, Donald. New Testament Introduction. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 1990. Harrill, J. Albert. Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2006. ———. “Using the Roman Jurists to Interpret Philemon. A Response to Peter Lampe.” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 90 (1999): 135–38. Hübner, Hans. An Philemon. An die Kolosser. An die Epheser. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 12. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997. Knox, John. Philemon Among the Letters of Paul; A New View of Its Place and Importance. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1935. ———. Philemon Among the Letters of Paul; A New View of Its Place and Importance. Revised edition. New York; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1959. Kruze, Heinz. “Die ‘dialektische Negation’ als semitisches Idiom.” Vetus Testamentum 4 (1954): 385–400. Lampe, Peter. “Affects and Emotions in the Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon: A Rhetorical-Psychological Interpretation.” In Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter, edited by D. F. Tolmie, 61–78. Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Für Die Neutestamentliche Wissensch, Bd. 169. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter, 2010. ———. “Der Brief an Philemon.” In Die Briefe an die Philipper, Thessalonicher und an Philemon, edited by Nikolaus Walter, Eckart Reinmuth, and Peter Lampe, 203– 32. Das Neue Testament Deutsch. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. ———. “Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ Des Onesimus.” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 76 (1985): 135–37.

Onesimus

229

———. “Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 90 (1999): 64. Llewelyn, S. R. “The Government’s Pursuit of Runaway Slaves.” In New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 8: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1984–85, 9–46. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1997. Lohse, Eduard. Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon. Hermeneia. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress, 1971. Longenecker, Bruce W. Philippians and Philemon. Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2016. Longenecker, Bruce W., and Todd D. Still. Thinking Through Paul: A Survey of His Life, Letters, and Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2014. Marshall, I. Howard, and Karl P. Donfried. “The Theology of Philemon.” In The Theology of the Shorter Pauline Letters. New Testament Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. McKnight, Scot. The Letter to Philemon. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2017. Mitchell, M. M. “John Chrysostom on Philemon: A Second Look.” Harvard Theological Review 88, no. 1 (1995): 135–48. Moo, Douglas J. The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2008. Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. Paul: A Critical Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Nordling, John G. “Onesimus Fugitivus: A Defense of the Runaway Slave Hypothesis in Philemon.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 41 (1991): 97–119. ———. Philemon. Concordia Commentary. Saint Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 2004. ———. “Some Matters Favouring the Runaway Slave Hypothesis in Philemon.” Neotestamentica 44, no. 1 (2010): 89–90. Pao, David W. Colossians & Philemon. Edited by Clinton E. Arnold. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament 12. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2012. Rapske, B. M. “The Prisoner Paul in the Eyes of Onesimus.” New Testament Studies 37 (1991): 188–89. Reinmuth, Eckart. Der Brief des Paulus an Philemon. Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament 11/2. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2006. Schenk, Wolfgang. “Der Brief des Paulus an Philemon in der neueren Forschung (1945–1987).” In ANRW II, 3439–95. 25.4, 1987. Scholl, R. Corpus der ptolemäischen Sklaventexte. Stuttgart: Frans Steiner Verlag, 1990. Taylor, N. H. “Onesimus: A Case Study of Slave Conversion in Early Christianity.” Religion & Theology 3 (1996): 259–281. Tolmie, D. F. “The Ethics of the Letter to Philemon.” Neotestamentica 54, no. 1 (2020): 47–66.

230

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

Turner, M. “Human Reconciliation in the New Testament with Special Reference to Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians.” EuroJTh 16, no. 1 (2006). Wansink, C. S. Chained in Christ The Experience and Rhetoric of Paul’s Imprisonments. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Weima, Jeffrey A. D. Paul the Ancient Letter Writer: An Introduction to Epistolary Analysis. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2016. ———. “Paul’s Persuasive Prose: An Epistolary Analysis of the Letter to Philemon.” In Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter, edited by D. Francois Tolmie, 29–60. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissensch, Bd. 169. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010. Wessels, G. Francois. “The Letter to Philemon in the Context of Slavery in Early Christianity.” In Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter, edited by D. F. Tolmie, 143–68. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, Bd. 169. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010. Westermann, W. L. The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity: Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 40. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: American Philosophical Society, 1955. White, Joel. “The Imprisonment That Could Have Happened (and the Letters Paul Could Have Written There): A Response to Ben Witherington.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 61, no. 3 (2018): 544–55. Winter, S. C. “Methodological Observations on a New Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 39 (1984): 203–12. ———. “Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” New Testament Studies 33 (1987): 1–15. Witherington III, Ben. “The Case of the Imprisonment That Did Not Happen: Paul at Ephesus.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 60, no. 3 (2017): 525–32. ———. The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical World of the New Testament, Vol. 1: The Individual Witnesses. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2009. ———. The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A SocioRhetorical Commentary on the Captivity Epistles. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2007. Wolter, Michael. Der Brief an die Kolosser. Der Brief an Philemon. Ökumenischer Taschenbuchkommentar zum Neuen Testament 12. Gütersloh; Würzburg: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1993. Wright, N. T. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2013. Zerwick, Maximilian. Biblical Greek: Illustrated with Examples. Subsidia Biblica 41. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963.

Chapter 12

Paul and “the Good” A Survey of the Subject Todd D. Still

INTRODUCTION Some time ago, I was asked to offer a lecture on Paul’s vision of the “common good” and the “good life” for a meeting that was exploring the subject of human flourishing. In preparing for that assignment, I was rather surprised to discover how comparatively little Paul has to say with respect to those given categories, to which one might add the “commonweal.”1 That discovery, coupled with curiosity and the opportunity to offer an essay in honor of my dear friend and beloved colleague Ben Witherington III, has prompted me to explore more fully here the subject of Paul and the good. To be fair and to be sure, Paul does employ the verb συμφέρω in 1 Corinthians to counter the slogan πάντα μοι ἔξεστιν on the one hand (6:12; 10:23) and to describe the desired effect of the Spirit’s presence among the Corinthian assembly on the other hand (12:7). The apostle also employs the adjective σύμφορον in 1 Corinthians to commend to Corinthian Christfollowers the value of remaining single; he does so, one might note, in light of his understanding of the brevity of time and the urgency of gospel ministry (see 1 Cor 7:35; 10:33). One should also take into account Paul’s admonitions to the Galatian and Thessalonian congregations to work for and to pursue “the good” (τὸ ἀγαθὸν) for all (Gal 6:10; 1 Thess 5:15; cf. Rom 12:17; 2 Cor 8:21). Additionally, the apostle implores the Philippian assembly to be mindful of all that is good, true, beautiful, and the like (Phil 4:8).2 These epistolary remarks notwithstanding, Paul arguably makes but a modest, indirect contribution to the ancient, ongoing conversation spawned by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, extended by Cicero, Seneca, and Epictetus, and latterly taken up with aplomb by Christian theologians, particularly Augustine and Aquinas, with respect to “the common or human good” and “the good life.”3 231

232

Todd D. Still

This is not to suggest, of course, that Paul and his churches had no contact or common ground with or concern about unbelievers and broader ambient culture, far less that Paul had little to say about the good.4 Indeed, as we will see in this chapter, he had a good bit to say about that which he regarded to be good. I will begin this investigation by making a number of relevant lexical observations and by seeking to frame further this study. I will then examine how Paul speaks of that which is good in Romans in general and in 1 Corinthians 7 in particular. Next, it will be noted how Paul regards the Jerusalem Collection and Philemon’s reception of Onesimus to be tangible examples of potential good. Finally, by way of conclusion, I will offer some summative and somewhat expansive observations regarding Paul’s perception of the good. LEXICAL CONSIDERATIONS The terms that Paul employed most frequently to speak of good are the adjectives ἀγαθός and καλός, which can also function as nouns. ἀγαθός occurs 47× across the traditional thirteen-letter Pauline corpus, with twenty-one of the forty-seven occurrences of the term contained in Romans. With respect to καλός, it is found less frequently than ἀγαθός in Paul and is more than less interchangeable with it (see, for example, Gal 6:9–10).5 Across the traditional Pauline corpus, καλός occurs 41×. It appears no less than 24× in the Pastorals. Over the sweep of the thirteen-letter Pauline corpus, especially in the socalled disputed letters, terms related to ἀγαθός and καλός appear, frequently in the form of compound words. Thus, for example, one encounters the noun ἀγαθωσύνης (Rom 15:14; Gal 5:22; Eph 5:9; 2 Thess 1:11); the verbs καλοποιέω (2 Thess 3:13) and ἀγαθοεργέω (1 Tim 6:18); and the adjectives φιλάγαθος (Titus 1:8), καλοδιδάσκαλος (Titus 2:7), and ἀφιλάγαθος (2 Tim 3:3). Were one to broaden one’s lexical search beyond the semantic domain of ἀγαθός and καλός to include terms where the English word “good” is frequently employed, and often necessarily so, in translation, then one’s lexical base would expand appreciably. One might point, for example, to such words as εὐαγγελίζω (“proclaim the good news” [which appears 19× in Paul, 16× in the Hauptbriefe]), εὐδοκία (“good pleasure” [e.g., Phil 1:15; 2:13]), εὐπροσωπέω (“make a good showing” [Gal 6:12]), εὐσχήμων, (“good order” [1 Cor 7:35]), θαρρέω (“to be of good courage” [esp. 2 Cor 5:6, 8]), προθυμία (“goodwill” [e.g., 2 Cor 8:19]), χρηστός (“kind” [note 1 Cor 15:33]), and χρηστότης (“kindness” [e.g., Gal 5:22]). Furthermore, it bears noting here that the concept of good in Paul may be present even when terms typically rendered such are absent.6

Paul and “the Good”

233

In what follows, not least due to space constraints, we will limit the scope of our inquiry to the seven letters that the vast majority of contemporary Pauline interpreters adjudges to be authentic and will begin with what Paul has to say about “the good” in his lengthy and weighty letter to the Romans. “THE GOOD” IN ROMANS As noted above, the term ἀγαθός appears 21× in Romans. Additionally, καλός occurs 5×. Instead of cataloging and commenting upon each occurrence of these two terms in Romans, which would be unnecessarily expansive and repetitive, I have sought to create categories that capture and convey Paul’s use of these two terms throughout the letter. I have identified five distinct, if related, uses of “the good” in Romans. The first, and by far the most frequent, way that Paul speaks of good in Romans is in contrast with bad or evil (note, for example, 9:11).7 Early in the letter, for example, he juxtaposes those who persist in doing good with those who pursue evil. Whereas the latter will face “wrath and anger” as well as “trouble and distress,” the former will experience “glory, honor, and peace.” This is true, Paul propounds, for both Jew and Greek (2:7–10). The contrast between good and ungodly, sinful and righteous also appears, for instance, in 5:6–8, where Paul declares that as a demonstration of God’s agape, Christ died for ungodly, sinful people. Indeed, the contrast between good and evil is woven throughout Romans. One encounters this pairing yet again in Romans 7, where the “I” of Romans 7 laments that he does not do the good he desires but the evil he disdains (esp. 7:19, 21).8 Furthermore, the juxtaposition between evil and good frames the ethical admonitions that Paul sets forth in 12:9–21. “Hate the evil, hold to the good,” Paul writes (12:9). “Do not be conquered by the evil, but conquer the evil with the good,” the apostle enjoins (12:21; cf. 3:8; 14:16). Additionally, in 12:17, Paul exhorts his Roman auditors not to repay “evil for evil,” but to be mindful of that which is good, beautiful, and noble before all people. Succinctly stated, Paul desires for the Roman believers to be “wise unto the good thing and innocent unto the evil thing” (16:19), for as he maintains in 2 Cor 5:10, all people must give an account to Christ for both good and evil. Second, occasionally in the course of Romans, Paul directly links God with the good (and vice versa). Each instance is well known. To begin, in Rom 8:28, Paul maintains that he and his audience know that “God works all things together for good for those who love him.” The apostle also describes God’s will as “good” in Rom 12:2. Finally, in this category, Paul depicts “governing authorities” as God’s servant “for the good” (Rom 13:4).

234

Todd D. Still

Third, in his instructions to the “weak” and the “strong” in Rom 14:1– 15:6,9 Paul calls the latter to bear with the former and to forego pleasing themselves (15:1). Lest what is a relative good for the strong be spoken of as evil by the weak, the strong should relinquish their rights to eat and drink what and as they wish (14:13–18), “for it is good,” Paul contends, “not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that causes your brother or sister to stumble” (14:21). Moreover, Paul maintains in 15:2 that believers must please their neighbors for their good and edification in the Lord (cf. Eph 4:29). In so doing, they imitate and serve Christ as well as please God (15:3–4; cf. 14:18). One finds a fourth recurring use of the good in Romans in chapter 7. There, Paul declares that the law is good (v. 16; cf. v. 13) and affirms that the commandment not to covet is “holy and righteous and good” (v. 12; cf. v. 7). That being said, the “I” of Romans 7 finds himself impotent to do the good the law requires. For Paul, we note fifthly, it is in the good news that is the gospel where God’s power and love are made manifest in Christ’s weakness and where God’s righteousness is revealed, even as it summons forth a life of faithfulness (Rom 1:16–17). According to the apostle, the life-giving gospel of God’s Son is able to curb, combat, conquer, and even crush sin, death, and the devil (note 5:12–21; 16:20). It is this good news—freely available to the Jew first and also to the Greek—that enables the feet of a gospel herald to be described as beautiful (10:15). It is this good news that apprehended Paul and that he would subsequently proclaim, not least to Gentiles, from Jerusalem to Illyricum and beyond (15:14–22; cf. 1 Cor 15:1). It is this good news that Paul passionately defended and shared free of charge and for which he struggled and suffered (see, for example, Gal 1:6–9; 1 Cor 9:18; Phil 4:3; 1 Thess 2:4). ΚΑΛΌΣ IN 1 CORINTHIANS 7 We turn now to a less expansive epistolary range, namely, 1 Corinthians 7, to examine how Paul employed καλός there.10 Before doing so, it is interesting to note in passing that ἀγαθός does not appear in 1 Corinthians and occurs but 9× beyond Romans in the so-called undisputed Pauline letters. Having declared to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 5:6 that their boasting regarding a man who had (i.e., was having sexual relations with) his father’s wife (1 Cor 5:1) was not good (καλός), in 1 Cor 7:1 Paul cites a Corinthian slogan suggesting, “It is good (καλός) for a man [or perhaps husband] not to touch [i.e., to have sexual relations with] a woman [or perhaps wife].” It is unclear what gave rise to this Corinthian contention. It seems likely, however, that while some within the Corinthian congregation continued to engage prostitutes (so 1 Cor 6:12–20), others had sworn off sex altogether, perhaps because they had come to regard it as spiritually counterproductive.

Paul and “the Good”

235

Regardless, what Paul propounds in 1 Cor 7:8 is that it is good (καλός), and to his mind preferable, for those who are unmarried to remain that way. In the event that the unmarried—be they never married, widowed, or perhaps divorced (?)—are unable to control their sexual passions, however, Paul thinks that they should go ahead and marry (1 Cor 7:9). As Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 7, his instructions regarding marriage and celibacy, in particular, are swept up into a broader Pauline rule that the apostle purports to have set forth in all the churches (7:17), that is, for believers “to remain in the situation they were in when God called them” (7:20). Thus, if they were married or unmarried, then they should remain as such; if they were circumcised or uncircumcised, then they should remain as such; if they were slave or free, then they should remain as such—though should slaves be able to gain freedom, then they should do so (7:17–24). Paul counsels the Corinthians—indeed, he regards it as good (καλός) for them—to remain as they are in light of what he refers to as the “present distress” or “impending crisis,” whatever that might mean (7:26), likely, though not certainly, that “the time is short” (7:29). Circling back around to the matter of marriage, Paul maintains that whereas those who are married are concerned as to how they might please their spouses, those who are unmarried are free from such concerns and are thereby able to live undivided, devoted lives to the Lord. Paul regards such instruction regarding marriage to be in the Corinthians’ best interest and for their good (σύμφορος, 7:35). Having examined Paul’s perception and presentation of that which he regards as good in Romans and 1 Corinthians 7, respectively, I would now like to turn our attention to two tangible examples of “the good” in Paul—the Jerusalem Collection on the one hand and Philemon’s reception of Onesimus on the other hand.

THE JERUSALEM COLLECTION We find Paul’s first explicit mention of and instructions regarding the socalled Jerusalem Collection in 1 Cor 16:1–4.11 There, Paul instructs the Corinthians as he had the Galatians, to wit, that on every Sabbath, each of them should set aside a portion of their income for the Collection (cf. Gal 2:10). This way, Paul reasons, he would not have to collect money from them on the spot for the Jerusalem saints. A few years later, when writing to Roman believers from Corinth, Paul indicates that he is en route to Jerusalem to minister to the saints, thereby delivering a κοινωνία that Macedonian and Achaian believers were well pleased to give to impoverished saints in the holy city (15:25–26). Paul

236

Todd D. Still

indicates in Rom 15:31 that he was experiencing a fair share of trepidation regarding his upcoming trip to Jerusalem; he was concerned about how both he and the Collection would be received. As it turns out, as Acts lavishly narrates, Paul had every good reason to be concerned. Such concerns notwithstanding, Paul was convinced that as beneficiaries and partakers of spiritual blessings given by God to the Jewish people that Gentile believers were dutybound to share material gifts with their Jewish sisters and brothers, not least those in Christ (Rom 15:27). Paul’s most expansive and profound instructions regarding and reflections upon the so-called Jerusalem Collection appear, of course, in 2 Corinthians 8–9. In those chapters of that letter (or, as some would have it, in those chapters of those letters), Paul frames and refers to the Collection and participation therein as a χάρις (see esp. 2 Cor 8:6–7). So, for example, in 2 Cor 8:4, Paul indicates, and perhaps exaggerates, to the Corinthians that the Macedonian churches had begged the apostle and his co-workers for the privilege of sharing in the χάρις and κοινωνία in διακονία to the saints. Then, with a stroke of theological, rhetorical, and pastoral genius, Paul compares the Macedonians’ χάρις to the χάρις of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, albeit rich, became poor so that believers might be enriched through his poverty (8:9). In seeking to impress upon the Corinthians not only χάρις but also the theological principles and spiritual practices of ἰσότης, εὐλογία, and εὐχαριστία, Paul turns both proverbial and scriptural. Maintaining that the “one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows generously will also reap generously” (9:6) and citing Ps 112:9 (“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever”) (9:9), Paul calls upon each person within the Corinthian congregation to give toward the Collection as they have purposed in their hearts (9:7). In so doing, he assures them that God loves a ἱλαρὸν δότην (“cheerful giver,” 9:7) and that God is able not only to provide for them but also to increase, enlarge, and enrich them (9:10). Such divine enrichment enables, in turn, ongoing generosity resulting in the supplying of material needs and the offering of thanksgiving and praise to God (9:11–12). Indeed, Paul contends that the Corinthians’ χάρις and κοινωνία in διακονία to the saints and in εὐλογία and εὐχαριστία to God will result in others glorifying God for their “obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ” and their generosity in sharing with both the Jerusalem poor and “all others” (9:13). They will also, Paul assumes, be the beneficiaries of heart-felt prayers of the Jerusalem saints because of the “surpassing grace” given them by God (9:14). Paul regards the rich tapestry of reciprocity he envisions for the Collection to be both grace (χάρις) and gift (δωρεά), grounded in the gospel and in the self-giving, other-regarding Lord Jesus Christ, whom Paul extols as God’s indescribable gift (2 Cor 9:15). Additionally, and here is the most pertinent

Paul and “the Good”

237

and important point for our present purposes, Paul perceives God’s abundant blessing of the Corinthians—and by way of extension, other believers—not to be an end unto itself. Rather, such divine beneficence and bounty positions the Corinthians (and other Christ-followers) “in all things at all times” (ἐν παντὶ πάντοτε πᾶσαν) to “abound in every good work” (περισσεύητε εἰς πᾶν ἔργον ἀγαθόν, 2 Cor 9:8; cf. Col 1:10; 2 Thess 3:17). With good reason, one can imagine that when Paul refers to the Philippians’ partnership in the gospel and expresses confidence in the good work (ἔργον ἀγαθὸν) that God had begun among them that he had their giving to himself and other believers in view (Phil 1:6). Having beheld and been blessed by the Philippians’ and Thessalonians’ liberal, sacrificial participation in the Collection, Paul hoped the same for the Corinthians. After no small amount of preparation and persuasion, it appears that Paul’s vision came to pass. Having considered Paul’s instructions and reflections regarding the good that was to occur through the Collection, we may now turn to examine another situation where Paul had great expectations that a great good would come to pass, namely, in Philemon’s reception of Onesimus. “ALL THE GOOD . . . IN CHRIST” (PHILEMON 6): THE EXAMPLE OF PHILEMON Leaving both the world behind and the world in front of Paul’s 335-word letter to Philemon to one side, we may note that as Paul commences and concludes his communication with Philemon that he includes in his literary circle a band of other believers, including Timothy, Apphia, Archippus, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, the church that met in Philemon’s home, and last but not least, Onesimus, Philemon’s slave (vv. 1, 10, 23–25). Paul also refers to certain saints whose splagchna have been refreshed by Philemon, a group that likely included others beyond the ekklēsia that gathered in Philemon’s oikos (v. 7). The precise reason for Onesimus’s separation from Philemon and the exact nature of Paul’s request of Philemon notwithstanding, there are any number of matters that are rather clear from the letter. Allow me to enumerate seven: (1) Philemon had done much good for many believers, and Paul prays that this might continue to be the case (vv. 4–7). (2) Paul led both Onesimus and Philemon to faith in Christ (vv. 10, 19). (3) Although Onesimus and Philemon had a falling out (v. 18), the aged, shackled apostle regarded Onesimus as useful in service of the gospel and wanted him very much to stay by his side (v. 13). (4) Be that as it may, Paul decided to send Onesimus back to Philemon (v. 12). (5) In so doing, Paul had “great expectations” that Philemon would not only welcome Onesimus back into his house as he would Paul himself, that is, as a brother (ἀδελφός) and even a partner (κοινωνός), but that he

238

Todd D. Still

would do even more (καὶ ὑπὲρ) than Paul had requested of him (vv. 17, 20–22). (6) Philemon would not be able to do that which he did in a corner, for there would be any number of onlookers, not least Paul, his co-workers, and the various believers meeting in Philemon’s home (note, for example, v. 22). (7) Lastly, although Paul’s preference regarding Onesimus’s future is clearer than some interpreters have imagined (see esp. v. 13), his seeming deference to Philemon is predicated upon the fact that Paul wanted whatever good Philemon might do vis-à-vis Onesimus (τὸ ἀγαθόν σου) to be voluntary and not due to coercion (v. 14). In sum, I would suggest that the short letter known to us as Philemon may be instructively read as Paul’s invitation, if not test, for Philemon to discern and to do “the good.”12 CONCLUSION If space allowed, we could consider more fully another tangible example of something that Paul regarded to be good, namely, the deference of the socalled strong to the so-called weak with respect to foodstuffs, as evinced in 1 Corinthians 8–10 and Rom 14:1–15:6, respectively. Let us proceed by way of conclusion, however, to raise and respond to the following question: What constituted “the good” for Paul? To answer this question, we will return to, draw from, and build upon that which we have discovered thus far in our study. In so doing, we will find that Paul’s construal of the good was multi-dimensional. As a brief aside, allow me to note in passing that potentially probative parallels outwith Paul are beyond the purview of this particular chapter. I fully appreciate and readily recognize that they exist, not least within the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, and would necessarily need to be part of a larger project. We begin by noting that Paul’s perception of the good was grounded in and animated by the gospel. For Paul, it was of first importance that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, [and] that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3–4). The love of Christ revealed in Jesus’s life-giving death compelled and vivified the apostle (2 Cor 5:14). Through the Christ of the cross, Paul heard a call to a cruciform life (so Gal 2:20); through the cross of Christ, Paul perceived the world anew, as crucified to him and he to it (Gal 6:14). He came to view the κόσμος and life lived κατὰ σάρκα as old, and even evil, in light of the new creation (καινὴ κτίσις) and the reconciliation made possible by God through Christ (note 2 Cor 5:16–21; Gal 1:4; 6:15). This, in turn, prompted Paul to pursue one thing—“the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14). The apostle saw and sought a heavenly πολίτευμα and eagerly awaited Christ’s παρουσία (Phil 3:20).

Paul and “the Good”

239

Paul did not perceive or pursue this expansive, transformative Christological and eschatological vision in splendid isolation, however. Rather, for the apostle, such theological commitments were to have practical out-workings and ecclesial consequences. Since Christ died for all and all died in him, Paul maintains that they “who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Cor 5:14–15). Why, for example, should the “strong” in Rome bear with the “weak” and not please themselves? Drawing upon the pattern as displayed by Christ and prefigured in Scripture, Paul maintains, “Each of us should please our neighbor for the good, toward building [the other] up” (Rom 15:2). Such radical, reciprocal other-regard also guides the apostle as he instructs, for instance, fissuring Philippians (note Phil 2:1–11) or bewitched Galatians (note Gal 3:1). If the former are going to continue to contend for the gospel—along with Paul, Clement, and other unnamed co-workers—then it will require Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind, not working at cross purposes, but for the purpose of the cross (note Phil 4:2–3). If the latter are to carry their own loads, they are no less to bear one another’s burdens, for in this way they fulfill the law of Christ, seemingly to love one’s neighbor as oneself (note Gal 6:2, 5; cf. 5:14). One tangible example of such for Galatian congregations would be for those who are catechized “in the word” to share “all good things” with the one doing the teaching (Gal 6:6). In a word, Paul wanted the churches he founded and guided “not to seek their own good, but [to seek] the good of others” (1 Cor 10:24; cf. Phil 2:3–4), not least “the family of faith” (Gal 6:10). Additionally, and relatedly, we should underscore that Paul’s conception of “the good” had a decidedly moral dimension. It mattered to Paul, for example, that Grecian Christians concern themselves with the plight of the Jerusalem poor. It mattered to Paul, for instance, that Philemon “do the good thing” with respect to Onesimus. It mattered to Paul, to illustrate, that the Thessalonians not repay “evil for evil” but “pursue good,” both for one another and for others. He wanted the church of the Thessalonians to “cling to the good” and to “reject every form of evil” (1 Thess 5:15, 21). In Thessalonica, this would have required Paul’s converts, among other things, to pursue sanctification in a cultural milieu with decidedly different sexual scruples than the apostle and to forego retaliation in the face of external opposition (note, for example, 1 Thess 4:3–8; 5:15). It is not least when Paul is seeking to commend Jewish/Old Testament ethical, including sexual, values to his primarily Gentile communities that one can observe the ongoing relevance of the law for Paul, despite the apostle’s insistence that “no one will be justified by the works of the law” (Gal 2:16; cf. Rom 3:20). Paul is not being disingenuous, I would contend, when he

240

Todd D. Still

insists in Romans 7 that the law is holy and good (vv. 12, 16). Indeed, it offers valuable instruction and affords ethical direction to those who are willing to hear and heed it. Yet, for Paul, the law had reached its telos in Christ (Rom 10:4), and according to the apostle, those in Christ were to live and to be led by the empowering, indwelling Spirit, not simply the law (see Rom 8:1–17; Gal 5:16–18). In keeping in step with the Spirit, Christ-followers are to crucify “the flesh,” along with its sinful desires and injurious works, and to bear the fruit of the Spirit, against which Christ-like qualities there is no law (Gal 5:19–23). Mindful that they will be held accountable to Christ for what they do or fail to do during their earthly existence, whether good or bad, Christ-followers do well to do good (2 Cor 5:9–10). Indeed, Paul calls the Galatians not to grow weary in well-doing, knowing that in due time they will reap if they do not lose heart (Gal 6:9; cf. 2 Thess 3:13: “Do not grow weary in doing what is good”). Furthermore, he implores the Galatian congregations to “work for the good of all,” especially the household of believers, as there is time (καιρός, 6:10). Given Paul’s conviction that the time (καιρός) prior to Christ’s παρουσία was seemingly short, he encouraged the Corinthians to remain as they were when they became believers (1 Cor 7:20, 24, 26, 29). The apostle also appeals to the Romans “know the καιρός,” that is, to recognize that their salvation was nearer than when they first believed. Because the night was ending and the day was dawning, Paul calls Roman Christians to “set aside the deeds of darkness and to put on the armor of light” (Rom 13:11–12). This entailed clothing themselves in Christ and not making provision for the desires of the flesh (Rom 13:14). All told, Paul anticipated a time when spiritual gifts and graces as well as good works and deeds—and every other thing that one might describe as ἀγαθός or καλός for that matter—would give way to the τέλειος, even Jesus Christ at his coming (1 Cor 13:10). Then, God would be πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν (1 Cor 15:28), and, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” as God works all things for the good of those who love and are called by God (Rom 8:28). In the Preface to the revised edition of her widely circulated and highly praised volume The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Martha C. Nussbaum observes, “Few of us now believe that we live in a world that is providentially ordered for the sake of the overall good.”13 I strongly suspect, however, that not a few of the few who still believe such have fallen under the influence of Paul, who thought and taught of a resurrected, reigning, and returning Lord who would, as the Scripture asserts, put everything under his feet (1 Cor 15:27 citing Ps 8:6).

Paul and “the Good”

241

In short and in sum, then, Paul regarded the good life as a life grounded and given over to God, centered in Christ, empowered by the Spirit, embedded in ecclesial communities, committed to love and holiness, concerned about believers and outsiders, and buoyed by hope for adoption and redemption. Near the outset of what may well be his first surviving letter, Paul reports to the Thessalonians that he thanks God for their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 1:3). These Pauline pillars of a Christian existence commencing in faith, continuing in love, and culminating in hope offer a rough and ready summary of as well as a suitable portal into what the apostle saw to be good, indeed very good. Latterly, in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul arranges these three foundational pillars differently. He declares in 1 Cor 13:13: “But now remain faith, hope, and love—these three. But the greatest of these is love.” In his essay, “Uncommon Love and the Common Good,” Victor Paul Furnish maintains: “In the apostle’s thought, considered as a whole, the love of God made manifest and enacted in Christ constitutes ‘the good’—as God performs the good, as God wills its performance by humankind, and as God promises its fulfillment in the coming age.”14 God’s goodness, glory, and grace as displayed in the face of Jesus Christ propelled Paul to pursue and to seek to please the one who did not please himself, whom Paul perceived to be not only as ἀγαθός and καλός but also as the τέλος, and indeed the τέλειος. NOTES 1. Victor Paul Furnish (“Uncommon Love and the Common Good: Christians as Citizens in the Letters of Paul,” in In Search of the Common Good, ed. Dennis P. McCann and Patrick D. Miller [New York: T&T Clark International, 2005], 58–87 [on 83]) also observes that the “common good” was not a Pauline topic per se. 2. On these Pauline passages as they pertain to this particular topic, see further, for example, David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics (London: T&T Clark International, 2005), 261–272. 3. For probative parallels within works of the aforementioned authors, see further Furnish, “Uncommon Love,” 62–64. 4. This important point is the burden of Furnish’s learned and insightful essay “Uncommon Love.” 5. So, too, Furnish, “Uncommon Love,” 72. 6. The term δίκαιος, for example, may connote and even be rendered “good.” See, for example, Rom 5:7; Phil 1:7. That being said, Furnish is right to note that terms with a δίκ-stem have a special semantic field in Paul (“Uncommon Love,” 73 n.46). 7. See further Dorothea H. Bertschmann, “The Good, the Bad and the State— Rom 13.1–7 and the Dynamics of Love,” NTS 60 (2014): 232–249.

242

Todd D. Still

8. On this notoriously difficult passage, see now Will N. Timmins, Romans 7 and Christian Identity: A Study of the ‘I’ in Its Literary Context, SNTSMS 170 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 9. See more fully John M.G. Barclay, “‘Do we undermine the Law?’: A Study of Rom 14:1–15:6,” in Paul and the Mosaic Law, ed. James D.G. Dunn, WUNT 89 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 287–308. 10. On 1 Corinthians 7, see, among others, Will H. Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, SNTSMS 83 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 11. See, for example, David J. Downs, The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts, WUNT 248 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008). 12. On Philemon, see among many others Todd D. Still, Philippians & Philemon, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary 27b (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2011). 13. See Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, rev​.e​d. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), xv. 14. Furnish, “Uncommon Love,” 61.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barclay, John M. G. “‘Do We Undermine the Law?’: A Study of Rom 14:1–15:6.” Pp. 287–308 in Paul and the Mosaic Law. Edited by James D. G. Dunn. WUNT 89. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996. Bertschmann, Dorothea H. “The Good, the Bad and the State—Rom 13.1–7 and the Dynamics of Love.” NTS 60 (2014): 232–49. Deming, Will H. Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7. SNTSMS 83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Downs, David J. The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts. WUNT 248. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Furnish, Victor Paul. “Uncommon Love and the Common Good: Christians as Citizens in the Letters of Paul.” Pp. 58–87 in In Search of the Common Good. Edited by Dennis P. McCann and Patrick D. Miller. New York: T&T Clark International, 2005. Horrell, David G. Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics. London: T&T Clark International, 2005. Nussbaum, Martha C. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Still, Todd D. Philippians & Philemon. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary 27b. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2011. Timmins, Will N. Romans 7 and Christian Identity: A Study of the ‘I’ in Its Literary Context. SNTSMS 170. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Chapter 13

Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More The Contribution of Rhetorical Analysis Duane F. Watson

INTRODUCTION One of the most difficult passages of 1 John to interpret is 5:6–8.1 The immediately preceding verse asserts that Jesus is the Son of God. Then this passage further identifies Jesus the Son of God as Jesus Christ who came in water and blood. It continues by affirming that the water, blood, and Spirit testify to the identification of the nature and circumstances of the coming of Jesus Christ. The basic progression of the passage is clear, but the particulars are not. The referents of water and blood are unclear, as is the nature of their testimony in league with the Spirit. It is also unclear if there is any refutation of opponents here and what their position would have been in light of the argumentation. In this essay, I briefly outline current proposals for the referents of water and blood, noting their strengths and weaknesses. I then provide a rhetorical analysis of this passage from which emerges a new proposal that is more rhetorically sensitive to the multivalent nature of the words water and blood. I also address the nature of the testimony of water, blood, and Spirit, and the question of the presence of polemic against opponents.2 CURRENT INTERPRETATIONS OF WATER AND BLOOD I begin by briefly outlining and evaluating five current proposals for the referents of the words water and blood. This survey lays the groundwork for

243

244

Duane F. Watson

a new proposal that incorporates and reconfigures many elements of these interpretations in light of Greco-Roman rhetoric. Water and Blood as Baptism and Eucharist Many church fathers took a sacramental approach to this passage. They understood that the Spirit testifies to the truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, represented here by water and blood. These Fathers include Ambrose, Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria. The prepositions dia and en that precede the first and second reference to water and blood, respectively, are translated “with,” and Jesus Christ is understood to come “with” the sacraments.3 The Holy Spirit’s witness is understood to be the anointing of the Spirit within each Christian active at the sacraments (2:20). These three witnesses of the Holy Spirit, water (baptism), and blood (bread and wine) continue to affirm the truth about Jesus Christ to succeeding generations. Support for this position comes from the Gospel of John, where the word “water” in the phrase “born of water and Spirit” refers to baptism (3:5), and “eat my flesh and drink my blood” refers to the Eucharist (6:54–56). There are several problems with this interpretation. First, the aorist tense of the verb “coming” (erchomai) in water and blood indicates the coming was completed at a point in past time. If it meant every time the sacraments are celebrated, the verb would need to be in the present tense.4 Second, the main purpose of this passage is to uphold the ethos of the Christological confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came by water and blood. We have no reason to believe that anyone was affirming that Jesus came through the water-related sacrament of baptism and denying that he came through the blood-related Eucharist and therefore had to be reminded that Jesus comes through both sacraments. Besides, blood is not used by itself in the New Testament to respectively refer to the Eucharist.5 Third, the sacramental interpretation of this section has no attestation prior to the fourth century CE. Even Tertullian (De baptismo 16.1–2) argued that water in this passage refers primarily to Jesus’s own baptism and only secondarily to Christian baptism.6 Water and Blood as the Baptism and Death of Jesus Many interpreters understand water and blood to refer respectively to the baptism and death of Jesus.7 The verb “coming” is understood to refer, not to Jesus’s entrance into the world, but to his broader mission to save the world. His baptism and death identify him as the Son of God. Jesus was seen as the coming one in other Gospels in passages not referring to incarnation, but to his identity in prophecy as the coming one (Matt 11:3; Luke 7:20). Water

Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More

245

can certainly refer to baptism, for John the Baptist baptized with or in water (John 1:26, 31, 33; Mark 1:8; cf. Acts 1:5, 11:16), and blood is a natural way to refer to the death of Jesus (John 19:34; 1 John 1:7; Matt 27:4, 6, 8, 24–25; Acts 5:28). However, the Gospel of John only presupposes the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist (1:6–8, 15; 19–37; 3:22–36). It never describes it explicitly. Also, in light of the fact that water and blood are combined in Johannine tradition to refer to the death of Jesus (John 19:34), it is difficult to see why only blood would be used to refer to the death of Jesus in this letter. The same is true from the point of grammar. The use of a single preposition governing two anarthrous nouns, as is the case here with the first reference to water and blood, indicates one single event.8 Water and Blood as Jesus’s Death Some interpreters understand water and blood to refer to Jesus’s death. This is based on the fact that when the soldier speared Jesus’s side, blood and water flowed forth (John 19:34). This context of Jesus’s death is the only other place in Johannine literature combining water and blood. 1 John 1:7 and 2:2 refer to the blood and death of Jesus, so the crucifixion was on the author’s mind when he wrote 1 John. However, if the author had John 19:34 in mind, he had no reason to change the word order from blood and water to water and blood, or to distinguish between water and blood, which were part of one event. Water and blood are treated as two separate witnesses when combined in our passage with the Spirit as a trio of witnesses (v. 8). This would not be the case if water and blood signified the single event of the crucifixion. Also, if water and blood describe the death of Jesus, it is hard to see how they describe the coming of Jesus which they are intended to do in the passage.9 Water and Blood as Jesus’s Birth Another interpretation is that water and blood refer to the water and blood of birth at the incarnation of Jesus Christ. This position is seldom supported, being last championed by G. Richter.10 Although the Gospel of John is not clear when the incarnation took place, Richter assumed that it uses the language of coming (erchomai) to refer to the incarnation of Jesus (1:11; 5:43; 16:28). He pointed out that the Johannine Epistles refer to the incarnation using the verb coming (erchomai) with the preposition en (second reference in 5:6; 4:2; 2 John 7). Richter assumed that water and blood addressed Docetists who denied the physical body of Jesus and affirmed that he had a body made of water.

246

Duane F. Watson

In support of this position, birth imagery is found in 1 John in the references to God as the Father and Jesus as the Son of God (1:3; 2:22–23; 3:8; 4:9–10, 14–15; 5:1, 18), the latter of which is found in the immediate context in 5:5. However, Docetists did not emphasize Jesus coming in water and, if this is not so, then the emphasis on Jesus coming not just in water, but also in blood becomes absurd. Also, the Spirit, the third witness in this section, is associated with the baptism and death of Jesus in Johannine tradition, but not his incarnation.11 Water of Birth and Blood of Death Witherington argues that water is a cipher for Jesus’s birth and blood is a cipher for Jesus’s death. He observes that 1 John contains significant birth references. In 4:9, Jesus is the only begotten (monogenēs) of God. In 5:18, Jesus is the one who was born of God (gennaō). The Gospel of John refers to birth as being in water (3:5). In the Hebrew Scriptures, water can refer to semen, amniotic fluid, and birth (Prov 5:15–18; Song 4:12–15), as well as in other Jewish and ANE literature.12 However, not only does water refer to childbirth in Jewish literature of this time, but so does blood. For example, Leviticus 12 refers to the flow of blood from a woman who has given birth. There is no need to restrict the reference of birth to water only. Also, in light of John 19:34 where blood and water are related to the crucifixion, it seems unlikely that blood alone would refer to the crucifixion in 1 John. All of these proposals for the meaning of water and blood assume that there is a single referent for both words throughout the passage. In light of rhetorical features at play in this passage, water and blood are likely to have more than one referent. When this is acknowledged, interpretation can take a new direction. THE CONTRIBUTION OF RHETORICAL ANALYSIS Greco-Roman rhetoric offers a perspective on composition that is relatively contemporary with 1 John. It provides more flexible and natural options for framing the discussion and determining the meaning of 1 John 5:6–8. We know that Johannine literature is rich in repetition, metaphor, irony, wordplay, misunderstanding, multivalent references, intertextuality, and so much more.13 This passage is no exception. It exhibits Johannine rhetorical finesse, particularly in the use of figures of repetition and ambiguity, much of which is overlooked in current interpretation. The brief rhetorical analysis offered below guides interpretation of this passage in a direction more in league with the time in which it was written.

Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More

247

Proposition (5:6a) This passage begins with a proposition in v. 6a: “This is the one who came by water and blood,14 Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood.” The nature of the coming of Jesus Christ is put in the form of a confession. “This is” (houtos estin) is a standard Johannine Christological confessional formula (John 1:34; 4:42; 6:50, 58; 7:40, 41) similar to the confessional formula “you are” used in John’s Gospel by others to identify Jesus (John 1:50, 4:19; 6:69; 11:27).15 This confession probably derives from Johannine tradition as indicated by its affinities with John 19:30 and 34 and the Johannine title “the one who is coming” (John 1:15, 27; 12:13). As a part of the tradition, it bears the ethos of a krisis or judgment, an artificial proof of example giving an authoritative opinion of a people (Cicero, Inv. 1.30.48; Quint. 5.11.37, 42–44). Here the authoritative people are the Johannine community. By placing the title “Jesus Christ” emphatically at the end of the first clause, the argumentation stresses that Jesus Christ is the one who came by water and blood. The dual name assumes the unity of the human Jesus and the divine Christ. The argument uses repetition to amplify the nature of Jesus Christ’s coming: “by water and blood” becomes “not with the water only but with the water and the blood.” This amplification by repetition is created by a very rhetorically sophisticated mix of figures. Paronomasia is at work, a figure of speech with a variety of manifestations (Rhet. Her. 4.21.29–23.32; Quint. 9.3.66–75), two of which are used here: repetition of a word with different case endings (Quint. 9.3.66) and a word used with different senses (Quint. 9.3.69).16 Water is used in the genitive case in its first instance and in the dative case in the second and third instances, and the referent of water is not quite the same in all three instances, as discussed below. In this repetitive mix, reduplication also plays a role. Reduplication (anadiplosis, conduplicatio) is a figure of speech constituted by “the repetition of one or more words for the purpose of Amplification or Appeal to Pity” (Rhet. Her. 4.28.38; cf. Quint. 9.3.28–29).17 The word amplified is used immediately and in the same part of speech, and here water is used three times and all as an object of a preposition. Reduplication is often used in conjunction with paronomasia (Quint. 9.3.67). This reduplication includes the use of the figure of speech called distinction (paradiastolē, distinctio), which differentiates between similar things (Quint. 9.3.65, 82).18 Verse 6 is distinguishing how Jesus Christ came: “not with the water only, but with the water and the blood.” The distinction is between two differently nuanced meanings of water which will be discussed shortly. There is also dissociation here in which a seemingly unified concept is separated into two aspects and assigned a hierarchy of value and truth.19 The passage

248

Duane F. Watson

shows that water is not a unified concept. There is a coming in water and a coming in water and blood, the later of which is going to be dissociated from the former and designated as a different and more complete description of the coming of Jesus Christ in which water has a different designation. Within this repetition, reduplication, distinction, and dissociation, there is also the use of the figure of thought known as ambiguity (amphibolia, ambiguitas).20 Ambiguity was a positive element of style and often employed in dissociation to resolve a theoretical incompatibility.21 The word “water” and the phrase “water and blood” can have different and even overlapping referents within the distinction and dissociation. Their referents can be ambiguous and fluid—and likely are—because distinction and dissociation are used to uncover fine nuances. There is no need to restrict the referent of water and blood to the water of Jesus’s baptism and the blood of his death, or the water and blood of Jesus’s death, the water and blood of Jesus’s birth, or the water of his birth and the blood of his death as discussed above. Being conscious of the role that ambiguity may be playing in the referents of water and blood in this passage can clarify its meaning and address residual problems that the traditional interpretations of this passage outlined above have not been able to resolve. Regardless of the position taken on the referent of the singular occurrence of water and the two occurrences of water and blood in v. 6, they identify Jesus the Son of God in v. 5 as Jesus Christ who came. Distinction and dissociation affirm that water alone does not adequately describe the coming of Jesus Christ—it must be water and blood. This distinction and dissociation are superfluous if there is no one claiming that water alone defines Jesus Christ as the Son of God. In such a claim, the water of his birth or his baptism is the logical referent of water. Arguing that the water of birth alone demonstrates that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is unlikely because water does not adequately describe the birth process. For that, blood is needed as well. Within Johannine tradition, the baptism of Jesus is a more viable option for the argument that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came in water. John testified that Jesus was the Son of God because it was upon him that the Spirit descended at his baptism (John 1:29–34). Our passage is not denying that water is in part descriptive of the coming of Jesus Christ and indicative of his identity, only that water is not fully adequate to do so. Blood needs to be added. To affirm that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is to affirm that he came by the water and blood. With this addition, the argument moves the discussion beyond the water of baptism. In this distinction and dissociation in v. 6, the preposition dia precedes the first occurrence of water and blood which lack definite articles. This construction indicates that water and blood constitute a single entity. The lexicon argues that this is a description of how Jesus came (BDAG, 223–24).

Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More

249

Thus, the aorist participle “the one who came” (ho elthōn) is “a historical reference designed to attach ‘Son of God’ and ‘Christ’ to Jesus in specific circumstances of his earthly career.”22 There is only one single historical circumstance that makes this connection: the birth of Jesus in water and blood. The emphasis on “coming by water and blood” confronts a short-sighted emphasis upon baptism as a defining moment in which the coming of Jesus Christ demonstrates that he is the Son of God. The emphasis is now on his birth as a defining moment of his identity. Water is associated with physical birth in the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish tradition contemporary with 1 John.23 In John 3:5, Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Water here is typically understood to refer to physical birth in contrast to spiritual birth.24 However, blood is also associated with birth, for Leviticus 12 refers to the flow of blood from a woman who has given birth. This understanding of water and blood as that of Jesus’s birth finds support in 1 John in 4:2 where “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,” 4:9 where Jesus is the only begotten (monogenēs) of God sent into the world, and 5:18 where Jesus is the one who was born of God (gennaō). It explains the change of word order from blood and water in the account of the crucifixion (John 19:34) to water and blood since in childbirth the water breaks first and the blood comes second. This interpretation does not preclude water and blood from also referring to the water and blood that came from Jesus’s side at the crucifixion since they can only flow when one has a human body, that is, has come by water and blood. Ambiguity within distinction and dissociation allows water and blood to have these simultaneous multiple referents. As mentioned above, the first occurrence of water and blood has the preposition dia (agency—through or by) preceding water and blood without the definite articles indicating a singular event like the birth of Jesus Christ at his coming (through the agency of the womb). The following reference to water alone has the preposition en (in) preceding water with the definite article, while in the second occurrence of water and blood, the preposition en (in) precedes both water and blood, each having the definite article. The change of preposition to en for instrumentality allows the singular occurrence of water to refer to baptism in water which is being rejected as an adequate description of the coming of Jesus Christ, Son of God. The change of preposition allows the second occurrence of water and blood to amplify that he came in the water and in the blood of birth—a literal baptism in both—not just water baptism alone. External Proof of Testimony: The Spirit (5:6b) 1 John 5:6b affirms that the Spirit confirms the truth of the judgment derived from Johannine tradition in v. 6a that Jesus Christ came by water and blood:

250

Duane F. Watson

“And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.” This refers to an inward witness derived from anointing by the Spirit (2:20–21, 26–27; 4:13; cf. 3:24) that the passage affirms will enable the faithful to know that the Johannine tradition of Jesus Christ coming in water and blood is true. The Spirit’s testimony is a reliable external proof, for the Spirit is true (4:6; cf. John 14:17; 15:26; 16:14) and testifies about Jesus (John 15:26–27). External Proof of Testimony Amplified: The Holy Spirit, Water, and Blood (5:7–8) The confession that Jesus came by water and blood is testified by the Spirit in 5:6b. Now in 5:7–8, it is further affirmed that: “There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”25 This is amplification by augmentation of 5:6b. It lends ethos to the Spirit’s testimony because it is based on the tradition as found in Deut 17:6 and 19:15 that two or three witnesses are needed to verify the truth of a statement (cf. John 5:31–38; 8:17–18; Matt 18:16; 1 Tim 5:19). In Jewish thought, testimony can be given by impersonal witnesses such as these (Gen 31:43–50; Deut 31:28; 1 En. 100:11).26 That there are three witnesses is amplified by the emphatic position of “three” at the beginning of the sentence and the personification of this trio. The affirmation that the witnesses agree so much as to be one (lit. “the three in the one”) underscores the strength and unity of the witness that Jesus Christ came in water and blood. Both the water and blood of Jesus’s birth and death can witness to the fact that Jesus Christ came in more than the water of baptism, although the water and blood of death is the more prominent referent here. In biblical tradition, shed blood can speak or testify. God says to Cain that “your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!” (Gen 4:10). Christians have come “to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb 12:24). The blood of the martyrs beseeches God from below the altar (Rev 6:9–11). The only other joint reference to water and blood in Johannine literature is found in the crucifixion account in John 19:34–35: “Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth)” (John 19:34–35). The Beloved Disciple witnessed the flow of blood and water, and his testimony to it is true and undergirds the Johannine tradition (21:24).27 The water and blood can testify through the Johannine tradition and through the Spirit’s internal testimony to the truth of the Johannine tradition that Jesus Christ came by the water and blood of birth so evident in the blood and water of his death (1 John 2:20–21, 26–27; 4:13; cf. 3:24). In 1 John 4:2–3, this is the role of the Spirit: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus

Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More

251

Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” Confessing by the Spirit that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is to confess that he came by water and blood of birth and death. More may be involved in this united trio of testimony. If the water and blood refer to the water and blood of Jesus’s birth and death, then the Spirit/ spirit may also refer to the life spirit of the mortal Jesus Christ that he received at birth and handed over at the crucifixion (John 19:30; Luke 23:46; cf. Mark 15:37, Matt 27:50). Thus, the loss of his spirit, water, and blood at the crucifixion also testifies to the incarnate nature of Jesus Christ. The Spirit here in 1 John 5:8 testifies to the mortal nature of Jesus Christ as Son of God. It is the very testimony of God comprised of the unified voice of the Spirit, water, and blood in the heart of believers (vv. 9–10). POLEMICAL UNDERTONES There remains the question of whether or not this passage is refuting a claim of opponents and, if so, just what that claim might be. It has been understood that the confession of v. 5:6a refutes the opponents’ position that Jesus came in water only, that is, the nature of Jesus Christ as Son of God was revealed to the world at his baptism with the descent of the Spirit as a dove. More specifically, it has been proposed that the opponents were espousing that the heavenly Christ joined the earthly Jesus at his baptism to proclaim the words of salvation and departed from Jesus prior to the crucifixion. Nothing beyond the words of salvation, such as crucifixion, was necessary for salvation. Thus, the opponents could argue that Jesus was not the Christ (2:22). This was a gnostic position held by Cerinthus (Irenaeus, Haer. 1.26.1–2) and Valentinus (Haer. 3.11.2–3). It is surmised that the ordering of water and blood instead of blood and water, as in the crucifixion scene of John 19:34, indicates that the passage is refuting opponents who prioritize water baptism as the revelation of the unified Jesus Christ. What does rhetorical analysis indicate about possible polemic and its content from this passage? The use of distinction and dissociation in v. 6 is rhetorically superfluous if no one is claiming that Jesus Christ came in water only. If this is a claim of opponents, the water of the baptism of Jesus was being overemphasized as the moment of the coming of Jesus Christ, Son of God. This fits traditional interpretation of the opponents’ claim regardless of how that claim is defined. The argument of our passage based on the birth and the death of Jesus using the imagery of water and blood, which is grounded in Johannine tradition (v. 6a), is superfluous unless some group was denying the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus Christ as defining his coming. The external proof of the testimony of the Spirit that the faithful experience internally (v. 6b) and the

252

Duane F. Watson

external proof of the trio of testifiers (vv. 7–8) that undergirds Johannine tradition on the coming of Jesus with water and blood of birth and death are most appropriate when that tradition is being challenged. Rhetorical analysis is not able to identify the specific group to which the opponents belong, but it does indicate that a claim running counter to Johannine tradition is being refuted.

CONCLUSION Interpretations of 1 John 5:6–8 that allow only one referent to water, blood, and Spirit have not proven to provide a satisfactory reading of the passage. When the rhetoric of repetition, distinction, dissociation, and ambiguity is acknowledged to be at work in this passage as part of the rhetorical invention and style, a more satisfactory reading is possible. If the key terms water, blood, and Spirit are acknowledged to have multiple and overlapping referents, then the passage’s multiple connections with Johannine tradition clarify and enrich the reading. Water and blood of birth (first reference) are emphasized as superior to the water of baptism for identifying Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This is also true of the spirit, water, and blood of death of one born in water and blood (second reference). The Spirit testifies to the truth of this claim through the internal witness that it provides the faithful. The water of baptism undergirded John the Baptist’s testimony that Jesus was the Son of God, but this testimony is not enough. The water and blood of birth and death, and the Holy Spirit, as well as the life spirit of Jesus that he gave up with his water and blood, can all testify that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The argumentation of this passage does not dismiss the claim that Jesus Christ came in water—only that blood needs to be added to the claim. It moves the claim from the water of baptism to the water and blood of birth and death so that the entire life of Jesus Christ, Son of God, was one of incorporation in the flesh. It emphasizes that to limit the identification of Jesus Christ as Son of God to the water of baptism is to ignore the incarnate nature of his entire life. The flow of water and blood from the side of Jesus Christ—his crucifixion—was salvific and definitive of his coming (1:7; 2:2; 4:10). It is the basis of the testimony of God through the water, blood, and Spirit that God gave us eternal life and that life is in his Son (5:9–12).

NOTES 1. For a full discussion of the various interpretations of this passage, see Raymond Brown, The Epistles of John, AB 30 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 572–585, 595–599; Judith M. Lieu, I, II, & III John, NTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox,

Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More

253

2008), 208–215; Stephen S. Smalley, 1 ,2, 3 John, WBC 51 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1984), 277–283; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Johannine Epistles, trans. Reginald and Ilse Fuller (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 232–238; Georg Strecker, The Johannine Letters, ed. Harold Attridge, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 182–192; John Painter, 1, 2, 3 John, SP 18 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002), 300–301, 302–309. 2. This essay emerged from research for my forthcoming commentary on the Johannine Epistles in the New Cambridge Bible Commentary edited by Ben Witherington III, whom we honor in this volume. 3. Brown, Epistles of John, 575. 4. Strecker, Johannine Letters, 182. 5. Ben Witherington III, “The Waters of Birth: John 3.5 and 1 John 5.6–8,” NTS 35 (1989): 160. 6. Brown, Epistles of John, 575; Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1- Timothy, and 1–3 John, Letters and Homilies Series 1 (Downers Grove, IL: IP Academic, 2006), 543. 7. Brown, Epistles of John, 578; Schnackenburg, Johannine Epistles, 232–234; Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, 278; Painter, 1, 2, 3 John, 305–307. Strecker (Johannine Letters, 182–186) adds the sacraments to baptism and death, since the baptism and death of Jesus are the basis of the sacraments. 8. Brown, Epistles of John, 577. 9. Painter, 1, 2, 3 John, 305–306. 10. G. Richter, “Blut und Wasser aus der durchbohrten Seite Jesu (Joh 19,34b),” MTZ 21 (1970): 1–21; repr., Studien zum Johannesevangelium, ed. J. Hainz, Biblische Untersuchungen 13 (Regensburg: Pustet, 1977), 120–142. 11. Brown, Epistles of John, 576. 12. “The Waters of Birth,” 155–160; idem, Letters and Homilies, 544–555. 13. Duane F. Watson, The Rhetoric of the New Testament: A Bibliographic Survey; Tools for Biblical Study 8 (Blandford Forum: Deo, 2006), 116–120, 178–179. 14. There is a textual variant adding spirit (pneumatos) to water and blood. It was probably suggested to scribes by vv. 6–8 where all three—spirit, water, and blood— are found; by v. 8 which has all three together; and by John 3:5 where water and spirit are mentioned together in Jesus’s dialogue with Nicodemus. Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (United Bible Societies, 1971), 715–716. 15. Brown, Epistles of John, 572–573. 16. Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, ed. David E. Orton and R. Dean Anderson; trans. Matthew T. Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, and David E. Orton (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 285–287, §637–639; Josef Martin, Antike Rhetorik: Technik und Methode (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1974), 304–305. 17. Lausberg, Handbook, 277–279, §619–622; Martin, Antike Rhetorik, 301–303. 18. Lausberg, Handbook, 296–297, §660–662; 334, §749; Martin, Antike Rhetorik, 306, 315. 19. Kathryn M. Olson, “Dissociation,” in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, ed. Theresa Enos (New York & London: Garland, 1996), 196–197; Chaim Perelman

254

Duane F. Watson

and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 411–415, 20. The Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition often discussed ambiguity in the context of legal issues (Cicero, Inv. 1.13.17; 2.40.116–41.121; Rhet. Her. 1.11.19; 1.12.20; 2.11; Quint. 3.6.43–46, 88; 7.9; Lausburg, Handbook, 96–97, §222–223; Martin, Antike Rhetorik, 44, 50–51). In such issues, ambiguity was a problem to be deciphered, not a boon to style and meaning. 21. Olson, “Dissociation,” 196. 22. Brown, Epistles of John, 573. 23. Witherington, “Waters of Birth,” 155–158. 24. Witherington, “Waters of Birth,” 158–160. 25. About the end of the fourth century, in the midst of the controversies about the Trinity, the “Johannine Comma” was added to vv. 7–8 which supplemented the verses with the heavenly witness of the Trinity: the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit. However, the addition is not original to the text. For a full discussion of this addition, see Metzger, Textual Commentary, 716–718; Brown, Epistles of John, 775–787; Strecker, Johannine Letters, 188–191. 26. Brown, Epistles of John, 581. 27. Brown, Epistles of John, 597–598.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Raymond E. The Epistles of John. Anchor Bible 30. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1982. Lausberg, Heinrich. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric. Edited by David E. Orton and R. Dean Anderson. Translated by Matthew T. Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, and David E. Orton. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Lieu, Judith. I, II, & III John. New Testament Library. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. Martin, Josef. Antike Rhetorik: Technik und Methode. Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1974. Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. United Bible Societies, 1971. Olson, Kathryn M. “Dissociation.” In Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, edited by Theresa Enos. New York; London: Garland, 1996. Painter, John. 1, 2, and 3 John. Sacra Pagina 18. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2002. Perelman, Chaim, and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Translated by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969. Richter, Georg. “Blut und Wasser aus der durchbohrten Seite Jesu (Joh 19,34b).” Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 21 (1970): 1–21.

Water, Blood, and Spirit in 1 John 5:6–8 Once More

255

———. Studien zum Johannesevangelium. Edited by Josef Hainz. Biblische Untersuchungen, Bd. 13. Regensburg: Pustet, 1977. Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Johannine Epistles. Translated by Reginald and Ilse Fuller. New York: Crossroad, 1992. Smalley, Stephen S. 1, 2, and 3 John. Word Biblical Commentary. Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1984. Strecker, Georg. The Johannine Letters. Edited by Harold W. Attridge. Translated by Linda M. Maloney. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1996. Watson, Duane F. The Rhetoric of the New Testament: A Bibliographic Survey. Tools for Biblical Study 8. Blandford Forum: Deo, 2006. Witherington III, Ben. Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: A SocioRhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1–2 Timothy and 1–3 John. Letters and Homilies Series 1. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2006. ———. “The Waters of Birth: John 3.5 and 1 John 5.6–8.” New Testament Studies 35 (1989): 155–60.

Chapter 14

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God Theological and Ecumenical Reflections N. T. Wright

INTRODUCTION Among the great debts owed by Anglicans (like me) to Methodists (like my old friend Ben Witherington), we must think of the remarkable hymns which, penned by John Wesley and particularly by his brother Charles, have gone on to enrich the whole church. Their warmth of spirituality, depth of devotion, and challenge to personal holiness were badly needed by my eighteenthcentury Anglican predecessors; in fact, we need all that just as much today. Many Christian traditions down the years have reinforced that call to present-day holiness by robust teaching about the life to come. Charles Wesley’s hymns are no exception. I have often raised an eyebrow at his application of Revelation 4 (“till we cast our crowns before thee”) to the future life in “heaven”; that scene, arguably, refers not to the final state of blessedness (which is described in Revelation 21 and 22) but to the heavenly dimension of present ongoing life.1 But the emphasis on the future as giving meaning to the present is always welcome. That ultimate future, however, has been variously imagined in different Christian traditions. While from one point of view, the Wesleys may be seen as warm-hearted anticipations of twentieth-century evangelicalism, we find at various points in their work references to a doctrine more familiar from Roman and Orthodox circles: O God, my hope, my heavenly rest, My all of happiness below, Grant my importunate request, 257

258

N. T. Wright

To me, to me, Thy goodness show; Thy beatific face display, The brightness of eternal day.2

This hymn by Charles Wesley echoes, as did many of the mediaeval theologians, the scene in Exodus 33 where Moses, faced with the threat that the divine presence would not, after all, accompany the Israelites to the Promised Land, prays not only that the threat will be rescinded but also that he himself will be allowed to see the divine glory. “You shall see my back,” comes the response, “but my face shall not be seen” (Exodus 33.23). Undeterred, Wesley presses on: that was then, this is now. Clinging confidently to the gospel promise that “the pure in heart shall see Thy face,” he asks for a Christ-focused face-to-face vision which will result in nothing short of divinization itself: More favoured than the saints of old, Who now by faith approach to Thee, Shall all with open face behold In Christ the glorious deity; Shall see, and put the Godhead on, The nature of Thy sinless Son.3

The boldness of this prayer, and this claim, are of course matched in some other traditions, not least in the Eastern Church. But they are rare indeed in the West. The great scholar-bishop B. F. Westcott, who might perhaps have been expected to be more open than some to such ideas, commented on 1 John 3:2 that, when speaking of a “final transfiguration,” the Greek Fathers “did not scruple to speak of men as being ‘deified.’” But he commented that “the phrase sounds strange to our ears.”4 In other words, whatever other influences may have been making their way from the Wesleys into the Anglican tradition, “divinization” was not one of them. Nor has the “beatific vision” itself, at least in its developed forms, always featured prominently in the wider world of modern theology. It receives hardly any mention in the nearly 1,000 pages of David Ford’s essay-collection entitled The Modern Theologians, and then only as an incidental feature here and there.5 Where it has featured, it is sometimes because some have advocated it as a welcome Platonic alternative to the resurrection of the body.6 Even without this sharply posed alternative, many problems have been observed within the doctrine as often held, not least the promotion of an intellectualist and individualist, not to say solitary, spirituality.7 Thus, as Ben Witherington has argued, insofar as the New Testament is the ground for the doctrine, this “vision” is something that “happens in the midst of the peoples

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

259

of God, not as an isolated, mystical experience.”8 I suspect that this insistence owes something at least to the view of John Wesley, contrasted with his enthusiastic brother Charles, that what mattered in the end was as much “social holiness”—a renewal of society and ordinary life in the present—as the flight of the individual soul to the heights of solitary mystical contemplation. At this point, Westcott, “the Miners’ Bishop” as he is still known in Durham, would certainly have agreed. THE TURN TO THE “BEATIFIC VISION”: A CASE STUDY These opening reflections may serve to introduce the central topic of this paper: the rather sudden revival in Western systematics of the “beatific vision” as a major focal point. Out of many recent studies, I have in mind two in particular, of which, for reasons of space, I will focus on only one. The first is John Saward, Sweet and Blessed Country: The Christian Hope for Heaven (Oxford: OUP, 2005); the second, fuller and more recent, is Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018). Boersma’s book invites an oblique comparison with Kenneth Kirk’s Bampton Lectures of 1928, published as The Vision of God: The Christian Doctrine of the Summum Bonum (London: Longmans, 1932). Neither of the books attempts a full historical survey of the doctrine, though both provide substantial material for such a study. Kirk’s book focuses on the implications of the beatific vision on moral theology, while Boersma’s offers more detailed accounts of its various expressions in both expected (Aquinas) and unexpected places (among the latter are fascinating chapters on John Donne and Jonathan Edwards). In relation to my opening remarks, it is sad that neither Kirk nor Boersma pays any attention to the appearance of the doctrine in the Wesleys. Boersma does not mention Methodism. Kirk touches on it only to highlight, with what feels uncomfortably like Anglican Schadenfreude, the unpleasant polemic directed against Wesley (because of his insistence on serious holy living) by the ultra-Calvinist A. M. Toplady.9 Boersma’s book displays, as one would expect, wide and subtle theological learning. He teases out important variations, not least those which have to do with the tricky distinction between the vision of God enjoyed in the ultimate resurrection and the possible penultimate vision ascribed to those who have died but not yet been raised. Even stating this distinction becomes difficult when, as with so much of the tradition, not least in the modern period, “life after death” has been spoken of simply in terms of “heaven,” rather than in the biblical terms of “new creation,” the “new heavens and new earth”

260

N. T. Wright

promised in Revelation 21 and elsewhere. We cannot stress too often that the Bible never uses the word “heaven” to denote either the location, or the state, of the dead. Leaving that aside for the moment, we are grateful for the way in which Boersma expounds and distinguishes the various developing views, not least his clear display of the way in which Platonic thought, coming into the bloodstream of the Patristic tradition, helped to privilege the idea of “sight” itself, and the emphasis on the pilgrimage of a soul toward the ultimate goal, however variously developed. I particularly welcome his insistence, in company with others from different traditions, that whenever we speak of the vision of God, this ought always to be understood as mediated through Jesus Christ. This raises another important question, however: when we speak of Jesus Christ, are we starting with the Jesus of the four Gospels, or the somewhat abstract Christ-figure of the creeds?10 Boersma is very clear about his underlying motives for undertaking this study and advocating a retrieval of the Platonic tradition of the beatific vision. He understands Western modernity to be characterized, in wider culture and also in much Christian thought, by the holding firmly apart of God’s realm and the human realm. The world has become disenchanted. “Natural” and “supernatural” have been split away from one another. The focus is on the “immanent,” with the “transcendent” assumed to be absent, or at least a long way off. He accuses much theology of complicity with all this, and points out that such a view is untrue to the greater Christian tradition as a whole. For earlier Christian thinkers, the different spheres of God’s world overlap and interlock in various (sometimes bewildering) ways. Time itself is not simply a plodding procession of one thing after another, but a many-faceted continuum within which past events can be recalled (as with the Exodus at every Passover, to look no further) and future ones anticipated (as with the ultimate feast of new creation, coming forward to meet us in the Eucharist). Boersma insists that present human life ought to be—indeed, in our deepest instincts already is—oriented toward the ultimate future goal, the “telos,” which is God’s purpose for us. Since I agree with all this—and have, in fact, been advocating this way of looking at things for many years—I am naturally pleased to discover our convergence at this level of generality. But Boersma’s diagnosis of the problem, frequently repeated, does not, in my view, warrant his proposed remedy.11 Hans Boersma, like Kenneth Kirk before him, makes two basic claims. First, the doctrine of the Beatific Vision has always been central to Christian faith and practice. Second, it is widely taught in Scripture. The former, though easier to defend than the latter, is dramatically overstated when Boersma says such things as “most Christians have regarded [the beatific vision] as the object of their ultimate hope.”12 While “seeing God” is clearly one element in the more generally expressed hope for “heaven,” it is that hope, rather

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

261

than the specific feature, that has been prominent for many. But the second claim appears to me startlingly off target. The Bible does, of course, speak of the human desire to see God; the longing for such vision; the prayer, hope, and promise that it may be realized; and the fresh focus of the hope on Jesus himself. All of that is true. But the small selection of uncontextualized verses upon which Boersma relies so heavily to make his “biblical” case do not, in fact, support the much larger thesis that he wants to present. I counter his assertion with another: the Bible as a whole does not privilege or prioritize the seeing of God in the way that he, and (it seems from his presentation) much of the tradition, want to do. In fact, by focusing so intently on this one theme, Boersma, together with the tradition he catalogs, manages to miss or marginalize some of the main, formative and shaping themes which the Bible itself, and indeed Jesus himself, offer as central. Among those themes is the one which, arguably, is even more central to the Bible’s vision of the ultimate human destiny. This theme is the true “telos,” the goal that humans know in their bones they were made for, which can be focused on the vocation to be image-bearers. In other words, I agree with Boersma that humans are hard-wired to pursue in the present the ultimate future goal, but I disagree with the statement of what that goal is. In fact— and this is the ultimate answer to Boersma’s whole project—the Bible itself offers a full, satisfying, nuanced metaphysic of creation and new creation in which precisely those aspects of interlocking space, time, and reality which Boersma rightly sees to have been abandoned by modern secularism are retained, celebrated, and focused in a way which has no need of assistance from Plato and his followers. Explaining all this in detail would take a book, not an article. I must content myself with brief statements of each point, though I shall spell out the first one slightly more fully. Biblical Texts I begin with specific texts. Boersma speaks of the “many biblical passages” which indicate the central importance of the beatific vision.13 But he routinely cites a very small handful of references, hardly any of which in fact offer support for the Platonic tradition he is proposing. Beginning with the most obvious: in Matthew 5.8, Jesus declares a blessing on the pure in heart, “for they shall see God.” Well, yes. Like much else in Jesus’s teaching, this picks up a theme from the Hebrew scriptures. But this is the sixth “beatitude” from a list of nine. There is no indication that the sixth is to be given priority; it is neither the first, nor the last, nor the central climax of the list. One might as well pick any of the others, since they are all themes which are developed variously in the early church and indeed in Matthew’s narrative. Why not, for a start, highlight the third one: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth! Sadly

262

N. T. Wright

that might prove too “worldly” for Boersma; too immanent, even. But it was not for Jesus. Or what about the seventh, invoking God’s blessing on the peacemakers who will be called God’s children? The gospel vocation to be, and to live as, “the children of God” (an ancient Israel-designation) is more prominent by far in Scripture, not least the New Testament, than any mention of “the vision of God.” Ought we not to conclude that all the Beatitudes matter equally, and that they all ought to be held in balance? What is more, if the sixth Beatitude had been especially important for Jesus and his first followers, despite Matthew giving us no hint to that effect, why is it omitted in Luke’s parallel (Luke 6.20–23)? In particular, Matthew sets the whole list within the context of Jesus’s announcement of God’s kingdom. After a century of debate, there should be no real doubt what this refers to—and it is not the “afterlife,” the “hereafter” as Boersma often calls it. Matthew’s version of the phrase, “kingdom of heaven,” does not parse out as meaning “heaven” in either the ancient or the modern sense. It is the Semitic equivalent, as is well known, of the more frequent “kingdom of God”; and God’s kingdom, as Jesus taught his followers to pray, was to come “on earth as in heaven.” We cannot use “kingdom” or “kingdom of God” as a synonym for “the ultimate state of post mortem bliss”—or at least, if we do, we ought to realize that we are stepping a long way away from the scriptural basis to which we might appear to be appealing. In fact, one of the most obvious things we really know about Jesus of Nazareth—whom orthodox Christologists confess as the living human embodiment of Israel’s God—is that he went about announcing that Israel’s hope, for the covenant God to become king on earth as in heaven, was now coming true, even though it did not look like people thought it would. By what right does any theologian ignore this theme (perhaps as being too “worldly”?) and, nudged by the Platonic tradition, select one verse out of Jesus’s complex and interwoven tapestry of kingdom-teaching and make it mean something clearly at odds with the rest of the gospel narrative? Nor does Boersma take up the challenge offered by John’s gospel, that of seeing the glory of God in the actual events of Jesus’s public career. Jesus changed the water into wine at Cana in Galilee “and displayed his glory” (2:11). That phrase obviously refers back to the climax of John’s Prologue (1:14), where, with the Word “becoming flesh and tabernacling amongst us,” “we gazed upon his glory.” “Did I not tell you,” says John’s Jesus (11:40) to the grieving Martha before raising her brother from the dead, “that if you believed you would see God’s glory?” It is all very well to say that we are to see God in and through Jesus Christ. The Jesus Christ known in Scripture is displayed in the four Gospels, doing and saying what he did and said in the short blaze of unexpected glory that constituted his public career and shameful death. All four Gospels are indeed inviting us to gaze upon the

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

263

living God. Mark’s gospel, in particular, has a good deal to say about people who are blind being given their sight, and Mark uses this rather obviously to highlight the need to recognize and confess Jesus as Messiah. But the purpose of being able to see is not that such people should then remain in delighted contemplation, but that they should follow Jesus on the way.14 The Gospels are encouraging, not flights of mystical vision, with the (perhaps disembodied) soul ascending to dizzy heights beyond the world of space and time, but the contemplation of the historical story of the life and death of a first-century Palestinian Jew, and the summons to follow him.15 Turning to Paul, Boersma, and others have made much of Paul’s single mention of a mystical experience. (His seeing of Jesus on the road to Damascus can hardly count as a programmatic statement of what all Christians ought to aspire to; Paul specifically declares it to be unique, indeed downright peculiar.16) In the second Corinthian letter, Paul declares that he (or at least “a man in Christ,” normally taken as an oblique self-reference) had had some kind of a vision fourteen years earlier, in which he was taken up into the third heaven, and/or into “paradise,” though he is not permitted to say what he heard there.17 Boersma, noting Paul’s refusal to say either what sort of experience this was (bodily or not?) or what he heard, aligns this with Dante’s difficulty in articulating his vision. He describes this as “the Pauline dilemma.”18 But this misses the whole point of what Paul is doing in this passage. As many commentators have recognized, he is here teasing the Corinthians, who, offended by his apparent weaknesses, wanted him to put on a display of apostolic power and prestige, including remarkable spiritual experiences. Paul had already caricatured their aspirations in chapter 11, by providing an apostolic cursus honorum of all the shameful things he had suffered, parodying the normal Roman “boasting list.” Now, in chapter 12, he deliberately plays with their desire to hear about “spiritual experiences” by describing an ascent into the third heaven (why not the seventh?), and by not being allowed, on return to normality, to say either what sort of experience it was or what language or words had been heard.19 Nor does he even mention the possibility of having seen God himself. The point Paul is making then becomes clear: these things are irrelevant for Paul, and they should be for the Corinthians as well. So far from this being an indication of a central theological and/or mystical concern for Paul—as though he was saying, “there you are, that’s what it’s all about!”—he was saying, “The thing that mattered was the thorn in the flesh; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” To take the deliberately evasive and teasing account of 12.1–5 and make it a paradigm of the much later idea of the beatific vision is both to abuse the passage itself and to miss completely the real point that Paul is making. The other regularly cited Pauline passages do not take us much further. First Corinthians 13.12 contrasts the present “puzzling reflections

264

N. T. Wright

in a mirror” with a future “face to face”; but, while the latter phrase does indeed echo what was said about Moses’s intimate relationship with God,20 by itself, the phrase can simply be a vivid way of saying “in plain sight.” There is, in fact, little in the surrounding passage to suggest that Paul is referring to seeing God in particular, rather than just “understanding everything.” One could suggest that the following phrase, about a final “knowing” which will match the way in which “I am completely known,” echoes God’s “knowing” as in 1 Corinthians 8.1–3. But to invoke one oblique hint to explain another is already to admit that Paul has neither highlighted nor privileged the “vision of God” in the way the later tradition would have wanted him to do. The same is true of 2 Corinthians 5.7: when Paul says that “we walk by faith, not by sight,” he is simply underlining the difference between present “absence from the Lord” with the future “presence,” as in Philippians 1.23 (where his mention of that future does not include a reference to “sight”). He is talking about the present struggle and the future judgment (2 Corinthians 5.10), not about the soul attaining a beatific vision. It is interesting that the only mention in Boersma’s book of the parallel material in Romans 8, where Paul speaks of hoping for that which we do not presently see (8.23–25), comes in his discussion of Augustine, and ignores—as does Augustine himself—what Paul is actually talking about. The apostle is not speaking there of leaving this world and going away to “the heaven of heaven,” the caelum caeli in which “the soul will enter into the joy of its Lord and be absorbed in divine contemplation without confusion, distraction, or cessation.”21 Paul is focusing, in Romans 8.18–30, not on leaving behind the present creation, but on the definite hope that God will redeem and renew it. This is the “hope that is not seen,” for which the believer waits with patience. This passage in Romans is perhaps the clearest statement of all that the ultimate promise of God is rooted in the biblical, rather than the Platonic, metaphysic. The other regularly cited passage is 1 John 3.2: “we know that when he is revealed we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” The verse is somewhat obscure because the subject might appear to be “God” (verse 1 speaks of believers being God’s children, and says that the reason the world does not know them is because it does not know him). The phrase “when he appears” (ean phanerōthē) in verse 2, however, echoes exactly the wording of 2.28, three verses earlier, where the subject is unquestionably Jesus Christ.22 The sequence of thought is then the same as that in Colossians 3.4. Having asserted that the life of the baptized believer is already hidden with Christos in God, Paul promises that when Christos is revealed—the Christos “who is your life”—“then you too will be revealed with him in glory.” Once more, though the element of the future transformative vision is present, it is not the focal point.

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

265

The thinness of Boersma’s repeated appeal to scripture appears if we stand back for a moment and enquire after the New Testament’s central statements of future hope. Ephesians 1.10 is emphatic and unambiguous: God’s plan is to sum up the whole cosmos in the Messiah, specifically all things in heaven and on earth. That points across to the classic statement of 1 Corinthians 15.1–28, which contextualizes the promise of resurrection within the broader statement of the Messiah’s already-won kingdom. The Messiah’s present reign will continue, says Paul, until death itself, the ultimate enemy, is defeated, and God is “all in all.” These passages assume, of course, a richly integrated cosmology in which heaven and earth, always made for one another, will finally be fully integrated. This promise is then fulfilled in chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation, where “the new heavens and new earth” descend from heaven to earth (no mention of souls ascending from earth to heaven!), with the new city described as the Holy of Holies in the cosmic temple. There, of course, the faithful are indeed promised that they will see God’s face, and that he will shine upon them like a lamp (22.4–5). But the context of this promise is not the ascent of the soul to the distant vision of God, but the descent of God to dwell with his human creatures in his restored creation. And, as the blessed ones in that new world have no need of sun or moon, so the theologians of today have no need to seek illumination from Plato or Aristotle. The biblical metaphysic (if that is the right way to refer to it), in which the Creator always desired and designed to come to dwell with his image-bearing human creatures, is enough. Its emphasis on the goodness of the created order makes no concessions to the modern secular materialism which Boersma is so anxious to avoid. The Missing Temple The irony of Boersma’s argument is the absence of the biblical theme of the Temple. That is where, in ancient Israel, worshippers came to gaze upon Israel’s God, insofar as they were allowed to do so, with sudden specific (and dangerous) manifestations being granted to certain prophets such as Isaiah or Ezekiel. To that extent—not that Boersma exploits this very much—the theme of “seeing God” is at least held out in principle. There are classic passages such as Psalm 27.4 (“One thing I asked of the Lord . . . to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his Temple”) and 63.2 (“So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory”23). But, as with the solitary Beatitude, these are one aspect of a larger whole, repeated time and again in scripture. The main point of the Temple, as I and others have argued at length, is not so much that people will come to gaze upon God there, but that God will come to dwell in the midst of his people. The Temple is itself, in fact,

266

N. T. Wright

ancient Israel’s central metaphysical symbol.24 The Creator’s intention from the beginning, in Israel’s scriptures, was to make a world as a dwelling for himself. That, after all, is what a temple is: a place where heaven and earth will overlap, with an image at its heart, reflecting each to the other (God to the world and the world back to God). That is why, of course, there is no image in the Jerusalem Temple: in ancient Israel’s creational monotheism, living human beings are the only fitting mirror to reflect the Creator’s love and power into his creation, and to reflect the worship of creation back to its maker. Thus, following the failure of the image-bearers, God’s call of Israel was not designed to provide a few favored humans with a vision of himself, though that occasionally and mysteriously is recorded in Genesis and Exodus (never as a model for others but precisely as a dangerous and fleeting moment for one or two). It had everything to do with God’s desire to dwell in their midst, as an advance foretaste of his eventual intention of filling the whole earth with his glory (Numbers 14.21). Thus, the creation of the Tabernacle as the climax of the book of Exodus, and then Solomon’s building of the Jerusalem Temple as the successor to the Tabernacle, form eschatological pointers to the coming reality of a whole renewed creation in which “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”25 There is a tension between present and future, since, in Isaiah’s Temple vision, the seraphim are singing that the whole earth is already filled with YHWH’s glory, as the Psalms also testify.26 But the Psalms themselves point to a fuller reality, to a time when, after Israel’s coming king has done justice for the poor and the needy, the divine glory will indeed flood the whole earth.27 This, again, is about as far removed from the modernist “worldliness” of which Boersma is so afraid as it is from his Platonic vision of souls leaving their this-worldly concerns and fleeing to a heavenly vision. I am no Wesley scholar, but I would not be surprised to discover that John Wesley was fond of Psalm 72, combining as it does exalted worship with a clear, strong vision of “social holiness” in the form of God’s passionate care for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. Indeed, one might suggest that it is only when the biblical vision of an eschatological filling of all creation with the divine presence is really grasped—and the concomitant personal “filling” with God’s Spirit embraced—that the often inchoate social agendas of various reformers can come within reach of genuine justice and mercy reaching out from the worshipping company of the church to embrace those in direst need. The central biblical metaphysic, in other words, envisages just that overlap and interplay of heaven and earth, and of present and future, for which Boersma is so strong an advocate. But instead of supposing that this is achieved by humans reaching up to God, following the lead of Plotinus and others and hoping to “return” to a heavenly “homeland,”28 the whole

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

267

narrative of Israel’s scriptures works the other way round. God, the Creator, intends to come and dwell with his people—indeed, in the end, to flood all creation with his loving and glorious presence. The Temple, and before that the Tabernacle, are the advance signs of this long-term promise. The whole New Testament, in a variety of ways, insists that this promise has come true in Jesus, not because he can see the Father but because we can see the Father in and through him. And it insists, furthermore, that the promise is even more true, in that the Spirit’s indwelling of Jesus’s followers is the advance instantiation of what God intends to do for the whole creation (as in Romans 8). What’s more, because the Spirit thereby simultaneously makes Jesus’s followers more truly human (“renewed in knowledge according to the image of the Creator”29) and also thus more “divinized,” they are thereby equipped to be not only participants in this eschatological goal but also active agents of it, precisely in their being the church for the world in the present time.30 But this leads to the next key point where I want to affirm the form of Boersma’s argument while challenging its substance. The Royal Priesthood Boersma is anxious that, in the modern period, the future goal has become detached from present reality. For him, the future goal is, of course, the beatific vision itself; and in good Aristotelian fashion, he believes that this telos is to be anticipated, so far as possible, in the present, in the sacramental overlap of heaven and earth.31 I completely agree with the diagnosis at the level of form: the question of “what we ultimately hope for” is regularly separated entirely from “who we are to be in the present,” and this needs addressing. But the biblical content of this is the spelling out of what it means for humans to be image-bearers. In the book of Revelation, arguably making explicit what is there in Paul, John, and elsewhere, we find the repeated theme that the Messiah’s victorious death has not only freed us from sin but has also “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and father.”32 The royal priesthood is the glorious human goal, and the Spirit-animated followers of Jesus already possess that vocation. The point of “royal priesthood,” in the biblical context, is that humans are called, and by Jesus’s rescuing death enabled, to stand at the threshold between heaven and earth, summing up the praises of creation before God (the “priesthood” bit) and being active stewards of God’s healing and justice-bringing purposes in his world (the “royal” bit). This vocation, highlighted in the specific biblical vocations of the Davidic kings on the one hand and the Aaronic priests on the other, is focused on the single human being Jesus of Nazareth in the four gospels, and then specifically shared with his followers through the work of his Spirit. I find it remarkable that, in all Boersma’s learned investigations of a Christian tradition which aspires to

268

N. T. Wright

“see God,” the notion of humans as image-bearers seems absent.33 This provides exactly what he says he is looking for, but it does so in a way which grows directly out of the scriptural vision of humans within the good (and tobe-restored) creation, not the vision of an (at best secondary) material world from which the soul longs to be liberated. In fact, it seems to me that the whole thrust of the “beatific vision” tradition, certainly as expounded by Boersma, is in exactly the opposite direction to the overall narrative of scripture. In the Bible, God the Creator is seeking to come and dwell with his people and within his world, not to train humans to leave the world and come to gaze upon him. Of course, insofar as the Creator’s intention is already realized, this does result in humans seeing God—supremely of course in the incarnate Jesus, as insisted upon by John in particular. That follows from the older scriptural idea of worshippers hoping to gaze upon God’s glory in the Temple, which only made sense because he had already come to dwell there. The idea of a Neoplatonic “ultimate good,” impassively contemplating its own complete goodness and being itself the object of contemplation for the “souls” that have attained their desire, is a million miles from the outward-flowing love of the Creator God as witnessed by the whole biblical tradition and as embodied in Jesus of Nazareth. And I suspect that John Wesley would have wanted to insist on the latter, against any attempts among his colleagues, or even his family, to pursue a supposedly spiritual quest which would develop the individual “soul” while failing to reach out to the poor. CONCLUSION There are many other themes crying out for discussion in Boersma’s fascinating book. I hope to return to them in other contexts. But as part of my grateful tribute to Ben Witherington, a fellow exegete and biblical theologian, I have to express an anxiety, which I know Ben will share, that in our day, biblical studies and systematic theology seem to have drifted further and further apart. I suspect that part of the reason is that many theologians today were put through a few courses on “Bible” in College or Seminary in which the main focus was on Greek roots or hypothetical synoptic sources rather than on the great theological themes. When faced with the real challenge of our times, then, with the divided world of Western secular modernity at the root of much of it, they have not been alerted to the biblical metaphysic, or to the themes of Temple and Image which bring that metaphysic into sharp and ultimately Christological focus. That biblical framework of cosmic and anthropological reflection ought to enable us to address the problems, and to reconstruct a robust, and (yes) sacramental eschatology, soteriology, and ontology for our

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

269

own times. What I see in Boersma, writ large, is what I have seen in many places: faced with modern Epicureanism, Christian theologians have fled back to Plato, without realizing that in rendering to Plato the things that are Plato’s they have failed to render to the God of Israel the things that are properly his. The question of the “Beatific Vision” is thus one example among many in which the Platonizing tendency has emerged into the light, leading to an attempted “use” of the Bible which rests content with a few proof-texts taken totally out of context.34 How we might address, let alone correct, this tendency, I am unsure. That we must try seems to me urgent. In terms of the ecumenical issue between Anglicans and Methodists, with which I began, I note that both our traditions have entertained various “mystical” elements on the one hand and very “practical” emphases on the other. With some—I mentioned Bishop Westcott earlier, and of course John Wesley himself would be another example—the two found a real convergence, though in neither case does this appear to have been rooted as deeply in Israel’s scriptures as I would now urge. Of course, part of a belief in the superabundance of grace, to which most Christian traditions give at least lip service, would be the glad recognition that God does not wait for his people to get everything “right” before he can work through them in the world. The fact of that overarching Providence does not, of course, excuse muddled or sloppy thinking. But the fact that we may see some convergences between our traditions—and, on our present topic, between Anglican and Methodist on the one hand and Roman Catholic and Orthodox on the other!—might appear as a sign of hope. To return to my earlier quotation from Ben Witherington’s commentary on Revelation: the vital thing is what happens in the midst of the peoples of God, not as an isolated mystical experience. If we could focus on that for a while, we might discern things about God—and about one another, including those with whom we are at present in sharp disagreement!—that we might not otherwise have noticed.35 NOTES 1. See my Surprised by Hope (London: SPCK; San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007), ch. 2. 2. From Methodist Hymn-Book no. 574; accessed at https://hymnary​.org​/hymn​/ MHB1884​/574. 3. https://hymnary​.org​/hymn​/CHUM1836​/408. 4. B. F. Westcott, The Epistles of St John (Appleford: Marcham Books, 1966 [1883]), 99–100, citing Athanasius. 5. For example, J. Milbank, “Henri de Lubac,” in D. F. Ford and R. Muers, eds., The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology Since 1918, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 76–91, at 81–83. The substantial treatment of eschatology

270

N. T. Wright

in A. C. Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 541–581, reaches the idea of God “making his face to shine” on his people, and hints at a consequent transformation, only in the closing sentences. 6. For example, A. R. Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine and Human (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 126– 128; discussed in R. Russell, “Cosmology and Eschatology,” in J. L. Walls ed., The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 563–580, at 569–570. 7. See, for example, D. W. H. Thomas, “Vision of God,” in M. Davie et al., eds., New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic, 2nd ed. (London: InterVarsity Press, 2016), 945–946. 8. Ben Witherington III, Revelation. The New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 255. 9. Kirk, 419–420. Boersma’s chapter on Calvin (257–278) is a fascinating attempt at a partial rescue of Calvin from Boersma’s general charge against the Reformers (258), that they belong within the broad trajectory of secularization, looking back to Nominalism and on, via philosophers like Hobbes, to modernity. This is the controversial thesis of B. S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society [Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2012]; see further Boersma 257–258.) 10. At this point, even those systematicians who currently explore the incarnation sometimes seem to me to skate over the actuality of the Gospel accounts: for example, I. A. McFarland, The Word Made Flesh: A Theology of the Incarnation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2019), esp. ch. 5. On the difference, see the remarks of H. Chadwick as discussed in my History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2019) (hereafter H&E), 122, 303 n. 149. 11. For the diagnosis: Boersma 47, 95, 102, 107, 111, 126, 132, 167, 257–258, 260, 355, 399, 400–401. My own analysis of the situation, and proposed remedies, are set out in H&E. 12. Boersma 387. See Kirk ix: “The traditional Christian formula, that the purpose of human life is to see God”; also 1: “Christianity had come into the world with a double purpose, to offer men the vision of God, and to call them to the pursuit of that vision.” 13. For example, 261, 393, 412. 14. See, for example, Mark 8.22–26 with 8.27–30 and then 8.30—9.1, and 10.46–52. 15. On the theophanic nature of all four gospels, see now especially R. B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016). 16. See, for example, 1 Cor. 15.8. Paul knows, in any case, that his seeing of the risen Jesus was “last of all”; see too 1 Cor. 9.1. 17. 2 Cor. 12.1–5. 18. Boersma 225. 19. See P. R. Gooder, Only the Third Heaven? 2 Corinthians 12.1–10 and Heavenly Ascent (London: T&T Clark, 2006), esp. chs. 11, 12. She concludes

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

271

(212–215) that the passage describes “not a successful but a failed ascent,” and that in any case, “ascent is not the primary purpose of the passage here.” Paul believes that mystical experience is possible, but is skeptical about its value: what counts is the promise that “my grace is sufficient for you” (12.9). On the way in which 2 Cor. 11–12 parodies Corinthian expectations, see, for example, my Paul and the Faithfulness of God (London: SPCK, 2013), 432–434. 20. For example, Exod. 33.11; Num. 12.8; Dt. 34.10. 21. Boersma 124. 22. See, for example, A. E. Brooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912), 82–83. The alternative subject of “revealed” is not, in any case, “God,” but “what we shall be,” as in the first half of the verse; that would match with 2 Cor. 5.1–5. See particularly Udo Schnelle, Die Johannesbriefe, Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament 17 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010), 116. Schnelle discusses the options and argues strongly that hoti ean phanerōthē refers to the Parousia of Jesus Christ, with the auto and auton of v. 2 having the same referent as the ekeinos of v. 3. 23. See too, for example, Ps. 96.6. 24. For what follows, see particularly H&E ch. 5. 25. Hab. 2.14, echoing Isa. 11.9. Boersma eventually brings the Tabernacle into his argument at 406, but seems to me to miss the point, which is not to enable Moses to see God (in whatever sense) but to enable God to dwell with his people. Boersma appears to glimpse this at 409, but then draws back again. 26. Isa. 6.3; Ps. 33.5; 119.64. 27. Ps. 72.19. 28. See Boersma 68–70 and his discussion of the similar theme in Augustine at 120–121. 29. Col. 3.11. 30. I am encouraged in these reflections, as in much else, by Ben Witherington making the “Image” the master-theme of his major work The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament (2 vols. Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity, 2009, 2010; later republished as New Testament Theology and Ethics (2016)). For the theme of active agency in this context, see H&E ch. 8. 31. Boersma 387–394 and elsewhere. 32. Rev. 1.6; 5.10; 20.6. The theme goes back to Israel’s calling in Exod. 19.6; see also 1 Pet. 2.5, 9. 33. At 426 n 114 he discusses one aspect of Gregory of Nyssa’s use of the “image,” but he (and Gregory) are making a quite different point. 34. Boersma is specific and unapologetic on the need to appeal to Plato: for example, 47. On the broader issue here see my essay “Historical Paul and ‘Systematic Theology’: To Start a Discussion” in Interpreting Paul: Essays on the Apostle and his Letters (London: SPCK 2020), ch. 7. 35. I am grateful for the comments, on an earlier draft, of Dr. Simon Dürr; and for advice about early Methodism (without his knowing why I was asking for it) from Ben Witherington himself.

272

N. T. Wright

BIBLIOGRAPHY Boersma, Hans. Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2018. Brooke, Alan England. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912. Gooder, Paula R. Only the Third Heaven?: 2 Corinthians 12.1–10 and Heavenly Ascent. Library of New Testament Studies 313. London: T&T Clark, 2006. Gregory, Brad S. The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2012. Hays, Richard B. Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016. Kirk, Kenneth. The Vision of God: The Christian Doctrine of the Summum Bonum. London: Longmans, 1932. McFarland, Ian A. The Word Made Flesh: A Theology of the Incarnation. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019. Milbank, J. “Henri de Lubac.” In The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology Since 1918, edited by David F. Ford and Rachel Muers, 2nd ed., 76–91. The Great Theologians. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Peacocke, A. R. Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine and Human. Theology and the Sciences. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1993. Russell, R. “Cosmology and Eschatology.” In The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, edited by Jerry L. Walls, 563–80. Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology. New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Saward, John. Sweet and Blessed Country: The Christian Hope for Heaven. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Schnelle, Udo. Die Johannesbriefe. Edited by Jens Herzer and Udo Schnelle. Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament 17. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2010. Thiselton, Anthony C. The Hermeneutics of Doctrine. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2007. Thomas, D. W. H. “Vision of God.” In New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic, edited by Martin Davie, Tim Grass, Stephen R. Holmes, John McDowell, and Thomas A. Noble, 2nd ed., 945–46. London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2016. United Methodist Church. The Methodist Hymnal: Official Hymnal of the United Methodist Church. (Nashville: Methodist Pub. House, 1966). Westcott, Brooke Foss. The Epistles of St. John. Appleford: Marcham Books, 1966. Witherington III, Ben. The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament. 2 vols. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2009. ———. New Testament Theology and Ethics. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2016.

The Vision of God and the Kingdom of God

273

———. Revelation. New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Wright, N. T. History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2019. ———. Interpreting Paul: Essays on the Apostle and His Letters. London: SPCK, 2020. ———. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. London: SPCK, 2013. ———. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. London; San Francisco: SPCK; HarperOne, 2007.

Chapter 15

“I am a Christian” Blandina’s Example of Christian Endurance and Courage Lynn H. Cohick

INTRODUCTION There have always been women who lived up to their moment in history. Queen Esther acted courageously “for such a time as this,” by saving her people from pogroms (Esth 4:14, NIV2011). Harriet Tubman earned the nickname “Moses” by bravely leading fellow slaves on the Underground Railroad to freedom. She endured countless nights in the open with fugitives, and not one was ever captured. Recently, Tammie Jo Shults showed unruffled courage when she made an emergency landing of Southwest Flight 1380 after the aircraft suffered catastrophic damage (April 17, 2018). Her valor in the face of great danger resulted in a safe landing, preserving all but one passenger’s life. Yet if I had asked the reader to think of a recent impressive emergency landing, my guess is that many would think first of Captain Sully’s “Miracle on the Hudson,” his incredible landing on the Hudson River of US Airways Flight 1549, on January 15, 2009. His story rightly received much praise. However, the relative disinterest in Captain Shults’s heroism points to our culture’s discomfort in discussing women’s bravery. Such discomfort was shared by the first-century world. The broader discussion about courage and endurance impacted the identity development of the earliest Christians. I argue that the Christian hope in the resurrection of the body embraced the feminine virtue of endurance as acceptable and laudable for Christian men and offered the masculine characteristic of active choice to women, that they might show “manly” courage. The Apostle Paul’s views on bodily resurrection contributed to the re-configuration of these virtues. Additionally, the martyr’s crucible of suffering bodily torture and death helped generate these 275

276

Lynn H. Cohick

views. Also contributing were earlier Jewish martyrdom texts and philosophical conversations about the role of endurance and courage in the pursuit of honor.1 “I am a Christian,” declares Blandina, a slave woman and martyr.2 She is among the group of Christian martyrs in Lyons (ancient Lugdunum) whose story is preserved by Eusebius (H.E. 5.1.1–63). She serves as a model for other Christians to emulate and, in the arena, as a physical representation of Christ. “I am a Christian.” This simple, short sentence accompanied Blandina’s steadfast refusal to bow to her torturers’ demands. The slave woman’s courageous voice and brave endurance shocked the watching public but did not lessen their resolve to put her to death.3 Blandina, and other second- and third-century martyrs, exemplified the highest virtues for believers, namely, courage and endurance under torture in the hope of bodily resurrection and life in the age to come.4 In elevating the virtue of endurance, Christians pushed against the larger Greco-Roman society that relegated endurance as a feminine virtue. Additionally, promoting a woman’s actions as courageous broadened the understanding of courage to include women’s actions that benefited the women themselves. Blandina’s status as a slave further underscored her valor in the eyes of the wider society, which assumed that slaves were, on the whole, cowardly. Blandina’s depiction challenges the Greco-Roman picture of women’s courage as laudable if done for the sake of her husband or family.5 I endeavor in this essay to show that the Apostle Paul reimagines endurance in two ways, both of which elevate women in his communities. First, he embraces the virtue of feminine endurance, such as experienced in childbirth, as worthy of emulation by men. By reassigning the gendered aspect of endurance, Paul re-drew the gender map of his communities such that women’s performance of virtuous endurance was elevated, and men’s acceptance of suffering was redefined as noble imitation of their Lord’s crucifixion. Second, he encourages women to embrace the courage displayed by a soldier standing fast in battle without fear. This sort of courage pertains to the individual primarily, and they receive the reward, even as their brave act might also help others, such as family or the State. The first part of the chapter examines feminine endurance recoded in light of resurrection hope to be suitable for women and men who follow Jesus. I will trace the theme of endurance in the Greco-Roman world, both in Stoic philosophy and Jewish martyrdom accounts. Then I shall examine the ways Christians reconfigure the virtue of endurance as they reflect on the resurrection of the body. I will look at Romans 8:17–23, specifically at bodily resurrection tied with the metaphor of childbirth, as we explore the Christian concerns of resurrection and martyrdom. The second half of the chapter explores the

“I am a Christian”

277

virtue of courage in the Greco-Roman world and among Christians. I focus on Paul’s call for Christian courage (1 Cor 16:13) and Blandina’s example of bravery. I explore how the inclusion of women believers in calls for courage reimagines women’s capacity to demonstrate courage. I conclude with a brief exploration of “marginalized” masculinity that could cohere with endurance and female courage exemplified by Blandina, namely, a “voluntarily marginalized masculinity.”6 “I am a Christian”; the Christological impact of this declaration is integral to our assessment of gendered virtues lived out within the Christian communities who extolled their martyrs.

PART 1: ENDURANCE AS A “MASCULINE” CHRISTIAN VIRTUE Greco-Roman Philosophers on the Virtue of Endurance Roman thinkers at the turn of the era and into the second century struggled with the problem presented by endurance relative to accepted virtues for an elite free male. Seneca and Epictetus valued self-control, bravery, and courage, and recognized that at times men must endure suffering to demonstrate bravery. Self-control and courage, public voice and action—these traits defined masculinity. Images of wounded, silenced, passive—these were feminine images suitable only for women and slaves. Self-control allows one to endure that which is indifferent or unimportant in the cultivation of reason. Thus, endurance could be useful if it was in the service of a greater virtue. For example, an athlete endures training so as to be victorious, to gain honor as the victor through courageous acts of valor. A gladiator who endured his opponent’s superior abilities could gain honor for himself by killing himself. Seneca explains that joy and “a brave unyielding endurance of torture are equal goods.”7 His comment reveals the primary virtue underlying both actions is the free choice of the wise man, the one who chooses the good and acts honorably. Endurance as an end in itself, however, is passive, and thus suitable for those who are acted upon, such as slaves, women, and conquered armies. Endurance was viewed as a second-tier virtue for free men because it was needed only in adversity. For free men, endurance was temporary and occasional, one endured by choice. For women, endurance was a natural state; Seneca makes a direct connection between endurance and a woman in labor.8 Childbirth was viewed as a ready example of feminine endurance—passive acceptance of pain as forces over which one has little control consume the body. We will pick up the image of childbirth below as Paul uses it in Romans 8:22–23 in his discussion of endurance.

278

Lynn H. Cohick

Therefore, Seneca would be appalled had he lived to see the male martyrs’ acceptance of torture alongside slave women such as Blandina; such actions by a free male would be unthinkable, or even worse, shameful. For a free male to endure was viewed as even “rather immoral.”9 Women, however, were seen as, by nature, passive; their endurance or patience was not chosen but reflected their natural (inferior) state. Yet in their stress of the reasoned soul over the body, Stoics also realized that it is precisely at the level of the body that the virtues of apatheia (freedom from passion or equanimity) and andreia (manly courage) can be demonstrated. Said another way, one needs a body to show that events or emotions threatening the body have not penetrated to disturbing one’s equanimity or contentment within oneself. The mind controls the body, which demonstrates manly courage, thus proving one is governed by supreme reason. To maintain such a dichotomy between mind and body, one also needs, as contrast, other bodies around that do not rise to the level of one’s own elite male superior control of will. And one needs to explain the relationship of pain to the body, for endurance is usually tied with illness or torture. Seneca’s Views on Endurance and Suicide Seneca’s Epistles to Lucilius helps illuminate the complexities of the virtue of endurance for Stoic thought. The collection of epistles is a window into Seneca’s own mind, as they read much like a diary of his own private musings.10 In these letters, he deals extensively with the topic of death—more specifically, that one should not fear death.11 This leads to discussions about suicide, illness, pain, and torture, all of which impact the concept of endurance. Seneca believes one should view pain indifferently, as of no consequence to one’s internal posture. Pain is antithetical to Nature; it is temporary and yet also a possible danger to the soul who struggles to marshal its will to reason. Pain is presented as very real, as demonstrated in his statement describing what can happen in the arena: “Surrounding it is a retinue of swords and fire and chains and a mob of beasts to be let loose upon the disemboweled entrails of men. Picture . . . the prison, the cross, the rack, the hook, and the stake which they drive straight through a man until it protrudes from his throat. Think of human limbs torn apart by chariots driven in opposite directions, of the terrible shirt smeared and interwoven with inflammable material.”12 This vivid, terrifying picture is meant to warn Lucilius not to give offense to those who have the power to torture. Several points are worth noting relative to our discussion about endurance. First, endurance (Latin patientia) is useful in the effort to achieve the goal of not feeling or recognizing pain, or the goal of victory in athletics or life of the mind. Second, illness causes pain, but this pain should be managed,

“I am a Christian”

279

or one should commit suicide, for illness is only a part of living, and death comes to all eventually. Third, Seneca may seem inconsistent as he speaks about enduring torture, at some points encouraging constancy in the face of torture and at other points commending those who kill themselves rather than submit to it. In all cases, though, the free man must endure bravely, or the endurance is humiliating. Seneca promotes self-determination in pursuit of honor. For example, he cites the story of a Spartan boy who was captured as a slave. When commanded to empty a chamber pot (an action deemed beneath Spartan dignity), he bashed his head against a stone and died.13 Seneca applauds this action and declares that Lucilius would do the same if it were his own son who resisted slavery and humiliation to the end. Endurance just to keep living is ignoble, thus unmanly.14 Suicide for Seneca is the exercising of one’s choice to maintain a virtuous life. It is Nature’s gift that a man can value the quality of life more than the quantity of years.15 Death for Seneca is freedom: freedom from the torturer’s pain or the boredom of luxury or the discomfort of illness. As long as one carefully examines the situation and reason guides the decision, then suicide is a legitimate and noble decision (Ep 70.4–6). While Seneca praises women who endure grief over death or a loved one’s exile, he does not point to women who died what he would identify as a noble death. Catharine Edwards rightly asks, “Where, we might wonder, is Porcia? Where is Arria?”16 The former was the wife of Brutus, who, when she learned of his death, killed herself by eating hot coals (Val. Max. 4.6.5); the latter enjoined her disgraced husband, Paetus, to commit suicide by doing so herself, declaring, “it doesn’t hurt” (Pliny, Ep. 3.16.6). Seneca indicates that in his own life, he contemplated suicide, but refrained out of love for his father, whom he judged would be unable to bravely face this event.17 In this case, Seneca believed he did the brave act. There is no reason to seek a dramatic death by torture, nor is there cause to run from this out of fear. Yet, much of the time, Seneca lauds the man who chooses suicide over torture and certain death. He describes a German gladiator who stuffed a soiled toilet sponge down his throat, thus choking himself, rather than be killed in the arena.18 It was a disgusting way to die, surely, yet a grand gesture of self-determination. He recounts a second gladiator’s clever act of slipping his head down between the spokes of the cart’s wheels carrying him to the exhibition. The brave man’s neck was snapped, and he escaped a torturous death.19 Suicide or embracing pain is a choice, and as long as it is one that preserves a man’s freedom, then it is a brave and noble choice.20 Crucial to our purposes here, Seneca points to childbirth as a ready example of what he imagines feminine endurance to be—a passive acceptance of pain as forces over which one has little control consume the body.21

280

Lynn H. Cohick

In sum, then, Greco-Roman virtues were drawn on a gendered map, which assigned a masculine label to those traits and qualities that involved freedom of choice and assigned a feminine label to those traits that were deemed passive.22 Things over which one has little control, such as wealth, success, or the health of one’s self or family, all these things were indifferent and should not determine one’s outlook or peace of mind. Seneca professes that whether one’s child lives or dies is of equal indifference to the one who reasons rightly.23 Notice his emphasis on refusing to grieve excessively at the death of a child as perhaps the supreme test of right reason. Two centuries earlier, in a tragic juxtaposition of torture and a child’s death, the stories of Jewish mothers and their martyred sons challenged the Stoic evaluation of endurance. Even more, these women were declared to exhibit reason and used their bodies and voices against their tormentors. It is to these stories that we now turn. Jewish Martyrs and the Virtue of Endurance The influence of the Greek ideal of noble death contributed vocabulary and a conceptual framework from which both Jews and Christians drew as they manipulated and nuanced these ideals and virtues.24 Second Maccabees and Fourth Maccabees take advantage of the philosophical currency of the day, which is honor through virtue, and realign the content of supreme virtue, and thus reframe what honorable deeds look like. That is, the supreme good is God’s Law, which infuses human reason such that it can be called “devout reason.” With this new definition of reason, the Jewish martyrs act in ways that match such wisdom, namely, by enduring torture unto death with the “reasonable” expectation that God will give back life to a tortured body. Bodily resurrection as the expected goal of enduring torture places great value upon enduring and less value upon viewing pain as indifferent. Mastery of self is not an end in itself but a means to a greater end, God’s mercy, forgiveness, and action on behalf of national aspirations. Moreover, martyrs reassigned value to defiant silence, which amplified the body’s voice of resistance. Martyrs refused verbal ascent to their oppressors’ demands, instead speaking their own thoughts, thereby demonstrating agency.25 Turning first to 2 Maccabees, we find a literary unit bookended by the accounts of the death of mothers. The reader learns of Antiochus IV’s cruel insistence on pagan practices and the elimination of Jewish rites such as circumcision and Sabbath. Two mothers resist the new orders and circumcise their sons.26 When discovered, their babies are hung about their necks, and they are paraded through the streets and then tossed to their deaths from the city wall. This brief story contains certain features we associate with martyrdom, as determined by Jan Willem van Henten, who states that a martyr

“I am a Christian”

281

is a person “who, in an extremely hostile situation, preferred a violent death to compliance with a decree or demand of the (usually) pagan authorities.”27 The scene shifts from infant boys and their mothers to an old man, Eleazer, who defies Antiochus’s call to eat pork as a sign of fidelity to the new regime. The author uses the verb ὑπομένω in establishing the elderly man’s utter enduring faithfulness to the ancestral law (2 Macc 6:20). After the king failed to break Eleazer, despite all manner of torture, he turned upon seven brothers and their mother, commanding them too that they would eat sacrificial pig meat. Each son, in their turn, refuses to eat and is subjected to horrific tortures while the siblings and mother look on. The sons testify to their ultimate deliverance with God raising their bodies after death, highlighting the importance of the belief in bodily resurrection for the author of 2 Maccabees (7:9, 11, 14, 23, 29). The text includes a statement that the mother spoke in her ancestral language to each child in turn. Our author creates the picture of the mother actively encouraging her sons in their moments of severest trial. She speaks of carrying her sons in her womb and nursing them, raising them, teaching them to follow the laws of their God, for that will bring resurrected life. She challenges them to face torture and death with endurance that they might be raised with a whole body, and defeat the tyrant, who will be condemned by God. It is ironic that Antiochus would call upon her, then, to persuade her youngest son to eat the meat. But while the reader knows that she is supporting her sons’ defiance, Antiochus cannot understand her speech. Moreover, he could not imagine a woman having such strength of character to see her sons tortured to death before her eyes. The mother and the king exchange words in Greek, and she agrees to plead with her youngest son, only to speak words in their ancestral tongue that propel him to resist the king all the more. In an interesting juxtaposition, she is identified as having added a manly mind to her feminine reasoning (7:21).28 The speech that follows is specifically about how she bore her children, nursed them, raised and cared for them. The author describes her as representing a man’s mind or soul, suggesting that she represents the rise of endurance as a first-order virtue for those who follow faithfully (i.e., submit to) God’s law. Fourth Maccabees expands on this line of thought. The text speaks of endurance on several occasions. The author states his goal to show that “devout reason” rules the passions. Notice the focus is not simply on reason itself, but pious reason, or that which looks to Jewish ancestral customs, the Law of Moses, for supreme guidance. The structure of the argument is similar to a Stoic claim that reason is to govern emotions. However, the content of devout reason reassembles the virtues such that courage is exemplified by passive endurance, and noble death is defined as being killed by one’s oppressors. Devout reason recognizes that enduring suffering is virtuous; far from

282

Lynn H. Cohick

being an example of being dominated by emotions, their courage through devout reason proves their self-control (7:18–23). Devout reason proves superior because the torturous death is, in fact, not the end, for the faithful will have immortality (4 Macc 9:22) or a raised body (2 Macc 7:10–11), and the tyrant will face punishment by God (4 Macc 9:9, 32). Torture and suffering create the possibility for endurance, which leads to a prize beyond virtue, namely, being with God. The focus on endurance in suffering tells us a bit about the perspective of God as well. As we saw in 2 Maccabees, so too here in 4 Maccabees, the author draws attention to the mother’s experience in bearing children. In the latter book, the author observes that mothers experience birth pangs and thus are more sympathetic to their offspring (15:5, 7). But this mother suffered even greater pains than birth pangs in seeing her children tortured to death before her eyes (15:16). The author explains that the mother was able to endure the unendurable because her devout reason enabled her to exhibit manly courage (15:23, 16:1). Her natural disposition as a woman and a mother made her more susceptible to emotions (16:8–12), thus her endurance was all the more indicative of the devout reason espoused by the Jews. Indeed, she is lauded as “more noble than males in steadfastness, and more courageous than men in endurance” (15:30). She is the “mother of the nation” (15:29) and “guardian of the Law” (15:32) because she endured the painful trial of watching her sons tortured to death. For this, she is extolled as a soldier of God, for with her endurance, she conquered a tyrant, proving more powerful than a man (16:14). Her nobility is based on a re-ordering of virtue such that endurance is no longer a feminine virtue but is a first-order virtue valued by men and women who follow devout reason.29 Suffering is important to the Jews and the Christian martyrs because this suffering allows for the demonstration of endurance, with the hope of bodily resurrection.30 The Maccabean martyrs sacrificed for their own sins and for the nation, as a plea heard by God for mercy on the people.31 In 4 Macc 17:1, the mother demonstrates her agency by throwing herself into the fire, something Seneca would encourage his friend, Lucilius, to do rather than face torture. In this mother’s case, however, she has already experienced exquisite torture in watching her sons die. Her final act proves her own belief in the resurrection of the body, which she had repeated as encouragement in their suffering. The Hope of Resurrection in Romans 8 The Apostle Paul negotiates this wider context as he establishes communities who worship a crucified Christ. Turning to Romans 8, Paul explains that sharing in Christ’s suffering is the expected and necessary precursor to sharing

“I am a Christian”

283

in his glory (8:17). This glory is not yet seen but is secure in Christ (8:24). And this suffering is to be endured in hope (8:25). Paul’s argument engages with the conversation about virtue that so occupied the Stoics and the Jews of Paul’s day. If the highest virtue is self-control maintained by choosing the good, avoiding situations where one’s choice is removed, such as enduring illness or torture, then Paul turns this on its head by enjoining believers to endure in hope of bodily resurrection. Believers are not bound, as is creation; they are free to submit, they are free to join in Christ’s suffering. They are free to choose to endure for the hope that is theirs in Christ. Believers’ suffering is similar to the suffering of Christ, who met his end by torture unto death. The Roman Christians would have been aware, like Seneca, of what happened to condemned criminals in the arena. They had seen crucifixions before. Paul himself had been beaten and faced physical violence in his journeys. The suffering imagined here is suffering done to the body, on the body. It is about enduring the pain, domination, and the humiliation of the condemned. Paul asks believers to share in Christ’s suffering, his passion, for the sake of the glory to be revealed. Sharing Christ’s suffering includes endurance. This section of Romans (8:18–25) can be read to great profit against a backdrop of the wider discussion around endurance. Paul calls to mind the virtue of endurance in at least two ways. First, he speaks of creation being subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the one who subjected it, namely, God (8:20). This is a nod to the virtue of self-control, and the humiliation accompanying those who do not have the autonomy to make free choices. Why speak about creation’s intentions or lack thereof? Perhaps because it serves to distinguish Paul’s later call that believers choose to endure suffering for the future glory (8:23). This is in contrast to the Greco-Roman free male who should exercise his free choice. He must retain that freedom and not submit to passively endure torture or being killed. Seneca did so in his celebrated mors voluntaria, as described by Tacitus (Annals 15.61–2). His attempts to die by cutting his veins, taking hemlock, soaking in a bath, all failed to bring a quick end. Yet the prolonged dying gave opportunity for Seneca to opine about the choice to die, that it is in choosing the good, the right, that one’s honor is secured and virtue rewarded.32 Paul turns this on its head by enjoining believers to endure in hope of the resurrection. Believers are not bound, as is creation; they are free to join in Christ’s suffering. Second, this free choice is a choice to endure in this present age, for the sake of the age to come (Rom 8:25). Paul is clear that this endurance is the sort women experience in childbirth—a passive acceptance of torture and pain that is anathema to all free-born Roman males. But to the Christian, male and female, it is the highest virtue because it imitates Christ (8:29). With

284

Lynn H. Cohick

this metaphor, Paul encourages both men and women to “become female.”33 Paul sets before his readers the picture of a woman in labor, and declares that this image represents faithful discipleship for both men and women. We will come back to this thought below as we look again at Blandina’s story. Before turning to it, however, a word about the sort of endurance that Greco-Roman philosophers praised, namely, the sort of endurance required to demonstrate bravery and courage.

PART 2: MANLY COURAGE AND MARTYRDOM Greco-Roman Virtue of Courage As noted at the beginning of this essay, endurance could be understood positively as a second-order virtue for men if it was used in service of the higher virtues of bravery and courage. And several ancient authors laud women who showed “manly” courage outside the battlefield.34 Scholars today have pointed to the first century CE Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus’s exhortation to teach women philosophy as an example of the Greco-Roman view that women could demonstrate courage if they were properly trained in the philosophical tradition.35 He advocates that women would learn endurance of pain so as to stand strong in hardship and grief. He repeatedly asks that boys and girls be taught philosophy because both have capacity to learn virtues. At first glance, then, it seems as though women’s opportunities to demonstrate courage matched men’s prospects. Yet a closer reading reveals that he imagines courage exhibited in different spheres of life and that makes all the difference. Martha Nussbaum argues persuasively that Musonius presents men and women as having “a single set of basic capacities and a single set of excellences.”36 Nevertheless, Musonius assumes that such capacities will be put to use in areas of different social, economic, political, and intellectual worth. Nussbaum’s argument is a nuanced reflection on the positive and negative aspects of Musonius Rufus, judged in his time and by modern standards. “When one occupies, not by choice, a sphere that is socially marked as subordinate, surely that has an adverse impact on the very sense of dignity and self-esteem that Musonius himself values as a part of virtue.”37 In his short essays concerning women learning philosophy, Musonius contends that the demeanor and activities pertaining to women are enhanced by philosophy. They will keep house and love their children better, practice modesty and chastity more faithfully, resist extravagance, and demonstrate courage. The latter quality is shown by resisting shameful behavior at any cost, breastfeeding her children, protecting them from harm, and doing slavelike work with her hands if it aids her husband.38 The point of philosophical

“I am a Christian”

285

education, then, is to be a better wife and mother, a better family member. An educated daughter will operate her household well, even as the educated son should be a model citizen. Christian Expression of Courage in Martyrdom To pick up on Nussbaum’s critique of Musonius that social context matters, it strikes me as a useful lens through which to examine Paul’s call for believers to show courage. In 1 Corinthians 16:13, Paul asks all believers to be strong, stand firm in the faith, and be courageous. While his use of the verb “be courageous” (ἀνδρίζομαι) is found only here in his corpus, Paul speaks broadly and widely of standing firm and strong in the faith, and expects physical suffering as part of the Christian testimony (2 Cor 4:8–12; 6:4–10; 11:23–28). Absent from Paul is any distinction or separation into typical gendered spheres in the Christian expression of courage. For example, Paul cites Andronicus and Junia as co-workers who were imprisoned with him (Rom 16:7), presumably demonstrating the courage to face suffering for the sake of the faith. Christians in the second and third centuries expressed courage through martyrdom. I see two differences from Musonius’s admittedly progressive views on female courage. First, unlike Musonius, who placed expressions of courage in male and female spheres, in the case of Christians, both men and women could exhibit courage in the same sphere—including a faithful death in hope of a resurrection to come. Not only in martyrdom, however, for in the Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes, the text describes a group of virgins as having a manly appearance (ἀνδρείως), even though they were also delicate (79.5). These women are instrumental in building the tower, a metaphor for building the church. And four of them, at the four corners of the tower, wear key virtues: “faith (πίστις), self-control (ἐγκράτεια), strength (δύναμις) and patience (μακροθυμία).” The Shepherd teaches that believers should look to these virgins who demonstrate courage and put on these same clothes/ virtues.39 Interestingly in the Mandates, the wise elderly Lady who sits on the white chair, encouraged Hermas with these words: “Be a man” (ἀνδρίζου), that is, “take courage” (4:3) using the same verb Paul used in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 16:13), and reinforces the emphasis on courage seen in the adverb used to describe the virgins. Second, Christian men were to emulate a female martyr, even a slave no less. Musonius does not suggest that men emulate the way courage is expressed by women. The Christian female martyr, however, can represent Christ to the community. Furthermore, the female martyr demonstrates courage first and foremost for her own faithfulness, not the benefit of her kinship or fictive kinship group. Blandina’s story demonstrates this, and we turn to it next.

286

Lynn H. Cohick

Blandina’s Example Blandina’s Courage for Her Own Sake Blandina is suspended on a stake, which gives the appearance of her hanging on a cross. Even more, the fellow martyrs see not Blandina, but “him who was crucified for them” (5.1.41). The reader is asked to image the crucified Lord within Blandina’s physical frame.40 The purpose of this image is to persuade fellow martyrs to stay the course, for they will enjoy God’s fellowship. In the next passage, we are told that the weak and miserable slave woman, Blandina, puts on Christ, the mighty athlete who empowers her. This additional visual image resonates with New Testament language about believers putting on Christ, and reinforces the claim here that Blandina is united with Christ as one is with the clothing one wears. This picture parallels the one of her on her “cross” in as much as in both cases the end result is that believers are encouraged to prove their confession. Yet Blandina’s example is not solely, or mainly, for the purposes of encouraging others. She receives her own reward received by every martyr, namely, eternal life in God’s Paradise. She models appropriate courage for the ultimate prize, which is hers to keep. The individual-ness of the martyr’s reward stands beside the martyrs’ testimony that builds and shapes Christian identity. Blandina’s identity as a martyr is her own, not shared by her husband, or evaluated as good and proper based on family honor. She alone receives the reward for her courage. Blandina’s Voice To the prosecutors, Blandina states her testimony, “I am a Christian” with vigor; indeed, the confession resounds from the page. But this statement is also found on the lips of a few other martyrs. That fact does not necessarily lessen its value within the confines of the story; rather, it demonstrates that Blandina is part of the leadership of this band of martyrs. Blandina not only confesses, but also denies that Christians practice any vile acts, as was alleged by informers to the authorities (5.1.18). Blandina directs most of her words, however, to fellow martyrs and to God. When she is put up on a stake to be attacked by wild animals, she prays earnestly. These prayers inspire others, who renew their zeal. The narrator alludes to the Maccabean mother’s encouragement of her sons in the context of Blandina’s influence among her fellow martyrs. The Maccabean mother spoke to her sons about the surety of the resurrection, the hope that their faithfulness will be rewarded. The text suggests that Blandina spoke similar inspiring words. That is not to say that Blandina knew the 2 Maccabees 7 passage directly, but that within the church’s teachings, the

“I am a Christian”

287

Maccabean mother’s testimony informed the Christian martyrs’ understanding of their own experiences (or at least our narrator’s conception of a martyrdom). Blandina’s Endurance Blandina’s actions mirror the Maccabean martyrs’ mother.41 Blandina dies last of all, “having, as a noble mother, encouraged her children and sent them before her victorious to the King, enduring herself all their conflicts and hastened after them” (5.1.55). The powerful shift of identity elevates this slave woman (whose actual children, if she had any, would never belong to her) to the status of a mother with many faithful children. Notice the emphasis on endurance, the virtue prized by Jewish and Christian martyrs, the virtue discussed above that was central to their call for suffering in hope of resurrection. Blandina’s Representation of Christ An interesting question arises from the text related to Blandina’s authority in the community and her agency as a Christian. In most English translations of Eusebius’s work, we read that, as she was raised up on the stake and fellow martyrs saw her, they saw through her, “the one who was crucified for them, that he might persuade those who believe on him” (5.1.41). These translations supply the subject in the second clause as “he” (Christ), or change the verb to an infinite and allow its subject to be indefinite. The Greek is ambiguous, for no subject is given for the verb “to persuade” and thus must be inferred from the wider context. No English translation writes “she” as subject, or guides the reader to that conclusion, yet such a translation would be the most natural since Blandina is the subject of most of the other verbs in these passages.42 Goodine makes a strong case that the intended subject is Blandina. Thus, the text reads that by her actions and imitation of Christ, she persuades those who believe in Christ to suffer on his behalf in the promise of fellowship with God.43 It is she, the broken and bloody slave woman, who hangs on the stake; “she is the principal agent, the one who acts and suffers on behalf of Christ, and therefore the one who persuades others to faith in the visible absence of Christ.”44 Why might English translators choose a more difficult syntax? While motives are impossible to know in this case, the translators’ decision effectively erases Blandina from the script at a critical moment. The story gives this unique testimony only to Blandina, although the other martyrs face equally horrific tortures and die as faithful sacrifices. But Blandina is taken alive from her cross and will continue to present a visual challenge to the power of Rome and the power of the devil, “the twisted serpent” (5.1.42). Even more, her identification with Christ that

288

Lynn H. Cohick

persuades her fellow Christians of the promise of God’s fellowship suggests that a slave woman can represent Christ to the faithful community. Perhaps one might argue that it is precisely a slave woman that best mediates Christ to the community: “as Jesus took up the role of perfect servant, mediating with God on behalf of sinners and furthering the cause of the oppressed, so Blandina takes on that role as she hangs on the stake for her community.”45 Before drawing my argument to a close, a few words on one of the most famous noble deaths in Roman imagination, that of Lucretia.46 She was a model of virtue and modesty, an excellent wife. The son of the king, Sextus Tarquinius, raped her. She told her husband and father; both believed her and sought to avenge her honor. Lucretia takes her honor in her own hands, however, and pushes a dagger through her heart, perhaps as a means to secure her reputation as innocent.47 Pagan and Christian authors pointed to her example of modesty. For example, Tertullian praises Lucretia for upholding her chastity (pudicitia).48 Her agency matches that of Blandina. Both women were sexually violated. In Blandina’s case, society accepted that slaves’ bodies were the property of their owner; in Lucretia’s case, her rape compromised her husband’s exclusive claim on her body. Both women exhibited agency in making ultimate decisions over their bodies in the face of others who forcefully abused them.49 CONCLUSION “I am a Christian.” Blandina’s testimony unto a martyr’s death exemplifies the elevation of endurance as a key virtue for Christian men and women. This feminine virtue was redefined in light of bodily resurrection promised for those who persevered, such that men were exhorted to endure torture passively. The masculine virtue of courage was also redefined, now to include women’s actions of bravery that benefited their own life or purpose, and not merely their husband or family. Tammie Jo Shults describes that fateful day in April 2018, in the cockpit, “I cannot see, I cannot hear, and I cannot breathe.”50 She wondered if that day she would “meet my Maker face-to-face.”51 Fortunately for the passengers and their families, Shults piloted the plane to safety. Nevertheless, her readiness to meet her Maker echoes Blandina’s testimony of courage and endurance. I’ve emphasized women’s agency in this paper, but what about Christian men’s agency? Recall that Greco-Roman masculinity represented by Seneca, Plutarch, Musonius Rufus, and other elites defined masculinity as having control over others and control over oneself. How might masculinity within

“I am a Christian”

289

Christian communities be configured, given the shifts in understanding endurance and courage? Susanna Asikainen explores the Synoptic Gospels and argues that there are likely “several early Christian masculinities, not just one.”52 These masculinities of a marginalized minority reacted with the hegemonic masculinity of the broader, elite Greco-Roman culture. Asikainen adds a helpful layer of interpretation as she contrasts voluntary and involuntary marginality, concluding, “when the Synoptic Gospels present ‘feminine’ service as a value, they formulate an alternative, voluntarily marginal ideal of masculinity.”53 I’d like to build on this idea of voluntary marginalization as the ideal toward which Christian men are drawn. This concept captures the agency that Christian men express as they endure for a greater or higher end, namely, the resurrection of the body. However, because men chose to submit to torture, in light of their belief in a greater good (resurrection), an element of traditional masculine virtue of self-control is still operating within the Christian group, whatever appearances to the contrary are present to outsiders.54 Additionally, as women pursue the hope of resurrection, they demonstrate agency. Here the virtue of courage becomes critical, for in assigning it to women believers, it is no longer a defining masculine virtue. In choosing courage, women subvert the dominant femininity ideal and thus could be considered marginal. For men, it is voluntarily becoming marginal, and for women, it is an active choice (acting as a man) that creates a new marginality. In the end, do we find in the stories of the martyrs a new understanding of gendered identity, even as they use gendered tropes and ideals from the wider culture to build a new way? Even as I write this question, numerous qualifications come to my mind, for the martyrdom texts are varied and complex.55 Yet in the martyrdom account of Blandina, the sliding scale of feminine to masculine does not take full account of the overarching narrative for the Christian martyr, namely, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. In Blandina’s story, this reality shines bright, for the other believers see Christ as her body is raised on the stake. In this (textual) moment, the reader has not only a social or cultural view of slavery and gender, but also a theological view of redemption and reward. The latter priorities interface, remake, and, at times, reinforce gender assumptions. The Christological vision, however, is what drives the martyr, male or female. The goal, Paul says, is to be like Christ, to be conformed to the image of the Son (Rom 8:29). This aim includes suffering, with the promised reward of sharing his glory (8:17). Achieving this goal leads to challenging society’s ascriptions of masculine and feminine so that both men and women can represent their new identity in Christ to the fullest.

290

Lynn H. Cohick

NOTES 1. The topic of women in the early church permeated Ben Witherington’s scholarship from the earliest days of his dissertation studies. My essay is indebted to and builds on his pioneering work. 2. Paul Middleton, ed., The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Christian Martyrdom (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2020) provides a helpful overview of the subject up to the modern era. 3. When the first day of the spectacle begins, Blandina and two men are paraded to the amphitheater to face the beasts. The men endure unspeakable tortures, including the gauntlet, beasts, and hot iron roasting chairs. In the end, they die; the narrator declares that they are sacrificed, having testified well. During at least part of their ordeal, Blandina is tied to a stake, and beasts are let loose to attack her. The animals ignore her, however, so she is taken off the stake and put back in prison. On the final day of the contest, she is brought into the arena with a fifteen-year-old boy, Ponticus. As the narrator describes, they are subjected to horrific cruelties, and the boy dies a faithful death. Blandina dies last of all, after scourging, attacks from wild beasts, the roasting seat, and being thrown about by a bull. The authorities confess that they have never seen a woman endure such grisly tortures. 4. Lynn H. Cohick and Amy Brown Hughes, Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 29–34, discusses the difficulty in defining martyrdom. 5. Ibid., xxii–xxviii, discusses the difficulties of discerning the lives of historical women from the ancient sources. 6. Susanna Asikainen, Jesus and Other Men: Ideal Masculinities in the Synoptic Gospels, Biblical Interpretation Series 159 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 2. She suggests that in the ancient world, while there were other masculinities alongside hegemonic masculinity, the same does not hold true for femininity. She continues, 106, that there is “emphasized femininity” that “appears relatively unified” and “can be found in a wide variety of writings by men, from philosophical writings of the elite to tomb inscriptions of the lower classes.” 7. Seneca, Ep. 66.12; see also Ep. 66.29, “There is an equality between feeling joy with self-control and suffering pain with self-control.” 8. Seneca, Ep. 24.14. 9. Brent D. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs” JECS 4, no. 3 (1996): 279. 10. Ibid., 292–294. 11. Seneca, Ep. 24.18. 12. Seneca, Ep. 14.4–6. 13. Seneca, Ep. 77.14–15. 14. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 294. Seneca often connects his discussion of pain in illness with pain in torture. For Seneca, the two sources of pain are discrete, and thus require different responses. In illness, the pain is a private one, while torture

“I am a Christian”

291

is done on the public stage. This distinction matters because honor is sought above all else, for honor is connected with the good. 15. Seneca, Ep. 70.14. 16. Catharine Edwards, Death in Ancient Rome (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 191. 17. Seneca, Ep. 78.1–2; see also Ep. 104.2–5 concerning his wife. 18. Seneca, Ep. 70.20–21. 19. Seneca, Ep. 70.22–23. 20. Seneca, Ep. 77.5–9. 21. Seneca, Ep. 101.13. Seneca mocks Maecenas’s prayer to keep his life, even if it be one filled with ill health or even torture. It is not merely to have breath, says Seneca, for a fear of death robs the living of real life. Accepting torture simply to have another day of life is for Seneca “womanish” (effeminatus). 22. Judith Perkins, The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era (New York: Routledge, 1995), 48, describes the three cardinal virtues in Roman society: clemency, piety, and concord, with the latter often represented by a married couple. Plato, Phd. 69C lists the cardinal virtues as prudence (σρόνησις), temperance (σωφροσύνη), justice (δικαιοσύνη), and courage (ἀνδρεία). 23. Seneca, Ep. 98.5–6. 24. Daniel Boyarin, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 121, explains that Jews and Christians are not separate communities but have porous boundaries at this time, and he advocates the language of “provoked martyrdom” rather than “voluntary martyrdom,” for “if martyrdom is not voluntary, it is not martyrdom.” 25. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 278, writes, “Having that sort of control over one’s own body enables the tortured to be silent, to speak through their bodies, and thus not to speak the required words.” 26. Susan Haber, “Living and Dying for the Law: The Mother-martyrs of 2 Maccabees,” Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal 4, no. 1 (2006): 3–4, observes that a feminine participle is used in 2 Macc 6:10 and 4 Macc 4:25, implying that the women “were responsible for circumcising their sons.” In 1 Macc 1:60–61, the masculine participle is used, and the mothers, their families, and the men who did the circumcision were executed. http://wjudaism​.library​.utoronto​.ca​/index​.php​/ wjudaism​/article​/view​/247​/320. 27. Jan Willem van Henten, “Jewish and Christian Martyrs,” in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Marcel Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 165. 28. 2 Macc 7:21 reads, τὸν θῆλυν λογισμὸν ἄρσενι θυμῷ διεγείρασα. 29. Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson, “Taking It Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees” JBL 117 (1998): 256, observe, “reason in turn must be ruled by the Torah.” Moore and Anderson suggest that 4 Maccabees develops a contrast between reason allied with Jewish law and passions tied with the tyrant Antiochus. 30. Shaw, “Body/Power/Identity,” 279, remarks that the “equation of these two virtues—nobility (gennaia) and passive endurance (hupomenê)—would have struck

292

Lynn H. Cohick

the classic male ideologue of the city state as contradictory, a moral oxymoron.” Shaw continues that 4 Maccabees does exactly that, as the text elevates passive endurance. 31. Tessa Rajak, “Dying for the Law: The Martyr’s Portrait in Jewish-Greek Literature,” in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, ed. Mark J. Edwards and Simon Swain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 58, concludes about the Maccabean martyrdoms that “the nexus between piety, self-mastery, life under the Law, and a heroic death for its sake is the Jewish-Greek theory of martyrdom.” Rajak, 67, contrasts the Jewish martyrdoms as serving to “encapsulate statements about national identity,” while Christian martyr stories were used to spread the Christian faith and celebrate the martyrs’ immortality in their death. 32. See also Seneca, Ep. 77.7 for the use of voluntaria in relation to suicide. 33. Dawn LaValle Norman, “Becoming Female: Marrowy Semen and the Formative Mother in Methodius,” JECS 27, no. 2 (2019): 187, rightly points to the lack of attention given by scholars to Christian texts that “encouraged both men and women to ‘become female.’” See also, 188, wherein Norman remarks that Paul’s maternal metaphors influenced Methodius. 34. Women could be encouraged to defend their walled city but not to command armies or lead military excursions. Plutarch describes Marc Antony’s first wife, Fulvia, and brother, Lucius Antonius, who led a failed rebellion against Octavian. Fulvia died while fleeing, and Plutarch has nothing good to say about her (Life of Antony, 30). Marc Antony and Cleopatra VII were defeated by Octavian, and few Romans had positive words for her. In a lesser-known story, Queen Boudicca of Britain rebelled against Rome in 60–61 CE, and part of Rome’s violent repression of the Iceni people was based on the latter’s belief that women should not hold power as a queen (Tacitus, Ann. 14.31.6–7). See Stephen L. Dyson, “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire,” Historia 20 (1971): 239–274. See also Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome A.D. 66–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 35. Musonius Rufus, Lecture III, “That Women Too Should Study Philosophy,” and Lecture IV, “Should Daughters Receive the Same Education as Sons?”. 36. Martha C. Nussbaum, “The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman” in The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. Martha C. Nussbaum and Juha Sihvola (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 297. 37. Ibid., 302. 38. Ibid., 296, rightly remarks, “in the case of wives, at every point he [Musonius] is at pains to emphasize the function of philosophy in reinforcing the status quo and producing wifely good behavior.” 39. Jonathan E. Soyars, The Shepherd of Hermas and the Pauline Legacy, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 176 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 188, writes, “According to the Shepherd, entry into God’s kingdom requires being clothed with what these virgins wear (9.13.2 [90.2]).” 40. This picture looks very similar to the one drawn by the slave woman, Felicitas, that there will be one who is in her that suffers for her (Passion of Perpetua and

“I am a Christian”

293

Felicitas, XV.6). See Callie Callon, Reading Bodies: Physiognomy as a Strategy of Persuasion in Early Christian Discourse LNTS 597 (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 124–125, for a discussion of Blandina’s physiognomy, especially in contrast to those Christians who deny their faith. 41. L. Stephanie Cobb, Dying to be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 115, makes this connection. “Blandina illustrates the sacrifice a mother must make for her faith. She functions as a formulaic example to women narrated not out of historical fact but rather out of social and theological truth.” 42. Elizabeth A. Goodine and Matthew W. Mitchell, “The Persuasiveness of a Woman: The Mistranslation and Misinterpretation of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica 5.1.41,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 13, no. 1 (2005): 6–8. They observe that lines 7–21 include eight verbs, seven of which are third-person singular, and Blandina is clearly the subject of five of those. Additionally, of the nine nominative participles, eight clearly have Blandina as the subject. Finally, the sentence structure is identical between 5.1.41 and 5.1.42, where Blandina is the subject of the finite verb, which is then followed by a hina clause. 43. Ibid., 6–9. 44. Ibid., 9. 45. Ibid., 18. 46. Livy, Hist. 1.57.6–58. For a discussion, see Lynn H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 69–70. 47. Susan E. Hylen, A Modest Apostle: Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 80–81. 48. Augustine, City of God, reverses this praise, and suggests that perhaps Lucretia killed herself because she consented to her attacker’s desire for sex (book 1, ch 19), or committed suicide knowing that she would be praised in her death. Augustine’s context, the sack of Rome, made the rape by enemy soldiers a pressing issue. L. Stephanie Cobb, “Suicide by Gladiator? the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas in its North African Context,” Church History 88, no. 3 (2019): 597–628, discusses changes in the fifth century Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas from the text of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas that reflect Augustine’s views and the controversy with the Donatists; in particular, Perpetua dies by a lion in the later version, rather than by guiding the gladiator’s sword to her own throat. 49. Eleanor Ruth Glendinning, “Guilt, Redemption, and Reception: Representing Roman Female Suicide” (PhD Diss. University of Nottingham, 2011), 317, remarks that her “thesis has also demonstrated that suicide is an important component in the history of women in the ancient world because of its capacity for reinstating autonomy in the face of an oppressive authority.” see also, Glendinning, “Reinventing Lucretia: Rape, Suicide and Redemption from classical Antiquity to the Medieval Era,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 20, no. 1–2 (2013): 61–82. 50. Tammie Jo Shults, Nerves of Steel: How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2019), xiv.

294

Lynn H. Cohick

51. Ibid., xv. 52. Asikainen, Jesus and Other Men, 16. 53. Ibid., 105. 54. Ibid., 185, concludes that the Synoptic Gospels tend to show a self-controlled masculinity. “Nevertheless, there are also occasions where Jesus’ teaching goes beyond the self-controlled ideal of masculinity into what seems like voluntary acceptance of the marginal position of the early Christians.” 55. Cohick and Hughes, Christian Women in the Patristic World, 27–64.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Asikainen, Susanna. Jesus and Other Men: Ideal Masculinities in the Synoptic Gospels. Biblical Interpretation Series 159. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Boyarin, Daniel. Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1999. Callon, Callie. Reading Bodies: Physiognomy as a Strategy of Persuasion in Early Christian Discourse. London: T&T Clark, 2019. Cobb, L. Stephanie. Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts. Gender, Theory, and Religion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. ———. “Suicide by Gladiator? The Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas in Its North African Context.” Church History 88, no. 3 (2019): 597–628. Cohick, Lynn H. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2009. Cohick, Lynn H., and Amy Brown Hughes. Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second Through Fifth Centuries. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2017. Dyson, Stephen L. “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire.” Historia 20 (1971): 239–74. Edwards, Catharine. Death in Ancient Rome. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2007. Glendinning, Eleanor Ruth. Guilt, Redemption, and Reception: Representing Roman Female Suicide. Nottingham: University of Nottingham, 2011. ———. “Reinventing Lucretia: Rape, Suicide and Redemption from Classical Antiquity to the Medieval Era.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 20, no. 1–2 (2013): 61–82. Goodine, Elizabeth A., and Matthew W. Mitchell. “The Persuasiveness of a Woman: The Mistranslation and Misinterpretation of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica 5.1.41.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 13, no. 1 (2005): 6–8. Goodman, Martin. The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome, A.D. 66–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Haber, Susan. “Living and Dying for the Law: The Mother-Martyrs of 2 Maccabees.” Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal 4, no. 1 (2006): 3–4.

“I am a Christian”

295

Henten, Jan Willem van. “Jewish and Christian Martyrs.” In Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity, edited by Joshua Schwartz and Marcel Poorthuis. Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series, v. 7. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Hylen, Susan. A Modest Apostle: Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Middleton, Paul, ed. Wiley Blackwell Companion to Christian Martyrdom. Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2020. Moore, Stephen D., and Janice Capel Anderson. “Taking It Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees.” Journal of Biblical Literature 117, no. 2 (1998): 249–73. Norman, Dawn LaValle. “Becoming Female: Marrowy Semen and the Formative Mother in Methodius.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 27, no. 2 (2019): 185–209. Nussbaum, Martha C. “The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman.” In The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Martha C. Nussbaum and Juha Sihvola. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Perkins, Judith. The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era. New York: Routledge, 1995. Rajak, Tessa. “Dying for the Law: The Martyr’s Portrait in Jewish-Greek Literature.” In Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, edited by M. J. Edwards and Simon Swain. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Shaw, Brent D. “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4, no. 3 (1996): 269–312. Shults, Tammie Jo. Nerves of Steel: How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge. Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2019. Soyars, Jonathan E. The Shepherd of Hermas and the Pauline Legacy. Supplements to Novum Testamentum, Volume 176. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

Chapter 16

The Christology of Jesus Another Look Thirty Years Later Craig A. Evans

In 1990, Ben Witherington’s The Christology of Jesus appeared.1 The publication of this book was in its own right important, but its publication by a press not known for publishing books by evangelical scholars was remarkable, testifying to the learned and persuasive arguments and conclusions of its author. The timeliness and importance of Witherington’s book were recognized by the Historical Jesus program unit of the Society of Biblical Literature, which convened a special panel session at the 1990 annual meeting for the purpose of reviewing and discussing the book.2 The discussion was lively and on the whole was appreciative and supportive. Witherington’s book has been widely reviewed. Assessments of it also widely differ. Reflecting very much the highly skeptical and eccentric views of the Jesus Seminar, which in the 1990s was enjoying its heyday,3 Robert Miller asserts that “Witherington’s book demonstrates little about Jesus.”4 Miller complains in his review that Witherington shifts the burden onto the shoulders of the skeptics, finding much of the dominical tradition plausible and probably deriving from Jesus. Miller describes Witherington’s conclusion that the Christology expressed in the Synoptic Gospels goes back to Jesus—and, yes, he is serious here—as a “radical thesis”!5 Miller disparages Witherington’s study, using language such as “downright dubious,” “muddled reasoning,” and “specious evidence.” Examples of these problems, we are told, “appear on virtually every page of argument.”6 As an active member of the Jesus Seminar, Miller, we may assume, holds to most, perhaps all of the Seminar’s conclusions as reflected in their principal publications concerning the historical Jesus.7 Miller’s uncritical, dismissive comments regarding Witherington’s learned book adumbrate the “findings” of the Jesus Seminar published a few years later. In the deliberations of the Seminar and in their books, it is concluded 297

298

Craig A. Evans

that Jesus had little or no interest in eschatology or in Israel’s redemption and that he did not see himself as Israel’s Messiah and certainly not as God’s Son. Jesus, moreover, made no appeals to Israel’s sacred Scripture, either. These are elements that the early church and the evangelists read into his story and his teachings in order to make Jesus and his teaching more relevant to the church. Prominent members of the Seminar believe that the Jesus of history was very different from the Jesus of the New Gospels. For example, the late Marcus Borg has argued for a non-eschatological, Buddha-like Jesus,8 while John Dominic Crossan, co-founder of the Jesus Seminar, believes Jesus was a Cynic.9 Whatever Jesus was, so goes the thinking, he is not the figure encountered in Christian literature. It seems that the early followers of Jesus seriously misinterpreted and misrepresented their Master and that the evangelists who tell his story got most of it wrong. A properly trained historian must wonder not only how the followers of Jesus, who was allegedly a great teacher, either could not or would not remember and pass on what Jesus actually said and did.10 The historian must also wonder why Jesus had any followers at all if he was nothing more than a “laconic sage,” as the Seminar contends.11 I am sure there were many Jewish teachers of one stripe or another in first-century Israel whose teaching was not particularly insightful or memorable. Indeed, they were quickly forgotten. A few are mentioned by Josephus in passing, their failures briefly noted. None of their surviving followers wrote Gospels about them or claimed that God accomplished something special through them. So we must ask, why did people continue to follow Jesus after his crucifixion? I wonder if it was—I am going out on a limb here—because Jesus did say and do the things the evangelists say he did? Maybe that is why Jesus attracted a following, a following that remained loyal to him even after his brutal death. This is where the thinking of Miller and the Seminar is especially vulnerable. Their minimalist portrait of Jesus cannot account for the results of Jesus’s public activities. We must wonder why the Jewish ruling priests—never popular with the crowds—would on the eve of Israel’s most sacred holy day, the Passover, seize an irritating laconic sage, demand Roman authority put him to death, and risk a riot. But they did. One must wonder, too, how it is that this Galilean laconic sage was crucified by Roman authority as the “King of the Jews” (Matt 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19) if his teaching and activities were devoid of messianic/prophecy fulfilling content. Yet, he was. In his review of Witherington’s book, Miller imagines that he holds the scholarly high ground. He thinks this because he believes that the quirky views of the Jesus Seminar truly represent rigorous, critical scholarship. But of course, they do not. The Seminar makes a hash of the sources, viewing the first-century canonical Gospels as late and derivative and writings like the Gospel of Thomas, which is dated to the mid-first century,12 and the Papyrus

The Christology of Jesus

299

Egerton 2 fragment as early and independent. They believe that Secret Mark, whose antiquity and authenticity they accept without question, is a fragment of “an early edition of the Gospel of Mark.”13 Some even imagine that the Gospel of Peter’s surreal account of the resurrection of Jesus, complete with a walking, talking cross, dates to the mid-first century and was the source on which all four New Testament evangelists depended for their respective accounts of the Passion.14 Since the publication of the Seminar’s principal studies in the mid-1990s, these odd views have been severely criticized by mainstream scholarship. Simon Gathercole and Mark Goodacre have argued persuasively that the Gospel of Thomas shows acquaintance with all three Synoptic Gospels and should not be dated earlier than the middle of the second century.15 Jens Schröter agrees, saying Thomas belongs to the second half of the second century.16 Tobias Nicklas concludes that Papyrus Egerton 2 is dependent on John and that the reverse, that is, Johannine and Synoptic tradition is dependent on Egerton, “is untenable.”17 Also, several recent studies conclude that in all probability the Mar Saba Clementine, in which two quotations of Secret Mark are embedded, is a modern forgery and should not be used in the study of the Gospels or the historical Jesus.18 It is not just the sources that the Jesus Seminar got upside down; they also made a mess of the social, religious, and historical context. This they do principally by a misapplication of the criterion of double dissimilarity. Misunderstood and misapplied, the criterion accepts as authentic only material shown to be dissimilar to Jewish tradition and dissimilar to what the church proclaimed about Jesus. Nils Dahl, Morna Hooker, E. P. Sanders, and others long ago criticized this wrong-headed approach.19 Undeterred by these criticisms, the Jesus Seminar concocted a Cynic sage, a “talking head,”20 whose message, it seems, did not especially resonate with his followers and so had to be transformed after his death. They seemed to have done a good job of it, though, for the Jesus they created captured the imagination, leading to a sweep of the Roman Empire and the establishment of a faith observed by almost one-third of the world’s population. But Miller’s jaundiced assessment of Witherington’s study was not the only evaluation. In a perceptive review, the late Ramsey Michaels concludes that The Christology of Jesus “succeeds in highlighting what has always been a stubborn fact—that is, that a non-messianic, non-eschatological, non-transcendent Jesus who was an ‘ordinary human being, just like us,’ and saw himself as no more than that, is not to be found anywhere in the Gospel tradition, early or late.”21 Michaels is correct, of course, and his comment anticipates Dale Allison’s solemn recommendation two decades later that “we should hold a funeral for the view that Jesus entertained no exalted thoughts about himself.”22 This he rightly said after a masterful review of all pertinent data.23

300

Craig A. Evans

In the balance of the present study, I want to follow up on Allison’s conclusion by looking more closely at two Qumran texts that he briefly considers.24 Both of these texts, rightly understood, strongly suggest that Jesus did indeed entertain exalted thoughts about himself and his ministry. THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CHRISTOLOGY OF JESUS When Ben Witherington was putting the final touches on The Christology of Jesus, he could not have known that most of the remaining fragments from Qumran’s Cave 4 would be published right on the heels of his book.25 Of course, Witherington was well aware of the scrolls that had been published before he wrote his book. In discussing the passage, in which the imprisoned John sends messengers to inquire of Jesus if he is “the Coming One” (Matt 11:2–6; Luke 7:18–23),26 Witherington rightly notes the relevance of 1QS 9:10–11 and 4Q252 5:1–6, texts that speak of a coming Messiah.27 John’s question thus authentically reflected eschatological hopes held by many Jews in the first century. One year after The Christology of Jesus was published, photographs of the seventeen (or eighteen) fragments identified as 4Q521 became available.28 A year after that, Émile Puech published a lengthy and learned study of this fragmentary scroll, which most think dates to the end of the Hasmonean period. Puech dubbed the text “une Apocalypse Messianique.”29 With regard to fragments 2 and 4, which preserve most of col. ii, Puech rightly recognized the scroll’s dependence on Psalm 146 and Isaiah 61, as well as parallels with the aforementioned passage in Matthew and Luke.30 He regarded the anointed figure of the text as a royal Messiah. Two years later, John Collins published an important study, in which he concluded that the anointed figure of 4Q521 was probably an eschatological prophet, perhaps Elijah redivivus.31 More recently, some have expressed doubts about the identification of the scroll’s genre as apocalypse, wondering if perhaps it is better to view it as an eschatological psalm.32 This will be the view that will be followed here. The relevance of 4Q521 for the interpretation of the exchange between John and Jesus is obvious and widely acknowledged, even if the nuances themselves are still being debated. One important element in the debate concerns the subject of several of the verbs of action (“set prisoners free,” “open eyes of the blind,” etc.). The fragmentary condition of the text makes it difficult to discern who is acting. In other words, is it God who heals and raises the dead, or is it his Anointed One, or does God do these things through his anointed agent? Let’s look at the relevant part of the text and then address this important question. The fragment reads:

The Christology of Jesus

301

4Q521 The Messianic Psalm ‫ התאמצו מבקשי אדני‬3 .‫ [וכל א]שר בם לוא יסוג ממצות קדושים‬2 ‫הש]מים והארץ ישמעו למשיחו‬ ̇ ‫]כי‬ ‫ כי אדני חסידים יבקר וצדיקים בשם‬5 .‫ הלוא בזאת תמצאו את אדני כל המיחלים בלבם‬4 ⟧ ⟦ .‫בעבדתו‬ ‫ מתיר‬8 ‫ כ֯ י֯ יכבד את חסידים על כסא מלכות עד‬7 .‫ ועל ענוים רוחו תרחף ואמונים יחליף בכחו‬6 .‫יקרא‬ ‫מעש]ה ֯טו֯ ̇ב‬ ֯ ‫ופר[י‬ ̇ 10 ] [ ̇‫אדבק [במ]י֯ חלים ובחסדו י‬ ̇ ‫ ו̇ ל[ע]לם‬9 .]‫כפ[ופים‬ ֯ ‫אסורים פוקח עורים זוקף‬ 12 ‫ כ֯ י̇ ירפא חללים ומתים יחיה ענוים‬.]‫ ונכבדות שלוא היו יעשה אדני כאשר ד̇ [בר‬11 ‫לאיש לוא יתאחר‬ . . . ‫יעשר‬ ̇ ‫שב[יע ]נ֯ ̇תושים ינהל ורעבי֯ ם‬ ̇ ̇‫[דלי]ם י‬ ̇ ֯‫ ו‬13 ‫יבשר‬

(4Q521 frag. 2, col. ii, lines 1–13 + frag. 4, line 1)33 [. . . For the hea]vens and the earth shall heed his Messiah2 [and all t]hat is in them shall not turn away from the commandments of the holy ones.3 Strengthen yourselves, O you who seek the Lord, in his service. ⟧Blank⟦4 Will you not find the Lord in this, all those who hope in their heart?5 For the Lord attends to the pious and calls the righteous by name.6 Over the humble his spirit hovers, and he renews the faithful in his strength.7 For he will honor the pious upon the th[ro] ne of his eternal kingdom,8 setting prisoners free, opening the eyes of the blind, raising up those who are bo[wed down (Ps 146:7–8)].9 And for[ev]er I shall hold fast [to] those [who h]ope and in his faithfulness sh[all . . .]10 and the frui[t of ] good [dee]ds shall not be delayed for anyone11 and the Lord shall do glorious things which have not been done (before), just as he said.12 For he shall heal the critically wounded, he shall revive the dead, he shall send good news to the afflicted (Isa 61:1),13 he shall sati[sfy the poo]r, he shall guide the uprooted, he shall make the hungry rich. . . .

Two things stand out in this passage: (1) the assertation that “the heavens and the earth shall heed (God’s) Messiah”; and (2) the incorporation of material drawn from Psalm 146. However one interprets the anointed figure in 4Q521 (whether royal or prophetic or some combination of both), the linkage of this figure with what is said of Yahweh in Psalm 146 is truly remarkable. The suggestion that the heavens and the earth would “listen to,” “heed,” or “obey” (and in this context ‫ ישמעו‬can be rendered any of these ways) an anointed human is astounding. Yet, that is what this text says. And of course, it is an anointed human that is in view, for angels are never said to be anointed; neither is this said of God himself. In Israel’s scriptures, priests, prophets, and kings are said to be anointed. The following clause in 4Q521 asserts that “all that is in them shall not turn away from the commandments of the holy ones.” The “holy ones” (‫ )קדושים‬could be angels (as in Deut 33:2; Ps 89:6, 8; Dan 4:14; Zech 14:5), but here they are more likely “holy” humans, that is, “saints” (as in Pss 16:3; 34:9; Dan 7:18, 21, 22, 25, 27; 8:24), which works better with the implied parallelism between the anointed human and the holy humans.

302

Craig A. Evans

In view of what appears a few lines below, we should assume that 4Q521’s phrase “all that is in them” (‫ )כל אשר בם‬alludes to Ps 146:6, where it is affirmed that Yahweh “made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them [‫כָּל־אֲשֶׁ ר־‬ ‫]בָּ ם‬.” Accordingly, the two parallel clauses in 4Q521 assert that heaven and earth will obey God’s Messiah, and (in a parallel sense) all that is in heaven and earth will obey the commandments of his holy people. In short, Israel and her Messiah will rule the world. This is an amazing claim for pious Jews who adhere to a very strict understanding of monotheism. But there is more. Drawing on Psalm 146 and Isaiah 61, the messianic psalm of 4Q521 goes on to describe wondrous, saving things that will take place for the benefit of God’s people, who are variously described as “pious” (‫)חסידים‬,34“ righteous” (‫)צדיקים‬,35 and “faithful” (‫)אמונים‬,36 epithets that further qualify the “holy ones” (or “saints”). Moreover, 4Q521 foresees that God “will honor the pious upon the throne of his eternal kingdom” (line 7). What does this mean? The phrase “his eternal kingdom” means God’s eternal kingdom. But this does not mean it is not the Messiah’s throne as well. 4Q521’s language bears witness to an interesting development in Israel’s scriptures. In the older narrative of Kings, Solomon can say that Yahweh “has established me, and placed me on the throne of David my father” (1 Kgs 2:24). In the later parallel in Chronicles, however, we are told that “Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD as king in place of David his father” (1 Chr 29:23, italics added). We hear the same language when the Queen of Sheba greets Solomon: “Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and set you on his throne as king for the LORD your God!” (2 Chr 9:8, italics added). The throne of David has become the throne of Yahweh. Yahweh’s throne, of course, is a heavenly one, as attested in pre-exilic and post-exilic literature (cf. Isa 6:1; Jer 3:17; 2 Chr 18:18; Pss 9:7; 11:4; 103:19); but in post-exilic theology, Israel’s earthly royal throne has come to be identified with God’s heavenly throne. David’s throne may well have become God’s throne, but David’s anointed heir will sit on it nevertheless. Closely related is the shift in kingdom language. Whereas in Samuel we hear of “the kingdom of Israel” (cf. 1 Sam 15:28, where it is taken from Saul; and 1 Sam 24:20, where Saul concedes that it will be given to David), in Chronicles, we hear of “the kingdom of the Lord” (1 Chr 28:5; cf. 1 Ch 29:11; 2 Chr 13:8). 4Q521 presupposes the Chronicler’s vision of God sitting on a throne in the eschatological rule or kingdom of God. We should assume that the Lord’s “anointed,” or Messiah, referenced in line 1, will sit on God’s throne in line 7, even as Solomon, David’s son and successor, sat “on the throne of the LORD as king in place of David his father” (1 Chr 29:23). The same idea is likely what lies behind Jesus’s conflation of Dan 7:9–13 and Ps 110:1–4 when before Caiaphas he asserts that he is indeed the anointed of God and as Son of Man he will be seated at God’s right hand (Mark

The Christology of Jesus

303

14:61–62). The Messiah is envisioned as seated next to God on the divine throne;37 the throne of Israel has merged with the throne of God. When “the throne of (God’s) eternal kingdom” is established on earth, the pious will be honored (‫)יכבד‬, as God promised long ago (cf. 1 Sam 2:30; Isa 43:4; 49:5; Ps 91:15), the righteous will be called “by name” (cf. Isa 45:3–4), and the faithful will be “renewed in strength” (cf. Isa 40:29–31; Ps 90:5). It will also be a time of liberation, restoration, and healing, a time when the prisoners will be set free, the eyes of the blind will be opened, and those who are bowed down will be raised up. The Lord, or his Anointed One through whom he acts, will heal the wounded, revive the dead, proclaim good news to the afflicted, satisfy the poor, and guide the uprooted and homeless. These latter promises raise the important question of agency. The allusions to Ps 146:7–8 in lines 1–11 suggest that the Lord himself is the agent by which all these restorative and redemptive acts will take place. After all, in line 11 we read, “and the Lord shall do” (‫)יעשה אדני‬. But the allusions to passages from Isaiah, especially 61:1, in lines 12–13 suggest that it is the Anointed One, the Messiah, anointed by the Spirit of God, who heals the wounded, raises the dead, and proclaims good news.38 Benjamin Wold has made a good case for messianic agency in lines 12–13 by appealing to the Scrolls labeled as 4QPseudo-Ezekiel.39 The author of Pseudo-Ezekiel assumes the role of the prophet Ezekiel and speaking in the first person he says: [And the LORD said to me, “I see t]he Children of Israel, and they shall know4 [that I am the LORD.” (vacat) And He said, “Son of man, pro]phecy over these bones,5 [and say, ‘Come together, bone to its bone and ]joint to its joint.’” And it was6 [so]. (4Q386 frag. 1, col. i, lines 3–6)

Two more times the prophet is told to prophesy over the dead; he does so, and it results in the resurrection of the dead (lines 7–10). Wold notes that the thrice-repeated clause, “and it was so” (‫ ויהי כן‬in line 6 above, but also in lines 7 and 8, with restorations), deliberately recalls what is said six times in the creation account in Genesis 1 (cf. ‫ וַיְ הִ י־כֵן‬in vv. 7, 9, 11, 15, 24, and 30).40 The use of this language probably implies that eschatological resurrection was understood as an act of creation. This should hardly occasion surprise, for eschatological visions often speak of “new heavens” and a “new earth” (Isa 65:17; 66:22; 1 Enoch 91:16; Bib. Ant. 3:10; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1), which clearly mirrors the original creation (Gen 1:1 “God created the heavens and the earth”). Wold rightly infers from Pseudo-Ezekiel that the author(s) of these materials envisioned an eschatological prophet who will function as an agent in God’s restoration of Israel.41 Accordingly, there really is no sound objection

304

Craig A. Evans

to understanding the Anointed One of 4Q521 as God’s agent on earth, through whom the wounded will be healed, the dead will be raised up, and the oppressed will hear good news. All of these things are seen in the ministry of Jesus: He heals the sick (Matt 4:24), he raises the dead (Matt 9:25; 11:5; Luke 7:22),42 and he proclaims the good news of the rule of God (Matt 4:17, 23; 9:35). Moreover, he does the very things that Psalm 146 says the Lord will do: he opens the eyes of the blind (Matt 9:30; 11:5; Luke 7:22) and raises up those bent down (Luke 13:11–13). The second text from Qumran adds significantly to this picture. Whereas the Anointed One of 4Q521 acts with the authority of God and actually does things that Scripture says God does, the figure in 11QMelchizedek not only does extraordinary things, like besting Satan and forgiving sins, he in some sense is identified with God. The most relevant parts of this fragmentary scroll read as follows: . . . and they are the inheritance of Melchizedek, who 6 will make them return. And liberty will be proclaimed for them, to free them from the debt of all their sins . . . for9 it is the time decreed for the “year of Melchizedek’s favor” (Isa 61:2) . . . as it is written10 about him in the songs of David, who said: “A godlike being [‫ ]אלוהים‬will stand in the assembly of God, in the midst of the divine beings [‫ ]אלוהים‬he holds judgment” (Ps 82:1). . . .12 Its interpretation concerns Belial and the spirits of his lot . . .13 But Melchizedek will carry out the vengeance of God’s judgments, and on that day he will free them from the hand of Belial and from the hand of all the spirits of his lot. (11QMelch 2:5–6, 7–10, 12, 13)

There are several very interesting features in this fragmentary and muchdiscussed text. I have quoted a few parts from the middle of column ii, which have the most relevance for the present discussion. This part of the Melchizedek Scroll revolves around an interpretation of an eschatological jubilee in which Isa 61:1–3 interprets Lev 25:13. Among other things, the Melchizedek figure, who blesses Abraham in Genesis 14 and becomes the model for the enthroned king of Israel who sits on a throne next to God (Psalm 110), restores Israel by returning them (to the land, presumably) and by forgiving their sin. He will also deliver Israel “from the hand of Belial,” that is, from the power of Satan and from the power of the spirits (i.e., demons or unclean spirits) who are part of his company. What is said of Melchizedek closely matches what is said of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels. For Jesus, the reality of the kingdom of God, that is, that it is making itself felt in the world, is witnessed above all by the exorcisms: “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the

The Christology of Jesus

305

kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). Similarly, Jesus’s power to heal offers proof that he, in fact, has the authority to forgive sin: “‘But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic—‘I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home’” (Mark 2:10–11). The early church’s proclamation that forgiveness of sins could be had in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38; 5:31; 10:43) is an extraordinary claim; its roots are in the Jesus tradition itself, where Jesus claims that as “the son of man” he has authority to forgive sins. Because he is the “son of man” of Dan 7:13, Jesus can make such a claim; and here we have another very important point of coherence with the Melchizedek figure in the Qumran scroll, who is clearly portrayed as a heavenly figure of redemption.43 Even as Melchizedek is said to stand in the assembly of divine beings (lit. “gods”), so the “son of man,” or human being seen in Daniel’s night vision (Dan 7:9), stands before God (the “Ancient of Days”). The “son of man” of Daniel’s vision is given royal authority (Dan 7:14), and in Jesus, he exercises that authority in healing, exorcism, and forgiving sin. The most startling claim of the Qumran scroll is seen not only in equating Melchizedek with the ‫אלוהים‬, elōhîm, figure of Ps 82:1,44 but in replacing the divine name, the Tetragrammaton, with Melchizedek’s name in the quotation of part of Isa 61:2. What reads in the unaltered text as ‫ַת־רצֹון לַיהוָה‬ ָ ‫לִ קְ ר ֹא ְשׁנ‬, “to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor,” reads in 11QMelchizedek: ‫לשנת הרצון‬ ‫למלכי צדק‬, “for the year of Melchizedek’s favor.” In some sense, Melchizedek is a heavenly or divine being, and in some sense, he assumes Yahweh’s role and acts in his place.45 Accordingly, he has the power to liberate Israel from Satan and the authority to forgive Israel’s sin. In view of what is said of Melchizedek, it is not hard to see how another text, such as 4Q521, could envision an anointed figure, whom heaven and earth will obey, acting in ways in which Yahweh acts. CONCLUDING COMMENTS If a theologically conservative, monotheistic Jewish sect like the community of Qumran could entertain thoughts of an exalted anointed figure, who in all probability is a human being on whom the power of God rests, then on what grounds can one insist that Jesus of Nazareth could not see himself in a similar light? If the Anointed One of 4Q521 can heal and raise the dead and the mysterious Melchizedek figure of 11Q13 can defeat Satan, rescue God’s people, and forgive their sin, then why is it inherently unlikely that the followers of Jesus would see their Master, who heals, casts out evil spirits, and forgives sins, as such an eschatological and heavenly figure?

306

Craig A. Evans

What the early Jesus community said about their Master—what he said and what he did—makes better sense if it is grounded in what Jesus really did say and do, than to imagine that it was necessary for the community to invent tradition to compensate for what was not a particularly significant or inspiring career. Or, to put it another way, it makes far more sense to believe that Jesus truly possessed a Christology and that he actually did entertain exalted thoughts about his person and mission, than to imagine that Jesus was little more than a laconic sage, who for reasons that are hard to fathom found himself on a Roman cross.46

NOTES 1. Ben Witherington III, The Christology of Jesus (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1990). 2. Panelists included Paula Fredrikson and Craig Evans. 3. The Seminar saw itself as part of the 1980’s/1990’s “Third Quest,” as it came to be called. But the Seminar’s assumptions, methods, and ideological commitments made it more of an atavistic continuation of the 1950’s/1960’s “New Quest” advanced by the students of Rudolf Bultmann. 4. R. J. Miller, in CBQ 54 (1992): 810–811, with quotation from p. 811. 5. Miller, 810. 6. Miller, 811. 7. R. W. Funk and R. W. Hoover (eds.), The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (Sonoma: Polebridge Press; New York: Macmillan, 1993); R. W. Funk (ed.), The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do? The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998). For Miller’s assessment of the Seminar and its work, see R. J. Miller, The Jesus Seminar and its Critics (Sonoma CA: Polebridge, 1999). Miller also served as the editor of the Seminar’s The Complete Gospels (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1992). 8. M. J. Borg, “A Temperate Case for a Non-Eschatological Jesus,” in Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1994), 47–68; idem, “East Meets West: The Uncanny Parallels in the Lives of Buddha and Jesus,” Bible Review 15, no. 5 (1999): 18–29, 50. 9. J. D. Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1991). 10. Indeed, the Seminar would have us believe that “Jesus’ followers did not grasp the subtleties of his position and reverted, once Jesus was not there to remind them, to the view they had learned from John the Baptist.” Funk and Hoover (eds.), The Five Gospels, 4. The followers of Jesus could not remember what Jesus taught, but they were able to recall what John had taught! 11. Funk and Hoover (eds.), The Five Gospels, 32–34. 12. Funk and Hoover (eds.), The Five Gospels, 543–544, 548: “The first edition of Thomas was probably composed during the decade 50–60 c.e.”

The Christology of Jesus

307

13. Funk and Hoover (eds.), The Five Gospels, 547–548. 14. J. D. Crossan, The Cross that Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988); P. Mirecki, “Peter, Gospel of,” in D. N. Freedman et al. (eds.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5:278–281. For arguments for the antiquity and independence of the Gospel of Thomas, Egerton Papyrus 2, Secret Mark, and the Gospel of Peter, see J. D. Crossan, Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of Canon (New York: Harper & Row, 1985; repr. Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1992); Miller (ed.), The Complete Gospels, 303 (Gospel of Thomas), 395 (Gospel of Peter), 404 (Secret Mark), and 407 (Papyrus Egerton 2). 15. S. J. Gathercole, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas: Original Language and Influences, SNTSMS 151 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); M. S. Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas’s Familiarity with the Synoptics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012). See also S. J. Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary, TENTS 11 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 16. J. Schröter, “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels within the Development of the New Testament Canon,” Early Christianity 7 (2016): 24–46, esp. 32–36. In my own work, I draw attention to the late second-century Syrian tradition, including Tatian’s Diatessaron, that is reflected in the Gospel of Thomas. See C. A. Evans, Jesus and the Manuscripts (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2020), 130–203, esp. 167–193. 17. T. Nicklas, “The ‘Unknown Gospel’ on Papyrus Egerton 2 (+Papyrus Cologne 255),” in T. J. Kraus, M. J. Kruger, and T. Nicklas (eds.), Gospel Fragments: The ‘Unknown Gospel’ on Papyrus Egerton 2, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840, Other Gospel Fragments, Oxford Early Christian Gospel Texts (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 9–120, here 97. For a much later dating of Egerton 2 from the perspective of two papyrologists, see P. Malik and L. Zelyck. “Reconsidering the Date(s) of the Egerton Gospel,” ZPE 204 (2017): 55–71. 18. S. C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2005); P. Jeffery, The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); P. Piovanelli, “Halfway between Sabbatai Tzevi and Aleister Crowley: Morton Smith’s ‘Own Concept of What Jesus “Must” Have Been’ and, Once Again, the Questions of Evidence and Motive,” in T. Burke (ed.), Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013), 157–183, esp. 182: “The only possible scholarly attitude to adopt is simply not to use it in any reconstruction of the history of early Christian traditions, texts, individuals, and groups, be they the Gospel of Mark, the historical Jesus, Alexandrian Christians, the Carpocratians, or Clement of Alexandria.” Textual critic and authority on all things apocryphal Keith Elliott recommends placing Secret Mark in a new edition of Edgar Goodspeed’s Strange New Gospels (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931). See J. K. Elliott, “Foreword: The Endurance of the Christian Apocrypha,” in T. Burke and B. Landau (eds.), New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016), xi–xvii, here xvi.

308

Craig A. Evans

19. See esp. N. A. Dahl, “Der historische Jesus als geschichtswissenschaftliches und theologisches Problem,” Kerygma und Dogma 1 (1955): 104–32; ET: “The Problem of the Historical Jesus,” in C. E. Braaten and R. A. Harrisville (eds.), Kerygma and History: A Symposium on the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), 138–171; repr. in Dahl, The Crucified Messiah and Other Essays (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974), 48–89, 173–174; M. D. Hooker, “Christology and Methodology,” NTS 17 (1971): 480–487; eadem, “On Using the Wrong Tool,” Theology 75 (1972): 570–581; E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 16–17. 20. As Richard Hays aptly puts it. His review of The Five Gospels is devastating. See R. B. Hays, “The Corrected Jesus,” First Things 43 (1994): 43–48. Hays (47) describes the Seminar’s portrait of Jesus as “an ahistorical fiction.” (The reference to Jesus as a “talking head” is on p. 46.) 21. J. R. Michaels, in JBL 111 (1992): 141–143, quotation from p. 143. 22. D. C. Allison Jr., Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 304. 23. Allison, Constructing Jesus, 221–304. This chapter, ironically, is entitled, “More than a Prophet: The Christology of Jesus.” Allison’s conclusions approximate Witherington’s. 24. Allison, Constructing Jesus, 265–266. 25. The Scrolls monopoly came to a sudden end in 1991, with the publication of the text reconstructions by B. Z. Wacholder and M. G. Abegg, Jr., A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts from Cave Four (4 fascicles, Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991–96), and the photographs in R. H. Eisenman and J. M. Robinson (eds.), A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991). 26. The passage is widely accepted as deriving from the Sitz im Leben Jesu. See D. C. Allison, Jr., and W. D. Davies, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Volume II: Commentary on Matthew VIII– XVIII, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 244–245; J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke I–IX, AB 28 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1981), 663–664. See also Witherington, The Christology of Jesus, 42–44, 165–166, 170, 185. 27. Witherington, The Christology of Jesus, 42–44. 28. See Eisenman and Robinson (eds.), A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, vol. 1, plate 384 ( = PAM 43.604). 29. É. Puech, “Une Apocalypse Messianique (4Q521),” RevQ 15 (1992): 475–522. 30. Puech, “Une Apocalypse Messianique,” 475, 490. His analysis is rich with parallels, both biblical and extra-biblical. 31. J. J. Collins, “The Works of the Messiah,” DSD 1 (1994): 98–112; a portion of which is revised and reprinted in Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 117–122.

The Christology of Jesus

309

32. See the current and succinct summary in E. F. Mason, “Messianic Apocalypse,” in G. J. Brooke and C. Hempel (eds.), T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2019), 320–321. 4Q521 could be an eschatological psalm looking forward to redemption, even as 4Q369, the so-called Prayer of Enosh, is a prayer, either looking back to the historical Israel as God’s “first-born,” or perhaps looking forward to the eschatological Davidic first-born son. I have argued for the latter, in “A Note on the ‘First-Born Son’ of 4Q369,” DSD 2 (1995): 185–201; James Kugel has argued for the former, in “4Q369 ‘Prayer of Enosh’ and Ancient Biblical Interpretation,” DSD 5 (1998): 119–148. See also B. Wold, “Is the ‘Firstborn Son’ in 4Q369 a Messiah?” RevQ 29 (2017): 3–20. Whether Enosh is in fact in view is now debated. 33. For Hebrew text, see É. Puech, Qumran Cave 4.XVIII: Textes hébreux (4Q521–4Q528, 4Q576–4Q579) (DJD 25; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 1–38 (here 10) + pls. I–III; F. García Martínez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. Volume Two: 4Q274–11Q31 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 1044. The English translation is adapted from García Martínez and Tigchelaar (p. 1045) and from Martin G. Abegg, Jr., in M. O. Wise, M. G. Abegg Jr., and E. M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996), 421. 34. For scriptural examples, see 2 Chr 6:41; Pss 31:24; 37:28; 79:2; 85:9; 97:10; 116:15; 132:9, 16; 145:10; 148:14; Prov 2:8. 35. For scriptural examples, see Deut 16:19; Job 22:19; Pss 1:5–6; 34:16; 37:29, 39; 52:8; 68:3; 69:29; 118:15, 20; 125:3; 140:14; 142:8; 146:8; Prov 2:20; Lam 4:13. All of these examples are in the plural; there are many more examples in the singular. 36. For scriptural examples, see Pss 12:1; 31:24; 101:6. 37. The same idea is expressed in Rev 3:21 when the risen and exalted Jesus promises the faithful: “I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” 38. For discussion of the linguistic and thematic overlaps between Psalm 146 and passages from Isaiah, see J. J. Collins, “A Herald of Good Tidings: Isaiah 61:1–3 and Its Actualization in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in C. A. Evans and S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders, BIS 28 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 225–240, here 233–235. 39. B. Wold, “Agency and Raising the Dead in 4QPseudo-Ezekiel and 4Q521 2 ii,” ZNW 103 (2012): 1–19. 40. As earlier observed in D. Dimant, “Resurrection, Restoration, and TimeCurtailing at Qumran, and in Early Judaism and Christianity,” RevQ 19 (2000): 527–548; repr. in Dimant, History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls, FAT 90 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 249–268, here 252–253. Wold (“Agency and Raising the Dead,” 10) cites Dimant with approval. 41. Wold (“Agency and Raising the Dead,” 12) rightly concludes: “4QPseudoEzekiel is the best source available from early Jewish literature that unequivocally depicts a prophetic figure as an agent who restores the righteous to life in the eschaton.”

310

Craig A. Evans

42. Raising the dead recalls Elijah (1 Kgs 17:21–22; cf. Sir 48:5) and Elisha (2 Kgs 4:32–37; 13:20–21; cf. Sir 48:13–14). The rabbis believed that the resurrection of the dead would come through Elijah (m. Sotah 9:15; b. Sanh. 92b; Pesiq. R. Kah. 9.4). 43. A. S. van der Woude, “Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neugefundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI,” Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 (1965): 354–373. 44. So van der Woude, “Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt,” 364. 45. In my view this argues against seeing Melchizedek as angel; pace van der Woude, “Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt,” 369. On this point, see C. Batsch, “Melki Sedeq n’est pas un ange: Une relecture du pesher thématique 11Q13 (11QMelkisedeq) II,” Meghillot 5–6 (2008): 3–16. Joseph Fitzmyer also doubted the angel identification. He wondered if “Melchizedek” in the paraphrase of Isa 61:2 was intended as “a surrogate for Yahweh.” See J. A. Fitzmyer, “Further Light on Melchizedek from Qumran Cave 11,” JBL 86 (1967): 25–41. 46. I am delighted to offer this study in honor of Ben Witherington III, long-time friend.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allison Jr., Dale C. Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2010. Allison Jr., Dale C., and William D. Davies. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Volume II: Commentary on Matthew VIII–XVIII. Vol. 2. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991. Batsch, Christophe. “Melki Sedeq n’est pas un Ange: Une relecture du pesher thématique 11Q13 (11QMelkisedeq) II.” Meghillot 5–6 (2008): 3–16. Borg, Marcus J. “A Temperate Case for a Non-Eschatological Jesus.” In Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, 47–68. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1994. ———. “East Meets West: The Uncanny Parallels in the Lives of Buddha and Jesus Part II.” Bible Review 15, no. 5 (1999): 18–29. Braaten, C. E., and Roy A. Harrisville, eds. “The Problem of the Historical Jesus.” In Kerygma and History: A Symposium on the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann, 138–71. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1962. Carlson, Stephen C. The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2005. Collins, John J. “A Herald of Good Tidings: Isaiah 61:1–3 and Its Actualization in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders, edited by Craig A. Evans and Shemaryahu Talmon, 225–40. Biblical Interpretation Series, Vol. 28. Leiden: Brill, 1997.

The Christology of Jesus

311

———. The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature. ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1995. ———. “The Works of the Messiah.” Dead Sea Discoveries 1, (1994): 98–112. Crossan, John Dominic. Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of Canon. New York; Sonoma, California: Harper & Row; Polebridge, 1985, 1992. ———. The Cross that Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative. San Francisco, California: Harper & Row, 1988. ———. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. San Francisco, California: HarperCollins, 1991. Dahl, Nils Alstrup. “Der Historische Jesus als Geschichtswissenschaftliches und Theologisches Problem.” Kerygma Und Dogma 1 (1955): 104–32. ———. The Crucified Messiah and Other Essays. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg, 1974. Dimant, Devorah. History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 90. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. ———. “Resurrection, Restoration, and Time-Curtailing at Qumran, and in Early Judaism and Christianity.” Revue de Qumrân 19 (2000): 527–48. Eisenman, Robert H., and James M. Robinson, eds. A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 2 Vols. Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991. Elliott, J. K. “Foreword: The Endurance of the Christian Apocrypha.” In New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, edited by Tony Burke and Brent Landau, 1: xi–xvii. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2016. Evans, Craig A. “A Note on the ‘First-Born Son’ of 4Q369.” Dead Sea Discoveries 2, (1995): 185–201. ———. Jesus and the Manuscripts: What We Can Learn From the Oldest Texts. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2020. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. “Further Light on Melchizedek from Qumran Cave 11.” Journal of Biblical Literature 86 (1967): 25–41. ———. The Gospel According to Luke I–IX: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. The Anchor Bible 28. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1981. Funk, Robert Walter, ed. The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do? The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus. San Francisco, California: HarperCollins, 1998. Funk, Robert Walter, and R. W. Hoover, eds. The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus. Sonoma; New York: Polebridge Press; Macmillan, 1993. Gathercole, Simon J. The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas: Original Language and Influences. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 151. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. ———. The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary. Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 11. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Goodacre, Mark S. Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas’s Familiarity with the Synoptics. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2012. Goodspeed, Edgar Johnson. Strange New Gospels. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1931. Hays, Richard B. “The Corrected Jesus.” First Things 43 (1994): 43–48.

312

Craig A. Evans

Hooker, M. D. “Christology and Methodology.” New Testament Studies 17 (1971): 480–87. ———. “On Using the Wrong Tool.” Theology 75 (1972): 570–81. Jeffery, Peter. The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled: Imagined Rituals of Sex, Death, and Madness in a Biblical Forgery. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2007. Kugel, James. “4Q369 ‘Prayer of Enosh’ and Ancient Biblical Interpretation.” Dead Sea Discoveries 5, (1998): 119–48. Malik, Peter, and Lorne Zelyck. “Reconsidering the Date(s) of the Egerton Gospel.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 204 (2017): 55–71. Martínez, F. García, and E. J. C. Tigchelaar. The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. Volume Two: 4Q274–11Q31. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Mason, E. F. “Messianic Apocalypse.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by George J. Brooke and Charlotte Hempel. T&T Clark Companions. London; New York: T&T Clark, 2019: 320–21. Michaels, J. Ramsey. “Review: The Christology of Jesus.” Journal of Biblical Literature 111, (1992): 141–43. Miller, Robert J. “The Christology of Jesus by Ben Witherington III.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 54, (1992): 810–11. ———. The Jesus Seminar and its Critics. Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1999. ———, ed. The Complete Gospels. Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1992. Mirecki, P. “Peter, Gospel Of.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, Gary A. Herion, David F. Graf, John David Pleins, and Astrid Billes Beck, 5: 278–81. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Nicklas, Tobias. “The ‘Unknown Gospel’ on Papyrus Egerton 2 (+Papyrus Cologne 255).” In Gospel Fragments: The ‘Unknown Gospel’ on Papyrus Egerton 2, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840, Other Gospel Fragments, edited by Tobias Nicklas, Michael J. Kruger, and Thomas J. Kraus, 9–120. Oxford Early Christian Gospel Texts. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Piovanelli, Pierluigi. “Halfway Between Sabbatai Tzevi and Aleister Crowley: Morton Smith’s ‘Own Concept of What Jesus “Must” Have Been’ and, Once Again, the Questions of Evidence and Motive.” In Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery?: The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate, edited by Tony Burke, 157–83. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2013. Puech, Émile. Qumran Cave 4.XVIII: Textes Hébreux (4Q521–4Q528, 4Q576–4Q579). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. ———. “Une Apocalypse Messianique (4Q521).” Revue de Qumrân 15 (1992): 475–522. Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1985. Schröter, Jens. “Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels Within the Development of the New Testament Canon.” Early Christianity 7 (2016): 24–46. van der Woude, A. S. “Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neugefundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI.” Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 (1965): 354–73.

The Christology of Jesus

313

Wacholder, Ben Zion, and Martin G. Abegg Jr. A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts From Cave Four. Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991. Wise, Michael Owen, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. San Francisco, California: HarperCollins, 1996. Witherington III, Ben. The Christology of Jesus. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1990. Wold, Benjamin. “Agency and Raising the Dead in 4QPseudo-Ezekiel and 4Q521 2 ii.” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 103 (2012): 1–19. ———. “Is the ‘Firstborn Son’ in 4Q369 a Messiah?” Revue de Qumrân 29 (2017): 3–20.

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

OLD TESTAMENT Genesis (Gen) 1:1 303 1:7, 9, 11, 15, 24, 30 303 1:9 3 4:1 3 4:10 250 8:5 3 9:6 85n26 9:14 4 12–36 2, 3 12:1 89n104 12:1-6 3 12:2-3 4 12:6 4, 6 12:7 3, 4, 5, 12 12:7b-8 6 13:17-18 3 14 304 16:7 15n20 17:1 4–5, 13n4 18:1 5 21:17 15n18 22:11 15n20 22:14 5, 15n18 26:2, 24 5 28:10-22 15n18 29 63, 71

29:1-20 63 31:43-50 250 32:29 3 35:1 5 35:4 3 35:9 5 46:29 4 48:3 5 Exodus (Exod) 1–24 1 2 71 3:2 6 3:2 [3x], 3, 4 6 3:4 6, 16n34 3:5 7 3:6 7 3:14 7 3:16 16n26 4:1, 5 6, 16n26 6:3 7 13:7 16n26 13:21-22 7 16:10 16n26 19–24 1, 7–8, 9 19:1-15 8 19:6 34 19:16 7 19:16-19 8 315

316

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

19:16-25 8 20:1 9 20:1-21 8 20:2 9 20:3-11 79 20:12 79, 80, 82, 169–70 20:13 85n26 20:13-17 79 20:22–23:33 8 20:24 6 21:15 81 21:17 81 23:15, 17 16n26 24:1 12 24:1-18 8 28:30 7 31:28 9 33 258 33:12-34:9 15n20 33:17–34:8 50 34:3, 20, 23, 24 16n26 34:6-7 50–51 Leviticus (Lev) 8:8 7 11:44-45 83 12 246, 249 19:2 83 19:3 80 19:17-18 34 19:18 51–52 19:34a 34 20:26 83 25:13 304 Numbers (Num) 9:15-23 14:21 27:21

7 266 7

Deuteronomy (Deut) 4 1, 8–9 4:2 18n47 4:9, 34-35 8

4:10 8 4:11 8 4:12 9 4:13 9 4:33 9 4:36 16n33 5:4 9 5:6 9 5:7-15 79 5:16 79, 80, 82 5:17-21 79 9:10 9 11:30 3 12:2, 5 6 13:1 [Eng 12:32] 18n47 17:6 250 19:15 250 21:18-21 82 31:28 250 33:2 14n6, 301 33:16 6 Joshua (Josh) 24:26

3

Judges (Judg) 5:4-5 14n6 9:6, 37 3 13:3 15n20 1 Samuel (1 Sam)​ 2:30 303 3:21 16n26 15:28 302 16:7 15n14 23:1-6 7 24:20 302 1 Kings (1 Kgs)​ 2:24 302 7:10-11 32 17 30 17:9 31 17:21-22 310n42

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

2 Kings (2 Kgs)​ 4 4:8-10 4:32-37 13:20-21

30 32 310n42 310n42

1 Chronicles (1 Chr)​ 28:5 302 29:11 302 29:23 302 2 Chronicles (2 Chr)​ 9:8 302 13:8 302 18:18 302 Nehemiah (Neh) 8:2 27 Esther (Esth) 4:14

275

Psalms (Ps) 8:6 240 9:7 302 11:4 302 16:3 301 27:4 265 34:9 301 45 63 46:7 14n6 63:2 265 72 266 82:1 304, 305 89:6, 8 301 90:5 303 91:15 303 103:19 302 110 304 110:1 99 110:1-4 302 112:9 236 146 300, 301, 304 146:7-8 301, 303

Proverbs (Prov) 5:15-18

246

Song of Songs (Song) 4:12-15 246 Isaiah (Isa) 6:1 302 6:2 7 11:9 271n25 19:1 14n6 40:29-31 303 43:4 303 45:3-4 303 49:5 303 53:1 60 61 300 61:1 301 61:1-3 304 61:2 304, 305 65:17 303 66:22 303 Jeremiah (Jer) 3:17 33 33:10-11

302 63 63

Daniel (Dan) 4:14 301 7:9 305 7:9-13 302 7:13 305 7:14 305 7:18, 21, 22, 25, 27 301 8:24 301 Habakkuk (Hab) 2:14 271n25 3:3 14n6 Zechariah (Zech) 14:5 301

317

318

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

NEW TESTAMENT Matthew (Matt) 4:17, 23 304 4:24 304 5:8 261 9:25 304 9:30 304 9:35 304 11:2-6 300 11:3 244 11:5 304 11:27 78 13:13-15 60 15:24-28 28 18:16 250 24:31 168 27:37 298 27:50 251 28:16-20 100 Mark (Mk) 1:8 245 1:11 78 2:10-11 305 4:12 60 7:9-13 169–70 7:24-27 28 9:7 78 10:2 49 12:28 79 12:28-32 172 14:36 82 14:61-62 302–3 15:26 298 15:37 251 15:40 24 16:7 100 Luke (Lk) 1:35 97 2:1 93, 97 2:10-11 97 2:46 26 3:1 93, 97

3:22 97 4:5 98–99 4:38-39 30 4:39 25, 32 6:15 94 6:20-23 262 7:18-23 300 7:20 244 7:22 304 7:26 28 7:30 98 7:36 33 7:38 26 7:44-46 23 8:1-3 24, 32, 33, 35n6 8:2-3 24 8:2b-3 25 8:8, 15, 21 27 8:10 60 8:35 26 8:41 26 9:12-17 23 9:35 27, 97 9:51 99 10 34 10:5 30 10:7 30 10:9 30–31 10:16 27 10:22 78 10:23-24 27 10:25-37 33 10:28 34 10:38 30, 32 10:38-42  21–23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35n6 10:39 26, 27 10:40 29 11:1-4 33 11:20 304–5 12:11 29 12:22 29 12:25-26 29 12:37 23 13:11-13 304

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

13:18-19 98 13:20-21 98 13:22 100 13:33 100 17:7 30 17:8 23 17:11 100 17:16 26 18:31 100 19:11 100 20:9 26 21:26-27 99 22:8 32 22:13 24 22:17, 19-20 24 22:27 24 23:38 298 23:46 251 24:44-47 98 24:49 100 24:49-47 100 John (Jn) 1:1 69, 77 1:6-8, 15 245 1:11 60, 245 1:13 62, 63 1:14 48, 51, 262 1:14, 17-18 50 1:15, 27 247 1:26, 31, 33 245 1:29-34 248 1:34 247 1:35-51 65 1:50 247 1:51 62, 65 2, 3, 4, 12, 20 63 2:7, 13, 24 69 2:11 262 2:19-21 62 2:20 58 2:21 62 2:22 66 2:24 61, 69 2:27 69

3 62, 65 3:5 249, 253n14 3:8, 11 69 3:12 56 3:14 62 3:14-15 55 3:16 78 3:22-36 245 3:24 61 3:29 63 3:35 78 4 65 4:1-3 69 4:19 59, 247 4:23 66 4:29 59 4:31 59 4:42 59, 247 5:19-21 83 5:20 78 5:23 79 5:31-38 250 5:35 212 5:43 245 6:11-13 61 6:50, 58 247 6:51 61 6:66 59, 64 6:69 247 6:71 61 7:12 59 7:18 79 7:25, 31 59 7:35 58 7:39 62, 67 7:40, 41 247 7:44 59 8:17-18 250 8:31ff 58 8:49 79 8:57-58 65 8:58 77 9 65 10:16-17 61 10:17 81

319

320

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

10:18 83 10:23 44 11–12 23, 24, 50 11:5 46, 51 11:12 59 11:19 32 11:27 247 11:33, 38 51 11:35 51 11:40 59, 262 11:50 58 12 60–61 12:1-3 63 12:3 63, 64 12:13 247 12:29 58, 59 12:35f 60 12:36 60 12:36b 60 12:37-40 59–60 12:38-40 60 12:41 60 12:42 56, 60 12:44-50 61 12:49-50 82 13 51 13:1 46 13:34 51 14:5 67 14:8 67, 77 14:17 250 14:26 57, 67 14:31 78 15:9 78 15:12 51 15:26 250 15:26-27 250 16:12 67 16:12-13 67 16:13 57, 67 16:14 250 16:16 67 16:25 67 16:28 245 16:29 67

16:31-32 67 17 51 17:4 79 17:24 78 19–37 245 19:19 298 19:30 251 19:30, 34 247 19:33, 38 58 19:34 245, 246, 249 19:34-35 250 20:1-18 63 20:8 46 20:14 61 20:17 64 20:22 67 20:28 77 20:30 42 20:31 61 21:1-23 100 21:7 46 21:22-23 43 21:24 45, 250 21:25 42 Acts of the Apostles (Acts) 1–7 101 1:4 100–1 1:5, 11:16 245 1:8 101 1:11 99 1:13 94 1:17, 25 28 2:23 98 2:35 99 2:38 305 4:28 98 5:10 26 5:31 305 5:36-37 93 6:1 28, 29 6:1-7 29 6:2 28, 29 6:15 26 8–9 101

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

8:14-24 171 9:31 101 9:36 31 9:36-42 31 10:43 305 11:28 93, 97 12:25 28 13:36 98 14 189 14:11 184 14:15 102 15:7 105n8 16:1 179 16:1-2 179 16:1-3 181 16:2 179 16:13 31 16:14-15 30 16:34 23–24 17:24-27 102 17:29 102 17:30 102 17:31 99 18:2 93, 97 18:11 138 19:21 101 19:21 101 19:22 28 20:24 28, 105n8 20:27 98 21:19 28 21:38 93 22:3 26 28:16, 30-31 220 28:26-27 60 28:30-31 99, 101 Romans (Rom) 1:11-13 147 1:16-17 234 1:17-19 1 2:7-10 233 3:8 233 3:20 239 5:6-8 233

321

5:7 241n6 5:12-21 234 5:19 83 7 233, 234, 239–40 7:19, 21 233 8 264, 267 8:1-17 240 8:15 82 8:17 282–83, 289 8:17-23 276 8:18-25 283 8:18-30 264 8:20 283 8:22-23 277 8:23 283 8:23-25 264 8:24 283 8:25 283 8:28 233, 240 8:29 283, 289 9:11 233 9:22-33 61 10:4 240 10:15 234 12, 16 240 12:2 233 12:9 172, 233 12:9-21 233 12:17 231, 233 12:21 233 13:1-7 166, 173 13:4 149n8, 233 13:8, 10 172 13:11-12 240 13:14 240 14:1-15:6 234, 238 14:13-18 234 14:16 233 14:18 129n63, 234 14:21 234 15:1 234 15:2 234, 239 15:3-4 234 15:7 234 15:8 149n8

322

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

15:12 234 15:13 234 15:14-22 234 15:16 234 15:27 236 15:31 235–36 16:1 28, 154n69 16:1-2 137, 138–40 16:2 138 16:7 285 16:19 233 16:20 234 16:21-23 144 35, 201 140 42, 90, 216, 339, 462, 466, 642 140 337 140 1 Corinthians (1 Cor)​ 1:1 145 1:8 77 2:11 77 3:5-6 28 4:21 172 5:1 234 5:6 234 6:6 143 6:12 231 6:12-20 234 7 107–8, 109, 114–15, 116–18, 121–23, 130n65, 232, 234–35 7:1 109, 234 7:2-5 130n66 7:2-5, 10-16, 116 7:27 116 7:32-34 116 7:39 116 7:3 116 7:3-4 129n63 7:5 116 7:8 235 7:9 121, 235 7:10-16 109 7:14 115 7:15 143

7:17 235 7:17-24 235 7:20 235 7:20, 24, 26, 29 240 7:21 129n57 7:21-23 115 7:21a 129n57 7:22 130n64 7:23 129n57 7:26 235 7:26, 29, 31 109 7:27, 36-40 109 7:27, 39 130n66 7:29 235 7:32-34 129n63, 130n66 7:33-34 129n63 7:35 231, 232, 235 8–10 238 8:1-3 264 8:6 77 8:11, 13 143 8:29 143 9:5 32 9:18 234 10:23 231 10:24 239 10:33 231 11:2-16 108-9 12:7 231 13 172, 241 13:10 240 13:12 263–64 13:33 241 14:34-35 108 14:34-36 108 15:1 234 15:1-28 265 15:3-4 238 15:25-26 235 15:27 240 15:28 77, 240 15:33 232 16 194n14 16:1-4 235 16:10-11 181, 194n14 16:12 145

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

16:13 16:15-18 16:19-20 16:23

277, 285 140 144 145

2 Corinthians (2 Cor)​ 1:1 145, 147 2:13 145 2:19 146 3:5 149n8 3:6 149n8 3:14-17 71 4:8-12 285 5:1-5 271n22 5:6, 8 232 5:7 264 5:9-10 240 5:10 233, 264 5:14 238 5:14-15 239 5:16-21 238 6:4 28, 149n8 6:4-10 285 7:8 212 7:8–9 236 8:4 236 8:6-7 236 8:6, 16, 17, 23 145 8:9 236 8:16-17 146 8:18 146 8:18, 22 154n68 8:19 232 8:21 231 8:22 146 9:6 236 9:7 236 9:8 237 9:9 236 9:10 236 9:11-12 236 9:13 236 9:14 236 9:15 236 10:1 172 11 263

323

11:15, 23 28 11:23 149n8 11:23-28 285 12 263 12:1-5 263 12:18 145 Galatians (Gal) 1:4 238 1:6-9 234 1:10 129n63 2:5 212 2:10 235 2:16 239 2:17 149n8 2:20 238 3:1 239 3:28 109 4:6 82, 84, 143 5:6, 13, 22 172 5:14 239 5:16-18 240 5:19-23 240 5:22 232 6:2, 5 239 6:6 239 6:9 240 6:9-10 232 6:10 143, 231, 239, 240 6:12 231, 232 6:14 238 6:15 238 Ephesians (Eph) 1:3-14 12 1:9-10 12 1:10 265 4:29 234 5:9 232 5:21 122, 123 5:21-22 115, 122 5:21-6:9 125n11 5:25, 28, 33 115–16 5:33 115 6:1, 5 115 6:4 116

324

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

6:5-6 129n63 6:7 115 6:9 116 6:21-22 218 Philippians (Phil) 1:1 28 1:6 237 1:7 241n6 1:15 232 1:23 264 2:1-11 239 2:3-4 239 2:5-11 168 2:8 83 2:13 232 2:19-23 146 2:19-24 181 2:22 146 2:25 145 2:25-30 145, 204 3:14 238 3:20 238 4:2-3 239 4:3 234 4:8 231 4:18 204 4:21-22 144 Colossians (Col) 1:10 237 3:4 264 3:5-7 126n21 3:18 115 3:18-4:1 124n7, 125n11 3:19 115–16 3:20, 22 115 3:21 116 4:1 109, 116 4:7-9 218 4:8-9 220 4:12-13 205 4:15 132n92 4:15-16 218 4:17 204

1 Thessalonians (1 Thess)​ 1:1, 3, 10 143 1:3 172, 241 2:4 234 3:2 146, 147 3:2, 6 181 3:5-6 151n31 4:3-5 121, 131n88 4:3-8 239 4:6 143 5:15 231, 239 5:15, 21 239 2 Thessalonians (2 Thess)​ 1:11 232 3:13 232 3:17 237 1 Timothy (1 Tim)​ 1:3-4 168 1:3-20 168 1:5 168 1:6 168 1:8 168 1:10 166 1:12-17 168 1:18 181 1:18-20 168 1:19 191 2 166 2:1-2 166 2:1-15 167 2:2 166, 167 2:3-7 166 2:5-6 166 2:8, 12 172 2:15 165 3:1-12 167 3:2 192 3:2, 12 170 3:13 240 3:15 167 3:16  161, 166–69, 170, 171 4:6 169 4:7 169

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

4:7-8 168–69, 170, 171 4:8 169 4:8 161 4:10 166 4:12 191, 192, 194n14 4:14-16 191 5:2 191 5:3-8 169 5:3-16, 22 167, 169, 192 5:4 161, 169–70 5:8 170 5:9 170 5:9-10 169 5:11-15 170 5:14 122 5:15 170 5:16 169 5:19 250 6:2b-6 171 6:3 171 6:3, 5-6 170–71 6:4-5 191 6:5 171 6:6-10 171 6:10 171 6:11 172–73 6:11 161 6:18 232 6:20 181, 191 2 Timothy (2 Tim)​ 1:2 181 1:5-6 181 1:6-8 191, 194n14 1:7, 8 181 2:1, 3 181 2:8-13 168 3:3 232 3:5 161 3:12 161 3:14-17 181 3:17 172 4:12, 14, 16 181 5:4 161 6:20 181

325

Titus 1:1 171 1:4 166 1:16 170 2:2 172 2:5, 9 115 2:7 232 2:10, 13 166 2:12 169 3:1 129n62 3:4, 6 166 Philemon (Phm/Phlm) 1 145, 146 1–2 145, 146, 147, 203 1, 7, 20 203 1, 10, 23–25 237 6, 17 207 2 142, 148 4–7 203, 212, 237 7 237 7, 20 145, 146, 205 10 205, 211 10, 19 237 11 203, 211 12 220, 237 13 203, 205, 211, 237 13b 204 14 203, 237 15 211–12, 216 15a 205 16 202–3 16a 202 16:9 202–3 17 205–6 17, 20–22 237 17b 202 18 206, 209, 212, 237 18–19 206 19 203, 212, 219 22 211, 224n39, 237 23 205 23–24 220 25 147

326

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

Hebrews (Heb) 1:5, 8-9 81 2:9 83 2:10 83, 84 3:1 147 5:7 83 5:7-9 81 5:8 83 5:14 169 12:11 169 12:24 250 James (Jas) 1:2 147 2:25 30 1 Peter (1 Pet)​ 1:14-16 83 2:13 129n62 2:13-17 166, 173 2:19-23 109, 3:1 109, 3:6 115 3:7 116, 122 3:18 168 3:19 168 5:12 153n63 2 Peter (2 Pet)​ 1:10 3:13

147 303

1 John (1 Jn)​ 1:3 246 1:7 245, 252 1:11 245 2:2 245, 252 2:20 244 2:20-21 250 2:26-27 250 2:22 251 2:22-23 246 2:23 77 2:28 264 3:1 264 3:2 258, 264

3:5 244, 246 3:8 246 3:13 147 3:24 250 4:2 245, 249 4:2-3 250–51 4:6 250 4:9 246, 249 4:9-10 246 4:14-15 246 4:10 78, 252 4:13 250 5:1, 18 246 5:5 248 5:6 245, 248 5:6-8 243, 246, 252, 253n14 5:6a 247–49, 251 5:6b 249–51 5:7-8 250–52, 254n25 5:8 245, 251, 253n14 5:9-10 251 5:9-12 252 5:18 246, 249 2 John (2 Jn)​ 6:54-56 7

244 245

Revelation (Rev) 3:21 309n37 4 257 6:9-11 250 6:11 147 21 257, 259–60, 265 21:1 303 22 257, 265 22:4-5 265 OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA 1 Maccabees (1 Macc)​ 1:60-61 291n26 2 Maccabees (2 Macc)​ 6:10 291n26

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

6:20 7:9, 11, 14, 23, 29 7:10-11 7:21

281 281 282 281

4 Maccabees (4 Macc)​ 4:25 291n26 7:18-23 282 9:9, 32 282 9:22 282 15:5, 7 282 15:16 282 15:23 282 15:29 282 15:30 282 15:32 282 16:1 282 16:8-12 282 16:14 282 17:1 282 Sirach/Ecclesiasticus (Sir) 3:7 82 30:3-6 83 38:24 196n56 48:5 310n42 48:13-14 310n42 OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA 1 Enoch (1 En.)​ 91.16 100.11

303 250

Letter of Aristeas (Let. Aris.) 188, 190, 192, 208–210, 254, 281 89n108 Psalms of Solomon (Pss. Sol.) 8 106n12 8.15 106n12 Sibylline Oracles (Sib. Or.) 1.74-75 88n80

2.275-276 88n80 DEAD SEA SCROLLS 1QS​ 9.10-11

300

4Q252​ 5.1-6 300 4Q270​ f7.1.13-14

87n44

4Q386​ frag. 1, col. i, lines 3-6 303 frag. 1, col. i, lines 7-10 303 4Q521​ frag. 2 300 frag. 2, col. ii, lines 1-3 301 frag. 4 300 frag, 4, line 1 301 11QMelch/11Q13​ 2.5-6, 7-10, 12, 13 304 JEWISH AUTHORS Josephus Against Apion (Ag. Ap.) 2.125 164 2.146 164 2.199 113 2.206 89n99 2.217 89n99 Antiquities of the Jews (Ant.) 1.180 30 20.34-35 36n15 The Jewish War/Bellum Judaicum) (War/B.J.) 1.571 36n15 2.197 166

327

328

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

Philo of Alexandria The Decalogue (Decal.) 165–167 128n46 Every Good Person is Free (Good Person) 36 87n61 Hypothetica (Hyp.) 7.3 87n61 7.31 113 On Joseph, That Is, The Life of the Statesman (Jos.) 38–39 113 The Special Laws (Spec. Law) 2.225-7 128n46 RABBINIC LITERATURE

OTHER RABBINIC WORKS Genesis Rabbah (Gen. Rab.) 39:7 89n104 Pesiqta de Rab Kahana (Pesiq. Rab. Kah.) 9.4 310n42 Shir haShirim Rabbah 1:3 27 APOSTOLIC FATHERS Ignatius of Antioch Epistle to the Ephesians (Ign. Eph.) 2.1 205 Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (Ign. Smyrnaeans) 12.1 205

Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin (Sanh.) 66a 88n73 92b 310n42

Shepherd of Hermas

Sota 21b

Similitudes 79.5 285

25

Jerusalem Talmud Sota 3:4, 19a

25

Mandates 4:3 285

PATRISTIC AND OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN SOURCES Augustine

Mishnah

City of God 1.19

Pirke Avot 1:4 26–27

Eusebius

Sota 3:4 25 9:15 310n42

Historia ecclesiastica/Ecclesiastical History (H.E.) 5.1.1-63 276 5.1.18 286

293n48

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

5.1.41 5.1.42 5.1.55

286, 287 287 287

Irenaeus Adversus Haereses/Against Heresies (Haer.) 1.26.1-2 251 3.11.2-3 251 Tertullian De baptismo 16.1-2 244 NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHA Apocalypse of Peter (Apoc. Pet.) Ethiopic 11 88n80 Gospel of Thomas (G. Thom.) 5:8 26 7:38 26 8:35, 41 26 17:16 26 61 26 OTHER GREEK AND LATIN AUTHORS AND WORKS Apuleius Apology (Apol.) 10.6 188 Aristophanes Clouds 1332–1333

88n71

Aristotle Art of Rhetoric (Rhet.) 2.12-13 191

2.12.3 191 2.12.4 191 2.12.5 192 2.12.8 192 2.12.14 192 2.14 191 Generation of Animals (G.A.) 775a 130n77 Nichomachean Ethics (N.E.) 1134b9-18 130n71 1140b 130n75 1143a 130n75 1150b 119 1152a 131n79 Politics 1.1252a7-16 128n39 1.1252a16-23 124n41 1.1252a17-23 128n39 1.1252a27-28 119 1.1252a31-1252b2 119 1.1252b10-11 119 1.1252b13-14 119 1.1252b31 119 1.1253b1-4 108, 125n11 1.1253b1-14 124n7 1.1253b6-8 112 1.1254b14-16 115 1.1255b23 130n68 1.1259a40-1259b2 118 1.1259a40-1259b5 115 1.1259b1-18 123 1.1259b5-9 117 1.1259b10-11 118 1.1260a9-14 124n4 1.1260a13-14 119 2.148.6-7 112 2.148.15-16 112 2.149.10-12 112 3.1277626-7 130n74 3.1287a17-19 117 7.1334b30-1336a3 119 7.1335b29-30 119

329

330

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

Callicratidas

90-93

On the Happiness of Households 105.10-106.1 114 106.1-10 114, 118

Ocellus On the Nature of the Universe 136.27-39 114

Cicero

Philodemus On Household Management (Household) 29. 7-11 111 29. 12-15 111 30. 6-34, 4 111 30.13-18 [21-26] 111 34. 7 111 38. 2-73. 20 111 38. 5-9 111 38. 17-19 111

Epistulae ad familiares/Letters to Friends (Ep. Fam./Fam.) 3.10 195n42 13.1.5 154n66 13.77.3 218–19 16.21 187 De inventione (Inv.) 1.13.17 254n20 1.30.48 247 2.40.116-41.121 254n20 2.53.161 163 De natura deorum (Nat. d.) 2.61.153 163 Didymus Epitome of Stoic Ethics (Epitome) 147.25 112 148.5 112 150.1-3 112 150.5-9 112

History of Rome (Hist.) 54.23.2-5 208

Natural History (N.H.) 5.42 183 Pliny the Younger Epistles (Ep.) 3.16.6 279 9.21 207–8 10.96.8 164 Plutarch

Quintilian Declamations (Decl.) 283.1 88n66

Lucian

88n66

Menander Syriac Sentences 82-85

Pliny the Elder

Moralia (Mor.) 317 95

Dio Cassius

Disowned 22

88n72

88n72

Institutes of Oratory (Inst.) 3.6.43-46, 88 254n20 5.11.37, 42-44 247 7.1.14 88n66 7.9 254n20 9.3-28-29 247 9.3.65, 82 247

Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings

9.3.66 9.3.66-75 9.3.67 9.3.69

247 247 247 247

Rhetorica ad Herennium (Rhet. Her.) 1.11.19 254n20 1.12.20 254n20 2.11 254n20 4.21.29-23.32 247 4.28.38 247

21.1.17.14 214 21.1.43.1 207 Valerius Maximus (Val. Max.) Memorable Deeds and Sayings 4.6.5 279 Virgil Aeneid (Aen.) 1.236-37 95 4.232 95

Seneca the Younger Xenophon Epistles to Lucilius (Ep.) 70.4-6 279 94.1-3 111 101.13 291n21 Stobaeus Anthology 4.2.19, 2462.30

Cyropaedia (Cyr.) 6.2.29 89n108 OTHER ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL SOURCES & WRITERS

131n87

Strabo Geography (Geog.) 8.1.2 183–84 12.6.5 195n37

Code of Hammurabi (Hamm.) 195 88n71 PAPYRI & INSCRIPTIONS BGU 1993

218

P.Enteuxeis 26

88n66

P.London. 2052

218

Annals (Ann.) 14.31.6-7 292n34 15.44 164 15.61-2 283

P.Oxy. 1423

219

Ulpian

UPZ 121 216–17

Suetonias Nero 16.2 164 Tacitus

Digest of Justinian (Digest) 11.4.1 220 21.1.17.4 207, 210

PSI 570

217–18

331

About the Contributors

Bill T. Arnold (PhD, Hebrew Union College) is the Paul S. Amos Professor of Old Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. His research encompasses Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern studies, both separately and in combination. He specializes in Pentateuchal interpretation and is currently writing a commentary on Deuteronomy. Amy-Jill Levine (PhD, Duke University) is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, and professor of New Testament Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University. Her numerous publications include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (2009), Short Stories by Jesus (2014), five children’s books (with Sandy Sasso), The Jewish Annotated New Testament (coedited with Marc Brettler, 2017), The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III, the first biblical commentary by a Jew and an Evangelical, 2018), The Bible with and without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (with Marc Brettler, 2020), and in the Abingdon Study Guides series, Sermon on the Mount: A Beginner’s Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven (2020) and The Difficult Words of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings (2021). The first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, AJ was in 2021 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She describes herself as a Yankee Jewish feminist unorthodox member of an Orthodox synagogue in Nashville. Richard Bauckham (PhD, University of Cambridge) is Emeritus Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of St. Andrews. His academic 333

334

About the Contributors

work and publications have ranged over many areas, including the theology of Jürgen Moltmann, Christology (both New Testament and systematic), eschatology, the New Testament books of Revelation, James, 2 Peter and Jude, Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, the New Testament Apocrypha, the relatives of Jesus, the early Jerusalem church, the Bible and contemporary issues, and biblical and theological approaches to environmental issues. In recent years, much of his work has focused on Jesus and the Gospels. Probably his best known books are The Theology of the Book of Revelation (1993), God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (1998), Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (2006), and Bible and Ecology (2010). Gary M. Burge (PhD, Aberdeen University) is professor of New Testament and dean of the Faculty at Calvin Theological Seminary. He is the author of a variety of books and articles in the New Testament including Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to Holy Land Theology (2010), Interpreting the Gospel of John. A Guidebook for Students, 2nd ed. (2013), The New Testament in Seven Sentences (2019), and The New Testament in Antiquity, 2nd ed. (2020). Lynn H. Cohick (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is provost/dean of Academic Affairs and professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary, Lisle, IL. Her publications include Women in the World of the Earliest Christians (2009); Philippians in The Story of God Commentary (2013); as coauthor, Christian Women in the Patristic World (2017); and The Letter to the Ephesians (2020). David A. deSilva (PhD, Emory University, 1995) is Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio. He is the author of over thirty books, including Day of Atonement: A Novel of the Maccabean Revolt (2015), An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation (rev. ed., 2018), Introducing the Apocrypha (rev. ed., 2018), A Week in the Life of Ephesus (2020), Discovering Revelation: Content, Interpretation, Reception (2021), and commentaries on Ephesians (2022), Hebrews (2000), 4 Maccabees (2006), Galatians (2018), and Galatians (2018). He is ordained in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. Craig A. Evans (PhD, Claremont; DHabil, Budapest) is the John Bisagno Distinguished Professor of Christian Origins at Houston Baptist University in Texas. He is the author of several books, including Jesus and His

About the Contributors

335

Contemporaries (1995), Jesus and the Remains of His Day (2015), and Jesus and the Manuscripts (2020). He has also appeared in many television documentaries and news programs. Judith M. Gundry (PhD, University of Tübingen) is a research scholar and associate professor (Adjunct) of New Testament at Yale Divinity School. She is the author of numerous articles on women, gender, and children in early Christianity, as well as on the Apostle Paul’s understanding of Jesus’s death, universalism, divine foreknowledge and beneficence, and the role of conscience. She is the coauthor of A Spacious Heart: Essays on Identity and Belonging (1997). Associate Professor (Adjunct), Department of Religious Studies, Yale University. She is the author of Paul and Perseverance. Staying in and Falling Away (1990). She is the author of the forthcoming book: Male and Female Matters: Gender, Sexuality, and Procreation in 1 Corinthians 7 (in press) Nijay K. Gupta (PhD, Durham University) is professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary. Dr. Gupta is author of Paul and the Language of Faith (2020) and coeditor of The State of New Testament Studies (2019) and the planned second edition of the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. Craig S. Keener (PhD, Duke University) is F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is author of thirty-three books, notably commentaries on various NT books, with more than 1 million copies in circulation, including recently Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (2019), as well as more than 100 academic articles. Scot McKnight (PhD, University of Nottingham) is the Julius R. Mantey Chair of New Testament, Northern Seminary. He is a world-renowned speaker, writer, professor, and equipper of the church. He is a recognized authority on the historical Jesus, early Christianity, and the New Testament. His blog, Jesus Creed, is a leading Christian blog. His most recent books include Reading Romans Backwards (2019) and A Church Called Tov (2020). A sought-after speaker, he has been interviewed on several radio and television programs as well as spoken at numerous local churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries in the United States and around the world. Scot McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies. Jason A. Myers (PhD, Asbury Theological Seminary) is associate professor of Biblical Studies, Greensboro College, and lecturer in New Testament at WTC Theology (UK). He is the coauthor of Voices and Views on Paul (2020), Paul of Arabia (2020), and a second edition of New Testament

336

About the Contributors

Rhetoric. He is also the coeditor of the Proclamation: Proclaiming the New Testament Commentary Series and has forthcoming commentaries on Colossians/Philemon and James/Jude. Todd D. Still (PhD, University of Glasgow) serves as the Charles J. and Eleanor McLerran DeLancey Dean and the William M. Hinson Professor of Christian Scriptures at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. Among his other published works, he is the author of Conflict in Thessalonica (1999), coauthor of Thinking through Paul (2014), and coeditor of the Baylor Annotated Study Bible (2019). Jeffrey A. D. Weima (PhD, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto) holds the Deppe Family Doctoral Chair in New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he has taught for twentynine years. Jeff has published six books thus far: Neglected Endings: The Significance of the Pauline Letter Closings (1994); An Annotated Bibliography of 1 and 2 Thessalonians (1998); two commentaries on 1 & 2 Thessalonians (2002 and 2014); Paul the Ancient Letter Writer: An Introduction to Epistolary Analysis (2016); and The Sermons to the Seven Churches of Revelation: A Commentary & Guide (2021). Jeff is also the author of numerous scholarly articles, academic essays, and book reviews. He is an active member of several academic societies (SNTS, SBL, IBR, ETS); lectures in countries all over the world; leads biblical study tours to Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Italy; conducts intensive preaching seminars for pastors; and preaches/speaks widely in churches in both the United States and Canada. Duane F. Watson (PhD, Duke University) is professor of New Testament Emeritus, Malone University, Canton, Ohio, and author of First and Second Peter (with Terrance Callan) in the Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament (2012). N. T. Wright (PhD, University of Oxford) is senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. He is the author of over eighty books, including the Christian Origins series and the popular For Everyone commentaries.