Paul wrote at least four letters to his unruly converts at Corinth. He founded the Church there around the year 51 A.D., and he wrote the letters during the last part of his tree year-stay at Ephesus ( 54-56), only after four or five years after his initial visit to Corinth.
According to Acts, Paul spent a few months at Philippi ( Acts 16:11- 40), a few months at Thessalonia (Acts 17: 1-8, 16-34), and finally arrived in Corinth, where he stayed for a year and a half. before going to Ephesus ( Acts 18:1-19:1). His year and a half in Corinth is dated between 50 and 52 A.D.
The time sequence is important for two reasons. First, the fact that Paul preached at Corinth so short a time after preaching at Thessalonica makes it probable that in both cities he preached substantially the same message about the Parousia and the resurrection. This explains why in both letters he has to deal with problems intimately associated with the Parousia and the resurrection. It may also indicate that Paul's treatment of the Parousia and the resurrection at Thessalonica and Corinth was inadequate, since whatever he taught was so misinterpreted and had to be corrected.
Second, however much time Paul spent at Philippi and Thessalonica ( a few months rather then a few weeks is more probable. In 14:39-40: Paul asserts his authority about prophecy over tongue speaking.
Theologically speaking 1 Cor. 15 is critically important because it is the earliest apologetic argumentation in the whole of the New testament, for the physical resurrection of Jesus. Writing in the middle fifties Paul explicitly states what he himself had taught the Corinthians about the resurrection when he first evangelized them around 51 A.D. This would date Paul's own testimony just twenty-one years after the resurrection. But, there is more. Paul reminds his readers that what he had handed on to them in the year 51 was the "Tradition" he himself received (15:3). the "tradition," therefore, was even earlier and in all probability went back to the testimony of those like Peter and others mention in vv 6-7 who had seen Jesus in the flesh after his resurrection. The Tradition, apologetically speaking, is the strongest possible argument for the physical resurrection of Jesus, because at the time Paul preached it, and even at the time when he wrote 1 Corinthians, many of the original witnesses of the resurrected Christ were still alive and, as a consequence, there would be no need for a resurrection. This is improbable, but the opinion could be deduced from Paul's words in 1Thess 4:17. " Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." If there is no death, there is no need for resurrection!
There is even a sense in which Paul himself could be said to deny the resurrection of the dead- not resurrection of the person, but the resurrection of the identical, physical body of the dead person. In ch 15:35 ff, Paul insists on a bodily resurrection, but he seems also to insist that the resurrection body will be a "spiritual body" and therefore not identical with the dead body that goes into the grave and decomposes. Paul would hold that there was indeed no death for those still alive at the 'Parousia" and therefore no resurrection in the strict sense, but that this was true only for those few alive at the Parousia, and not for the generality of Christians. He intimates as much in 1Cor. 15:51-53: " lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep[die], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, this mortal nature must put on immortality." Paul's point is quite simply that the resurrection bodies of all will be different, they will be changed." - both those who have died and who will therefore have to rise at the "Parousia," who will not have to die and therefore will not have to rise. In short, it may be presumed that Paul's argumentation in ch 15. What Paul's opponents really meant when they said "there is no resurrection of the dead" may never be determined exactly. It may even be that Paul himself did not know what meaning they attached to the statement. Be that as it may, the statement was more than enough to alarm Paul and to elicit from him the earliest argumentation in the new Testament for the historicity of the physical resurrection of Jesus and for the future physical resurrections of Christians from the dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment