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The Apocalyptic Background to Paul
The apocalyptic world view is the fundamental carrier of Paulâs thought.â So wrote J. Christiaan Beker in 1980 in a classic study that gave fresh impetus, in the closing decades of the last century, to the locating of Paul within the Jewish apocalyptic tradition. Of course, behind Beker stood Ernst KĂ€semann, who, in a more general reclamation of the apocalyptic worldview in New Testament studies, famously described Apokalyptik as âthe mother of all Christian theology.â Behind KĂ€semann himself stood a tradition stemming from Albert Schweitzer and, more remotely, Richard Kabisch (1868â1914), who insisted that Paulâs theology must be explained not directly from the Old Testament but from the worldview more immediately surrounding him, which was thoroughly imbued with eschatological expectation. Schweitzer is generally considered to be the figure chiefly responsible for the recognition of Paul as an apocalyptic thinker, though curiously he entitled the work in which he maintained this case The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. Schweitzer argued against a prevailing tendency to explain Paul from the cultural matrix of Hellenism. On the contrary, Paul, like Jesus before him, is to be understood within the framework of the pressing eschatological expectation of contemporary Judaism. In view of the imminent end of this world, redemption is achieved solely through participation in ChristâÂhence the âChrist-Âmysticismâ that is the central category (âmain craterâ) of his theology, besides which âjustification by faithâ is merely a âsubsidiary crater.â
Rudolf Bultmann accepted the thoroughly apocalyptic cast of Paulâs thought but, in the interests of meaningful contemporary interpretation, sought to separate out the essential core gospel, interpreted in an existentialist sense, from the mythological framework that encased it. While the program of âdemythologizationâ set aside apocalyptic as unintelligible to people today, Bultmannâs explanation of key elements of Paulâs apocalyptic worldview remains valuable, notably in the recognition that âjustificationâ has an essential ordering to the prospect of the last judgment, as we will see.
Reacting to the sidelining of apocalyptic in respect to Paul, KĂ€semann rejected the existentialist individualism of Bultmannâs anthropological approach. A predominant focus on realized eschatology neglects the âeschatological reservationâ whereby apocalyptic protects Paulâs theology from collapsing into the Hellenistic âenthusiasmâ against which the apostle had to battle, especially in Corinth. As the classic illustration of Paulâs debt to the apocalyptic tradition, KĂ€semann pointed to 1 Corinthians 15:20â28, where Christ must continue to reign before finally surrendering the lordship of the universe to God.
Following in the line of KĂ€semann, J. C. Beker insisted on the apocalyptic texture of Paulâs thought as he explored the dialectic between its âcoherent coreâ and its âcontingent expression.â The coherent core is a symbolic structure representing a Christian modification of the apocalyptic language of Judaism, a modification principally deriving from the centrality of Christâs death and resurrection. This event led to both the âsofteningâ and the intensifying in Paul of the apocalyptic dualism between the present age and the age to come; the latter is already interpenetrating the former, though without lessening the sense of imminence of the judgment and the final triumph of God.
In the 1990s J. Louis Martyn initiated a whole new direction in appreciation of the apocalyptic cast of Paulâs thought. Martyn acknowledged a debt to Bekerâs consistently apocalyptic interpretation of Paul but, working especially from Galatians, insisted on the radical dualism of the two ages, greatly lessening the sense of a linear progression of salvation. Martyn speaks of the Christ event as a divine âinvasion,â which is itself an âapocalypse,â involving, in epistemological fashion, a totally new way of seeing God, Christ (see 2 Cor. 5:16), and reality as a whole. The divine apocalypse in Christ ushers in the new creation, bringing a fresh set of antinomies (oppositional pairs; âSpiritâ/âflesh,â âdeath of Christâ/âlawâ) in place of the antinomies of the past age (âJewâ/âGreek,â âslaveâ/âfree,â âmaleâ/âfemaleâ).
Martynâs radical view of Paul as an apocalyptic thinker has been taken up by a number of scholars, notably his doctoral students Martinus de Boer and Beverly Roberts Gaventa. Central to de Boerâs work is the discernment of âtwo tracksâ in Jewish apocalyptic literature: a âcosmological apocalyptic trackâ and a âforensic apocalyptic track.â In the former, the created world has come under the domination of evil angelic powers, alienating humankind from God, a situation that will be remedied by their defeat in a divine deliverance on a cosmic scale. In the latter, the emphasis falls on human free will and individual decision, with all heading toward a final judgment in which the righteous will be rewarded with eternal life and the sinful punished in death. De Boer sees the latter pattern predominating in Romans 1â5, while the former emerges in Romans 6â8 (with 5:12â21 constituting a bridge passage where the two patterns interpenetrate to some degree).
The tendency initiated by Martyn (the ârectification perspectiveâ) has reached its most extreme form in the work of Douglas Campbell. In a monumental rereading of Paul, indebted also to Sanders, Campbell finds in Romans 1â4 an apocalyptic soteriological schema of a markedly punitive forensic nature (âjustification theoryâ) that Paul attributes to a Jewish Christian teacher whose views Paul himself seeks to refute and replace with a participatory, relational, and christocentric schema to be found in Romans 5â8.
The extreme form of the apocalyptic interpretation of Paul seen in Campbell has not commanded general acceptance. Likewise, the distinction between a âcosmological apocalyptic trackâ and a âforensic apocalyptic track,â promoted by de Boer and taken up enthusiastically by Martyn, has been challenged as not borne out in the letters, including the flow of the argument across Romans 1â8. More generally, the entire tendency stemming from Martyn to stress a rigid break in Paul with the prophetic promises and any sense of continuity in the story of salvation has provoked a strong reaction in the name of a more âcovenantalâ approach to his theology. Thus N. T. Wright has devoted a substantial section (part 2, âRe-Âenter âApocalypticââ) of his recent survey of Pauline scholarship to a critical review of the apocalyptic interpretation of Paul from KĂ€semann to Campbell but with particular focus on the tendency initiated by Martyn. Wright in fact reveals himself to be highly dubious of applying the term âapocalypticâ to Paul in general, insisting that the term has become so loosely applied as to be virtually meaningless and that features considered essential characteristics of apocalypticism (e.g., the motif of the âtwo agesâ) are simply characteristic of Second Temple Judaism as a whole.
One may share the reservations voiced by Wright and others concerning the erosion, in the name of an apocalyptic âinvasion,â of any sense of continuity with the era of promise and still retain, nonetheless, the category of âapocalypticâ as an essential background to the understanding of Paul. The key thing is to be clear about what one means by the term and not to stray too far in a generalizing way from the Jewish texts in which its chief features appear. The specific focus of the present enquiry on the motif of the last judgment will be an advantage in this respect.
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