Stanley Porter, Paul and Scripture

Paul and Scripture
Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

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Pauline Studies
Series Editor
Stanley E. Porter
Professor of New Testament at
McMaster Divinity College,
Hamilton, Ontario
volume 10
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/past

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Paul and Scripture
Edited by
Stanley E. Porter
Christopher D. Land
LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Porter, Stanley E., 1956– editor. | Land, Christopher D., editor.
Title: Paul and Scripture / edited by Stanley E. Porter, Christopher D. Land.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019] | Series: Pauline studies,
ISSN 1572-4913 ; Volume 10 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019000289 (print) | LCCN 2019003375 (ebook) |
ISBN 9789004391512 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004392182 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Epistles of Paul—Relation to the Old Testament. |
Bible. Epistles of Paul—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Bible. Old
Testament—Relation to the Epistles of Paul. | Bible. Old
Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Classification: LCC BS2655.R32 (ebook) | LCC BS2655.R32 P379 2019 (print) |
DDC 227/.06—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000289
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 1572-4913
ISBN 978-90-04-39218-2 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-39151-2 (e-book)
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Contents
Preface ix
Abbreviations xii
List of Contributors xvii
1 Introduction to Paul and Scripture 1

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land
Part 1
General Essays
2 Paul and His Use of Scripture: Further Considerations 7

Stanley E. Porter
3 Paul’s Use of Νόμος: Torah, Law, or Custom? 31

Ryder A. Wishart
4 The Reception of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Letters of Paul 59

Gerbern S. Oegema
Part 2
Romans
5 Paul’s Use of Scripture in Romans 77

Colin G. Kruse
6 Obedience in Covenant and in Christ: Paul’s Theodicean Solution 93

Tom Holmén
7 The Centrality of Jewish Scripture in Paul’s Theology: Romans 3 as a

Case in Point 119
Jey J. Kanagaraj

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vi Contents
Part 3
The Corinthian Letters
8 From the Perspective of the Writer or the Perspective of the Reader:

Coming to Grips with a Starting Point for Analyzing the Use of Scripture
in 1 Corinthians 153
H. H. Drake Williams, III
9 Paul’s View of Αδιάφορα in 1 Corinthians 8–10 173

Panayotis Coutsoumpos
10 Raised on the Third Day According to the Scriptures: Hosea 6:2 in Jewish
Tradition 188
John Granger Cook
11 Paul on Apokatastasis: 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 and the Use of

Scripture 212
Ilaria Ramelli
12 The Rhetoric of “Consolation” in 2 Corinthians 1:3–11/7:4–13 in the

Context of the Jewish and Graeco-Roman Consolatory Literature 233
James R. Harrison
13 It’s Not Like Moses Veiled So That the Israelites Didn’t Stare:
a Hypothesis Regarding Paul’s Understanding of Exodus 34 263
Christopher D. Land
14 The Centrality of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 8–9 303

Craig L. Blomberg
Part 4
Other Pauline Letters
15 The Sinai-Mεσίτης Tradition in Galatians 3:19–20 325

Linda L. Belleville
16 The Use of Job 13:16 in Philippians 1:19: Direct Quotation or

Allusion? 335
Lau Chi Hing

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Contents vii
17 Reception of the Old Testament in 1 Thessalonians and in

Philippians? 350
Markus Öhler
18 The Pastoral Epistles and the Scriptures of Israel 372

Arland J. Hultgren
Index of Ancient Sources 391

Index of Modern Authors 428

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Preface
This is the tenth volume in the series, Pauline Studies or PAST. This volume
brings the second set of five volumes to a close with an important volume on
Paul and Scripture. This is one of the longest of the volumes that has appeared
in the PAST series, and it provides a suitable publication of substance and sig-
nificance to launch the next set of five volumes in the series.
The nine previous volumes in the PAST series are:
The Pauline Canon, ed. Stanley E. Porter (PAST 1; Leiden: Brill, 2004),
Paul and His Opponents, ed. Stanley E. Porter (PAST 2; Leiden: Brill, 2005),
Paul and His Theology, ed. Stanley E. Porter (PAST 3; Leiden: Brill, 2006),
Paul’s World, ed. Stanley E. Porter (PAST 4; Leiden: Brill, 2008),
Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman, ed. Stanley E. Porter (PAST 5; Leiden: Brill,
2008),
Paul and the Ancient Letter Form, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Sean A. Adams
(PAST 6; Leiden: Brill, 2010),
Paul and His Social Relations, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land
(PAST 7; Leiden: Brill, 2012),
Paul and Pseudepigraphy, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Gregory P. Fewster
(PAST 8; Leiden: Brill, 2013), and
Paul and Gnosis, ed. Stanley E. Porter and David I. Yoon (PAST 9; Leiden:
Brill, 2016).
As I have stated previously, and is no less true than before, this series continues
to grow, and the number of different contributors to these volumes continues
to grow as well. I would again like to welcome any previous contributors and
invite any new contributors to offer essays to any and all of the next set of
five volumes that have now moved into development. They are listed below. I
would also like to express my thanks to those who have found these volumes
helpful. I thank those who have made use of the first nine volumes (and let
me know about it), those who have given such favourable and encouraging
reviews to these volumes, and those who are continuing to use these volumes
to aid in their own research, writing, and teaching. Like its predecessors, this
volume brings together a number of different papers by scholars engaged in
discussion of the topic of Paul and his use of Scripture. I was confident when
we agreed to conclude this set of volumes with this topic that we would se-
cure a healthy number of significant contributions, and I have not been disap-
pointed. We have received another set of papers that fulfill the expectations of

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x Preface
the series and move forward discussion of a perpetually appealing and impor-
tant topic. We have contributions mostly from senior scholars in this volume,
though with some notable exceptions from some excellent junior scholars as
well, across a range of topics both general and specific. The Corinthian letters
seem to dominate the specific treatments of passages, but there are a number
of papers on more general considerations regarding Paul’s use of Scripture as
well. The result is a large and rewarding set of papers that promise to stretch
our knowledge of Paul and how he used the Jewish Scriptures.
I would like to thank my co-editor for this volume, Christopher D. Land,
for his diligent help in editing and bringing this volume to completion. Even
though we are running a bit behind with the publication of this series, we are
making every effort to continue the momentum that we have gained through
what has now become a major series of publications.
The next five volumes currently scheduled to appear, and their (revised and
tentative) dates of publication, are as follows:
Volume 11: Pauline Ethics (2020)

Volume 12: Paul, Rhetoric and Language (2021)
Volume 13: Paul and Jesus (2022)
Volume 14: Paul and Politics (2023)
Volume 15: Paul in Canonical Perspective (2024)
As noted before, I would like to invite any scholars interested in making con-
tributions to one or more of these volumes to be in contact with me regarding
submission. Contact information is provided below. The pattern we follow is
for submission of a proposed chapter by January 15 of the year in which the vol-
ume is to appear. The topics of the volumes are being defined and interpreted
broadly, so that papers that deal, for example, with clearly related subjects are
welcome alongside those that conform more closely to the traditionally con-
ceived subject. I would ask that all submissions be made in conformity with
the second edition of the SBL handbook, as closely as possible, to facilitate the
review and editing process. Those submissions that deviate significantly will
be returned to the authors and not considered until revised.
I once again wish to thank all of the individual authors for their worthy con-
tributions to this tenth volume of essays in the PAST series. I hope that we
can continue to welcome submissions from scholars who have contributed to
previous volumes while welcoming new contributors as well. There is no pre-
decided or prescribed balance of fresh and repeat contributors.
A volume such as this incurs many debts of gratitude and more tangible sup-
port. I wish first of all to thank the individual institutions that have supported

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Preface xi
the work of their scholars so that they can contribute to volumes such as these.
I also wish to thank the several people at Brill with whom I have continued to
work over the years, including especially Louise Schouten, Laura Morris, and
Tessa Schild, who have been a direct help in various ways as this project has
continued to develop and looks to the future. I thank them for their patience
as well. As mentioned above, I wish to thank Christopher Land for joining me
as co-editor for this volume. Finally, I must, willingly but never perfunctorily,
thank my wife, Wendy, for her continuing love and support in matters both
academic and personal. She has made our life together rewarding, fulfilling,
and enjoyable. I am forever grateful. My desire is for this volume, like the oth-
ers before it, to make a significant contribution to our understanding of Paul,
the apostle.
Stanley E. Porter
McMaster Divinity College, 1280 Main St. W., Hamilton, ON, Canada L8S 4K1
princpl@mcmaster.ca

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Abbreviations
AB Anchor Bible
AAP Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 vols.
New York: Doubleday, 1992
ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library
ACCS Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
ACNT Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament
ACW Ancient Christian Writers
AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums
AJEC Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
AJP American Journal of Philology
ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms
im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Part 2, Principat. Edited by Hildegard
Temporini and Wolfgang Haase. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972–
ANTC Abingdon New Testament Commentaries
ArBib The Aramaic Bible
ASP American Studies in Papyrology
ASV American Standard Version
ATRSup Anglican Theological Review Supplementary Series
ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments
AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies
BAGD Bauer, Walter, William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and
Frederick W. Danker. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and
Other Early Christian Literature. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1979
BAGL Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics
BBE Bible in Basic English
BDAG Danker, Frederick W., Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gin-
grich. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Chris-
tian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000
BDF Blass, Friedrich, Albert Debrunner, and Robert W. Funk. A Greek Gram-
mar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1961
BEATAJ Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Juden-
tum
BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
BHT Beiträge zur historischen Theologie

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Abbreviations xiii
Bib Biblica
BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester
BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentaries
BibSem The Biblical Seminar
BR Biblical Research
BSGRT Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
BWANT Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament
BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CChrSL Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina
CIJ Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum. Edited by Jean-Baptiste Frey. 2 vols.
Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1936–1952
CRINT Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum
CSB Christian Standard Bible
CSHB Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae
CTR Criswell Theological Review
DRA Douay–Rheims American Edition
ECC Eerdmans Critical Commentary
ECL Early Christianity and Its Literature
EDNT Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by Horst Balz and Ger-
hard Schneider. ET. 3 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990–1993
EHS Europäische Hochschulschriften
EKKNT Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament
ERV Easy-to-Read Version
ESV English Standard Version
Exp The Expositor
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten [drei] Jahrhunderte
GNV 1599 Geneva Bible
HCS Hellenistic Culture and Society
HNTC Harper’s New Testament Commentaries
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HvTSt Hervormde teologiese studies
ICC International Critical Commentary
IVPNTC IVP New Testament Commentary
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JE The Jewish Encyclopedia. Edited by Isidore Singer. 12 vols. New York: Funk
& Wagnalls, 1925
JGRChJ Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism

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xiv Abbreviations
JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JSHRZ Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman
Periods
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
KAT Kommentar zum Alten Testament
KJV King James Version
LAI Library of Ancient Israel
LBS Linguistic Biblical Studies
LNTS The Library of New Testament Studies
LSJ Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek-English
Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996
MNTC Moffatt New Testament Commentary
NA28 Nestle-Aland. Greek New Testament, 28th ed.
NAB New American Bible
NASB New American Standard Bible
NCBC New Century Bible Commentary
NCCS New Covenant Commentary Series
Neot Neotestamentica
NETS A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Edited by Albert Pietersma
and Benjamin G. Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007
NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament
NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary
NIV New International Version
NJB New Jerusalem Bible
NKJV New King James Version
NLT New Living Translation
NovT Novum Testamentum
NovTSup Supplements to Novum Testamentum
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
NSBT New Studies in Biblical Theology
NTD Das Neue Testament Deutsch
NTG New Testament Guides
NTL New Testament Library
NTM New Testament Monographs
NTS New Testament Studies
ÖTK Ökumenischer Taschenbuch-Kommentar
OTL Old Testament Library

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Abbreviations xv
OTP Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. 2 vols.

New York: Doubleday, 1983, 1985
PAST Pauline Studies
PG Patrologia Graeca [= Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca].
Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. 162 vols. Paris, 1857–1886
PL Patrologia Latina [= Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina]. Edited
by Jacques-Paul Migne. 217 vols. Paris, 1844–1864
PNTC Pillar New Testament Commentary
PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies
PSN Paul’s Social Network
QD Quaestiones Disputatae
RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. Edited by Theodor Klauser et al.
Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1950–
RevExp Review & Expositor
RNT Regensburger Neues Testament
RSV Revised Standard Version
RVV Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten
SBL Society of Biblical Literature
SBLSP SBL Seminar Papers
SBLRBS SBL Resources for Biblical Study
SC Sources chrétiennes. Paris: Cerf, 1943–
ScrB Scripture Bulletin
SJ Studia Judaica
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
SP Sacra Pagina
SSEJC Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
ST Studia Theologica
StBibLit Studies in Biblical Literature (Lang)
SVTQ St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly
SymS SBL Symposium Series
TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel and
Gerhard Friedrich. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–1976
THKNT Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament
ThTo Theology Today
TJ Trinity Journal
TNTC Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum
TU Texte und Untersuchungen

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xvi Abbreviations
TWNT Theologische Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel

and Gerhard Friedrich. Stuttgart, 1932–1979
TynBul Tyndale Bulletin
TZ Theologische Zeitschrift
UBS5 The Greek New Testament, United Bible Societies, 5th ed.
VC Vigiliae Christianae
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTGAALG Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientarum
Gottingensis
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
YJS Yale Judaica Series
ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZBK Zürcher Bibelkommentare
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der
älteren Kirche

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List of Contributors
Linda L. Belleville
Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Craig L. Blomberg
Denver Seminary, Littleton, Colorado, USA
John Granger Cook

LaGrange College, LaGrange, Georgia, USA
University of Montemorelos, Mexico
James R. Harrison
Sydney College of Divinity, Sydney, Australia
Tom Holmén
Åbo Akademi University and Helsinki University, Finland
Arland J. Hultgren
Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Jey J. Kanagaraj
Hindustan Bible Institute, Chennai, India
Colin G. Kruse
Melbourne School of Theology, Melbourne, Australia
Lau Chi Hing

China Graduate School of Theology, Hong Kong
Christopher D. Land
McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Gerbern S. Oegema
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

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xviii List of Contributors
Markus Öhler
University of Vienna, Austria
Stanley E. Porter
Ilaria Ramelli
Sacred Heart University, Detroit, USA and Oxford University, Oxford, UK

Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Leuven, Belgium
Ryder A. Wishart

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Chapter 1
Introduction to Paul and Scripture

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land
For a very long time, the writings of the Apostle Paul (or at least, writings at-
tributed to him) have been considered Christian Scripture. It is not certain
whether or not Paul would have applied this epithet to his own letters, but it is
abundantly clear that the letters are replete with the Jewish Scriptures. The re-
sult has been a constant flow of books and articles on this topic. Some of these
volumes are concerned with individual letters of Paul, while others treat a va-
riety of passages. Some are concerned with questions of method, while others
are focused on one or more topics. A survey of the modern author index of this
volume or the footnotes of the various chapters within this volume makes clear
the range and depth of material available on the topic of Paul and Scripture.
Despite the consistent return by scholars to the topic of Paul and his use of the
Jewish Scriptures, we appear to be far from having exhausted the topic.
Paul wrote as someone deeply immersed in Early Judaism, and we see every-
where in his letters the belief that God has spoken to his people in sacred writ-
ings. The present volume is devoted to this latter relationship between Paul
and Scripture, whereby the Apostle weaves into his own writings the authority,
content, and even wording of Jewish Scriptures. We as editors have prescribed
no specific approach, nor have we designated specific issues or passages for
consideration. We are pleased to see, however, that the contributed chapters
represent both a range of viewpoints and a broad selection of issues and pas-
sages, such that the present volume should prove to be of interest to all Pauline
scholars in one respect or another.
We have divided the essays in this volume into four parts for ease of reading
and reference. There are three essays in the first part, which contains general
essays that do not focus on specific letters or passages. In the opening essay of
the volume, Stanley Porter explores Paul’s relationship to the Septuagint, mak-
ing a number of specific proposals that have implications for Pauline scrip-
tural quotations. Most significantly, Porter argues that the default assump-
tion in dealing with Paul should be that he uses the Septuagint, and that this
should remain the case even when there is no notable difference between the
Septuagint and the MT. Porter also raises once again the issue of identifying
quotations, calling for greater consistency in this respect and invoking Paul’s
use of Deut 32:5 in Phil 2:15 as an oft-overlooked quotation. Next, in a second
general paper, Ryder Wishart discusses Paul’s use of the Greek term νόμος,
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004391512_002

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2 Porter and Land
typically glossed as ‘law.’ Using a monosemic linguistic theory and vector space
modeling, with the New Testament as his corpus, Wishart investigates the lex-
eme νόμος and argues that it is best understood as denoting ‘a customary norm’
and should not simply be glossed as ‘law.’ In addition to his observations re-
garding νόμος, Wishart exemplifies a new way to examine lexical data that will
be of relevance for biblical studies in general. Gerbern Oegema concludes the
first section of the volume by considering the influence of 1 and 2 Maccabees
on Paul, comparing expressions such as ἀναστροφή, Ἰουδαϊσμός, and ζηλωτής in
1 and 2 Maccabees and in Paul’s biographical materials in Gal 1:13–14. Exploring
these expressions in light of Paul’s milieu, Oegema argues that Paul was in-
fluenced by the Maccabean ideology during his pre-Christian years, and that
this influence extends to his uses of Scripture when confronting the “Judaizers”
in Galatia.
Three papers in Part 2 in this volume deal specifically with Paul’s letter to
the Romans. After reviewing the overall use of Scripture in Romans, Colin
Kruse articulates several implications related to Paul’s scriptural hermeneu-
tics: (1) Paul was free in modifying both Hebrew Scripture and the LXX; (2) Paul
applied Scripture to his own context; and (3) Paul viewed Scripture as an au-
thority and as a source of divine revelation useful for tackling theological and
anthropological issues. Tom Holmén examines Paul’s theodicean reasoning
in Rom 3, arguing that Paul redefines the theodicy problem such that no one
can escape God’s judgment, with the sole solution for the problem now being
God’s saving act in Jesus. Holmén further argues that Paul maintains connec-
tions with Scripture in his response to concerns about antinomianism, lever-
aging the Hebrew Scriptures in order to assert that justified Christians are
transformed beings enabled to obey independently of the usual motivations.
Jey J. Kanagaraj also examines Rom 3, using it as a test case for some historical
and grammatical observations. Specifically, Kanagaraj argues that Paul’s use
of Scripture is both author-oriented and reader-oriented, which is to say that
Paul uses Scripture as authority, but freely (e.g., by adding or changing or sub-
tracting words and phrases), and that he uses it to speak to his own context, in
which the Christ-event is the hermeneutical key.
The Corinthian letters receive numerous treatments in the third part of this
volume. First Corinthians is replete with fascinating scriptural interactions,
and four of the papers in this volume explore them. Drake Williams revisits
some much-discussed differences between Paul’s (more literate?) and his read-
ers’ (less literate?) perspectives. In light of recent research on ancient literacy,
Williams argues that the Corinthians were more textually literate than is now
often assumed. Moreover, in light of evidence in 1 Corinthians itself, he argues
that the Corinthians had access to and knowledge of Jewish Scriptures. Thus,

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Introduction to Paul and Scripture 3
while still favouring an author-oriented approach, Williams concludes that a

literate Corinthian readership should be taken into consideration. Panayotis
Coutsoumpos seeks to understand Paul’s apparent inconsistencies in dealing
with idol meat in 1 Cor 8–10. He explores both the possible influence of Stoic
philosophy and the inevitable influence of Jewish Scripture, arguing that Paul
consistently condemns both the eating of meat sacrificed to idols in a pagan
temple and the worship of idols, and that the Corinthians misunderstood or
misapplied Paul’s teaching that meals are religiously indifferent. John Granger
Cook situates Paul within a trajectory that begins with the Septuagint and con-
tinues in patristic and rabbinic exegetical traditions, wherein Hos 6:2 serves as
a scriptural reference in 1 Cor 15:4 as regards the resurrection of the dead on
the third day. Finally, Ilaria Ramelli examines Paul’s allusions to Psalms 109 and
8 in 1 Cor 15:24–28 in light of patristic writings and early versions, arguing that
Paul reinterprets Pss 109:1 and 8:6 based on his own eschatological understand-
ing in which universal restoration comes from the submission of all creatures
to Christ and from the destruction of death.
Part 3 continues with three further papers on 2 Corinthians. First, James
Harrison explores 2 Cor 1–7, looking at these chapters in the light of a “ther-
apeutic framework” abstracted from Second Temple literature. He identifies
“consolatory” rhetoric in 2 Cor 1:3–11 and 7:4–13 and argues that 2 Cor 1–7 is
a unity with mixed rhetoric that is both “conciliatory” and “consolatory” as
per the Graeco-Roman handbooks. Writing as a pastor, Paul employs a con-
solatory rhetorical strategy in order to heal a broken relationship caused by
wrong-doers in the Corinthian church and to reconcile hurt converts back to
himself and Christ. Christopher Land next takes up Paul’s controversial use of
the Sinai narrative in 2 Cor 3. Although many interpreters have struggled to
explain how and why Moses’s veiled ministry is being construed as less open
than Paul and Timothy’s own ministry, Land argues instead that 2 Cor 3:13 has
been misunderstood and that Paul is here denying that Moses prevented the
Israelites from staring, with the implication being that Moses and Paul have
the veil in common. To make sense of this, Land demonstrates that Moses’s veil,
for Paul, is not about ministers hiding their flesh but about affronted withdraw-
al in the face of hard-heartedness. To conclude the papers on 2 Corinthians,
Craig Blomberg points out that three scriptural quotations in 2 Cor 8–9 serve
to encapsulate the three main points of this passage’s three main sections,
with a quotation of Prov 3:4 in 2 Cor 8:21 being the hinge that unifies not only
2 Cor 8:1–15 and 9:6–15 but arguably also chs. 1–7 and chs. 8–9. In the end,
Blomberg argues that 2 Cor 8–9 are the climax of 2 Cor 1–9, and that they may
also be the central climax of an ABA inclusio that characterizes 2 Corinthians
as a whole.

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4 Porter and Land
Part 4 is devoted to other Pauline letters. In an essay on Gal 3, Linda

Belleville takes us back again to the Sinai narrative and Paul’s understanding of
it. Looking specifically at the role of mediation in the Sinai–μεσίτης tradition,
Belleville investigates Paul’s use of Scripture and his theological intent with
respect to the discussion about law-giving in Gal 3:19–20. Although the Hebrew
Scriptures lack angelic mediation in the Sinai narrative, the tradition-history
indicates that it is an echo of Scripture. In the Sinai context, Belleville argues,
the law was given not to increase but to restrain the Israelites’ sins, and the
need for a mediator in the law-giving process reflects Israel’s frailty and need
for a representative, not anything inferior about the law itself.
A much-discussed problem with regard to Paul and Scripture has been the
use of technical terms such as quotation and allusion. Lau Chi Hing examines
Paul’s use of Job 13:6 in Phil 1:19 and argues that Paul’s use of Job here is an
allusion rather than a direct quotation. He concludes that Stanley Porter’s
definition of direct quotations is inadequate and he proposes an alternative,
“functional” approach that compares both the semantic content and the the-
matic coherence of the target and source passages in question. The diversity of
scriptural interactions is also of importance for Markus Öhler’s contribution to
this volume. He is interested in the apparent lack of direct scriptural uses (i.e.
quotations and paraphrases) in 1 Thessalonians and Philippians, as well as in
the fact that both of these letters display numerous indirect uses (i.e. allusions
and echoes). Öhler argues that explanations for this phenomenon should be
based on historical reconstructions of the relevant situations, involving scrip-
tural reception on the part of both the author(s) and readers.
The last essay in this volume addresses important facets of our topic that
are sometimes given less attention due to the fact that the Pastorals are some-
times regarded as “less Pauline.” Arland Hultgren examines uses of Scripture
in the Pastoral Epistles according to the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland text.
He concludes that Scripture is most often used in the Pastorals in hortatory
contexts, whereas it is more often used in the other Pauline letters to support
Paul’s theological argument.
We realize that these essays will not exhaust the topic of Paul and his use of
the Jewish Scriptures. We have not attempted to do so in this volume. However,
we are confident that many of them, if not all of them, will make a significant
contribution to the discussion, and all of them have something to say on the
topic that merits further consideration. The topic is large enough to continue
to welcome further research and consideration. We are grateful to all of our
contributors for their scholarship and their willingness to be involved in this
project. It is our sincere hope that this collection of essays will serve to advance
scholarly understanding of Paul and Scripture.

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Part 1
General Essays

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Chapter 2
Paul and His Use of Scripture: Further

Considerations
Stanley E. Porter
1 Introduction
It is widely acknowledged that Paul the Apostle, when he quotes the Jewish
Scriptures in formulaically introduced passages, cites the Greek version com-
monly known as the Septuagint (or Old Greek).1 As representative of such a
conclusion, we may look to the statement of Christopher Stanley in his treat-
ment of the formulaic quotations in Paul:
Of the roughly eighty-three biblical texts adduced by Paul in his undis-

puted quotations [for Stanley these are introduced with an introductory
formula in the undisputed letters], thirty-four come from places where
the Septuagint is closely allied with the Masoretic text … Of the remain-
ing forty-nine texts, however, fully forty-four follow the Septuagint at
points where it diverges from the Masoretic text … Only five Pauline
quotations show a measure of agreement with the Masoretic text over
against the Septuagint tradition, and even these five are accompanied
by deviations from the Masoretic tradition that make direct resort to the
Hebrew unlikely. Support is growing for the view that Paul relied on a
Hebraizing revision of the Old Greek, or even a different translation alto-
gether, in these cases.2
1 I am familiar with the problems associated with either term, and will use Septuagint to refer
to the Greek version of the Jewish Scriptures, including those works not in the Hebrew Bible.
Many of the basic terminological and related issues are discussed in R. Timothy McLay, The
Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).
2 Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline
Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS 74; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992), 67. There are six or seven quotations in the disputed letters, but that issue is not ger-
mane at this point. Stanley refers to the Masoretic text, but we know that the Hebrew Bible
of Paul’s time would have been at best a proto-Masoretic text, and that the Septuagint au-
thors would have translated that text or versions of related texts. For similar conclusions on
Paul’s use of the Septuagint, see Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in
Greek (rev. Richard Rusden Ottley; 1902; repr., New York: KTAV, 1968), 400, who includes all of

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8 Porter
Based on Stanley’s calculations, we see that roughly 40% of the quota-

tions are from passages similar enough in the Septuagint and MT so as to not
be able to distinguish them. Of those that remain, roughly 90% conform to
the Septuagint and only 10% to the MT. If we consider those with identical
texts as following the MT, the total is still 53% clearly from the Septuagint;
if we consider those same quotations as following the Septuagint, the total
is an astounding 94%. In other words, almost any way that one examines the
quotations of the Jewish Scriptures by Paul, he makes predominant use of the
Septuagint.
One can see from these simple statistics and these accumulated examples,
however, that what is meant by use of the Jewish Scriptures is in fact highly
problematic for a number of reasons. For example, in this discussion, we are
only concerned with those quotations that are introduced by formulas, and so
that leaves all of the other types of citations unanalyzed and unexplained, in-
cluding other types of direct quotation and any indirect citations. Further, the
number of citations that conform to either the Septuagint or the Hebrew Bible
is significant, and affects the ability to provide a clear final analysis. In this
essay, I wish to examine some of the issues that surround the use of the Jewish
Scriptures by Paul, first to problematize the issue and then to provide further
evidence for seeing Paul’s usage being primarily of the Septuagint.
2 Foundational Issues for Further Consideration
There are a number of foundational issues regarding the use of the Jewish
Scriptures by Paul that warrant discussion. There are six issues that I wish
to identify. These include the facts that (1) all of Paul’s citations are in Greek;
(2) the conventions of handling Scripture must be acknowledged and taken
into account; (3) our knowledge of textual traditions/transmission and of
translation is incomplete; (4) ancient authors accessed texts in various ways;
(5) contemporary scholars provide inadequate identification of the Jewish
Scriptures in the New Testament; and (6) the New Testament authors, includ-
ing Paul, cite Scripture with varying degrees of verbatim representation.
Paul’s letters; Natalio Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek
Versions of the Bible (trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 328–29; cf. Jennifer
Dines, The Septuagint (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 142–43.

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Paul and His Use of Scripture: Further Considerations 9
2.1 Paul’s Citations Are in Greek

We must recognize that virtually all of the citations of the Old Testament in
the New Testament are in Greek, with only a few exceptions (e.g. the words
uttered by Jesus on the cross in Mark 15:34 and Matt 27:46, an unusual case
where we have both Semitic words and Greek words that purport to be the
same quotation).3 The same holds true for Paul, except for the fact that all of
his citations are in Greek.
The fact that Paul’s citations of the Jewish Scriptures are all in Greek is a
factor that is not always fully recognized within the discussion of Paul’s inter-
pretation of these texts. There are a number of implications of this fact. The
situation is usually reversed, with scholars asking how the Jewish Scriptures,
even if they are in Greek, have influenced the New Testament writer.4 A num-
ber of factors indicate that we should begin with Paul’s use of Greek. The first
issue is Paul’s varieties of language. Within the complex multilingualism of the
Greco-Roman world, Paul was probably a simultaneous or early bilingual, with
Greek as his first and Aramaic as his second language.5 He may even have been
a balanced or symmetrical bilingual, on the basis of the evidence that we have
in Phil 3:5–6 and Acts 21:37–40. His first language was no doubt Greek, with the
only question being the time and level of achievement of his second language,
probably Aramaic. He perhaps added Hebrew either during his time in the
synagogue in Tarsus or, more likely, during his time of instruction in Jerusalem.
Second, Paul appears to have been a functional multilingual in all of his lan-
guages. This means that rather than having passive knowledge and just being
able to listen to and speak the languages, he probably had reading and writing
ability as well. We have direct evidence of Paul’s ability to write Greek in sev-
eral of the endings of his letters, when he takes the stylus and “signs” the letter
(e.g. 1 Cor 16:21; Gal 6:11–16; Col 4:18; 2 Thess 3:17; Phlm 19), but his rabbinic
training argues strongly for his functional multilingualism in Aramaic and/or
3 Elsewhere I have examined these Gospel passages in more detail, and concluded that the ci-
tation is probably best characterized not as quotation but as paraphrase. See Stanley E. Porter,
Sacred Tradition in the New Testament: Tracing Old Testament Themes in the Gospels and
Epistles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016), 158–60.
4 E.g. Karen H. Jobes and Moisés Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids:
Baker, 2015), 200–27.
5 For the best recent treatment of issues of multilingualism in the New Testament, see
Hughson T. Ong, The Multilingual Jesus and the Sociolinguistic World of the New Testament
(LBS 12; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 243–52; cf. Alex Mullen and Patrick James (eds.), Multilingualism
in the Graeco-Roman Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), esp. the opening
chapter by Mullen (pp. 1–35).

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10 Porter
Hebrew as well.6 Third, Paul wrote (or dictated) his letters in Greek, because
Greek was the lingua franca of the Greco-Roman world, especially for Diaspora
Jews such as he. Ever since the conquest of Alexander the Great, Greek had be-
come the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world and continued to be so in
at least the middle and eastern parts of the Roman empire. Paul had the assur-
ance that if he wrote his letters to cities and churches throughout the empire,
he would be able to communicate with the recipients. The fact that the letters
are in Greek, and written for a Greek-speaking audience, almost assures that
any citation of other texts will be translated into and transmitted in Greek, just
as we find the citations of the Jewish Scriptures in Paul’s letters. This affects
how we examine the citations of the Scriptures within the letters of Paul. One
must approach these citations as what they purport to be—citations of the
Scriptures in Greek, regardless of their previous source or origin.7
2.2 Conventions of Handling Scripture

The second factor to consider is the conventions of handling Scripture in the
ancient world. In the modern world of electronic access to countless bytes of
information, the conventions of the handling of ancient texts are often forgot-
ten. We must remember that Paul’s occasions for handling Scripture pre-dated
the printed book and even predated the widespread use of the book itself, the
codex. As a result, no one possessed—or was able to possess—a “Bible” as we
think of it today, whether it is electronically or physically accessed as an entity
that contained all of the books within one’s canon.
The Hebrew Bible at the time of Paul existed in copied scrolls, with roughly
one major book per scroll, except in some cases where a single scroll was able to
contain more than one book, such as the Minor Prophets. The Minor Prophets
would have been written on a single scroll, rather than individual, very small
scrolls, as is attested by the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from the Nahal Hever.8
Thus, a synagogue would have possessed a scroll for Genesis, one for Exodus,
one for Leviticus, and for all of the books that were recognized at the time as
having authoritative scriptural status.9 A similar situation applies to the Greek
6 On Paul’s education, including defense of his grammar school in Tarsus, and rabbinic educa-
tion in Jerusalem, see Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts, “Paul’s Bible, his Education and
his Access to the Scriptures of Israel,” JGRChJ 5 (2008): 9–40.
7 See Timothy Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the
Christian Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
8 See Emanuel Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr) (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1990).
9 I phrase the description in this way in recognition of the fact that many scholars believe that
the canon of the Hebrew Bible at the time of Paul, while generally fixed at least for the Torah

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Septuagint scrolls. These scrolls were written in similar fashion to the manu-
scripts of the Hebrew Bible. In those places where the Septuagint was used, the
Scriptures would have been written on individual scrolls that would have been
used much as we see in the account in Luke 4:17 and 20, where Jesus is given
the scroll for the prophet Isaiah and he proceeds to read. The scroll would have
been a manageable scroll because it did not contain all of the books of even
the prophets, but only of the single prophet Isaiah. A further complicating fac-
tor for the Septuagint was that its canon of authoritative writings was in even
more flux than was the Hebrew Bible, with some of the books still being trans-
lated or even being written, and some of those in existence not yet accepted
as authoritative. This process extended well into the first century AD.10 It was
not until the development of the codex, the early book form, that manuscript
handling was transformed. The codex was not invented by Christians, and was
already in limited use by the time of early Christianity, but Christianity with
its respect for the written word no doubt was instrumental in the develop-
ment and propagation of the codex. We see that by the second century, there
were larger groupings of documents into a larger document (e.g. groupings of
the Gospels and Acts, and of Paul’s letters). These were then a prelude to the
development of the deluxe codexes of the fourth century, such as Sinaiticus
and Vaticanus, when, for apparently the first time, both the Old Testament (in
Greek) and the New Testament (also in Greek) were placed within a single
book—and not an easy book to carry about and use.
There are several immediate implications of recognition of such a situation.
The first is that, during the time of the use of the scroll (i.e. during the time of
Paul), it was very difficult for anyone, even if they were so inclined (and they
probably were not so inclined due to various monetary and religious restric-
tions), to carry around very much of their Bible at one time. One can imagine
the difficulty of transportation of multiple large scrolls, especially over any
kind of large distances. A second implication is that this helps us to under-
stand the role of memory within the Greco-Roman world of the time, includ-
ing that of Judaism.11 The expectations of memory were much larger within
the Greco-Roman world, including the Jewish world, even if there was what
and the Prophets, was still not finalized for the Writings. The result would be that there
might be some ambiguity about the status of some books that were eventually included
and some excluded from the canonical Hebrew Bible we now have.
10 For a brief history of the Septuagint, see Jobes and Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint,
13–32.
11 On ancient memory, see William Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1989), 30–33, 301; Rosalind Thomas, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

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12 Porter
might be called a literate culture, that is, a culture that ultimately depended
upon written documentation. The Greco-Roman world was a literate culture
in which personal, financial, and religious records were widely written down,
but the difficulties in transmission and communication still made imperative
dependence upon extensive memory ability. As a result, it is no wonder that
many in the ancient world were able to commit to memory huge quantities
of material, as they did not have ready access to written means of retaining
this material. Since there often was not access to written records, even if they
existed, memory had to be reliable and dependable.12
An examination of some of the lists of explicit quotations in the New
Testament from the Jewish Scriptures illustrates some of the difficulties re-
garding the handling of manuscripts.
One of the major factors overlooked, especially when we consider what we
know about ancient manuscripts, is how the process of citation would have
occurred. For the sake of example, let us consider the book of Ephesians.
According to the list in UBS5—and for the sake of discussion I will accept it,
although it is inconsistent (see discussion below)—there are five quotations in
the book of Ephesians, including Eph 4:25 and 26, which are not introduced by
a formula (though the list generally includes formulaic quotations). The pas-
sages include the following:
Table 2.1 Quotations in Ephesians
Ephesians Jewish Scriptures
4:8 Ps 68:18
4:25 Zech 8:16
4:26 Ps 4:4 LXX
5:31 Gen 2:24
6:2–3 Exod 20:12 = Deut 5:16
12 This is one of several reasons that I question the veracity of some rather extreme forms
of contemporary theories of social memory when applied to the ancient world. Most of
these theories are developed and tested in relationship to modern literate culture with its
widespread access to written records that does not need to develop and rely upon mem-
ory in the same way, rather than in a culture, that even if literate, did not have access to
written records and had to rely upon accurate memory recall. In any case, those who have
provided more helpful ways forward recognize forms of criteria for assessment of mem-
ory. See, e.g., Barry Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Memory and History,”
in Tom Thatcher (ed.), Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity:

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Ephesians is a relatively easy book to consider because the scope of citation

is limited. For the sake of discussion, let us say that Paul is using physical texts
for his citations. This may not be true for some of the very familiar passages
(such as Exod 20:12 = Deut 5:16), or if he had memorized much more of the
Bible, such as the Torah, but for the sake of discussion let us begin there. If that
is the case, then Paul had to have direct access to five different scrolls, from two
language traditions. According to Gleason Archer and Gregory Chirichigno’s
analysis of the text-forms of these quotations, all of the citations except Ps 4:4
in Eph 4:26 have text-forms in which the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint are in
agreement.13 For the UBS5 and NA28, as well as most other reference works
on the subject (including Archer and Chirichigno), when the two texts agree
with each other, that is, the translation of the Septuagint appears to follow
closely the Hebrew Bible, the presumption is that the quotation is of the
Hebrew. This would mean that Paul first grabbed a Hebrew Psalm scroll, then
the Minor Prophets, then a Septuagint Psalm scroll, then Hebrew Genesis, and
finally Hebrew Exodus or Deuteronomy. As I said at the beginning, this is a
relatively easy book to consider, and nothing compared to what one might find
in Romans, or even 1 or 2 Corinthians. However, this sounds somewhat hard
to believe.
2.3 Incomplete Knowledge of Textual Traditions/Transmission14

A further foundational issue in discussing Paul’s citation of the Jewish Scriptures
is that we have incomplete knowledge of textual traditions and transmission.
A Conversation with Barry Schwartz (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014), 7–37. For some recounting
of what has happened in recent memory studies, see Alison Winter, Memory: Fragments
of a Modern History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), especially with reference
to the “memory wars” of the 1980s and 1990s, of which New Testament studies is some-
thing of a victim.
13 Gleason L. Archer and Gregory Chirichigno, Old Testament Quotations in the New
Testament (Chicago: Moody Press; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1983), passim.
14 I could also include here matters of translation, but will pass over this topic as we are
dealing with the texts as translated, no matter what principles lie behind them. Only re-
cently has the field of Translation Studies been applied to study of the Septuagint in an
informed way, but scholars have long recognized variations among and even within books
of the Septuagint according to their varied translation technique. One of the earliest and
most enduring descriptions of the various types of translation found in the Septuagint
was devised by Henry St. John Thackeray in the first volume of his (never completed)
grammar of the Septuagint (A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek: Vol. 1: Introduction,
Orthography and Accidence [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909], 13). He iden-
tified six different types of translation to be found within the Septuagint: good koine
Greek, indifferent Greek, literal or unintelligent versions, literary paraphrase, literary and
atticistic free Greek, and vernacular free Greek. Several recent studies have attempted to

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14 Porter
The textual traditions of the Old Testament, whether we are discussing the
Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint, are highly complex. The text used today for
comparison is the Masoretic text, even though we know that the problematic
term “Masoretic text” describes a broad stream of Hebrew biblical textual tra-
dition as well as a particular tradition within it (that of Ben Asher of Tiberius).
The Masoretic textual tradition developed in the early medieval period from
the proto-Masoretic tradition. One of the major distinguishing features be-
tween the proto- and Masoretic traditions is the consonantal and then vocal-
ized text, although there are other distinctions such as para-textual features,
accentuation, and the Masorah to consider. The consonantal tradition would
have been used in the Second Temple Period, roughly the period in which the
Septuagint was translated and the authors of the New Testament, including
Paul, wrote. We do not have full and complete and certainly not widespread
direct access to the proto-Masoretic tradition, even if we believe that the trans-
mission has been relatively stable.15 Some of the evidence that helps to inform
us of the proto-Masoretic tradition is the discoveries from the Dead Sea, in-
cluding the Dead Sea biblical scrolls from Qumran such as the Great Isaiah
Scroll, and other texts found elsewhere. Even with this knowledge, there is still
debate whether the Septuagint translated a stable or unstable Hebrew textual
tradition of the time (where it is a translation at all).
A similar tradition/transmission situation applies to the Septuagint, al-
though the situation may be slightly better than for the Hebrew Bible due to
the more compressed time period for textual transmission. There is difficulty
in gaining direct access to the textual tradition of the Septuagint, since the
earliest widespread access to the Septuagint is the major Greek codexes of the
fourth century (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, and in some instances Alexandrinus),
besides a number of earlier and relatively fragmentary Greek manuscripts dat-
ing back to as early as the first century BC (e.g. Chester Beatty Papyrus IV and
some of the Dead Sea Greek manuscripts).16 There are a number of further
factors to consider regarding the textual tradition of the Septuagint. First, the
examine the various books from the standpoint of Translation Studies. See Theo A.W van
der Louw, Transformations in the Septuagint: Towards an Interaction of Septuagint Studies
and Translation Studies (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 2–23, who surveys many of the recent
theories, but without fixating on one, such as Descriptive Translation Studies, which has
been latched onto by many in Septuagint studies.
15 On the proto-Masoretic tradition, see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
(Assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 22–76.
16 See F. G. Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible (rev. A. W. Adams; 3rd ed.; London: Duckworth,
1975), 32–53; updated in Marguerite Harl, Gilles Dorival, and Olivier Munnich, La Bible
grecque des Septante: Du judaïsme hellénistique au christianisme ancien (Paris: Cerf, 1994),
132–36.

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Septuagint translators may or may not have been translating a stable Hebrew
text, even if they were utilizing the proto-Masoretic textual tradition, which
itself would have been subject to variation compared to the later Masoretic
text. Regardless of the text, the translators would have been interpreting and
translating a consonantal text with frequent room for ambiguity. Second, there
has been debate among Septuagint scholars over the complexity and diversity
of the Septuagint tradition itself. We know that the translational and compo-
sitional process extended from the third century BC into the first century AD,
but we are not certain how narrow the translational tradition was. Some have
proposed that there were diverse Greek translational traditions, while others
have argued for a restricted translational tradition.17 Third, the Septuagint has
known diverging textual traditions that have affected its transmission and
hence what we find in our standard texts, some of which were already in ef-
fect at the time of the New Testament (e.g. the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll).18
There have been later Greek translations of the Greek Bible, such as the Aquila,
so-called kaige-Theodotion, and Symmachus versions.19 The kaige-Theodotion
version probably reflects a later literalizing of an existing translation. In any
case, the Septuagint was transmitted from the time of translation to the time
of the gathering of the major codexes, and subject to many kinds of transmis-
sional and even translational variation, besides that which inevitably occurs in
handwritten texts.
As a result, we can clearly see that where the current Septuagint text and
Masoretic text diverge when we examine the New Testament, there may well
be a different textual tradition being represented. These divergences occur on
both large and small scale. Some of the major examples often cited are the dif-
ferences in the book of Jeremiah, where the Septuagint text is approximately
fifteen per cent shorter than the Masoretic text, or differences throughout the
book of Job (which is also significantly shorter in the Septuagint), or the three
added sections in Daniel, or the different versions of Daniel, or the different
texts of Esther, among others. These may well indicate that the translator was
translating a different Hebrew text than the one that we currently have in
our Masoretic text. Many of the divergences occur on a much smaller scale,
thus indicating minor textual variations. Even this is not certain, however, as
17 See Jobes and Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint, 22. Paul Kahle argued for a diverse tradi-
tion (The Cairo Geniza [2nd ed.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1959], ch. 3), but most others have
argued for a narrower translational tradition (argued for by Paul Lagarde, on whom see
Jobes and Silva, 268–71).
18 See McLay, Use of the Septuagint, 132.
19 See Jobes and Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint, 26–30; cf. McLay, Use of the Septuagint,
9–12.

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16 Porter
the translators themselves, as well as the New Testament author when citing
a text, may well have altered the text for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless,
dissimilarity would presume a different textual tradition, but there is lack of
certainty over the reasons. The Septuagint author may be following a proto-
Masoretic tradition, may be following another textual tradition now unknown
to us, may be extemporizing on the basis of a variety of unaccounted factors,
or may be translating for another reason that we cannot now estimate. One of
the strengths of Stanley’s examination of the formulaic quotations in Paul’s
undisputed letters is his attempt to identify all of the variable features with-
in any given quotation on the basis of Paul’s departure from the Septuagint.
Admittedly, this restricts the changes to those by Paul to the Septuagint, but
the same set of principles is operative—at some level there is a change that
must be accounted for, and it is often difficult to explain it. Stanley notes in-
stances where Paul may follow one Septuagint tradition over another or adapt
the words to his context or make a change for an uncertain reason. The same
kind of situation applies to the Septuagint translator in relation to his Hebrew
Vorlage.20 As a result, we do not have anything close to full knowledge of the
existing traditions or their transmissions used by New Testament authors, in-
cluding Paul.
2.4 Ancient Textual Access

We also understand that ancient authors accessed texts in various ways that
must be taken into account when we examine how the Jewish Scriptures were
used in the New Testament, especially by Paul.
There were three major means by which the Scriptures may have been
accessed. These include memory, full written documents, and collections of
texts. There may also have been other incidental ways, but these are probably
unimportant for our discussion (such as second-hand transmission, becom-
ing more uncertain the further we move away from the three means above).
The first is memory. As noted above, memory played a more important role in
the ancient world, even the literate Greco-Roman world, than it does in con-
temporary society, with our access to written forms of information retrieval.
The point is not that the human brain and its inherent memory capacity was
any different in the ancient world, but that the use and development of the
memory was necessarily different. As a result, memory’s functional capacity
was much larger within a culture without ready access to written memory aids,
in a way that modern society finds difficult to understand. We have evidence
from both the ancient world and pre-literate modern cultures that the human
20 Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, 81.

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memory capacity can be exceptionally well-developed. It is therefore possible

that ancient authors such as Paul utilized their memories when citing their
Scriptures. As an educated Pharisee, Paul probably would have been expected
to have committed large portions of his Scriptures to memory, and he may well
have drawn upon this memory for his citations. The major question is whether
he had committed the Hebrew or the Greek Scriptures to memory. He may
have committed large portions of the Greek Scriptures to memory alongside
the Hebrew Scriptures, especially as a devout Diaspora Jew, even if he contin-
ued his education in Jerusalem with Gamaliel. The use of memory may provide
a convenient means of textual access, but it does not clarify Paul’s citation of
his Scriptures.
The second means of access to the Scriptures was through (relatively) com-
plete written documents, such as have been described above. The Jewish peo-
ple were people of the book—or better, the scroll—and they preserved their
sacred texts in scroll form so that they could be read, memorized, and used in
worship. These scrolls provided relatively easy access to the content of these
Scriptures (access that was greatly improved with the use of the codex), so
that they could function in a variety of contexts. These contexts were often
communal ones, such as corporate worship, but could be individual ones as
well, when students of the Scriptures would access them. These full written
documents would have been in either Hebrew or Greek, as the occasion would
have warranted. There were almost assuredly Hebrew scriptural scrolls used
within the wider Diaspora community, but the need for a Greek translation,
that is, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into the lingua franca of the
Hellenistic and then Roman world, indicates that the vast majority of people
who needed access to written Scriptures needed to utilize Greek documents.
This category may appear to be less important than traditionally thought, as
written documents had inherent limitations to their access because of their
use of individual scrolls, as discussed above. Nevertheless, complete written
documents form the basis for any textual transmission and their use must be
taken into account.
The third means of access to the Scriptures was possibly by means of tes-
timonia. Scholarship is undivided on the role and function of testimonia and
even on their nature and composition. There appears to be little doubt that
collections of important scriptural texts gathered together into a single docu-
ment were available within the ancient world of Judaism. The important inter-
pretive question is whether these testimonia were used by Paul and the other
early Christian writers. The evidence available for such testimonia is not exten-
sive. There are two major theories on the content of these testimonia. Some,
such as J. Rendel Harris, thought that testimonia were thematically organized

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18 Porter
collections of citations, gathered by early Christians to provide authoritative

material on a particular topic or idea.21 Testimonia found at Qumran among
the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to use of such testimonia, but their thematic gath-
ering does not appear to be of the same type as found in the citation patterns
within the New Testament. C. H. Dodd argued that such testimonia contained
blocks of material that formed a substructure of thought.22 Rather than being
individual passages on a single theme, such testimonia would have included
much larger sets of verses organized around not a single theme but a theo-
logical narrative, such as he argued is found in the apostolic preaching of Acts.
Some have suggested that such a testimonium underlies the use of Zech 9–14
within the passion accounts of the Gospels, while Harris specifically addresses
how the testimonia were used throughout the New Testament as a means of
explaining the organization of the citations.
2.5 Identification of Citations

A further problem in discussing the citations within the New Testament of the
Jewish Scriptures is that we have inconsistent lists by which to begin such stud-
ies, lists that skew the results before investigation occurs. An examination of
two of the most popular lists of citations in the New Testament from the Jewish
Scriptures illustrates some of the difficulties.
There are many different such lists, although they are roughly equivalent,
and equivalent enough for the sake of discussion here. The most accessible are
those in the NA28 or the UBS5.23 The UBS5 provides a list of quotations and a
list of allusions and verbal parallels, while the NA28 simply provides a list of
quotations and allusions. The problems with these lists are numerous.24 First,
neither provides any criteria for how they define quotation (formulaic quo-
tation, direct quotation, paraphrase, or what level of alteration is allowable),
and neither provides any criteria for allusion or verbal parallel. The list of allu-
sions and verbal parallels (in both hand editions) includes books outside of the
21 J. Rendel Harris, with Vacher Burch, Testimonies (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1920).
22 C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology
(London: Nisbet, 1952). For discussion and further bibliography, see Mark J. Boda and
Stanley E. Porter, “Literature to the Third Degree: Prophecy in Zechariah 9–14 and the
Passion of Christ,” in Robert David and Manuel Jinbachian (eds.), Traduire la Bible hé-
braïque/Translating the Hebrew Bible: De la Septante à la Nouvelle Bible Second/From the
Septuagint to the Nouvelle Bible Segond (Montreal: Médiaspaul, 2005), 215–54, esp. 239–41.
23 N A28, 836–78, with quotations and allusions; UBS5, 857–63 for quotations, 864–83 for al-
lusions and verbal parallels. See also, e.g., Swete, Introduction to the Septuagint, 382–91.
24 McLay (Use of the Septuagint, 38–39) recognizes some of these.

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Hebrew Bible and the ten apocryphal/deuterocanonical books, such as 3 and

4 Maccabees, along with Jubilees, Martyrdom of Isaiah, Psalms of Solomon, 1
and 2 Enoch, among other pseudepigrapha, along with references in classical
and related Greek authors as well. This means that the NA28 list—which is a
single list of both quotations and allusions—includes references in a singular
list to books that are not part of either the Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint,
as if these are to be categorized in the same way (even though they list all of
the references except those to the classical authors under a heading as from the
Old Testament!). The UBS5 list of allusions and verbal parallels is subject to
the same criticism of ranging beyond the confines of either canon, even if the
quotations are in a separate list. Further, the list of quotations in the UBS5 in-
cludes 104 New Testament citations, some of which have more than one Jewish
scriptural citation attributed to them. When disputed and undisputed letters
are taken into account, this list roughly compares to the one that Stanley works
with (in fact, he probably used this list or one found in early NA editions with
quotations as the basis of his study) that essentially consists of formulaic quo-
tations in the New Testament. However, this is not entirely consistent, as the
UBS5 and NA28 both list the citation of Zech 8:16 in Eph 4:25 or Ps 4:4 LXX in
Eph 4:26, where there is no formulaic introduction for either (so the lists are
inconsistent at this point). This list of quotations also is subject to question
as it focuses almost if not entirely upon formulaic quotations, without direct
quotations, which presumably are counted as paraphrase, as that is the only
other category under which they might be considered. The result is to demote
direct quotations from quotation status to paraphrase status, just because they
do not have a formulaic introduction. The final objection is that the lists in
both hand editions appear to work from the assumption that the Hebrew Bible
takes precedence in the citation, with the NA28 using the Hebrew Bible chap-
ter and verse enumeration even for citation of the Septuagint except under
special circumstances, and the UBS5 only lists a reference as Septuagint (LXX)
when the two differ and the Septuagint is clearly indicated. The result is what
might be described as reference-by-reference lists that overlook a number of
important factors in thinking about the use of the Jewish Scriptures in the New
Testament.
2.6 Degrees of Verbatim Representation of Scripture

We also know that the New Testament authors such as Paul cited texts in vari-
ous ways according to various degrees of verbatim representation. By this, I do
not mean to include discussion of various techniques of interpretation, such as
prophetic foreshortening, typology, or various types of Jewish or Greco-Roman
exegesis, or how an author such as Paul made adjustments to the texts to fit his

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20 Porter
context.25 Instead, I mean how closely the author represents the wording of
the source text in his presentation of it within his own work.
I have elsewhere defined five different levels of representation. There are
other schemes, to be sure, to attempt to describe these levels, but I have found
that these capture the minimum number of degrees of differentiation for prof-
itable discussion.26
The first category is formulaic quotation. A formulaic quotation is an exact
quotation, usually of at least a few words, although in theory it might be only
a single word, as it is marked by an introductory formula. A minimum of three
words seems reasonable, as this is sufficient to establish necessary syntax. I
realize that the length is to some extent arbitrary, but no less arbitrary than
other proposals. Virtually all of the examples cited by Stanley in his discussion
of Paul’s citation of Scripture fall within this category, as are most (though not
all) of the examples cited in the list of quotations in the UBS5.
The second category is direct quotation. A direct quotation entails a non-
formulaically introduced verbatim quotation—taking into account contextual
accommodations such as necessary morphological changes—of at least three
words. One word, without a formulaic introduction, might be coincidental,
as might be two words, where their relationship may still be ambiguous, but
three words allows for determinable syntactical relations. One of the major
problems with most discussions of citations of Scripture in the New Testament
authors—and this includes Paul as much as any—is the exclusion of many
direct quotations in lists of purported quotations and the failure to discuss
them in a number of treatments. I note that, apart from a few examples (note
above with Eph 4:25 and 26), most direct quotations are excluded from the list
of quotations in the UBS5 list, and therefore are categorized among the broad
term allusion. I will discuss an important example of this below.
The third category is paraphrase. Paraphrase occupies a precarious posi-
tion within literary discussion of citation. Many in biblical studies do not in-
clude paraphrase as a useful category, with examples of paraphrase (if they
are identified as such) being confined to instances of allusion (allusion ends
up being a very large category, indeed). However, I believe that paraphrase is
a very important intermediary category between exact verbal representation
(forms of quotation) and indirect textual reference, such as allusion and echo
25 Porter, Sacred Tradition, 29–33; and McLay, Use of the Septuagint, 88–97.
26 See Porter, Sacred Tradition, 34–46, which I directly draw upon in the discussion that
follows.

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(see below). Paraphrase can be defined as an intentional and specific invoking

of a definable passage, even if it is represented in other words and in another
form. As a result, a paraphrase may use some of the same words, though not
consecutively, along with the words of the paraphraser, including words in
similar semantic domains as some in the source text, often in different syntax.
An example is the paraphrase of Isa 45:23—κάμψει πᾶν γόνυ καὶ ἐξομολογήσεται
πᾶσα γλῶσσα τῷ θεῷ—in Phil 2:10–11: πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ ἐπουρανίων καὶ ἐπιγείων
καὶ καταχθονίων καὶ πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσηται. The syntax, including mood
forms, is changed, along with adding some wording.
The fourth category is allusion. Allusion is very difficult to define, even
though many interpreters seem to be confident in their abilities to identify
it. Allusion is a figure of speech by which the author intentionally makes in-
direct extratextual references to historical or literary or related entities, usu-
ally though not necessarily to those that the audience will recognize, to in-
corporate such entities into the citing text for the sake of the argument. There
are numerous well-known allusions to be found within the New Testament.
These include Paul’s reference in Gal 4:2–3 to the faith of Abraham occur-
ring before Abraham’s circumcision, an allusion to Gen 15 occurring before
Gen 17; Gal 4:22–23 to Abraham having two sons, an allusion to Gen 16 and 21;
Gal 4:24 to a covenant being related to Sinai, an allusion to Exod 19–20; and
Gal 4:24–25 to Hagar, an allusion to Gen 16 and 21. There is much more that
can be said about the category of allusion, especially as it touches upon such
matters as intentionality, wider cultural knowledge, and its various possible
functions.
The fifth and final category is echo. Echo is by far the most abstract category
that I believe can be identified for the describing of citations, as a distinct cat-
egory separate from those above (it has been conflated by a number of scholars
in recent times). The term echo, rather than simply being seen as allusion or a
type of allusion, should be used to refer to the use of thematically related lan-
guage to invoke a more general notion or concept. As a result, echo may be in-
tentional or unintentional but embodied in the use of thematically related lan-
guage that invokes more general notions or concepts. There are more echoes in
the writings of Paul than many have recognized. These include Rom 3:8, which
is an echo of what Paul has previously said in Rom 2:24 with his citation of
Isa 52:5 regarding blaspheming of God; and Rom 11:17–24 on grafted branches,
which is an echo of general notions found in both Isaiah (e.g. 4:2; 11:1; 14:19) and
Jeremiah (e.g. 23:5; 33:15).
With these foundational notions in place, I now turn to some new proposals
regarding how Paul cites the Jewish Scriptures.

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22 Porter
3 New Proposals
In light of this discussion of the use of the Jewish Scriptures in Paul, I wish to
make a number of specific proposals regarding Paul’s use of them in his writ-
ings, more particularly regarding his use of the Septuagint.
The first proposal is that, with regard to the larger notion of Paul’s use of his
Scriptures, for formulaic quotations and direct quotations, as well as possibly
for paraphrase, we may wish to determine whether Paul is using the Hebrew
Bible or the Septuagint in his citation; however, for allusion and echo, so long
as the material is found in both of the versions, there is usually no good reason
to differentiate the Hebrew and Greek textual traditions. In some ways, this is
simply common sense, although common sense that is not often identified.
For those citations that are verbatim renderings, such as formulaic or direct
quotations, the first important step in understanding Paul’s use of the citation
is to determine the textual tradition upon which he is drawing. Once that is de-
termined, then the interpreter may be able to understand how Paul is using his
Scriptures, including both local and global uses to which he puts the scriptural
text. Paul may be citing one version because it enhances or changes or modifies
a particular idea or emphasis that he wishes to express, a factor that cannot be
considered without knowledge of the originating language tradition. As long
as the textual traditions are similar, allusions and echoes are not dependent
upon identifying the particular language tradition, as they are invoking histori-
cal, literary, or even simply thematic notions that are not language-dependent.
An allusion to Abraham in the Genesis account or an echo of the catastroph-
ic nature of the flood from Genesis may be made regardless of whether the
Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint is involved. The question of whether one must
know the textual tradition of paraphrase, however, raises its own interesting
questions. Since paraphrase is based upon some wording being similar, often
paraphrase requires identification of the language tradition, although because
paraphrase also draws upon language of the same semantic domain (in other
terms, the use of words that denote similar concepts) such language is not tra-
dition dependent. The extent of the paraphrase may determine how language-
dependent a given instance may be. The example above of Phil 2:10–11 is en-
hanced by knowledge of the Septuagint version, even though it is very similar
to the Hebrew text (upon which I comment below).
The second proposal is that, for those passages that seem to reflect both
the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint version, that is, they seem to correlate
with one another, one should not identify these as presumably Hebrew Bible
citations but as citations of the Septuagint. As noted above, several standard
reference tools appear to have a presumption of the Hebrew Bible providing
the standard in citations of the Jewish Scriptures. This is a position laid out by

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Timothy Lim in his treatment of the Qumran scrolls in relation to Paul’s use of
Scripture. Lim states that “just because a biblical quotation is written in Greek
is no reason for supposing that it is necessarily septuagintal.”27 This of course
is true, but is not as precise a statement as is needed, because my argument is
not that any Greek quotation is septuagintal, because there are Greek quota-
tions that may represent other traditions (as Lim recognizes), but where the
Septuagint matches the Hebrew text it should be presumed as septuagintal.
Lim recognizes that Paul was a multilingual (he uses the term polylingual),
and could probably read Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. At this point his argu-
ment gets confused. Lim states, “When he quoted biblical passages, however,
Paul could only do so in the Greek language.”28 He does not say why this is the
case, because there are instances elsewhere in the New Testament where the
authors present transliterated Semitic languages. However, even if this is all
that Paul could do, I believe that for those instances where the Septuagint text
seems to approximate most closely to what Paul states, even when it seems to
be a rendering of the Hebrew text, then we should view it as a Septuagint quo-
tation first, before considering other options.
There are several reasons for this position. The first is that any theory of
retroversion is subject to question. In this situation, we are positing that Paul
may have used a Hebrew text very similar to the one that we now have, but that
he rendered it in Greek in a form that closely approximates the Septuagint.
But we do not actually have that Hebrew version, only a later one that appears
similar. I find that reasoning less plausible than thinking that Paul used the
Septuagint and it happened to be a rendering of the Hebrew text as we know
it. Further, even if the Septuagint and Hebrew text agree, that does not neces-
sarily mean that Paul was citing the Hebrew text, as the Septuagint rendering
may have been working from a different Hebrew text, but happened to arrive
at a correlative rendering. As Lim notes, there are a variety of textual traditions
to which Paul may have had access (but did he, or did he use them?),29 but
when he cites a text that is recognizably the Septuagint, even if it is equivalent
to what we think the Hebrew text would have been, the presumption must
rest with viewing it as a Septuagint text. A third reason is that Paul’s primary
language for communication, even if he had the ability to read and even write
Hebrew and/or Aramaic, was Greek. This was his first language, this was the
language that he no doubt used throughout his Mediterranean ministry (e.g. in
conversation with Felix and Festus, among others), and this was the language
27 Timothy Lim, Holy Scripture in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline Letters (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1997), 26.
28 Lim, Holy Scripture, 26.
29 Lim, Holy Scripture, 26–27.

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24 Porter
in which he wrote his letters. Even though he may have used Hebrew when he
was in Jerusalem, and may have used it when in Tarsus, there is just as much
reason to believe that he used Greek in Jerusalem and with it the Scriptures
in Greek, as he had been reared. In other words, even if the Hebrew Bible is
mediated in Greek in the Septuagint, the use of Greek by Paul when it approxi-
mates the Septuagint more than the Hebrew Bible or related traditions gives a
presumption of Paul’s use of the Septuagint or a version of it.
A third proposal is that presuming that the Greek Bible forms the basis of
Paul’s citation of the Jewish Scriptures makes more sense of a number of pas-
sages and the process by which they were created. I cite two sets of passages
from Romans.
The first example is found in Rom 10, where Paul cites a number of pas-
sages according to the UBS5 list. The UBS5 lists eleven quotations in Rom 10,
and indicates that five of them are from the Septuagint. However, Archer and
Chirichigno (AC) in their examination of the texts offer some competing re-
sults. In their system, a passage with an A categorization reflects the Hebrew
Bible and Septuagint, a B categorization the Septuagint, a C categorization the
Hebrew Bible.30
The results of the examination are the following:
Table 2.2 Citations in Rom 10
Romans UBS5 AC
10:5 = Lev 18:5 HB B = LXX

10:6 = Deut 9:4 HB A = HB/LXX (only a phrase)
10:6–8 = Deut 30:12–14 HB A = HB/LXX
10:11 = Isa 28:16 LXX A = HB/LXX
10:13 = Joel 2:32 HB A = HB/LXX
10:15 = Isa 52:7 HB C = MT
10:16 = Isa 53:1 LXX A = HB/LXX
10:18 = Ps 19:4 LXX first colon B = LXX
second colon A = HB/LXX
10:19 = Deut 32:21 HB A = HB/LXX
10:20 = Isa 65:1 LXX B = LXX
10:21 = Isa 65:2 LXX A = HB/LXX
30 Archer and Chirichigno have two other categories, but the D category is virtually the same
as the B category and for this exercise I conflate the two. I also realize that Archer and
Chirichigno differentiate three subcategories of A, indicating some deviations between

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I realize that there may be other analyses, such as by Stanley and others, but
in this instance clearly the Archer and Chirichigno examination is more re-
fined (e.g. analysis of Rom 10:18 = Ps 19:4, but at other points as well). However,
the point to observe is the differences of opinion between the two, such as in
Rom 10:5 = Lev 18:5; Rom 10:11 = Isa 28:16; Rom 10:16 = Isa 53:1; Rom 10:18 = Ps 19:4;
Rom 10:21 = Isa 65:2.31
More to the point is how did Paul’s writing of this passage take place? If he
relied upon memory, there is a surprisingly large amount of verbal agreement
involved, much more so than most scholars are willing to accept. This may be
the best explanation, but the feat involved makes it very difficult to discuss the
process or the texts behind his thinking, unless we translate it into memory of
the specific traditions. If Paul relied upon a testimonium, it would have been
one with individual passages, not a narrative structure to it. Harris argues that
Paul had access to a testimonium against the Jews, and he selects passages with-
in Rom 10 to illustrate this.32 However, Harris does not treat the verses in order
to account for their origins and also must engage in unnecessary hypotheses
about the book of Romans being incomplete in defense of his hypothesis. For
most scholars this appears much more likely to be a Pauline pastiche than one
that was already captured in a testimonium. Nevertheless, even if it were de-
rived from a testimonium, the issue of the underlying textual tradition remains.
If Paul relied upon written documents, we still have not solved the issue. If we
adopt either the UBS5 or Archer and Chirichigno analysis, Paul would have had
to use five different scrolls from the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible, out of
eight needed for all of Romans (assuming they came from the same language-
tradition, or else the number increases, if, for example, he used both Greek and
Hebrew Psalms, etc.). This also may well assume Paul had a set of both the Greek
and Hebrew Scriptures available. Even more complex would be an analysis that
looks to other Greek and Hebrew language traditions for analysis. The reality of
Paul’s situation seems to entail a complex process of textual creation.
Despite this difficulty, the situation could be made at least somewhat less
complex if we examine the textual pastiche through the eyes of the Septuagint
text. If we view the A texts of Archer and Chirichigno as in fact instances of
citation of the Septuagint but where it strongly correlates with the Hebrew text
(see proposal two above), then we have Paul using five different Greek scrolls,
and three of them multiple times. The only exception would be his citation of
the Greek and Hebrew, and two for B, indicating closeness to the Greek, but for the sake
of this discussion I do not think that these are relevant. See Old Testament Quotations,
xxv–xxxii.
31 McLay (Use of the Septuagint, 38–39) notes that the UBSGNT lists are not to be relied upon
without further thought.
32 Harris, Testimonies, 2:12–31. Cf. Porter and Pitts, “Paul’s Bible,” 37.

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26 Porter
Isa 52:7 from the Hebrew Bible at Rom 10:15, an admittedly aphoristic statement
that may well have been committed to memory, in a way that few of the other
citations are (Lev 18:5 is also cited at Gal 3:12 from the Septuagint; Isa 28:16 at
Rom 9:33, as well as 1 Pet 2:6, both from the Septuagint = Hebrew Bible; Isa 53:1
at John 12:38 from the Septuagint = Hebrew Bible, with none indicating only
the Hebrew Bible version, according to AC).
In Rom 9:6–18 and 19–33, there is a similar pastiche of citations.33
Table 2.3 Citations in Rom 9:6–18
Romans UBS5 AC
9:7 = Gen 21:12 HB A = HB/LXX

9:9 = Gen 18:10, 14 HB A = HB/LXX
9:12 = Gen 25:23 HB A = HB/LXX
9:13 = Mal 1:2–3 HB A = HB/LXX
9:14 = Exod 33:19 HB A = HB/LXX
9:17 = Exod 9:16 LXX first part C = HB
Second part A or B = HB/LXX or LXX
The noteworthy difference here is that the UBS5 labels the citation of Exod 9:16
in Rom 9:17 as from the Septuagint, but Archer and Chirichigno as predomi-
nantly but not unreservedly from the Hebrew Bible. There is some possibility
of the use of memory that has brought the two textual traditions together in
this passage, although at least part of the text appears to be the Septuagint.
Table 2.4 Citations in Rom 9:19–33
Romans UBS5 AC
9:25 = Hos 2:23 HB B = LXX

9:26 = Hos 1:10 HB B = LXX
9:27–28 = Isa 10:22–23 LXX B = LXX
9:29 = Isa 1:9 LXX B = HB/LXX
9:33 = Isa 8:14 = 28:16 LXX A = HB/LXX
33 See Porter and Pitts, “Paul’s Bible,” 39–40, with Rom 3:10–18 also considered.

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There are several further noteworthy differences between the UBS5 and
Archer and Chirichigno, especially regarding Hos 2:23 in Rom 9:25, and Hos 1:10
in Rom 9:26.
There are two noteworthy observations to make regarding these two sets
of citations in Rom 9. The first is that, apart from the citation of Mal 1:2–3 in
Rom 9:13, the citations are in roughly canonical book order, beginning with the
Torah—Genesis and then Exodus—and then moving to the prophets—one of
the Minor Prophets and then Isaiah. The citation in Mal 1:2–3 occurs only here
in the New Testament and is arguably aphoristic and possibly recited from
memory, as it has a noteworthy parallelism. Nevertheless, the injection of the
quotation from the prophet Malachi is anomalous in this otherwise canoni-
cal ordering. Including Malachi, four scrolls would have been necessary if Paul
were relying upon physical artifacts. In the first set of citations from Rom 9:6–
18, one might argue that Paul could have been using the Hebrew Bible (one
wonders about the conflicting analyses over Exod 9:16, and even Archer and
Chirichigno’s dividing up their analysis of the single verse), but this is made
far less plausible by the citations in Rom 9:19–33, where there are many clear
instances of the use of the Septuagint text. Apart from the intrusion of Malachi
within the canonical ordering, the only apparent difficulty with the Septuagint
providing the source of these citations is Exod 9:16 (according to Archer and
Chirichigno, not the UBS5).
In any case, presuming the use of the Septuagint, although certainly not
without problems, seems to provide a more unified and coherent account of
how Paul is citing texts than if one assumes the Hebrew Bible.
The final example I wish to cite is an example from Philippians. The stan-
dard lists regarding quotations of the Jewish Scriptures in the New Testament,
as well as a good number of commentaries (though certainly not all of them),
do not mention any direct quotations of the Jewish Scriptures in the book of
Philippians.34 Here is, I believe, a case where prejudice toward the Hebrew
Bible and against the Septuagint has colored the judgment of many scholars.
In the list of allusions found in the UBS5 and NA28, however, both cite an allu-
sion to Job 13:16 LXX in Phil 1:19. Here are their two wordings:
34 I treated this issue first in Stanley E. Porter, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New
Testament: A Brief Comment on Method and Terminology,” in Craig A. Evans and James
A. Sanders (eds.), Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations
and Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 79–96, esp. 90–91 (with references to
commentaries on either side); and (corrected) in Porter, Sacred Tradition, 35.

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28 Porter
Job 13:16 LXX: τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν.

Phil 1:19: τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν.
This is the exact same wording for five Greek words, not following the Hebrew
Bible, which lacks the verb.35 There is no introductory formula. Why are these
words not included in the list of direct quotations in the UBS5? One of the rea-
sons may be that there is no introductory formula, but that illustrates that the
standard lists are inadequate as they are not complete lists of direct quotations
but inconsistent lists of mostly formulaic quotations. A second reason might
be that the quotation is too short. However, this is an inadequate explanation.
The UBS5 and NA28 both include the quotation in Eph 4:26 with four words
(and also without an introductory formula). A third reason might be that it is
so syntactically well integrated into the flow of the text of Philippians that it
may simply be a coincidence of words. It is hard to believe, however, that this
could simply be a coincidence of words. One or two words might be the case,
but five words can hardly be an accident. In fact, the use of five words indicates
an intentional quotation. A fourth reason might be that there is no attempt by
Paul to relate his content to the content of the book of Job. This fourth reason
merits further explanation below.
I also note that there appears to be a second quotation of the Old Testament
in Phil 2:15 of Deut 32:5.36 Here are their two wordings:
Phil 2:15: τέκνα θεοῦ ἅμωμα μέσον γενεᾶς σκολιᾶς καὶ διεστραμμένης
Deut 32:5 LXX: γενεὰ σκολιὰ καὶ διεστραμμένη
Taking the change of case (a morphological amendment) into consider-

ation, this constitutes a second direct quotation of the Jewish Scriptures in
Philippians. This citation follows the Hebrew Bible with its “generation warped
and crooked.” In citing the example from Job 1:19 above, I note that one of the
reasons for its not being considered a quotation might be that it is clearly a
Septuagint passage, when there is a presumption against the Greek Bible in
identifying quotations. Such a response cannot explain the failure to note
Deut 32:5 in Phil 2:15.
In what I noted above, I identified a paraphrase of the Jewish Scriptures of
Isa 45:23 in Phil 2:10–11. Along with that paraphrase, we now also have two clear
quotations, one from Job and the other from Deuteronomy, in Philippians.
35 The Hebrew Bible could be (woodenly) rendered “Indeed [not translated καίγε in Job, but
just καί], this to me for deliverance.”
36 Porter, Sacred Tradition, 35.

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According to the UBS5 list, only two other Pauline letters, 1 Timothy (with
Deut 25:4 at 5:18) and 2 Timothy (with Num 16:5 at 2:19) have fewer quotations,
but they at least are listed with these quotations. There may be a good explana-
tion of why Paul draws upon these citations within Philippians. Philippians is
generally interpreted as a positive letter to a church with which Paul had good
relations. This was a church that had helped Paul in his ministry and continued
to be a support to him. However, when he writes to the Philippians, he notes his
current severe struggles. There are two major types of struggles to note here.
The first is the tension he has within him over whether he should continue to
live and serve Christ or whether he has reached the end of his ministry and is
content to die. He outlines this situation in Phil 1:12–30, the very place where
he invokes the passage from Job. Paul may well be identifying with the situa-
tion of Job in seeing himself as one beleaguered by circumstances and wonder-
ing about whether he should continue on or whether he should give up. Paul
states that, despite his circumstances, he will rejoice, for he knows that this
will result in his salvation (Phil 1:19, citing Job 13:16). Part of the pressure that
Paul is feeling is in relation to opposition that he has received in his ministry.
Defining the opponents of Philippians is not an easy task, but however they are
defined they have been troubling to Paul and he advises his Philippian friends
to take note of those who are opposing his message. Along the way he invokes
Deut 32:5 in Phil 2:15 as a means of encouraging his church to be faultless wit-
nesses in the midst of those who are perverse and sinful. There is, therefore,
a unifying theme to what Paul says that fully supports his invocation of the
Jewish Scriptures at this point in his letter.
4 Conclusion
Due to both the text and context of citation of the Jewish Scriptures in Paul’s
letters, there are four conclusions to note.
The first is that the presumption in discussion of his citations should be on
his use of the Septuagint. This is the most plausible starting point that takes
into account Paul’s linguistic situation within the linguistic situation of the
Greco-Roman world and the Scriptures most readily available to him.
Second, one need not determine the language source of a citation unless it
is a formulaic or direct quotation, or possibly a paraphrase, as paraphrase (in
many instances), allusion, and echo are not linguistically dependent.
Third, if issues of language only directly apply to formulaic and direct quo-
tations, then all of these quotations should be identified in lists that advertise
themselves as quotations within Paul’s letters (and the New Testament). The

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30 Porter
standard lists that we are using—and these have a widespread influence upon
how students and scholars approach this issue—should be accurate reflections
of our understanding of the citations within the Pauline letters, not merely
an inconsistent list of mostly formulaic quotations. They certainly should not
exclude quotations that are clearly present, simply because they reflect the
Septuagint text or because those forming the lists cannot understand why such
quotations are being used within Paul’s letters. This is especially the case if we
begin with the first point above that we should begin our investigation of Paul’s
use of the Jewish Scriptures from the standpoint that the Septuagint was the
source that he primarily used.
Fourth and finally, with all that has been said about quotations, we must
recognize that much more also needs to be said about non-quotations—
paraphrase, allusion, and echo—as these categories of citation also remain
relatively untapped sources of examination.

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Chapter 3
Paul’s Use of Νόμος: Torah, Law, or Custom?

Ryder A. Wishart
1 Introduction
This paper uses the computational linguistic tool vector space modeling in
order to analyze the lexeme νόμος and its semantic domains with the ultimate
goal of providing a monosemic linguistic description of this lexeme. The ongo-
ing conversation about the meaning of νόμος has been problematic, but has
benefited most from research that engages with modern linguistics. In an ef-
fort to continue this endeavour, I will look at various positions on the topic.
Next, I will analyze the lexeme νόμος in two ways: (1) I will attempt to outline
its substantive content and (2) its paradigmatic value as a monosemous signi-
fier within the language system of Hellenistic Greek. Finally, I will conclude
the paper with a discussion of the translation of νόμος, asking whether, in light
of the analysis in this paper, νόμος ought to be consistently glossed as “law,” or
whether other alternatives such as “custom” or “tradition” might be more ap-
propriate in some cases. The assumption of this paper is that to understand
Paul’s use of νόμος we ought to begin with a baseline description of the term
as a part of the language system. I will argue in this paper that the baseline
semantic contribution of νόμος is probably not “law,” but rather “custom”—a
socially upheld but not necessarily legislated norm.1
1 There are several issues I will have to set aside for the purposes of this study. In particu-
lar, I will not attempt to analyze the meanings of the English terms employed as glosses,
though doing so would provide valuable insight into the task of translation, due to issues
of scope. I will not engage with a critique of the practice of glossing, nor will I define terms
like synonymy. I will simply note that the problems of glossing have been discussed in nu-
merous places, and interpreters and translators ought to be aware of the benefits as well as
drawbacks of glosses as representations of meaning. Furthermore, terms like synonymy are
variously understood. Future attempts to map distributional data in order to represent dis-
tributional semantic domains will need to engage with some of these issues further. My goal
in this study is to make an initial attempt to implement such an approach in order to invite
other researchers to begin to explore the issues and possibilities it entails.

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32 Wishart
2 A Brief Survey of Scholarship on Νόμος
As mentioned, the conversation about the meaning of νόμος has been prob-
lematic, generating multiple positions on the topic, often without any linguis-
tic criteria by which to evaluate the various arguments.2 I will briefly outline
some—by no means all—of the questions and positions that have been of-
fered, and then move into a discussion of my own methodology in the next
section.
Although he takes the position that “Not all the Pauline passages that em-
ploy the word ‘law’ (νόμος) may necessarily refer to the Mosaic Law,”3 Andrew
Das points out that the more general tendency has been in the opposite direc-
tion. “Scholars have been gravitating in recent years,” he claims, “toward a more
consistent translation of νόμος as Torah in Galatians and Romans.”4 While
scholars sometimes point directly to specific instances of νόμος where it seems
to be referring to the Torah, there is a tendency to slide into sweeping gener-
alizations. Wright, for example, declares, “The law, νόμος in Paul, is the Jewish
law.”5 Linguistics, while rarely an important aspect of the discussion, is some-
times used to marshal generalizations that support a particular view. Some, for
2 For a good survey of various treatments of νόμος in Paul, see Michael Winger, By What Law?
The Meaning of Νόμος in the Letters of Paul (sbl Dissertation Series 128; Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1992), 21–32.
3 A. Andrew Das, “Paul and the Law: Pressure Points in the Debate,” in Mark D. Given (ed.),
Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives on the Apostle (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), 99–116,
here 110.
4 Das, “Paul and the Law,” 113. Francis Watson (“The Law in Romans,” in Jerry L. Sumney [ed.],
Reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans [sblrbs 73; Atlanta: sbl, 2012], 93–107, here 93), for ex-
ample, claims, “Paul uses the word nomos (‘law’) on seventy-two occasions in Romans, and in
all but a few cases the reference is to the Torah, the law of Moses whose five books are foun-
dational to Jewish Scripture.” E. P. Sanders (Paul, the Law and the Jewish People [Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1983], 117) says, “I would urge, however, that when Paul used the word nomos [at least
in Phil 3:3 and Rom 2:29] he meant the Jewish Scripture, or the will of God as revealed in it.”
However, cf. Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, 3. Stephen Westerholm (Perspectives
Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004],
299) notes that “the ‘law’ in Paul’s writings frequently (indeed, most frequently) refers to
the sum of specific divine commandments given to Israel through Moses.” N. T. Wright (“The
Law in Romans 2,” in James D. G. Dunn [ed.], Paul and the Mosaic Law: The Third Durham-
Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism, Durham, September, 1994
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 131–50, here 137–38) argues that the meaning of phrases like
νόμος πίστεως “is of course likewise controversial, but I am increasingly persuaded that the
best course is to treat νόμος as referring to the Jewish law throughout [Rom 2].”
5 Wright, “Law in Romans 2,” 149.

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Paul ’ s Use of Νόμος: Torah, Law, or Custom ? 33
example, find no inherent difference between articular and anarthrous νόμος.6

This claim is probably an overreaction to the claim that νόμος with the article
always refers to Torah. Examples of this opposite claim, while even more prob-
lematic, are nevertheless proposed.7 Many scholars rely on Winger’s study of
νόμος, which notes, “Νόμος is to be identified with the practices that constitute
Jewish ethnic particularity—‘what Jews do.’”8 However, others understand
νόμος as consistently referring to Jewish Scripture in part or whole, and in so
doing there is a tendency to interpret instances of the term νόμος in Paul as
inner-biblical allusions.9 In other words, if Paul’s use of νόμος refers (at least
most of the time) to part or all of the Jewish Scriptures, then Paul’s discussion
6 James D. G. Dunn (The Theology of Paul the Apostle [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 133)
claims, “But as a rule we can assume that when Paul spoke of nomos and ho nomos he was
thinking of the Torah.”
7 Richard B. Hays (“Three Dramatic Roles: The Law in Romans 3–4,” in James D. G. Dunn
[ed.], Paul and the Mosaic Law: The Third Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest
Christianity and Judaism, Durham, September, 1994 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 151–64,
here 151) provides a good example of such a position, which will be discussed further below.
He claims, “In the first instance, the term ὁ νόμος refers in Paul’s usage to the Law given by
Moses to Israel.” While Hays here includes the article as a modifier of νόμος, he finds refer-
ence to the Mosaic law even without such modification. For example, see his translation
of lxx Isa 51:4, where νόμος (anarthrous) is translated as “the Law” (Hays, “Three Dramatic
Roles,” 159).
8 Hays, “Three Dramatic Roles,” 153; Winger, By What Law? 109. This may not be precisely what
Winger was saying at this point; Winger proposes that νόμος in Paul’s letters usually refers to
Jewish νόμος (cf. Winger, By What Law? 86).
9 Unlike Winger, Hays doesn’t consistently take νόμος as a set of practices. While claiming
(Hays, “Three Dramatic Roles,” 153–54) that νόμος πίστεως is an enigmatic phrase, he says, “If,
however, νόμος τῶν ἔργων means something like ‘Torah construed through the hermeneutical
filter of distinctively Jewish practices,’ then its opposite, νόμος πίστεως, must mean ‘Torah
construed through the hermeneutical filter of πίστις,’ the Law as read through the eyes of
faith.” He goes on to claim, “To interpret the word νόμος in this formulation as having merely
the generic meaning of ‘principle’ or ‘rule’ is to underinterpret Paul’s theologically-laden lan-
guage and to disregard the fact that he has been consistently using νόμος to refer to Israel’s
Law” (Hays, “Three Dramatic Roles,” 154). However, it ought to be noted that he takes νόμος
in Rom 4 as referring to “not the Mosaic covenant, but Scripture taken as a narrative whole”
(Hays, “Three Dramatic Roles,” 155). He also understands νόμος as also “a virtual synonym
of γραφή” (Hays, “Three Dramatic Roles,” 156), which he also claims is the case in Rom 3:31
(Hays, “Three Dramatic Roles,” 158). By the end of his essay, νόμος actually ends up exclusively
referring to Scripture: “Ὁ νόμος is always the same collection of texts, but the import of those
texts shifts dramatically in accordance with the hermeneutical perspective at each stage of
the unfolding drama” (Hays, “Three Dramatic Roles,” 164). Cf. James D. G. Dunn, “In Search
of Common Ground,” in Dunn (ed.), Paul and the Mosaic Law: The Third Durham-Tübingen
Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism, Durham, September, 1994 (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 309–34, here 321.

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34 Wishart
of νόμος can be understood as providing, in effect, divinely-inspired theological

evaluation of the Old Testament.
Longenecker evidences this kind of approach by assuming that νόμος refers
to Mosaic law even in instances where another law is explicitly in view.10 As a
case in point, regarding Gal 6:2—τὸν νόμον τοῦ Χριστοῦ—he claims,
There is some cause to think that Paul is significantly redefining things

here, but it seems unwise to evaporate all reference to the Mosaic law in
this phrase … The concept of law has undergone such a drastic redefini-
tion with reference to the Spirit of Christ and the community of Christ
that Paul can go so far as to identify it as the ‘law of Christ’—that is, the
Mosaic law that comes to its fullest and proper expression in the relation-
ship of mutual service within the community of those whose lives are
being transformed by the Spirit of Christ.11
On the positive side, the position that νόμος almost always refers to Mosaic law
has the support of common sense. After all, there is a long tradition of gloss-
ing ‫תֹורה‬
ָ with νόμος. As Lichtenberger points out, “Torah is translated nomos
in almost all the 270 instances [in the lxx].”12 Because of this common gloss,
Rosner explains that “In terms of referent, both Hebrew tôrâ and Greek nomos
in Jewish and Christian writings frequently denote the first five books of the sa-
cred Scriptures attributed to Moses, often labelled the ‘Pentateuch’ or ‘Torah’.”13
Rosner is correct to point out that νόμος can, and often does, refer to the Torah,
but the question we are left with—a question that is rarely addressed in a
straightforward manner—is precisely what made νόμος a useful gloss for ‫תֹורה‬ ָ .
Scholars have more typically attempting to delineate the referents of νόμος
without necessarily attempting to outline what νόμος—rather than some other
10 At least insofar as the explicit cotext indicates (i.e. by the genitive modifier).
11 Bruce W. Longenecker, “Defining the Faithful Character of the Covenant Community:
Galatians 2.15–21 and Beyond,” in James D. G. Dunn (ed.), Paul and the Mosaic Law:
The Third Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism,
Durham, September, 1994 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 75–97, here 92–93.
12 Hermann Lichtenberger, “The Understanding of the Torah in the Judaism of Paul’s
Day: A Sketch,” in James D. G. Dunn (ed.), Paul and the Mosaic Law: The Third Durham-
Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism, Durham, September,
1994 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 7–23, here 17.
13 Brian S. Rosner, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God (New Studies in
Biblical Theology 31; Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2013), 28. Rosner (Paul and the Law, 27) ex-
plains, “Torah or ‘law’ most commonly came to denote not just Deuteronomy, some col-
lection of laws, or even the contents of the Sinai covenant, but rather the first five books
of the Bible together.”

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term—contributes to the text. In his monograph dedicated to Paul’s use of

νόμος, By What Law?, Winger attempts to remedy this oversight, and so propos-
es to “attempt to determine the meaning of νόμος through a survey of patterns
in its usage, and an analysis of what these patterns imply about the meaning
of the term.”14 However, Winger was not the first to analyze νόμος’s patterns
of usage. In fact, there is a common enough assumption that the difference
between ὁ νόμος and νόμος is the difference between referring to the Torah and
referring to some other law, or to law in general. After all, ὁ νόμος means “the
law.” In short, this notion is unsustainable. As Winger points out (see discus-
sion below), such a view confuses meaning, or better, sense, with reference. The
sense of the term is conflated with the extralinguistic entity being referred to
by the writer who uses the term.
Origen was one of the earliest writers who tried to formulate a rule regarding
the reference of νόμος, but his understanding is generally rejected by scholars.
Origen says,
There is moreover a noteworthy distinction made by the Apostle in re-

lation to this expression, if one observes very carefully. It is customary
in Greek to place ἄρθρα before nouns. Among us these might be called
articles. Thus whenever Paul wants to designate the law of Moses, he cus-
tomarily places an article before it; but when he wants natural law to be
understood, he designates “law” without the article.15
Dunn evaluates Origen’s claims by noting, “The consensus is that no firm rule
can be established on the basis of the article’s presence or absence. Context is a
surer guide.”16 One of the implications that might be drawn from Dunn’s claim,
though likely not intended by him, is that the article’s presence or absence has
no impact on the meaning of the head term, νόμος. Porter rightly notes, though,
that “this is not necessarily a misunderstanding of the article, except when in-
terpreters state that the article indicates definiteness.”17 He goes on to explain,
14 Winger, By What Law? 32.

15 Origen, Comm. Rom. 3.7. Stanley E. Porter (The Letter to the Romans: A Linguistic and
Literary Commentary [NTM 37; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015], 77) explains, “Some
equate each use of this noun [i.e. νόμος] in some way with the Jewish law (the Torah),
while others equate uses with the article [ὁ νόμος] with the Jewish law and those without
the article with some other kind of law.”
16 Dunn, Theology of Paul, 132–33.
17 Porter, Letter to the Romans, 77.

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36 Wishart
Paul’s usage of the language of law is definitely much broader and more
flexible than this. He uses the term often translated as “law” according to
ancient Greek usage, in which “law” indicates any kind of precept, and
hence can refer to either rules or principles or standards, real though un-
articulated laws such as the laws of nature, or specific laws such as the
laws of the Romans or Jews. All of these uses are found in Paul’s usage
in Romans, although it is not always easy to determine which sense is
operative in a narrow cotext. The larger cotext, rather than simply the im-
mediate cotext, must be examined in order to make any determination.18
Though the meaning of the article has been unclear and often unaddressed in
discussions of νόμος,19 Porter’s comments hint at an even deeper, though relat-
ed problem: the meaning of the lexeme itself is unclear. A fundamental prob-
lem in the conversation about νόμος, as previously mentioned, is the typical
absence of modern linguistic principles. Porter outlines some of the difficul-
ties engendered by this non-engagement with modern linguistics, indicating
that further linguistic treatment of νόμος is still needed. He says, “Most of the
discussion seems to assume—or at least assume for the sake of discussion—
that when Paul uses the Greek word translated ‘law’ (νόμος) he means the Old
Testament law, unless otherwise indicated. This is, I believe, a mistake in sev-
eral regards.”20 The issues raised by Porter are as follows: (1) we cannot assume
that νόμος always refers to the Old Testament law; (2) doing so operates on
the assumption that Paul only ever refers to one extralinguistic reality by the
word νόμος, despite the fact that the context and cotext is not uniform in every
case—in fact, I would add to this second point the remark that it is not only a
single contextually derived sense for νόμος that is being allowed to dominate
the data, but it is actually often a single translation equivalent in English, the
word law, which is allowed to operate as if it were an exact equivalent for the
Greek term νόμος;21 (3) the assumption that Paul is referring to Old Testament
law, or that he is even denoting a legal command or system at all, must be
proved, not simply assumed from the outset; (4) there has been a misunder-
standing of the significance of νόμος with the article, once again dominated by
the simplistic translation equivalent, “the law.”
18 Porter, Letter to the Romans, 77.

19 I will address the meaning of the article below.
20 Stanley E. Porter, The Apostle Paul: His Life, Thought, and Letters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2016), 119–20.
21 For more discussion on the conflation of modern statutory law with ancient perspectives
on “law,” see Joshua Berman, “The History of Legal Theory and the Study of Biblical Law,”
cbq 76 (2014): 19–39.

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The problem in this case is that interpreters may assume, like Origen, that
ὁ νόμος or “the law” is Paul’s way of signifying that the referent of νόμος is Old
Testament law. This view simply does not accord with the function of the
Greek article. Peters’s monograph, The Greek Article, outlines precisely how
ὁ-items in Hellenistic Greek do not perform the same function as the definite
article in English.22 According to his account, the article serves as a device for
construing the head term it modifies as more concrete rather than more ab-
stract. Therefore, the issue of reference is not solved by looking at Paul’s use of
the Greek article. As Peters argues,
– Nouns are not automatically substantives.
– The article functions more like a relative pronoun; both parts of speech per-
form the same semantic function. They concretize the things they modify—
the article modifying word groups, and the relative pronoun operating on
the clause level.23
– A relative pronoun or article signals that the author is providing the relevant
information needed to identify the referent of the modified word.
According to Peters, then, we can infer that νόμος, as other nouns, is construed
as a substantive when it is modified by the article or relative pronoun.24 As a
result, regardless of what νόμος in a given passage is referring to, its construal
of that reference is correspondingly abstract or concrete, depending on the
author’s goals at any given time.
Contrasted with the view that the article determines the reference of νόμος,
others have argued the opposite, that “Paul when he speaks of the law, alike
when he uses the article or does not use it, always has in mind the whole legal
code [of the Old Testament].”25 However, this perspective falls into the same
error of drawing too broad of a generalization to account for the term’s
22 Ronald D. Peters, The Greek Article: A Functional Grammar of Ὁ-Items in the Greek New
Testament with Special Emphasis on the Greek Article (LBS 9; Leiden: Brill, 2014).
23 Peters thus identifies a single, unifying function for the article. Until his work, the general
view has been that “The variations in the usage of the Greek article are too complex to
allow sweeping generalizations about its significance” (Winger, By What Law? 45).
24 Contrast this view with Daniel B. Wallace, The Basics of New Testament Syntax: An
Intermediate Greek Grammar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 94. His more traditional
perspective is that the article is derived from the demonstrative pronoun, and thus, “the
article is able to turn just about any part of speech into a noun and, therefore, a con-
cept.” This traditional view, as Peters points out, does not account for most of the article’s
uses—with words that are already nouns.
25 Albert Schweitzer, Paul and His Interpreters: A Critical History (trans. W. Montgomery;
London: Adam and Charles Black, 1912), 44. Schweitzer attributes this view to Edward
Grafe, Die paulinische Lehre vom Gesetz nach den vier Hauptbriefen (Tübingen: Mohr,
1884).

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38 Wishart
reference. In this case, the reference is simply established at the outset, and the
presence or absence of the article is not thought to play any meaning-making
role in the language.
The most important study to consider in this discussion, however, is
Winger’s. Winger explains that the question, “What does Paul mean by ‘law,’
νόμος?” is typically answered in one of two ways. First, there is the position that
Paul usually or always means the Mosaic law, Old Testament, or the entirety
of Israel’s sacred tradition. Second, there is the position that Paul is speaking
of law in general, which, Winger points out, leads to the Lutheran idea that
Christians are not simply free of the Mosaic law, but free from law, or as Luther
himself says, “free of all laws and subject to nothing, internally or externally.”26
Winger points out that neither of these typical positions can account for more
puzzling instances such as νόμος ἁμαρτίας (law of sin) in Rom 7:25. Whatever
it refers to, the νόμος ἁμαρτίας is unlikely to refer to the Mosaic law or to law
in general. However, both of these answers point to a further problem, claims
Winger: the lack of distinction between lexical meaning and reference. Winger
claims that reference is not inherent in a term but supplied by context.27
This simple distinction serves to clear up much confusion. By framing the
issue in this way, Winger has introduced one of the integral distinctions of
modern linguistics, the difference between system and instance.28 The heart
of the distinction lies in what we mean by language. Do we mean to refer, on
the one hand, to a specific text, a specific utterance, or an individual’s way
of speaking—an idiolect—or do we mean to refer, on the other hand, to a
language system, the shared set of meaningful signs and generally meaning-
ful ways of doing things with those signs? The former “language” regards the
specific, the instance, whereas the latter regards the generalization, the sys-
tem. This distinction, though prominent in Ferdinand de Saussure’s work—
the so-called father of modern linguistics—can be traced back to American
26 See Luther’s Works, 26.134, cited in Winger, By What Law? 2.

28 This distinction is closely related to Saussure’s langue and parole distinction (though not
in exact correspondence). The seminal work is Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General
Linguistics (ed. Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye, and Albert Riedlinger; trans. Roy Harris;
Open Court Classics; La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986). See esp. 14–15, where langue and
system are to some extent mutually defining; cf. Wallis Reid, “Columbia School and
Saussure’s Langue,” in Joseph Davis, Radmila J. Gorup, and Nancy Stern (eds.), Studies in
Functional Linguistics (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 57; Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 2006), 17–39; John Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1968), 51–52.

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philosopher Charles S. Peirce’s distinction between type and token.29 Hutton

explains this distinction by analogy to music.30 We can describe a particular
piece, say Mozart’s Requiem, as a type, and individual performances of it as to-
kens of that type. This distinction involves the process of abstraction, explains
Hutton, and so there is no necessary relation between token and type, only
that a type is abstracted from the various tokens.31 In terms of Greek, we could
say that νόμος, νόμου, νόμῳ, νόμον, etc. are all tokens of the type, νόμος. What we
call a lemma, or dictionary form, is in fact just such an abstraction.32 However,
even a form like νόμου is a type of every instance of νόμου that you could find
in a text.
Now, returning to Winger’s distinction between lexical meaning and refer-
ence, we can see the significance. Lexical meaning, on Winger’s description,
is a property of types, but reference is a property of tokens. When it comes to
the question of what Paul meant by νόμος, the relevant tokens are all of Paul’s
uses of the lemma νόμος. The type, in turn, is the lemma itself. The lemma
νόμος, then, means something, but its lexical meaning is not the same as the
extralinguistic things it can be used to refer to. The view that νόμος usually
means the Mosaic law, then, would appear to be confusing lexical meaning
and reference—unless, of course, one could demonstrate that the lemma
νόμος always refers to the Mosaic law, even by different authors. If it were pos-
sible to demonstrate such a thing, the debate over Paul’s meaning would be
non-existent. As it is, the fact that Paul’s many interpreters have debated the
relative merits of numerous ways of understanding Paul’s use of νόμος points
to the fact that νόμος does not always mean or refer to the Mosaic law. Another
point to consider is the fact that Paul is not an isolated user of Greek. The term
νόμος, rather, had a shared lexical meaning that made it a useful sign within the
linguistic system of Hellenistic Greek. To demonstrate that νόμος always has
29 Of course, the type/token distinction can in some sense be derived from much older
sources, as it pervades the philosophies of, for example, Plato and Aristotle. For dis-
cussion, see Christopher Hutton, Abstraction and Instance: The Type-Token Relation in
Linguistic Theory (Language and Communication Library 11; Oxford: Pergamon, 1990),
8–30.
30 Hutton, Abstraction and Instance, 62.
31 While Saussure (Course in General Linguistics, 15) maintains that “linguistic signs, al-
though essentially psychological, are not abstractions,” he also explains that a sound pat-
tern, and thus its associated value, can be represented by distinguishing the “sum of a
limited number of elements or speech sounds” which make up that sign, though the value
must be identified by other means.
32 Gregory T. Stump, Inflectional Paradigms: Content and Form at the Syntax-Morphology
Interface (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 149; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2016), 58.

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40 Wishart
the lexical meaning the Mosaic law, one would have to demonstrate that such
is the case within the linguistic system as a whole, not just in Paul’s writings. If
it is not possible to prove such a point—and I will take it for granted that this
point is false—then we will need to take a different approach to the lexical
meaning of νόμος in Paul. We will need to establish a meaning for νόμος that
can explain all of its uses in Paul’s writings.
Winger has outlined seven “syntagmatic patterns” for Paul’s use of νόμος,
which together “constitute a single meaning of νόμος as it is used in Paul’s
letters.”33 The seven patterns amount to the following “components” of mean-
ing for νόμος: (1) νόμος is verbal; (2) is a standard for judgement; (3) is a guide to
conduct; (4) exerts control; (5) is tied to a particular people; (6) has a source;
and (7) is something people put themselves in subjection to.34 However, I
would question whether these are “components” of the meaning of νόμος, as
Winger claims; rather, they should be understood as uses of νόμος. For exam-
ple, say we aimed to define the English word human in this fashion. Would we
begin to list the things that humans can do, and the things that can be done
to humans, and the types of control certain humans can exert, etc., and then
assume that all of these different activities and/or states comprise the compo-
nents of lexical meaning that go into the English word? I find this approach
somewhat convoluted, and fail to see how such an approach can be extended
to analysis of other Greek terms. Furthermore, these syntagmatic patterns are
limited to Paul’s use of the term—a limitation Winger points out. This limi-
tation indicates that even though Winger wishes to analyze the meaning of
the lexeme, he is only analyzing the results of Paul’s use of the lexeme, rather
than attempting to answer what it is about this term that made it a meaningful
choice for accomplishing the communicative goals Paul had in mind.
For my purposes, Winger introduces two interesting aspects of discussion:
the relation between νόμος and other interchangeable terms, and the place of
νόμος in multiple semantic fields. According to Winger, “Ordinarily a term is lo-
cated within a single semantic field, but it may be useful to think of νόμος as oc-
cupying the intersection of several overlapping fields, suggested by the various
aspects of its meaning.”35 He points out that the semantic field of νόμος likely
overlaps with several domains: the domain of communication, particularly
written, overlapping with words like γραφή and γράμμα; and also the domain
of command, overlapping with δικαίωμα, ἐντολή, ἔθος, and παράδοσις. As well,
νόμος has an important relationship with πνεῦμα. These two types of relations,

34 Winger, By What Law? 35–36.

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both lexical and semantic, will be analyzed below using vector space analy-
sis, which provides a new dimension of data analysis that was unavailable to
Winger. One issue implied in Winger’s analysis is that νόμος has meaning in
two ways: it has substance in that it contributes meaningfully to an utterance
by supplying some aspect of meaning that another word would not necessarily
contribute; and it also has value, a paradigmatic meaning that sets it in con-
trast to other words that could have been used instead of νόμος. One way to
think about this distinction is through the analogy of relationships: the sub-
stance contributed by a term is like the individual persons that participate in
a relationship, and the value is like the connection between the persons that
hold them together as distinct but related entities.36
In light of the previous discussion, I will now turn to a linguistic methodol-
ogy that provides us with the tools for defining the substance of νόμος. I will
supplement a definition of the substance of νόμος in the section after that by
examining the value of νόμος. Both aspects, substance and value, will contrib-
ute to a nuanced view of νόμος’s meaning.
3 Monosemy and Vector Space Analysis
In this section I will attempt to outline the substantive content and paradig-
matic value of νόμος as a monosemous signifier within the language system of
Hellenistic Greek. In order to analyze this meaning, I will use a method that
is a combination of two linguistic theories, Columbia School analysis and the
monosemy of Charles Ruhl. In terms of this paper, the three key assumptions
I will be working with in my analysis are as follows. First, the lexical meaning
of νόμος is the reason Paul used νόμος and not any other word. Second, the
lexical meaning of νόμος, which consists of both substance and value, should
be abstracted from all of its uses in context—in other words, the goal is a
36 For a general outline of the view I am adopting in this paper, see the following Columbia
School volumes: Ellen Contini-Morava and Barbara S. Goldberg (eds.), Meaning as
Explanation: Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and
Monographs 84; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995); Alan Huffman, The Categories of
Grammar: French Lui and Le (Studies in Language Companion Series 30; Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 1997); Wallis Reid, Ricardo Otheguy, and Nancy Stern (eds.), Signal, Meaning,
and Message: Perspectives on Sign-Based Linguistics (Studies in Functional and Structural
Linguistics 48; Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2002). To clarify a potential point of misunder-
standing, I am not advocating an atomic view of meaning, where the meaning of a “sen-
tence” can be decomposed into its atomic parts. Rather, I am advocating a view of linguis-
tic signs as sparse but meaningful units that offer hints in conjunction with context as to
the meaning of the utterance as a whole.

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42 Wishart
comprehensive account of the term.37 Third, context and cotext are necessary
to narrow the lexical meaning of the type, νόμος, to a more specific reference.
These three assumptions are based on the recognition that complexity marks
content and context specifies meaning. Winger notes that in most discussions
of νόμος, “The question of meaning is rarely separated from the question of
reference.”38 I will attempt the opposite of this general tendency in my ap-
proach, in order to provide a linguistic baseline for νόμος. In this way, an inter-
preter can begin with the baseline notion of νόμος, and whenever modulations
of this baseline are suspected, explicit cotextual or contextual features must
be identified.
As mentioned, I am adopting the view that the meaning of νόμος can be
modelled as having two parts, substance and value. The substance of a lin-
guistic unit can be thought of as the contribution that unit makes to the full
meaning of an utterance. The value of a linguistic unit can instead be thought
of as that unit’s place both within the larger system of the language as a whole,
and more narrowly within its paradigm of choices. That is, the choice of νόμος
reflects the choice not to use other, semantically related terms. When it comes
to νόμος’s value, however, identifying what other terms might be considered
interchangeable with it is a difficult task. What is needed is an analysis of the
terms that it collocates with, as well as other terms that collocate with the col-
locates of νόμος. Since we do not know in advance exactly what these terms
are, the task would seem to be non-trivial in terms of labour. If one needed
to manually identify words that occur in similar contexts to νόμος, then the
methodology would be next to useless, and we would be better off using purely
qualitative analysis as we have been doing all along. Fortunately, advances in
corpus linguistics and computational linguistics can be leveraged in order to
make this process much more feasible. In order to identify terms that could
be part of νόμος’s paradigm, then, I will use vector space analysis in order to
examine an archive of 1.7M words. Vector spaces allow the direct comparison
of words in a corpus based on distribution. Further explanation about these
two measures is in order.
37 See Charles Ruhl, “Data, Comprehensiveness, Monosemy,” in Wallis Reid, Ricardo
Otheguy, and Nancy Stern (eds.), Signal, Meaning, and Message: Perspectives on Sign-Based
Linguistics (Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 48; Amsterdam: Benjamins,
2002), 171–89.

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4 Corpus Linguistics and Vector Space Analysis
Vector space analysis is a method of analysis that examines collocations on a

higher order than simply direct comparison using human judgement. It should
be carefully noted that computational methods like vector spaces are not a
viable replacement for human judgement, but they nevertheless offer new
insights into the data that we have at our disposal and so allow us to make
subjective, qualitative judgements about empirical measurements. The core
idea behind vector spaces is that linguistic units such as words can be direct-
ly compared with one another in terms of distribution. Traditionally, the se-
mantic content of a word cannot be measured, much less directly compared
with the semantic content of another word. Winger’s own attempt to do this
involves comparing the “components” of meaning for νόμος with the alleged
components of related words. The problem with Winger’s approach is that the
existence of these components cannot be verified, much less empirically mea-
sured. However, vector spaces attempt to do just this, on the basis of both the
distributional hypothesis and the geometric metaphor of meaning.
While he cannot be credited with the creation or initial implementation
of vector space modeling, Magnus Sahlgren takes the crucial step beyond
merely applying a distributional semantic approach to large corpora and actu-
ally attempts to outline the theoretical and motivational substructure of vec-
tor spaces. In order to do this, Sahlgren develops a computational model of
meaning. This model has two crucial and distinguishing features: the distribu-
tional methodology as its discovery procedure, and the geometric metaphor of
meaning as its representational basis.
4.1 The Distributional Hypothesis and Corpus Linguistics

Vector space modeling is a descriptive and corpus-based approach to lan-
guage, and thus the model assumes and tests the hypothesis that meaning is
a matter of distribution. This is not a new view; in 1954 Zellig Harris claimed,
“difference of meaning correlates with difference of distribution.”39 That is, the
meaning of linguistic forms is fundamentally entwined with cotext and con-
text, because both intralinguistic (cotextual) and extralinguistic (contextual)
factors are indispensable in the production of meaning. However, a vector
space model can only measure cotext, not context, and thus this model gener-
ates semantic (or intralinguistic) values for linguistic forms based solely upon
their distribution within texts.
39 Zellig S. Harris, “Distributional Structure,” Word 10 (1954): 156.

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44 Wishart
Obviously, by only taking texts into consideration, the object of analysis is

not “meaning” in all of its extralinguistic fullness, but rather language as an au-
tonomous system. Vector space modeling, therefore, is useful when answering
questions about the object language itself within a structuralist conception of
language. Because vector space models do not consider, for example, questions
of extralinguistic reference, Sahlgren cautions, “It cannot be stressed enough
that the vector space model is a computational model of meaning, and not a
psychologically realistic model of human semantic processing. The only infor-
mation utilized by the vector space model is linguistic context [i.e. cotext].”40
Vector space modeling, therefore, is intralinguistic in its orientation; it is
agnostic about the context in which language appears, strictly computing the
values of linguistic items in relation to one another. The computed intralin-
guistic meaning, then, can be modeled syntagmatically or paradigmatically by
specifying either syntagmatic or paradigmatic contexts in the generation of
context vectors (i.e. values).
Corpora are important in descriptive linguistics for the very fact that the
existence of data in a corpus implies their acceptability to, or functionality
for, native speakers.41 This fact is rendered even more important for analysis of
an epigraphic language like Hellenistic Greek: corpus linguistics provides our
primary source for insight into the language itself. Our introspective opinions
about the way Greek functioned might approximate the intuitions of the lan-
guage users in some rare instances, but the only way we could even test such
intuitions is in relation to corpus data. As Labov explains, “Good practice in the
more advanced sciences distrusts most of all the memory and impressions of
the investigator himself. As valuable and insightful as the theorist’s intuitions
may be, no one can know the extent to which his desire to make things come
out right will influence his judgment.”42 In fact, he claims,
we all share a common failing as linguists: we try too hard to prove our-
selves right. In this strenuous effort we inevitably overlook the errors
40 Magnus Sahlgren, “The Word-Space Model: Using Distributional Analysis to Represent
Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Relations between Words in High-Dimensional Vector
Spaces” (Ph.D. thesis, Stockholm University, 2006), 134–35.
41 John Beavers and Peter Sells, “Constructing and Supporting a Linguistic Analysis,” in
Robert J. Podesva and Devyani Sharma (eds.), Research Methods in Linguistics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013), 397–421, here 398–99.
42 William Labov, “Sociolinguistics,” in William Orr Dingwall (ed.), A Survey of Linguistic
Science (2nd ed.; Stamford, CT: Greylock, 1978), 339–75, here 351.

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concealed in our assumptions, built into our methods, and institutional-

ized in our formal apparatus … A permanent concern with methodology
means living with the deep suspicion that we have made a mistake at
some crucial point in the investigation.43
Labov therefore argues that historical linguistics must have “referenced and
available data” that can be examined by colleagues, and must be based on ex-
haustive use of these data.44 Corpus data, therefore, ought to play a crucial
role in analysis of epigraphic languages such as Hellenistic Greek. This is all
the more important, given that our only available data is the extant data that
resides in corpora. “The basic fact that influences the methods of historical
linguistics,” Labov asserts, “is that they have no control over the selection of
their data. Their texts are the results of historical accidents, and the art of the
linguist is to make the best use of this fragmentary material.”45
Given that corpus linguistics is such an indispensable tool, I would argue
that a distributional approach to analyzing the language of corpora is a natural
fit. Grief and Newman claim that use of corpus linguistics is essentially an ex-
ercise in distributional analysis, saying, “Corpus linguistics is inherently a dis-
tributional discipline,” because, they explain, corpora only offer data regarding
the following distributions of linguistic items: frequency and dispersion, col-
locations, and indexing (i.e. concordance tools).46 However, as vector space
models demonstrate, corpus linguistics is not limited to these relatively simple
tools. Rather, it is possible to construct models that rely almost completely
on corpus data,47 but nevertheless utilize complex computational process-
ing. Therefore, the distributional hypothesis, as modeled in vector spaces, is a
useful discovery procedure for linguistic analysis of Hellenistic Greek because
of its descriptive and corpus-based methodology. For example, in the model I
used to run the tests below, the top 5 hits (i.e. distributionally similar terms)
for διδάσκαλος are:
43 Labov, “Sociolinguistics,” 368.

46 Stefan Th. Grief and John Newman, “Creating and Using Corpora,” in Robert J. Podesva
and Devyani Sharma (eds.), Research Methods in Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2013), 257–87, here 274.
47 Of course, the parameters set for the vectorization of the corpus reflect both the aims
and subjective judgements of the linguist. And furthermore, the data cannot interpret
themselves.

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46 Wishart
ῥαββί
σώζω
ἐπιτιμάω
φαρισαῖος
ψυχήν48
Thus, with no input other than a corpus of texts, the model inferred semantic
similarity from only distributional information.
The key to word-space modeling is the amount of information that is taken
into account. As Schütze explains, “Lexical cooccurrence can be easily mea-
sured. However, for a vocabulary of 50,000 words, there are 2,500,000,000 pos-
sible cooccurrence counts to keep track of.”49 An important issue in the imple-
mentation of vector space models of corpus data, then, is the question of how
the data are to be represented or described in a meaningful way, one which
allows an interpreter to infer useful generalizations. The answer, according to
Sahlgren, is the geometric metaphor of meaning.
4.2 Geometric Representation of Meaning

The geometric metaphor for representing meaning, like the distributional
hypothesis, is not unique to Sahlgren’s work.50 Rather, this representation is
operative in semantic domain or field theories.51 According to the description
of Hinrich Schütze, “Vector similarity is the only information present in Word
Space: semantically related words are close, unrelated words are distant.”52 In
other words, vector spaces capture semantic relatedness and represent it as
spatial proximity. Again, Schütze explains, “Proximity of vectors in the space
(measured by the normalized correlation coefficient) corresponds to semantic
similarity.”53
48 This final term illustrates the need for further refinement of the lemmatizing software
I am using to preprocess my texts. Better and larger corpora, as well as further advanc-
es in annotating capabilities will only improve the use of computational analysis for
Hellenistic Greek.
49 Hinrich Schütze, “Word Space,” in Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 5
(Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1993), 895–902, here 896.
50 For a discussion of semantic field and frame theories, see Adrienne Lehrer and Eva
Feder Kittay (eds.), Frames, Fields, and Contrasts: New Essays in Semantic and Lexical
Organization (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992), 3–5.
51 Geometric representations of semantic meaning are not limited to computational ap-
proaches. For example, Lehrer and Kittay (Frames, Fields, and Contrasts, 1) claim,
“Semantic relations and field or frame structures seem to be operative in the mental
lexicon.”
52 Schütze, “Word Space,” 896.
53 Schütze, “Word Space,” 896.

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This representation of similarity as proximity raises two questions, how-

ever. How is similarity/proximity computed? And what kind of meaning is
represented—what is semantic relatedness? I will answer the second question
below, but in answer to the first question, I have already discussed the motivat-
ing principle of vector space analysis, the distributional hypothesis. On this
view, words that occur in similar contexts have similar meaning.
Typically, both collocations and colligations are identified using a key word
in context, concordance search. However, the basic key word in context analy-
sis, while useful for some tasks, cannot tell us about words or constructions
that, though they may be similar, never actually occur together in the data. A
salient example is the word ἔθος, which though never occurring in Paul’s writ-
ings, is likely a closely related word to νόμος.54 Vector space analysis, as will be
shown below, allows a direct comparison of these terms as they appear in the
corpus, because the words do co-occur in the vector space (or “word space,”
elsewhere “distributional semantic matrix”).55 One can think of a vector space
model as a large network of connections, which is a matrix of extremely high
dimensionality (essentially a table with thousands of columns and hundreds
of thousands of rows). By turning words into “context vectors,” they can be
meaningfully compared to one another. Meaningful comparison is the key that
unlocks the vector space model. According to Sahlgren,
The principal feature of the geometric metaphor of meaning is not that

meanings can be represented as locations in a (semantic) space, but rath-
er that similarity between (the meaning of) words can be expressed in
spatial terms, as proximity in (high-dimensional) space.56
A matrix of extremely high dimensionality, in other words, is incomprehen-

sible for the interpreter. By contrast, rendering words as context vectors allows
them to be understood as coordinates on a graph (although more properly
as vectors, which have magnitude, or coordinates, as well as direction on the
graph), thus enabling their coordinates to be compared.57
Vector spaces model semantic similarity. What, though, is semantic similar-
ity (or relatedness of meaning)? On the basis of the structuralist conception of
meaning, where meaning is a set of differential values (or valeurs, according to

55 Dirk Geeraerts, Theories of Lexical Semantics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 174–
76. For a general introduction to the word space approach (specifically latent semantic
analysis), see Thomas K. Landauer, Peter W. Foltz, and Darrell Laham, “Introduction to
Latent Semantic Analysis,” Discourse Processes 25 (1998): 259–84.
56 Sahlgren, “Word-Space Model,” 33.
57 Geeraerts, Theories of Lexical Semantics, 174–76.

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48 Wishart
Saussure), meaning can be either paradigmatic or syntagmatic. In other words,

meaning is not simply an attribute of individual words or linguistic classes;
meaning is a product of those words existing within an autonomous system.
“Structuralists argued,” notes Storjohann, “that language is a unique autono-
mous self-contained and relational system, with clearly recognisable stable
structures exposing inherent semantic properties of lexical items that can be
decomposed and described.”58 While vector spaces do not decompose lexical
units as Storjohann describes, they do measure similarity as if the lexical units
in a language were part of a self-referring system. As described above, Winger’s
study could only provide a minimal analysis of νόμος’s paradigm, focusing in-
stead on mostly syntagmatic information. While this is an important aspect of
the analysis, it can now be supplemented with further empirical data on the
relationships between terms and semantic domains in Hellenistic Greek.
In summary, the distributional hypothesis of meaning claims that similarity
of context indicates similarity of meaning. Using a word space, similarity of
context can be computed and measured empirically. Sahlgren’s dissertation
makes the case that word spaces model structural meaning, which is either
syntagmatic or paradigmatic. Which one precisely depends on what kind of
context is measured for the words. When a smaller window of context (around
ten words spanning the central word) is used to establish the differential value
(in a computational and only indirectly semiotic sense) of a word or lexeme,
the strongest similarities in the resulting data will indicate relatively more
paradigmatic and less syntagmatic relations. A larger context window (around
a fifty-word context) instead tends to indicate more syntagmatic than para-
digmatic relationships.59 In my study I use a context window of five—that is,
co-occurrences are counted five words to the left and five words to the right
of every single word in the corpus. I ignore unique word forms, as these often
comprise errors or noise in the data. Better corpus annotation tools, which
are being developed, will allow for more sensitive analysis of less and less
common words.60
58 Petra Storjohann, “Sense Relations,” in Nick Riemer (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of
Semantics (Handbooks in Linguistics; London: Routledge, 2016), 248–65, here 249.
59 See discussion in Sahlgren, “Word-Space Model,” 132. Note the distinction between con-
text “region” and context “window”—the latter is the focus in this description.
60 To annotate my corpus, I used MarMot+Lemming, which is a predictive approach to lem-
matization and morphological tagging (Thomas Müller and Hinrich Schuetze, “Robust
Morphological Tagging with Word Representations,” in Proceedings of the 2015 Conference
of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human
Language Technologies [Denver, CO: Association for Computational Linguistics, 2015],
526–36; Thomas Müller, Helmut Schmid, and Hinrich Schütze, “Efficient Higher-Order
crfs for Morphological Tagging,” in Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Empirical
Methods in Natural Language Processing [Seattle, WA: Association for Computational

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A note about data is in order as well. The 1.7M word corpus I use in this anal-
ysis of νόμος is composed of Hellenistic Greek works, that is, works composed
between roughly 300 bce–300 ce. While it is based on the corpus arranged by
O’Donnell, the longer historical works have not been pruned in length.61 While
a balanced corpus is critical for statistical measures, the need for as much data
as possible in the creation of vector space models outweighs this priority, since
I will only be measuring the collocation environments of words. A balanced
corpus of at least 20M words would be ideal, but at present this is unavailable.
5 Analysis and Results: the Substance of Νόμος
In order to assess the meaning of νόμος, I will first consider its semantic sub-
stance, primarily through considering its description in bdag, which offers the
following three senses with sub-headings:62
1) “a procedure or practice that has taken hold, a custom, rule, principle,
norm.”
a) this practice could be a generic custom or norm, or
b) it could be a law or “‘system’ of conduct that constitutes an unwrit-
ten tradition.”
2) “constitutional or statutory legal system, law.”
a) this system could be generic, or
b) “the law that Moses received from God and is the standard accord-
ing to which membership in the people of Israel is determined.”
i) Though the sense is a legal and, apparently, codified system
that, under this subheading, serves to delimit ethnic boundar-
ies, τὸ ἔργον τοῦ νόμου nevertheless “=the moral product that
the Mosaic code requires.”
Linguistics, 2013], 322–32). For a rule-based approach to identifying inflected forms

with their lexemes (harder to create but more thorough), see the ongoing work of James
Tauber (https://github.com/jtauber/greek-inflexion).
61 See, for example, Francis G. H. Pang, Revisiting Aspect and Aktionsart: A Corpus Approach
to Koine Greek Event Typology (LBS 14; Leiden: Brill, 2016); Matthew Brook O’Donnell,
Corpus Linguistics and the Greek of the New Testament (NTM 6; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix,
2005); Matthew Brook O’Donnell, “Designing and Compiling a Register-Balanced Corpus
of Hellenistic Greek for the Purpose of Linguistic Description and Investigation,” in
Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Diglossia and Other Topics in New Testament Linguistics (JSNTSup
193; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 255–97. A variation on O’Donnell’s corpus is also
used in Gregory P. Fewster, Creation Language in Romans 8: A Study in Monosemy (LBS 8;
Leiden: Brill, 2013).
62 Text not enclosed in quotation marks is mine.

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50 Wishart
ii) νόμος can have the same sense when used with or without the
article.
iii) Note: the gloss custom is offered for one reference here
3) “a collection of holy writings precious to God’s people, sacred ordinance.”
a) “in the strict sense the law=the Pentateuch, the work of Moses the
lawgiver … Also simply ὁ νόμος.”
b) “In a wider sense=Holy Scripture gener[ally], on the principle that
the most authoritative part gives its name to the whole.”
The organization of these senses is not entirely transparent. For example, one
can see that 1b could be understood as denoting a set of norms, rather than a
single norm as its superordinate definition implies, and thus 1b might be better
located under the next heading, 2, as a system of norms.63 However, in sum-
mary we can notice that bdag offers three senses: a non-legal norm, a legal
system, and Scripture. Here is a simplified list of these senses:
1) procedure or practice that has taken hold
a) generic practice, i.e. a custom or norm
b) an unwritten tradition or system of conduct
2) constitutional or statutory legal system
a) generic legal system
b) the law of Moses
3) collection of venerated writings
a) in a narrow sense, the Pentateuch
b) in a wider sense, the Hebrew Scriptures
From a monosemic perspective, the variation of meaning in bdag’s entry dis-
plays a logical progression that implies a basic, central meaning that integrates
the various senses. First, νόμος can have the sense of a custom or norm; second,
νόμος can have the sense of a systematic set of norms—a coordinated set of
customs that apparently resembles the legal frameworks we are familiar with
in the modern world;64 and third, νόμος can have the sense of the authorita-
tive records that document the system. Even though there are therefore three
63 The distinction between senses 1 and 2 in bdag can be taken in two ways: (1) as non-legal
vs. legal; or (2) as singular norm vs. system of multiple norms. I have chosen to allow the
latter to determine the distinction, however, as the sub-types of 2 focus mostly on which
system of norms is within view. The inclusion of the gloss custom for one of the sub-types
of 2 undermines, in my opinion, the interpretation where non-legal vs. legal is the most
general distinction between 1 and 2. Perhaps custom can have a quasi-legal interpretation
in English in some cases, and thus the alternative interpretation of the basic distinction
between 1 and 2 remains a possibility.
64 As mentioned before, it may be anachronistic to describe ancient systems of norms gen-
erally, or the Mosaic law in particular, as legal systems.

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meanings in bdag, (1) νόμος as custom, (2) νόμος as legal system, and (3) νόμος
as scripture, a single monosemic value can be hypothesized for these three
meanings.
When viewing these three meanings listed in bdag together, it becomes
apparent that νόμος as custom, a procedure or practice that has taken hold,
appears to be at the centre of the semantic meaning of νόμος. The rationale
behind this claim is as follows: apart from νόμος’s having the sense of custom
or norm, the other two meanings lose their coherence. By contrast, if νόμος as
system and νόμος as scripture are taken as pragmatic modulations of νόμος as
custom, the entire entry gains a coherence that, in a limited sense, explains
why a single linguistic token and its morphological paradigm, i.e. νόμος, νόμου,
νόμῳ, etc., are used to describe the type of different real-world entities that
νόμος generally refers to. In short, positing a semantic core to νόμος explains the
variation we see in the different senses bdag describes.
More precisely, we can posit some pragmatic factors or conditions that serve
as explanatory hypotheses regarding the different meanings we see in actual
usage of νόμος.65 These pragmatic factors explain why νόμος, which basically
means custom, can come to mean something like scripture. Two particular con-
ditions can explain these general senses, although more might be posited to
account for the further variation evident in the subheadings bdag includes.
First, νόμος as custom can be pragmatically modulated to mean νόμος as
system by means of pragmatic generalization. Thus, νόμος as custom is related
to νόμος as system as token is to type, or instance is to system; νόμος as system
is a generalization of a set of multiple νόμοι as customs. By analogy, one might
refer to an instance of a car by saying, “I commute in my car,” where car has the
sense of a single, particular car. The same term can be generalized, however,
to mean not an instance but a type of transportation, by saying, “I commute
by car.” In the latter example no particular car is in view, but rather a gener-
alization. Notice, however, that the generalization is affected by the cotext of
car—the words around car change, but car itself does not. This change is thus
best described as a pragmatic inference on the basis of context regarding the
term car.
Second, νόμος as system, which is a generalization of νόμος as custom, can
in turn be pragmatically specified to have the third sense, νόμος as scripture.
Another analogous example will serve to illustrate both conditions together.
Take the English term law for example: one might refer to an instance of a
65 This process of positing pragmatic conditions is described by Charles Ruhl, On Monosemy:
A Study in Linguistic Semantics (suny Series in Linguistics; New York: suny Press, 1989) as
a “monosemic bias.”

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52 Wishart
modern law by saying, “There is a law about that.” The term law can be general-
ized, as in the example above, by stating instead, “Aspiring lawyers must pass
the bar examination to practice law.” In the first example, a specific law is in
view—whether it exists or not—and in the second, no particular law is in view.
This pragmatically generalized sense of law, however, can subsequently be
pragmatically specified by saying, “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police catch
those who have broken the law.” In this final example, no particular custom or
law is in view, but a generalized system of law is also not in view—the rcmp
do not catch people who have broken Israelite law, but rather Canadian law.
Thus, a particular system of law is in view, a pragmatically specified instance of
the generalized type. While these examples do not establish the semantics of
νόμος, they do illustrate the operative pragmatic conditions that modulate the
semantic meaning of νόμος as custom. Here, it is critical to bear in mind that
even when νόμος is pragmatically modulated, the modulations rely on νόμος
as custom. Put differently, it is specifically νόμος as custom that is modulated,
and the other senses would be incomprehensible apart from this monosemic
lexical substance.
Thus, I would offer the initial hypothesis that, given only the meanings sup-
plied by bdag—which outlines the types of variation that νόμος undergoes—
νόμος as custom is a justifiable description of the semantic meaning of νόμος,
bearing in mind that “νόμος as custom” here designates something like “a pro-
cedure or practice that has taken hold,” or a “customary norm.” Bear in mind
as well that νόμος as custom does not communicate very much on its own. We
cannot tell simply from the presence of the word νόμος whether an author is re-
ferring to something legal or non-legal, real or unreal, Jewish or Hellenistic, etc.
6 Analysis and Results: the Value of Νόμος
Next, the key contribution of this essay is the assessment of νόμος’s paradig-
matic value, both its relation to similar lexemes, and the semantic domains
it is found in and is related to. Winger points out that, as mentioned above,
the semantic field of νόμος probably overlaps with other domains: communica-
tion, especially written, and also the domain of command. Winger also claims
that νόμος overlaps with words like γραφή, γράμμα, δικαίωμα, ἐντολή, ἔθος, and
παράδοσις, and is probably related in some way to πνεῦμα.
In order to test the degree of these connections, I have generated several
comparisons.66 Complete lists of the words and semantic domains that have
66 These comparisons use the Word2Vec collection of algorithms created by Google
and implemented in Python through GemSim. See, respectively, Tomas Mikolov et al.,

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been analyzed are given in the Appendix. First, I have attempted to measure
the degree of similarity between νόμος and the following semantic domains,
drawn from Louw and Nida’s lexicon:67
33.333–33.342 “Law, Regulation, Ordinance”

33.343–33.346 “Command, Order”
33.69–33.108 “Speak, Talk”
33.35–33.68 “Written Language”
41.25–41.28 “Custom, Tradition”
33.11–33.25 “Discourse Types”
33.224–33.250 “Teach.”
I will refer to these domains in the figure below by the first word of Louw and
Nida’s description of them (i.e. “Law,” “Command,” etc.). I have also included
a dummy domain (“Control”), consisting of mostly country and region names,
as well as a few relatively unrelated nominals, in order to provide a contrasting
example. Νόμος occurs in the domains “Law” and “Written Language,” so it has
been omitted from those domains for the search. The results are a set of values
between zero and one, where one indicates identity and zero indicates low
similarity. Because these values show generally high similarity, due to prob-
lems of over- or under-fitting the model (low frequency and high frequency
words tend to respond differently to parameters such as the total number of di-
mensions in the context vectors), I have taken the mean similarity and graphed
the divergence from the mean. The results are plotted in Figure 3.1. The solid
line represents the mean, and the dashed line represents one standard devia-
tion above and below the mean.68
As can be seen in the graph, there are three domains in particular, Custom,
Written, and Law, that score highly. In other words, νόμος is very similar to
those three domains, to more or less equal degrees. These results, at least, ap-
pear to validate bdag’s three general senses for νόμος as custom, system, and
scripture. In a surprising result, of the domains analyzed, νόμος corresponds
least with Command, but this finding supports my hypothesis that the sense
“Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space” (paper presented at the

International Conference on Learning Representations, Scottsdale, AZ, 2013), 1–12; Radim
Řehůřek and Petr Sojka, “Software Framework for Topic Modelling with Large Corpora,” in
Proceedings of the LREC 2010 Workshop on New Challenges for NLP Frameworks (Valletta,
Malta: elra, 2010), 45–50.
67 Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based
on Semantic Domains (2 vols.; New York: United Bible Society, 1988).
68 However, the standard deviation in this case is of limited use due to the disturbance
caused by the Control domain.

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54 Wishart
Figure 3.1 Deviation from the mean
of νόμος as custom is the monosemic value that ties together its other uses,
because the central idea of νόμος is a socially established norm, not an authori-
tative pronouncement. While a common understanding of Torah is that it is
a set of injunctions handed down by God—and I do not attempt to dispute
this view—it is interesting that the Greek term chosen as a translation of the
Hebrew term Torah is νόμος, a term that has more to do with the social and
societal function of Torah where and when it was translated, than with its di-
vine origins. To clarify, these results do not imply that νόμος is unrelated to
the semantic domain Command, only that νόμος is more closely related to the
domains Custom, Law, and Written.
My second test attempts to compare and then visually plot νόμος in relation
to similar terms suggested by Winger. Table 3.1 presents the values for each
term in comparison with νόμος.
In the table, the terms on the left are compared to νόμος. Thus, νόμος com-
pared with itself scores 1.0, a perfect match. As indicated, the most semantical-
ly similar term to νόμος—on a distributional model of semantics—is ἔθος. The

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Table 3.1 Νόμος and similar terms
νόμος 1.0
γραφή 0.758
γράμμα 0.791
δικαίωμα 0.746
ἐντολή 0.677
ἔθος 0.947
παράδοσις 0.800
πνεῦμα 0.906
Figure 3.2 Deviation from the mean for similar terms
most semantically dissimilar of the set, by contrast, is ἐντολή. These findings

are unexpected, but they accord well with my hypothesis that the monosemic
lexical meaning of νόμος is “customary norm.” At the very least, the idea that
ἐντολή and νόμος are synonymous is questioned by these findings. Figure 3.2
presents these findings as a graph.
In this diagram, each bar represents a word. As the graph makes evident, the
semantic similarity being mapped is not simply synonymy, but paradigmatic
interchangeability. That is, even though πνεῦμα is not a synonym of νόμος, it
nevertheless is highly interchangeable with it, which is to say that νόμος and
πνεῦμα show up in contexts that are roughly 91% similar. This would indicate
that perhaps the semantic domains suggested by Louw and Nida do not cor-
respond with the paradigmatic categories operative in the Greek language—
almost certainly not. Vector space analysis, I would point out, provides a way to

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56 Wishart
pursue further research into semantic domain theory for epigraphic languages
like Hellenistic Greek.
In Figure 3.3, I offer an example of an alternative way of outlining seman-
tic domains. This diagram maps the results of every term’s relationship with
every other term. All of the features of the diagram are weighted—stronger
relationships are assigned thicker and darker lines, and words with stronger
similarities are more darkly coloured. The result is a two-dimensional mapping
of the high-dimensional context vectors for the terms identified by Winger as
relating to νόμος. What must be clearly communicated regarding this map is
that the position of each node reflects the similarity measure between all of
the terms it is related to, but the mapping of the terms is relative to the terms
included in the “paradigm.” Thus, using a different set of terms will result in a
different mapping—though the connections will have the same weight and
thus pull together with equal strength. Given this important caveat, relative to
the terms included in this query, the picture sketched up until this point seems
to be substantiated.
Figure 3.3
Semantic map of νόμος

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7 Conclusion
In conclusion, it is appropriate to ask whether, in light of the analysis in this

paper, νόμος ought to be consistently glossed as “law.” Through engaging with
bdag’s definitions for νόμος, I have explained why the monosemic substance
for νόμος is probably better understood as denoting a customary—that is, so-
cially established and maintained—norm. Through further analyzing the dis-
tributional semantics of νόμος in relation to both related semantic domains
and related terms, I have offered an account of the monosemic value of νόμος
as well. Both sides of this analysis assume that every time the lexeme νόμος ap-
pears in the corpus, we should assume that it contributes the same substance,
and that this monosemic substance explains its value, or why it was chosen
from among other paradigmatic alternatives. In light of this analysis, transla-
tion alternatives such as “custom” or “tradition” might be more appropriate in
some cases where the term is used. At the very least, this study would indicate
that the choice to gloss νόμος as “law” must be substantiated on the basis of
co-text and context, not merely assumed to be the correct or basic meaning
of the term (unless it is argued that the English lexeme law itself signals only
‘customary norm’—but in any case, the task of establishing either a legal or
scriptural meaning still needs to be substantiated on the basis of co-text and
context). To reiterate, this paper assumes that to understand Paul’s use of νόμος
we ought to begin with a baseline understanding of the term as a part of the
language system. I have argued, therefore, that the baseline semantic contribu-
tion of νόμος is customary norm, and without contextual clues signalling a legal
context of situation, it is probably not best to consistently gloss νόμος as “law,”
but rather “custom.”
8 Appendix
The following lists of lexemes constitute the content of the semantic domains used
for comparison to the lexeme νόμος. These domains are outlined by Louw and Nida in
their lexicon (and can be found under the numerical reference heading each list) and
as such are subject to the same limitations as Louw and Nida’s work more generally.
Such a comparison serves best as a further examination of the conclusions put forth
by Winger, and future developments in the areas of computational linguistics as well
as semantic domain theory will serve to improve further on the approach undertak-
en here. I have excluded phrases included as “idioms” by Louw and Nida. Terms with
an asterisk beside them have also been omitted from the search, either because they

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58 Wishart
occurred less than two times in the corpus, or else because the lemmatizer incorrectly
classified them.
33.333–33.342 ‘Law, Regulation, Ordinance’: νόμος, δόγμα, δικαίωμα, κανών*, ἔννομος,

νομικός*, νομοθετέω, νομοθεσία, νομοθέτης
33.343–33.346 ‘Command, Order’: κελεύω, διαστέλλομαι, κέλευσμα, τάσσω, συντάσσω,

προστάσσω, ἐπιτάσσω, διατάσσω, ἐπιταγή*, διαταγή*, διάταγμα, ἀπαγγέλλω, παραγγέλλω,
παραγγελία, ἐντέλλομαι, ἐντολή, ἔνταλμα*, ἐπιτιμάω*, δόγμα
33.69–33.108 ‘Speak, Talk’: λέγω, λαλέω, προσλαλέω*, προσαγωγή*, ἐκλαλέω*, στόμα,

γλῶσσα, φθέγγομαι, ἀποφθέγγομαι, φωνέω*, ἀναφωνέω*, προσφωνέω*, φωνή, βοάω*,
ἀναβοάω, βοή*, κράζω, ἀνακράζω*, κραυγάζω, κραυγή, ῥήγνυμι, προλέγω, πολυλογία,
βατταλογέω*, παρρησιάζομαι, ὀνομάζω, ῥητῶς, ἄρρητος, ἀλάλητος*, λόγια, ῥῆμα, λόγος,
λαλιά, φωνή, φθόγγος, κωφός, μογιλάλος*, ἐνεός*
33.224–33.250 ‘Teach’: διδάσκω, διδαχή, διδασκαλία, κατηχέω*, παιδεύω, διδακτός*,

θεοδίδακτος*, σωφρονίζω, ὑποτίθεμαι*, νουθετέω*, νουθεσία, διδακτικός*, ὀρθοτομέω*,
ἑτεροδιδασκαλέω*, παραδίδωμι, παραλαμβάνω, παράδοσις, παρτοπαράδοτος*, αἵρεσις,
ἐντρέφω*, διδάσκαλος, παιδευτής, καθηγητής*, ῥαββί, ραββουνι, νομοδιδάσκαλος,
καλοδιδάσκαλος*, ψευδοδιδάσκαλος*
33.11–33.25 ‘Discourse Types’: διήγησις, κεφάλαιον, μῦθος, παροιμία, παραβολή,

παρατίθημι*, ἀλληγορέω*, γένεσις, ἀσπάζομαι, ἀσπασμός*, ἀπασπάζομαι*, χαίρω,
ἀποτάσσομαι, ῥώννυμαι*, ποιητής
33.35–33.68 ‘Written Language’: γράμμα, ἰῶτα*, κεραία, βίβλος, χειρόγραφον*,

ἀποστάσιον*, ἀπογράφω, ἀπογραφή*, καταλέγω, ἐλλογέω*, τίτλος, σφραγίς, ἐπιστολή,
ἐπιστέλλω, λόγος, βίβλος, γραφή, γραφαί, νόμος*, ἄνομος, Μωϋσῆς, προφῆται, γράφω,
ἐγγράφω*, καταγράφω, γραπτός*, ἐπιγράφω, προγράφω, ἐντυπόω*, ἀναγινώσκω
41.25–41.28 ‘Custom, Tradition’: ἔθος, ἦθος, ἐθίζω, εἴωθα, παρατηρέω*, νομίζομαι,

[πατρικός]

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Chapter 4
The Reception of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the

Letters of Paul
Gerbern S. Oegema
1 Introduction
In this paper I would like to discuss some selected examples of the reception
of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the letters of Paul by focusing on his Letter to the
Galatians.1 Whereas it is clear that Paul’s main focus in his interpretation of
Scripture is his belief in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of all of humanity and that
this Christology clearly defines his hermeneutic, it is also beyond doubt that
he had a Jewish background and that he received a Jewish and Greek educa-
tion, which included exposure to, knowledge of, and practice in contemporary
Jewish biblical interpretation, whether of a Hellenistic or Palestinian Jewish
nature.2 Let us go straight to one of the central texts in the Letters of Paul:
Galatians 1:13–14.
2 The Expressions Ἀναστροφή and Ἰουδαϊσμός in Galatians 1:13–14
The text of Gal 1:13–14 reads in the translation of the rsv as follows (emphasis
mine):
For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the
church of God violently and tried to destroy it; and I advanced in Judaism
beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was
I for the traditions of my fathers.
1 Paper presented to the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies in Ottawa on 30 May 2015. An ear-
lier version was read at the Section “Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical Writings
in Early Judaism and Early Christianity” at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting
in Baltimore on 24 November 2013 and the Third Enoch Nangeroni meeting in Rome on
22–24 June 2014.
2 See “Einleitung” and “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” in Gerbern S. Oegema, Für Israel und die
Völker: Studien zum alttestamentlich-jüdischen Hintergrund der paulinischen Theologie
(NovTSup 95; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 1–32 and 33–56.

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60 Oegema
Ἠκούσατε γὰρ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ ὅτι καθ᾽ὑπερβολὴν

ἐδίωκον τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐπόρθουν αὐτήν, καὶ προέκοπτον ἐν τῷ
Ἰουδαϊσμῷ ὑπὲρ πολλοὺς συνηλικιώτας ἐντῷ γένει μου περισσοτέρως ζηλωτὴς
ὑπάρχων τῶν πατρικῶν μου παραδόσεων.
The most striking elements of 1 and 2 Maccabees in Gal 1:13–14 are the quota-
tion and interpretation of the expressions ἀναστροφήν and Ἰουδαϊσμῷ,3 which
expressions are not found in any other Pauline epistle and of which the most
dynamic equivalent translation would be “Jewish way of life.” However, both
expressions, ἀναστροφήν and Ἰουδαϊσμῷ, are found in other Jewish-Hellenistic
writings, for example in 2 Macc 2:21 about the Maccabees, who had fought
ὐπὲρ τοῦ Ἰουδαϊσμοῦ; in 2 Macc 6:1 (ὁ βασιλεὺς γέροντα Ἀθηναῖον ἀναγκάζειν
τοὺς Ἰουδαίους μεταβαίνειν ἀπὸ τῶν πατρίων νόμων και τοῖς τοῦ θεοῦ νὸμοις μὴ
πολιτεύεσθαι; cf. 9.24); in 2 Macc 8:1 about the Maccabees, who stayed faith-
ful to remaining ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ; in 2 Macc 14:83 about Rasi, who was con-
victed ὐπὲρ τοῦ Ἰουδαϊσμοῦ and died the death of a martyr (cf. 2 Macc 7:19
and 2 Macc 9:13–17); in 4 Macc 4:26 about the people, who were forced to
ἐξόμνυσθαι τὸν Ἰουδαϊσμόν; in an inscription in a synagogue in the Macedonian
place of Stobi from the third century ce (κατὰ τὸν Ἰουδαϊσμόν); and lastly, on
a Jewish tombstone in the Italian Porto, also from the third century ce, on
which a woman is praised, who lived for 34 years with her husband καλὸς ἐν
τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ.4
Yehoshua Amir evaluates these examples as follows: “As most examples ob-
viously don’t show literary dependency on each other, the presented evidence
may go back to an oral tradition, which already had existed for centuries in
all countries of Greek speaking Jewish diaspora.”5 Amir differentiates between
four categories, according to which the term Ἰουδαϊσμόν can be grouped: (1) as
an enclosed area of life (with the preposition ἐν); (2) in a normative sense (with
κατά); (3) as a value; and (4) as a teaching or doctrine. According to him, Paul
3 I define a quotation as consisting of two or three or more expressions with a similar meaning
and more or less the same sequence.
4 All examples in Yehoshua Amir, “Der Begriff ‘Ioudaïsmos’: Zum Selbstverstandnis des hel-
lenistischen Judentums,” in Studien zum antiken Judentum (BEATAJ 2; Frankfurt: Peter Lang,
1985), 101–13 = Yehoshua Amir, “The Term ‘Ioudaïsmos’: A Study in Jewish-Hellenistic Self-
Identification,” Immanuel 14 (1982): 31–41.
5 Amir, “Der Begriff,” 103 (“da die meisten Belege offenbar nicht literarisch voneinander abhän-
gig sind, dürfte der vorgelegte Tatbestand auf einen mündlichen Sprachgebrauch zurück-
gehen, der jahrhundertelang in den verschiedensten Ländern der griechisch sprechenden
jüdischen Diaspora gang und gäbe war….”).

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The Reception of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Letters of Paul 61
uses the term according to the first category, in order to denote an all-inclusive
Jewish way of life,6 so to say as a socio-psychological border.7
Amir does, however, also point at the meaning of the verb προκόπτειν in
Gal 1:14 (Paul προέκοπτον ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ): it denotes “progress in education,”
namely in the sense of the study of the Torah (Talmud Tora), as it is connected
with its practice.8 Accordingly, Paul used the term Ἰουδαϊσμός in two differ-
ent ways: he lived (1) completely in the Jewish way of life, in which and about
which he was (2) also constantly learning.
According to this brief history of the expression, we can state that Paul very
well may have used a term known from his youth and education and that he
was fully aware of its precise meaning. The translation of Gal 1:13 should there-
fore underline this formulation and could be as follows: “And you have heard
about my former life in Judaism, or: which was fully dedicated to the Jewish
way of life.”9
3 The Expression Ζηλωτής in Galatians 1:13–14
The expression ζηλωτής has two connotations: on the one hand, that of a zeal-
ot for God or his Torah, or also for a person or an issue (of ζηλόω),10 and on the
other hand in a more technical sense that of a resistance fighter against Rome
from the last third of the first century bce to the second third of the first cen-
tury ce.11 The first meaning goes back to Num 25:10–13 and can, for example,
be found as applied in Pseudo-Philo’s lab 48 (see below). In case of the second
meaning, the question should be raised whether Paul in any way wanted his
use of the term ζηλωτής to be understood in connection with the Zealot free-
dom fighters against Rome in the first century ce. However, I do not see many
indications for it.
6 Amir, “Der Begriff,” 108–9.

7 Amir, “Der Begriff,” 109.
8 Amir, “Der Begriff,” 110–11.
9 See here especially the work of Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A
Composition-Critical Study (Leiden: Brill, 1991); Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the
Politics of Identity (Contraversions 1; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Shaye
Cohen, The Beginning of Jewishness. Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (HCS 31; Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999).
10 See Walter Bauer, Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament (5th ed.; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1963),
668–69.
11 See M. Hengel, Die Zeloten: Untersuchungen zur jüdischen Freiheitsbewegung in der Zeit
von Herodes I. bis 70 n. Chr. (2nd ed.; agju 1; Leiden: Brill, 1976).

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62 Oegema
3.1 The Ζηλωτής as Zealot for God

In Num 25:10–13 Phinehas, son of Aaron, is described as zealous for God.
Because of this he and his descendants were given an eternal priesthood. He
had also led a holy war (Num 31) and had supervised the building of the altar
under the reign of Joshua (Josh 22:30ff.). This Phinehas is in the center of the
forty-eighth chapter of Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, a retell-
ing and reinterpretation of the biblical history from Adam to David from the
first two thirds of the first century ce in Palestine.12 In 4:2 Phinehas’s life is
retold, how he had been appointed by God as priest and had been anointed
in Shilo. In 4:3–5 there follows a retelling of Judges 21:16ff. and 25. In the first
verse of the same chapter we also find a legendary or midrash-like expansion
of the biblical tradition: as Phinehas had become 120 years of age and wanted
to die, he was brought by God to Danaben, where he was fed by an eagle of the
Lord. Afterwards he was taken into heaven. However, at a time appointed by
God, he will descend and receive the power to open and close the heavens. In
the expansions of the Phinehas narrative, parallels are drawn with Elijah, both
with Elijah’s ascension (2 Kgs 2:11ff.) and with his power to open and close the
heavens (1 Kgs 17:1ff.).13
The example of lab 48 is meant to show that the expression ζηλωτής, which
as such means zealous for God or his Torah, can also be connected with other
connotations, like here between Phinehas and Elijah. The noteworthiness of
Pseudo-Philo’s writing, contemporary with Paul’s epistles, is the heavenly or
divine reward in response to the zeal for the Lord, a response which would also
fit in the context of the theology and ideology reflected in 1 and 2 Maccabees.
And with this we arrive at the beginning of the process of reinterpretation of
the term ζηλωτής, namely in the time of the Maccabees.
“Programmatisch koppelt es [1. Makk] den weltlichen Herrschaftsanspruch
der Makkabäer an das davidische Vorbild und ihre geistlich-priesterliche
Führungsrolle an das vorzadokische Urpriestertum des Aaronenkels Pinhas.”14
Thus, according to Ulrike Mittmann-Richert, in 1 Maccabees, written between
12 See Gerbern S. Oegema, Der Gesalbte und sein Volk: Untersuchungen zum Konzeptualisier-
ungsprozeß der messianischen Erwartungen von den Makkabäern bis Bar Koziba (Schriften
des Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994),
83–186.
13 For a full coverage of the links between Elia and Phinehas, see Anna-Maria Schwemer,
“Die ‘Eiferer’ Elia und Pinchas und ihre Identifikation, ” in Hermann Lichtenberger (ed.),
Martin Hengels “Zeloten”: Ihre Bedeutung im Licht von fünfzig Jahren Forschungsgeschichte
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 21–80.
14 Ulrike Mittmann-Richert, Einführung zu den historischen und legendarischen Erzählungen
(jshrz VI/1.1; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2000), 32; also pp. 32–33 and 39.

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134 and 76 bce, the Maccabees’ zeal for the Torah and their holy war against
the Syrians—but also their restoration of the Davidic kingdom including a
forced circumcision of the conquered nations—are underlined as a very spe-
cific meaning of zeal for God and his Torah. Compared to it, 2 Maccabees un-
derlines even more God’s acting in history: his revelations, the heavenly ap-
pearances and the importance of martyrdom (see 2 Macc 7)—all aspects of
the relation between God and His people, in the way they are connected with
zeal for the Lord.
3.2 The Importance of Circumcision for Zeal for the Lord

Concerning the connection between the expressions Ἰουδαΐζειν, ζηλωτής, and
περιτομή, so important for Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we find an interesting
report about the forced circumcision of the Samaritans in the sixth fragment of
the book of the epic author Theodotos with the title “About Sichem,”15 which
H. G. Kippenberg dates to the year 129/128 bce, when John Hyrcanus destroyed
the Temple on Mount Gerizim.16 During this time the expression Ἰουδαΐζειν
simply meant “circumcision,” and circumcision practically meant “to become a
Jew” (cf. Jos, War 2.454 and Esth 8:17 lxx). According to A. Blaschke, the forced
circumcision of the Samaritans under John Hyrcanus can only be understood
as the ritualized “Konkretion der Unterwerfung unter die ‘Gesetze der Juden’.”17
Connected with it are two important issues: the one of identity (who is Jewish
or can call themselves “Jewish”), and the one of belonging to a certain group
(who can claim having this identity and who is willing to fight for it). But there
is a close connection between the two issues: those who understand them-
selves as “zealots for the Lord,” i.e. those who are to be understood as “Zealots,”
will automatically also promote a Ἰουδαΐζειν and will see the Ἰουδαΐζειν, i.e. the
circumcision of those who belong to the Ἰουδαϊσμός, as a conditio sine qua non.
3.3 The Ζηλωτής as Zealot Freedom Fighters

In Josephus, such as in War 2.651; 4.160, et al., we are mostly dealing with the
ζηλωτής as a Zealot, i.e. as a member of the Zealot freedom fight against Rome
in the first century ce.18 This movement started with Judas the Galilean, and
15 Gerbern S. Oegema, Poetische Schriften (jshrz VI/14; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus,
2002), 59–60, 62.
16 Hans G. Kippenberg, Garizim und Synagoge: Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen
zur samaritanischen Religion der aramäischen Periode (RVV 30; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971),
83–90, 112.
17 A. Blaschke, Beschneidung: Zeugnisse der Bibel und verwandter Texte (Tübingen: Francke,
1998), 181.
18 See Hengel, Zeloten, and Oegema, Gesalbte, 122–29.

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64 Oegema
is to be differentiated from other resistance movements, especially those of

the Sicarii and the Leistai. The question to be asked here is whether there had
been or could have been any overlap between, on the one hand, the ζηλωτής
as a Zealot for the Lord and for his Torah, who was inspired by Phinehas and
operating during the Hasmonean period, and on the other hand, the ζηλωτής
as a freedom fighter against foreign Roman rule.
According to Josephus we should differentiate at least between the
Maccabees and the Zealots. And even though Josephus uses the same expres-
sion ζηλωτής for both Mattathias and the followers of the Zealots, there are two
important differences. A historical difference is that the Maccabean Zealots go
back to Judas Maccabaeus, whereas the Zealots go back to Judas the Galilean.
An ideological difference is that the first contributed to the Jewish identity and
Jewish nation, whereas the latter destroyed this with their actions and are to be
blamed for the First Jewish War (according to Josephus).19
The fact that there could or should not have been any overlap between le-
gitimate zealots and militant Zealots is so to say confirmed by several excep-
tions, namely by the one in the New Testament about Simon the Zealot (Luke
6:15; Acts 1:13), and by those individuals of whom Hippolytus reports when he
writes about some Essenes who had joined the Zealot movement (Haer. 9:21).20
About the complicated similarities between the movement of the zealots
for the Lord, which had started in the Maccabean period, and those that start-
ed under Judas the Galilean, according to Hengel, one can state that the fight
of the Maccabeans was a mostly political one, whereas the fight of Zealots was
in principle religiously and even eschatologically motivated: a motive we also
find in Pseudo-Philo’s reinterpretation of the Phinehas narrative.21 Common
and basic to both, however, is a zeal for the Lord in a manner which also char-
acterized Paul’s pre-Christian life.22
19 Cf. M. R. Fairchild, “Paul’s Pre-Christian Zealot Associations: A Re-Examination of Gal 1.14
and Acts 22.3,” nts 45 (1999): 514–32, esp. 520–26, on the basis of the work of R. A. Horsley,
Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Resistance in Roman Palestine (San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1987).
20 See Fairchild, “Associations,” 520–26.
21 M. Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” in Hengel and U. Heckel (eds.), Paulus und das
antike Judentum (WUNT 58; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 177–293, esp. 177–78.
22 Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 229 and 233–34.

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4 The Milieu of the Apostle Paul
What does interest us in a somewhat broader sense is the question of which

tradition, group, or movement Paul may have belonged to or saw himself as
belonging to, or where exactly in early Judaism he fit. We have to differenti-
ate here between two questions, namely, on the one hand, to which group or
tradition Paul could have belonged at all and how this can be made historically
plausible, and on the other hand, to which group he himself believed he be-
longed or had affinities with.
About the first question it has to be noted that in the past three or four de-
cades the discussion has moved away from a certain skepticism to a more posi-
tive assumption that Paul indeed belonged to a certain group or movement or
had originated from a certain group. Important for this question are two pas-
sages in Jerome’s Commentary on Philemon (Comm. Phlm. on v. 23; PL 26:653)
and one in his Vir. ill. 5 (PL 23:645f.), where Jerome reports from an unknown
source that Paul’s parents (or even Paul himself) originated from the area of
Gischala in “Judaea” and in the course of the wars had been deported to Tarsus
as prisoners of war. According to Hengel, this reconstruction of the origin of
the apostle is, as it had been spread in the Ancient Church, quite plausible,
although historically not certain.23
According to M. R. Fairchild24 and on the basis of a study of Murphy-
O’Connor,25 Gischala was used either by the Hasmoneans or by Herod the
Great as a fortress in Galilee in order to protect the north. Josephus reports that
John of Gischala helped to fortify the fortress, and that in 67 ce it had been
destroyed by Titus.26 Furthermore, the population of Galilee was known for
its anti-Roman attitude, and there are several reports of deportations of Jews
into other countries, for example in the years 61, 55, 52 and 4 bce as well as
6 ce. Within this context one should understand Jerome’s report about Paul’s
parents.27 Paul would therefore have to be located in a milieu in which zeal
for the Torah, an orientation towards Jerusalem, and a potentially anti-Roman
attitude went hand in hand. Paul’s “zeal” for the Torah, however, was focused
exclusively on an inner-Jewish situation and on preserving or improving it in
light of the true Jewish identity and not fighting the Romans, as the Zealots
would do.
23 Hengel, “Der vorchristliche Paulus,” 205–9.

24 Fairchild, “Associations,” 514–32.
25 J. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 37–39.

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66 Oegema
5 The Reception of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the First Century ce
Can one state that this milieu is not only the result of a reconstruction or model
of explanation, but can also be confirmed by literary evidence? In order to an-
swer this question, on the one hand we must quite generally investigate wheth-
er 1 and 2 Maccabees, which had been compiled as literary expressions of an
ideology of zeal for the Lord in the second and first centuries bce, were still
read in the first century ce, especially within the context of the first Christian
communities. On the other hand, we want to specifically look at Paul’s biogra-
phy according to Gal 1:13–14.
According to reception historical observations made elsewhere,28 it can be
assumed that Paul was familiar with the contents of 1 and 2 Maccabees, al-
beit from the perspective of its emphasis on the importance of Jewish iden-
tity. On the basis of our observations so far, Paul, in his use of the expressions
Ἰουδαϊσμός and ζηλωτής, clearly stands with both feet in that tradition of early
Judaism that emphasized the importance of Jewish identity and a Jewish way
of life, as it was characterized by the keeping of the commandments, espe-
cially the commandment of circumcision. Its inspiration will have been the
Maccabees and their zeal for God’s Torah, but not in the militant interpreta-
tion of the Zealots and certainly also not in the exaggeration of the Qumran-
Essenes, but still in a rather radical way that did not allow any compromise, as
was usual in Galilee.
6 Paul’s Biography According to Galatians 1:13–14
Paul describes his Jewish way of life in a very special way and context, so that
the question is justified, How did himself understand the expression ζηλωτής?
Here one should first of all point at the apologetically special character of the
Letter to the Galatians, which we can only briefly refer to.
In order to study Paul’s interpretation of the biblical verses quoted in
Galatians, which is the next step in our investigation, we should, first of all,
have an understanding of the larger rhetorical framework of his Letter to the
Galatians. According to the widely accepted rhetorical-critical study of Hans-
Dieter Betz, Galatians is structured as follows: After the Praescript (1:1–5), the
Introduction (Exordium; 1:6–11), the Statement of Facts (Narratio; 1:12–2:14),
28 Gerbern S. Oegema, “Portrayals of Women in 1 and 2 Maccabees,” in I. R. Kitzberger (ed.),

Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-Viewed (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 245–64.

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the Proposition (Propositio; 2:15–21), and the Proofs (Probatio; 3:1–4:31), the
Exhortation (Exhortatio; 5:1–6:10) and the Conclusion (Conclusio or Postscript;
6:11–18).29 Galatians 1:13–14 therefore belongs to the Statement of Facts or
Narratio, Gal 1:12–2:14, and basically opens the discussion.
Within this context, we need to have a closer look at the structure of Gal 1:13–
14 as part of the Narratio, where we can detect a double argumentation and
double perspective. On the one hand, we have the following elements, which I
would like to call grades:
Grades:
13.c. life in Judaism;
14.b. beyond many among my people;
14.c. so extremely zealous.
And on the other hand we have actions:
Actions:
13.d. I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it;
14.a. I advanced in Judaism;
14.d. the traditions of my fathers.
On the one hand, we have the grades of the actions of Paul (vv. 13c, 14b, and 14c),
and on the other hand we have the actual actions (vv. 13d, 14a, 14d).
We can furthermore observe that Paul uses the possessive pronoun “mine”
only for (1) “his own past Jewish way of life (the Jews’ religion)”; (2) “his own na-
tion”; and (3) “the traditions of his fathers.” In other words: Paul’s pre-Christian
“I” is, even from the perspective of the Christian Paul, still standing on the side
of Judaism.30 The so-called biographical part of the Epistle to the Galatians is
found more concretely in vv. 13c–14d, and could, if one were aware of its exem-
plary function, also work well as part of a sermon or catechism: the negative
portrayal of one aspect of one’s own former life is used as a rhetorical device to
highlight the actual learning goal, namely the gospel (Gal 1:10–16). This rhetori-
cal device becomes especially clear in the intensification of the grades of the
actions: from in Judaism, to beyond many among my own people, to so extremely
zealous.
29 See further Hans-Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in
Galatia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) and Oegema, “Paulus,” in Für Israel, 112–17.
30 See also Oegema, “Paulus,” 39.

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68 Oegema
7 Paul’s Pre-Christian Life
The just-mentioned intensifications of the grades refer to three moments in

Paul’s life: (1) the persecution of the Church of God (v. 13c–d); (2) the educa-
tion in the Jewish way of life (v. 14a–b); and (3) zeal for the fatherly traditions
(v. 14c–d).
The first example refers to the persecution and destruction of the Christian
community. Apart from Gal 1:13 and 23, the verb διώκειν is also used in Gal 4:29
(Hagar’s son, born according to the flesh, persecutes Sarah’s son, born accord-
ing to the Spirit) as well as in Gal 5:11 (Paul, who does not preach circumcision
anymore, but is nevertheless persecuted). The verb therefore appears in one
and the same kind of context. Hagar, the flesh, circumcision, Judaism or Jewish
way of life, and Saul, on the one hand, persecute Sarah, the Spirit, the gospel,
and God’s community, on the other hand.31
In Gal 1:14a–b Paul describes how he “advanced in Judaism beyond many
of [his] own people.” The word συνηλικιώτης only appears in Paul, the verb
προκόπτειν only appears here and in Rom 13:12, where it is said about the com-
ing day that one should be prepared for it, because “the night has progressed,
the day is near.” The verb προκόπτειν can mean both something positive
(making progress in life) and something negative (the night has progressed).
According to Bauer, προκόπτειν means “Making progress in good things and in
bad things,” or in the second case, “fall deeper and deeper.”32
Whereas in Rom 13:12 we might have an example of Pauline acute expec-
tation and προκόπτειν is used in reference to the coming end (the night has
progressed), in Gal 1:14 the verb may have an ambivalent meaning. Paul is not
only making progress in the Jewish way of life in the regular sense, but he uses
the verb in a way also ironically: when looking back from a Christian perspec-
tive and in complete accordance with his theology, the so called “progress” in
Judaism does not lead to justification, but exactly to its opposite. Or formulated
in another way: Paul was not only an overzealous member of the zealous ones
for the Torah, but in the so-called “progress” its fall was already foreseeable.33
If there is such an “eschatological-apocalyptic” perspective in Paul’s de-
scription of his Jewish way of life, which I deduce from the intensification of
the grades, the following has to constitute an intensification of the fall and the
31 See Oegema, “Paulus,” 40.

32 Bauer, Wörterbuch, 1404.
33 Bauer, Wörterbuch, 1404. See also K.-W. Niebuhr, Heidenapostel aus Israel: Die jüdische
Identität des Paulus nach ihrer Darstellung in seinen Briefen (wunt 62; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1992), 62.

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next—like suddenly coming from heaven—has to be the big turning point or

repentance. And, indeed, this is the case in Gal 1:14c–d (intensification of the
fall, seen from Paul’s Christian perspective) and in Gal 1:15–16 (election by God
and revelation of Jesus Christ).34
The intensification of the fall presumed in Gal 1:14a–b in the following refers
to the fatherly traditions, which Paul almost with love calls “my” traditions,
as he still feels connected to his Judaism, and his former Jewish way of life
has not been completely without meaning for the preaching of his Christian
faith. But still, the salvation-historically necessary death of the pre-Christian
“I” was already hidden in his Jewish way of life, so that at the end Christ could
reveal himself to him: “the goal of the Torah is Christ to justify everyone who
believes,” as it is said in Rom 10:4, or differently in Rom 13:12: “the night has
progressed, the day is near.” In other words, Paul now understands his former
Jewish way of life from a Christian perspective.
8 Paul’s Evaluation of His Pre-Christian Life
But how exactly does Paul assess his own pre-Christian life? If one sees Gal 1:13–
14 in the context of vv. 10–22, one immediately notes that the “biographical”
part is enclosed by two rhetorical parts: Gal 1:10(–11) is the introductory ques-
tion of the arguing and preaching Paul: “Did the revelation come though man
or through Christ?” whereas Gal 1:(16)17–22 describes the life of the travelling
and missionary Paul. Galatians 1:13–14 as well as vv. 12 and 15 treat the so called
“biography” of the pre-Christian Saul until his conversion. But also here it can
be noted that Paul does not simply present naked biographical facts, but con-
structs and composes his past Jewish way of life in a very particular way. He
first narrates his former pre-Christian life from the perspective of someone
who later converted to the Christian faith, and second he reverses the chronol-
ogy of a traditional Vita.
As for the latter we can state that the regular chronology of a biography
has been reversed from a present perspective and accordingly has been por-
trayed retrospectively, as the sequences of Gal 1:12, 13, 14, 15 in chronological
order actually should have been (as in Phil 3:5–6; see below) Gal 1:15, 14, 13, 12.
Chronologically Paul’s life looks as follows:
– 1:15: the predestination
– 1:15: but when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me
through his grace, was pleased;
34 Cf. Oegema, “Paulus,” 41.

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70 Oegema
– 1:13–14: the Jewish way of life

– 1:14: and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my
people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers;
– 1:13c–d: how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to
destroy it;
– 1:13a–b: for you have heard of my former life in Judaism;
– 1:12: the revelation of Jesus Christ
– 1:12: I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I
received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Only from his present perspective does Paul really understand and explain his
former Jewish life, from being selected in his mother’s womb until his growth
in the Jewish way of life, namely, as a salvation-historically necessary part of
his Vita. Only in this way can he present his personal “former Jewish way of life”
as a general form of “Judaism,” characterized by the same aspects as his own
Jewish past, in the sense that he once had started, where the Galatians are now
in their own stage of progress or fall (cf. Gal 3:1ff.). Only from a present perspec-
tive defined by the faith in Christ does Paul fully understand his past life and
become able to explain it theologically. Poetically spoken, one is dealing here
with the perspective of light, which lightens up the darkness.35
9 The Influence of 2 Maccabees 2:21 on Galatians 1:12–14
We find an interesting and relevant parallel of Gal 1:12–13(14) in 2 Macc 2:21,

where four of the central expressions of Gal 1:12ff. appear: “revelation,” “Judaism”
or “Jewish way of life,” “zeal” (here, however, softened as φιλοτιμός, to consider
something as an honor), and “persecution.” The text of 2 Macc 2:19–23, esp.
vv. 21–22, as part of the introduction of 2 Maccabees, describes as among the
book’s contents:
… τὰς ἐξ οὐρανοῦ γενομένας ἐπιφανείας τοῖς ὑπὲρ τοῦ Ἰουδαϊσμοῦ φιλοτίμως

ἀνδραγαθήσασιν, ὥστε τὴν ὅλην χώραν ὀλίγους ὄντας λεηλατεῖν καὶ τὰ
βάρβαρα πλήθη διώκειν, καὶ τὸ περιβόητον καθ᾿ ὅλην τὴν οἰκουμένην ἱερὸν
ἀνακομίσασθαι καὶ τὴν πόλιν ἐλευθερῶσαι καὶ τοὺς μέλλοντας καταλύεσθαι
νόμους ἐπανορθῶσαι, τοῦ κυρίου μετὰ πάσης ἐπιεικείας ἵλεω γενομένου αὐτοῖς
… the appearances that came from heaven to those who fought bravely
for Judaism, so that though few in number they seized the whole land and
35 See Oegema, “Paulus,” 43–44.

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pursued the barbarian hordes, and regained possession of the temple fa-
mous throughout the world, and liberated the city, and re-established the
laws that were about to be abolished, while the Lord with great kindness
became gracious to them.
If one compares both passages, the following is noteworthy: first of all, one
finds all four central expressions (ἀποκάλυψις/ἐπιφάνεια; Ἰουδαϊσμός, ζηλωτής/
φιλοτιμός and διώκειν) both in Gal 1:12–13 and in 2 Macc 2:21; second, the order
of the four terms is the same. Paraphrased, both passages read:
(1) on the basis of an inner conviction or one or more revelations from heaven;
(2) someone fights for the Jewish way of life;
(3) namely with the zeal or considering it as an honor;
(4) and persecutes the non-Jews (Syrians or Christians), who endanger Jewish
identity.
Third, even though both actual contents are incomparable—the battle of the
Maccabees against the Syrians is quite different from Paul’s persecution of
the Christians two centuries later—there is still on the formal, namely rhe-
torical level, a comparison possible, as both authors use the style form of the
“Introduction” and “Statement of Account.” Fourth, what then follows can be
understood as a “Summary” with an apologetic goal, in which both authors
intend with what they narrate to convince their readers of the legitimacy and
accuracy of the battle to preserve threatened Jewish identity. Fifth, the refer-
ence to a higher authority in both “apologies” points in the same direction: In
2 Macc 2:19–23 the epitomator of 2 Maccabees speaks in the name of the “high-
er authority” of Jason of Cyrene, on whose accounts he fully relies and which
he tries to summarize as fairly and accurately as possible. Also, Paul speaks in
the name of a “higher authority,” namely Jesus Christ, referring to his revelation
to him in Gal 1:11–12 and his wish to truthfully proclaim his gospel.
What we can conclude from these similarities between Gal 1:12–13 and
2 Macc 2:21 is that Paul most probably was aware of the principles of Jewish
historiography and rhetoric, of which 2 Macc 2:21–22 was but one example,36
and also must have known the contents of 2 Maccabees. One may even assume
that he read or at least had its contents narrated to him. That we nevertheless
also have differences is obviously due to the very different origin and reader-
ships of both writings. The epitomator would like to narrate the history of the
Maccabees and Hasmoneans to a Hellenistically-educated audience in an un-
derstandable way and to draw attention to God’s working in history. For Paul
36 See Gregory E. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephus, Luke-Acts, and
Apologetic Historiography (NovTSup 64; Leiden: Brill, 1992).

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72 Oegema
the style form of an historical accountability report as it was known in his days
is the introduction to a theological treatise, which in a polemical way com-
pares the one gospel with a falsely understood so called “other” gospel, which
beyond being false also preaches circumcision. In doing so Paul portrays God’s
merciful working not only in his own life, but also in that of the Galatians (cf.
Gal 3:1–5) as an example for his Hellenistically-educated readers.37
10 The Influence of 2 Maccabees 7:21–42 on Galatians 1:12–14
Influential on Christianity as a whole is 2 Maccabees 7:21–42 and especially

the concepts of martyrdom and resurrection. How does this relate to Paul’s
Letter to the Galatians? 2 Maccabees 7:21–42 formulates the classical themes
of Pharisaic and Essene eschatological beliefs: God will restore life (7:23–29)
at the end of days, execute the final judgment (7:35), punish the wicked (7:31–
36) and reward the righteous (7:37). Central in this is the expression that the
Creator in his mercy will give back life and breath (ὁ τοῦ κόσμου κτίστης … καὶ
τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὴν ζωὴν ὑμῖν πάλιν ἀποδίδωσιν μετ’ ἐλέους), which implies a bodily
resurrection. Here is the text:
ἔκαστον δὲ αὐτῶν παρεκάλει τῇ πατρίῳ φωνῇ γενναίῳ πεπληρωμένη φρονήματι

καὶ τὸν θῆλυν λογισμὸν ἄρσενι θυμῷ διεγείρασα λέγουσα πρὸς αὐτούς οὐκ οἶδ’
ὅπως εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἐφάνητε κοιλίαν, οὐδὲ ἐγὼ τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὴν ζωὴν ὐμῖν
ἐχαρισάμην, καὶ τὴν ἐκάστου στοιχείωσιν οὐκ ἐγὼ διερρύθμισα. τοιγαροῦν ὁ τοῦ
κόσμου κτίστης ὁ πλάσας ἀνθρώπου γένεσιν καὶ πάντων ἐξευρὼν γένεσιν καὶ
τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὴν ζωὴν ὐμῖν πάλιν ἀποδίδωσιν μετ’ ἐλέους, ὠς νῦν ὐπερορᾶτε
ἑαυτοὺς διὰ τοὺς αὐτοῦ νόμους.
She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled

with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s
courage, and said to them, “I do not know how you came into being in my
womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the
elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who
shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things,
will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now for-
get yourselves for the sake of his laws.”
2 Macc 7:21–23
37 Cf. Oegema, “Paulus,” 44–46.

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11 Philippians 3:5–6
A final word needs to be said about the other passage in the letters of Paul
where we find a biography. How do Paul’s autobiographical sayings in Gal 2
relate to the ones made in Philippians, where we find most of the same key
words as in Gal 2? Here is the text:
περιτομῇ ὀκταήμερος, ἐκ γένους Ἰσραήλ, φυλῆς Βενιαμίν, Ἑβραῖος ἐξ Ἑβραίων,

κατὰ νόμον Φαρισαῖος, κατὰ ζῆλος διώκων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, κατὰ δικαιοσύνην
τὴν ἐν νόμῳ γενόμενος ἄμεμπτος.
Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the

tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as
to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law,
blameless.
Phil 3:5–6
The religion-historical context of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians is a much dif-

ferent one than that of his letter to the Galatians; the phases in his life dur-
ing which he wrote both letters was also very different: from the earliest years
of his Christian existence and missionary activities in Galatians to the end of
his earthly life and career in Roman captivity in Philippians. And still, despite
these differences, both in Gal 1:12–15 and in Phil 3:5–6, he keeps on emphasizing
his Jewish identity and background (circumcised, from the tribe of Benjamin,
Hebrew), he briefly summarizes his education and adherence in the phrase
“according to the [interpretation of] the Law [belonging to the] Pharisaic [tra-
dition],” he still connects his zeal with the persecution of the church, and in
all he evaluates his life from his new Christian perspective as “according to
righteousness in the law found blameless.”
The main similarity and difference found in Phil 3:5–6 compared to Gal 1:12–
15 is, as regards similarity, the mentioning of the same phases in his life, and, as
regards difference, the different chronological order and perspective of these
phases. Whereas in Gal 1:12–15, Paul looks back at his Jewish way of life in a
reversed chronological order from a Christian perspective as part of a larger ar-
gumentation meant to convince his Galatian readers of the truth of the gospel,
in Phil 3:5–6 he presents his life in chronological order starting with his Jewish
birth and ending with his Christian existence, in order to establish his author-
ity when criticising his Jewish and Judaizing opponents. His Jewishness is now
proven with almost genealogical precision (circumcised on the eighth day,
from the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew from Hebrews); the

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74 Oegema
zeal is now clearly following after and even from his adherence to the Pharisaic
tradition, obviously in order to now criticize his opponents; and the Christian
perspective now rests on a theological or even dogmatic foundation.
The differences found here only confirm what we have found in Gal 1:12–15,
namely, that Paul presents and moulds his Jewish way of life according to the
rhetorical needs of his audience. In all, the final example shows that Paul knew
and used existing rhetorical models representative of what we may call the
subgenre of the “personal account with apologetic goal,” that he could take and
adapt examples from older writings, but that he also could vary them within
the context of his own oeuvre.
12 Conclusion
In conclusion, we can state that it is plausible that Paul:

1) during his pre-Christian life had been influenced by the Maccabean ide-
ology of a zeal for God and his Torah;
2) knew the history of the Maccabees and probably also both books of the
Maccabees;
3) knew very well the meaning of the expression “zeal” and other expres-
sions from the book of 2 Maccabees;
4) was a member of a movement in the Judaism of the first half of the first
century ce, which had been influenced by the zeal of the Maccabees and
focused on circumcision as the only way to defend Judaism;
5) was not a member of the anti-Roman Zealot movement, but possibly of
a militant and nationalistic Jewish movement, as well as of the Pharisaic
party (although he was not a rabbi);
6) still during his Christian life had been influenced by the Maccabean his-
toriography to the extent that he understood his own life antithetically to
the zeal for God;
7) because he knew the religious zeal for God so well, he fought even harder
against the “Judaizers” in Galatia, who wanted to introduce again exactly
that, what Paul had come to reject, namely circumcision.

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Part 2
Romans

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Chapter 5
Paul’s Use of Scripture in Romans

Colin G. Kruse
1 Introduction
By any measure, Paul’s letter to the Romans is outstanding for the range and
diversity of its use of the Scriptures of the Old Testament and Apocrypha. The
index of quotations provided in the fourth edition of The Greek New Testament
of the United Bible Societies lists a total of 68 citations from the Old Testament,
and 91 allusions and verbal parallels in the Old Testament and Apocrypha. The
vast majority of these are from the LXX.
The preponderance of quotations are from the Pentateuch (28x), the Latter
Prophets (23x, mostly from Isaiah [18x]) and the Writings (14x, mostly from
the Psalms). Similarly, the preponderance of allusions and parallels are from
the Pentateuch (39x), the Latter Prophets (25x, mostly from Isaiah [10x] and
Jeremiah [8x]) and the Writings (32x, mostly from the Psalms).
The apostle employs scriptural citations and allusions in Romans in four
main ways: (i) to expound the gospel itself, explaining what God has done in
Christ to make salvation available; (ii) to establish human culpability for sinful
behaviour and to highlight the need for salvation; (iii) to defend the faithful-
ness of God in relation to his dealings with the nation Israel; (iv) to provide
ethical instruction and encouragement. In what follows we will review in some
detail Paul’s scriptural citations and allusions1 in each of these areas so that
the extent and the significance of his indebtedness to the Old Testament can
be better appreciated, something that is difficult to grasp by looking at tables.2
Following this review we will be in a position to make comments on some as-
pects of Paul’s scriptural hermeneutics.
The scope of this article is by necessity limited entirely to a discussion of
Paul’s use of the Old Testament in Romans. For a treatment of the wider issues
1 It is not possible within the scope of a survey article to exegete the numerous citations and
allusions in any detail. For an in-depth treatment of these, see Mark A. Seifrid, “Romans,”
in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old
Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker; Nottingham: Apollos, 2007), 607–94.
2 E. Earle Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1957), 150–85, provides a
full listing of the quotations and their sources in the LXX in two appendices, and that infor-
mation need not be repeated here.

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78 Kruse
and especially Paul’s indebtedness to Jewish principles of exegesis (including

Alexandrian, Qumranic, and Rabbinic exegesis), reference may be made to the
excellent and more general article by Moisés Silva, and the comprehensive bib-
liography provided there.3
2 Review of Paul’s Scriptural Citations and Allusions
2.1 Exposition of the Gospel and God’s Saving Action in Christ

In Romans Paul introduces himself as one “called to be an apostle, set apart for
the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand4 through his prophets in the
holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son” (1:1–3). Straightaway, then, he
indicates what he understands to be the primary function of the Old Testament
Scriptures—to foreshadow the gospel of Christ and to bear witness to him. In
16:25–26 Paul speaks of the “gospel and proclamation of Jesus Christ” in terms
of “the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and
through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles” (italics added),
thereby again describing the primary function of Old Testament Scriptures as
being to bear witness to the gospel of Christ. And in 3:21–22 he says that “the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ” is something “attested to
by the law and the prophets” (italics added). It is not surprising, therefore, that
Paul repeatedly cites and alludes to the Old Testament Scriptures to expound
and defend the truth of the gospel as is documented in what follows.
In the programmatic statement of 1:16 Paul provides a description of the
gospel when he testifies: “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of
God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek,” in support of which he cites the prophet Habakkuk: “the one who is
righteous will live by faith” (1:17/Hab 2:4).5
3 M. Silva, “Old Testament in Paul,” in Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid
(eds.), Dictionary of Paul and his Letters (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 630–42.
4 Cf. Titus 1:2: “the hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, promised before the ages began”
(italics added). Brendan Byrne (Romans [SP 6; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996], 43)
says that while the verb translated “promised beforehand” (προεπηγγείλατο) “usually has the
sense of ‘promise beforehand’ (e.g. BAGD 705), the more basic sense of ‘announce before-
hand’ (cf. LSJ 1478) conveys more effectively Paul’s sense of Scripture as primarily addressed
to the present (eschatological) age (cf. 15:4; 1 Cor 9:10). The prophets (writing) in the ‘holy
scriptures’ did not simply ‘promise’ good news at a future date but actually made an anticipa-
tory proclamation of the gospel, which is now being realized (cf. Gal 3:8) and ‘heard’ when
they are read.”
5 For a discussion of the ways Paul’s use of Hab 2:4 has been interpreted, see Colin G. Kruse,
Paul’s Letter to the Romans (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 72–75.

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Paul ’ s Use of Scripture in Romans 79
To enhance his teaching that a right relationship with God is granted to

those who believe, Paul cites the Genesis account of Abraham being ac-
counted righteous because he believed God’s promises (4:3, 18, 22/Gen 15:5–6;
17:5). This is reinforced by appeal to the testimony of David, who spoke of “the
blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works,”
“those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered” and “the one
against whom the Lord will not reckon sin” (4:6–8/Ps 32:1–2).6 Celebrating the
blessedness of those who have been justified, Paul alludes to the Psalms when
he affirms that hope in God will not be disappointed (5:5/Pss 22:5; 25:20). To
encourage his audience he alludes to the Psalms again as he asks, “If God is
for us, who is against us?” (8:31/Ps 118:6). He further highlights the blessedness
of those whom God declares righteous by alluding to Isaiah when he says,
“Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (8:33/
Isa 50:8), and then alluding again to the Psalms, he adds, “Who is to condemn?”
seeing that the one who “is at the right hand of God” (8:34/Ps 110:1) intercedes
for us.
To contrast the righteousness that comes from faith with that which comes
from the law, Paul quotes first from Leviticus, “the person who does these
things [keeps God’s statutes and ordinances] will live by them” (10:5/Lev 18:5),7
and then from Deuteronomy, “the word is near you, on your lips and in your
heart,” adding “that is, the word of faith that we proclaim” (10:8/Deut 30:14).8
6 B. Byrne (Romans, 146–47) says: “By citing a text from ‘the Law’ (that is, the Pentateuch) in
the shape of Gen 15:6 and from ‘the Prophets’ in the shape of Ps 32:1–2 (David, the putative
author of the Psalms, being reckoned as a prophet) Paul makes good his earlier claim that
‘the Law and the Prophets bear witness’ to the righteousness of God that stands revealed
‘apart from the law’ (3:21b).”
7 Deuteronomy 5:32–6:3 contains a similar promise of life (in the promised land) for Israelites if
they are careful to do what the Lord commanded them. And as Stephen Westerholm (Israel’s
Law and the Church’s Faith: Paul and His Recent Interpreters [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988],
146–47) points out, there are dozens of other similar texts in the Old Testament.
8 Paul’s citation of this text is not without its problems. See discussion in Kruse, Romans, 407–
9. Joseph A. Fitzmyer (Romans [AB 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993], 590) describes the overall
point Paul is making here: “Just as Moses tried to convince the Israelites that the observance
of the law did not demand that one scale the heights or cross the seas, so Paul plays on Moses’
words, applying them in an accommodated sense to Christ himself. The heights have been
scaled and the depths have been plumbed, for Christ has come down to the world of human-
ity and has been raised from the dead. To attain the status of uprightness before God, no one
is being asked to bring about an incarnation or a resurrection, one is asked only to accept in
faith what has already been done for humanity and to associate oneself with Christ incarnate
and raised from the dead.”

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80 Kruse
To highlight the importance of gospel proclamation, the apostle cites Isaiah:

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news” (10:15/Isa 52:7).9
To affirm the salvation of all who believe, Gentiles as well as Jews, Paul cites
the prophets Isaiah, “no one who believes in him will be put to shame” (10:11,
[italics added]/Isa 28:16),10 and Joel, “Everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved” (10:13 [italics added]/Joel 2:32). He applies the prophecy
of Hosea, originally addressed to Israel, to Gentiles affirming that those who
were “not my people” are now “called children of the living God” (9:25–26/
Hos 2:23). Reinforcing the inclusion of the Gentiles in the people of God, Paul
quotes from the Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah: “For I tell you that Christ
has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order
that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that
the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, ‘Therefore I will
confess you among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name’; and again he
says, ‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people’; and again, ‘Praise the Lord, all you
Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise him’; and again Isaiah says, ‘The root
of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles
shall hope’” (15:9–12/Pss 18:49; 117:1; Deut 32:43; Isa 11:10).
Aside from these quotations, the apostle alludes to Deuteronomy, making
one of his rare references to the “oneness” of God,11 when he argues for the in-
clusion of Gentiles as well as Jews in God’s saving plan: “since God is one; and
9 See the discussion of Paul’s use of the Old Testament in 10:6–8 in Kruse, Romans, 413–14,
especially Coxhead’s comment cited there: “Paul is simply employing a christologically
informed method of Jewish midrash, which is consistent with the grammatical mean-
ing of Deut 30:11–14, to defend the Christian gospel from particular Jewish opposition by
showing how Jesus Christ and the Christian gospel are the fulfilment of the (eschatologi-
cal) torah spoken of in this passage of Scripture.”
10 The LXX text is καὶ ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ (“and he who believes in him
will never be put to shame”). The LXX uses the double negative (οὐ μὴ) with the aorist
passive subjunctive (καταισχυνθῇ) to emphatically deny the possibility of a person’s trust
in the Lord ever being betrayed. Paul modifies this to become πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ οὐ
καταισχυνθήσεται (“everyone who believes in him will never be put to shame”). He adds
πᾶς probably because he has Gentiles as well as Jews in mind, rather than any individ-
ual. He also substitutes a simple negative (οὐ) for the emphatic double negative (οὐ μὴ)
and the future indicative passive (καταισχυνθήσεται) for the aorist subjunctive passive
(καταισχυνθῇ). This lessens the emphatic nature of Isa 28:16, and also implies a future
reference in the text, affirming that it is on the last day that those who put their trust in
the Lord will not be put to shame, their trust in him will be fully honored.
11 Paul-Gerhard Klumbies (“Der Eine Gott des Paulus: Röm 3,21–31 als Brennpunkt pau-
linischer Theologie,” ZNW 85 [1994]: 192–206, here 205–6) says that the reason Paul rarely
quotes the expression, “God is one,” is because his understanding of God is drawn more
from what God has revealed and achieved through Christ than from his Jewish heritage.

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he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised
through that same faith” (3:30/Deut 6:4).
Paul, who believed that salvation was not limited to the reconciliation of
humanity but extended to the created order itself, alludes to Genesis to depict
the futility to which it was subjected and from which it will be set free (8:20/
Gen 3:17–19; 5:29, cf. Eccl 1:2).12
The apostle, with another allusion to Genesis, depicts the final liberty to be
experienced by believers when he says, “The God of peace will shortly crush
Satan under your feet” (16:20/Gen 3:15).
2.2 Human Culpability and Need for Salvation

To prepare the way for his exposition of the gospel, Paul shows that, apart from
the salvation it offers, humanity stands exposed to the wrath of God because
of sin (1:18). To explain the origin of sin and death in the human race Paul al-
ludes to the deception of the primeval couple by Satan (7:11/Gen 3:13) and their
actions in the garden when he says that “sin came into the world through one
man, and death came through sin” (5:12/Gen 2:17; 3:6, 19). Alluding to the book
of Job, Paul says that humanity is without excuse because “ever since the cre-
ation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they
are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made” (1:20/
Job 12:7–9).13 He alludes to passages in Leviticus to highlight the depravity of
men and women who give up natural sexual relations and are consumed with
passion in same sex relations (1:27/Lev 18:22; 20:13).14 When defending his gos-
pel against charges that it involves a denigration of the law he highlights its
important function in defining and exposing sin: “Yet, if it had not been for the
law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if
the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (7:7). This he does before recogniz-
ing that the law/commandment has been laid under tribute to deepen human-
ity’s bondage to sin:
12 The question, Who is responsible for creation being ‘subjected to futility’? has been an-
swered in two ways: (i) Adam is responsible because when he fell into sin it affected not
only himself but also the created order, since Adam had been charged to subdue the cre-
ation, and when as the subduer he lapsed into futility the creation was forced to lapse into
futility as well; and more likely (ii) God himself is the one who subdued the creation to
futility when, because of the fall of the primeval couple, he pronounced a curse upon the
earth (Gen 3:17–19).
13 This raises the question whether Paul employs ‘natural theology’ in this text, i.e., did he
believe knowledge of God was available to humanity through creation. For a discussion of
this matter, see Kruse, Romans, 93–95.
14 See the extended note on ‘The nature of the homosexual practice condemned by Paul’ in
Kruse, Romans, 109–15.

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82 Kruse
But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all

kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. I was once alive
apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I
died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death
to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me
and through it killed me.
7:8–11
To prepare the way for his exposition of the gospel as the power of God for sal-
vation for “everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek,” Paul
shows that Jews no less than Gentiles are in desperate need of God’s salvation.
To drive home this fact and to show that Jews can claim no immunity when God
judges sinners, he provides a catena of scriptural quotations. He quotes from
the Psalms to insist that God is just when he brings judgment upon the Jewish
people (3:4/Ps 51:4), that none of them is righteous (3:10–13/Pss 5:9; 14:1–3), that
their speech is full of cursing and bitterness (3:13–14/Pss 10:7; 140:3) and that
they have no fear of God (3:18/Ps 36:1). He reinforces this with citations from
the prophet Isaiah to show how Israel’s sin and punishment has caused God’s
name to be blasphemed (2:24/Isa 52:5) and her depravity has brought them
misery so they know no peace (3:15–17/Isa 59:7–8).15
Paul alludes to Deuteronomy to highlight the privilege Israel has in having
their God so near and being the recipients of his law (3:2/Deut 4:7–8) before
accusing them of idolatry despite these privileges (1:23/Deut 4:15–19). He also
insists that God does not show partiality and therefore Jews will be treated no
differently from Gentiles in the matter of sin and judgment (2:11/Deut 10:17).
He alludes to the Apocrypha to emphasize that all people will be repaid by
God in accordance with their deeds (2:6/Sir 16:14). He appears to allude to the
prophecy of Ezekiel when he reminds his audience of the shame they now feel
for their previous sinful behaviour (6:21/Ezek 16:61, 63).
15 The quotations that Paul uses in his catena, read in their original contexts, do not say
there are no righteous persons at all. E.g. Eccl 7:20 is found in a passage (Eccl 7:15–22)
in which the preacher comments upon the fate of both the righteous and the wicked.
Douglas J. Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], 202–3)
comments: “The fact that many of these quotations denounce only the wicked or unrigh-
teous within Israel—and hence do not seem to fit Paul’s universalistic intention—has
been taken as indication that Paul’s intention is not to condemn all people. But Paul’s ac-
tual intention is probably more subtle; by citing texts that denounce the unrighteous and
applying them, implicitly, to all people, including all Jews, he underscores the argument
of 2:1–3:8 that, in fact, not even faithful Jews can claim to be righteous.”

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Paul depicts the parlous state of humanity without Christ when he defends
his gospel against charges that it involves a denigration of the law by alluding
to Leviticus when he says, “the very commandment that promised life proved
to be death to me” (7:10/Lev 18:5). Although the law held out a promise of life
for those who obeyed it, as far as Paul was concerned, no one was capable of
accessing the promised life through their obedience to the law. He reinforces
this with allusions to Genesis when he says, “For I know that nothing good
dwells within me, that is, in my flesh” (7:18/Gen 6:5; 8:21), and alluding to the
Psalms he insists the law is spiritual, but that humanity outside of Christ is
“sold into slavery under sin” (7:14/Ps 51:5).
2.3 The Faithfulness of God in His Dealings with Israel

Paul, as a Jew himself, was deeply concerned about the rejection of the gos-
pel by the majority of his fellow Jews. In 9:1–5 he expresses his anguish over
those who reject the gospel. He alludes to Moses’ prayer that God blot his name
out of his book if only he would forgive Israel’s sin in worshipping the golden
calf when he says: “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from
Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh” (9:3/
Exod 32:32). It is not surprising, then, that the greater number of Paul’s quota-
tions and allusions in Romans relate to his concern for Israel and how many of
them reject the gospel.
He begins by acknowledging the many privileges of the Jewish people, refer-
ring to their adoption as God’s children (9:4) with allusions to God’s instruc-
tion to Moses: “you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord: Israel is my first-
born son’” (9:4/Exod 4:22 [italics added]) and Moses’ words to the people of
Israel, “You are children of the Lord your God” (9:4/Deut 14:1–2, cf. 7:6 [italics
added]). Adding to this, Paul mentions the privilege the Jewish people have
because to them belong “the giving of the law … and the promises” (9:4) and
that they “were entrusted with the oracles of God” (3:2). He describes the law
as “the embodiment of knowledge and truth” when highlighting their failures
despite their privileges (2:20).
When defending the faithfulness of God in his treatment of the nation of
Israel in the light of the failure of many to accept the gospel, Paul alludes to
Moses’ words in the book of Numbers: “It is not as though the word of God
had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel” (9:6/Num 23:19). To show
that “true” Israel is the product of God’s initiative, he quotes God’s promise to
Abraham: “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall
have a son [Isaac]” (9:9/Gen 18:10, 14; cf. allusion in 9:10/Gen 25:21). Paul then
cites God’s choice of Isaac through whom he will work out his purposes, rather
than the son of the slave woman, Hagar, to illustrate God’s sovereign freedom

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84 Kruse
to choose, which in turn explains, in part, why many of Paul’s fellow Jews reject
the gospel (9:7/Gen 21:12). To emphasize that it is God’s choice and not people’s
works that are determinative, Paul cites God’s word to Isaac’s wife, Rebecca,
concerning the twins she is to bear: “the elder shall serve the younger” (9:12/
Gen 25:23). This is reinforced by a quotation from Malachi: “As it is written, ‘I
have loved Jacob. But I have hated Esau’” (9:13/Mal 1:2–3).
Paul cites God’s word to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (9:15/Exod 33:19), to
emphasize again that it is God’s sovereign choice that is determinative, and,
alluding to the song of Moses, he insists that there is no injustice on God’s
part when he does so (9:14/Deut 32:4). To further emphasize God’s sovereign
freedom, Paul cites God’s word to Pharaoh: “I have raised you up for the very
purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in
all the earth” (9:17/Exod 9:16; cf. allusions in 9:18/Exod 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 14:4).16
Wrestling with the problem of Israel’s rejection of the gospel the apos-
tle asks whether the problem is that they have not understood it. He cites
Deuteronomy to show that this is not the case, rather that it is evidence of
God’s judgment in response to their making him jealous by their idolatry:
“I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I
will make you angry” (10:19/Deut 32:21; cf. the allusion in 11:11/Deut 32:21). He
cites Deuteronomy again, applying it to many of his Jewish kinsfolk: “God gave
them a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, to
this very day” (11:8/Deut 29:4). In similar vein he applies a text from the Psalms:
“And David says, ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block
and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
and keep their backs forever bent’” (11:9–10/Pss 69:22–23; 35:8).
To answer those who say that God should not find fault with his people be-
cause no one can resist his will, Paul alludes to the prophecy of Isaiah when he
16 One important question raised by Rom 9 concerns the nature of election implied by
Paul’s argument here. The chapter opens with the apostle lamenting the fact that many
of his kinsfolk are not saved. He insists this is not so because the word of God, his gos-
pel, has failed. Rather it is in line with the way God has always exercised his prerogative
to choose one and not another in order to fulfill his purposes. One of the important is-
sues debated in this connection is whether election to salvation applies to individuals or
only to corporate entities. For a presentation of the argument in favor of individual elec-
tion, see Thomas R. Schreiner, “Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election unto Salvation?
Some Exegetical and Theological Reflections,” JETS 36 (1993): 35–40. The argument for
corporate election is presented by Brian J. Abasciano, “Corporate Election in Romans 9:
A Reply to Thomas Schreiner,” JETS 49 (2006): 353–61. For Schreiner’s reply to Abasciano,
see his “Corporate Election and Individual Election in Romans 9: A Response to Brian
Abasciano,” JETS 49 (2006): 377–84.

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asks: “But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is
molded say to the one who molds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (9:20/
Isa 29:16; 45:9; cf. Wis 12:12), and when, alluding to the prophecy of Jeremiah, he
asks: “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one
object for special use and another for ordinary use?” (9:21/Jer 18:6; cf. Wis 15:7).
Though Paul recognized the hardness of heart of many of his kinsfolk was
in part the result of God’s judgment upon them, he also recognized that God
would preserve a faithful remnant. Citing the prophet Isaiah, he says: “Though
the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a rem-
nant of them will be saved” (9:27/Isa 10:22–23), adding “And as Isaiah pre-
dicted, ‘If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors to us, we would have fared
like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah’” (9:29/Isa 1:9). On a more positive
note he recalls the despondency Elijah experienced because of the apostasy
of Israel in his day and quotes God’s assurance to him: “I have kept for my-
self seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (11:3–4/1 Kgs 19:10,
14, 18).17 Paul concludes: “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen
by grace” (11:5).
Wrestling still with the rejection of the gospel by the majority of his fellow-
Jews, Paul, first extols, with an allusion to the prophecy of Nahum, the min-
istry of those who preach the gospel: “As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the
feet of those who bring good news!’” (10:15/Nah 1:15), before complaining that
most have not obeyed it as he cites the prophet Isaiah’s own similar experi-
ence: “Isaiah says, ‘Lord who has believed our message?’” (10:16/Isa 53:1). He
then asks whether the problem is that they have not actually heard the gospel,
and to this question he responds by citing from the Psalms: “Indeed they have;
for ‘their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the
world’” (10:18/Ps 19:4). Struggling with the fact that Gentiles are responding to
the gospel while many of his own kinsfolk are rejecting it, Paul remembers
that Isaiah, speaking in God’s name, says, “I have been found by those who
did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me” (10:20/
Isa 65:1), while of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a
disobedient and contrary people” (10:21/Isa 65:2). Paul recognizes that Israel’s
17 Paul’s quotations here correspond exactly to no known text, neither the LXX codices, nor
the Lucianic tradition, nor the MT. Christopher D. Stanley (“The Significance of Romans
11:3–4 for the Text History of the LXX Book of Kingdoms,” JBL 112 [1993]: 52–54), follow-
ing a discussion of the textual tradition, concludes: “The evidence seems strong that the
Greek text quoted by Paul in Rom 11:3–4 reflects an earlier stage in the textual history of
3 Kingdoms than the version that appears in the codices (the so-called ‘LXX’ text). The
majority tradition of 3 Kingdoms 19 would then represent a later ‘Hebraizing’ revision of
a rather loose Greek translation of the type used by Paul in Rom 11:3–4.”

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failure is evidence of God’s judgment as Isaiah prophesied: ‘God gave them a

sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to
this very day’ (11:8/Isa 29:10). However, the apostle knew that Israel’s failure was
not attributable to God’s sovereign choice alone but, alluding to Isaiah, he says
they ‘stumbled over the stumbling stone’ (9:32/Isa 8:14) insisting on seeking a
righteousness of their own based on works (10:3).
Despite all this Paul was convinced that God had not completely rejected
Israel (cf. 11:1–2 with its allusions to Ps 94:14). And alluding to instructions
about offerings in Numbers and Nehemiah, he says, “If the part of the dough
offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy” (11:16/Num 15:20; Neh
10:37), implying that if the patriarch Abraham was holy so too will be those
who are joined to him in a similar faith.18 The apostle anticipates a time when
“all Israel will be saved,” citing Isaiah again as supporting evidence: “Out of
Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this
is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins” (11:26–27/Isa 50:20–21;
cf. also the allusions in 11:26–27 to Ps 14:7; Jer 31:33–34). Concluding his treat-
ment of Israel’s rejection and restoration, Paul acknowledges that God’s ways
are inscrutable, citing Isaiah, “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or
who has been his counselor?” (11:34/Isa 40:13; cf. allusions in 11:33–34 to Job 15:8;
Isa 45:15; 55:8; Jer 23:18), and Job, “Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift
in return?” (11:35/Job 41:11).19
Finally, he reminds them of God’s faithfulness to Israel when alluding to
the prophecy of Micah to exhort the “weak” and the “strong” to welcome one
another as Christ welcomed them: “Christ has become a servant of the circum-
cised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises
given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his
mercy” (15:8/Mic 7:20).
18 There have been various interpretations of “the part of the dough offered as first fruits”
and “the whole batch.” The major interpretations are: (i) just as the first part of a lump
of dough offered being yeast-free guarantees that the rest of the batch will be yeast free
also, so too the present existence of a believing remnant of Jews who are holy guarantees
the future existence of their full number who will be holy also; (ii) ‘the part of the dough
offered as first fruits’ refers to the Patriarchs (cf. 11:28–29), in particular Abraham, and as
he was holy so too are those Jews who are joined to him in a similar faith.
19 Paul’s quotation (ἢ τίς προέδωκεν αὐτῷ, καὶ ἀνταποδοθήσεται αὐτῷ, lit. “or who has given
to him, and he will repay him”) is not derived from the LXX (ἢ τίς ἀντιστήσεταί μοι καὶ
ὑπομενεῖ, “or who has opposed me and he will remain”), but follows, though not exactly,
the Hebrew text (“Who has a claim against me that I must pay?” Job 41:3, ET 41:11).

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2.4 Ethical Instruction and Encouragement

Speaking in general terms about the importance of the Old Testament Scrip-
tures for guidance and instruction for Christian living, Paul says: “For whatever
was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfast-
ness and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (15:4).
Accordingly, Paul appeals repeatedly to the Old Testament when dealing with
ethical issues and encouraging his audience in Romans.
He quotes from Exodus and Deuteronomy to highlight the law’s positive
role in defining sinful behavior when defending his gospel against charges
that it involves a denigration of the law: “I would not have known what it is to
covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’” (7:7/Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21;
cf. 4 Macc 2:5). And then he cites from Exodus and Leviticus to show how the
commandments of the law “are summed up in this single word, ‘love your
neighbor as yourself’” (13:9/Exod 20:13–15, 17; Lev 19:18).
The apostle alludes to Genesis when exhorting his audience to not allow
sin to exercise dominion over them (6:12/Gen 4:17), and to Amos when urging
them: “hate evil, hold fast to what is good” (12:9/Amos 5:15).
Exhorting his audience not to avenge themselves for wrongs done to them,
Paul cites from Deuteronomy: “It is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
says the Lord’” (12:19/Deut 32:35; cf. Lev 19:18). Instead, citing from the book of
Proverbs, he says, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty,
give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals
on their heads” (12:20/Prov 25:21–22). The interpretation of ‘heaping burning
coals on their heads’ adopted by several early church fathers20 and the major-
ity of recent commentators21 is that it means that showing kindness to one’s
enemies will cause them to blush with shame and remorse, and this might lead
to their conversion.
20 So e.g. Origen: “Perhaps here also these coals of fire which are heaped on the head of
an enemy are heaped for his benefit. For it may be that a savage and barbarous mind,
if it feels our good will, our kindness, our love and our godliness, may be struck by it
and repent, and he will swear that as his conscience torments him for the wrong which
he has done, it is as if a fire were enveloping him” (“Commentary on the Epistle to the
Romans,” in Gerald Bray [ed.], Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament
VI, Romans [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998], 321).
21 Cf. e.g. Byrne, Romans, 383–84; N. T. Wright, “Letter to the Romans: Introduction,
Commentary and Reflections,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible (12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon,
2002), 10:715; Moo, Romans, 788–89; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16 (WBC 38B; Dallas:
Word, 1988), 751; C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (London: Adam
& Charles Black, 1957), 242–43; C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; ICC;
Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975–1979), 2:648–49.

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When dealing with the different opinions held by the “weak” and the
“strong” about what may and may not be eaten, Paul appears to allude to God’s
words to the primeval couple, “I have given you every plant yielding seed that
is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall
have them for food,” when he says “Some believe in eating anything, while the
weak eat only vegetables” (14:2/Gen 1:29; 9:3). To reinforce his teaching that
“the strong” should not despise “the weak” and “the weak” should not pass
judgment on “the strong” Paul cites from Isaiah to remind them they must all
stand before the judgment seat of God and give an account to him for their ac-
tions: “Every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God”
(14:11/Isa 45:23).22 To further reinforce this exhortation, Paul cites from the
Psalms to remind his audience that “Christ did not please himself; but as it is
written, ‘the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me’” (15:3/Ps 69:9).
A clear correspondence between the psalmist’s experience of suffering for the
sake of God and Christ’s experience of suffering in obedience to God and for
the sake of others is implied, and this is intended to provide an example that
Paul’s audience should follow by not simply pleasing themselves in the matter
of what they eat when it might cause others to stumble.
Paul alludes to Proverbs and the prophecy of Isaiah when he charges his
audience, “Do not claim to be wiser than you are” (12:16/Prov 3:7; Isa 5:21). He
alludes to the Psalms when he exhorts them to “rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep” (12:15/Ps 35:13). When exhorting his audience to be
subject to governing authorities because the ‘authorities that exist have been
instituted by God’ he alludes to Proverbs (13:1/Prov 8:15).
3 Paul’s Scriptural Hermeneutics
This review of Paul’s use of Scripture in Romans enables us to recognise cer-

tain hermeneutical assumptions that underlie his use of the Old Testament, as-
sumptions reflected in his modifications to the text of Scripture itself, and his
applications of it to his audience’s current situation. More generally reflected
in Paul’s use of Scripture are the obvious facts that he regarded it as the source
of revelation of God’s relationship to the created order and his involvement
22 In its original Isaian context, as here in Rom 14:11, it is to God that every knee will bow and
every tongue confess. It is very significant, therefore, that when Paul alludes to this same
text in Phil 2:9–11 he applies it to Christ: “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave
him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (italics added).

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in human history, that he treated it as inspired material intended for teaching

and guidance for Christian people, and that he saw in the accounts of the lives
of saints of old and God’s dealing with them things mirrored in his own life and
ministry. Finally, and very importantly, we see that whilst the Mosaic covenant
is not the covenant under which believers live today, and the Mosaic law is no
longer the regulatory norm for their lives, nevertheless the Old Testament is
still their inspired Scripture.
3.1 Modifications to the Texts Quoted

Many of Paul’s quotations from the Old Testament are introduced with either
the formula καθὼς γέγραπται (“as it is written,” 14 times) or γέγραπται γάρ (“for
it is written,” twice), reflecting his belief in the authoritative nature of the
Scriptures. It is significant that these formulae are used to introduce quota-
tions from the LXX (rather than the Hebrew text), indicating the apostle’s be-
lief in scriptural authority even in translation. It is also significant that while
in many cases his quotations reproduce verbatim the LXX text, in other cases
minor differences are evident, reflecting possibly his use of different versions
of the LXX. This has implications for our understanding of Paul’s approach to
Scripture: he views it as authoritative, but that does not necessitate a slavish
commitment to the original (Hebrew) text or to one particular version of the
LXX. In some cases it appears that Paul himself feels free to modify the text he
quotes so that it conforms to its new context (in Romans).23
3.2 Applying Ancient Texts to His Current Audience

Paul believed that what is contained in the Old Testament Scriptures, though
intended originally for those for whom it was written, nevertheless conveys
God’s word to later audiences. This is clearly expressed in 15:4 where he says,
“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so
that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might
have hope.”
A clear example of the way the apostle applies this principle is found in
4:23–24 where, having argued that Abraham was reckoned righteous, not on
account of his works but his faith, he says: “Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to
him,’ were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to
23 E.g. in his quotation of Deut 32:21 in 10:19 (“I will make you jealous of those who are not a
nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry” [italics added]) “you” (ὑμᾶς) has been
substitute for “them” (αὐτούς). A similar modification may be seen in his quotation of
Ps 36:1 (LXX 35:2) in 3:18: “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (italics added) where
“their” (αὐτῶν) has been substituted for “his” (αὐτοῦ).

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90 Kruse
us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (italics added).
Paul spells out the implications of this for both himself and his audience in
some detail in what follows in 5:1–11: Being “justified by faith” we have peace
with God, having access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our
“hope of sharing the glory of God.” This grace enables us to boast even in the
midst of sufferings, knowing that under God’s good hand the sufferings pro-
duce in us endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces
a hope, and that hope does not disappoint us “because God’s love has been
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Another example is found in 8:35–39, part of Paul’s great emotive climax
(8:31–39) following his exposition and defence of the gospel in 1:18–8:30. He
asks, in light of all this, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will
hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword?” (8:35). Recognizing that such sufferings are the lot of both himself and
his audience, he adds: “As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day
long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered’” (8:36, quoting Ps 44:22).
Thus, Paul sees in the psalmist’s experience recorded in Scripture something
that aptly describes his own experience and that of his audience.24
Paul makes a similar point in 1 Cor 10:1–13 where he warns his audience
against falling into immorality, idolatry, and complaining against God as the
ancient Israelites did during the period of their wilderness wandering, thus
bringing down upon themselves the judgment of God (cf. Exod 16–17; Num 11,
14, 20). He explains: “Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we
might not desire evil as they did … These things happened to them to serve as an
example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages
have come” (1 Cor 10:6–11 [italics added]). Clearly stated is Paul’s belief that the
accounts of Israel’s failures and God’s judgments were written down, not only
for a past generation, but for the benefit of the current generation, including
Gentile believers.
Christ himself taught that the Scriptures spoke not only to their original au-
dience, but also to his contemporaries. This is exemplified in the account of his
response to the question the Sadducees put to him implying that there is no res-
urrection recorded in Matt 22:23–32. They related a story about a woman who
was married successively to seven brothers each of whom died childless. They
asked whose wife she would be in the resurrection (Matt 22:23–28), implying,
of course, that belief in the resurrection was untenable. Jesus responded: “You
24 Robert Jewett (Romans: A Commentary [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007], 548)
says that by this Paul indicates that suffering is not a disqualifying mark for those claiming
to be true disciples.

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are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For
in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like
angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read
what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living” (Matt 22:29–32
[italics added]). Several things are implied in Jesus’ response: (i) God has spo-
ken; (ii) what he said has been written; (iii) what is written is also addressed to
his contemporaries; (iv) they are obliged to have read it; (v) their theological
failure is a result of their not having done so. Put in other words, the Scriptures
convey God’s word to all generations.
3.3 General Observations

It goes without saying that for Paul the Old Testament provides, in its various
literary forms, the story of God’s creation of the universe, his dealings with
mankind, his redemptive plan in light of human sin, his election of Israel as
part of that plan and sadly their national failure to be the light of the world,
and the promise of his Servant/Messiah to save sinners and to restore creation
that had been made subject to futility.
Besides its revelation of God’s great plan of salvation, Paul saw in the Old
Testament—in its narratives, its laws and commandments, as well as the pro-
phetic books and wisdom literature—material that is “inspired by God and is
useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteous-
ness” (2 Tim 3:16–17). This is particularly evident in 1 & 2 Corinthians where he
applies texts from the Old Testament in exhortations to his audience both di-
rectly (cf. e.g. 1 Cor 9:9–10/Deut 25:4; 1 Cor 9:13/Lev 6:16) and paradigmatically
(cf. e.g. 1 Cor 5:6–8/Exod 12:7; 2 Cor 9:8–11/Ps 112:9).25
Paul sees in the Old Testament references to the prophets’ experiences
things which are mirrored in his own experience as an apostle. He alludes to
Moses’s willingness to be blotted out of the book God has written if only he will
forgive Israel’s sin in worshipping the golden calf when he says he would be
willing to be “accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people”
(9:3/Exod 32:32). And he quotes the complaint of Isaiah that Israel would not
receive his message when seeking to understand why in his own day the major-
ity of the Jews would not accept his gospel (10:16/Isa 53:1).
Paul saw in God’s historic dealings with Israel a “typological” connection
with his dealings with believers after the coming of Christ. Because God is the
25 See Christopher J. H. Wright, Living as the People of God: The Relevance of Old Testament
Ethics (Leicester: IVP, 1983) for an insight into the way the Old Testament functions para-
digmatically in Christian ethics.

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92 Kruse
Lord of history, his actions recorded in the Old Testament foreshadow those
in the New Testament times, so that viewed in the light of Christ the Old
Testament Scriptures are seen to have a deeper meaning, and have an organic
connection with those of the New Testament.
One final comment can be made about Paul’s use of the Scriptures of the
Old Testament as one privileged to be a minister under the new covenant (cf.
2 Cor 3:1–18). Under the new covenant the Mosaic law is no longer the regula-
tory norm for believers because it has been replaced by the “law of Christ.”
However, while the new covenant replaces the old covenant, and the Mosaic
law is no longer the regulatory norm, nevertheless the Old Testament is still
Scripture. We have already seen this to be the case as far as Paul is concerned
in the way he cites and alludes to it throughout Romans to expound God’s sav-
ing action in Christ, to explain human culpability and the need for salvation,
to defend God’s faithfulness in his dealings with Israel, and in ethical instruc-
tion and encouragement.26 All this is reflected, of course, in the well-known
statement found in 2 Tim 3:16–17: “All scripture is inspired by God and is use-
ful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every
good work.”
26 Brian S. Rosner (Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God [NSBT 31; Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013]) helpfully describes Paul’s attitude to the law of Moses under
three headings: (i) repudiation—believers are not under the law, (ii) replacement—
believers do live under the “law of Christ,” and (iii) reappropriation—it is to be read as
prophecy and wisdom.

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Chapter 6
Obedience in Covenant and in Christ:

Paul’s Theodicean Solution
Tom Holmén
1 The Dilemma: Theodicean Standards vs. Christian Freedom
“For God is not unjust [ἄδικος]; he will not overlook your work and the love
that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do” (Heb 6:10).
This verse from Hebrews voices the gist of the theodicy discussion shared by
the entire New Testament world. The justice and true providence of the deity
was being questioned precisely because it often appeared as if he disregarded
creditable work and credited undeserving actions.1 The writer of Hebrews con-
tends that, in reality, such questioning is unwarranted. God will indeed recog-
nize those who labor doing good. The contention is, in fact, generally shared
by New Testament writers.2 Paul puts it in this way: “There will be anguish and
distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory
and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the
Greek” (Rom 2:9–10).3
Considering this and other similar Pauline (and New Testament) statements
that exist rather abundantly,4 it is actually surprising to encounter Paul de-
fending himself against an accusation that, according to him, had been leveled
at Christians: “And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we
1 One of the most famous expressions of this is Seneca introducing his treatise De Providentia
by asking why “men who are good and acceptable to the gods labour and sweat and have a
difficult road to climb” while “the wicked, on the other hand, make merry and abound in
pleasures” (1.6).
2 See, e.g., Matt 16:27; John 5:29; Col 3:25; 1 Pet 1:17; 3:10–12; Rev 2:23; 20:12; 22:12; cf. also
Matt 12:36; 1 Pet 4:5; see even Mark 10:29–30 par. Matt 19:28–29 / Luke 18:29–30; Matt 5:3–12
par. Luke 6:20–26; Acts 5:1–11. For Pauline passages, see below.
3 See also, e.g., 2 Cor 5:10; 9:6; Gal 6:7–8; Eph 6:8; see even Rom 14:12. The Pauline provenance of
Ephesians is controversial. However, several scholars still accept its Pauline authorship (see
L. T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation [Philadelphia: Fortress,
1986], 357–80). When referring to Paul’s views (and not to New Testament views generally),
I shall use the letter sparingly.
4 See the previous footnotes.

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94 Holmén
say), ‘Let us do evil so that good may come’? Their condemnation [κρίμα] is
deserved!” (Rom 3:8).
In Rom 6, Paul returns to this accusation in order to refute it with more
argumentation. There it also becomes evident what had given occasion to the
charge: the free forgiveness of all sins and freedom from the law guaranteed to
the believers through God’s grace in Jesus:5
But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as
sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion
through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace
may abound?… Should we sin because we are not under law but under
grace? By no means!
Rom 5:20–6:1, 156
Clearly, as can be gathered from many related passages, the consequences of

forgiveness and freedom were often misunderstood by the believers them-
selves, which caused constant worry to their leaders.7 However, as seen from
the above quotation, there were also those who purposely advanced this kind
of interpretation and used it against the Christians. These “slanderers” are not
necessarily restricted to Jews alone.8 Let us consider the issue from the view-
point of standard theodicean assertions common to both Greco-Roman and
Jewish contexts:
Destroy this, and everything collapses;… there is no such thing at all as

the divine governance [moderatio] of the world if that governance makes
no distinction between the good and the wicked.
Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.859
These and none other are the very thoughts with which the wicked are
likely to encourage and incite one another when they set out to do wrong.
Plutarch, De Sera Numinis Vindicta 2
5 See Rom 7:6; 8:2; Gal 2:19.

6 See also Rom 9:11–14; Gal 2:17.
7 Gal 5:13; 1 Pet 2:16; 2 Pet 2:18–21; Jude 4; cf. even, e.g., 1 John 3:6–10.
8 J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8 (wbc 38A; Dallas: Word, 1988), 137.
9 See also, e.g., Josephus, War 2.156–157.

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Obedience in Covenant & in Christ: Paul ’ s Theodicean Solution 95
On the side of these words of Cotta and Patrocleas, we may take the assur-
ance of the covenant God:
I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity
of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who
love me and keep my commandments.
Exod 20:5–610
For good or ill, this was the principle of the covenant.11 Besides keeping the
good from coming under judgment, God’s justice was seen as corresponding
to his ability to sentence and retaliate to the evil.12 Judgment and revenge were
also indispensable, for without these tools all the covenant promises of preser-
vation and safety would have been void.
Thus, widely in the world of Romans, Greeks and Jews, there was a theo-
dicean role for keeping the divine will.13 Against this background, the funda-
mental Christian doctrine of forgiveness of all sins through the death of Christ
and especially (but not exclusively)14 some Pauline expressions of it must have
appeared as utterly suspicious and confusing.15 The claims, for instance, that
God “justifies the ungodly” (Rom 4:5), that he does not count “their trespasses
against them” (2 Cor 5:19), and that Christ died for the unrighteous (1 Pet 3:18),
would easily have given occasion to think that Christians promote a non-prov-
idential deity, a god who does not care for what people do down here or, worse,
who has a perverse will.16 Hence, “let us do evil so that good may come,” or as
people reprehended by Malachi had put it, “all who do evil are good in the sight
of the Lord, and he delights in them” (Mal 2:17).
10 See also, e.g., Exod 34:7; Lev 26:39; Num 14:18; Deut 5:9; Pss 103:17–18; 105:8; Jer 32:18–19; Tob
3:3–5. Cf. Deut 7:9–10; 24:16; 2 Kgs 14:6; 2 Chr 25:4; Jer 31:29–30; Ezek 18.
11 Pss 50:4–23; 74:19–22; Amos 3:2.
12 Gen 18:25; Pss 7:9–12; 58:11–12; 94:1–2; Isa 63:1–6; Nah 1:2–8.
13 See, e.g., R. K. Williams, “Theodicy in the Ancient Near East,” in J. L. Crenshaw (ed.),
Theodicy in the Old Testament (London: spck, 1983), 42–56, for the similar treatment of
the question in ane. Famously, Epicurus is said to have departed from this conception.
Epicurus confessed a belief in gods, but his point was that they knew better not to become
involved in earthly businesses. The correct disposition of human beings, when faced with
the arbitrary distribution of fortune, was to imitate this divine attitude. See Diogenes
Laertius 10:139; Cicero, De Natura Deorum 1:85. Cf. also H. Usener, Epicurea (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010), §§ 242–44.
14 1 Pet 3:18.
15 C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1947), 46.
16 See also, e.g., Rom 5:6, 8, 20; 9:11–14.

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96 Holmén
Indeed, the forgiveness declared as free through Jesus’ death to all who be-
lieve could readily be seen to frustrate the basics of the theodicy thinking of
the contemporaries of the New Testament writers. “Where is justice?” they
would have asked. How could this kind of doctrine be lived up to? Would it
not incite social disorder if even hardened criminals could trust themselves to
be forgiven in the blink of an eye, just like the robber executed on the cross to-
gether with Jesus?17 Jews, specifically, would have wondered whether keeping
loyal to the covenant had any significance whatsoever. If the ungodly are saved
so easily, what will become of the God-fearing people?
No wonder that Paul and others were at pains to explain how the freedom
in Christ should be rightly understood.18 The beginning verses of Rom 13, for
example, “[tell] the reader that the Christian is willing to belong to the larger
society, and that he/she is not out to subvert the social order.”19 According to
Paul, those who oppose the governing authorities resist God himself. Therefore,
Christians should devote themselves to good conduct and not to bad. Thus, far
from traversing the governing authority, Christians assent that it is rightfully
the agent of punishment for the wrongdoer.20 This is also precisely what 1 Peter
sees as the meaning of Christians being “free.” When freedom is taken, not de-
ceptively as a cloak of evil but in the service of God, it means being subject to
every human institution (emperor and other rulers). For these are sent by God
“to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right” (1 Pet 2:13–16;
cf. Titus 3:1–8).
Thus, these New Testament writers maintain that, when interpreted cor-
rectly (in their view), God’s saving act in Jesus and the free forgiveness he has
thereby earned for us do not frustrate theodicean thinking and the belief in
17 These considerations precisely form one of the key points of accusation put forward,
for instance, by Celsus and Apocriticus. See J. G. Cook, The Interpretation of the New
Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 43–44, 218–20. The
“Hellene” in the Apocriticus argues so: “These things have the power to set aside the train-
ing of the law, and cause righteousness itself to be of no avail against the unrighteous.
They introduce into the world a form of society which is without law, and teach people
to have no fear of ungodliness; when a person sets aside a pile of countless wrongdoings
simply by being baptized” (Macarius, Apocr. 4.19, dated around 380 ce). While we do not
have direct evidence exactly from Paul’s time, sentiments were hardly different then. Cf.
the following footnote.
18 Gal 5:13; 1 Pet 2:16; 2 Pet 2:18–21; Jude 4; cf. even, e.g., 1 John 3:6–10 (cited above). Cf. also,
e.g., Pol. Phil. 7:1; Ps.-Clem. Ep. Pet James 2:4. For the antinomian usage of these kinds
of Pauline texts in second-century Gnosticism, see E. Pagels, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic
Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 66–67.
19 J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16 (wbc 38B; Dallas: Word, 1988), 759.
20 And Paul does not forget to mention the observance of taxes (Rom 13:6–7).

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divine providence. Nonetheless, one is bound to ask whether the saving act
still leaves everything totally unaffected. The aforementioned accusations,
made on occasion of the free forgiveness in Jesus, seem indeed to have some
substance. Their simple dismissal as misinterpretations does not yet disclose
what would be the correct way of construing the relation between the free
forgiveness and the theodicean role of keeping God’s will. Paul, specifically, ap-
pears to have cherished ideas that reach to farther theodicean sceneries than
could be surmised on the basis of the plain assurance that the Christian doc-
trine, too, sees sin and misdeeds as disapproved and good actions as welcomed
by God. In Rom 3, Paul explains this, employing many central concepts of the
common theodicean language. I shall now review the chapter from the per-
spective of contemporary theodicy thinking.
2 Paul’s View of the Problem of Theodicy
At the beginning of Rom 3, Paul affirms theodicy in different ways as if to en-

sure that his readers will understand what is at issue. He uses theodicean lan-
guage known, on the one hand, exclusively from Jewish theology and, on the
other, from the common theodicean way of reasoning.
First, Paul claims that God is not a liar but that he is truthful. Irrespective
of the unfaithfulness of some people, it can be trusted that God will be jus-
tified in his words, i.e., that he will remain faithful to what he has promised
(Rom 3:3–4). In the light of specifically Jewish theodicean ideas, this can be
read as being reminiscent of, for instance, the following Old Testament text:
If his children forsake my law … I will punish their transgression … but I

will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness
[‫ ;אמונה‬lxx: ἀλήθεια]. I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word
that went forth from my lips.
Ps 89:31, 33–35
Besides the psalms more clearly alluded to (Pss 51:6; 116:11), Paul may or may
not have had this text in his mind when writing the beginning verses of Rom 3.
In all events, the text is one among many that demonstrate the close affinity of
theodicean and covenantal motifs in Judaism.21 This is also how it is echoed in
21 For the affinity, see, e.g., J. Bowker, Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 7; J. L. Crenshaw, “Introduction: The Shift
from Theodicy to Anthropodicy,” in J. L. Crenshaw (ed.), Theodicy in the Old Testament

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Rom 3. Since God will not fail in his covenantal faithfulness (Rom 3:3–4a), he
will prevail when he is judged (Rom 3:4b).22
Second, what also comes up at the beginning of Rom 3 is Paul’s reasoning
that God cannot be unjust (ἄδικος), for otherwise he could not judge the world.
The thrust of this inverted syllogism is that evildoers will indeed be punished
(Rom 3:5–8). In light of common theodicean thinking, this means that there
will be final retribution which is enacted by a just judge. There is a divine provi-
dence which keeps track of the accounts.
What then follows in Rom 3:9–19, to put it cautiously, would not have been
incomprehensible when read from theodicean point of view. Human malefac-
tions were naturally a reason for divine wrath (Rom 3:5). Nevertheless, the
conclusions of the reasoning in these verses, drawn later on, would not have
appeared all too obvious. The first clearly bewildering utterance appears in
Rom 3:21. God’s δικαιοσύνη, Paul asserts, has now been manifested apart from
the law. Such a claim would, in general, have made poor theodicy. With re-
spect to Jewish thinking in particular, the unique gift of the law the Jews had
received from Yahweh precisely guaranteed that they knew what pleased God.
Thus they could, inter alia, be sure not to draw divine vengeance down upon
themselves out of ignorance.
Hereafter in Rom 3, it becomes evident that all the central theodicy actual-
ized so far somehow revolves around what God did and accomplished through
the death of Jesus. Common theodicean ideas keep appearing. A central pas-
sage in this respect is Rom 3:25–26a:
… ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι εἰς ἔνδειξιν
τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων ἐν τῇ
ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ.23
(London: spck, 1983), 1–16, here 5; J. H. Charlesworth, “Theodicy in Early Jewish Writings,”
in A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (eds.), Theodicy in the World of the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2003),
470–508, here 505–7.
22 For the covenantal background of Rom 3, see, e.g., J. T. Carroll and J. B. Green (eds.), The
Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 121–22; S. E. Porter,
“The Concept of Covenant in Paul,” in S. E. Porter and J. C. R. de Roo (eds.), The Concept of
the Covenant in the Second Temple Period (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 269–85, here 282–83.
23 The passage is often said to be based on tradition; see J. Becker, Paulus: Der Apostel der
Völker (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 425; P. Stuhlmacher, Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of
Justification (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 22.

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… whom [i.e., Christ] God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be

received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his
divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
The passage is an excerpt from a longer explanation and contains many dif-
ficult expressions. From a theodicean perspective, it is observable that Paul
conceives God’s δικαιοσύνη as being manifested in Jesus’ death.24 In a way, such
a thought did represent generally-understandable theodicy. The cross was ob-
viously an expression, although a brutal one, of God’s justice. There the wicked
were punished for their evil acts. In Jewish thinking, specifically, crucifixion
manifested the holiness and justice of God through the divine curse (Gal 3:13).
Of course, the contention of Paul and all New Testament writers was that Jesus
suffered innocently, that he, in fact, was God’s Christ. One could then ask how
the cursing of an innocent man could have been an allotment of the divine
justice and righteousness, but the point is not raised by Paul in the present
discourse.
Another conspicuously theodicean feature in the above passage is that Paul
combines God’s δικαιοσύνη with the idea that God has passed over the sins pre-
viously committed. There was in antiquity a keen discussion going on regard-
ing the theodicy problem of the “delay of the deity,” that is, the fact that god(s)
lagged with the punishment of wicked acts.25 As experience had shown, this
allowed wrongdoers to think that there was no punishment to be expected,
and so they grew bolder in doing evil. Various explanations had been enter-
tained to account for the delay, and indeed, divine forbearance was one of
them.26 Even in raising this theme, then (cf. ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ), Paul seems to
carefully reflect common routes of contemporary theodicean reasoning. The
theme was also known in Jewish discussion because of the lasting servitude of
the people of God under a pagan oppressor.
It is difficult to believe that Paul is unintentionally touching on these themes
in Rom 3. After all, one of the central concepts of Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’
24 Jesus’ death is not mentioned verbatim, but it is insinuated and clearly assumed. See
Becker, Paulus, 425–26.
25 See, e.g., Euripides, Orestes 420; Plutarch, De Sera Numinis Vindicta 3.
26 See, e.g., Plutarch, De Sera Numinis Vindicta 6. Other explanations that contributed to
solving the problem were, e.g., metempsychosis (Plato, Timaeus 41–42), the idea of a
post-mortem retribution (even apart from metempsychosis; Plutarch, De Sera Numinis
Vindicta 18), divine disciplining or training of the best of people and the view that good
fortune can sometimes be a curse (Seneca, De Providentia 2:1–4 and 4:9–10), as well as
the difficulty of human beings to understand divine purposes (Plutarch, De Sera Numinis
Vindicta 4).

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death, δικαιοσύνη, was as regards its basic meaning (“justice”, “righteousness”)

central in contemporary theodicy discussion as well.27 And although the the-
ology Paul builds upon the concept is, in its all nuances, almost impenetrable,
it clearly pertains to the question of justice in the relations between God and
human beings. Thus, it seems obvious that Paul is purposely introducing his
case by utilization of the viewpoint of theodicy. To be sure, his readers, whether
Jews or Gentiles, would have been more familiar with theodicean expressions
and the theodicean way of reasoning than the idea of justification by faith in
the cross of the Messiah. This stands even though they had already previously
been introduced to Pauline teaching.28 We have also noticed how Paul defends
himself against accusations that arose from the collision of conventional theo-
dicy thinking and the Christian message of free forgiveness of sins.
Having now identified the main theodicean elements discernible in the dis-
course of Rom 3, we may try to sum up Paul’s argument and conceive the train
of thought as a theodicy. Paul’s idea appears to be that since, in fact, all people
in the world are evildoers, the proper realization and manifestation of the di-
vine justice would have demanded annihilation of the whole human race. That
God has not done so creates a theodicy problem, that is, it calls into question
the divine providence that should inflict a just punishment on those who de-
serve it.29 Or better, this would have created a theodicy problem, had not God
realized and manifested his justice by shedding Jesus’ blood. With Christ Jesus
punished, God’s justice is accomplished and at the same time those who be-
lieve in Jesus are justified.30 Thus, by this act in Jesus, God makes the theodicy
problem disappear. The delay of the manifestation of divine justice reveals it-
self as his merciful, saving plan.
Hence, in Paul’s view, Jesus’ death on the cross is the solution to the theodicy
problem. One should, however, observe that with the contention that every-
body is a malefactor Paul has radically redefined the problem. The question
that was universally experienced as the gist of the theodicy problem, namely
27 In addition, Porter, “Concept of Covenant,” 282–83, suggests that δικαιοσύνη here in Rom 3
reflects integrally and essentially covenant theology.
28 Cf. J. Zumstein, “Das Wort vom Kreuz als Mitte der paulinischen Theologie,” in A. Dettwiler
and J. Zumstein (eds.), Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2002), 27–41, here 31.
29 Cf., e.g., Rom 3:8; 6:1. Indeed, most commentators (see R. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter [wbc
50; Waco, TX: Word, 1983], 332) perceive the references of 2 Pet 3:15–16 to God’s forbear-
ance and wrongful twisting of Paul’s “hard to understand” teachings as being connected
with the antinomian interpretation of Pauline passages such as Rom 4:15; 5:20 and others
discussed above.
30 Correctly, Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 61: “Yet grace does not take precedence
over justice in justification.”

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why “men who are good … labour and sweat and have a difficult road to climb,”
while “the wicked … make merry and abound in pleasures,”31 is not, accord-
ing to Paul, relevant any more! In Paul’s view, all people should be included in
“the wicked” and should therefore, in principle, have “a difficult road to climb.”
Paul would thus rephrase the question so: Why is God not visiting his doom
on everybody? Judgment and revenge, tools of God’s righteousness, lie idle.
This is what now, according to strict logic, threatens God’s justice and poses a
theodicy problem. Paul’s solution to such a problem is thus the cross of Christ,
but the presupposition for accepting that solution is that one adopts the view
that all people deserve punishment and suffering alone. The Pauline theodicy
solution is intended to solve the Pauline theodicy problem.
Thus, Paul has been able to develop a theodicean way of reasoning that
works well together with the doctrine of justification by faith. Of course, the
doctrine is not fully expounded within Rom 3, but stretches throughout the
letters of Paul. Similarly, the theodicy of Rom 3 gains depth and new aspects
later on. Rom 5, for instance, advances theodicean reflections that deserve to
be reviewed.
The comparison of Adam and Christ in Rom 5:12–19 is one clear case where
theodicean arguments and motifs are attached to the theme of the death of
Jesus. The common theodicean motif of the Fall serves conveniently as the rea-
son for the culpability of all people of the world,32 thus backing up Paul’s thesis
thereof in Rom 3:9–19. Moreover, the disobedience of Adam/man, to which
Paul ascribes universal and permanent consequences, serves well to high-
light Jesus’ obedience as having a corresponding but opposite significance.33
Romans 5:16 and 5:18 are of special interest because of the concept represented
by κατάκριμα denoting a judicial sentence pronounced upon guilty persons.34
Jesus’ deed meant that in the place of the judicial condemnation of people,
initiated by Adam’s trespass, there is now a justification for their lives. Hence,
in the Adam/Christ comparison in Rom 5, the origin of sin, evil, and suffering
in the world is tied to God’s saving act in Jesus just as explained in the theod-
icy of Rom 3. That is, people escape condemnation by the accomplishment of
God’s justice through the death of Jesus. The theodicy is hereby augmented by
31 Seneca, De Providentia 1:6. The sentiment was universal.

32 Correctly interpreted by U. Schnelle, The Human Condition: Anthropology in the Teachings
of Jesus, Paul, and John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 64–65, as both fate and act.
33 An obedience seen ultimately in his enduring the pains of death; cf. Phil 2:6–8. See Dunn,
Romans 1–8, 284–85.
34 B DAG, 518.

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the idea that Christ’s obedience brings about reversal of the primordial catas-
trophe. In this way too, Jesus’ death is the solution to the theodicy problem.35
It may be that elsewhere in the Pauline teaching these theodicean argu-
ments and motifs cannot be pinpointed as readily as in the above passages.36
However, the basic message of God’s saving act in Jesus is always easily ac-
commodated to the theodicy and is thereby illustrative. Consider the examples
below.
The innocence of Christ (e.g. 2 Cor 5:21): Had Jesus not been without sin, he
would have been culpable together with all humankind. Therefore, according
to the logic of theodicy, it would have been of no use to punish Jesus.37 The vol-
untariness of Christ (e.g. Rom 5:18–19; Gal 1:4; 2:20; Eph 5:2, 25; Phil 2:5–11): God
would have acted unjustly had not Jesus voluntarily taken the punishment for
the iniquity of others.38 Accordingly, Paul also speaks of the love of Christ, not
only that of God, when referring to the saving act in Jesus. Jesus as the “Yes” of
all promises of God (2 Cor 1:20): Jesus embodies the proof for the fact that God
cannot lie, i.e., he is the manifestation of God’s justness and trustworthiness.
The exemption from condemnation (e.g. Rom 8:1, 31–34): The word κατάκριμα
reappears (as last of the three appearances in the New Testament) in Rom 8:1,
a passage among many similar ones which, though not materially depending
on theodicean thinking, is closely compatible with it: by believing and being in
Christ Jesus, people are saved from condemnation.39
Having reached this far, we must ask how this all relates to the accusation
that the free forgiveness offered in Jesus frustrates the basic theodicean stan-
dards. We do understand, in the light of Paul’s contention that everybody is
a malefactor, that free forgiveness is actually the only hope humankind has.
Longing for justice, people only summon doom. Forgiveness should therefore
be welcomed with great gratitude, not complained about as a generator of
theodicean anarchy. We also understand that free forgiveness does not, in fact,
vitiate God’s justice, since all evil has been repaid on the cross of Christ. Hence,
law and order prevail and are, in the end, kept in force in the best possible way
with respect to the welfare of human beings. However, some questions persist.
As we observed, Paul refutes the claim that Christians would urge one to “do
evil so that good may come.” He does this by emphasizing Christians’ dedica-
tion to the view that evildoers will be punished and that those who seek good
35 Keeping in mind the Pauline redefinition of the problem.

36 Thus, as attaching to the theme of the death of Jesus.
37 The question of Jesus’ conception is also relevant here. Cf., e.g., Rom 1:3–4.
38 Cf. also Rom 4:25; 5:6–9; 8:32; Gal 3:13; see even Titus 2:14.
39 Observe the cognate verb to κατάκριμα in Rom 8:34 (καρακρινῶν). See even Acts 17:31.

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will attain their due reward. Christians too, or especially, are indebted to do
good not evil. However, against the background of the Pauline theodicy scruti-
nized above, one might suspect the worth of making such statements.
First, what is the point of upholding the distinction between good and bad
conduct if all people are ultimately “imprisoned in disobedience” and can
merit only doom? The argument that we have viewed in Rom 3 (and 5) makes
the statements put forward in Rom 2:9–10 and 13:3–4 sound like mere rhetoric.
With the Pauline redefinition of the theodicy problem, i.e., all deserving di-
vine punishment, are not such statements mere opportunistic pretense?40 Do
they not, as a matter of fact, also undermine the proper understanding of the
Pauline solution to the theodicy problem by calling forth the impression that
one can really do good things?41
Second, and most impressively, there is also the question why. Why should
good deeds be required of the Christians (or anybody else at that)? Considering
the free forgiveness in Jesus and the fact that God’s justice has been accom-
plished on the cross of Christ, what reason would there be for such a require-
ment? Even if people were able to do good and abstain from doing evil, why
should they? Hence, be it that the justness of God eventually remains intact in
Pauline theology, free forgiveness still seems to obscure theodicean reasoning.
Paul does have an answer to the above questions. Namely, those who have
been justified by faith have in reality become capable of doing genuinely good
things. They are no more under the power of sin, confined to being evildoers.42
They, Paul explains, have been set free to serve righteousness (Rom 6:18, 20).
How is this possible?
3 Obedience and Theodicy
In short, Paul’s argument is that by being joined with Christ in baptism,

Christians have died, that is, their old human being (ἄνθρωπος) has been
40 This is exactly the criticism levelled by Apocriticus in Macarius Magnes’s Answer-book to
the Greeks; see Cook, New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism, 217.
41 The statements have also been disputed because they seem to contradict Paul’s teach-
ing regarding justification by faith. See, e.g., T. R. Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment:
A Pauline Theology of Law (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 179–204. The perspective of theo-
dicy can illuminate this dispute as well. See below the remark on the theodicean purpose
of keeping God’s will.
42 Hence, the distinction between pious people and evildoers corresponds respectively to
the distinction between those who believe in Jesus and those who do not.

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crucified together with Jesus (Rom 6:6).43 At the same time, through dying,
they have been discharged from the law and set free (Rom 7:6). Just as Jesus
was raised from the dead, so have Christians been introduced to a new kind of
life (Rom 6:4) which is characterized by the Spirit of God that has been given
to them (Rom 5:5). They now serve in the newness of the Spirit, not in the old-
ness of the letter (Rom 7:6). This is the circumcision of the heart in Spirit and
not in the letter (Rom 2:29). As a result, Christians possess a new obedience of
heart and can serve righteousness (Rom 6:17–18).44 Thus, attachment to Christ,
to the powers of his death and resurrection, brings about a miraculous em-
powerment. Having been servants of sin, confined to committing evil, people
turn into servants of righteousness, i.e., they become free and capable of doing
good. This is the work of God.
Paul’s reasoning echoes the terminology of the eschatological cov-
enant prophecies. The most explicit connection to these themes appears in
2 Cor 3:1–11, where Paul is concerned with the apostolic ministry. The new life
of the Christians, effected by the Spirit not the letter, takes form in the apostle
so that he is made capable of his ministry. The explanation is delivered with ex-
plicit reference to the new covenant promise of Jeremiah. Nonetheless, a direct
connection to the eschatological covenant theme can also be established in
Romans. The assurance of the ultimate salvation of all Israel in Rom 11:26–27,
one of the climatic lines of Rom 9–11,45 makes mention of covenant by quot-
ing Isa 59:20–21 lxx (and Isa 27:9 lxx), perhaps referring even to Jer 31:33–34.
Hence, Paul utilizes an idea which in the Old Testament and intertestamen-
tal literature importantly served as a theodicean motif: God himself will make
it so that people fulfill his will and keep the covenant, so they will not need to
suffer any more.46 Paul, however, applies the idea in an original way.
First, in the Old Testament the theodicean point in question is that the
God-effected eschatological obedience would eliminate the cause for pun-
ishment and suffering. For Paul, instead, the theme is connected with his
doctrine of justification by faith. The Old Testament prophecies of a new
43 See here Schnelle, Human Condition, 74–75, 102; Becker, Paulus, 441–44.
44 Thus, the status of the Christians has changed radically, from being slaves of sin to being
slaves of righteousness.
45 For these chapters, see further below.
46 M. Weinfeld, “Jeremiah and the Spiritual Metamorphosis of Israel,” zaw 88 (1976): 17–
56; S. D. Sperling, “Rethinking Covenant in Later Biblical Books,” Bib 70 (1989): 50–73;
G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52 (wbc 27; Dallas: Word, 1995),
160. See, e.g., Isa 59:21; Jer 24:7; 31:31–34; 32:39–40; Ezek 11:19–20; 36:26–27; 37:24; Jub. 5:12;
1 En. 5:8–10; Pss. Sol. 17:32, 36, 40–41, 44; T. Levi 18:2, 5, 9–12; 1QS IV, 20–22, 23. See even
Eccl. Rab. 2:1. Cf. the covenant formula in, e.g., Jer 24:7; 31:33; 32:38; Ezek 11:20; 34:24; 36:28.

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covenant-obedience give Paul the means to argue that the imprisonment of all
the people of the world in disobedience no longer applies to those who have
become Christians.47 This substantiates the claim that the Christian doctrine
does uphold the distinction between good and bad conduct and makes sense
of the analogous admonition to the Christians not to continue doing evil but
to do good.
Second, in the Old Testament the eschatological obedience is viewed as
completely removing the problem of disloyalty: no one will ever fail to fulfill
the covenant obligations. It was clear to Paul, however, that Christians could
also fall into sin and that they, moreover, could continue serving sin as if their
old human being had not really died in baptism. Therefore, Paul is careful not
to claim that Christians, due to their new life in Spirit, would walk in perfect
compliance with the will of God. On the contrary, Christians have been made
capable of doing genuinely good things, but they can still sin too.48 Paul is not
hesitant to expose this state of affairs by the repeated cautions not to live as if
still serving in the oldness of the letter. On the other hand, Paul does not ex-
plicitly compromise the eschatological obedience either, since he has bound it
to the uncompromising thoughts of being raised together with Jesus (Eph 2:6),
or as he also puts it, of being new creatures in Jesus (2 Cor 5:17). In Paul’s view,
service in the newness of the Spirit is indeed a full reality for the Christian. It
is the dichotomy of the old and new human beings49 that helps Paul to articu-
late these contrasting issues.
The teaching about the new covenant-obedience thus explains how, de-
spite the imprisonment of all humankind in disobedience, some people can
indeed be featured as being able to do good.50 In this way, the distinction be-
tween good and bad conduct—which Paul has emphasized in order to refute
the accusation that Christians seek to continue in sin in order that grace may
abound—can be regarded as applicable.
Then there is the question why. Why, considering free forgiveness, should
people seek to live a righteous life doing good and avoiding evil things? If for-
giveness is guaranteed, people do not need to reckon with the consequences
of their acts. Indeed, what ensures that even Christians with their ability to do
good would feel such a need?
47 The hyphenated expression “new covenant-obedience” aims to denote a covenant obedi-
ence that is new.
48 Schnelle, Human Condition, 75–77; F. J. Matera, New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus
and Paul (Louisville: John Knox, 1996), 190–91.
49 The new human being is only implied in Rom 6, but is discussed explicitly in 2 Cor 5:17;
Gal 6:15; Eph 4:22–24.
50 Matera, New Testament Ethics, 191.

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As perceivable in the various letters of Paul, the teaching about the new
covenant-obedience also relates to this question. Paul claims that together
with the capability of doing righteous deeds also comes the sheer will to lead
such a way of life (Phil 2:13).51 On the other hand, the miraculous empower-
ment to do good is a purpose in itself. The new human being is created “in true
righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24). In fact, he or she is a slave of righteous-
ness (Rom 6:18). The new life of Christians is Christ living in them and them
living in Christ (Gal 2:20; 2 Cor 5:21). Therefore, living the new life simply means
living righteously.52 In this way Paul can argue that free forgiveness does not
leave the gates wide open for wickedness. Thus, in direct confrontation of the
accusations of free forgiveness leading to theodicean anarchy, Paul states in
Rom 6: “How can we who died to sin go on living in it?… We have been buried
with him [i.e. Christ] by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of
life” (Rom 6:2, 4). In other words, the new human being has an innate orienta-
tion to keeping God’s will. This orientation is, however, given to Christians not
in order that they might avoid punishment. Rather, it is there simply because
this is how they are now created (anew).
As can be explained on the basis of Pauline theology, then, for Christians,
in reality, there is no theodicean reason for good actions! This is the freedom of
Christians, freedom from the law and its doom, created in them by the Spirit
of God.53
Interestingly, for Paul the freedom of Christians still does not mean that the
new righteous life would come easily to them.54 On the contrary, Paul must
continuously remind Christians about their new reality. The admonitions take
forms such as: “Put away your former way of life, your old human being, cor-
rupt and deluded by its lusts, … and … clothe yourselves with the new human
being, created according to the likeness of God” (Eph 4:22, 24). Similarly, the
Christians need to be reminded not to abuse their freedom: “Do not use your
freedom as an opportunity for the flesh” (Gal 5:13).55
51 For the following, see Becker, Paulus, 445–47.

52 Matera, New Testament Ethics, 190.
53 Rom 6:22; 7:6; 8:1–2; 8:15; 2 Cor 3:17; Gal 4:6–7; 5:1, 18.
54 See B. Lindars, “Paul and the Law in Romans 5–8: An Actantial Analysis,” in B. Lindars
(ed.), Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity
(Cambridge: James Clarke, 1988), 126–40, here 132, 136–39.
55 See also further in Gal 5; P. Rondez, “Ein Zentrum paulinischer Theologie? Eine pneu-
matologische Erschliessung des Zusammenhangs von Soteriologie und Christologie an-
hand von Gal 5, 25,” in A. Dettwiler and J. Zumstein (eds.), Kreuzestheologie im Neuen
Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 59–79. For non-Pauline remarks, see for ex-
ample, 1 Pet 2:16; 2 Pet 2:18–21; Jude 4; cf. even, e.g., 1 John 3:6–10.

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These expressions are somewhat reminiscent of the battle between good

and bad spirits which Qumran pictures as being fought within all human be-
ings: “He created man to rule the world and placed within him two spirits so
that he would walk with them until the moment of his visitation: they are the
spirits of truth and of deceit…. Until now the spirits of truth and of injustice
feud in the heart of man” (1QS III, 17–19; IV, 23).56 For Paul, however, such a
battle is true only with respect to Christians and is deprived of theodicean
control.57
The Pauline answer to the question about the theodicean role of keeping
God’s will, as seen in light of God’s saving act in Jesus, begins to take shape.
By way of summarizing: Through the idea of the imprisonment of all human-
kind in disobedience, Paul has redefined the theodicy problem. If God were
to act according to his justice, he would have to condemn all humankind.
Instead now, God has condemned Christ by putting him on the cross. In this
way, God can save the fallen humankind without surrendering his justness.
Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ despite their
wrongdoings; they are forgiven. Free forgiveness in Christ will not, however,
urge people to be indifferent to their way of life. For in connection with their
being in Christ, a new human being is raised to them that is innately oriented
to keeping God’s will. This new reality of Christians, called freedom, in fact
abolishes the theodicean control of human behavior. Instead, one’s disposi-
tion to evil and good is determined by the struggle between the old and new
human beings respectively. Paul argues for the death of the old human being
on the cross of Christ and for the ultimate prevalence of the new one by the
power of Christ’s resurrection. Thus, all in all, for Paul, keeping God’s will has no
theodicean purpose. This inevitably issues from the death of Christ for the sins
of the world.
4 1 John in Comparison
Interestingly, Paul is supported by John, who also seems to have been influ-
enced by the eschatological covenant promises. John’s way of reasoning takes,
however, somewhat different paths. Some scrutiny is needed in order to per-
ceive the basically common aim behind the disparities between Paul and John.
A number of statements in 1 John have long caused difficulties for interpret-
ers. First John 2:20, 27 alleges that, because of the anointing received by the
56 Cf. also Deut 30:11–20.

57 As a matter of fact, this is the key idea that underlies Rom 7:15–25.

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believers, they “all know” (1 John 2:20) and need no one to teach them.58 As has
often been noted, this is a surprising claim in the midst of a discourse which
is highly didactic. Moreover, 1 John 3:4–10 (cf. 5:18) puts forward the idea that
a true child of God cannot sin (οὐ δύναται ἁμαρτάνειν).59 The idea is unique
within the New Testament and already remarkable as such. It is, however, fur-
ther highlighted by the emphatic, at least seemingly contradictory Johannine
statements, e.g., “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8: ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἔχομεν). The two reverse thoughts
can even closely follow each other (see 1 John 2:1–4; 5:16–18).
The discrepancies have attracted much discussion and engendered a con-
siderable variety of explanations. Irrespective of the solutions proposed, com-
mentators have connected the thoughts of needing no teaching and commit-
ting no sin with the two integral elements of the Old Testament eschatological
covenant theme: God-given knowledge and God-effected obedience.60 The
elements belong closely together in 1 John too. Christians, from the least of
them to the greatest, know the Father (1 John 2:12–14; cf. Jer 31:34). This is some-
thing that can be ascertained by the fact that they keep his commandments
(1 John 2:3). And conversely, no one who sins has known him (1 John 3:6). God
himself has effected all this in them through their being “anointed by the Holy
One” (1 John 2:20) and having “God’s seed” (3:9) in them.
Hence, like Paul, John also seems to have drawn from the eschatological cov-
enant promises. How does his treatment of the issue relate to that of Paul and
to the question of theodicy?
58 For the textual variant, see n. 87 below.

59 Believer, a child of God = a Christian.
60 A. E. Brooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1912), 57; E. Malatesta, Interiority and Covenant: A Study of εἶναι ἐν and μένειν ἐν
in the First Letter of Saint John (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), 173, 248; S. S. Smalley, 1,
2, 3 John (wbc 51; Waco, TX: Word, 1984), 173–74. 1 John 2:20 presents the expression οἴδατε
πάντες. A textual variant has πάντα (“you know all”). This is, however, not the likeliest
alternative, since in the lengthy discourse of 1 John 2–3, John recurrently addresses little
children (τεκνίον; e.g., 1 John 2:12), children (παῖς; e.g., 1 John 2:14), young men (νεανίσκος;
e.g., 1 John 2:13), as well as fathers (πατήρ; e.g., 1 John 2:13), whose amount of knowledge
would normally vary significantly. Instead, regardless of their age, they all have a certain
kind of knowledge, the knowledge of the true God as revealed in Christ Jesus. In other
words, they all know, οἴδατε πάντες. See, for instance, I. H. Marshall, The Epistles of John
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 156. Intriguingly, this is exactly the point made in Jer
31:34 (which stands out even more if seen against the background of Deut 6:7): “From the
least to the greatest they shall know the Lord.”

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It seems that John applies the theme of a new God-effected obedience more
strictly than Paul. As pointed out, as the sole New Testament writer, John puts
forward the thought that those with God’s seed “cannot sin because they have
been born of God” (1 John 3:9). Hence, unlike Paul, John appears to have ap-
propriated the eschatological idea of a new covenant-obedience without any
reservations, without any compromising or altering of its intent. His words
would indeed seem to presuppose a perfect obedience, as in the guise of Jer
32:40, Ezek 11:19–20, 36:27, or 37:24. Is it at all possible to interpret the words
otherwise?
A quick look at the commentary literature reveals the disagreement and
perplexity of scholarship in understanding the relationship between the state-
ments of absolute sinlessness and indisputable sinfulness. Many varying inter-
pretations of 1 John 3:6–9 have been advanced with the view of toning down
the discrepancy, although some commentators also think one should retain it.61
The following are some examples: The present tense of the verb ἁμαρτάνειν in
1 John 3:9 signals a continuous sense, meaning that Christians do not sin as a
fixed habit.62 The verses 1 John 3:6–9 denote a certain kind of sinning, namely
deliberate or conscious in comparison to involuntary or unconscious, or then
a certain kind of sin, namely the mortal sin of 1 John 5:16.63 They aim to de-
scribe a Christian ideal or potentiality of not sinning, or a particular perspec-
tive: when living in Christ.64
To be sure, without passages like those within 1 John 1:8–2:2, such interpreta-
tions would be deemed as artificial, and the question is whether the interpre-
tations even despite the existence of these passages can be seen as anything
but that. We should also observe that the idea of a perfect obedience to God’s
will can be regarded as unique only when being limited to the New Testament.
There is no major difference between 1 John 3:6–9 and, for example, 1QS IV,
20–25, other than that what in the latter passage is a future anticipation has
in the former turned into complete reality. In fact, similar anticipation can be
verified in several instances of the reception of the eschatological covenant
theme and located in different types of intertestamental literature. John,
61 After a long discussion of various explanations plus elaborating on one of his own, Smalley
in an apparent perplexity concludes: “The writer does appear to be saying (uniquely) that
the indwelling of God’s σπέρμα (‘nature’) excludes sin entirely.” Smalley, John, 175.
62 J. R. W. Stott, The Epistles of John: An Introduction and Commentary (Leicester: InterVarsity,
1964), 135–36. Cf. niv: “keep on sinning.”
63 Schnelle, Human Condition, 139–40.
64 Marshall, Epistles of John, 181–82; Brooke, Johannine Epistles, 86.

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110 Holmén
however, believes that the eschatological new covenant-obedience has already

become true with respect to Christians.
Considered against this background, John’s distance from Paul needs not
to be as notable as it would seem at first. They both agree, against the litera-
ture referred to above, by picturing the eschatological times as already being
in effect.65 Further, while Paul employs the dichotomies of “dying/rising” with
Christ and “old human being/new life (new human being),” John has no such
conceptual arsenal. What would Paul’s argumentation look like without these
dichotomies? We would probably come close to John’s perplexing juxtaposi-
tion of the thoughts of the sinfulness and sinlessness of Christians. On the
other hand, if we look at the “new human being” alone, even Paul can be said
to uphold the idea of a perfect compliance.66 Perhaps, then, in John’s view,
too, both these thoughts were indeed meant to be taken at their full value.
Christians are at the same time both sinful and sinless,67 although he cannot
explain how.68
On the issue of theodicy, too, the Pauline and Johannine applications of the
eschatological obedience display both similarities and differences. One seri-
ous candidate to explain the diametrical change of words between 1 John 1:5–
2:2 (the sinfulness of the Christians) and 1 John 3:6–9 (their sinlessness) is
John’s need to discard a certain misinterpretation.69 As disclosed already by
1 John 3:4–5, which prefaces the statement of the sinlessness of the Christians,
John is clearly troubled by the antinomian attitude he has found among the
congregations. In this respect, the ideas presented in 1 John 1:5–2:2 could turn
out to be treacherous, making sin seem commonplace and harmless. The free
forgiveness proclaimed in 1 John 1:7, 9 and 2:1–2 could encourage people to be
careless about their way of life. Thus, John is seeking to avert a misconception
resembling the one fought against by Paul in Romans, namely that the forgive-
ness based on God’s saving act in Jesus (cf. 1 John 1:7) would invite people to
65 See n. 63.

66 However, such tearing apart of the dichotomies would probably not have worked for Paul.
67 Cf. simul justus et peccator as a description famously attached to Pauline theology by
Luther.
68 Another dichotomy that would certainly have helped John to articulate this matter is
“already/not yet,” known, for instance, from Paul. In fact, Schnelle, Human Condition, 139,
seeks to trace a comparable distinction in 1 John 3:2; 2:28. It may also be that John has
felt compelled to avert distinguishing in the human nature two antithetical natures or
the like, since this could have argued into the hands of the possibly gnostically-inspired
opponents.
69 See also 1 John 2:3–6; 5:18.

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believe that God does not care about sin and wrongdoings.70 And, like Paul,
John too finds the solution outside theodicy thinking: although Christians, as
granted by the free forgiveness in Jesus, do not need to reckon with the conse-
quences of their deeds, they are not encouraged in sin. For precisely because of
their being Christians, they cannot sin.
Hence, even in 1 John the idea of a new God-effected obedience can be seen
to serve the theodicean function we have become familiar with. It is the big
question about the righteousness of a god who readily forgives all sins that
lies behind John’s as well as Paul’s clinging to this element of the eschatologi-
cal covenant prophecies. Obviously, there are some differences between their
respective usages of the element. The questions of theodicy are not as explicit
in 1 John as in Romans. For instance, there are in 1 John no statements such as
those in Rom 3:8 and 6:1, 15 which refute the accusation that Christians pro-
mote a non–providential or altogether twisted deity. While Paul also has to
deal with the extra muros and overplayed slander that Christians urge to sin,
John’s problem are people from within the Christian community advancing a
less radical misinterpretation. Still, a threat against the idea that God takes sin
seriously was present for John too. The section 1 John 3:6–9 (together with the
preceding verses) effectively works to avert such a threat: those who sin are of
the devil; the true children of God do not sin.
Further, for John the theodicy purpose of utilizing the new obedience idea
lies simply in demolishing the basis of the antinomian misinterpretation of
the free forgiveness in Jesus: contrary to what one might mistakenly think, God
is against sin and his followers are indeed mindful thereof too, namely they do
not sin. For Paul, the new obedience idea is similarly directly connected to this
misconception: as a new creation, a Christian is innately against sin. Because
of the notion of the imprisonment of all humankind in disobedience, however,
Paul has an additional link to the idea. He needs it to explain how the Christian
doctrine can make a distinction between good and bad deeds: while not for
others, for Christians this is a true and valid alternative.
All in all, Paul and John seem to be sowing the same seed here. Being in
Christ/anointed by God changes human beings and makes Christians both
able and willing to attain something that would otherwise be out of their
reach, namely a genuinely righteous life. In the absence of a theodicean moti-
vation, then, a great weight devolves on this change. Despite the various routes
of reasoning, there is a certain similarity in the views of Paul and John on the
70 C. H. Dodd, The Johannine Epistles (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1946), 78–81; Marshall,
Epistles of John, 176; Smalley, John, 154.

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change and on the difference between believers and nonbelievers that the
change effects:
Table 6.1 Parallelism between Paul and John regarding transformation
Nonbelievers Believers
Radical change
Paul cannot do good can do good
but can also fall into sin
John can sin cannot sin
(and also do good?)
Thus, for John, the insistence on perfect compliance can be seen to serve a
function of a diametrically opposite Pauline concept, namely the imprison-
ment in disobedience of those outside Christ. By effecting a miraculous change
in a human being’s life, the anointment and/or the seed or Spirit of God marks
a great divider between people.71 Verses such as 1 John 3:6–9 ascribe crucial im-
portance to the difference between the conduct of true Christians and that of
other people. On the basis of the difference of their conduct, they are divided
into those who are from God and those who are from the devil.72
However, since, according to Paul, Christians can both fall into sin and do
genuinely good deeds, for him it is the other people’s incapability of anything
but sin that enables the highlighting of the crucial change that takes place
when being in Christ. Paul thus takes the tack of positing the “perfect disobe-
dience” and a number of dichotomies as well as toning down the radicalness
of the eschatological covenant. It again seems that the differences in John’s
reasoning are due to the use of a conceptual arsenal more meagre than that
of Paul.
Paul and John thus end up with quite corresponding convictions as regards
the theodicean role of keeping God’s will when seen in light of God’s saving act
in Jesus. The saving act does not impair God’s justness. Neither does it render
71 Schnelle, Human Condition, 138–40.

72 This is exactly what is put forward, for instance, in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and Psalms of Solomon.
With respect to this idea, even a further theodicean use of the eschatological covenant-
obedience can be discerned in 1 John: The new God-effected obedience has made it possi-
ble to “see the difference between the righteous and the wicked,” yearned after by Malachi
(Mal 3:18). There is now, in other words, a tangible basis for the allotment of the divine
justice that Malachi and his people were yearning after.

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keeping God’s will meaningless as such. However, the saving act does dispose
of the theodicean significance of keeping God’s will. In their own ways, Paul
and John were both struggling to construe how free forgiveness does not under
these circumstances lead to an antinomian, unjust picture of Christians them-
selves, of their proffered way of leading life, and of their God.
It is now time to turn to inspect how, considering the substantial change in
the theodicean outlook effectuated, God’s act in Jesus could still be seen as a
continuance of the theodicy of his covenantal acts known of old.
5 Paul’s Last Problem: God’s Promises to Israel
As remarked, the theodicean thoughts Paul puts forward in Rom 3 gain depth
and new aspects even later on. One such section, which perhaps in other ways,
too, is integrally connected with Rom 3, is Rom 9–11. These chapters contain
many samples of the theodicean language of the time and exhibit similarities
to the train of thought in Rom 3. In Rom 9–11 Paul is centrally concerned with
the question of the situation of the Jews after God’s saving act on the cross of
Christ.73 The themes of the section transfer the theodicy of Rom 3 to a particu-
larly Jewish sphere of relevance. Therefore, it is appropriate to consider the
section separately.
The question about the Jews’ situation was preliminarily introduced in
Rom 3:1–8 with apparent reflections on theodicy thinking, many of which now
resurface in Rom 9–11.74 We can mention the statement that God’s word can-
not fail (Rom 9:6; cf. Rom 3:4; see even Rom 11:1–2, 11, 29); the rhetorical ques-
tions “Is there injustice on God’s part?” (Rom 9:14; cf. Rom 3:5) and “Why then
does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” (Rom 9:19; cf. Rom 3:4–5,
7); God’s forbearance in enduring the vessels of wrath to show his glory in the
vessels of mercy (Rom 9:22–23; cf. Rom 3:25–26); God’s justice having become
manifest apart from the law (Rom 9:30–31; cf. Rom 3:21), in Jesus and through
faith in him (Rom 9:30–31; 10:3, 5–7; cf. Rom 3:22, 24–26); the λέγω οὖν, μή …
sentences which stress God’s steadfastness and care for his people (Rom 11:1–2,
11; cf. Rom 3:3); the assurance of the irrevocableness of God’s promises and
calling (Rom 11:29; cf. Rom 3:2, 4); and the restated claim that all people are
confined in disobedience (Rom 11:32; cf. Rom 3:9–19, 23). The concluding re-
mark on the inscrutableness of God’s ways (Rom 11:33–36; cf. Rom 11:25), again,
73 Matera, New Testament Ethics, 191–92.

74 For such continuity with Rom 3, see U. Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer: Teilbd. 2. Röm 6–11
(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980), 201.

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is a common theodicean maneuver utilized to tackle a situation difficult

to explain.
In the block Rom 9–11, Paul reopens the question he raised in Rom 3:1,
“What advantage has the Jew?” but which he could then answer with more
words than substance: “Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews were
entrusted with the oracles of God” (Rom 3:2).75 Rom 9:4–5 now advances a
detailed list of what the Jews as the chosen people of God have got from him.
To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the
law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and
from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all,
God blessed forever. Amen.
The real problem is, however, Paul’s interpretation of the election of the Jews
as an “election of grace” (Rom 11:5, 7) which now rests on the basis of God’s
saving act in Jesus and pertains equally to Jews and Gentiles. What exactly was
God’s purpose with the election of Israel and the giving of the many prom-
ises to her prior to what has now happened in Jesus? What was and now is
the significance of Israel’s special status if all people are put in equal position
through God’s act in Jesus?76 The questions were especially prompted by the
fact, known to the apostle and his readers, that the majority of the Jews kept
rejecting Jesus.77 With reason, one could wonder whether God’s promises had
failed, whether, in fact, his word had been revealed to be untrustworthy. As in
Rom 3:4, Paul categorically denies any such conclusion in Rom 9:6. Now the
denial is followed up by explanations.
First, Paul points out that at any time only a remnant of Israel was to be
saved. This had always been a part of the divine plan and is true even now,
Paul himself exemplifying the few (remnants) who have been rescued.78 Who,
75 Cf. Dodd, Paul to the Romans, 43.

76 According to Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 70, Rom 9:1–5 presents Israel as having
been and remaining distinct from the Gentiles because of its advantages as the chosen
people.
77 Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 69.
78 Cf. Rom 9:27; 11:1. See G. Theissen, “Röm 9–11—Eine Auseinandersetzung des Paulus mit
Israel und mit sich selbst: Versuch einer psychologischen Auslegung,” in I. Dunderberg,
C. Tuckett, and K. Syreeni (eds.), Fair Play: Pluralism and Conflicts in Early Christianity:
Essays in Honour of Heikki Räisänen (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 311–41, here 318–21, who intrigu-
ingly sees Paul as psychologically involved in the argumentation in Rom 9–11: “Wir hören
nacheinander etwas von dem geborenen (9,1ff.) und dem ungläubigen ‘Saulus’ (10,1ff.),
dann von dem erwählten (11,1ff) und missionierenden ‘Paulus’ (11,13)” (Theissen, “Röm
9–11,” 320).

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then, would belong to this small number totally depends on God’s authoritar-
ian decision, which is also something Paul can establish in the Jewish tradition.
Isaac and Jacob were chosen although they were not the elder sons and al-
though nothing could be concluded about their deeds. This was to display the
“purpose of God according to election.” According to Paul, it is precisely due
to God’s election that the remnant now consists of those who believe in Jesus
and who are thus justified by faith.79 In this way, Paul can maintain that there
is a congruity principle in how God acts, namely his free election not based on
works but on the one who calls.
The explanation manages to cast some light both on the refusal of the Jews
to believe in Jesus and on Paul’s claim that faith is the criterion of salvation.
However, it does not rebut suspicions about the relevance of God’s previous
dealings with the Jews. Although God’s current act of salvation in Jesus would
be in line with his former covenantal providence, the purpose of the prior elec-
tion of Israel and the promises given to her is not hereby illuminated. In ad-
dition, Paul’s argumentation prompts a question about God’s (in)justice. To
say that people’s actions, whether good or bad ones, do not have any effect on
gaining God’s favor is to claim that God does not respond righteously, that is,
he is neither just nor providential.
At first sight, the reference to God’s sovereignty, illustrated by the Jeremian
metaphor of God as a potter, does not seem to lead anywhere. It appears only
to accentuate the helpless situation of a human being: “For who can resist his
will?” Nevertheless, if considered against the theodicy of Rom 3 (complement-
ed in Rom 5 by the comparison between Adam and Christ), there emerges a
thought which both upholds God as just and reserves hope for humankind.
Since all the people of the world are truly evildoers, they are all like the ves-
sels of wrath.80 It is only thanks to the divine forbearance that they have not
yet been destroyed.81 God’s justice cannot therefore be questioned even if he
does not have mercy on some people. They are doomed on sound grounds. On
the other hand, irrespective of being Jews or Gentiles, all have been called to
be vessels of glory. Although only some people are saved by God’s grace, who
could blame God for having mercy on those of his free choosing? In view of the
terms of the covenant, Israel, too, has well deserved to be treated as vessels of
79 T. Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination in Pauline Soteriology (Tübingen: Mohr, 1998), 153.
80 Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 156.
81 Romans 11. Cf. Rom 3:26; Rom 9:22. The theme appears throughout in crucial passages of
the theodicean argument. The forbearance will ultimately come to the help of the Jews
too. Thus, it is not the case that Paul’s Christian doctrine had rendered the teaching of
Exod 20:5–6 and Deut 5:9–10 about the consequences of one’s actions obsolete but that it
has affirmed the principle in the terms of Exod 34:6–7.

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116 Holmén
wrath. Hence, even if only a remnant is saved, namely those who have put their
faith in Jesus (being thus according to the “election of grace”), God has indeed
acted righteously and mercifully.
Second, some part of the theodicy is thus perhaps all right, but Paul still
needs another type of explanation in order to substantiate the legacy of the
Jews and thus uphold God as a just and faithful covenant partner. Therefore, he
advances the ideas that the “stumbling” (πταίω) of Israel is not meant to result
in her fall forever (Rom 11:11), and that the “hardening” (πώρωσις) has in fact
brought mercy to the Gentiles (Rom 11:25).
In a way, the conclusion that “all Israel” will yet be accepted into relationship
with God is something Paul was pre-engaged to.82 For, as he states in Rom 11:29,
“the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” The verse frames the whole
discussion in Rom 3 and Rom 9–11 as reflecting the question of God’s trustwor-
thiness especially with respect to the covenant he has made with Israel and
the promises he has thereby granted her. The theodicy of assuring the cov-
enantal guarantee of God’s providence, his unfailing justice and sticking to his
words in contrast to human beings, as prescribed for instance in Num 23:19
and Ps 89:31–35, has all the time been at the background of the discourse.83
However, the reasoning is complicated by the need to integrate God’s new and
foremost intervention in Jesus into the picture. In order to fit all the elements
together, Paul describes Israel’s deliverance as delayed to a specific time in the
future and calls this a mystery. On the other hand, he invests the “stumbling”
that has caused the delay with further meaning by linking it with the salvation
of Gentiles.84 This winding and inscrutable divine providence thus manifests
God’s purpose (see Rom 9:11) with the election of Israel as preparing for his
mercy to reach all the people of the world. Even here Paul sees a certain con-
gruity and symmetry in God’s ways of action:
Just as you [i.e. the Gentiles] were once disobedient to God but have now
received mercy because of their [i.e. the Jews’] disobedience, so they have
82 See Rom 11:15 (πρόσλημψις); BDAG, 883.

83 Cf. Rom 3:3–4; 9:6; 11:29.
84 D. Fraikin, “The Rhetorical Function of the Jews in Romans,” in P. Richardson and
D. Granskou (eds.), Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, Volume 1: Paul and the Gospels
(Calgary: Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 1986), 91–105, here 101, may be
right in pointing out that Israel’s unbelief is an interpretation of the reluctance of some
Jews to accept Jesus. It is a theological event. He even alleges, “If Romans, for instance,
had not included chapters 9 to 11, all we would have is a discourse persuading Jews that
the gospel makes sense. The Jew would remain a candidate for persuasion.” In precise
terms, Paul speaks of a hardening as having come upon a part of Israel. Cf. Rom 11:25.

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now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too
may now receive mercy.
Rom 11:30–31
When then the “full number of Gentiles has come in,” Paul explains, it will
happen that all Israel will be delivered. She will then recognize Jesus as the
Redeemer and become part of the eschatological covenant that takes away all
sins (Rom 11:15).85 So it will be disclosed that God is not a liar but will ultimate-
ly remain faithful to his election of Israel, and that all his promises are true in
Jesus (cf. 2 Cor 1:18–20).
Hence, as to the issue of theodicy, Rom 3 (and 5) and Rom 9–11 pursue an
intricate and ambitious program: to show (a) that God’s saving act in Jesus
does not frustrate the idea of divine providence but that it rather upholds the
idea, and (b) that all this not only is compatible with God’s former dealings
with the Jews but is actually the consummation of what he once initiated with
them and resolves the problems that have persisted with experiencing his cov-
enantal care.86 In short, God does not lie; all his promises are true in Jesus.
6 Concluding Words
Paul’s definition of the theodicy problem—God’s justice is equivalent to

judgment87—can be considered an innovation. For Paul, however, the real nov-
elty is God’s saving act in Jesus. Together these tenets create a new theodicean
situation: Had God acted according to justice, no one would have been saved.
Instead, due to his forbearance and love, he gave his Son and implemented jus-
tice, doom, in him. Therefore, he can refrain from judging all humankind with-
out engendering a theodicy problem, i.e., being a god where there is no justice.
In this situation, however, the theodicean control of human behavior, integral
to the Mosaic covenant, is abolished. From now on, people will not heed God’s
will in order to find the better road to climb, the one clear from trouble and
leading to blessings. They heed it simply because they want to do so and even
because they now do so instinctively. This is the new reality or being of those
who through baptism and faith have become part of God’s saving act in Christ.
85 See n. 82 above.

86 Cf. H. Räisänen, “Römer 9–11: Analyse eines geistigen Ringens,” anrw II.25.4 (1987): 2891–
939, here 2933–34.
87 In other words, all that humankind justly deserves is doom.

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118 Holmén
Nevertheless, the new theodicean situation does not come without prob-
lems. It is not plainly obvious why it will not open doors for a freely antinomian
behavior. The correct appreciation here is also made difficult by the fact that,
as Paul explicitly recognizes, the new reality only applies to the “new creation”
of the believers, not to their “old human being.” So, in contradiction to their
new reality, Christians can also sin, failing to heed God’s will. Furthermore
(although, strictly speaking, outside the scope of the present study), we can
remark that the new theodicean situation also frustrates the difference be-
tween dysteleology and a teleological course of life. The lack of any theodicean
motivation for keeping God’s will simultaneously means that the conventional
signs of a good and blessed road become blurred: irrespective of and even con-
trary to hardships that meet the believers, they can trust that God is with them
(Rom 8:31–39). In fact, the followers of Christ are called to suffer (Rom 5:3; 8:17;
Phil 1:29; also, e.g., 1 Pet 2:20–21).
Hence, a great deal rests with the saving act in Jesus. It deeply alters the
theodicean outlooks of both God and human beings. It radically changes
people, those who become Christians, in their relation to obedience, keeping
God’s will. Finally, this theodicean revolution also casts new light on the elec-
tion of Israel. Eventually, “all Israel” will be saved, but her road to salvation
conceals an almost inscrutable providence. Before God ultimately fulfills the
promises he gave her, and so proves himself just, she will stumble. There will be
but a remnant left, namely those who accept to believe in Christ. For God’s jus-
tice does not exempt the Jews. Outside the saving act in Christ, it must mean
judgment and doom. At this phase, however, the Gentiles will come in. So the
first disobedient will be first while the last disobedient will be last. Yet all will
be included on an equal basis, according to the election of grace.
The new covenant in Christ is substantially different, for it takes place in a
new theodicean situation. Baptism and faith in Christ become a great divider
between people; the relation to obedience lies on a completely new basis; dys-
teleology prevails at least outwardly, since bad things can—or better will—
happen even to those of God’s favor; and the first will be last, Israel only after
the Gentiles. Nonetheless, the covenant in Christ integrally continues God’s
saving acts of old. God stays loyal to all his promises, past and new ones alike.
For this providence of mercy of his, he is justified by the virtue of the saving
act in Christ.

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Chapter 7
The Centrality of Jewish Scripture in Paul’s

Theology: Romans 3 as a Case in Point
Jey J. Kanagaraj
Numerous scholars have argued in various terms that the Scriptures of Israel
play a vital role in formulating Paul’s theology.1 In recent times, study of the
sociological, theological, and hermeneutical background of Paul’s use of
Scripture in his letters has gained momentum. The two-volume publication
of the papers presented in the six-year seminars on “Paul and Scripture” held
in the sbl meetings show scholarly interest to address the issues involved in
Paul’s use of Scripture.2 The views expressed by earlier scholars on the inti-
macy between Paul and Scripture and the renewed focus of modern scholars
on the same subject give us an impetus to examine, by selecting Rom 3 as a test
case, the significance of Scripture for Paul.
In Romans alone Paul uses roughly sixty quotations from and more allusions
to the OT.3 That is, more than a half of the one hundred passages purported to
1 See, for example, C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-structure of New Testament
Theology (London: Nisbet, 1953), 12–13; E. E. Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (London:
Oliver and Boyd, 1957), 10. Surprisingly, in his list of OT quotations, allusions, and parallels
used by Paul (pp. 150–54), Ellis does not mention Rom 3:22–24, 26–31 at all; R. Longenecker,
Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1995; originally Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 104; J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998), 170, 722; K. Snodgrass, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New,” in
D. A. Black and D. S. Dockery (eds.), Interpreting the New Testament: Essays on Methods and
Issues (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 224; L. E. Keck, Romans (antc; Nashville:
Abingdon, 2005), 37–38; C. S. Keener, Romans (nccs; Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2009), 14;
T. R. Schreiner, “Paul: A Reformed Reading,” in M. F. Bird (ed.), Four Views on the Apostle Paul
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 19.
2 See S. E. Porter and C. D. Stanley (eds.), As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (SymS
50; Atlanta, sbl, 2008); C. D. Stanley (ed.), Paul and Scripture: Extending the Conversation
(ECL 9; Atlanta: sbl, 2012).
3 M. A. Seifrid, “Romans,” in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New
Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 607. I use the phrase “Old
Testament” to denote the Bible, the Jewish Scripture, written both in Hebrew (MT) and in
Greek (lxx). The first-century Christians did not have the New Testament yet and hence
were unfamiliar with the term “Old Testament.”

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120 Kanagaraj
have been quoted by Paul in his letters appear in Romans.4 There are different
views on the purpose for which Paul uses scriptural quotations and allusions.
Does he appeal to the OT, as other NT writers do, for apologetic, moral, doc-
trinal, pedagogical, or liturgical reasons?5 Or is his use of scriptural quotations
focused on the problem of God’s saving righteousness in relation to Israel?6
Or is his use of OT quotations and allusions mainly concerned with the rela-
tion of Jews with Gentiles? How is the inclusive salvation of God connected to
his commitment to Israel to which Scripture testifies?7 More importantly, how
does his use of Scripture address the problems in the Roman church at the
time of his writing?
One cannot study the whole letter to the Romans to deal with these is-
sues just in an essay form. I am treating Rom 3 as a gateway for exploring the
scriptural mind of Paul in constructing his theology in Romans. Why Rom 3?
It is chosen not only because the chapter contains a catena of OT citations
more than what we have in Rom 10 and 15, but also because 3:21–26 forms the
heart of the whole of Rom 1:16b–15:13 in general,8 and of 1:18–4:25 in particular,
where justification by faith, witnessed to by the OT, is highlighted.9 Romans
3, which is linked with Rom 1–2 by the connecting particles τί οὖν (3:1), lays
a foundation for Rom 9–11 for the equality of Jews and Gentiles before God.
The two factors, justification by faith and equality of Jews and Gentiles, ex-
pressed in Rom 3, guide the entire course of Paul’s argument in the chapters
following.10 That is, ch. 3 gives its readers a framework for understanding the
rest of the letter.
Before we examine Rom 3, it is necessary for us to learn about the church in
Rome in Paul’s time, thus setting Romans in its historical context.
4 Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 112; Keener, Romans, 16.

5 Cf. C. A. Evans, “The Old Testament in the New,” in S. McKnight and G. R. Osborne (eds.),
The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research (Grand Rapids: Baker;
Leicester: Apollos, 2004), 130.
6 Thus R. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989), 34.
7 Cf. Keck, Romans, 37.
8 C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans 1–8 (icc; London: T&T Clark, 1975), 199.
9 D. J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (nicnt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 29, 90–91,
223.
10 Cf. Seifrid, “Romans,” 622. See also James Morison, A Critical Exposition of the Third
Chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (London: Hamilton, Adams, 1866), a work de-
voted to Rom 3.

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The Centrality of Jewish Scripture in Paul ’ s Theology 121
1 The Church in Rome at the Time of Paul
That there were Christians in Rome even before Paul arrived is clear from
Acts 28:14–16 and Rom 1:7, 15,11 and their faith had already been known in the
whole Mediterranean world (1:8). Paul landed in Puteoli (ca. 60 ce), a seaport
situated about 110 miles away from Rome in the southeast, and stayed with
“brothers” for seven days (Acts 28:14). Two groups of Christians from Rome
came to meet Paul and his companions; one at the Forum of Appius, forty-
three miles from Rome, and the other at Three Taverns, thirty-three miles from
Rome (Acts 28:15). Probably, there existed in Rome more than one Christian
community, especially house churches (cf. 16:3–5, 14–15).
How and when did the church in Rome, with different groups of Christians,
come into being? It was founded neither by Paul (see 1:10–15; 15:22–24) nor by
Peter. There is no written evidence that Peter was evangelizing Rome before
Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, although it is probable that Peter, at least
at the end of his life, labored in the church in Rome.12 Du Toit observes that
Christianity in Rome did not originate from the work of a prominent apos-
tle, for such important sources as Romans, 1 Clement, Ignatius’s Letter to the
Romans, the Shepherd of Hermes, and Justin mention nothing about its apos-
tolic origin.13
In the era before Christ, there was a multitude of Jews living in Rome
(Josephus, War. 2.105; Ant. 17.330) and also in Puteoli (Josephus, War 2.104).
At the time of writing of Romans, about ten percent of the total population
in Rome, which includes slaves, freed men and women, and freeborn, was
Jewish.14 They had been brought to Italy as captives, most of which had become
11 The original presence of the words ἐν Ῥώμῃ in 1:7, 15 is strongly supported by early and
reliable witnesses such as 𝔓10, probably 𝔓26, ‫א‬, A, B, C, D, etc. Later documents G, itg, and
perhaps Origen omit the words. There is an implicit reference to Christians in Rome in
15:22–29. Also, the list of names in Rom 16, which has been convincingly argued as an
original part of Romans, suggests that the letter was written to Christians in Rome. See
Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 6–11; J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16 (wbc 38B; Milton Keynes: Word,
1991), 884–85; Moo, Romans, 53–55.
12 Peter’s reference to ἡ ἐν Βαβυλῶνι may symbolically denote the church in Rome (cf. Rev
17:5). Mark’s Gospel is believed to have been written as a summary of Peter’s preaching in
that city.
13 A. B. du Toit, “‘God’s Beloved in Rome’ (Rom 1:7): The Genesis and Socio-Economic
Situation of the First-Generation Christian Community in Rome,” Neot 32 (1998): 373.
Ambrosiaster (ca. 375 ce), living in Rome, states that the Christians in Rome had accept-
ed Christ without seeing any notable miracles or any of the apostles (Cranfield, Romans
1–8, 17).
14 C. G. Kruse, Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Nottingham: Apollos, 2012), 1. Dunn estimates
that there were 40,000–50,000 Jews in Rome in the mid-first century ce. See J. D. G. Dunn,
Romans 1–8 (wbc 38A; Milton Keynes: Word, 1988), xlvi.

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122 Kanagaraj
Roman citizens through emancipation, even while keeping their Jewish

citizenship (Philo, Legat. 155, 157). The Christian gospel might have reached
Puteoli first and then Rome naturally through Jewish Christian travelers, im-
migrants, merchants, ship’s crews, craftsmen dependent on the shipping in-
dustry, and vendors.15 The plausible view is that “the sojourners from Rome
(οἱ ἐπιδημοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι),” consisting of the Jews, who were either carried to
Rome by Pompey or who remained in Rome due to their profession, and the
proselytes, who were present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, returned to
Rome and planted churches by proclaiming the gospel (Acts 2:10).16 As Jews,
they would have shared the Christian message in the synagogues which, ac-
cording to the first-century inscriptions from the Jewish catacombs in Rome,
were about ten to thirteen.17 If so, then Christianity in Rome originated from
Jewish Christians.
Among the Jewish-Christian travelers were perhaps Aquila and Prisca who,
as tent-makers, had links with commerce and the shipping industry and who
were also actively involved in Christian work as leading figures (Acts 18:1–4, 26;
Rom 16:3–5; 1 Cor 16:19).18 One more couple, Andronicus and Junias19 (Rom 16:7),
could also have worked in Rome.20 Both couples must have preached in the
synagogues that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. Their message would have
brought many Gentiles and God-fearers to faith, although it caused conflict
with the Jews who understood the Christian gospel as a law-free gospel. The
conflict was over the observance of Mosaic law, particularly circumcision and
the dietary laws, and over contact with Gentiles. When Christianity grew to the
extent of having private meetings in homes, the confrontation with the con-
servative Jews was so intensified that it led to a disturbance in Roman society.
By 49 ce the conflict between Jews and Jewish Christians became an issue
to the imperial power. This means that Christianity must have come into Rome
not later than 48 ce. Paul longed for many years to meet Roman Christians
(Rom 15:23; cf. 1:13). If Romans was written around 55–57 ce when Paul was
15 Du Toit, “God’s Beloved in Rome,” 374.

16 E.g. F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary
(2nd ed.; London: Tyndale, 1952), 85.
17 Dunn, Romans 1–8, xlvi; cf. Keener, Romans, 10.
19 For the possibility that Ἰουνίαν is the feminine accusative of Ἰουνία, see Cranfield, Romans
9–16 (icc; London: T&T Clark, 1979), 788. For arguments in favor of Junias as a female
name, see B. J. Brooten, “Junia,” in Carol Meyers (ed.), Women in Scripture (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2000), 107; Linda Belleville, “Iounian … en tois apostolois: A Re-examination of
Romans 16:7 in Light of Primary Source Materials,” nts 51 (2005): 231–49; E. J. Epp, Junia:
The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005).
20 Du Toit, “God’s Beloved in Rome,” 375–77.

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in Greece for three months (Acts 20:2–3), probably by staying in Corinth

(cf. Rom 16:23; 1 Cor 1:14; Acts 19:22; 2 Tim 4:20), then we may suggest that
Christianity would have emerged in Rome in the early 40s.21
However, if the gospel was first preached by those who were present in
Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, it is possible that the Christian message
came to Rome in the mid-30s and that Jews became the first converts, followed
by some God-fearers and Gentiles/proselytes. Perhaps the Jewish Christians
in Rome, who were still a minority, kept a low profile in the synagogues, but
expressed their beliefs freely in house-churches. The “orthodox” Jews, who did
not yet see Christians as a threat to their views and practices, were more tol-
erant than the Jews in Jerusalem who took offence at the temple criticism of
Jewish Christians and their liberal attitude towards the law.22 However, soon
bickering erupted between the “law-abiding” Jews and Christians and it took
the form of a riot that provoked Claudius, the Roman emperor, to expel “all
the Jews” from Rome in 49 ce (Acts 18:2), “as the Jews were indulging in con-
stant riots at the instigation of Chrestus” (Suetonius, Life of Claudius 25.4).23
The word Chrestus could be a corruption of the Greek Christos, referring to
conflicts over the Christian belief that Jesus is the Christos, the Messiah. This
leads us to the question of the constituents of the church in Rome and their
characteristics at the time when Paul wrote his letter to them.
That Christianity emerged in Rome from within the Jewish community24
does not mean that Paul wrote his letter exclusively to the Jewish Christians,
for Romans itself gives evidence for the presence of Gentile believers (e.g.
Rom 1:5–6, 13–15; 11:13–24; 15:15–16). The “law-abiding” Jews, including some of
the Jewish Christians, were boastful of their unique privilege of being God’s
people possessing the law and bearing the mark of circumcision. This tenden-
cy of the Jews caused them to claim over the Gentiles that they were the guides
to the “blind,” a light to “those in darkness,” correctors of the “foolish,” and
teachers of “children” (Rom 2:17–24). At the same time, the Gentile Christians
were boastful of their incorporation into the people of Israel as heirs of the
21 Brown argues for early 40s. See R. E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New
York: Doubleday, 1997), 562.
23 The phrase “all the Jews” need not imply all those who were of Jewish race, for the ex-
pulsion cannot have been implemented on Roman citizens. Aquila the Jew, for example,
could have been a Roman citizen, as his Roman name and his native place, Pontus, which
was in a Roman province (Acts 18:2), indicate. “All the Jews” could refer to all the Jews who
confessed Jesus as Christos.
24 Ambrosiaster reports that the Romans received the faith with a Jewish bent. See Brown,
Introduction, 562. See also C. S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 1: Introduction
and 1:1–2:47 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 850.

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124 Kanagaraj
promises to Abraham and Jacob and as full recipients of God’s gift of righteous-
ness by faith in Jesus as much as Jews are (cf. Rom 11:13–29).25 One may expect
a tension in relationship between the traditional Jews and Gentile Christians
on the one hand, and between the law-abiding Jewish Christians and Gentile
Christians on the other. Inevitably, the letter to the Romans seems to be domi-
nated by the issue of Jew-Gentile relationships.26 Since both the Gentile and
Jewish Christians had a good knowledge of the OT, Paul uses Scripture sub-
stantially throughout Romans.27
After the death of Claudius in 54 ce, the expelled Jews, including Prisca and
Aquila (Rom 16:3), returned to Rome. Scholars presume that in the absence of
the expelled Jewish Christians, the house churches in Rome would have grown
significantly by the addition of more Gentiles and that most of the house
churches would have become largely Gentile in composition.28 Certainly both
the Jewish and the Gentile Christian elements were considerable and there is
no question of majority or minority in number.29 It is reasonable to believe,
however, that the Gentile elements in the churches would have come into
greater prominence during the absence of the Jewish Christians and that the
Christian community, as a result, would have gone away from Jewish obser-
vance of the law, circumcision, and dietary laws.30 The intermingling of Jewish
and Gentile names in Rom 16:3–16 gives the clue that there were mixed Jewish
and Gentile Christian groups in each church.31 This prompted Paul to empha-
size in his letter the equality of Jews and Gentiles in receiving righteousness,
salvation, and judgment from God. He often uses Scripture to press this truth
into the minds of Roman Christians. Was Paul’s purpose of using Scripture
only to stress the equality and unity of Jews and Gentiles? A broader picture
will emerge if we examine Paul’s scriptural references in Rom 3, which serves
as a lens through which we may view Paul’s affinity to Scripture in Romans.
2 Paul and Scripture in Romans 3
2.1 Has God Been Faithful to the Jews, His Covenant People?
Romans 2 ends with Paul’s insistence that the real identity of a Jew lies not in ex-
ternal and physical circumcision but in the spiritual circumcision that happens
25 Cf. Dunn, Romans 1–8, lxiii.

26 Dunn, Romans 1–8, xiv.
27 Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 18–19; Dunn, Romans 1–8, l; Keck, Romans, 38; Keener, Romans, 12.
28 Dunn, Romans 1–8, liii; Kruse, Romans, 2.
29 Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 21.
30 Cf. Moo, Romans, 5.
31 Dunn, Romans 1–8, lvii.

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in the heart (2:29; cf. Deut 10:16; 30:6; Jer 4:4; Acts 7:51). Paul argues using the
rhetoric of diatribe that circumcision would be valuable only if a Jew obeys the
law (2:23–29). But, in reality, they transgress the law. To support this argument
he appeals to Scripture in Rom 2:24 where he quotes Isa 52:5 lxx, with an allu-
sion to Ezek 36:20–23, and reminds that breaking of the law by the Jews led to
the Babylonian exile, which caused God’s name to be blasphemed among the
Gentiles.32 He shows that their own Scripture testifies to the moral failure of
the Jewish people that holds the law as a tool to project themselves as superior
to gentile nations.33 Further, for Paul the uncircumcision of a Gentile will be
reckoned as circumcision, if he keeps the law, and in that case the Gentiles will
condemn the Jews who have written code and circumcision but break the law
(Rom 2:26–27). Such statements may give the impression to a Jew34 that there
is no real advantage, then, of being a Jew. He may question: Is God still faith-
ful to his promises to Israel? If God is the God of Israel through his covenant
by circumcision, how can he give the same privilege to the uncircumcised?
Paul allows Israel’s Scripture to answer such questions throughout Rom 3.
Paul’s imaginary Jewish interlocutor raises two basic questions: Then what
advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? (3:1). These ques-
tions are linked with 2:17–29 by the consecutive (inferential) conjunction οὖν
(3:1), which is often used in a rhetorical question.35 Perhaps all the five ques-
tions that appear in 3:1–9 (vv. 1, 3, 5, 7–8a, 9a)36 cannot be attributed to the
Jewish interlocutor. It is more likely that Paul, as a devout Jew, himself raised
objections and then, as a Christian, made his views clear to the Romans.37
Scripture bears witness to the special privileges of the Jews because God chose
them out of all other nations to be his own people by his covenant made with
a sign of circumcision (Gen 17:6–11; Lev 19:5–6; Deut 7:6; 10:15–16; Isa 43:20–21;
Amos 3:2; Mal 3:17) and therefore to state that there is no advantage for a Jew
or no profit in circumcision would discredit God and his promises revealed
in Scripture. Paul, in fact, categorically claims that the advantage for the Jew
and the value of circumcision are much in every respect, for Scripture itself,
as cited above, attests this claim. The Jews are advantageous not just because
they were chosen by God or because he commanded them to circumcise, but
primarily because they are entrusted with the λόγια of God. The expression
32 Paul is faithful to the context of both the OT passages and uses one to interpret the other.
See Dunn, Romans 1–8, 118.
33 Cf. Kruse, Romans, 168.
34 This Jew could be Paul’s “imaginary Jewish interlocutor.” Keck’s argument (Romans, 84)
that the interlocutor is a diaspora Jew narrows down the focus only to a Jew in Rome.
35 See bdf, 234, 262.
36 Kruse, Romans, 157–59.
37 Moo, Romans, 181.

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126 Kanagaraj
πρῶτον μέν in 3:2 is not followed by the correlative δέ to give continuity,38 and
this means that Paul allows the idea that God entrusted his oracles to stand
absolutely as the first advantage of the Jews.
Τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ simply means “the sayings of God.” In the lxx it is often
used in the sense of “the oracles of God” (e.g. Num 24:4, 16; Deut 33:9; Isa 28:13;
cf. Philo, Conf. 166; Ios. 95; Decal. 16). By arguing that judgment is the vehicle
by which God’s promises of deliverance are secured, Seifrid argues that τὰ
λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ, for Paul, refers to God’s words of judgment that bring a divine
charge against humanity.39 This is untenable, for God’s words of judgment are
directed against all humans (Rom 2:6–11, 15–16) and are not entrusted to the
Jews. For Moo the expression τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ denotes God’s spoken words,
particularly the promises of the OT as a whole, through which he entered
into a special relationship with Jews.40 Keck suggests that Paul had in mind
God’s spoken promises given to Abraham in particular (Gen 12:1–3; 22:15–18).
However, Paul does not use the phrase τὰ ἐπαγγελία in 3:2. Perhaps the key for
the meaning of τὰ λόγια lies in the verb ἐπιστεύθησαν, which carries primar-
ily the sense of stewardship and accountability. God’s oracles were entrusted
to the Jews so that they might proclaim the words of God’s self-revelation to
the world.41 Dunn rightly comments that the phrase τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ refers
to God’s words spoken and written in the Jewish Scriptures, while the Gentile
readers, who were also part of the church in Rome, would think in terms of the
inspired utterances whose mysterious meaning waits to be unlocked by a key.
This means that the Jews were entrusted with the stewardship of safeguarding
the oracles of God until the coming of the key, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which
unlocked the mystery that was otherwise kept hidden until the end-time (cf.
Rom 11:25–27; 16:25–26).42 Paul’s τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ means God’s words spoken
and written in the Jewish Scriptures and revealed fully in Jesus Christ in whom
the end-time has dawned.43
For Paul, then, Jewish Scripture is a collection of the oracles of God, and
the advantage of the Jews lies absolutely in the Scripture entrusted. Thus, Paul
sets Scripture at the beginning of Rom 3 to be the foundation of his theology
38 See bdag, 893; bdf, 232.

39 Seifrid, “Romans,” 614.
40 Moo, Romans, 182–83.
42 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 138–39; Hays (“Echoes of Scripture,” 204 n. 32) accepts that the Jews
had the words containing the oracular quality of the revelation given to Israel, but that
they lacked the hermeneutical key to interpret the oracles rightly.
43 Cf. C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans (2nd ed.; bntc; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1991), 60.

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expressed in that chapter. It is the same Scripture which testifies to the fact that
the faithfulness of God cannot be nullified by the faithlessness of some Jews.
This idea is put in 3:3 as a rhetorical question. The significance in this question
is Paul’s use of τὴν πίστιν τοῦ θεοῦ, rightly translated as “the faithfulness of God”
(cf. Deut 32:4 lxx where πιστός denotes God’s faithfulness). The expression
ἡ πίστις τοῦ θεοῦ is a concept picked up by Paul from the OT,44 leading Paul’s
readers to the Jewish Scripture for understanding the value of “the faithfulness
of God,” for it can only be understood against the backdrop of God’s covenant
made with Israel. The unfaithfulness of some Jews to the covenant is due to
their lack of faith (ἀπιστία) in the “oracles of God,” particularly in the gospel
concerning Jesus Christ, God’s Son, to whom these oracles witness (1:2–6). As a
result, they failed in their stewardship to propagate to other nations the words
of God’s covenant written in their Scripture.
The Jews’ unbelief, however, cannot make God’s faithfulness ineffective.
This is expressed in the form of a rhetorical question which starts with the
negative particle μή (3:3) expecting the answer “no,” and by bringing Scripture
into the fore. For instance, in Hos 2:21–22 lxx, God’s righteousness, justice and
faithfulness (πίστις) are promised to Israel which committed whoredom by for-
saking the Lord (see Neh 9:32–33; cf. Hos 6:7 with Hos 11:1–12). Paul denies that
God’s faithfulness is destroyed by Israel’s faithlessness by the exclamation μὴ
γένοιτο (3:4a).
The idea that God is always faithful to his promise is reinforced by Paul by
an emphatic imperative, “Let God be true,” whose sense is based on Scripture
(3:4a; cf. Exod 34:6; Deut 32:4 lxx; Mic 7:20). The imperative γινέσθω denotes “a
vigorous way of stating the true situation”45 that God, by nature, is true to his
words entrusted to the Jews. In the court of judgment, God is always right and
his integrity/truthfulness, which Keck calls “the otherness of God,” is proved
precisely by every human’s lack of integrity/truthfulness.46 Paul proves the un-
truthfulness of all humans, not merely of Israel, by using Ps 115:2b lxx: πᾶς
ἄνθρωπας ψεύστης. The psalmist says so in the context of his recounting his
affliction, followed by the Lord’s deliverance. What the psalmist said in his dis-
tress is applied by Paul to the falsehood of all human beings vis-a-vis God’s
truthfulness to his promises.
Paul reiterates God’s character of faithfulness by citing Ps 50:6 lxx with the
introductory formula καθὼς γέγραπται: “In order that you may be justified in

45 Moo, Romans, 186 n. 45.
46 Keck, Romans, 91–92.

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128 Kanagaraj
your words, and prevail while you are judging (in the court of law)” (3:4b).47 He
uses in his quotation the future indicative νικήσεις, a reading well attested by
more reliable manuscipts, in the place of the lxx’s aorist subjunctive νικήσῃς.
Did he quote from his memory? It does not seem so, for he follows the lxx
correctly in other parts of the verse. Grammatically, the future indicative can
be used in a final/purpose clause.48 Moreover, Paul renders the Hebrew zakah
“to be pure” with the Greek νικάω “to triumph.” Although Moo ascribes this to
the influence of Aramaic and Syriac,49 it is more probable that it reflects the
faithful use of the lxx by Paul.
The passive κρίνεσθαι in the quotation conveys the triumph of God by prov-
ing himself right when he is put on trial. However, it could be taken as a mid-
dle conveying the active sense, “when God judges” (see Ps 51:5b MT; cf. lxx
Isa 50:8; Jer 2:35; 32:31).50 Paul always presents God as the judge and not as the
one who is judged (Rom 2:3, 5–11, 16). This means that God vindicates himself
as just and true over against human faithlessness in the court of judgment. In
citing Ps 50:4b lxx, Paul preserves the same idea of David’s confession of his
untruthfulness to God that proved God to be just in his words and blameless in
his judgment.51 God’s faithfulness was revealed both in his forgiveness offered
to a repentant sinner and in his justice exercised on human unfaithfulness
(2 Sam 12:13–14). Now Paul applies David’s moral failure to the faithless attitude
of some Jews to highlight the enduring faithfulness of God to his covenant.
It seems, then, that Paul’s use of Scripture in 3:4 answers his question posed
in 3:3. Paul’s opening declaration that God remains faithful even if his people
become unfaithful to God’s covenant is thus rooted in Scripture.52 In citing the
scriptural passage, Paul, as a Jew, preserves its original meaning in the Hebrew
Bible, even while he, as an Apostle, uses the Greek version that was widely
read in the Greco-Roman world. There is an inter-play of Paul’s Hebraic and
Hellenistic background in his use of Scripture!
The two questions raised in 3:5 have parallels in 3:3: the ἡ ἀπιστία of 3:3 is re-
placed by ἡ ἀδικία in 3:5 and τὴν πίστιν τοῦ θεοῦ is replaced by θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην,
47 Paul’s use of the passive δικαιωθῇς for the Hebrew Qal static and his substantive λόγοις for
the Hebrew verbal form (Moo, Romans, 186 n. 49) show that Paul used the lxx rather than
the MT version.
48 See bdf, §369 [3].
49 Moo, Romans, 186–87 n. 49.
50 Moo, Romans, 187 n. 49; Seifrid, “Romans,” 615.
51 Given the court-room imagery, it was precisely David’s conviction of his sin that showed
that God was in the right, because the accused lost the case before God, the Judge. Cf.
Keck, Romans, 92.
52 Seifrid, “Romans,” 615.

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while the third person plural, which refers to unfaithful Jews in 3:3, is replaced
by the first person plural in 3:5, since Paul includes himself among other Jews.
His view that the unfaithfulness of some Jews will not nullify the faithfulness of
God (3:3) may prompt from the interlocutor the questions: “If our unrighteous-
ness brings out God’s righteousness, what shall we say? Is God who inflicts
wrathful punishment upon us unjust?” (3:5). Paul’s strong denial μὴ γένοιτο and
the transitional clause, “What shall we say?” show that Paul himself formu-
lates this objection. The phrase θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην has a strong OT background.
However, in 3:5 it does not mean God’s saving righteousness, but it means, as
the context shows, God’s faithfulness to his own word. Even God’s justness is in
line with the theocentric focus of Scripture.53
If human wickedness prompts God’s faithfulness, then one may humanly
judge that God is acting unjustly. By rejecting such an argument, Paul raises his
third question: If God acts unjustly, “how then would God judge the world?”
(3:6). Paul draws from Scripture the thought that God, the eschatological judge
of the world, always acts justly and with uprightness (Gen 18:25; Deut 32:4;
Job 8:3; 34:10–13, 17, 23; Ps 9:7–8; Isa 2:4a; etc.).54 Paul also denies that if God’s
truthfulness abounds to his glory in human falsehood, the unfaithful Jews can-
not be condemned as sinners and that they can do evil so that good may come
out of God’s unfading righteousness (3:7–8). On the one hand, God is just in
judging all people according to their deeds (Rom 2:6–11, 16) and on the other
hand, he has not abandoned his purpose for his people, Israel, his saving out-
reach through them to the world, and his continuing faithfulness to them de-
spite their wickedness. Paul hangs on firmly to both these axioms which seem
to run counter to each other,55 because they are scriptural. They echo, for ex-
ample, Lev 26:40–45; Num 20:10–13, 24–28; 27:12–23; 2 Sam 12:13–14; 1 Kgs 11:11–
13; 21:29 where God’s condemnation on the wrong done and his faithfulness to
his covenant made with his people to preserve them are pinned together. Thus,
Scripture has been the driving force for Paul to formulate his logical arguments
and rhetorical questions. He is so saturated with Scripture that he spontane-
ously echoes it even in a diatribe style which he inherited from Greek philoso-
phy. Paul warns that God’s condemnation falls justly on the Jews and Gentiles,
both of whom constitute the church in Rome, if they abuse God’s goodness/
faithfulness by justifying their wickedness.
53 Cf. Moo, Romans, 189–91.

54 Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 184–85; Kruse, Romans, 162.
55 See Dunn, Romans 1–8, 142.

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130 Kanagaraj
2.2 What Did Go Wrong with Human Beings?

Paul’s argument in 3:1–8 is linked with 3:9–17, where a catena of OT passages is
used, with two simple questions—τί οὖν; and προεχόμεθα;56—followed by his
own answer, οὐ πάντως “not altogether” in 3:9 (cf. 1 Cor 5:10). The advantages
which Paul lists in 3:1–2 and 9:4–5 do not make the Jews altogether superior to
the Gentiles, for those advantages are entrusted to the Jews only to fulfill God’s
plan of salvation to all people. Since both groups are already charged that
they are under the powerful rule of sin (5:12, 21; 6:6, 12–23; 7:8–11, 14; Gal 3:22),
they are equally liable to God’s judgment. That Jews and Gentiles are equally
bearing sinful human nature looks back to 3:4 (“Everyone is a liar”) as well as
to 1:18–2:29 and looks forward to 3:10–12, 23. The idea of slavery imposed on
people because of their sins alludes to Isa 50:1, where the Lord says to Israel,
“Because of your sins you were sold,” implying their slavery in Babylon. What
was true of the exiled Jews is also true of Jews and Greeks (i.e. Gentiles) who
are all slaves to sin. Seifrid argues that since Paul has already used the image of
the exile in 2:24 where he cites Isa 52:5b to describe human fallenness, the same
image of exile shapes his language in 3:9. The corollary is that Paul’s witness
that all humans are under the power of sin is an echo of the voice of Scripture.57
Paul establishes his argument for the equality of all humanity despite several
advantages the Jews hold (3:1–2; 9:4–5) not merely by echoing scriptural pas-
sages but by plainly citing them. In the context of Paul’s indictment of human
sinfulness, the catena of quotations provides a powerful rhetorical warrant to
bolster his position.58
The catena, introduced by καθὼς γέγραπται (cf. 1:17; 3:4; 15:9), is the longest
citation of Scripture in all of Paul’s letters. It contains seven citations, five of
them from the Psalms, one from Ecclesiastes and one from Isaiah, all taken
from the lxx. This collection of thematically linked verses resembles what
the rabbis called “pearl-stringing.” Some have suggested that the citation is
a pre-Pauline collection of an early Christian psalm or “florilegium,” used in
Christian worship.59 However, it is highly probable that Paul himself, as one
who was familiar with the Jewish midrash of linking texts based on a common
key word and concept, formulated his own catena of OT passages60 and placed
56 Προεχόμεθα, a reading which is better attested, is to be taken as an intransitive middle

with the active meaning “to excel,” or “to have advantage or pre-eminence.” See Cranfield,
Romans 1–8, 188–90; Kruse, Romans, 163–64.
57 Seifrid, “Romans,” 615–16; cf. Keener, Romans, 54.
58 Hays, “Echoes of Scripture,” 50.
59 E.g. Moo, Romans, 202; Keck, Romans, 95–96; Kruse, Romans, 165 n. 290.
60 Cf. Keener, Romans, 54.

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it in 3:10–18. Paul, the Jew, cannot help but to draw sources from Scripture to
articulate his anthropology and theology.
The emphatic phrase οὐκ ἔστιν appears four times in 3:10–12, and some man-
uscripts (A B G Ψ, etc.) read οὐκ ἔστιν also at the beginning of the third line of
3:12. Romans 3:10b–12 is the first strophe of the catena consisting of two sets
of three lines (vv. 10b–11 and v. 12).61 The very first line in the catena, οὐκ ἔστιν
δίκαιος οὐδὲ εἷς (“No one is righteous, not even one”), seems to quote Ps 13:1 lxx
(οὐκ ἔστιν ποιῶν χρηστότητα, οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός = “There is no one who does kind-
ness, not even one”; cf. Ps 52:2b lxx). However, Paul replaces ποιῶν χρηστότητα
with the word δίκαιος, adopted from Eccl 7:20, in order to endorse his argu-
ment that the Jewish national understanding of themselves as “the righteous”
is a misunderstanding of covenant privilege and responsibility.62 What Paul
expressed in positive terms in 3:9 (“All, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin”) is
underlined in the OT quotation in 3:10 with a double negative.
It is notable that Paul uses two scriptural texts, Ps 13:1 lxx and Eccl 7:20
lxx, which interpret each other, a practice that seems to be similar to gezerah
shawah (“rule of equivalence”), prevalent among the Jewish rabbis.63 Romans
3:10 echoes also Mic 7:2 lxx, which reads καὶ κατορθῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις οὐκ ὑπάρχει
(“None exists among human beings who comes out right”). Paul freely abbrevi-
ates the OT texts to sharpen his point that all are so much under the power of
sin that no one can claim oneself righteous (cf. 3:23).
The universal sin comes into focus in 3:11 with the statement that there is
no one who understands, no one who seeks after God (οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ συνίων, οὐκ
ἔστιν ὁ ἐκζητῶν τὸν θεόν). This answers the question implied in Ps 13:2 lxx,
which states, “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to
see if there is any who understands or seeks after God” (cf. Ps 52:3 lxx). Paul
omits the preamble in Ps 13:2a (= Ps 52:3a) to highlight his point that no one is
righteous before God, because all humans have failed to understand and seek
after God. He quotes Ps 13:3a lxx (= Ps 52:4 lxx) to emphasize that Jews are
sinful equally with all other nations, as it is confirmed by the word πάντες in
3:12. Failure to understand alludes to Isa 6:9 where the Lord chides Israel for
her non-understanding. There are numerous OT references for “seeking God,”

62 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 150.
63 See Evans, “The Old Testament in the New,” 132; D. L. Bock, “Scripture Citing Scripture: Use
of the Old Testament in the New,” in D. L. Bock and B. M. Fanning (eds.), Interpreting the
New Testament Text: Introduction to the Art and Science of Exegesis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway,
2006), 260. Note the common words οὐκ ἔστιν and ποιεῖν used in both Ps 13:1b lxx and
Eccl 7:20 lxx with the same anthropological meaning and also the phrase ἐν γενεᾷ δικαίᾳ
used in Ps 13:5 lxx to denote those who are in right relationship with God by doing good.

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132 Kanagaraj
which means coming to God with repentance and love (e.g. Exod 33:7; 2 Chr
15:12–13, 15; Ezra 8:22).64 Although Paul cites only Ps 13:2b, the theological sig-
nificance of seeking God includes other OT passages as well. What was spoken
of the Israelites is presented by Paul as a universal fact. Paul perhaps follows, in
his use of Scripture, the rabbinic pesher technique named qal wahomer (“light
and heavy”)65 or “the one in the many,”66 and thereby he treats Israel as a na-
tion that represents the whole world in its sinfulness. For Paul Scripture is a
reflection of the human situation of his time and indeed that of all times. He pre-
serves the ποιῶν χρηστότητα of Ps 13:1 lxx in Rom 3:12, though he substitutes
it with δίκαιος in 3:10, to mean that failure to do good works is the character-
istic of fools who do not have a right standing before God to be recognized as
“righteous.” Even those who have accomplished good works remain still un-
righteous in the sight of God, for all humans, both Jews who have the law and
Gentiles who do not, fall short of God’s glory as they all bear Adam’s nature (cf.
Rom 3:23). Paul’s use of Scripture underscores the argument of Rom 2:1–3:8
that not even the faithful Jews can claim to be righteous.67
Following this argument, Paul projects various aspects of human sin which
prevent people from being found righteous in God’s judgment (Rom 3:13–18).
Again he cites Scripture, which shows the danger marked by human speech
and conduct. He draws scriptural passages which speak of five parts of the
body among which throat, tongues, lips, and mouth are concerned with
human speech and feet with human conduct.68 For some unknown reason,
Paul omits καρδία, the vital organ that directs human behavior, although it is
mentioned in Ps 5:10a lxx. Instead, he cites Ps 5:10b lxx in Rom 3:13 so that
he may pinpoint the wickedness of all human beings, not merely of David’s
enemies of whom Ps 5 speaks, in their harmful speech against one another. In
fact, corrupt words themselves come out of one’s heart (Isa 59:13; Matt 12:34;
15:18; Luke 6:45; cf. Eph 4:29). Whereas the Jews spoke highly of their election
and covenant relationship with God attested by the law and circumcision, the
Gentile Christians were boasting of their privilege of having right relationship
with God without Mosaic law and circumcision (cf. Rom 11:11–32). Paul attacks
this kind of boasting by using Scripture which testifies to the moral failure of
all people and not merely of one particular group.
64 See other OT references in Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 192.

65 Evans, “The Old Testament in the New,” 132.
66 Bock, “Scripture Citing Scripture,” 261–62.
67 Kruse, Romans, 168.
68 Cf. Seifrid, “Romans,” 616; Moo, Romans, 203–4; Keener, Romans, 54–55.

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In Rom 3:13b Paul quotes exactly Ps 139:4b lxx where the psalmist accuses
his enemies as those who have the venom of vipers under their lips. Paul in-
terprets this complaint broadly as a complaint against all human beings who
attack others with poisonous words. Romans 3:14, which completes the second
strophe of the cento, is a quotation of Ps 9:28a lxx in its abbreviated form. The
quotation is a tiny portion of the psalmist’s prayer complaining against the
detrimental use of the mouth either by the wicked in Israel or by the foreign
oppressors of Israel. Paul concludes the second strophe by applying the wick-
edness in speech widely to all human beings.
In Paul’s single-lined statements in Rom 3:15–17, there is a shift from human
speech to human conduct. Verse 15 is an abridgment of Isa 59:7a lxx, which is
parallel to Prov 1:16 lxx. Paul uses different connecting particles and vocabu-
laries, but preserves the OT idea. He uses ὀξεῖς ‘swift’ instead of the lxx’s ταχινοί
‘quick’. In 3:16–17 he closely follows Ps 59:7b–8a lxx, although he replaces the
lxx’s οἴδασιν with ἔγνωσαν, which carries the same meaning. Paul’s use of dif-
ferent vocabularies indicates either that he quotes the lxx from his memory
or that he takes freedom to use different words and omit certain expressions in
order to focus on the fact that Jews are in no way excluded from the sinfulness
of other nations. The latter is more probable. The context of Isa 59 is God’s
complaint against Israel for their iniquities (vv. 2–3, 12–13), injustice (vv. 4, 8–9,
11, 14–15), murderous acts (vv. 5–7), lack of truth (vv. 4, 14–15), ignorance of
God’s way of peace (v. 8a), and his righteous judgment against Israel and her
adversaries (vv. 18–19).69 The context of Prov 1:16 is God’s instruction to be cau-
tious towards sinners. Paul’s quotation follows the original context of Scripture
to highlight the wickedness of the Jews of his time and also to expose the sin-
ful nature broadly of all nations. Paul points out the cruel nature of human
behavior (“their feet are swift to shed blood” [3:15]) and the eschatological de-
struction that awaits those who walk in evil ways (“in their paths are ruin and
misery” [3:16]). He accuses human beings that by following their own ways,
they are ignorant of the way of peace (3:17).
Paul concludes the catena by showing the basis for human failure, namely,
lack of fear of God before human eyes (Rom 3:18),70 with the quotation from
Ps 35:2b lxx. In Ps 35:2 lxx, transgression is personified as the one who speaks
to a sinner that there is no fear of God before his eyes. Then it describes his
sinfulness in words and deeds (vv. 2–5). However, Paul cites Ps 35:2b lxx to
describe the violence and wickedness of all people by substituting “before his
69 Cf. Dunn, Romans 1–8, 151.

70 Lack of fear of God is the ground of evils in the whole list of Paul. See Keck, Romans, 97;
Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 195.

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134 Kanagaraj
eyes” of the lxx and MT with “before their eyes.” What is true with one sin-
ner is true with all human beings. Paul thus uses Scripture with a broader vi-
sion, for he knows that Scripture speaks to all people without distinction. “The
fear of God” is an important motif in Jewish Scripture (e.g. Gen 22:12; Deut 6:2;
Prov 1:7; T. Levi 13.1; 1QH XII, 3).71 The Hebrew word paḥat “fear” in Ps 36:2 MT
may refer to the terrors of (eschatological) divine judgment.72 “Eyes” usually
direct human steps in life. For Paul the fear of God has no part in directing
the life of violent and wicked people. Consequently, they come under the ter-
rors of divine judgment. A string of OT quotations listed by Paul in Rom 3:10–
18, then, supports his argument that all people are “under the power of sin”
(3:9b). Scripture condemns all and, more precisely, it undermines the Roman
Christians’ reading of the Scriptures with a clear distinction between the righ-
teous (the Jews) and the unrighteous (the Gentiles).73 Paul seeks to convince
his readers that the fault of all humans, according to Scripture, lies in their
sinful behavior toward God and toward one another. His rhetorical purpose of
constructing scripture-oriented theology in Rom 3 is quite evident.
Paul’s theological argument, which is well attested by Scripture, that the
Jews do not have any advantage over Gentiles in their standing before God,
continues in Rom 3:19–20, which concludes Paul’s argument in 3:10–18 and
which simultaneously links it with what he unfolds in 3:21–31. The word νόμος
in 3:19–20 occurs four times, meaning collectively the whole Jewish Scripture
and not simply the OT verses quoted in 3:10–18.74
To continue his argument, Paul appeals to the common knowledge among
the Jews that whatever their Scripture says speaks to those who are “in the
law,” implying the Jews who are bound by God’s covenant to live within the law
(3:19a; cf. 2:12). That is, Scripture testifies that the Jews are not exempted from
sin and therefore they do not have a special defense at God’s judgment in his
court of law.75 The Jewish nation’s boast is defined in the texts roughly from the
Second Temple period (e.g. 2 Macc 8:36; 2 Bar. 48:22b; CD VII, 4–6; Wis 15:2)
as Israel’s confidence in God’s election through the covenant made with them
and their obedience to the law in contrast to the Gentiles who are, without the
law, doomed to destruction.76 This kind of boasting was prevalent among Jews,
71 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 151; cf. Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 195 n. 1.
72 G. Wanke, “φόβος,” in tdnt 9:204.
74 That is probably why Paul does not cite from the Pentateuch, which narrates the story of
the giving of the Law. See also Barrett, Romans, 66.
76 See S. Gathercole, Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in
Romans 1–5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), esp. 194.

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particularly in the church in Rome, during Paul’s time (cf. 3:27). He shows how
Scripture itself speaks against such boasting and quickly links the Jews’ sinful
nature, attested by their own Scripture, with the inability of the whole world to
defend itself before God when he judges.
Scripture speaks in order that every mouth might be stopped and the whole
world might be held accountable to God (Rom 3:19). The wording, “every
mouth might be stopped,” is an echo of Ps 62:12c lxx: “For the mouths of those
who speak lies [literally ‘unjust things’] have been stopped”77 (see Job 5:16
lxx; Ps 106:42 lxx for similar language). When David was in the wilderness
of Judah, he called those who sought to destroy his life “liars” whose mouths
will be stopped. Paul uses this same language to address the Jews that their
mouths, which boast of their covenant and possession of law, will be shut at
God’s judgment. They will have no words to say to defend themselves to the
charges brought against them.78 The same is true, for Paul, with everyone in
the world. That is, if Jews cannot escape from sin’s tyranny, it surely follows
that the rest of humanity, which has no claim on God’s favor, is also guilty.79 In
this case, πᾶς ὁ στόμα is conceptually equivalent to πᾶς ὁ κόσμος in 3:19. Again,
Paul derives the universal truth from what is true, according to Scripture, with
God’s chosen community.
Paul proceeds in Rom 3:20 to introduce a confirmation from Scripture of
what he said in 3:19, as the connecting particle διότι shows. By using Ps 142:2b
lxx (ὅτι οὐ δικαιωθήσεται ἐνώπιόν σου πᾶς ζῶν), he advances his argument that
no human being will be justified before God by works of the law. Paul turns
David’s prayer in the Psalm into a theological statement. He replaces πᾶς ζῶν
found in Ps 142:2b lxx with πᾶς σάρξ, echoing scriptural texts. The Hebrew
word bāśār is often used in the OT to denote human beings in their frailty
and mortality (e.g. Gen 6:3; 2 Chr 32:8; Job 10:4; Ps 78:39; Jer 17:5) and kol bāśār
denotes all humankind (e.g. Gen 6:12, 13; Ps 145:21; Isa 40:5, 6).80 Paul adds the
phrase ἐξ ἔργων νόμου as he has done in Gal 2:16. Thus, Paul freely uses Scripture
by adding or changing or omitting certain words and phrases to suit his theol-
ogy, but without altering the basic point of the OT passage(s) that he quotes
or echoes or alludes to. In the context of God’s judgment in his court of law
77 Seifrid, “Romans,” 617–18.

78 Cf. Moo, Romans, 205.
79 Moo, Romans, 206. I do not find Paul arguing “from the greater to the lesser,” as Moo
thinks. In contrast, Paul seems to use the midrashic interpretation which suggests that
what is true in a less important case will certainly be true in a more important case. That
is, Paul argues “from the lesser to the greater.” See Evans, “The Old Testament in the New,”
132.

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136 Kanagaraj
to declare a person righteous before him (3:19), the verb δικαιωθήσεται could
mean God’s declaration of a person “righteous” in his judgment, both present
and future (cf. Rom 2:13). Paul’s statement that no human being will be justi-
fied before God by works of the law implies that there were some Jews who
believed that they could be justified by God through obedience to the law. Paul
perhaps addresses those Jews by stating that no one can earn salvation by per-
forming good works, that is, by fully obeying the law.
The meaning of ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, which has been the subject of considerable
debate as regards Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith, throws light also on
the first-century Judaism against which Paul reacted in Romans. E. P. Sanders
argues that the Judaism of Paul’s time was not a legalistic and merit-based re-
ligion in which one needed to earn acceptance with God through good works.
The covenant made by God with Israel was not an achievement of human
merit, but Israel had the responsibility to maintain the covenant standing by
obedience to the law. Sanders coins the phrase “covenantal nomism” to em-
brace two aspects: the divine initiative of God’s choice of a “not people” (cov-
enant) and the response of obedience required from that people (nomism).81
Sanders’s reconsideration of the pattern of religion of Second Temple
Judaism has been hailed by James Dunn as “the New Perspective on Paul.”
He argues that Paul’s theology is a polemic directed not against the idea of
achieving God’s acceptance by merits of personal achievement, but against
the Jewish intention to safeguard the privilege of covenant from being dissi-
pated or contaminated by non-Jews. According to Dunn, what troubled Paul
was that the law functioned not only as a guide for Israel’s conduct but also as
a boundary marker (particularly circumcision, keeping the religious calendar,
and observing the dietary laws) that distinguished and separated Israel from
other nations (cf. Rom 2:17–20; 3:29–30; Gal 2:12–16).82 He comments that in
3:20 the connection of thought does not run directly from “works of the law”
to “shall be justified,” such that we should consider the “works of the law” as
a means to achieving righteousness and acquittal. He suggests that there is a
hidden middle term in 3:20 between “works of the law” and “will be justified”
and that this term would imply that “works of the law” is a way of identifying
and maintaining a Jew’s status within the people of Israel, God’s chosen race.83
81 See Dunn, “Paul’s Theology,” 335; E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison
of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).
82 J. D. G. Dunn, “The New Perspective on Paul,” BJRL 65 (1983): 95–122; the same essay
has been reprinted with an additional note in Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in
Mark and Galatians (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), 183–214; cf. Dunn, “Paul’s
Theology,” 336.

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Dunn interprets the phrase “works of the law” against the socio-historical con-
text (i.e. the Jew-Gentile division) in which Paul wrote Romans.
N. T. Wright, who critically analyzes Dunn’s view, agrees that the phrase
“works of the law,” the possession of which provided the Jews with the badge of
being God’s special people with covenant membership, included the Sabbath,
the food laws, and circumcision which marked out the Jews from their gentile
neighbors.84 However, texts such as Rom 2:17–24; 3:9–20; 11:6 show that the ex-
pression “works of the law” needs to be understood in a broader sense than in
the specific sense of “badges of Judaism.”85 It denotes the carrying out of all
those things that the law requires. Dunn himself agrees that “works of the law”
refer not exclusively but particularly to those requirements (e.g. circumcision
and food laws) which bring out the distinctiveness of Israel’s identity in a con-
text where the relationship of Israel with other nations is at issue.86
4QMMT, which is known as “some of the observances (works) of the law”
(Miqsat Maʿaseh Ha-Torah; 4QMMT 113=4Q398 2 II, 3), reckons a person as
“righteousness when you perform what is right and good before him” (4QMMT
117=4Q398 2 II, 7),87 implying the observance of the law in terms of ritual purity.
It is possible, then, that when Paul wrote Romans, law-abiding Jews and some
Jewish Christians treated observances of the law, with all their ritual purity,
as their ethnic identity. Nevertheless, by the phrase ἐξ ἔργων νόμου in Romans
Paul seems to mean generally the observance of the Ten Commandments (cf.
2:17–24; 7:7–12) and particularly the ritual observances such as circumcision
(cf. 2:25–29), food-laws, and calendar events (cf. 14:1–6). Such observances of
the law not only caused them to boast of their assumed status as teachers
of the law (2:17–21), but also separated them from Gentile Christians’ damag-
ing the unity in the Church.
At the same time, the inability of the Jews to fulfill the precepts of the law
can hardly be ignored. Paul insists that it is their disobedience to the law, in the
same manner as the Gentiles, which renders the Jews liable to judgment (2:1–
29). When Paul affirms that no human being will be justified by works of the
84 N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in
L. E. Keck et al. (eds.), The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 10:395–770;
cf. Gathercole, Where is Boasting? 193–94.
85 Cf. M. B. Thompson, The New Perspective on Paul (rev. ed.; Cambridge: Grove, 2010), 11;
Moo, Romans, 214.
86 J. D. G. Dunn, “Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law (Galatians 3:10–14),” in his The
New Perspective on Paul (rev. ed.; Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2005), 223; idem, Theology of
Paul, 358, esp. n. 97.
87 Translation in G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic,
1995), 182. The phrase the works of the law, used in 4QFlor I.7(=4Q174), and his deeds in law,
used in 1QS V, 21; VI, 18, do not show exact parallel to Paul’s usage.

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138 Kanagaraj
law (3:20), he has in mind the larger and more basic problem of the transgres-
sion of the law.88 Disobedience of the law, for Paul, is not simply a Jewish prob-
lem, but is an anthropological issue, as known from πᾶσα σάρξ. No one is able
to do the law sufficiently well in order to gain acceptance with God and only by
faith in Christ can any human be declared righteous before God.89 What is the
function of the law then? For Paul, the prime purpose of the law is to expose
human sin (3:20; cf. 7:7–12). The law reveals sin as a power that holds everyone
in bondage and brings guilt and condemnation.90 The law, by exposing sin,
drives a person to faith in Jesus Christ in order to be justified before God. Paul
continues to use Scripture as an authoritative source and sees its fulfillment
in the Christ-event, the hermeneutical key for understanding scriptural texts.
2.3 How Did God Deal with Human Failure and Manifest His
Righteousness?
God’s manifestation of his righteousness and his act of justifying those who
have faith in Jesus is the essence of the gospel and the theme of Romans (1:16–
17). This theme is logically explained in Rom 3:21–26, a passage which consti-
tutes the center and heart of the whole of Rom 1:16b–15:13.91 Paul uses the noun
δικαιοσύνη four times (3:21, 22, 25, 26), the verb δικαιόω twice (3:24, 26), and the
adjective δίκαιος once (3:26). Again, Scripture plays a central role in displaying
Paul’s theology of righteousness, although no passage from the OT is cited.
After pinpointing the scriptural teaching that all humans are under the
power of sin and that no one will be justified by works of the law (Rom 1:18–
3:20), Paul affirms, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested
apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it” (3:21).
With the connecting particles νυνὶ δέ, he draws a temporal contrast to mark a
transition that has taken place now from the eschatological wrath of God (1:18)
to the end-time salvation (5:9–11; 8:1; 11:30–31; 13:11).92 There is also a contrast
between justification ἐξ ἔργων νόμου of 3:20 and justification χωρὶς νόμου of 3:21.
Χωρὶς νόμου (“without the law”) appears in an emphatic position. The righ-
teousness of God has now been manifested “outside the national and religious
parameters set by the law, without reference to the normal Jewish hallmarks.”93

89 Cf. Moo, Romans, 209–10.
92 See Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 201; Barrett, Romans, 69; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 164. The two par-
ticles do not seem in this context to have rhetorical force, though a logical contrast (“But
as it is …”) at the secondary level is possible.

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This means that Gentiles may also enjoy the benefit of God’s saving action
without following the demands of Mosaic law.94 Faith in Jesus becomes the
common factor, for Jews and Gentiles alike, by which a person may be declared
“righteous” by God and may become a part of God’s covenant relationship in-
dependently of the Torah (3:22, 28; cf. 1:16–17; 4:1–5, 6–8).
The expression δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ can rightly be understood only in the light
of the OT, since the law and the prophets bear witness to the manifestation of
God’s righteousness. The couplet “the law and the prophets” denotes the whole
OT which predicts and attests God’s work in Jesus to reckon all who believe
as righteous (see Matt 5:17; 7:12; 22:40; Acts 24:14; 28:23).95 Paul pictures in
Rom 3:21–26 both the continuity and discontinuity in salvation history: God’s
justifying activity in the new age takes place outside the confines of the Old
Covenant, but at the same time Scripture as a whole anticipates and predicts
God’s new work in Christ.96
There are at least three aspects of God’s righteousness,97 attested by
Scripture, which have direct relevance for understanding Rom 3:21–26.
First, God’s righteousness is his covenant faithfulness to his relationship with
Israel even while the latter failed to obey the law (3:3–9; 9:1–29). Δικαιοσύνη in
the lxx translates the Hebrew ṣeḏeḳ and ṣeḏāḳāh, which essentially denote
the concept of relation.98 The “righteousness of God” indicates the relation-
ship between God and his people bound by the covenant he made with them
to elect, guide, and deliver Israel and to punish their enemies (e.g. Exod 9:27;
1 Sam 12:7; Dan 9:16; Mic 6:5). It denotes his covenant faithfulness and his sav-
ing grace to sustain them within that covenant (e.g. Pss 31:1; 35:24; 51:14; 65:5;
71:2, 15; 98:2; 143:11; Isa 45:8, 21; 46:13; 51:5, 6, 8; 62:1–2; 63:1, 7; cf. 1QS XI, 11–15).99
Nevertheless, God’s righteousness, as a forensic term, refers also to his judg-
ment on the wicked (e.g. Ps 50:6), highlighting his justice to deliver those who
have met the standards of the covenant and reject those who have not (cf.
Pss 7:17; 9:4, 8; 97:2; Isa 59:17). God judges justly and in righteousness (Pss 67:4;
89:14; 94:15; 97:2), and his covenant commitment is a commitment to do what
is “right” with reference to that covenant.100 In the context of 3:21–22, God’s
94 Kruse, Romans, 179.

95 Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 202; Barrett, Romans, 70; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 165; Moo, Romans, 223,
esp. n. 21.
97 Kruse, Romans, 79–81, lists five different aspects of God’s righteousness.
98 Δικαιοσύνη translates also the Hebrew ḥeseḏ, which means “steadfast love,” “loving-kind-
ness” (lxx Gen 19:19; 20:13; 21:23; 24:27; 32:11; etc.).
99 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 40–41; idem, Theology of Paul, 340–46.

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140 Kanagaraj
righteousness, for Paul, means God’s covenant faithfulness that justifies and
acquits those who believe in Jesus to live in right relationship with him. Paul
picks up the seminal phrase “the righteousness of God” from Jewish Scripture,
but reinterprets it by making what was applicable to Israel to be applicable
also to other nations and thus by placing Jews and Gentiles on par with one
another. They are all acquitted in God’s court of law and declared “righteous”
before God, if they believe in Jesus Christ.101 Paul’s theology of justification is
the dynamic interaction between “the righteousness of God” as God’s saving
action for all who believe and “the righteousness of God” as God’s faithfulness
to Israel, his chosen people.102
Second, this leads us to another aspect of Paul’s reference to God’s righ-
teousness: the saving action of God. God’s righteousness has been manifested
in God’s provision of redemption through Christ’s death, making possible a
righteousness to be received by faith (3:21–26). In other words, God’s righteous-
ness, mentioned in 3:21–22, points to God’s justifying activity and also his sav-
ing activity which draws and sustains the believing ones within the covenant
relationship.103 It is notable that God’s δικαιοσύνη and his σωτηρία appear in
parallel terms in Ps 50:16 lxx and Isa 46:13,104 implying that God’s righteous-
ness is manifested in his act of salvation (cf. Rom 1:16–17; 3:24–25). David iden-
tifies deliverance from his enemies as the outcome of God’s faithfulness or
righteousness (Ps 143:1, 9). God’s salvation implies also his eschatological salva-
tion (Mic 7:9 lxx; Isa 46:13; 54:5–8), which must have considerably influenced
Paul’s δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ.105 If so, then for Paul, God’s righteousness, his eschato-
logical salvation, is presently manifested through redemption in Jesus Christ
(3:21–24).106 He obviously reads Scripture in the light of redemption that God
has wrought in Jesus Christ.
Third, God’s righteousness is a gift of justification, already foreshadowed in
Rom 3:21–26 (esp. 3:24) and expounded in 4:1–25, where Paul cites Abraham’s
experience of having received righteousness as a gift because of his faith (4:3,
where Gen 15:6 is quoted; cf. 4:9, 22). God’s gift of justification is applicable
101 In 3:22 the genitive construction Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ should be understood as “faith in Jesus
Christ” rather than “faith given by Jesus Christ” or “faithfulness of Jesus Christ (to God),”
for the emphasis in the section 3:21–31 or even 3:1–4:25 is on faith, the faith of those who
believe. See Dunn, Romans 1–8, 166–67; cf. Keener, Romans, 57–58.
102 Dunn, Theology of Paul, 344 (italics his).
104 See Moo, Romans, 81–83, esp. 81 n. 13 for the Old Testament references which show God’s
righteousness and his salvation/deliverance in parallel terms.

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not only to Abraham, but to all who believe as Abraham believed (4:23–25).
In the scheme of God’s salvation, the status of righteousness is conferred as a
gift on the believers through Jesus Christ (5:17). Is God right to include Gentiles
equally with the Jews without a need to accomplish the works of the law? By
so doing, does he abrogate the law? Actually, it is God who takes the initia-
tive to fulfill the legal requirements himself in order to prove himself righteous
and to pronounce the believers righteous (3:23–26).107
The universal sinfulness to which Paul refers in 1:18–3:20 is summarized as
“all have sinned” in 3:23a. In consequence, all are falling short of God’s glory
(3:23b). This thought is reminiscent of the Jewish thought that all humans were
sharing in the divine glory before Adam, that in Adam all fell away from that
glory (Gen. Rab. 12.5; 3 Bar. 4.16; Apoc. Mos. 21.6), and that the same glory will be
restored in the eschatological future (Rom 5:2; 8:18, 21, 30).108 It also recalls the
possession of God’s glory by his people at their deliverance from exile (Isa 35:2)
as well as the departure of God’s glory from his people because of their rebel-
liousness against God (1 Sam 4:21–22; Ezek 11:22–23). When Paul argues that all
have sinned and are falling short of God’s glory, he thinks in scriptural terms
and displays his knowledge of rabbinic teaching on God’s glory in relation to
humanity. Otherwise he would have simply said, “All have sinned.” Paul finds
no distinction between Jews and Gentiles in the matter of sin and in the sub-
sequent lack of God’s glory and likewise there is no distinction in the matter of
salvation, for all of them are justified by his grace now through the redemption
which is in Christ Jesus (3:24).
The verb δικαιοῦν, used in its present passive form, translates in the lxx
mostly the Hebrew ṣādaq in its Hiphil form, which means “to justify,” “to
declare righteous,” “to acquit” (Exod 23:7; Deut 25:1; Prov 17:15), and even “to
make righteous,” “to turn to righteousness” (Dan 12:3).109 By using the scrip-
tural connotation of δικαιούμενοι, Paul states that all who sinned can now be
pronounced righteous by God’s grace as a gift. God’s justifying verdict upon
humans is totally unmerited. They cannot earn it by accomplishing the works
of the law. Justification of sinners is a matter of grace on God’s side, whereas it
is a matter of faith in Jesus Christ on the human side.110 For Paul the word χάρις,
107 The thesis that some words and concepts that are not typical in Paul’s presentation of the
gospel in 3:24–26 suggests that Paul is quoting an early Christian tradition does not carry
much weight, for Paul himself could have written these verses by using an early Jewish-
Christian interpretation of Jesus’ death (e.g. Heb 9–10). See Moo, Romans, 220–21; Seifrid,
“Romans,” 618–19.

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142 Kanagaraj
which translates in the lxx the Hebrew ḥēn, has the element of giving freely
(δωρεά in 3:24). If God’s favor is demonstrated in crucifixion, then it follows
that we, sinners, are saved by grace alone.111 In 3:24b–25, Paul links God’s gift of
justification with the cross of Christ and it also answers the question why God’s
righteousness is actualized through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Justification, though a gift to humanity, involves an invaluable cost for
God, as the phrase διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως shows (3:24; cf. Rom 8:23; 1 Cor 1:30;
also Dan 4:34 lxx, where there is no reference to a ransom paid). The verb
λυτροῦσθαι translates the Hebrew verb g’l or pdh, which means “to set free,”
without a notion of a price (ransom) paid for that liberation. However, Moo
shows that the idea of “ransoming” was usually present in λυτροῦσθαι in both
Jewish and secular Greek contemporary with the NT.112 Ἀπολύτρωσις means
“setting free for a ransom,” and is used of prisoners of war, slaves, and criminals
condemned to death (cf. Heb 11:35). If “redemption” has this connotation in
3:24, then Paul is presenting Christ’s death as a “ransom,” a payment paid as
penalty for sins owed by all people (cf. Mark 10:45; Matt 20:28).113 The idea of
manumission of slaves for a payment must have been familiar to Paul’s read-
ers, some of whom themselves had been slaves. Since the word ἀπολύτρωσις is
connected with Jesus’ blood and death (3:25), it has the sense of “ransoming” in
God’s act of liberating human beings. Dunn observes that behind ἀπολύτρωσις
in 3:24 lies the strong OT motif of God as redeemer of his people Israel and of
Israel’s being ransomed from slavery in Egypt by using the verb λυτροῦν (e.g.
Deut 7:8; 9:26; 13:5; 15:15; 21:8; 24:18; Pss 74:2; 77:15).114 The lxx, Vulgate and
Hebrew of Exod 8:23 read, “I will set redemption (between the Israelites and
the Egyptians).” God does not pay a ransom but acts in his own power, for the
emphasis here is the state from which the Israelites are brought out into free-
dom, not the means by which it happens.115
God, in his love, redeemed Israel from Babylonian captivity as well (Isa 41:14;
43:1, 14; 44:22–24; 48:20; 51:11; 52:3, 9; 62:12; 63:9). God, the Lord of all nations,
frees his people in accordance with his will and gives Egypt, Cush, and Seba
as a ransom for it (Isa 43:3). It is notable that God did not pay any price to
Cyrus for Israel’s redemption from Babylon (Isa 45:13). Nevertheless, the idea of
“redemption by exchange” may lie subtly in the background of Rom 3:24. The
Servant of the Lord, a unique figure, had to offer himself as sin-offering and to
111 H. Conzelmann, “χάρις κτλ.,” in tdnt 9:394.

112 Moo, Romans, 229 n. 51.
114 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 169.
115 O. Procksch, “λύω κτλ.,” in tdnt 4:333.

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pour out his soul to death to secure ἀπολύτρωσις for his people (Isa 52:13–53:12).116
By keeping these scriptural passages in mind, Paul asserts that although the
justification of all humans is a free gift, it became possible only through the re-
demption which is in Christ Jesus. He became unto us redemption (1 Cor 1:30)
by offering himself as atoning sacrifice on the cross (3:25). This is the price
with which those who believe were bought (1 Cor 6:20). God did not condone
human sins, but he himself took the initiative to accomplish his righteousness
by offering Jesus Christ, by whose blood the believers are declared righteous
before God. There is no question of the person to whom the price was paid, but
it is a matter of God’s fulfillment of his own righteousness.
This is why Paul declares that in his divine forbearance God passed over for-
mer sins, and why he presents Jesus as the ἱλαστήριον who is to be received by
faith (Rom 3:25). The cost involved in declaring sinners righteous was cleared
by God himself. He put forward (προέθετο) Christ Jesus as an expiation by his
blood. The verb προτίθημι, in the context of Paul’s argument in 3:25–26, means
“to set forth publicly” or “to display,” which stresses more the act of God. The
phrase “by his blood” gives the tone of sacrifice set upon the altar in the tem-
ple. Perhaps there is a veiled reference to the new covenant made in the blood
of Christ which superseded the old covenant that was made by the blood of
the oxen offered (Exod 24:3–8). God took the initiative to establish the new
covenant in Christ’s blood, shed on the cross where he bore the just wrath of
God against human sins. Thus, out of his covenant faithfulness, God demon-
strated his righteousness, testified by Scripture (3:21), and fulfilled the require-
ment of the law that demands the death of those who transgress divine law.
God’s setting forth Christ as an atoning sacrifice could echo Abraham’s volun-
tary offering of his son, Isaac (Gen 22).117 What does ἱλαστήριον mean? It can be
understood only in the light of Scripture.
The word ἱλαστήριον is derived from the verb ἱλάσκεσθει which means “to
propitiate, to appease.” In the lxx, ἱλαστήριον translates the Hebrew kappōreṭ,
meaning “mercy-seat,” which covered the ark of the testimony and on
which the blood of the sin-offering was sprinkled on the day of atonement
(Exod 25:17–22; Lev 16:6–19; Heb 9:5). In Rom 3:25, ἱλαστήριον implies primarily
a cultic act that was performed upon the ark of the covenant.118 By Jesus’ blood
God redeemed sinful humanity and this redemptive act should be received
by faith by anyone to be declared righteous in the divine court of law. In this
sense, Jesus is the ἱλαστήριον set by God. At the same time, he is also the place,
116 Cf. Seifrid, “Romans,” 619.

117 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 170.
118 Cf. Keck, Romans, 108.

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144 Kanagaraj
the “mercy-seat,” where God made the atonement. The absence of the article
before ἱλαστήριον can hardly nullify this meaning. If Jesus is the mercy-seat
where his blood was shed to make atonement for human sin, then he is the
antitype of the old covenant “place of atonement.” So arguing, Moo rightly re-
marks, “What in the OT was hidden from public view behind the veil has now
been ‘publicly displayed’ as the OT ritual is fulfilled and brought to an end in
Christ’s ‘once-for-all’ sacrifice.”119 In Paul’s use of ἱλαστήριον, then, another OT
symbol is in his mind.120
However, the question remains whether Jesus is the propitiation (a gift of-
fered by humans to avert God’s wrath over sin) or expiation (something that
removes human sin). We will not do justice to Paul’s thought if we treat Jesus’
sacrifice as “either … or,” for it needs to be viewed as “both.” Since Jesus’ death
averted God’s wrath revealed against human sin (Rom 1:18), it is the propitia-
tion (cf. 4 Macc 17:21–22, which mentions that the death of the righteous, a
ransom for Israel’s sin, is the propitiation that rescued Israel). At the same
time, his sacrifice signifies God’s initiative to remove human sin and it is God’s
gracious gift to acquit those who believe in Jesus. In this sense, Jesus is the
expiatory sacrifice which God displayed to avert his own wrath, fulfilling the
just demands of the law.121 The dual meanings embedded in Jesus’ self-sacrifice
make him a “propitiatory and expiatory sacrifice” or “the propitiation that re-
sults in expiation.” God’s act in Jesus to remove sin, the object of God’s wrath,
proves that he remains righteous and faithful to his covenant (cf. Rom 3:3–4)
and that he justifies anyone who believes in Jesus, the ἱλαστήριον (3:26). The
beneficiaries of God’s righteousness and his covenant faithfulness in the OT
are only Israel, but Paul treats all human beings who have faith in Christ as
beneficiaries. Each human, be they Jew or Gentile, is set in right relationship
with God and judged righteous by God by means of their acceptance by faith
of what God did in Christ (3:28). Paul’s inclusion of Gentiles within the people
of God should be understood within his life-experience that faith is the sole
means of justification for each individual.122 We will miss Paul’s point, then, if
we interpret his gospel with a primary focus laid on the inclusion of Gentiles
along with Jews, although he argues for the equality of Gentiles and Jews all
through Rom 1:18–4:25 and 9–11.
119 Moo, Romans, 232; cf. Keener, Romans, 59–60.

120 Barrett, Romans, 74.
121 Barrett claims that Christ crucified is set forth as an “expiatory person,” for ἱλαστήριον may
be regarded as an adjective in the accusative masculine, agreeing with Christ Jesus (ὃν in
3:25) or as an accusative neuter carrying a substantive sense. See Barrett, Romans, 73–74.
122 Moo, Romans, 242–44.

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That God is righteous echoes scriptural passages in which guilty humans ac-
knowledge that God is just and is in the right (e.g. Exod 9:27; Lam 1:18; Dan 9:7).
The prophetic references to God’s righteousness in his judgment and justifica-
tion of guilty Israel (Isa 45:20–25) are fulfilled, according to Paul, in all those
who believe in Jesus.123 Paul, thus, presents the heart of the gospel (Rom 3:21–
26) wholly in scriptural terms and allusions. There is no other option for Paul
to present his theology of justification, for it is in the holy scriptures that God
promised his gospel beforehand (1:1–2).
2.4 Does Justification by Faith Apart from the Law Nullify the Law?
Paul, who shows in Rom 3:21–26 how God has dealt with human wickedness
by offering Jesus Christ as the propitiating expiation, winds up in 3:27–31 one
phase of his argument that since God is one, he is the God of both Jews and
Gentiles and he justifies all those who believe in Christ. As God’s redemp-
tive act has no discrimination, Paul warns the Jews of their self-confidence in
being Jews, of their boasting in God as Israel’s God, and of their pride in the
law as indicating God’s commitment to his people and as marking them off
from other nations.124 The implied answer for his rhetorical question, “Where
then is boasting?” is that any form of boasting is excluded. Continuing his ar-
gument, Paul puts forth two more questions: “Through what law (is boasting
excluded)? Of works?” He then affirms with conviction, “No, through the law of
faith” (3:27). Νόμος τῶν ἔργων means here the principle of striving hard to fulfill
the demands of the Torah and νόμος πίστεως means the principle of exercis-
ing faith in Christ Jesus to be reckoned as righteous by God. Such reckoning
removes racial pride and prejudice.
Paul reiterates his thesis in a nut-shell in 3:28 that all people are justified by
faith apart from works of the law (cf. 3:20). The word ἄνθρωπος, as a collective
singular, embraces both Jews and Gentiles. If justification were through works
of Torah, then it would reduce God’s status as the God of Jews only, ignoring
the truth that God is the God also of Gentiles. Paul poses two rhetorical ques-
tions, “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not also the God of Gentiles?” and
then answers that he is God also of Gentiles (3:29), because God is the creator
of all human beings. However, Paul’s reason is that God is one (3:30a), which
clearly alludes to the Shema, the basic creed of Jewish monotheism: κύριος ὁ
θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν (Deut 6:4; cf. 1 Cor 8:6; Mark 12:29; Jas 2:19).
123 Seifrid, “Romans,” 622. However, Seifrid’s understanding of the phrase “the faith of Jesus”
as “the faith that springs from Jesus” does not do justice to Paul’s doctrine of faith in
Romans.
124 Dunn, Romans 1–8, 185; see also Gathercole, Where is Boasting? 226, 231.

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146 Kanagaraj
That God is one is implied in several OT passages, such as Deut 4:35, 39; 1
Kgs 8:60; and Zech 14:9. Paul might have had in mind several scriptural passag-
es, as he gives equal status for Jews and Gentiles. In Abraham all the families of
the earth will be blessed (Gen 12:3) and he was made the father of many nations
(Gen 17:5; cf. Sir 44:19; Rom 4:17). He was declared righteous even before he had
to undergo circumcision, the identity mark of God’s covenant with Israel (cf.
Gen 15:6 with Gen 17:1–14; Rom 4:9–12). Yahweh will gather “others” to Israel in
the same manner as he gathers the outcasts of Israel (Isa 56:8). All nations and
tongues will come to see his glory (Isa 66:18) and worship the Lord of Israel as
the King (Zech 14:16). God’s house shall be called a house of prayer “for all na-
tions” (Isa 56:7; cf. Matt 21:13 par.). These scriptural passages show that the in-
gathering of Gentiles with the Jews will take place at the end-time. But for Paul
that eschatological time has dawned now because of the expiatory sacrifice of
Jesus in whom redemption is possible to all who believe in him (Rom 3:23–25).
In brief, Scripture constitutes a pivotal point in Paul’s thought that God, who is
one, justifies impartially both the circumcised and the uncircumcised by see-
ing their faith (3:30).
If justification is by faith alone, then Paul poses the natural question of a
Jew, “Do we then nullify the law through faith?” The presence of οὖν in 3:31
denotes that “what it introduces is the result of or an inference from what pre-
cedes” (BDAG). If so, 3:31 serves as the conclusion to Paul’s argument framed in
3:27–31, followed by Rom 4, which offers the scriptural proof to what he claims
in 3:31. To expand the question, “Do we then, by holding on to faith rather than
on works to fulfill the law, do away with the law?” Paul denies such a trend
by his usual negation, μὴ γένοιτο (3:31a). His answer, “Rather (ἀλλά) we uphold
the law” (3:31b),125 gives a remarkable conclusion to Paul’s use of Scripture in
Rom 3.
Some scholars argue that νόμος in Rom 3:31 denotes the whole of the OT,
as it does in 3:19.126 However, their arguments are insufficient to prove the
point. Paul uses the words, “the law and the prophets” (3:21) or “the scripture”
(ἡ γραφή) (Gal 3:8) to identify the witnessing role of Scripture in his teach-
ing about justification.127 His words τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ also point to Scripture
(Rom 3:2). Νόμος, in 3:19, means Jewish Scripture because of its reference back
to all the OT passages cited in 3:10–18. In 3:31, however, the word does not
plainly stand for the whole OT, for in 3:27–31 Paul is winding up his discussion
125 Ἱστάνειν, the antithesis of καταργεῖν, means “to uphold, to establish, to confirm.”
126 For instance, Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 223 n. 4. See the list of proponents of this view in
Moo, Romans, 253 n. 39.
127 Moo, Romans, 253–54.

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on the “works of the law” (i.e. fulfilling the Mosaic law) and the “works of faith
(in Christ)” on the one hand, and on the equality of Jews and Gentiles in God’s
act of justification on the other. In this context, then, νόμος in 3:31 can only
mean the Sinai-Torah and not the OT as a whole.128 Nevertheless, the Sinai-
Torah is not unrelated to Scripture. It occupies a key place in the OT, since it
provides the ethics for the life of Israel and God-fearers. Although νόμος in 3:31
is not simply the OT, it is the visible expression of the OT.129
How do we understand the paradox involved in Paul’s thought that the law,
which has no role in God’s act of justification, is actually confirmed by the
same law? Paul’s argument that we do not nullify the law by faith in Christ
but uphold it is essentially the same as his statement that the just require-
ment (τὸ δικαίωμα) of the law is not fulfilled in those who live in the domain of
the flesh, but in those who are in Christ and who walk according to the Spirit
(Rom 8:3–4).130 In this perspective, Rom 3:25 and Rom 8:3 convey the same
truth, that in Christ God dealt with human sin by giving him as a sacrifice on
the cross. The coming of Jesus to the world was not to abolish the law and the
prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt 5:17). We may argue, then, that the ἱστάνειν
of 3:31 bears the same tone as that of πληροῦν in Rom 8:4 and Matt 5:17. In the
fulfillment of the Torah through faith in Christ, Scripture is preserved. Paul has
shown how his gospel breaks the boundaries of the Old Covenant (because
justification is not by the works of the law), while at the same time standing in
continuity with it (because it fulfills the law); continuity within discontinuity
is his theme.131
3 Conclusion
The centrality of Jewish Scripture in Paul’s arguments throughout Rom 3 is

unquestionable. Paul cites scriptural passages from the lxx to assert his theol-
ogy and anthropology rhetorically and with conviction (3:6, 10–18). His use of
the lxx, which was widely used in the Greco-Roman world, exposes not only
his Hellenistic and Jewish upbringing, but also his sense of obligation to reach
out to Gentiles and Jews together with the gospel (cf. 1:14–15). Almost in each
verse of Rom 3, Paul uses the language and thought-forms of Scripture (e.g.
περιτομή, πίστις, δικαιοσύνη and its cognates, χάρις, ἀπολύτρωσις, ἱλαστήριον, δόα
128 See Dunn, Romans 1–8, 191; Barrett, Romans, 80.

129 Barrett, Romans, 80.
130 Cf. Moo, Romans, 255; Cranfield, Romans 1–8, 224.

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148 Kanagaraj
τοῦ θεοῦ, and νόμος). His theology always alludes to or echoes scriptural pas-
sages and thoughts (e.g. Paul’s theology of justification by faith, universality of
sin and redemption, and the equality of Jews and Gentiles before God), for he
knows that Scripture is the only tool by which he can address the problems in
the church in Rome whose constituents are the Jews, God-fearers, and Gentiles
who are already familiar with the Bible. Paul’s use of Scripture, then, is both
author-oriented and reader-oriented.
Paul takes freedom in his use of Scripture to add or change or subtract cer-
tain words and phrases to suit his theology. He adapts OT language and con-
cepts so that they may speak to his own context. Nevertheless, he faithfully
preserves the substance of Scripture. Paul’s alteration of vocabularies and his
adaptation of Scripture in Rom 3 do not prove that he quotes the texts from
his memory. In fact he reinterprets, not re-writes, the Bible in the light of what
God did in Christ for human redemption and justification. For Paul, the in-
gathering of Gentiles with Jews, which, according to the Scriptures, will take
place at the end-time, has become the present event exactly because God’s
righteousness has already been manifested in Jesus Christ.
The Christ-event, then, is the hermeneutical key for Paul to unfold Scripture
in Romans. He seeks to convince his readers to accept his gospel that each
person, being a sinner, is acquitted and declared righteous by God freely when
that person responds with faith in Christ, who was publicly displayed to be
the expiatory sacrifice for human sin. This means that we need not strive hard
to fulfill the requirements of Mosaic law in order to attain righteous status.
Since his gospel has universal focus and truth, Paul sees what was true to Israel
in the OT as applicable to all human beings. If Gentiles, who have no claim
on God’s favor, are guilty, then the Jews, who have the law and covenant with
God, are also equally guilty, because all have sinned and consequently lacked
God’s glory. As sin is universal, God’s righteousness, the eschatological gift of
salvation, also is universal. Paul moves from particularity (the salvation history
of Israel) to universality (salvation of all human beings). The motivation for
such a move is his recognition that Israel represents the whole humanity. Paul
thus displays his faithfulness to the scriptural teaching and to God’s pre-plan
to declare righteous those who believe in Jesus. It is the “law of faith,” and not
the “law of works,” which enables people to uphold the law in word and spirit.
From this broader context springs up Paul’s logical argument for the equal-
ity of Jews and Gentiles, projecting them as those who constitute one people
of God, since the one God is the God of both groups. This teaching was abso-
lutely necessary for Paul to address the issue of disunity in the church in Rome
caused by Jewish boasting about holding the law, circumcision, and God’s

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covenant and by Gentile complacency to have become part of Israel through

their faith in Christ without any obligation to perform Jewish rituals.
Undoubtedly, Paul’s intensive use of the Scripture is not confined to Rom 3
alone. The letter to the Romans is flooded with references to Jewish Scripture
that have shaped Paul’s theology in toto. What we have demonstrated is that
Rom 3 is one case in point that proves Scripture as the source which Paul lav-
ishly used to design his theological perspectives.

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Part 3
The Corinthian Letters

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Chapter 8
From the Perspective of the Writer or the

Perspective of the Reader: Coming to Grips with a
Starting Point for Analyzing the Use of Scripture
in 1 Corinthians
Interest in Paul’s use of Scripture has drawn the attention of many in recent
years. A focus has been placed upon the presence of Scripture within Paul’s
letters in the form of citations, allusions, echoes, language, and ideas. Others
have focused on Paul’s hermeneutic for using Scripture. The intertextual back-
ground of Scripture and its relationship with early Jewish literature has also
drawn attention. Others have explored the way that Paul and his audiences
may have understood Scripture. Questions such as these have challenged in-
terpreters within this field of study for many years.1
The Society of Biblical Literature has been addressing these issues, particu-
larly in relationship to Paul’s letters. In 2005, a special seminar began to meet
to analyze Paul’s use of Scripture. The seminar met over six years and produced
two separate volumes. That seminar ceased, however, due to the inability to ar-
rive at answers on six questions.2 One of these questions concerns the starting
point for considering the function of Scripture in Paul’s writing. Should
one begin with Paul, who was quite influenced by Scripture, or should one
begin with the audience’s knowledge of Scripture, which would naturally be
much less?
It is the purpose of this paper to examine this problem with regard to
1 Corinthians. Paul visited the church in 49 ce. From the witness of the book
1 See a summary of recent issues regarding Paul and Scripture in S. E. Porter and C. D. Stanley
(eds.), As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2008).
2 C. D. Stanley, “What We Learned—and What We Didn’t,” in C. D. Stanley (ed.), Paul and
Scripture: Extending the Conversation (Atlanta: sbl, 2012), 321–30. Unresolved questions in-
clude: What do we mean by Paul’s “use” of Scripture? What kinds of data yield the best under-
standing of Paul’s engagement with the text of Scripture? How does one recognize references
to Scripture in Paul’s letters? How do Paul’s references to the Jewish Scriptures relate to their
original context? What role does Scripture play in Paul’s theology and rhetoric? What can we
presume about the biblical literacy of Paul’s audiences?

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154 Williams
of Acts, he stayed for eighteen months, working as a tentmaker and then also
speaking in the synagogue and other places (Acts 18:1–11). A largely Gentile
congregation was formed, and then Paul left. He wrote an initial letter to the
Corinthians that is lost (1 Cor 5:9–13). In 56 ce, following reports from Chloe
and also a letter from the Corinthians asking several questions, Paul replied
with 1 Corinthians. The letter contains eighteen quotations or allusions that
have been identified in major studies on Paul’s use of Scripture.3 These cita-
tions come from books like Genesis, Job, Psalms, Jeremiah, and Hosea.4 How
should these references be considered? From the perspective of a scripturally
literate Paul, or a less scripturally literate and largely Greco-Roman Corinthian
congregation?
1 From the Perspective of the Writer
Beginning with the author is an approach that is taken by several scholars

such as R. B. Hays in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul and B. S. Rosner
in Paul, Scripture, and Ethics.5 Both have written or co-written commentaries
on 1 Corinthians from the perspective of Paul as a writer.6 Such writers con-
sider citations, but then also less explicit uses such as allusions, echoes, and
themes. They also interpret Paul’s letters in respect to less explicit Scripture
texts, which the author knew.
There are reasons to interpret Paul’s letters in this way. Paul was a first-cen-
tury Jewish writer. He had a Jewish upbringing. Such a growing up experience
3 See D. A. Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und
zum Verständnis der Schrift bei Paulus (bht 69; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986); C. D. Stanley,
Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary
Literature (sntsms 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); R. E. Ciampa and
B. S. Rosner, “1 Corinthians,” in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New
Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 695–752.
4 See further H. H. D. Williams, “Light Giving Sources: Examining the Extent of Scriptural
Citation and Allusion Influence in 1 Corinthians,” in S. E. Porter (ed.), Paul: Jew, Greek, Roman
(past 5; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 7–38.
5 Others have followed this approach. See R. E. Ciampa, The Presence and Function of Scripture
within Galatians 1 and 2 (wunt 2/102; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998); H. H. D. Williams, The
Wisdom of the Wise: The Presence and Function of Scripture within 1 Cor 1:18–3:23 (agju 49;
Leiden: Brill, 2001); R. Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the
Letter to the Romans (NovTSup 101; Leiden: Brill, 2003).
6 R. B. Hays, First Corinthians (Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2011);
R. E. Ciampa and B. S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (pntc; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2010), esp. 84.

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Analyzing the Use of Scripture in 1 Corinthians 155
meant that he would have been exposed to the Scripture and its contempo-
rary interpretation from an early age. The normal, first-century, Jewish expe-
rience would have meant exposure to Scripture and its contemporary inter-
pretation at home and in the synagogue as evidenced by statements in Philo
and Josephus as well as in the Mishnah.7 The goal of this instruction would
have been accurate knowledge of Scripture.8 There is no reason to expect
that Paul’s upbringing was any different than this. From his own testimony in
Phil 3:4b–6, Paul clearly implies that his family upheld distinctive Jewish char-
acteristics: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel,
and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews (cf. 2 Cor 11:22).
His activities immediately before he was a follower of Jesus Christ exhibit
the effect of Judaism upon him. His enthusiastic persecution of the church
shows the influence of early Jewish thought. While crucifixion would have
been detestable in the first century, to proclaim a crucified Messiah would
have been considered a shameful, horrible, negative, and outrageous thing to
declare for someone from a Jewish background. Such a person would be con-
sidered cursed by God.9
Paul’s exposure to Scripture and its interpretation within Jewish writings
is clear from his pre-conversion experiences which put him in contact with
early Jewish literature. Paul’s training as a Pharisee, who had advanced be-
yond his contemporaries, necessarily meant intimate contact with Scripture
and its interpretation. As a Pharisee, he would have had a Jewish education
since Pharisaic schools were found in Israel.10 As one who had made supe-
rior progress in the Jewish way of believing and living (Gal 1:13–14),11 he would
have had an intimate association with the land of Israel and with Jerusalem.
7 Philo, Legat. 210; Josephus, Apion 2.178, 204; m. Ab. 5:21.

8 4 Macc 18:10–19; Josephus, Apion 2.175, 178. B. S. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics: A Story
of 1 Corinthians 5–7 (agju 22; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 12.
9 Deut 21:21–22; 27:26; cf. Gal 3:13; 1 Cor 1:23. D. W. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian
Perceptions of Crucifixion (wunt 2/244; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 213–19.
10 Sirach 8:8–9 and 51:23 most likely indicate the presence of Pharisaic schools in the
first century within Palestine. M. Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: scm, 1991),
27–34. Matthew 23:15 also suggests the connection that the Pharisees had with the land.
Cf. K. W. Niebuhr, Heidenapostel aus Israel: Die jüdische Identität des Paulus nach ihrer
Darstellung in seinen Briefen (wunt 62; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1992), 55; S. Kim, The
Origin of Paul’s Gospel (wunt 2/4; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1984), 33–34.
11 For an explanation of this sense of Gal 1:13–14, see M. Hengel and A. M. Schwemer, Paul
between Damascus and Antioch: The Unknown Years (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox,
1997), 340.

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156 Williams
Practice and study of the law was best performed there for a Pharisee.12 Luke
also testifies to Paul’s exposure to Jewish thinking by stating that Paul was
taught by Gamaliel, a highly regarded teacher of the law (Acts 22:3).13 As one
connected with the Pharisees, Paul was a part of a teaching group of great in-
fluence among first-century Judaism which necessarily meant his exposure to
Scripture and its interpretation.14
Paul’s exposure to Scripture and Jewish tradition before his conversion has
made a strong impact upon his letters. Many have explored and continue to
investigate Paul’s Jewish background in ever increasing ways.15 In the past thir-
ty years, various studies have considered the large amount of Scripture that
bears witness to his gospel,16 the Jewish concepts within his writing such as the
new creation,17 ethical commands,18 and his missionary strategy.19 Others have
seen in Paul’s defense of his calling, that his scriptural heritage exerted influ-
ence within his explanation.20 His letters have been seen to contain scriptural
ideas that have influenced his teaching on topics such as reconciliation, the
atonement, Christ’s crucifixion, justification, the law of Christ, and the Lord’s
12 See especially Isa 2:3 and Sir 24:8, 11, 23, where the Law resides in and even proceeds from
Jerusalem. Note the significant connection of the land of Israel with the Law found in the
Mishnah (m. Kel. 1.6; m. Mik. 8.1; m. Oh. 2.3; 18.6). Hengel, Pre-Christian Paul, 31–32.
13 Although Paul states that he was unknown by face to those of Judea, this does not pre-
clude his influence by Jerusalem or even his residence in Jerusalem (Gal 1:22). The impor-
tant phrase in this verse is τῷ προσώπῳ which refers to face to face contact with church
leaders in Jerusalem and need not rule out Paul’s presence in Jerusalem. Hengel, The Pre-
Christian Paul, 23–24.
14 Cf. Matt 15:1–11; 23:2; Mark 7:1–15; Luke 7:36–50; 14:1–6; 18:11–14; John 3:1; Acts 5:34;
15:5; 23:6–9; 26:5; Josephus, Ant. 13.288, 298, 401–415, 423; 18.15, 17; War 2.162. Niebuhr,
Heidenapostel aus Israel, 49, 52.
15 For the interaction between Paul’s Jewish, Greek, and Roman background, see the essays
in Porter (ed.), Paul: Jew, Greek, Roman.
16 Koch particularly makes this as a concluding point to his massive study of Paul’s citations
of Scripture. See Koch, Schrift, 322–53.
17 U. Mell, Neue Schöpfung: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche und exegetische Studie zu einem
soterilogischen Grundsatz paulinischer Theologie (bznw 56; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989),
389–94.
18 Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 177–80; P. J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha
in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles (crint 3.1; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1990), 264–69.
19 J. M. Scott, Paul and the Nations: The Old Testament and Jewish Background of Paul’s
Mission to the Nations with Special Reference to the Galatians (wunt 84; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1995), 216–18. Cf. R. Riesner, Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy,
Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 245–56.
20 Cf. 2 Cor 11:22–12:13; Gal 1–2; Phil 3:5. Niebuhr, Heidenapostel aus Israel, 179–84; Ciampa,
Presence and Function.

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Supper.21 A recent volume entitled, Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle as a
Figure of Second Temple Judaism, has brought many studies of Jewish influence
upon Paul together. In a series of articles, authors find Jewish influence upon
Paul’s identity, Christology, eschatology, the idea of remnant, understanding of
mystery, and ethics.22 Paul’s Jewish background has been a constant source of
exploration for his letters.
With the amount of Scripture that has influenced Paul, several scholars
have brought this emphasis to the investigation of 1 Corinthians, examining
it from the perspective of the author. The commentary by R. E. Ciampa and
B. S. Rosner appeals regularly to the Jewish vantage point of the author. When
they comment on the interpretive framework of the letter, they allow Scripture,
particularly Deuteronomy and Isaiah, to guide the way.23
2 From the Perspective of the Reader
In comparison to starting with the writer, the understanding of the audience

is a substantially different point from which to begin the interpretation of
1 Corinthians. Paul’s audiences were predominantly Gentile. While some of his
letters had Jewish readers and certain letters like Galatians or Philippians were
written to readers influenced by a type of Judaism, Paul’s readers were pre-
dominantly from a Gentile background.
If a comparison is made between the growing up experiences of Gentiles
and the exposure to Scripture that Paul had, there is a vast difference. The
Gentiles would not have obtained nearly the same grasp of the Scripture as a
first-century Jew would have had from their growing up years and educational
training. Thus from Paul’s perspective, the Gentiles should be considered as
not having knowledge from God, as Paul writes in 1 Thess 4:5. The Jew, not the
Gentile, had been entrusted with the oracles of God, as Paul writes in Rom 3:2.
The Jew, not the Gentile, was able to know God’s will and approve what was
excellent, because he was instructed from the law, as Paul writes in Rom 2:18.
It was the Jew, not the Gentile, who understood the covenants, the law and
the promises (Rom 9:4). These were all Jewish privileges and not Gentile ones.
21 O. Hofius, Paulusstudien (wunt 51; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 14, 31–32, 72–73, 128,
145–47, 230–37, 241–43.
22 See further the essays within G. Boccaccini and C. A. Segovia (eds.), Paul the Jew: Rereading
the Apostle as a Figure of Second Temple Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016).
23 Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 28–32.

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158 Williams
Attention to the reader’s perspective within Paul’s letters is something

that Christopher Stanley particularly addresses within his work Arguing with
Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul. As he considers the
knowledge of the reader, Stanley identifies several factors by which he con-
cludes that Paul’s audience did not understand much Scripture.24 The first
concerns the literacy of the Gentiles. He points to the study of ancient literacy
by William Harris which concludes that somewhere between ten and twenty
percent of the populace would have been able to read or write during the time
of the classical world.25 While elite males were literate, levels of literacy were
much lower among women and the poor.26 Some who have considered Paul’s
congregations have also concluded that the literacy level of his readers was
low. In his study entitled Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of
Early Christian Texts, Harry Gamble concludes that literacy levels would be
below the level that Harris suggests, namely, that under twenty percent would
have been able to read. Gamble, thus, concludes, “We must assume … that the
large majority of Christians in the early centuries of the church were illiterate,
not because they were unique but because they were in this respect typical.”27
Besides pointing to these studies that explore the reading levels of ancient
society, Stanley also describes some of the hurdles for increasing literacy levels
for Gentile Christians in churches to which Paul wrote. Books were expensive
and difficult to acquire. Only local synagogues would have access to a signifi-
cant number of biblical scrolls. It may also have been difficult for Christian
churches to access these. Furthermore, the cost of purchasing scrolls would
have limited their availability.28 Even if there were scrolls available and liter-
ate members within the congregation, it is likely that many Christians would
not have known how to read. Social barriers likely would interfere with this
practice. Furthermore, the illiterate were working diligently throughout the
24 There are also others who are drawing our attention to the reader afresh.
25 See further W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1989), 272, 284, 328–30. See also M. Beard (ed.), Literacy in the Roman World (Journal of
Roman Archaeology Supplement Series 3; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).
26 Harris, Ancient Literacy, 29–30, 103, 157; S. G. Cole, “Could Greek Women Read and Write?”
in Helene P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York: Gordon & Breach,
1981), 219–45; R. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and
Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 74–101.
27 H. Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 2–11.
28 C. D. Stanley, “Paul’s Use of Scripture: Why the Audience Matters,” in S. E. Porter and
C. D. Stanley (eds.), As It Is Written: Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 2008), 140–41. See further Gamble, Books and Readers, 214; Harris, Ancient Literacy,
193–96.

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day and would not have had time to grow in their ability to read. Stanley also
believes that Christian churches would not have had the ability to develop a
plan for the education of their illiterate members.
With these factors in mind, Stanley then concludes that starting from the
perspective of the writer is not the correct beginning point. Instead, he be-
lieves that Scripture within Paul’s letters has more of a rhetorical effect on the
readers.29 He evaluates 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans from this
perspective.
When he addresses literacy levels within the congregations in Arguing with
Scripture, Stanley believes that the congregation has mixed abilities. He pro-
poses three types of audiences: the informed reader who knows Scripture and
its context, the competent reader who knows Scripture but not context, and
the minimally informed reader who does not know Scripture at all. He exam-
ines several Pauline letters, investigating the effect of Scripture citations from
the perspective of the less literate audiences.
When Stanley examines 1 Corinthians, he identifies five different sets of texts
that the Corinthians would have known. They would have known the creation
story, since Paul appeals to this in several places throughout 1 Corinthians (cf.
1 Cor 8:6; 11:8–9, 12; 15:21–22, 44–45). They would have known the Exodus ac-
count, since Paul summarizes it in 1 Cor 10:1–11 and uses it for a reference point
for his description of the ministry of the Spirit in 2 Cor 3:3–12. The Corinthians
would have known specific commands from the Torah, since Paul appeals to
these within 1 Cor 5:7–8; 9:8–9; and 14:34. A christological interpretation of
Scripture would have been likely, as Paul finds the message of Jesus accord-
ing to the Scripture in 1 Cor 15:3–4 and in accordance with Ps 8 in 1 Cor 15:27.
Finally, it appears that the Corinthians would have known some Jewish ideas
and practices, as Paul refers to the Day of the Lord in 1 Cor 3:13, circumcision
in 1 Cor 7:18, the rights of priests in the temple from 1 Cor 8:13, the festival of
Pentecost in 1 Cor 16:8, the covenant in 2 Cor 3:6, 14, righteousness in 1 Cor 1:30,
wisdom in 1 Cor 2:1, 6–7, and scriptural moral standards in 1 Cor 5:9; 6:9–10 and
2 Cor 9:6–7; 12:14.30 This seems to be a good amount of Scripture, but as Stanley
states, “In every case we are dealing with terms and ideas that were already so
thoroughly ‘Christianized’ that no specific knowledge of Scripture would have
been required to understand them.”31
Stanley’s method of interpreting 1 Corinthians is thus substantially differ-
ent from Ciampa and Rosner’s. Rather than seeing Deuteronomy and Isaiah
29 Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, 62–71, 171–83.


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160 Williams
as backdrops for the evaluation of the entire Epistle with specific Scripture
contexts guiding the way in particular places, as Ciampa and Rosner view it,
Stanley concludes that Paul uses Scripture citations in a generally Christianized
manner and rhetorically.
Thus, whether one begins from the perspective of the writer or of the reader
is a significant issue for 1 Corinthians studies. It not only affects the interpreta-
tion of particular places within the Epistle where Scripture is found, but it also
leads to a different interpretation of the entire Epistle.
3 Reconsidering Literacy Levels for Greco-Roman Converts in

Corinth
Several years have now passed since the ending of the Paul and Scripture
Seminar at the Society of Biblical Literature. There have also been several fur-
ther studies that have addressed the literacy of Greco-Roman readers since the
time of Harris’s study of ancient literacy.
While many studies continue to affirm that people in the Roman Empire
were largely illiterate,32 there are some that are suggesting that there are cer-
tain groups which were more literate than what Harris has advanced. Following
Harris’s study, A. Bowman drew attention to the need of first-century citizens
to participate in a literate culture. While all may not be literate, the illiterate
would still need to be able to interact with written documents. This might take
place, for example, with the signing of a contract or with other official transac-
tions within society. In estimating its effects, Bowman indicates that a “large
proportion” of the illiterate population who would have been deemed to be
illiterate by previous studies would have been to some degree participants
within a literate society.33 Udo Schnelle has also challenged the supposition
that reading levels were necessarily low within Christian congregations. In
his study of early Christians and the city in particular, Schnelle estimates that
32 E.g., see further R. Horsley, “A Prophet Like Moses and Elijah: Popular Memory and
Cultural Patterns in Mark,” in R. Horsley et al. (eds.), Performing the Gospel (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2006), 193; I. M. Young, “Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence Part 1,” VT 48
(1998): 244; K. A. Kuhn, Luke: The Elite Evangelist (psn; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2010),
17; T. C. Mournet, “The Jesus Tradition as Oral Tradition,” in W. H. Kelber and S. Byrskog
(eds.), Jesus in Memory (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 51; S. Niditch, Oral World
and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (lai; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox,
1996), 39–40, 58–59.
33 A. K. Bowman, “Literacy in the Roman Empire: Mass and Mode,” in Beard (ed.), Literacy in
the Roman World, 119–31.

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there were higher reading levels than what Gamble and Harris have indicated.
From his examination, he concludes that between thirty to fifty percent of an
urban population could read and write at least at an elementary level. He also
projects that basic literacy within early Christian communities must have been
more than fifty percent.34
Brian Wright has also advocated for greater literacy. He points to six forgot-
ten factors that would indicate that ancient society was much more literate
than what Harris has promoted.35 One of his most compelling arguments for
increased literacy is the prevalence of Greco-Roman associations that would
have some literate aspects to them. Much of the population in ancient times
was connected with Greco-Roman associations.36 These groups were diverse
and were connected with occupations such as barbers, builders, farmers, mer-
chants, woodcutters, shipbuilders, wine dealers, carpenters, bankers, and many
others.37 Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that every region, gender, age,
profession, purpose, and economic stratum is represented to some extent in
regards to associations. Much of the population was connected with these and
writing took place within them.38 This was particularly the case within Greco-
Roman cities like Corinth.39
Within these societies, there is evidence that time was spent reciting writ-
ten speeches, performing literary works, documenting various aspects of their
meetings, reporting their finances in writing, reading various statutes and de-
crees from a text, recording names of members and donors, noting monetary
fines being levied, designating someone to guard the boxes of papyri from their
meetings, and frequently referencing their written constitution and bylaws.
Many, if not most of them, also explicitly mention sending additional literary
34 U. Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” nts 61 (2015): 113–43.
35 This essay takes the two most convincing points that Wright advances. The others in-
clude: the forgotten funerary monument of Quintus Sulpicius Maximus, the stylus, Greek
syntax, and lost evidence. See B. J. Wright, “Ancient Literacy in New Testament Research:
Incorporating a Few More Lines of Enquiry,” TJ 36NS (2015): 161–89.
36 For the pervasiveness of these types of societies, see further A. D. Clarke, Serve the
Community of the Church: Christians as Leaders and Ministers (First Century Christians in
the Greco-Roman World; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 59–78; J. P. Waltzing, Étude his-
torique sûr les corporations professionnelles chez les Romains depuis les origins jusqu’ à la
chute de l’Empire de l’Occident (5 vols.; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1970). Waltzing indicates
that there were some 2500 Roman collegia.
37 R. S. Ascough, P. A Harland, and J. S. Kloppenborg, Associations in the Greco-Roman World:
A Sourcebook (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), 1.
38 Wright, “Ancient Literacy,” 176.
39 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum,” 113–43.

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162 Williams
copies to the archives, with some even mentioning that the very inscription
was written multiple times and other copies were placed in the archives.40
These examples point to some greater sense of understanding of written
material within an urban environment like Corinth than what Stanley has as-
sumed. While they do not overthrow Harris’s estimation of literacy through-
out the entirety of the Roman world, they suggest that a larger percentage of
Greco-Roman converts to Christianity in Corinth would have had a higher lit-
eracy rate than the surrounding countryside.41
The introduction of other categories for understanding texts may also pro-
vide some help for considering reading levels of Greco-Roman converts at
Corinth. Some who have investigated ancient reading levels have introduced
different categories of literacy, namely the categories of semi-literacy and sig-
nature literacy. The category of literacy has been used within some studies to
mean anything from the recognition of a few words to the understanding of
a text.42 It has meant anything from the ability to sign one’s name to being
able to produce complicated texts.43 Since there are many gradations for any
written language, it would be possible for many to be partially literate.44 At
the lowest end of literacy would be “signature literacy.” This would involve the
ability to sign one’s name.45
A further designation that can help the exploration of reading levels of
Greco-Roman converts at Corinth would be the category of textuality. Some
40 Ascough, Harland, and Kloppenborg, Associations, 1.

41 These examples, however, are not meant to overturn the point that Harris makes about
literacy within society at large. The problem for assuming a greater literacy within society
is that there is no publicly funded elementary education system. While literacy does not
emerge from such a system, mass literacy does come from a publicly funded education
system. Without a system of schools for creating mass literacy, literacy was likely low.
There is no evidence of a school system that served the mostly agrarian society within the
Roman Empire. See Harris, Ancient Literacy, 327; C. Keith, Jesus’ Literacy: Scribal Culture
and the Teacher from Galilee (lnts 413; London: T&T Clark, 2011), 72–81.
42 R. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (asp 36; Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1996), 151.
43 D. E. Aune, “Literacy,” in D. E. Aune (ed.), The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament
and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2003),
275–76.
44 In her article on “ancient illiteracy,” A. E. Hanson points to a scribe named Petaus. He
could barely write his name along with a formula stating that he had received a docu-
ment, yet he was considered a scribe. This person should be considered as being between
literate and illiterate. See A. E. Hanson, “Ancient Illiteracy,” in Beard (ed.), Literacy in the
Roman World, 172.
45 Cf. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students, 10; Keith, Jesus’ Literacy, 90–91; A. Lemaire,
“Writing and Writing Materials,” abd 6:1005.

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have distinguished between literacy, which consists of the skills of reading and
writing for oneself, and textuality, which is the use and appreciation of texts
regardless of whether they can be produced by a certain person.46 One can ap-
preciate texts in various ways and be influenced by them without being able to
write them or read them for oneself. This has been noted to be an important
distinction.47
One did not necessarily have to be considered literate to understand
Scripture, but one needed to be textual to understand Scripture. This is a point
that rabbi M. Bar-Ilan makes in his study of literacy in the ancient world. He
writes, “According to the Torah, there is no need to read or write, except for
writing the Mezuza, Tefilin, and the Torah itself. However, for these purposes
there was always a scribe, so a Jew in antiquity could fulfill the commandments
of the Torah while being illiterate.”48 Textuality and literacy appear to be two
separate categories.
While literacy was not widespread throughout ancient culture, there is evi-
dence that textuality was much more prevalent.49 The ancient world had an
abundance of texts such as contracts for land and marriages, tax receipts, and
even holy texts. There is evidence that some could not write but would keep
an archive. Such is the case of the Babatha cache in which a peasant named
Babatha could not write her name, but she kept an archive of important
documents.50 Some of these documents included a marriage contract and the
conditions of a loan.
With gradations of literacy levels more diverse than previously noted and
with the addition of the important category of textual, there are implications
for Greco-Roman participants in the church in Corinth. Since they were in a
city, Greco-Roman converts at Corinth were likely more literate than those in
46 Keith, Jesus’ Literacy, 87. See further B. Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written
Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1983), 7; T. Thatcher, “Literacy, Textual Communities, and
Josephus’ Jewish War,” jsj 29 (1998): 123–42.
47 Cf. L. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 25. I also want to thank Prof. Dr. Martin Webber for discussion
about this point.
48 M. Bar-Ilan, “Illiteracy in the Land of Israel in the First Centuries CE,” in S. Fishbane et al.
(eds.), Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society (vol. 2; New York:
Ktav, 1992), 55.
49 A. Millard, Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (BibSem 69; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic, 2001), 156–57, 170; D. M. Scholer, “Writing and Literature: Greco-Roman,” in
C. A. Evans and S. E. Porter (eds.), Dictionary of New Testament Background (Downers
Grover, IL: Inter-Varsity, 2000), 1283.
50 Millard, Reading and Writing, 170.

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164 Williams
rural situations. With the amount of texts circulating within the ancient world,
Greco-Roman converts at Corinth could have become textually aware even if
they were not literate.
4 Access to Scripture for the Corinthian Community
Aside from addressing reading levels, it is also important to determine if the

Corinthian congregation could have had access to the Scripture. How could
the Corinthians, particularly Greco-Roman Christians, access Scripture? The
synagogue at Corinth would be one place where they could have had access to
it. There is literary evidence that there was a synagogue at Corinth.51 In Legatio
ad Gaium, Philo writes that the Jewish people were dispersed into places in
Asia, Africa, and Europe. He writes that groups of Jews settled in “Argos and
Corinth and all the most fertile and wealthiest districts of Peloponnesus”
(Legat. 36). Citing Strabo, Josephus confirms the presence of Jewish people at
Corinth (Ant. 14.110–118).
Synagogues were known to be houses of learning for Scripture. Synagogue
activities before 70 ce were known for three aspects: communal prayers, ser-
mon, and the reading of Torah.52 Within the synagogues, there was an oppor-
tunity to learn Scripture. It was declared to be a purpose of a synagogue within
Jerusalem before its destruction by Roman forces in 70 ce. Concerning the
synagogue, there is a writing known as the Theodotus inscription which reads
as follows:
Theodotus son of Vettenus, priest and synagogue leader, son of a syna-

gogue leader, grandson of a synagogue leader, rebuilt this synagogue for
the reading of the Law and the teaching of the commandments, and the
hostelry, rooms and baths, for the lodging of those who have need from
abroad. It was established by his forefathers, the elders and Simonides.53
The inscription is written in Greek rather than Hebrew and meant for those
who are “from abroad.” It clearly indicates that the synagogue was not merely
51 Inscriptional evidence may also provide evidence that there was a synagogue present. See
further B. J. Bitner, Paul’s Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1–4: Constitution and Covenant
(sntsms 163; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 91–100.
52 See L. I. Levine, “The Second Temple Synagogue: The Formative Years,” in L. I. Levine (ed.),
The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: asor, 1987), 7–31.
53 For further on the Theodotus inscription, see A. Runesson, D. D. Binder, and B. Olsson, The
Ancient Synagogue from Its Origins to 200 CE: A Source Book (ajec 72; Leiden: Brill, 2008),
52–54.

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used by local Jews but others from outside of the synagogue. It was a purpose
of the first-century synagogue to be a place of learning Scripture which could
be accessed by others who were not necessarily from a Jewish background.
Besides accessing the local synagogue with its goal to share the Scripture,
the predominantly Greco-Roman Corinthians could have learned the Scripture
by hearing it read orally in several venues. In his eighteen months with the
Corinthians, Paul would have had the opportunity to read Scripture aloud to
his followers (Acts 18:11). Crispus (1 Cor 1:14; cf. Acts 18:18), who likely belonged
to the synagogue, and possibly Sosthenes, who may have been connected to
the synagogue (1 Cor 1:1; cf. Acts 18:17), could have also exposed the Corinthian
congregation to Scripture.54 It also is possible that Paul passed along Scripture
or ideas from the Scripture in the first letter that was written to Corinth, which
is not extant (cf. 1 Cor 5:9–13). The contents of this letter included the exhorta-
tion not to associate with immoral people (1 Cor 5:9), which would fit the tenor
of Scripture in other places (cf. Gen 38:24) and which formed the Jewish way of
thinking at the time of the New Testament.55
A further possible exposure to Scripture is that the church meeting at
Corinth could have heard the text of Scripture read at weekly gatherings. There
is evidence of Christians reading the Scripture aloud in their assemblies by
the time of the second century. In 151–154 ce, Justin Martyr will write (1 Apol.
67.1–4) that typical Christian practice involved the reading of the memoirs
of the apostles and also the prophets, which are part of the Scriptures. While
Justin provides later practice than the congregation at Corinth, it may be pos-
sible that the Corinthian Christians were reading from the Scripture earlier.
Evidence of the Corinthians reading aloud during their assemblies can be
found in 95–97 ce as seen in 1 Clem. 47:1. In that passage, Clement urges the
Corinthians, “Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle,” indicating
that the practice of reading aloud was taking place at that time.56 The ethos of
public reading could have been in place even earlier, perhaps at the time when
Paul was writing 1 Corinthians.
54 Crispus is “almost surely” the Jewish synagogue ruler mentioned in Acts 18:8, according
to A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (nigtc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2000), 140; Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 84. The identity of Sosthenes
is less certain in contemporary scholarship but is represented within the history of in-
terpretation as being connected with the synagogue. For the controversy on Sosthenes’s
origin, see Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 69–70.
55 See further W. G. Loader, The New Testament on Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012),
3–68.
56 It is worth noting that 1 Clement has an abundance of Scripture quotations. See further
D. A. Hagner, The Use of the Old and New Testaments in Clement of Rome (NovTSup 34;
Leiden: Brill, 1973), 21–26.

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166 Williams
When texts were read aloud in ancient times, there was a greater possibility
that the readers would have retained what was read, gaining a textual under-
standing. Ancient memory has been recognized to be different than western
memory, which is bombarded with nonsensical information daily. There was
a high degree of what is known as “residual orality,” in other words, memory
from texts that were read aloud and at times were committed to memory.57
Walter Ong describes this phenomenon well in his study Orality and Literacy:
The Technologizing of the Word. As he recounts a history of putting words in
print, he refers to the partial orality of western culture even when words were
put in print:
Manuscripts were not easy to read, by later typographic standards, and

what readers found in manuscripts they tended to commit at least some-
what to memory…. Memorization was encouraged and facilitated also
by the fact that in highly oral manuscript cultures, the verbalization one
encountered even in written texts often continued the oral mnemonic
patterning that made for ready recall. Moreover, readers commonly vo-
calized, read slowly aloud or sotto voce, even when reading alone, and this
also helped fix matter in the memory.58
Studies of memory in the ancient world indicate that it was the norm to hear
texts read orally and meditate upon them. This is evident from Acts 8:26–40,
where Philip encounters the Ethiopian eunuch. In his encounter with the
man, Philip hears the Ethiopian eunuch read the text aloud and then asks
him whether he understands what he is reading. Other sections of ancient lit-
erature within Plato, Theon, and Pliny the Younger record the reader reading
aloud the text.59 Ancient reading was oral performance whenever it occurred
and in whatever circumstances.60
57 P. Achtemeier, “Omne Verbum Sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of
Late Western Antiquity,” jbl 109 (1990): 3.
58 W. J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: Technologizing of the Word (London: Routledge, 1982), 117.
59 See Plato, Phaed. 97b; Theaet. 143b–c; Theon, Progymnasmata, 61; Pliny, Ep. IX, 36.
K. Dronsch, “Transmissions from Scripturality to Orality: Hearing the Voice of Jesus
in Mark,” in R. B. Coote and A. Weissenrieder (eds.), Interface of Orality and Writing:
Speaking, Seeing, Writing in New Genres (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 119–29. Other
ancient Greek texts were also known to be read aloud. See T. L. Tieleman, “Orality and
Writing in Ancient Philosophy,” in Coote and Weissenrieder (eds.), Interface, 19–34;
J. M. Foley, “Plenitude and Diversity: Interactions between Orality and Writing,” in Coote
and Weissenrieder (eds.), Interface, 103–18.
60 Achtemeier, “Omne Verbum Sonat,” 16–17.

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Evidence of the value of an oral voice exists within the ancient world. Papias,
the bishop of Hierapolis, writes these words:
I will not hesitate to set down for you, along with my interpretations, ev-
erything I carefully learned then from the elders and carefully remem-
bered, guaranteeing their truth. For unlike most people I did not enjoy
those who have a great deal to say, but those who teach the truth. Nor did
I enjoy those who recall someone else’s commandments, but those who
remember the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and pro-
ceeding from the truth itself. And if by chance someone who had been
a follower of the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words
of the elders—what Andrew or Peter said, or Philip or Thomas or James
or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever
Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples were saying. For I did not
think that information from books would profit me as much as informa-
tion from a living and abiding voice.61
This should not be read to suggest that Papias is against writing. Papias wrote
books himself, most notably The Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord. Orality
and literacy were both important to him, as they were important to others liv-
ing in the ancient world.62 There is a comparable statement by the physician
Galen (130–216 ce). He writes, “There may well be truth in the saying current
among most craftspeople that learning out of a book is not the same thing as
nor comparable to learning from the living voice” (De compositione medica-
mentorum 6).63 In the fourth century, bishop Ambrose of Milan also noted the
value of hearing over sight at a time when writing was already well-established
within the Christian faith. In his Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, Ambrose
writes, “Sight is often deceived, hearing serves as guarantee” (5).
Reading the Hebrew Scripture encouraged hearing, speaking, and remem-
bering. Certain texts from the Scripture express this explicitly. For example,
Deut 6:4–9 calls for hearing and writing, but also committing them to memory:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the
LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your
61 M. W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (3rd ed.; Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2007), 735.
62 Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church, 31–32.
63 The translation is taken from Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church, 31.

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168 Williams
heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of
them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and
when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on
your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall
write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.64
This is indicative of other texts that encourage such activity (Deut 11:18; 32:46;
Pss 1; 37:31; 40:8; 119:11; 119:98; Prov 3:1–3) and also less explicit texts.65
In summary, there are reasons to believe that the Corinthian congregation
would have been able to grasp Scripture more than has been assumed. Their
reading levels as an urban congregation would likely have been higher than
the general populace’s level. Their reading levels need not be considered at
the scribal literacy level to understand the Scripture, but could be at a semi-
literate or textual level. As ancient readers, they would have likely had a higher
textual appreciation. They had access to the Scripture through the synagogue
in Corinth. Crispus was most likely from the synagogue and Sosthenes may
have been a part of the synagogue, and these men were also part of the con-
gregation. The Greco-Roman Corinthians were also exposed to the Scripture
through Paul through his visit and perhaps his first letter to them. They also
had ample time to hear the Scripture within the public meeting of the church
in which they may not only have heard Scripture read but also had it inter-
preted to them in a public forum. Such learning of the Scripture would have
become internalized more easily for an ancient reader than for a modern one.
5 Considering Assumed Knowledge of Scripture for Those within the

Corinthian Church at the Time of 1 Corinthians
Besides the likelihood of a greater understanding of Scripture, there is also evi-

dence of a good level of textual understanding for the Corinthian congregation
within 1 Corinthians. While Stanley has identified several aspects of scriptural
knowledge that the Corinthians knew, there are reasons to believe that the
congregation knew more than this.
Within the letter of 1 Corinthians, Paul uses the phrase οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ten
times. It is a stylistic crux in 1 Corinthians and is found outside of this Pauline
64 All Bible passages are taken from the esv unless otherwise noted.
65 In her commentary on the Book of Judges, S. Niditch takes the approach that the Hebrew
Bible, even in written form, was meant to be heard and spoken. S. Niditch, Judges: A
Commentary (otl; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2008), 25; The same approach is
also taken by Dronsch, “Transmissions,” 119–29.

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letter only in Rom 6:16; 11:2 (cf. Rom 6:3; 7:1).66 Scholars have recognized that
Paul is assuming prior knowledge, and most of the assumed knowledge refers
to scriptural ideas. With the exception of his reference to the Isthmian games
found in 1 Cor 9:24, all other uses of the formula assume a Jewish scriptural
understanding.67
An appreciation of Jewish scriptural understanding can be seen by the in-
vestigation of several of the οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι phrases in relation to the temple
theme that runs throughout the letter. The first occurrence is found within
1 Cor 3:16–17, where Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are God’s tem-
ple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God
will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” Later in
1 Cor 6:19–20, he will return to the temple idea when he writes, “Or do you not
know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have
from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify
God in your body.” Then, in 1 Cor 9:13 he will refer to temple imagery again
when he writes, “Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple
service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share
in the sacrificial offerings?”
Temples were plentiful within Corinth as there is evidence of temples to
Apollo, Poseidon, Hermes, Demeter, Aphrodite, Isis, and Asklepios. Paul’s dis-
cussion of temples, however, favors a Jewish understanding, which he assumes
that the Corinthians would know. From a detailed study of the temple motif in
1–2 Corinthians in relation to surrounding literature, Yulin Liu notes that purity
was found in Greco-Roman temples as well as the Jewish temple. However, the
Jewish concept of temple has a different sense of interacting with deity than
these Greco-Roman temples. In contrast to the Greco-Roman background,
Liu points out that the Jewish sense of the temple and purity is more onto-
logical, a state of being compatible with the divine.68 Purity is a condition for
contact with God. He finds the Jewish perspective on purity connected with
66 B. A. Edsall, “Paul’s Rhetoric of Knowledge,” NovT 55 (2013): 252–71.

67 Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 159–60. See further I. H. Marshall,
“Church and Temple in the New Testament,” TynBul 40 (1989): 213. Two are not examined
in this article but assume a Jewish understanding of leaven (1 Cor 5:6) and entrance into
the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9).
68 Y. Liu, Temple Purity in 1–2 Corinthians (wunt 2/343; Tübingen: Mohr, 2013), 47–70. See
Tob 1:4; 14:6–7; Jdt 9:8; 1 En. 12:4–5; 14:22–25; 15:3–4; Jub. 1:27–29; 3:10–13; 4:26; 8:19–20; 1
Macc 4:49; 2 Macc 5:15, 13:10; 14:31; T. Lev. 3:28; 5:1; 8:1–19; 9:9–10; 14:1–8; 15:1–2; 16:1–5; 18:6;
T. Benj. 9:1–5; Pr Azar 1:16, 31; Sir 49:12; 1 Esd 1:3, 41, 49, 53; 2:10; 6:18; 7:2; 8:17; Pss. Sol. 1:8; 2:3,
13; 8:13, 25–26; T. Mos. 3:1–3; 5:3; 4 Ezra 10:21–22; 11Q19 XLV, 7–10, 15–16; 4Q274 1 I, 1–9; 4Q514
1 I, 1–6; 1QS I, 21–26; IV, 21; V, 4–13; VI, 16–17; VII, 19–20; VIII, 5, 16; IX, 4–6a, 33ff; 1QH II, 15;
IV, 10; XX, 12; CD II, 19; IV, 19b–V, 11; VI, 11–17; XII, 1–2; XIX, 16; XX, 22–23; 1QpHab VIII, 8–13;
XII, 6–9; 4Q390; Let. Aris. 105–6; Wis 9:8–18; Sib. Or. 3–6; 3 Macc 2:14–23; 4 Macc 4:9–10; 2

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170 Williams
priests, sacrifices, circumcision, vessels, the blood of animals, water, and moral-
ity. Ritual purity with pagan gods can be achieved by purification offerings, but
moral purity emerges from a correct relationship with God. Sexual immorality,
in particular, is defiling from the Jewish perspective. When one becomes un-
clean, ceremonial purification is rather complex from the Jewish perspective.
Purity from the Jewish perspective is absolutely essential for national identity,
embodies faithful worship, and witnesses to Yahweh’s holiness and glory to the
nations.
In their commentary on 1 Corinthians, Ciampa and Rosner also draw atten-
tion to the explicitly Jewish aspect of the temple that they see in Paul’s thinking
in 1 Corinthians. The temple as God’s dwelling place and warnings to destroy
that temple are commonplace in Scripture. His dwelling is not simply that of
a holy place, but he indwells his people (Exod 25:8; 29:45; Lev 26:11–12; Ps 114:2;
Ezek 11:16; 37:26–28). The Peshitta of Jer 7:9 states this clearly: “The temple of
the Lord, the temple of the Lord, you [plural] are the temple of the Lord.” It is
this concept of the temple that comprises 1 Cor 3:16–17 where God’s holiness
and Spirit indwell his people.
From this Jewish concept of the temple in 1 Cor 3:16–17, Paul can then urge
the expulsion of the incestuous man (1 Cor 5), all of which is based on a Jewish
understanding.69 The incestuous man is to be delivered over to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
(1 Cor 5:5). The exclusion and destruction motif picks up a large number of
Jewish ideas. Deuteronomy 23:2–9 was employed by Ezra and Nehemiah for
the exclusion of foreign wives from the community (Ezra 9:1–2; Neh 13:1–3,
23–27; cf. Lam 1:10). Exclusion ideas can also be seen in the entrance laws from
Pss 15 and 24:3–4 and Isa 33:14–17. Rebels were also to be excluded from Ezek
20:38–40 and 44:6–9.70 This then is connected to Paul’s injunction not to be
boasting, and a little yeast leavens the whole lump of dough, a Jewish concept
(cf. Exod 12:14–20; Deut 20:3–8).71 The chapter finally culminates in the com-
mand to judge the insider as God’s people were to judge their own. This then
leads to Paul citing from Deut 17:7, although other texts from Deuteronomy
may be in mind (Deut 13:5; 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21; 24:7). Paul’s reason for exclud-
ing the man in incest is based on a Jewish mindset from Deuteronomy but it is
in line with his understanding of the Jewish temple, which he assumes that the
Corinthians understood.
Bar. 32:1–9; Philo, Spec. 1.66–67, 116, 269; 2.163–164; Somn. 1.62, 149; Cher. 98; Josephus, Ant.
3.180–181; 18.19; War 1.148–153; 2.129; 4.201; 5.217–218; 6.93–110; Life 14, 75; Apion 2.102–104.
69 Ciampa and Rosner, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 210–11.
70 W. Horbury, “Extirpation and Excommunication,” VT 35 (1985): 25–27.
71 Ciampa and Rosner, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 213.

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The temple metaphor then extends into 1 Cor 6:19–20. Instead of allow-
ing the Corinthians to be free with their bodies, Paul asks the Corinthians to
recall the scriptural idea that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Rather
than appealing to Deuteronomy or sections of the Psalms that speak of holi-
ness or exclusion, Paul appeals to the fact that they are not their own. This,
too, has a Jewish scriptural overlap. A strong parallel to this idea can be found
within Hos 3:2–3. Just as Hosea ordered Gomer not to be a prostitute, Paul ex-
horts the Corinthians not to go to prostitutes (Hos 3:3).72 As in Hos 3 when the
prophet redeemed his wife out of a degrading lifestyle, so now in 1 Cor 6, Paul
echoes these same sentiments.73
Did Paul expect the Corinthians to know all of these texts? This may be ask-
ing too much; however, the scriptural ideas that come from temple and belong-
ing are Jewish, and he does expect some knowledge of these concepts. Paul
appeals to a knowledge that the Corinthians should have had. It is a theme
that is drawn from multiple texts that would have been expected to be un-
derstood. When he writes in 2 Cor 6:16–18, Paul will again appeal to several
scriptural ideas in a composite citation. These also display a broad knowledge
of the temple idea (Exod 29:45; Lev 26:11–12; 2 Sam 7:14; Ezek 11:16b–20; 37:27;
Isa 43:6; 52:11; Jer 31:1).74
Other uses of οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι also display knowledge of Jewish Scripture. In
1 Cor 6:2–3, Paul writes, “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the
world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try
trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more,
then, matters pertaining to this life!” Several recognize that Paul is indebted
to the Jewish hope. This is best expressed in Dan 7:22 but is also picked up
within other sections of early Jewish literature.75 Stanley suggests that this
has been Christianized and would not make a difference to readers. He be-
lieves that other texts that pick up this idea would be Matt 19:28; Luke 22:30;
Jude 14–15; Rev 2:26–27; 20:4. While this idea may be similar in other texts, the
Corinthians text is the earliest of all. While the idea could be available orally,
it would make greater sense if the idea was brought forward from Judaism, as
the Jewish texts are the ones that precede Paul’s writing. It would be fair to con-
72 Ciampa and Rosner, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 265.

73 Ciampa and Rosner, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 264–65.
74 P. Balla, “2 Corinthians,” in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New
Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 768–73.
75 See Dan 7:22 expressed within other early Jewish texts: Wis 3:7–8; Jub. 24:29; Sir 4:11, 15;
1 En. 1:9, 38; 38:5; 95:3; 96:1; 98:12; 108:12; 1QpHab V, 4–5. These are picked up in Christian
writings (Matt 19:28; Luke 22:30; Jude 14–15; Rev 2:26–27; 20:4). Ciampa and Rosner,
First Letter to the Corinthians, 227; H. Lietzmann, An die Korinther 1/2 (Tübingen: Mohr,
1949), 25.

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172 Williams
clude that Dan 7:22 is the most logical text to influence this section of Paul’s
writing and the Corinthians’ understanding. As C. H. Dodd states, Dan 7:22
“supplies the implicit scriptural authority for Paul’s doctrine that the saints
shall judge the world.”76
6 Conclusion
Studies on Paul’s use of Scripture have run aground in some quarters due to
the inability to address the perspective from which Paul’s letter should be
read—according to the writer or according to the reader. Should the letter
be interpreted from the perspective of a literate Paul, as Ciampa, Rosner, and
Hays advocate, or should it be interpreted from the perspective of a much
less scripturally-literate readership, as Stanley suggests? While there is more
to be accomplished on this subject, this paper has considered 1 Corinthians
and the level of scriptural understanding of the reader with regard to recent
studies on literacy and in relation to the assumed knowledge displayed within
1 Corinthians.
There is good reason to expect that the Corinthian Christians were more
literate than former studies on literacy have concluded, since the Corinthians
were located in an urban center. There is even more reason to believe that the
Corinthians were more textually literate due to the appreciation of oral com-
munication in the day. The Corinthians were likely exposed to the Scripture
from the synagogue, through the former synagogue ruler Crispus, possibly
Sosthenes, and certainly Paul. The Corinthians’ comprehension of Scripture
is evident from Paul’s use of the formula οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι, which largely refers to
Jewish themes. Paul uses this formula frequently and appeals to an assumed
Jewish understanding that comes from Scripture, particularly in relation to the
temple theme but also in relation to eschatology.
With further clarity about literacy and textuality in particular, and evidence
of a higher comprehension among the Corinthian congregation than what has
been assumed, this study favors the approach of Ciampa, Rosner, and Hays
over the approach of Stanley. It encourages reading 1 Corinthians from the per-
spective of the writer Paul but also with the assumption of a textual or some-
what literate Corinthian readership.
76 C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology
(London: Fontana, 1952), 68.

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Chapter 9
Paul’s View of Ἀδιάφορα in 1 Corinthians 8–10

1 Introduction
The issue of eating meat offered to idols (εἰδωλόθυτα) arises first in 1 Cor 8.
The problem was obviously brought up by the Corinthians in a previous letter
sent to Paul. The eating of sacrificed meals was clearly too normal a custom
to be avoided.1 And since it is mentioned in 1 Cor 8:10 and also is implied in
1 Cor 10:7–8, it appears that the dilemma of eating meat in a pagan temple
became a real one for many in the church at Roman Corinth.2 The areas under
discussion in chs. 8–10 are difficult. Additionally, 1 Cor 10:22 appears to disagree
with both 1 Cor 10:27 and 1 Cor 8:10.3
The Corinthians argued that meat offered to idols was not a real danger for
them. Their disagreement is based on their γνῶσις (knowledge) that only God
is God and food (offered to idols) is an indifferent matter.4 Since idols are not
real, then eating and not eating meat offered to idols is ἀδιάφορα.5 Hence, ac-
cording to some members at Roman Corinth, eating in temples dedicated to
gods is harmless. The church members at Corinth held a different view in their
evaluations of which matters were important and which were not. However,
the problem threatened the stability and unity of the community. The ones (the
strong) who claimed knowledge (γνῶσις) considered the meat, with respect to
1 Pheme Perkins, First Corinthians (Paideia; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 114.
2 Joël Delobel, “Coherence and Relevance of 1 Cor 8–10,” in R. Bieringer (ed.), The Corinthian
Correspondence (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996), 178.
3 Alex T. Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth: Jewish Background and Pauline Legacy (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic, 1999), 83.
4 Ben Witherington, Conflict & Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and
2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 186.
5 Richard A. Horsley, 1 Corinthians (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 115: “Paul indicates at
points that he is citing certain slogans of the Corinthians (e.g., 8:1, 4). For example, the warn-
ing about ‘this liberty of yours’ in 8:9 clearly indicates that the preceding statement in verse
8 about idol-food being a matter of indifference represents the Corinthians’ position, not
his own.”

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174 Coutsoumpos
God, ἀδιάφορα. They also argued that not only what one eats, but also where
one eats meat offered to idols (εἰδωλόθυτα), is an indifferent matter.6
It seems most likely that the Corinthians learned their concept of meals as
religiously indifferent from Paul. It is my contention that the issue of the lack
of consistency in Paul’s logic on the problem of idol meals can be better un-
derstood if we consider the big picture of idolatry rather than just considering
food offered to idols or idol meat in pagan temples.7 When 1 Cor 8–10 is seen
as a whole, Paul’s view is not contradictory, nor does the apostle condemn all
consumption of idol meat.8 I will also suggest that Paul’s view of ἀδιάφορον
possibly will help us to understand the apostle’s view and the apparent in-
consistency on the issue of idol meat. Furthermore, the inconsistency in the
flow of the logic of 1 Cor 8: 1–11:1 is the result of the combination of two letter
portions.9 It must be acknowledged that it is not easy to grasp the flow of the
Apostle Paul’s consistency or contradiction in this part.10 Quintilian rightly ob-
serves that digressions are especially likely to be incorporated when the desire
is to rebuke, as is the case in this part of 1 Corinthians.11
In the Greco-Roman context, the term ἀδιάφορα was a common expression
among the philosophers (Stoics) of the time, and it is probable that Paul was
familiar with the term as well.12 Some scholars have argued that the apostle
6 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009), 114.
7 Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical Theological Study (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 2007), 88: “At issue in 1 Cor 8:1–11:1 is an ongoing argument between Paul
and the Corinthians over their insistence on the right to attend festive meals in pagan
temples.” See also Panayotis Coutsoumpos, “Paul, the Cults in Corinth, and the Corinthian
Correspondence,” in Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Paul’s World (PAST 4; Leiden: Brill, 2008),
177–80.
8 Coye E. Still, “Paul’s Aims Regarding εἰδωλόθυτας: A New Proposal for Interpreting
1 Corinthians 8:1–11:1,” NovT 44 (2002): 333–43.
9 Delobel, “Coherence and Relevance,” 180: “The majority of the authors holds the original
unity of the three chapters and tries to explain the lack of coherence by distinguishing
between the main problem and a side issue. The main problem is the question about
sacrificial meat which is discussed in 8:1–13; 10:23–11:1 (+ 10:1–13).”
10 Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 82–83.
11 Quintilian, Inst. Or. 4.3.14.
12 J. C. Thom, “Stoicism,” in Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter (eds.), Dictionary of New
Testament Background (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 1141; Robert M. Grant, Paul
in the Roman World: The Conflict at Corinth (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001),
117; Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993),
338; James L. Jaquette, Discerning What Counts: The Function of Adiaphora Topos in Paul’s
Letters (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 137. See also Will Deming, “Paul and Indifferent
Things,” in J. Paul Sampley (ed.), Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook (Harrisburg:
Trinity Press International, 2003), 384–403. The two main philosophical schools of the

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Paul ’ s View of Αδιάφορα in 1 Corinthians 8–10 175
Paul used this term as part of his everyday language.13 Whether or not Paul
used this term is a matter of debate. The general difficulty of eating meat or
meat sacrificed to idols in a pagan temple has been the focus of many impor-
tant studies of Corinth.14 For many years, 1 Cor 8–10 has posed difficulties for
many interpreters, particularly the issue of inconsistency.15
The main problem has been that some scholars find some inconsistency
and contradiction regarding idol meals.16 At first glance, 1 Cor 8 seems to mean
that the eating of idol meat is in itself a morally impartial act which should
be avoided only because of the effect it may have on others. Was Paul or the
Corinthians influenced by the Stoic philosophers? We will begin with a brief
look at ἀδιάφορα in the Greco-Roman culture and in the apostle Paul.
2 The Stoic Philosophers, Ἀδιάφορα, and Paul
The Greek ἀδιάφορα (or ἀδιάφορον) is a term that the Stoic philosophers use
for an “indifferent thing.” And the Stoic philosophers used this term in their
teaching about ethics very often. To most other Greek philosophers, the Stoics
were eudaemonists.17 For the Stoic philosophers, the happy life is also self-
sufficient in that nothing needs to be added to the highest good, εὐδαιμονία, to
make life superior.18 The Stoics agreed with other philosophers that happiness
is a fundamental condition tied to an individual’s virtues, desires, and moral
reputation.19
Furthermore, the Stoic philosophers saw a relationship between value
(ἀξία) and the favored (προηγμένα), as mentioned in the standard accounts of
Greco-Roman Era were the Stoics and Epicureans. Both were for the most part interested
in ethics but created a complete description of reality that was influential further than
their own circles of followers. Stoicism was one of the major philosophical traditions in
New Testament times (cf. Acts 17:18) and debatably the most influential.
13 David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 264.
14 Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians, 112; Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 82–85;
Delobel, “Coherence and Relevance,” 177–78.
15 Coutsoumpos, “Cults,” 172.
16 Gregory W. Dawes, “The Danger of Idolatry: First Corinthians 8:7–13,” CBQ (1996): 82–98.
17 T. H. Irwin, “Stoic and Aristotelian Conceptions of Happiness,” in Malcolm Schofield
and Gisela Striker (eds.), The Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic Ethics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 205–44.
18 Stob. Ecl. 2.46.8–10.
19 Jaquette, Discerning What Counts, 39: “The Stoic, like other Greek moralists, claims that
they understand the nature of eudaimonia and how it can be obtained.”

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176 Coutsoumpos
ἀδιάφορα and proper acts (καθήκουντα) in the manual of Stoic ethics.20 For the
Stoics, ἀδιάφορα are neither good nor bad. The whole thing, apart from virtue
and vice, falls into the category of ‘indifference’ (ἀδιάφορα).21
Even though these ἀδιάφορα do not add to happiness, they may be used well
or badly since per se they do no help morally. But moral value is connected to
goods, particularly virtue, which contributes to the happiness of life.22 To this
point, we notice that the Stoics precisely differentiate between two senses of
value: “that ascribed to moral goods and that pertaining to prima facie goods
or preferred indifferents.”23 Additionally, the Stoics attribute value to preferred
indifferents, but they strongly deny that anything can be added to the virtuous
life to make it more worthy.
Consequently, ἀδιάφορα do not have an effect on a moral agent’s εὐδαιμονία.24
Even though preferred indifferents have value, the value they have adds noth-
ing to the moral good. For the Greek moral philosophers, good and evil are
limited to moral value and disvalue. Only virtue is good; vices alone are evil.
According to Stobaeus and Diogenes, bad things are the contrary of good
things, consisting of vice and all things that participate in vice.25 The whole
thing in the world is indifference. Hence, indifferents were neither virtue nor
vice, nor did they take part in virtue or vice. They added such things as health,
sickness, wealth, and poverty.26
The other things are indifferent (ἀδιάφορον) because they have no ethical
worth. On the contrary, some ἀδιάφορα do have non-ethical worth and oth-
ers possess non-ethical disvalue.27 It is interesting to notice that, according to
the Stoic moralists, an object may be valued because choosing it has practical
purpose. Cicero observes that goods and evils are different not in degree but in
kind from ethical value and suitable items.28 Are these concepts of the Greek
moralists used by Paul? This is one of the subjects in Pauline studies that is
20 Plut. Comm. not. 1069C; Cic. Fin. 3.23.

21 Jaquette, Discerning What Counts, 37.
22 Cic. Fin. 3.21.
24 Cic. Fin. 3.21; Plut. Comm. not. 1061F–1062A; Sen. Ep. 76.9–10. Sen. Vit. beat. 22, points out
that “indifference contributes to a personal joy.” Seneca’s approach to the preferred seems
to take an unconventional line.
25 Stob. Ecl. 2.7.5–12; Diogenes Laertius 7.95–99.
26 Deming, “Paul and Indifferent Things,” 384–85: “While the Stoics classed all such things as
indifferents, they held that indifferents could nonetheless differ from one another on the
basis of ‘value.’ … Then there were indifferent things whose value was scant or indifferent,
like whether one had an odd or even number of hairs on his or her head.”
27 Stob. Ecl. 2.83.10–11.
28 Cic. Fin. 3.34. See also Stob. Ecl. 2.85.4–6.

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not well investigated; the uses and functions of ἀδιάφορα have been practically
ignored. At the same time a number of scholars have distinguished the discus-
sions of ἀδιάφορον in Paul.29 One significant aspect of Paul’s understanding of
the Greco-Roman culture was his familiarity with many of the topoi current in
the philosophical and rhetorical writings of the time.30
In addition, Ronald Hock and Abraham Malherbe have shown that a great
deal of the method of Paul’s language and imagery is common to the philo-
sophical tradition of the time as part of the Greco-Roman culture.31 It is most
likely that Paul used terminology that he borrowed from the Stoic moralists.
Several quotations, however, hardly prove that the apostle Paul was familiar
with Stoic writings.32 Albert Schweitzer asserts that the similarities between
Paul and the Stoics are only external resemblance; they are not actually
comparable.33 Even though the Stoic’s language may on occasion seem similar,
its meaning is completely different.34
There are correspondences of language and imagery between Paul and the
Stoic moralists, but Paul used such images and language and transformed them
and purified the ideas. What does Paul consider indifference? Are some items
considered ἀδιάφορα in one circumstance and not in another? The apostle Paul
was very comfortable in the Greco-Roman world. Jaquette asserts that “its lan-
guage provided the environments where he conducted his mission and its cul-
ture served as the backdrop for his symbolic universe.”35 Paul’s treatments of
ἀδιάφορα also give sanctions for normative behavior and structures which the
church could use as a rule of conduct.
Additionally, by defining ἀδιάφορα, Paul releases the church converts for
genuine meeting with others and defends them from mistakes in regard to
moral value. The issue that the apostle Paul faces is a central mix-up between
29 Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000); Jaquette,
Discerning What Counts, 24–35; C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (mntc; New
York: R. Long and R. R. Smith, 1932), 217; Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament,
vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), 309, 342.
31 Ronald Hock, The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 77; Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 35–48.
32 Ronald H. Nash, The Gospel and the Greeks: Did the New Testament Borrow from Pagan
Thought? (Richardson, TX: Probe, 1992), 74.
33 Albert Schweitzer, Paul and His Interpreters (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 96.
34 Nash, Gospel, 75: “When properly understood, Seneca’s ethic is repulsive to Pauline
Christianity. It is totally devoid of genuine human emotion and compassion. It lacks any
intrinsic tie to repentance, conversion, and faith in God.”

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178 Coutsoumpos
absolutes and ἀδιάφορα. Does Paul employ the same expressions to identify an
indifferent matter in 1 Cor 8–10 like the Stoic philosophers? What seems prob-
able is that he had spoken against εἰδωλόθυτα in his former letter and that in
their correspondence to him they had taken exception to what he had said.36
In a sense, Paul agrees with the strong that an idol is nothing and for this rea-
son no food can be contaminated by virtue of its having been offered to an
idol.37 Consequently, the dilemma of idol meat is an ἀδιάφορον. Which portion
of the issue then is Paul dealing with in 1 Cor 8–10? Besides, there are questions
that need to be considered: Is it immoral to eat meat (εἰδωλόθυτα) that has
been before offered in sacrifice to idols? Is it possible to eat in an idol’s temple
and not be involved in idolatry?
3 Eἰδωλόθυτα in 1 Corinthians 8–10
Eἰδωλόθυτα was such a significant problem in 1 Corinthians that it takes up

three chapters, an estimated fifteen percent of the letter.38 A good number of
scholars believe that Paul was concerned mainly with the problem of meat
sold in the macellum.39 Most of the meat available for public use came from
sacrificial offerings. In most of the temples, worship involved the sacrifice of
birds or animals on an altar. Temples and market places were found all around
the city of Roman Corinth.40
Some of the temples had sacrificial worship in the front part of the build-
ing and a public meat market (macellum) in the rear.41 According to J. Meggitt,
meat was not a regular item in the ancient diet and was normally eaten as part
of a religious service.42 It is interesting to notice that meat was not the only
36 Nigel Watson, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Epworth Commentaries; London:
Epworth, 1992), 82.
37 Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 86. See also Victor P. Furnish, The Theology of the First Letter
to the Corinthians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 68.
38 Michael D. Goulder, Paul and the Competing Mission in Corinth (Library of Pauline Studies;
Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001), 165.
39 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Collegeville, MN:
Liturgical Press, 2002), 30–31: “The word for meat market is macellum, which in Greek
dress is the term used by Paul when he advises those who had scruples about eating meat
offered to idols. ‘Eat whatever is sold in the meat market (en makello) without raising any
questioning on the ground of conscience’ (1 Cor 10:25).” See also Coutsoumpos, “Cults,” 171;
Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians (SP; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1999), 322.
40 Coutsoumpos, “Cults,” 171–72.
41 Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth, 30.
42 Justin J. Meggitt, “Meat Consumption and Social Conflict in Corinth,” JTS 45 (1994): 137–41.

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kind of food sacrificed to the deities in Greco-Roman religions. They also used
for their religious sacrifices products such as fruits, grains, cakes, fish, milk, oil,
and wine.43
The fact that these temple banquets were both sacred and social occasions
at one and the same time must have complicated the problem significantly.44
There were many idolatrous cults in Roman Corinth. Idols and idolatrous cer-
emonies were present all over the Greco-Roman world, and Pausanias men-
tions clearly that Corinth was full of them.45 Everywhere Pausanias went in
Corinth, he saw many altars to different idols and deities. In fact, there were
small temples all over town for the worship of Apollo, Poseidon, Dionysus, and
dozens of other gods and goddesses. For the Corinthians, the pressure to par-
ticipate in these social activities in a pagan temple was a real one because most
of the time they could not escape, since it was part of their civic duties.
It is well known that meat markets were common in most of the cities
in the Greco-Roman world. It is normally taken for granted that the issue of
εἰδωλόθυτα and the problem of attending the worship of idols were created by
the behavior of some of the church members, the strong.46 As with other is-
sues in the church, the problem connected to εἰδωλόθυτα, together with eating
at a table in a pagan temple, was not acceptable by Paul. It has been seen as
a demonstration of the theology of some of the members at Roman Corinth.47
For the apostle Paul, personal freedom is not absolute. Some of the church
members at Roman Corinth appear to have had a different opinion. Some in-
terpreters have taken the position that Paul is mainly concerned here with the
issue of marketplace food.48 On the contrary, Fee has argued that this point of
view labors under crucial difficulties.49 He adds that the problem in 1 Cor 8–10
centers on different opinions about ἀδιάφορα.50 Fee also asserts that a signifi-
cant topic of 1 Cor 10:13–11:1 is personal freedom in regard to ἀδιάφορα.51
43 John Fotopoulos, Food Offered to Idols in Roman Corinth: A Social-Rhetorical Reconsideration
of 1 Corinthians 8:1–11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 14.
44 Watson, First Epistle, 82–83.
45 Pausanias, Desc. 2.2–5. See also Coutsoumpos, Paul and the Lord’s Supper: A Socio-
Historical Investigation (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), 83.
46 John K. Chow, Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic, 1992), 142.
47 John C. Hurd, Jr., The Origin of 1 Corinthians (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983),
76–68.
48 Watson, First Epistle, 83.
49 Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (nicnt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987),
358–61.
50 Fee, First Epistle, 473.
51 Fee, First Epistle, 490.

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180 Coutsoumpos
For instance, in 1 Cor 8:10, the only allusion in the section to actual practice
refers to attending a banquet and eating meat in a pagan temple. Besides, the
tone in 1 Cor 8 is a good deal less tolerant than that of 10:23–11:1. Fee’s conclu-
sion is that in both 1 Cor 8:1–13 and 1 Cor 10:1–22 Paul is concentrating on one
problem, whether Christians have the right to attend cultic banquets.52 This
viewpoint, however, is itself open to serious questions, of which Fee himself is
well aware.
To get around the issue of the inconsistency between 1 Cor 8:1–13 and
10:18–22, Fee has to take the viewpoint that in the later chapter the apostle
brings a line of reasoning of a different order to the original issue.53 On the
contrary, what about the problems that Fee considers inherent in the tradi-
tional viewpoint? As B. N. Fisk points out, Fee’s opinion is that in 1 Cor 8:1–
13 Paul permits his readers to eat meat unless someone will be scandalized,
and in 1 Cor 10:23–11:1 he forbids to eat idol meat because someone will be
scandalized.54 While the emphases of the two texts are different, the main ar-
gument is almost the same. This problem of εἰδωλόθυτα and εἰδωλολατρία is
discussed particularly in 1 Cor 8:1–10 and 10:1–22 as part of a broader discussion
concerning meat offered to idols.55
In particular, in 1 Cor 10:14 the apostle Paul clearly disapproves of the
Corinthians’ idol meat use, which for him represents idolatry.56 Paul’s prohibi-
tion to the church member at Corinth is also clear: διόπερ, ἀγαπητοί μου, φεύγετε
ἀπὸ τῆς εἰδωλολατρίας. Paul adds these counsels with admonitions about the
grave dangers of idolatry itself.57 His admonitions both take for granted and
call attention to a very significant difference.
It also must be observed that the supposed dissociation of εἰδωλόθυτα from
εἰδωλολατρία is nowhere to be found in early Judaism or in the early church.58
As it is known, εἰδωλόθυτον symbolizes εἰδωλολατρία in Jewish tradition and
Paul was well aware of it. The issue of εἰδωλόθυτα is more complex than can
be treated fully here. However, Peter J. Tomson clearly asserts that “a question
52 Fee, First Epistle, 363: “The practice which Paul discourages in chapter 8 is not represented
as being harmful in itself but only in so far as it could cause distress to a ‘weak fellow-
Christian’. In 10:18–22, however, Paul is clearly talking about a practice that is intrinsically
harmful, in that the mere act of participation brings the participant into partnership with
demons.”
54 Bruce N. Fisk, “Eating Meat Offered to Idols: Corinthian Behavior and Pauline Response in
1 Corinthians 8–10,” TJ 10 (1989): 67.
55 Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 87.
56 Fotopoulos, Food Offered, 233.
57 Furnish, Theology, 69–70.

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which is of great importance is the connection between food bought in the

market and idolatry. A number of studies, as well as archeological investiga-
tion, make it clear that this connection was by no means imaginary.”59
The moral and pastoral principle Paul was raising, however, was the effect
of one’s actions on other people. According to the apostle Paul, we do not act
in a vacuum. What we decide to do affects other people, and we have a respon-
sibility to consider the possible consequences on the whole community when
we are making a decision on moral issues. For Paul, however, the engagement
meant advising persons according to their amount of faith and circumstances.60
In other words, for Paul faith is an important element in the Christian life, par-
ticularly when you live in a very pluralistic environment.
Nevertheless, some interpreters have considered that it makes more sense
to see Paul’s apparent inconsistency as his answer to two different problems;
that is, the eating of meat offered to idols (1 Cor 10:23–11:1) and eating at a ban-
quet in a pagan temple.61 The apostle gives the impression, however, that he
allows his readers to eat meat sacrificed to idols (εἰδωλόθυτα),62 but prohib-
its any action which required actual attendance in another cult. The evident
uncertainty or inconsistency in Paul’s dealing with the problem is due to the
difficulty of the situation and the idol meat issue in the church at Corinth.63
However, the circumstance Paul has in mind in 1 Cor 8:10 appears to be more
of a social banquet than a religious activity.64 Therefore, as we already noted,
some of the activities in the temple were also of a social character. Paul en-
countered the difficulty of establishing moral standards in a setting of cultural
pluralism in the church at Roman Corinth.
Idolatry was a real issue for the Corinthians and that is why the apostle Paul
was very emphatic in his counsel to some of the Corinthians.65 As it is similar
to Jewish belief, Paul is sure that εἰδωλολατρία is impossible for a Christian be-
liever. The prohibition against idolatry was one of the Ten Commandments of
Moses, and worshiping other gods than the one true God was strictly forbidden.
59 Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakka in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 190.
60 J. P. Sampley, Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1991), 57–62.
61 Chow, Patronage and Power, 141.
62 Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 98.
63 C. K. Barrett, “Things Sacrificed to Idols,” NTS 11 (1965): 138–56.
64 Horsley, 1 Corinthians, 116: “The issue of ‘food sacrificed to idols’ involved whether those
who had joined the Jesus movement(s) should still participate in the most constitutive
social relations of Greco-Roman society.”

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182 Coutsoumpos
The majority of Christian Jews in the church in Corinth were trying to live by
these common rules of Judaism.
It is not surprising, however, that some of the church members at Roman
Corinth brought up a question περὶ δὲ τῶν εἰδωλοθύτων (1 Cor 8:1).66 Paul’s an-
swer to their question is as expected: depart from idolatry. In other words, the
apostle Paul “was against eating food offered to idols (εἰδωλόθυτα) because he
understood that the Lord’s meal was a fellowship (κοινωνία) with the Lord and
with the believers.”67
Was it, or was it not, allowable for a church member to eat meat which
had been offered to pagan idols in a temple?68 Paul raises the question now
in response to their letter, but the antagonistic tone of his response makes it
improbable that they had just asked for the apostle’s guidance. What Paul obvi-
ously has in mind is a former idol worshipper falling back into the grip of idola-
try. But the Corinthians, particularly the strong, did not see any problem in
attending a formal banquet at a private home or in the temple dining facility.69
What determines correctness according to the apostle Paul? And how does
one characterize accepted conduct with regard to these issues?
Obviously, the church members at Corinth had been justifying their partici-
pation in cultic meals on the basis that an idol has no real existence, so that
any meat offered to idols is no more than simple meat. In other words, the
meat that has been left over from pagan sacrifices poses no threat in and itself;
therefore, some believers at Corinth feel free in principle to eat it as they desire
(1 Cor 10:19).70
For the apostle Paul, attending these idol meat banquets was identical to
what Israel did in the desert in provoking God. The Corinthians were seeking
the apostle’s guidance over an internal dispute around idol meat and attending
a banquet in a pagan temple.71 Some of the Corinthians thought it was perfect-
ly all right to eat the meat (εἰδωλόθυτα) that had been sacrificed to pagan idols,
and other church members at Corinth thought doing so was morally wrong.72
66 Goulder, Paul and the Competing Mission, 153.

69 Fotopoulos, Food Offered to Idols, 176.
70 Furnish, Theology, 69–70: “However, believers are absolutely forbidden ever to participate
as worshippers in pagan rites, because that would mean abandoning God for the demons
(vv. 20–21), and thereby crossing a boundary that must not be crossed.”
71 Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 88: “Moreover, though it is often asserted that Paul’s own
position is closer to that of the strong, his language hardly suggests that he is in basic
agreement with them, but strongly suggests that he and they are at odds on the issue.”
72 Collins, First Corinthians, 305.

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An eagerness to eat of this meat sacrificed to idols is a matter of social involve-

ment as part of being a citizen of the Greco-Roman society.
In defense of their behavior of moral freedom, the Corinthians seem to have
been fond of ‘sloganeering.’73 The prohibition, however, of εἰδωλολατρία was
central to the missionary preaching and teaching of the apostle Paul.74 In some
cases he composed a saying to counter one of theirs. Table 9.1 lists some of the
examples.
Many of the arguments put forward by the Corinthian church members
seem to be rationalizations for escaping all moral prohibitions.75 It is obvious
that they quoted sayings from the Stoic moralists and from literature of the
time. In fact, there is no proof that their question concerning εἰδωλόθυτα rep-
resents a rupture of opinion within the church.76 This issue and others created
friction among the church members in Roman Corinth. Paul countered such
arguments by pointing to the Christian’s responsibility for the well-being of
other persons. Furthermore, Paul’s warnings against the danger of idolatry are
Table 9.1 Slogans and responses
The Corinthians Paul
All things are lawful. But not all things are beneficial, and not
all things build up (1 Cor 10:25).
All of us possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up. But love builds up
(1 Cor 8:1).
Food will not bring us close to God. We Take care that this liberty of yours does
are no worse off if we do not eat, and no not somehow become a stumbling block
better off if we do. to the weak (1 Cor 8:8–9).
No idol in the world really exists It is not everyone, however, who has this
(1 Cor 8:4). knowledge (1 Cor 8:7).
Food is meant for the stomach and the God will destroy both one and the other.
stomach for food. The body is meant not for fornication
but for the Lord and the Lord for the
body (1 Cor 6:13).

74 Garland, 1 Corinthians, 354.
75 Horsley, 1 Corinthians, 115.
76 Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 87–88: “The element of internal strife has simply been read
into the text from 1 Corinthians 1–4 or under the influence of Roman 14:1–15. There is no
hint in our passage that the weak ever challenge the right of the strong to eat idol food.”

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184 Coutsoumpos
quite clear (1 Cor 10:1–22). It is interesting to observe also that Paul’s warnings
both take for granted and call attention to a significant difference.77
At the end, Paul has forbidden everything that is related to idolatry and
warned the Corinthian community not to be associated with it. Thus, the wor-
ship of idols was the main sin cautioned against by the apostle.78 For Paul,
eating idol meat before a cult statue while dining in a pagan temple was the
same as idolatry (“worship of dead gods”; cf. Did. 6:3). Was Paul inconsistent
on the issue of idolatry? How then should we understand Paul’s counsel and
teaching?79
4 The Problem of Inconsistency in Paul
There seems to be a problem of inconsistency in the way the apostle Paul

instructed the church members concerning idol meals and the various con-
texts in which the issue (εἰδωλόθυτα) was encountered.80 According to John
Fotopoulos, this situation creates a huge problem for some of the Corinthians
(the strong and the weak), and particularly for the weak consciences of some
of the new converts who did not really understand the apostle Paul.81 It is be-
yond the scope of this article to investigate in detail the nature of the issue of
the weak and the strong.
Paul deals with the question in two places, in ch. 8 and again in 10:14–22.82 It
is sometimes argued that the two treatments of the same questions are not con-
sistent with each other, and that they must in the beginning have formed parts
of two different letters. This view seems to be mentioned in 1 Cor 10:23–11:1.83
However, Paul in 10:14–22 also seems to suggest that eating meat offered to
idols is quite simply unacceptable. Without a doubt, there were some in the
77 Furnish, Theology, 70: “Paul introduces the question about meat from pagan temples with
two affirmations that are of critical theological importance, one about knowing God (8:1–
3) and another about belonging to one God and one Lord (vv. 4–6).”
78 Fee, The First Epistle, 453.
79 James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 704:
“The most straightforward exegesis is that Paul counseled the avoidance of meals at
which it was known beforehand that idol food would be served.”
81 Fotopoulos, Food Offered to Idols, 1ff.
82 C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (BNTC; London: Adam
& Charles Black, 1979), 188–89.
83 Horsley, 1 Corinthians, 117: “The issue of ‘food sacrificed to idols’ involved whether those
who had joined the Jesus movement should still participate in the most constitutive
social relations of Greco-Roman society.”

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church at Roman Corinth or travelling Jewish believers who pressed the same
prohibition as obligatory on the members.84
Some of these Jewish travelers are the ones known as Judaizers, who went
around Asia Minor imposing circumcision on the new Gentile converts.85
What is more, matters were much more difficult for Gentile converts than for
the Jewish believers. The issue of εἰδωλολατρία is highlighted in a case brought
up by the apostle, in which a man who has γνῶσις is seen participating and eat-
ing idol meat in a pagan temple (1 Cor 8:10).86 The dilemma of εἰδωλολατρία is
mentioned, particularly in 1 Cor 10:1–22, as part of a larger context relating to
εἰδωλόθυτα or meat offered to idols.87 The problem Paul faced is how to correct
the wrong behavior (especially the participation in pagan temples) of some of
the church members at Corinth. It is clear that Paul moved on to a new issue.
Eating idol meats is reproved here not because it may create a problem to
cause the weak to stumble, but rather, because it represents idolatry in itself.88
In fact, the main problem which Paul discusses in 1 Cor 8:1–10:22 is meat of-
fered to idols in a pagan temple.89
W. L. Willis has a similar view point. He asserts that in their letter to the
apostle Paul, the church members at Corinth had asked if it was acceptable
to consume meat in a pagan temple.90 There are not many scholars, like
J. C. Hurd, who argue that the situation discussed in 1 Cor 8:10, that is, the eat-
ing meat in a pagan temple, is merely a hypothetical situation produced by the
apostle Paul to reinforce his argument.91 The apostle Paul gives the impression
that he approves it, but then immediately puts down the Corinthians behav-
ior and opposes those who participate in a banquet where the meat has been
offered to idols. In addition, he has been in 1 Cor 8–10 addressing a situation
84 Barrett, First Epistle, 188.

85 Coutsoumpos, Paul and the Lord’s Supper, 61. See also Coutsoumpos, “Cults,” 171: “The situ-
ation in the Corinthian church was not easy for two reasons. First, it was a customary
social practice to eat in a temple, or in some place related to an idol. Secondly, most of the
meat, as was known, was sold in the temple shops (macellum) and had first been sacri-
ficed to the idols.”
86 Chow, Patronage and Power, 141.
87 Chow, Patronage and Power, 141ff.
88 Goulder, Paul and the Competing Mission, 159. It is interesting that Goulder is the only one
who mentions the Petrine party as the Judaizers who went around the churches imposing
several cultic laws that need to be followed.
89 Fee, First Epistle, 359. It should be mentioned that Fee also agrees that the problem of
buying meat in the macellum is also discussed in 1 Cor 10:23–11:1.
90 Wendell Lee Willis, Idol Meat in Corinth: The Pauline Argument in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10
(Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 267.
91 Hurd, Origin of 1 Corinthians, 143.

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186 Coutsoumpos
where church members have differing opinions over the degree to which be-
lievers of the Christian church may interact with the outside society and ban-
quet invitations.92 However, Paul appears to confirm his view that idol meat is
a matter of indifference (ἀδιάφορον) and encourages the church members to
take a larger position about it (1 Cor 10:23–11:1).93 The majority of interpreters
are not so interested in the right or wrong behavior of the eating of idol meat
or idol worship (idolatry) as in the question of Christian freedom. Besides,
Paul’s strategy is to demonstrate to the ones who have knowledge the logical
consequences of their wrong behaviors and actions, rather than just condemn-
ing them.94
But for Paul the Christian’s behavior was a very significant issue. On the con-
trary, what if my freedom is the reason for the weak Christian to fall?95 It must
be recognized that it is not easy to understand the point of view of the apostle
Paul reasoning on the issue of idol meals given his alleged inconsistency.96 But
some interpreters believe that it makes sense to see Paul’s apparently unde-
cided attitude as his answer to two different problems.97
5 Conclusion
In sum, it is clear that the church members at Roman Corinth regarding the
issues of εἰδωλόθυτα and εἰδωλολατρία misunderstood Paul. Paul challenges
the Corinthians to give some consideration to his views and arguments. The
Corinthians must consider the issues and respond to the apostle Paul. They
seem, however, to have different points of view than Paul. The church mem-
bers at Corinth had been justifying their participation in pagan meals on the
basis that an idol has no real existence, so that any meat offered to idols is no
more than simple meat. However, some of the Christians at Corinth were wor-
ried about these issues.
For some of the church members at Roman Corinth, however, freedom
had become the highest good; for the apostle Paul, it is love, love which freely

94 Witherington, Conflict & Community, 191.
95 Calvin J. Roetzel, The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context (5th ed.; Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 2009), 98: “Freedom must always be subordinated to love.”
96 Barrett, First Epistle, 16. See also Lamar Cope, “First Corinthians 8–10: Continuity or
Contradiction?” ATRSup 11 (1990): 113–24.
97 Charles H. Talbert, Reading Corinthians: A Literary and Theological Commentary in 1 and 2
Corinthians (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 56.

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renounces rights for the sake of other believers. It is also clear that the denun-
ciation of εἰδωλολατρία was very important to Paul’s teaching and preaching
ministry to the church members in Corinth. Therefore, for the apostle Paul, the
eating of meat sacrificed to idols in a pagan temple and the worship of idols are
unacceptable.98 As noted above, both are considered idolatry.
Whether or not the apostle Paul used the language and imagery of the Stoic
moralists of the Greco-Roman world is still a subject of debate. Based on Paul’s
choice of words and phrases, it appears that there is reason to think so.99 Even
though Paul and the Stoic philosophers do not share the same goals, they do
establish a social order of moral values: ultimate and relative.100 However, Paul
has some common conceptual ideas (language and imagery) with the Stoic
philosophers, but he expresses these same notions in his own theological
language.

99 Deming, “Paul and Indifferent Things,” 397.

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Chapter 10
Raised on the Third Day According to the

Scriptures: Hosea 6:2 in Jewish Tradition
John Granger Cook
Scholars have long assumed that Paul’s testimony about the resurrection in
1 Cor 15:3–5 derives from tradition.1 The closest verse in the entire Hebrew
Bible and Septuagint to the formulation in 1 Cor 15:4 is Hos 6:2. Although Jesus
uses Jonah 2:1 in a simile for resurrection in Matt 12:40, the verse does not ex-
plicitly mention rising from the dead. The first patristic writer to quote Hos 6:2
in a discussion of resurrection is Tertullian. Origen and Cyprian used the text
later in the third century for the same purposes.2 In a Christian expansion to
the Lives of the Prophets, perhaps from the third or fourth century, the author
quotes Hos 6:1–2 and then uses it to explain 1 Cor 15:3–4: ἐκ ταύτης τῆς χρήσεως
ὁ ἀπόστολος λέγει Παῦλος τοῖς Κορινθίοις… (“On the basis of this passage, the
apostle Paul says to the Corinthians …”).3 After the quotation of Paul, the au-
thor concludes: οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλλαχόθεν εὑρεῖν (“It is not found anywhere else”).
1 Two recent essays give the necessary bibliographical data: M. Pickup, “‘On the Third Day’: The
Time Frame of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection,” jets 56 (2013): 511–52, esp. 511 n. 1, and J. Ware,
“The Resurrection of Jesus in the Pre-Pauline Formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5,” NTS 60 (2014): 475–98,
esp. 475 (an “almost universal scholarly consensus”).
2 Tertullian, Marc. 4.43.1; Adv. Jud. 13.23; Origen, Ex. 5.2 (Origenes, Homilien zum Hexateuch
[gcs Origenes Werke VI; ed. W. A. Baehrens; Leipzig: Teubner, 1920], 186), and Cyprian, Test.
2.25. Cf. Lactantius, Inst. 4.19.9 and Epit. 42.2. Both Tertullian and Cyprian use the text in con-
troversies with Jewish opponents. S. V. McCasland, “The Scripture Basis of ‘On the third Day’,”
jbl 48 (1929): 124–37, esp. 132–34 reviews some of the patristic material.
3 Liv. Pro. 5 (Hosea; T. Schermann [ed.], Prophetarum vitae fabulosae [bsgrt; Leipzig: Teubner,
1907], 26 [Dorothei recensio]). Schermann (ibid., xxi) asserts that Dorotheus worked around
290 ce. It may be later, however, and Cosmas Indicopleustes (PG 88.260–73; with 260–61
being the text quoting Hosea and 1 Cor 15 used above) is the terminus ad quem (ca. 547–549).
The same text is quoted in the Chronicon Paschale, 70th Olympiad, vol. 1 (ed. L. Dindorf;
cshb; Bonn: Weber, 1832), 276. On Dorotheus’s date, see A. M. Schemer, Studien zu den
frühjüdischen Prophetenlegenden Vitae prophetarum: Band I: Die Viten der großen Propheten
Jesaja, Jeremia, Ezechiel und Daniel: Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar (tsaj 49;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 15. She makes the equally important point that some mss
of the Vitae (Dorothei recensio) do not have the legend of the discovery of Zechariah’s grave
in Eleutheropolis in 415 ce (see Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. 9.17.1–6). Cf. Liv. Pro. 15 (Zechariah;
Schermann, Prophetarum, 36).

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Hosea 6:2 in Jewish Tradition 189
Clearly the individual who wrote this (the so-called Dorotheus) believed that
nowhere else in the lxx was there a scriptural foundation for resurrection on
the third day. Beginning with the Septuagint and continuing throughout pa-
tristic and rabbinic exegesis, Hos 6:2 was interpreted for the most part as a
clear reference to resurrection. Paul and the tradition he quoted appear in the
midst of this interpretive trajectory whose force encourages the scholar to be-
lieve that Hos 6:2 was what he had in mind in 1 Cor 15:4.
1 Hosea 6:2: the MT and the Translations into Greek and Aramaic
In its original context, there is little reason to doubt that Hos 6:2 is a refer-
ence to the restoration and healing of Israel, and not the resurrection of the
dead.4 In later interpretation, however, probably beginning with the lxx and
culminating in the Targumic translation, the text was taken to describe the
resurrection.
After two days he will revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, that
we may live before him.
Hos 6:2 MT, nrsv
‫יחיינו מיומיים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו׃‬
After two days he will make us healthy; and on the third day we will rise
and live before him.
Hos 6:2 lxx, nets [slightly modified]
4 Cf. J. L. Mays, Hosea (otl; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), 95 (God revives the wounded
people) and H. W. Wolff, Hosea (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 118–19 (recovery for
the “sickly nation”). On p. 118, Wolff concedes with regard to 1 Cor 15:4 that “hardly another
passage was as appropriate as Hos 6:2.” W. Rudolph, Hosea (kat 13/1; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn,
1966), 137, also concedes that Hos 6:2 is the reference of 1 Cor 15:4. M. L. Barré, “New Light on
the Interpretation of Hosea VI 2,” VT 28 (1978): 129–41 argues that the text refers to the heal-
ing of the sick and not resurrection, as does S.-H. Hong, The Metaphor of Illness and Healing
in Hosea and Its Significance in the Socio-Economic Context of Eighth-Century Israel and Judah
(StBibLit 95; New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 152. B. H. Lim and D. Castelo, Hosea (Two Horizons;
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 132–33, refer to the similar language in 2 Kgs 20:1, 5 and argue
that the passage in Hosea “speaks to the wounding and recovery of the people …” What is
problematic with this comparison (used by Barré and Lim/Castelo) is that 2 Kgs 20:5 does not
use the verb ‫( קום‬rise).

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190 Cook
ὑγιάσει ἡμᾶς μετὰ δύο ἡμέρας, ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ ἀναστησόμεθα καὶ

ζησόμεθα ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ.
He will give us life in the days of consolations that will come; on the day
of the resurrection of the dead he will raise us up and we shall live before
him.
Tg. Neb. Hos 6:25
‫יחייננא ליומי נחמתא דעתידין למיתי ביום אחיות מיתיא יקימיננא וניחי קדמוהי‬
W. Edward Glenny notes that for “early readers of the lxx, who were reading
Hosea 6:2 in its context, the verse would be understood first of all to refer to the
Lord’s restoration of his people, Israel, to himself and the nation’s resurrection
back to life after a period, hopefully short (‘the third day’), of his chastisement
of them.”6 He also admits, however, that the wordings “the third day,” “we will
rise up” (ἀνίστημι), and “we will live” “suggest the resurrection of the dead in
Hosea 6:2.”7 This implies that early readers of the lxx could have interpreted
6:2 to refer to resurrection, and this is reflected in later Jewish interpretation
of the passage. The translation probably dates to the second century bce.8
Aquila and Symmachus both replace the lxx’s ὑγιάσει (will make healthy)
with ἀναζωώσει (will make alive again).9 The Quinta column of the Hexapla
has ὑγίεις ἀποδείξει (will make healthy).10 Aquila and Symmachus apparently
5 Trans. of K. J. Cathcart and R. P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets (ArBib 14;
Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1989), 41. Aramaic text from A. Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic,
vol. 3: The Latter Prophets According to Targum Jonathan (Leiden: Brill, 1962), 395.
6 W. E. Glenny, Hosea: A Commentary Based on Hosea in the Codex Vaticanus (Leiden: Brill,
2013), 111.
7 Glenny, Hosea, 111.
8 W. Kraus et al. (eds.), Septuaginta Deutsch: Das griechische Alte Testament in deutscher
Übersetzung (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2009), 1166; Gentry, Hosea, 18–19.
9 Only a few authors use this verb prior to the time of (or contemporaneous with) Aquila.
Philo, Somn. 1.147 (God and the word of God revive the soul, which is carried along in
the body like a river [τὴν ἔτι ὥσπερ ἐν ποταμῷ, τῷ σώματι, φορουμένην ψυχὴν … ἀναζωῶσι]).
Apollodorus, Epit. 2.3 uses the noun form for the resurrection of Pelops, after he was cut
into pieces and boiled at the banquet of the gods and thrown into a cauldron (Πέλοψ
σφαγεὶς ἐν τῷ τῶν θεῶν ἐράνῳ καὶ καθεψηθεὶς ὡραιότερος ἐν τῇ ἀναζωώσει γέγονε). Pollux,
Onom. 3.108 uses it as one of the synonyms for people recovering from illness (καὶ ἐπὶ
τῶν ἐκ νόσου διανισταμένων, ἀνεκτήσατο τὴν ψυχήν, καὶ ἀνεζώωσεν, ἀνέσφηλεν, ἀνήνεγκεν,
ἐρράισεν ἀνερράισεν, ἀνέστη καὶ ἐξανέστη, ἀνεβίω καὶ ἀναβιώσκεται, καὶ ἀνεβιωσάμην αὐτόν).
Several of these verbs emphasize physical rising up (διανισταμένων, ἀνέσφηλεν, ἀνέστη, and
ἐξανέστη).
10 Cf. Duodecim prophetae (ed. J. Ziegler; 2nd ed.; vtgaalg 13; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1967), 159.

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interpreted the text as a reference to resurrection. Aquila’s translation was

early in the second century, since Irenaeus knew it.11 In the Targum’s interpre-
tation of Hosea, the resurrection of the dead is the intention of the text. The
date and origin of the Targum to the Minor Prophets is unclear. It may have
been a Palestinian composition after 70 ce, but most likely it was edited in
Babylon in Amoraic times.12
2 The Rabbinic Interpretation of Hosea 6:2
Rabbinical exegesis appealed to Hos 6:2 frequently in debates as a proof text

for resurrection.13 Hosea 6:2 also served to illustrate the principle that God
does not leave Israel in tribulation for more than three days. The theme of de-
liverance in the second usage, however, encourages one to assume that even
in those cases resurrection is the topic. A third approach to the text was to
include it in collections of Scriptures based on a common motif (“third day” or
resurrection). It will become apparent that the third usage was interwoven in
meaning with the first two.
3 Hezekiah’s Recovery and the Resurrection
In an argument about a prophet who prophesies something that would go

against the Torah, the rabbis disagree about the punishment (stoning, stran-
gling) and the cases in which such a prophet might be exempt from the death
penalty.
11 Irenaeus, Haer. 3.21.1 apud Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.8.10. Cf. S. Jellicoe, The Septuagint and
Modern Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 76–83 (on Aquila, but without a chronological
determination).
12 Cathcart and Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets, 12–18 (inconclusive). P. M. Flesher
and B. D. Chilton, The Targums: A Critical Introduction (Leiden: Brill 2011), 180, 200, 222 (Tg.
Neb. Hos 1:1–3, 4:12, 8:6 and 11:2 reflect worries of “Sassanian Babylon,” but 3:5 is “con-
cerned with the cultic abuses of the Tannaitic period”), 227 (completed in the fifth cen-
tury). None of these arguments are probative.
13 H. K. McArthur, “On the Third Day,” nts 18 (1971): 81–86, gathered an excellent collection of
material, which I build on below. R. E. Watts, “Mark,” in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.),
Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007),
111–250, esp. 181, summarizes McArthur’s results, for the most part. I am indebted below
to the Bar Ilan Responsa Database (www.responsa.co.il). K. Lehmann, Auferweckt am drit-
ten Tag nach der Schrift: Früheste Christologie, Bekenntnisbildung und Schriftauslegung im
Lichte von 1 Kor. 15, 3–5 (QD 38; Freiburg: Herder, 1968), 205–31, did little work with the
rabbinic material.

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192 Cook
Rebbi Isaac and Rebbi Hoshaia: One said, each one has to provide a sign
or a miracle. The other said, not each one has to provide a sign or miracle.
The one who said he did, objected to the one who said he did not. Is it not
written, “Hezekiah said to Isaiah, what is the sign?” (2 Kgs 20:8). He told
him, that is different since he was occupied in reviving the dead. “After
two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we
shall live before him”. Hos. 6:214
‫רבי יצחק ורבי הושעיה חד אמר צריך ליתן אות ומופת וחרנה אמר אינו צריך ליתן‬
‫אות ומופת מתיב מאן דאמר צריך למאן דאמר אינו צריך והא כתיב ויאמר חזקיהו‬
‫אל ישעיהו מה אות אמר ליה שנייא היא תמן דו עסק בתחיית המתים יחיינו מיומיים‬
‫ביום השלישי יקימינו ונחיה לפניו‬
Heinrich W. Guggenheimer remarks that Hezekiah “was declared ready to die

(2 K. 20:1) and was well enough to go to the Temple on the third day [2 Kgs 20:5];
this shows that his recovery was indeed a resurrection.”15 The rabbis agree that
Hezekiah’s experience is comparable (or identical with) the resurrection of the
dead, and they assume that Hos 6:2 is a resurrection text.
4 Resurrection in the Second Benediction
In a text from the Jerusalem Talmud that discusses some of the eighteen
Benedictions, Rabbi Hiyya derives the resurrection from Hos 6:2–3:
[Mishnah 5:2] One mentions the power of rains in “resurrection of the

dead”; one prays for rain in the benediction “of years” and Havdalah in
“He who by his grace grants knowledge”; Rebbi Aqiba said: it is recited
as separate fourth benediction; Rebbi Eliezer says, in “thanksgiving.”
[Halakhah 2] Just as the resurrection of the dead brings life to the world,
so rains bring life to the world. Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba understood it from
here: “He will resurrect us after two days, and on the third day He will
14 y . Sanh. 11:8, 30c (Venice), text and trans. from H. W. Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem Talmud:
Fourth Order. Nezikin. Tractates Sanhedrin, Makkot and Horaiot (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010),
413 (slightly modified). Isaac and Hoshaiah were third generation amoraic teachers
(H. Strack and G. Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash [Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1992], 89, 91).
15 Guggenheimer, Sanhedrin, Makkot and Horaiot, 414.

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raise us up and we shall live before him. We shall know, we shall pursue
to know the Lord, like morning his appearance is well based.”16
‫מתני׳ מזכירין גבורות גשמים בתחיית המתים ושואלין גשמים בברכ׳ השנים והבדלה‬
‫בחונן הדעת ר׳ עקיבה או׳ אומרה ברכ׳ רביעית בפני עצמה רבי אליעזר אומר‬
‫בהודאה כשם שתחיית המתים חיים לעולם כך ירידת גשמים חיים לעולם רבי חייה‬
‫ ונדעה‬.‫בר אבא שמע לה מן הדא יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו‬
.‫נרדפה לדעת את ה׳ כשחר נכון מוצאו‬
For Hiyya, a fifth generation tannaitic teacher,17 it was self-evident that Hos 6:2
referred to the resurrection of the dead, just as it was to the translator of the
Targum and many other rabbinic interpreters.18
5 The Key of Resurrection
God holds three keys according to an important Midrash. In Deuteronomy

Rabbah (on 28:12):
“The Lord will open unto you his good treasure, the heavens” (Deut 28:12).
What is the force of “will open”? God holds three keys in his hands over
which no creature, not even angel of Seraph, has any control. They are
as follows: the key of resurrection, the key of the barren woman, and the
key of rain. Whence the key of resurrection? For it is said, “And you shall
know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves” (Ezek 37:12).
Whence the key of the barren woman? For it is said, “And he opened her
womb” (Gen 29:31). And the key of rain, as it is said, “The Lord will open
unto you his good treasure.” Another explanation. “The Lord will open.”
16 y . Ber. 5:2, 9a (Venice), trans. from Guggenheimer, Tractate Berakhot, 423 (slightly modi-
fied). Cf. y. Taʿan 1:1, 63c (Venice) where there is a nearly identical statement. For the earli-
est form of the benediction of the resurrection, based on the Taylor-Schechter MS (T-S K
27.33b), cf. D. Instone-Brewer, “The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim before 70 CE,”
jts 54 (2003): 25–44, esp. 29. “Resurrection” is the second benediction; “years,” the ninth;
“knowledge,” the fourth; and “thanksgiving,” the seventeenth. Guggenheimer notes that
Havdalah is “the required declaration of a ‘difference’ between Sabbath (or holiday) and
weekday, after the end of the Sabbath or holiday.” See H. W. Guggenheimer, The Jerusalem
Talmud: First Order. Zeraïm. Tractate Berakhot (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000), 423. Aqiba was a
second generation tannaitic teacher, as was Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (Strack and Stemberger,
Introduction, 69–70, 72).
17 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 82.
18 Tg. Neb. Hos. 6:2, quoted above.

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194 Cook
The Rabbis say: Great is the rainfall, for it is counted as equivalent to the
revival of the dead. Whence this? For it says, “And he shall come unto us
as the rain, and in the latter rain that waters the earth” (Hos 6:3). What
does Scripture say immediately before this? “After two days he will revive
us” (6:2). Therefore the Rabbis have inserted [the prayer for rain in the
benediction of] the revival of the dead, because it is equal in importance
to it.19
‫יפתח ה׳ לך את אוצרו הטוב את השמים מהו יפתח שלש מפתחות בידו של הקב״ה‬
‫ואין בריה שולטת עליהם לא מלאך ולא שרף ואלו הן מפתח של תחיית המתים‬
‫ומפתח של עקרות ומפתח של גשמים מפתח של תחיית המתים מנין שנא׳ וידעתם‬
‫כי אני ה׳ בפתחי את קברותיכם ומפתח של עקרות מנין דכתי׳ ויפתח את רחמה‬
‫ומפתח של גשמים דכתיב יפתח ה׳ לך את אוצרו הטוב וגו׳ דבר אחר יפתח ה׳ לך‬
‫רבנין אמרי גדול ירידת גשמים שהיא שקולה כתחיית המתים מנין שנאמר ויבא כגשם‬
‫לנו ובמלקוש יורה ארץ מה כתיב קמיה יחיינו מיומים לפיכך קבעוה בתחיית המתים‬
‫שהיא שקולה כנגדה‬
Tg. Neof. Gen 30:22 mentions the three keys of the Midrash and adds a fourth:
the key of sustenance. In the Targum, however, it is the key of sepulchers
(‫ )מפתחא דקבריה‬which the Lord holds. Elijah is given the key of resurrection of
the dead in b. Sanh. 113a (‫)אקלידא דתחיית המתים‬.20
6 Hosea 6:2 in Chronological Discussions
A number of rabbinic texts include Hos 6:2 in debates about chronology. In a

Midrash entitled Seder Eliyahu Rabba, which may be identical with the text the
Talmud calls Tanna de-be Eliyahu, there is an intriguing use of the verse. The
Midrash may date to the third century ce.21
19 D
eut. Rab. (Ki tavo) 7:6 (Midrash Debarim Rabbah: Edited for the First Time from the Oxford
Ms. No. 147 [ed. S. Lieberman; 2nd ed.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1964], 110), trans. from
J. Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah: Deuteronomy (ed. H. Freedman and M. Simon; London;
10 vols.; London: Soncino, 1939), 7:137 (slightly modified). See also Gen. Rab. 73:4 (the
same three keys), Pesiq. Rab. 42.6 (the three keys), Midr. Tehillim 78:5 (the three keys), and
b. Taʿan. 2a (the three keys).
20 Cf. R. Kern-Ulmer, “Consistency and Change in Rabbinic Literature as Reflected in the
Terms ‘Rain’ and ‘Dew’,” jsj 26 (1995): 55–75, esp. 68–71.
21 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 340–41.

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And even the execution which the holy one, blessed be he, visits on Israel
because of their sins in this world will be a healing for them in the world-
to-come, as it is said, “Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for he has
torn us, and he will heal us…. In two days he will revive us (Hos 6:1–2). The
first (of the days) of this (verse) is this world and the days of the Messiah.
And on the third day he will raise us up. This (day) is the world-to-come.22
‫ואף הריגה שהרג הקב״ה את ישראל בעונותיהן בעולם הזה רפואה היא להם לעולם‬
‫הבא שנאמר לכו ונשובה אל ה׳ כי הוא טרף וירפאנו וגו׳ יחיינו מיומים זה העולם הזה‬
.‫וימות המשיח וביום השלישי יקימנו זה העולם הבא‬
This Midrash makes it clear that the first two days refer to the death of the
children of this world in this world.
The author of 3 Enoch, a treatise from the merkabah tradition devoted to the
angel Metatron, used Hos 6:2 in one of Rabbi Ishmael’s descriptions of the four
heavenly watchers.23 The text poses the question:
Why are their names called Watchers and holy ones? Because they sanc-
tify the body and the soul with lashes of fire24 on the third day of judg-
ment, as it is written, “After two days he will revive us, on the third day he
will raise us and we shall live in his presence.”25
‫ולמה נקרא שמם עירין וקדישין שהן מקדשין את הגוף והנשמה בפולסאות שלהן‬
.‫ביום השלישי של דין שנאמר יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו‬
The mention of the day of judgement implies that the resurrection of the dead
is the focus of the text. Rikk E. Watts argues that the author “cites Hos. 6:2
22 S . Eli. Rab. 6 (M. Friedmann [ed.], Seder Eliahu Rabba and Seder Eliahu zuta [Tanna d’be
Eliahu] [Vienna: Aḥiʾasaf, 1901], 29 [Hebrew]). Trans. from W. G. Braude and I. J. Kapstein,
Tanna debe Eliyyahu: The Lord of the School of Elijah (New York: Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1981), 67 (slightly modified). Braude and Kapstein translate the beginning of
the first line as “even the almost fatal wounds which the Holy One visited upon Israel …,”
which does not seem to be justified given the use of ‫ הריגה‬and ‫שהרג‬, both of which
mean “killing” or “kill,” according to M. Jastrow’s lexicon (A Dictionary of the Targumim,
the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (2nd ed.; 2 vols.; New York:
Shalom, 1903), s.v.
23 It may date to the fifth or sixth century ce (P. Alexander, otp 1:229).
24 Jastrow, Dictionary, s.v. defines this as “heated disks or rings strung on a lash,” which is
used occasionally in the phrase ‫( פולסי דנורא‬lashes of fire). Cf. b. B. Meṣ. 85b.
25 Third Enoch 28:10, trans. of otp 1:283–84. Text from H. Odeberg, 3 Enoch or the Hebrew
Book of Enoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), 47 (Hebrew).

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196 Cook
to describe the purgatorial punishments undergone in the first three days of

death to fit one for God’s presence.”26 In Apoc. Zeph. 4:7 there are angels with
“fiery scourges” (ϩⲉⲛⲫⲣⲁⲅⲉⲗⲓⲟⲛ ⲛ̅ⲣⲱϩⲧⲧ) who “spend three days going around
with them [the souls of the ungodly] in the air before they bring them and cast
them into their eternal punishment.”27
Several rabbinic texts assume that the soul hovers around the body for three
days after its death. In Genesis Rabbah,
Bar Qappara taught concerning the height of mourning not being until
the third day: until three days [after death] the soul keeps on returning to
the grave, thinking that it will go back [into the body]; but when it sees
that the facial features have become disfigured, it departs and abandons
it [the body].28
‫תני בר קפרא כל תקפו של אבל אינו אלא בשלישי עד תלתא יומין נפשא תייבה‬
‫על קברה סבורה היא שהיא חוזרת כיון דהיא חמי דאשתני זיוהון דאפוי אזלה לה‬
‫ושבקא ליה‬
Bar Qappara was a fifth-generation tannaitic teacher.29 The Jerusalem Talmud

attributes similar views to other rabbis:
Rebbi Abba in the name of Rav Pappai, Rebbi Joshua from Suknin in the
name of Rebbi Levi: During the first three days, the soul hovers over
the body because she thinks that she will return to it. Once she sees
that the splendor of his face changes after three days, she abandons him
and goes away.30
26 Watts, “Mark,” 181.

27 Apoc. Zeph. 4:7, trans. of otp 1:511. Achmimic text: G. Steindorff, Die Apokalypse des
Elias: Eine unbekannte Apokalypse und Bruchstücke des Sophonias-Apokalypse (TU 17.3a;
Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899), 42.
28 Gen. Rab. 100:7 (Bereschit Rabba, 3 vols. [ed. J. Theodor and C. Albeck; Berlin: Akademie,
1912–1936], 3:1290), trans. from Freedman, Midrash Rabbah: Genesis, 2.995 (slightly modi-
fied). Genesis Rabbah dates to ca. 400. See Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 279.
Leviticus Rabbah 18:1 is a parallel tradition to Gen. Rab. 100:7.
30 y. Yebam. 16:3, 15c (Venice), trans. from H. W. Guggenheimer (ed.), The Jerusalem Talmud.
Third Order. Našim. Tractate Yebamot (SJ 29; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 639 (with the tex-
tual variants he includes). Abba was the son of Pappai. Cf. y. ʿErub. 5:7, 23a (Venice). He
was a fifth generation amoraic teacher (H. W. Guggenheimer, The First Order: Zeraïm.
Tractates Maʿaser Šeni, Ḥallah, ʿOrlah, and Bikkurim [SJ 23; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003], 593).
Cf. the discussion of this view of the afterlife in S. P. Raphael, Jewish Views of the Afterlife
(2nd ed.; Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 140. Levi was a third generation amo-
raic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 89). Yehoshua of Sikhnin was a fourth

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‫רבי בא בשם רב פפי רבי יהושע דסוכנין בשם רבי לוי כל תלתא יומין נפשא טייסא‬
‫על גופה סברה דהיא חזרת לגווה כיון דהיא חמית ליה דאישתני זיווהון דאפוי היא‬
‫שבקא ליה ואזלא‬
The minor tractate Ebel Rabbati (Semaḥot) may presuppose a similar perspec-
tive, although in this case the specific focus is the question of a person who
only appears to be dead:
One may go out to the cemetery for three days to inspect the dead for
a sign of life, without fear that this smacks of heathen practice. For it
happened that a man was inspected after three days, and he went on to
live twenty-five years; still another went on to have five children and died
later.31
‫יוצאין לבית הקברות ופוקדין כל המתים עד שלשה יום ואין חוששין משום דרכי‬
‫ ומעשה שפקדו אחד אחר שלשה יום וחיה עשרים וחמש שנים ואחר כך‬.‫האמורי‬
.‫מת ואחר הוליד חמשה בנים ואחר כך מת‬
The inclusion of “three days” in this passage probably indicates that the soul
has not abandoned the body in the rabbis’ conception.
Rabbi Abbaye,32 in tractate Sanhedrin, interpreted the days of Hosea as pe-
riods of one thousand years:
R. Kattina said: Six thousand years shall the world exist and one [thou-
sand, the seventh] be desolate, as it is written, “And the Lord alone shall
be exalted in that day” (Isa 2:11). Abaye said: it will be desolate two [thou-
sand], as it is said, “After two days will he revive us: in the third day, he will
raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.” Hos 6:233
generation amoraic teacher (U. Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and
Byzantine Galilee [tsaj 127; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009], 174).
31 b. Sem. 8:1 (D. Zlotnick, The Tractate “Mourning” [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966],
57, with the variant reading “three” instead of “thirty”). Cf. Y. Y. Schur, “The Care for the
Dead in Medieval Ashkenaz 1000–1500,” (PhD diss., New York University, 2008), 30. Pickup,
“On the Third day,” 525–26 argues that b. Sem. 8:1 has nothing to do with the “hovering of
the soul” for three days.
32 A contemporary of Raba who was a fourth generation amoraic teacher (Strack and
Stemberger, Introduction, 36).
33 b. Sanh. 97a (I. Epstein [ed.], Hebrew-English Edition of the Babylonian Talmud [London:
Soncino, 1935–1948]). The same tradition is in b. Roš. Haš. 31a. Yalq. Hos 6:2, 522 (Warsaw:
Goldman, 1876, p. 850), quoting Deut 32:39 and the tradition included above. Kattina was a
second generation amoraic teacher (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 88).

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198 Cook
‫רב קטינא שית אלפי שני הוו עלמא וחד חרוב שנאמר ונשגב ה׳ לבדו ביום ההוא אביי‬
‫אמר תרי חרוב שנאמר זיחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו‬
Rashi’s comment is important:
Two: For two thousand years it is desolate; that is, seven thousand and
eight thousand years [after the earth’s creation]. A day of the holy one,
blessed be he, is a thousand years, because “a thousand years in your sight
are as yesterday when it is past” (Ps 90:4 nrsv).34
‫ אלפים הוא חרב אלף שביעי ואלף שמיני יומו של הקדוש ברוך הוא אלף שנה‬.‫תרי‬
‫שנאמר כי אלף שנים בעיניך כיום אתמול כי יעבור‬
The interpretation Rashi offers explores the contradiction between the posi-
tions of Kattina and Abaye. The crucial point is that he does not reject Abaye’s
interpretation of Hosea and clearly views Hosea’s “two days” as the equiva-
lent of two thousand years, and he justifies the equivalence using Ps 90:4. If
he rejected Hosea as a reference to the resurrection, then Rashi would have
had no grounds for accepting Abaye’s thesis that the earth will be desolate for
two thousand years, and his use of Ps 90:4 to prove that a day is equivalent to
a thousand years shows that he needed Hosea’s “two days” for his own apoca-
lyptic calculations. The rabbis’ chronological calculation was clearly different
from that of Paul in 1 Cor 15:4. Jerome was aware of such rabbinical arguments.
In his comments on the passage he argues:
… and in vain do the Jews promise themselves dreams of a thousand

years, since the salvation of all has been promised on the third day, when
the lord rose from the dead. The Hebrews interpret the second day to be
the coming of their Christ, and the third day as the judgment, in which
they will be saved.
… frustraque Iudaei mille annorum sibi somnia pollicentur cum salus

uniuersorum die tertia repromissa sit, qua dominus ab inferis resurrexit.
Hebraei diem secundum in aduentu Christi sui interpretantur, et diem ter-
tium in iudicio, quando saluandi sunt.35
34 Rashi on b. Sanh. 97a. In his comments on b. Sanh. 90a, with reference to one who denies
that the resurrection of the dead may be derived from the Torah (‫האומר אין תחיית המתים‬
‫)מן התורה‬, Rashi defends the view of the Talmud that such a person is an Epicurean (even
if he/she believes in the resurrection). See m. Sanh. 10:1.
35 Hieronymus, Os. 2.6 (on 6:2) (M. Adriaen [ed.], Commentarii in prophetas minores [CChrSL
76; Turnhout: Brepols, 1969], 64 (ll. 42–46).

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Another chronology, using the same text of Hosea, appears in a much later
Midrash:
And the Israelites will live for two thousand years and consume Leviathan
and at the end of 2000 years the holy one, blessed be he, will sit on the
throne of judgement in the valley of Jehosaphat. Immediately the heaven
and earth will be changed and the sun and moon will be ashamed, as it
says, “then the moon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed” (Isa 24:23
nrsv). And where is it proved that on the third day the judgement will
take place? Because it says, “He will revive us after two days and on the
third days he will raise us and we will live in his presence” (Hos 6:2). That
means the judgement.36
‫וישבו שם ישראל אלפים שנה ואוכלין את לויתן ולקץ אלפים שנה ישב הקב״ה על‬
‫כסא דין בעמק יהושפט ומיד השמים והארץ נחלפים וחמה ולבנה בושים שנאמר‬
‫וחפרה הלבנה ובושה החמה ומנין שביום השלישי יהיה הדין שנאמר ביום השלישי‬
‫יקימנו ונחיה לפניו זה הדין‬
In Pirqe de Rab Eliezer, Rabbi Gamaliel describes the coming age using texts
such as Isa 34:4 and 51:6, which he interprets apocalyptically. He then uses
Hos 6:2 in a text that implies the two days are the time of “tasting death”:
All its inhabitants shall taste the taste of death for two days, when there
will be no soul of man or beast upon the earth, as it is said, “And they that
dwell therein shall die in like manner” (Isa 51:6). On the third day he will
renew them all and revive them, and he will raise them before him, as it
is said, “On the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him”
(Hos. 6:2).37
36 M idrash Wa-yosha Exod 15:17 (J. D. Eisenstein, Otzar Midrashim [2 vols.; New York:
Eisenstein, 1915], 1:156). Trans. made with reference to that of A. Wünsche, Aus Israels
Lehrhallen: Kleine Midraschim zur späteren legendarischen Literatur des Alten Testaments
(5 vols.; Leipzig: Peter, 1907–1910), 1:120. Strack and Stemberger (Introduction, 337) note
that in Midrash Wa-yosha, “much of its material derives verbatim from Tanḥuma.” They
argue that it was written in the eleventh century.
37 Pirq. R. El. 51 (D. Börner-Klein [ed. and trans.], Pirke de-Rabbi Elieser: Nach der Edition
Venedig 1544 unter Berücksichtigung der Edition Warschau 1852 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004],
710). Trans. G. Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (New York: Bloch, 1916), 411 (slightly
modified).

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200 Cook
‫ו]כל יושבי[ הארץ יטעמו טעם מיתה שני ימים שאין נפש אדם ובהמה על הארץ שנ׳‬
‫ויושביה כמו כן ימותון וביום השלישי מחדש אותן ומחיה אותן ומקים אותן לפניו שנ׳‬
‫יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו‬
If one accepts the attribution, then Gamaliel (II) is presumably the famous
second generation tannaitic teacher.38 The text itself, however, was composed
in the eighth or ninth century ce.39
Another late Midrash (Midrash of the Ten Kings) interprets each day as a
thousand years:
And the holy one, blessed be he, sent Elijah who will make the hearts of
Israel rejoice, as it is said, “Behold I am sending you Elijah the prophet”
(Mal 3:23), and he will proclaim good tidings of peace to you, as it is said,
“How pleasant on the mountains are the feet of those who proclaim good
news …” (Isa 52:7) until the kingdom of the house of David returns. The
ninth king40 is the Messiah son of David who will reign from one end of
the world to the other, as it is said, “May he have dominion from sea to
sea and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Ps 72:8 NRSV). And Israel
will live in security for two thousand years and they will eat Behemoth
and Leviathan and Ziz Saday.41 And at the end of two thousand years
they will be gathered for judgement, as it is said, “he will revive us after
two days and on the third day he will raise us and they will live before

40 The tenth king is God (see the summary in Eisenstein, Otzar, 2:461 [God, Nimrod, Joseph,
Solomon, Ahab, Nebuchadnezar, Cyrus, Alexander of Macedon, the Messiah ben David,
God]). Cf. Tg. Kev. Esther 2, 1:1 for the Midrash of the ten kings (the messiah son of David
is the ninth and God the tenth, with some variations otherwise). Pirq. R. El. 11 comprises
a list identical with that of the Midrash. Cf. B. Ego, “Targumization as Theologization:
Aggadic Additions in the Targum Sheni of Esther,” in D. R. G. Beattie and M. J. McNamara
(eds.), The Aramaic Bible: Targums in Their Historical Context (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994),
354–61, esp. 357 (Midr. Numbers Rabbah 21:18). A much shorter version of the Midrash of
the Ten Kings was published by C. M. Horowitz, Sammlung kleiner Midraschim: Erster Teil
(Berlin: Itzkowski, 1881), 54–55 (with a variant list of kings; Horowitz’s version has been
mis-cited and mistakenly summarized in multiple scholarly sources).
41 In Ps 50:11, this expression is translated as “moving things of the field,” but in b. B. Bat. 73b
and other rabbinic texts it is a mythological bird. Cf. Tg. Ket. Ps 50:11 where the expression
is interpreted to be a wild cock (‫ )תרנגול‬whose ankles are on the ground and whose head
reaches to the sky as it praises God.

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him (Hos 6:2). This is the day of judgement. Blessed is the one who will
be found righteous in it.42
‫וישלח הקב״ה את אליהו שישמח לבם של ישראל שנאמר הנה אנכי שולח לכם את‬
‫אליה הנביא ומבשר להם בשורות שלום וטובות שנאמר מה נאוו על ההרים רגלי‬
‫ התשיעי זה משיח בן דוד שימלוך‬.‫מבשר וגו׳ עד שחזרה המלכות לבית דוד המלך‬
‫מסוף העולם ועד סופו שנאמר וירד מים עד ים ומנהר עד אפסי ארץ וישבו ישראל‬
‫לבטח אלפים שנה ויאכלו את בהמות ואת לויתן וזיז שדי ולקץ אלפים שנה יתקבצו‬
‫לדין שנאמר יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקמינו ונחיה לפניו זה יום הדין אשרי מי‬
.‫שזוכה בו‬
There is an illustration of the Messianic banquet with the three mythological

creatures in an ancient Hebrew MS.43 The advent of the Messiah ben David
is preceded by that of the Messiah ben Joseph in upper Galilee, who is subse-
quently killed by the army Gog after rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and
reinstituting the sacrificial cult. The Midrashist quotes Ps 2:2 and Zech 12:10
during the narrative to illustrate the Messiah ben Joseph’s destiny.44
Another apocalyptic Midrash that was written during the Crusades, The
Prayer (or “Mysteries” [Nistarot]) of Simeon ben Yoḥay,45 describes a similar
meal (with the same creatures) with a variant tradition:
At the end of two thousand years, the holy one blessed be he, will sit on
the throne of judgement in the valley of Jehosaphat, and immediately the
heavens and the earth will grow old, depart, and cease. “And the moon
will be abashed and the sun ashamed” (Isa 24:23 nrsv) and the moun-
tains will be moved and the hills be shaken when Israel shall no longer be
reminded of its sins; and the gates of Gehenna will be opened in the wady
of Joshua46 and the gates of the garden of Eden in the east on the third
day, as it is said, “after two days he will revive us”; these [two] are the days
42 M idr. ʿAśeret Melakim (Eisenstein, Otzar, 2:466). Some good comments on this motif in
the Midrash may be found in the old article: A. Neubauer, “Jewish Controversy and the
Pugio Fidei,” Exp 7 (1888): 179–97, esp. 180.
43 N. Slifkin, Sacred Monsters: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud and
Midrash (n.p.: Zoo Torah, 2007), 254 (illustration), 260 (discussion of texts).
44 Midr. ʿAśeret Melakim (Eisenstein, Otzar, 2:466): ‫משיח בן יוסף בגליל העליון‬.
45 Cf. M. Buttenwieser, “Apocalypses: Neo-Hebraic Apocalyptic Literature,” JE 1:675–85,
esp. 684.
46 R. Patai, The Messiah Texts: Jewish Legends of Three Thousand Years (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1979), 217 translates this expression as “valley of Yehoshaphat,” but does
not defend the emendation to ‫יהושפט‬.

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202 Cook
of the Messiah which are a thousand years long. And on the third day, this
is the day of judgement—woe to the one who dies on that day.47
‫ולקץ אלפים שנה הקב״ה יושב על כסא דין בעמק יהושפט ומיד השמים והארץ‬
‫בלין והולכים וכלים והחמה חפרה והלבנה בושה וההרים ימוטו והגבעות תמוטנה‬
‫כדי שלא יזכירו לישראל עונותיהם ושערי גיהנם נפתחות בנחל יהושע ושערי גן עדן‬
.‫במזרח ביום השלישי שנאמר יחיינו מיומים אלו ימי משיח שהם אלפים שנה וביום‬
‫השלישי זה יום הדין ואוי לו לכל מי שמת בו‬
In Eusebius’s time, some individuals located Gehenna in the valley of

Jehosaphat near Jerusalem:
Ravine of Ennom. “Land of Ennom” in Hebrew. Therefore, some say that

it is Gehenna. It is next to Jerusalem, and is now still called the “Ravine
of Jehosaphat.”
Φάραγξ Ἐννόμ (Jos 15:8?). Γῆ Ἐννὸμ Ἑβραϊκῶς. διὸ τινές φασιν εἶναι τὴν
γέενναν. παράκειται δὲ τῇ Ἱερουσαλήμ, λέγεται δὲ εἰς ἔτι νῦν φάραγξ
Ἰωσαφάτ.48
God proceeds to judge the polytheistic nations in the apocalypse.
7 Israel’s Three Day Tribulations
God will not allow Israel to be in tribulation for more than three days accord-
ing to a Midrash on Esth 5:1:
Now it came to pass on the third day; Israel are never left in dire dis-
tress more than three days. For so of Abraham it is written, “On the third
day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off” (Gen 22:4).
Of Jacob’s sons we read, “And he put them all together into prison three
days” (Gen 42:17). Of Jonah it says, “And Jonah was in the belly of the fish
three days and three nights” (Jonah 2:1). The dead also will come to life
47 M
idr. Simeon ben Yoḥay (Eisenstein, Otzar 2:556). A partial translation was published by
B. Lewis, “An Apocalyptic Vision of Islamic History,” bsoas 13 (1950): 308–38. Cf. the more
complete trans. by J. C. Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic
Jewish Apocalypse Reader (Atlanta: sbl, 2005), 87.
48 Eusebius, Onomasticon (ed. E. Klostermann; gcs Eusebius Werke 3.1; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs,
1904), 170.

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only after three days, as it says, “On the third day he will raise us up, that
we may live in his presence” (Hos 6:2).49
‫ויהי ביום השלישי לעולם אין ישראל נתונין בצרה יותר מג׳ ימים שהרי באברהם כתיב‬
‫ביום השלישי וישא אברהם את עינין וירא את המקום מרחוק השבטים ויאסף אותם‬
‫אל משמר שלשת ימים יונה שנאמר ויהי יונה במעי הדג שלשה ימים ושלשה לילות‬
‫והמתים אינן חיים אלא לשלשת ימים שנאמר ביום השלישי יקימנו נחיה לפניו‬
The assertion of the principle (a three-day tribulation) is certainly not incon-

sistent with the view that Hos 6:2 is about the resurrection of the dead, since
the Midrashist mentions resurrection in his interpretation.
Midrash Tehillim on Ps 22:1 has a similar interpretation of Esth 5:1, which
explains the three days of fasting with the principle that God does not leave
Israel in tribulation for more than three days.50 In this Midrash, however, there
is no specific mention of resurrection.
And why three days (Esth 5:1)? Because the holy one, blessed be he, does
not leave Israel in tribulation for more than three days. And so it says,
“and on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes” (Gen 22:4). And so
it says, “and he put them all in prison for three days” (Gen 42:17), and
so it says, “And they went three days into the wilderness and found no
water” (Gen 42:17), and similarly, “on the third day you will go up to the
house of the Lord” (2 Kgs 20:5), and similarly Rahab the harlot said that
you have only to trouble yourselves for three days, since it was said, “hide
yourselves there for three days” (Josh 2:16) (without aleph it is written,
“hide yourselves [wnḥbtm]”), and so you find in Jonah, “and Jonah was
in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights” (Jonah 2:1), and
it is written, “and the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out”
(Jonah 2:11), and so Hosea says, “after two days he will revive us, and on
49 E sther Rab. 9:2, trans. Simon, Midrash Rabbah: Esther, 9:112. Its origins may date to the
eleventh century, although it contains earlier traditions. See Strack and Stemberger,
Introduction, 319. Cf. Gen. Rab. 56:1 (see below).
50 Midr. Teh. Ps 22:1. Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 322–23 argue that the long period
of development that the Midrash underwent renders dating impossible. Dates from the
third to the thirteenth century for various traditions in the Midrash have been proposed.
The same principle is mentioned in Gen. Rab. 91:7 (on Gen 43:17–8), and Hos 6:2 is quoted
in support. Cf. McArthur, On the Third Day, 85. Midr. ʾAggadah 42 (on 42:17; S. Buber [ed.],
Agadischer Commentar zum Pentateuch [Vienna: Fanto, 1894], 99) supports the principle
that God does not leave Israel in tribulation for more than three days with Hos 6:2, but
does not specifically mention the resurrection of the dead. But the text is used to explain
the deliverance of the patriarchs from prison on the third day.

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204 Cook
the third day he will raise us and we will live before him” (Hos 6:2 rsv).
Therefore a fast was decreed for three days; therefore it says “on the dawn
of the morning” (Ps 22:1), which brings the morning from the midst of
darkness.51
‫ולמה שלשה ימים שאין הקב״ה מניח לישראל בצרה יותר משלשה ימים וכן הוא‬
‫אומר ביום השלישי וישא אברהם את עיני וכן הוא אומר ויאסוף ]אותם[ אל משמר‬
‫שלשת ימים וכן הוא אומר וילכו שלשת ימים במדבר ולא מצאו מים וכן ביום השלישי‬
‫תעלה בית ה׳ וכן רחב הזונה אמרה אין לכם להצטער אלא שלשת ימים שנאמר‬
‫ונחבאתם שמה שלשת ימים חסר א׳ כתיב ונחבתם וכן את מוצא ביונה ויהי יונה‬
‫במעי הדג שלשה ימים ושלשה לילות וכתיב ויאמר ה׳ לדג ויקא את יונה וכן הושע‬
‫אומר יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו לפיכך גזרה צום שלשה ימים‬
‫לכך נאמר על אילת השחר שהביאה השחר מתוך החשך‬
Since the theme of all the scriptural texts is deliverance on the third day, it is
likely that the author interpreted the death and life of Hos 6:2 as resurrection.
Yalqut, in its interpretation of Josh 2:16, includes many texts used by the
author of Genesis Rabbah 56:1:
“And you shall hide yourselves there for three days” (Josh 2:16). The holy
one, blessed be he, does not leave the righteous in tribulation more than
three days. This is written: “and he will revive us after two days and on the
third day he will raise us and we will live in his presence” (Hos 6:2). On
the third day of the tribes where it is said, “and Joseph said to them on the
third day” (Gen 42:18). On the third day of Jonah, “and Jonah was in the
belly of the fish for three days and on the third day” (Jonah 2:1). And on
the third day of the return of the exiles, where it is said, “we camped there
for three days” (Ezra 8:15). On the third day of the resurrection of the
dead, where it is said, “He will revive as after two days” (Hos 6:2). On the
third day of Esther, “And on the third day Esther put on her royal robes”
(Esth 5:1). For what reason? Our rabbis say for the sake of the third day in
which the Torah was given, “and on the third day when it was morning”
51 M
idr. Teh. Ps. 22 (S. Buber [ed.], Midrash Tehillim [Vilnius: Wittwe & Gebrüder, 1891], 92).
Midr. Leqaḥ Tov Gen 22:4 (S. Buber [ed.], Midrash Leqaḥ Tov, vol. 1 [Vilnius: privately pub-
lished, 1880], 98) includes the principle (God not leaving Israel in tribulation for more
than three days) and refers to Gen 42:18; Exod 19:16; Jonah 2:1; Esth 5:1; and Hos 6:2 to il-
lustrate it. Midr. Sekhel Tov Gen 22:4 also includes the principle that God will not leave the
righteous person (‫ )הצדיק‬in tribulation for more than three days and refers to Gen 42:18;
Josh 2:16; Esth 5:1; Jonah 2:1; and Hos 6:2.

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(Exod 19:16). And Rabbi Levi said, on account of the third day of Abraham
in that it is said, “on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes” (Gen 22:4).52
‫ונחבאתם שמה שלשת ימים אין הקב״ה מניח את הצדיקים בצרה יותר משלשה‬
‫ השלישי של שבטים‬.‫ימים הה״ד יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו ביום‬
‫ השלישי של יונה ויהי יונה במעי‬.‫שנאמר ויאמר אליהם יוסף ביום השלישי ביום‬
‫הדגה שלשה ימים ביום השלישי של עולי גולה שנאמר ונחנה שם שלשה ימים ביום‬
‫השלישי של תחיית המתים שנאמר יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי של אסתר ויהי ביום‬
‫השלישי ותלבש אסתר מלכות באיזה זכות רבנין אמרין בזכות יום שלישי של מתן‬
‫תורה ויהי ביום השלישי בהיות הבקר רבי לוי אמר בזכות יום שלישי של אברהם‬
‫שנאמר ויהי ביום השלישי וישא אברהם את עיניו‬
The Midrashist leaves the nature of the two days before the resurrection un-
clear in this passage.
8 Collections of Scripture that Include Hosea 6:2
The interpretation of Gen 22:4 in Genesis Rabbah lists a number of texts that
mention a “third day,” which are presumably an attempt to explain the timing
in the Abraham narrative:
“On the third day,” etc. [Gen 22:4] “After two days he will revive us, on the
third day he will raise us up, that we may live in his presence” (Hos 6:2).
E.g., on the third day of the tribal ancestors: “And Joseph said unto
them on the third day” (Gen 42:18);53 on the third day when the Torah
was given: “And it came to pass on the third day when it was morning”
(Exod 19:6); on the third day of the spies: “And hide yourselves there three
days” (Josh 2:16); on the third day of Jonah: “And Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights” (Jonah 2:1); on the third day of those
returning from the exile: “And we abode there three days” (Ezra 8:15);
on the third day of resurrection: “After two days he will revive us, on the
third day he will raise us up” (Hos 6:2); on the third day of Esther: “Now it
came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel of her
52 Y alq. Josh 2:12 (on 2:16), 347 (Warsaw: Goldman, 1876, p. 693). Most of these verses are
used in a parallel passage in Yalq. Gen 22:4, 99 (Warsaw: Goldman, 1876, p. 58). Yalqut is a
compilation from the twelfth or thirteenth century of fifty earlier works. See Strack and
Stemberger, Introduction, 351–52. Yalq. Deut 32:39, 946 (Warsaw: Goldman, 1876, p. 678)
uses Hos 6:2 to interpret Deut 32:39 (God’s power to raise the dead).
53 Midr. Leqaḥ Tov Gen. 42:18 explains the verse by quoting Hos. 6:2.

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206 Cook
ancestor” (Esth 5:1). For whose sake? The Rabbis say: For the sake of the
third day, when Revelation took place. R. Levi maintained: In the merit of
what Abraham did on the third day, as it says, On the third day, etc. “And
saw the place afar off.” What did he see? He saw a cloud enveloping the
mountain, and said: “It appears that this is the place where the holy one,
blessed be he, told me to sacrifice my son.”54
‫ביום השלישי וגו׳ יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו ביום השלישי‬
‫שלשבטים ויאמר יוסף אליהם ביום השלישי ביום שלישי שלמתן תורה ויהי ביום‬
‫השלישי בהיות הבקר ביום שלישי שלמרגלים ונחבאתם שמה שלשת ימים ביום‬
‫שלישי שליונה ויהי יונה במעי הדג שלשה ימים ביום שלישי של עולי גולה ונחנה שם‬
‫ימים שלשה ביום שלישי שלתחיית המתים יחיינו מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה‬
‫לפניו ביום שלישי שלאסתר ויהי ביום השלישי ותלבש אסתר מלכות לבשה מלכות‬
‫בית אביה באי זו זכות רבנין אמ׳ בזכות יום שלישי שלמתן תורה ר׳ לוי אמר בזכות‬
‫יום שלישי שלאברהם ביום השלישי וגו׳ וירא את המקום מרחוק מה ראה ראה ענן‬
‫קשור בהר אמר דומה שאותו המקום שאמר לי הקב״ה להקריב את בני שם‬
The texts are a sort of concordance-based comment on Gen 22:4.55 The

Midrashist’s inclusion of the comment “the third day of resurrection” indicates
that his interpretation of Hos 6:2 conforms to that of most of the other rab-
binical texts.
This is similar to the interpretation of Esth 4:17 and following in Leqaḥ Tov,
written around 1097.56 The Midrashist refers to an interpretation of Rab:
“What is your request” (Esth 5:6)? This teaches that she did not eat until
he said to her “what is your request?” And he said, “bring Haman quickly”
(Esth 5:5). And on the sixteenth day of Nisan Haman was suspended. The
decree (of Haman) only stood for two days, and on the third day he was
crucified, since the sleep of the king fled on the night of watching (15
Nisan). The salvation of the Lord is like the blink of an eye. “After two
days he will revive us, and on the third day he will raise us and we will live
in his presence” (Hos 6:2).57
54 Gen. Rab. 56:1 (Theodor/Albeck, 595), trans. Freedman, Genesis Rabbah, 1:491.
55 Cf. L. Novakovic, Raised from the Dead According to Scripture: The Role of Israel’s Scripture
in the Early Christian Interpretations of Jesus’ Resurrection (London: Bloomsbury, 2012),
127.
57 Midr. Leqaḥ Tov Esth 4:17 (S. Buber [ed.], Sammlung agadischer Commentare zum Buche
Ester [Vilnius: Wittwe & Gebrüder, 1886], 52).

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‫מה שאלתך מלמד שלא היתה אוכלת עד שאמר לה מה שאלתך והוא אמר מהרו את‬
‫המן וביום י״ו בניסן נתלה המן לא עמד גזירתו ואלא ב׳ ימים וביום ג׳ נצלב כי נדדה‬
‫שנת המלך בליל שמורים ישועת ה׳ כהרף עין יחיינו מיומים וביום השלישי יקימנו‬
‫ונחיה לפניו‬
Rab was a first generation amoraic teacher,58 and consequently the interpreta-
tion is much older than the composition of the Midrash, if one can accept the
attribution. The emphasis on deliverance probably implies that resurrection is
the intended reference of the quotation of Hosea.
In a discussion of Deut 32:39, a compilation that has been entitled Midrash
Tannaim to Deuteronomy,59 a number of texts are mentioned which allude to
the resurrection:
See now that I, I am he (Deut 32:39). This is one of the ten utterances
in which there is an allusion to the resurrection of the dead. “See now
that I, I am he who kills and makes alive” (32:39). “For you are dust and
to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). “The one who sheds the blood of a
person, by a person shall his/her blood be shed” (Gen 9:6). And the Lord
said to Moses, “Behold you will sleep with your ancestors and he rose” …
(Deut 31:16).60 “May Reuben live and not die” (Deut 33:6). “He will revive
us after two days. On the third day he will raise us and we will live before
him” (Hos 6:2). “Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord,
behold I am opening their graves and you will know that I am the Lord
when I open your graves and when I put my spirit in you and you will live”
(Ezek 37:12–14).61
‫ראו עתה כי אני אני הוא זה אחד מעשרה דברים שיש בהן רמז לתחית המתים ראו‬
‫עתה כי אני אני הוא אני אמית ואחיה כי עפר אתה ואל עפר תשוב שפך דם האדם‬
‫באדם דמו ישפך ויאמר ה׳ אל משה הנך שכ׳ עם אב׳ וקם יחי ראובן ואל ימות יחיינו‬
‫מיומים ביום השלישי יקימנו ונחיה לפניו לכן הנבא ואמרת אליהם כהאמ׳ ה׳ הנני‬
‫פתח את קב׳ וידעו כי אני ה׳ בפת׳ את קב׳ ונתתי רוחי בכם וחייתם‬

59 Cf. Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 273–75, who note that half of D. Hoffmann’s edi-
tion may not derive from the halakhic Midrash. They note that one cannot “specify the
origin and date” of the Midrash given the “textual condition.”
60 The Midrash does not quote the entire verse (in which the people of Israel rose), and
presumably refers to Moses’s future resurrection.
61 Midrash Tannaim Deut 32:39 (D. Hoffmann [ed.], Midrash Tannaim zum Deuteronomium
[2 vols.; Berlin: Iṭsḳoṿsḳi, 1908–1909], 1:202).

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208 Cook
These texts are mainstays in many of the rabbinic arguments about the
resurrection.
Sifre Deuteronomy has an identical approach to the text of Deut 32:39:
[b] I bring death and give life: This is one [of the four assurances] given to
them which hint at the resurrection of the dead: “I bring death and give
life” (Deut 32:39); “Let me die the death of the righteous” (Num 23:10);
“Let Reuben live and not die” (Deut 33:6); “After two days He will revive
us” (Hos 6:2). I might think that death here refers <to one> and life <to an-
other> therefore the verse states: “I wounded and I heal” (Deut 32:39)—
<just as> wounding and healing refer <to one> so death and life refer
<to one>.62
‫ תמות‬.‫ אני אמית ואחיה‬:‫אני אמית ואחיה – זה אחד שניתן להן רמז לתחיית המתים‬
>‫ שומע אני מיתה <באחד‬.‫ יחיינו מיומים‬.‫ יחי ראובן ואל ימות‬.‫נפשי מות ישרים‬
‫ל מחצתי ואני ארפא – <כדרך> שמכה ורפואה <באחד> כך‬″‫וחיים <באחד> ת‬
.>‫מיתה וחיים <באחד‬
Günter Stemberger dates the final redaction of Sifre to the end of the third
century.63 Yifat Monnickendam emphasizes the claim in Sifre that the same
person dies and rises, which is an argument against the hypothesis that a dif-
ferent person might rise from the one who died. The same person wounded is
healed, and the analogy is the basis for the argument about the resurrection.64
9 Rashi and Kimchi
Rashi (1040–1105)65 does not explicitly interpret the passage with reference to
the resurrection, but sees it as a prophecy of the reconstruction of the temple:
62 S ifre Deut 329, trans. Y. Monnickendam, “‘I Bring Death and Give Life, I Wound and
Heal’ (Deut. 32:39): Two Versions of the Polemic on the Resurrection of the Dead,” Hen
35 (2013): 90–118, esp. 98, for which she modified that of R. Hammer, Sifre: A Tannaitic
Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy (yjs 24; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986),
340. Text from Monnickendam, “‘I Bring Death,’” 98, based on M. I. Kahana, “Pages of the
Deuteronomy Mekhilta on Ha’azinu and Wezot Ha-Berakha,” Tarbiz 57 (1988): 165–202
(Hebrew), esp. 191–93, and L. Finkelstein, Siphre ad Deuteronomium (New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, 1969), 379. This passage has many similarities with one
in b. Pesaḥ. 68a and b. Sanh. 91b.
64 Monnickendam, “Polemic,” 99–100.
65 A. Grossman, “The School of Literal Jewish Exegesis in Northern France,” in M. Sæbø
(ed.), Hebrew Bible / Old Testament: History of Interpretation, Vol. 1: From the Beginning to

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After two days he will revive us: he will strengthen us from the two pay-
ments (retributions) which came upon us from the two sanctuaries that
were destroyed. On the third day: during the erection of the third house
(Temple) he will raise us up. After two days: after the two times that have
come upon us. On the third day: in the third time.66
‫ יחזקנו משתי פורענות שעברו עלינו משתי מקדשות שחרבו׃‬.‫יחיינו מיומים‬

:‫ בבנין בית השלישי יקימנו‬.‫ביום השלישי‬
:‫ משתי עתים שעברו עלינו‬.‫מיומים‬
:‫ בעת השלישי‬.‫ביום השלישי‬
Rashi may imply that this happens during the messianic age. In his comment
on Ezek 43:11, Rashi argues that Ezra was unable to build the eschatological
temple because of Israel’s sin.
This building then would have been designated for them when they re-
turned from the exile for an everlasting redemption.67
‫ובנין זה מאז היה ראוי להם כשעלו מן הגולה לגאולת עולם‬
Consequently, his interpretation of Hos 6:2 is clearly apocalyptic. The prophe-

cy refers to the third Temple of the age of everlasting redemption. Rashi clearly
believed in resurrection, and argued, for example, that the two yods in Gen 2:7
(‫ )וייצר‬implied the resurrection of the dead:
… and he formed—two creations: a creation for this world and a creation

for the resurrection of the dead.68
‫וייצר שתי יצירות יצירה לעולם הזה ויצירה לתחיית המתים‬
the Middle Ages (Until 1300), Part 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 321–71,
esp. 332.
66 Rashi on Hos 6:2, Miqraot Gedolot: Sepher Terey ʿeser (Lublin: Šnaydmeser and Heršenhorn,
1911), 37.
67 Rashi on Ezek 43:11, Miqraot Gedolot: Sepher Yeḥezqel (Lublin: Šnaydmeser and
Heršenhorn, 1911), 382.
68 Rashi on Gen 2:7, Miqraot Gedolot: Bereshit (Raschi, Der Kommentar des Saloma B. Isak
über den Pentateuch …, (ed. A. Berliner; 2nd ed.; Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann, 1905), 5.

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210 Cook
David Kimchi (ca. 1160–1235)69 also has an apocalyptic interpretation of the

passage, although he does not mention the messiah by name. Healing in the
messianic age is Kimchi’s emphasis.
… and the sage Rabbi Abraham ben Ezra, may his memory be blessed,
explained: “on the third day: a reversal of what is expected, because then
he/she is in pain,”70 and so he [Hosea] says on the third day when they
are in pain; and the commentary: after two days he will revive us, this
statement is about the future. And “after two days” is a metaphor of the
two exiles, the exile in Egypt and the exile in Babylon. “On the third day”
is a metaphor for the current third exile, because he will raise us up from
it and we will live before him, and we will never be exiled again for all
eternity, and we will live perpetually in his presence all days until we sin
no more.71
‫והחכם רבי אברהם בן עזרא ז״ל פירש ביום השלישי הפך כל נשבר כי אז יכאב וכן‬
‫אמר ביום השלישי בהיותם כואבים ופי׳ עוד יחיינו מיומים זה המאמר הוא על העתיד‬
‫ומיומים משל לשני גליות גלות מצרים וגלות בבל ביום השלישי משל לגלות הזה‬
‫השלישי שיקימנו ממנו ונחיה לפניו שלא נגלה עוד לעולם ונחיה תמיד לפניו כל ימי‬
‫עד שלא נחטא עוד‬
Theodoret also uses the concept of healing to interpret the text of Hosea, but
he affirms that it is unending healing, and that the text is a prophecy of Christ’s
resurrection:
For it [the text] is not limited to healing lasting for a (temporary) passage
of time, but will produce permanent health. It intimates through these
things and through the “three days” the resurrection of the savior who
was the agent of the general resurrection.
69 M. Cohen, “The Qimhi Family,” in Sæbø (ed.), Hebrew Bible, 388–415, esp. 389.
70 A. Lipschitz, The Commentary of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra on Hosea: Edited from Six
Manuscripts and Translated with an Introduction and Notes (New York: Sepher-Hermon,
1988), 65, translates this phrase as: “[Moreover] on the third [day He will raise us up,]
which is not the normal rule among sick people. For then [viz., on the third day] they
suffer [the most].” This is a somewhat explanatory paraphrase, but justified. Several mss
offer variations that are close to his translation. Two read: ‫עד שלישי זמן קרוב כל נשבר‬. Cf.
ibid., 19 (Hebrew) appar. crit.: MS Leeuwarden 4,2 (Provinciale Bibliotheek van Friesland,
Holland) and Roma Angelica 80,2.
71 Miqraot Gedolot: Sepher Terey ʿeser (Lublin: Šnaydmeser and Heršenhorn, 1911), 37 (Hos 6:2
ad loc.).

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Οὐ δεῖται γὰρ εἰς θεραπείαν χρονικῆς περιόδου, ἀλλ’ ἀθρόαν παρέξει τὴν
ὑγίειαν· αἰνίττεται δὲ διὰ τούτων καὶ τὴν διὰ τριῶν ἡμερῶν γενομένην τοῦ
Σωτῆρος ἀνάστασιν, ἣ τῆς κοινῆς ἀναστάσεως ἐγένετο πρόξενος.72
Theodoret combines the themes of healing and resurrection, although from

a Christian perspective. Rashi and Kimchi both interpret Hos 6:2 apocalypti-
cally, and Rashi’s interpretation of the relevant passage in tractate Sanhedrin
indicates that he had no objection to the view that Hosea was referring to the
resurrection of the dead.
10 Conclusion
Probably around the time of the Septuagint version of Hosea, the apocalyptic
interpretation of 6:2 began to emerge. Although Paul does not explicitly cite
Hosea, it is the only text in the Septuagint that can justify his claim that Jesus’
resurrection on the third day (1 Cor 15:4) was “according to Scripture.” The tra-
jectory from the Septuagint through Paul, Aquila, Symmachus, the Targum and
rabbinic tradition implies that readers of Hos 6:2 viewed it as a clear reference
to the resurrection of the dead.
72 Theodoret, Os. 6:2 (PG 81:1581). Cf. the comments by A. Wünsche, Der Prophet Hosea:
Übersetz und Erklärt mid Benutzung der Targumim, der jüdischen Ausleger Raschi, Aben
Ezra und David Kimchi (Leipzig: Weiger, 1868), 240–42 (on Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Kimchi, and
Theodoret).

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Chapter 11
Paul on Apokatastasis: 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 and

the Use of Scripture
Ilaria Ramelli
I intend to study here the allusions to Scripture1 in 1 Cor 15:24–28 and its im-
mediate context, such as those to Daniel and especially to Pss 109 and 8 in the
Septuagint version. I shall demonstrate how Paul transformed the Psalm verses
in the service of his eschatological piece, which is central to the doctrine of
apokatastasis (along with Acts 3:21). This will also help to explain the reason
why, for instance, Paul uses a verse, which in the Psalm refers to the human
being, in reference to the eschatological Christ as King.
Psalm 109 (110 lxx) in the nets translation reads:
Pertaining to Dauid. A Psalm.

The Lord said to my lord, “Sit on my right until I make your enemies a
footstool for your feet.”
A rod of your power the Lord will send out from Sion. And exercise do-
minion in the midst of your enemies!
With you is rule on a day of your power among the splendors of the holy
ones. From the womb, before Morning-star, I brought you forth.
The Lord swore and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever
according to the order of Melchisedek.”
The Lord at your right shattered kings on a day of his wrath.
He will judge among the nations, will make full with corpses; he will shat-
ter heads over the land of many.
From a wadi by a road he will drink; therefore he will raise head high.
1 On Paul’s use of Scripture, see the general works by Christopher Stanley, Paul and the
Language of Scripture: Citation Techniques in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary
Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture
in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Francis Watson, Paul and the
Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004). For methodological considerations on
the use of Scripture in what became the New Testament, see Stanley E. Porter, “The Use of the
Old Testament in the New Testament,” in C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders (eds.), Early Christian
Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 79–96; Porter,
“Further Comments on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament,” in T. L. Brodie,
R. MacDonald, and S. E. Porter (eds.), The Intertextuality of the Epistles (Sheffield: Sheffield
Phoenix, 2007), 98–110.

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Paul on Apokatastasis 213
Jewish interpretations of v. 1 variously referred the second lord to David,

Abraham, or the Messiah. It is notable that the lxx—on which Paul himself,
the rest of the New Testament, and all Greek Fathers relied2—uses the noun
κύριος for both lords, while the Hebrew Bible, at least in the Masoretic text, has
two different nouns: the holy Tetragrammaton, YHWH, for the first Lord, and
adoni (distinct in vocalisation from Adonai) for the second, a form of address
to a person of dignity.3 This figure is a victorious king, to whom all enemies
are subjected; he is an eternal priest, a judge, and appears to have been gener-
ated by the first Lord in a maternal way, “from the womb.” Christian interpret-
ers, from the New Testament onward were unanimous in referring all of these
characteristics to Jesus Christ. Paul seems to have been the first.
Acts 2:34–36 and Matt 22:41–46 both refer to Ps 109:1. In Acts 2:34–36, Peter
is reported to have claimed in a speech in Jerusalem that Ps 109:1 did not refer
to David, who never ascended to heaven, but to “this Jesus whom you (caused
to be) crucified.” In Matt 22:41–46 Jesus is likewise represented as asking the
Pharisees about the correct identification of the second lord, whom the first
Lord exhorts to sit to his right, arguing that this cannot be the son of David,
since David called him his lord.4 This passage fits well within a framework in
which the universal sovereignty of Christ was highlighted and opposed to the
universal sovereignty of the Roman emperor.5 But long before Acts and the
final redaction of Matthew were composed, Paul in 1 Corinthians used the very
same verse, Ps 109:1, enshrining it in his eschatological discourse and clearly
referring it to the eschatological reign of Christ.
Paul in 1 Cor 15:24–28 is describing the telos within a section that, before
and after this passage, is devoted to the resurrection. Martinus De Boer asks
why Paul’s treatment of the resurrection of the dead turns suddenly into a re-
flection on Christ’s eschatological reign.6 He thinks that Paul was using and
2 See Timothy M. Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian
Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
3 1 Sam 22:11; Ps 18:7, etc. On the Tetragrammaton and its basis in Exod 3:14, see now George
van Kooten (ed.), The Revelation of the Name YHWH to Moses: Perspectives from Judaism, the
Pagan Greco-Roman World, and Early Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2006).
4 This belongs to the broader issue of the royalty of the Messiah and the kind of kingdom that
belongs to Jesus Christ, on which see my “Jesus, James the Just, a Gate, and an Epigraph,”
in Markus Tiwald (ed.), Kein Jota und kein Häkchen des Gesetzes werden vergehen (vgl. Q
16,17): Das Gesetzesverständnis der Logienquelle auf dem Hintergrund frühjüdischer Theologie
(bwant 200; Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 2013), 203–29.
5 See on this Joseph D. Fantin, The Lord of the Entire World: Lord Jesus, a Challenge to Lord
Caesar? (ntm 31; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2011).
6 Martinus De Boer, “Paul’s Use of a Resurrection Tradition in 1 Cor 15:20–28,” in R. Bieringer
(ed.), The Corinthian Correspondence (BETL 125; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996),
639–51. Martin Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul: Studies in the Earliest History of Christianity

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214 Ramelli
adapting a christological tradition familiar to the Corinthians, given the many

other references to Ps 109:1 in the New Testament (although all of them, I note,
are later than Paul’s letter, being found in the Synoptics, Acts, Colossians,
Ephesians, 1 Peter, and Hebrews; the only other early occurrence is by Paul
himself in Rom 8:34, which points to Paul as the author of the adaptation).
The resurrection of all is based on the resurrection of Christ, as also in
2 Cor 4:14, “knowing that he who raised the Lord will bring us with you into his
presence,” and in Phil 3:20–21, “the Lord Jesus Christ will change our lowly body
to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject
all things to himself.” Here the motif of the resurrection of both Christ and hu-
mans is linked to that of the eschatological submission of all to Christ, just as
in 1 Cor 15. Actually, the resurrection of Christ grounds the very Christian faith
and life according to 1 Cor 15:14, 17, 19.7 As already in 1 Thess 4:13–18, here too
the resurrection of all will follow closely upon the coming of the Lord.8 Alan
Segal remarks:
In 1 Cor 15, Paul sums up his entire religious experience in an apocalyptic

vision of the resurrection of believers. Paul begins with a description of
his previous preaching and suggests that if his listeners give up belief in
the resurrection then they believe in Christ in vain. Paul claims instead
to have given them, indeed emphasized as the first importance, the true
teaching, as he had himself received it. And that teaching is simply that
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1983), ch. 5, argues that the resurrection experiences of the earliest
followers of Jesus led them to the conviction that God had enthroned him at his right hand
and this led to reflections on Ps 110. C. D. Elledge, Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism:
200 BCE–CE 200 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), ch. 1, sees resurrection as applying
in Paul to those who are “in Christ” (1 Thess 4:14–16; 1 Cor 15:18, 22–23). See however Ilaria
Ramelli and David Konstan, “The Syntax of ἐν Χριστῷ in 1 Thess 4:16,” jbl 126 (2007): 579–93.
7 On the centrality of Christ’s resurrection for Paul, provocatively opposed to the general pan-
orama of the first 140 years of Christianity, see Markus Vinzent, Christ’s Resurrection in Early
Christianity and the Making of the New Testament (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011). On Christ’s res-
urrection in Paul, see Alan Segal, “Paul’s Thinking about Resurrection in its Jewish Context,”
nts 44 (1998): 400–19. The glorious body of Christ and the spiritual body are similar in sub-
stance because one is transformed into the other, a conclusion based on Paul’s experience
of visions of the risen Christ in a body but not a physical body. Paul received an apocalyptic-
mystical vision of the Christ but never met the man Jesus in the flesh at all. Consequently, his
entire explanation of the distinction between flesh and spirit is congruent with his experi-
ence of revelation, including his high evaluation of spirituality in Christianity and his lack of
attention to the person of Jesus as he appeared in life.
8 For the reading “the dead will rise in Christ” instead of “those dead in Christ will rise” in
1 Thess 4:16, see Ramelli and Konstan, “Syntax of ἐν Χριστῷ.”

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Christ died for sins in accordance with Scripture, that he was entombed
and rose three days later, all in accordance with Scripture. There is no
doubt that this is the earliest Christian teaching with regard to the resur-
rection: it is part of the primitive kerygma or proclamation of the church.
He does not specify which Scripture he means. Nor does he begin a dem-
onstration of the reality of resurrection from Scripture or from philo-
sophical principles. For him, it has the reality of an experience related
to others. The reports of those who have witnessed it, including himself,
are sufficient to demonstrate its reality. Nor does he recount a vision in
typical apocalyptic fashion, as we might have imagined. Instead he lists
the witnesses to the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus: Peter (called
Kepha), the twelve, and the five hundred. Some of those five hundred
have died but most are still alive.9
At this point, the crucial passage is introduced: Paul shows that the resurrec-
tion of Christ entails the resurrection of the dead, because Christ is “the first
fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20). Paul employs a term which
echoes Dan 12, Isa 26, and Ps 87:6 lxx. It is possible that already in 1 Cor 15:3
Paul was echoing Dan 12:2 on the resurrection (καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν καθευδόντων ἐν
γῆς χώματι ἐξεγερθήσονται οὗτοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον καὶ οὗτοι εἰς ὀνειδισμὸν καὶ εἰς
αἰσχύνην αἰώνιον). Paul grounds his famous argument in the Adam-Christ anal-
ogy. Just as death came from Adam, so eternal life comes from Christ. Christ
is the first to rise, then those who belong to Christ. Then will come the end,
described in 1 Cor 15:20–28:
Νυνὶ δὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἀπαρχὴ τῶν κεκοιμημένων. ἐπειδὴ γὰρ
δι’ ἀνθρώπου θάνατος, καὶ δι’ ἀνθρώπου ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν· ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ
Ἀδὰμ πάντες ἀποθνή�ͅ σκουσιν, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται.
ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ
͂ τὸ τέλος, ὅταν παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί,
παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ· εἰ�τα
ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν, δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν
βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὑ�͂ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. ἔσχατος
ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος, πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ.
ὅταν δὲ εἴπῃ ὅτι πάντα ὑποτέτακται, δῆλον ὅτι ἐκτὸς τοῦ ὑποτάξαντος αὐτῷ
τὰ πάντα. ὅταν δὲ ὑποταγῇ αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, τότε αὐτὸς ὁ υἱὸς ὑποταγήσεται τῷ
ὑποτάξαντι αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, ἵνα ἦ�ͅ ὁ θεὸς πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν.
9 Segal, “Paul’s Thinking about Resurrection,” 414.

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216 Ramelli
Now Christ has been resurrected from the dead, first fruits of those who
have fallen asleep. Because death came about by means of a human
being, the resurrection of the dead also has to come about by means of a
human being; for, just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be vivi-
fied. However, each one in his or her order: the first fruits is Christ, then
those who belong to Christ on his return; then will come the end, when
he will hand the kingdom to God the Father, after annihilating every ruler
and every principality and power. For he must continue reigning until
he (God) has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy will be
destroyed: death. Indeed, he has subjected all under his feet. But when
(Scripture) says that all is subjected to him, it is clear that (this means)
except the One who has subjected every being to him. Once all beings
have submitted to him, then the Son himself will submit to the One who
has subjected all to him, that God may be all in all.
Christ will hand over the kingdom of God to the father, after the destruction of
every evil power. When he says that Christ must reign until God has put all his
enemies under his feet, Paul may be echoing Dan 7:13–14 lxx (“I was watching
in the night visions, and lo, as it were a son of human being was coming upon
the clouds of heaven. And he came as far as the ancient of days, and the at-
tendants were present with him. And royal authority was given to him, and all
the nations of the earth according to posterity, and all honor was serving him.
And his authority is an everlasting authority, which shall never be removed—
and his kingship, which will never perish” [nets]),10 but I will show that a
reference to Pss 109 and 8 is closer, either alone or together with the Daniel
passage. Indeed, Paul in 1 Cor 15:25 (“For he must reign until he has put all his
enemies under his feet”) is quoting Ps 109:1 lxx [110:1 MT], where the dignity
of the throne is connected to victory over enemies, which is achieved by the
Lord for “my Lord,” as has been seen at the beginning. Psalm 109:1 was later
echoed also in Heb 10:12–13: “He offered one single sacrifice for the sins once
and for all, and sat at God’s right, just waiting for his enemies to be put under
his feet as a stool.” And in 1 Cor 15:27 Paul repeats and strengthens this motif:
πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. Here Paul is quoting Ps 8:6: πάντα
ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ (“You subjected all under his feet” [nets]).
All this cluster of biblical quotations, already incorporated by Paul and by the
10 Ἰδοὺ μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενος ἦν καὶ ἕως τοῦ παλαιοῦ
τῶν ἡμερῶν ἔφθασεν καὶ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ προσηνέχθη, καὶ αὐτῷ ἐδόθη ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ ἡ τιμὴ καὶ ἡ
βασιλεία καὶ πάντες οἱ λαοί φυλαί γλῶσσαι αὐτῷ δουλεύσουσιν ἡ ἐξουσία αὐτοῦ ἐξουσία αἰώνιος
ἥτις οὐ παρελεύσεται καὶ ἡ βασιλεία αὐτοῦ οὐ διαφθαρήσεται.

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author of Hebrews, will be later taken over by Origen in support of his theory
of apokatastasis.11
As Gregory of Nyssa, relying on Paul, would do three centuries later in his
masterful dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection, Paul in 1 Cor 15 is seam-
lessly joining the talk on the resurrection to that on the restoration.12 The link
between resurrection and restoration of all in Paul’s passage was emphasized
by Origen before Gregory of Nyssa, in Princ. 2.3.3: “Our condition will be in-
corporeal one day, and if we admit this, since all will be subjected to Christ,
necessarily this condition will extend to all, to whom the subjection to Christ
is referred. And all those who are subjected to Christ in the end will be also
submitted to the Father, to whom Christ will hand his kingdom.” Gregory of
Nyssa reflected deeply on 1 Cor 15:24–28, to the point of devoting an entire ex-
egetical treatise to this specific passage (In illud: Tunc et ipse Filius).13 Clement
of Alexandria for the first time, and later Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and others,
identified 1 Cor 15:24–28 with the passage in which Paul, revealing what will
come to pass in the telos, the end (1 Cor 15:24: εἶτα τὸ τέλος [“and then will come
the end”]), describes this ultimate end in terms of apokatastasis or restoration
of all: τέλος διδάσκει τὴν τῆς ἐλπίδος ἀποκατάστασιν. Paul “teaches that the ulti-
mate end is the restoration we hope for” (Strom. 2.22.134.4).
Philippians 2:10–11, about the universal submission to the exalted Christ and
the universal, voluntary admission of his lordship, provides the most impor-
tant Pauline parallel to 1 Cor 15:24–28 with respect to the notion of eschatologi-
cal universal submission to Christ.14 Also, 1 Cor 15:24–28 must be read along
with Phil 3:21: the Lord “will transform our lowly body into the likeness of his
glorious body, by the same power that enables him to subject all to himself.”
Here too, as in 1 Cor 15:24–28, Paul is echoing Ps 8:6 (see below), and, like there,
is relating the resurrection to the eventual submission of all to Christ and the
restoration of all. In the end, God will be “all in all” (πάντα ἐν πᾶσι [v. 28]).
11 See my “Origen’s Interpretation of Hebrews 10:13, the Eventual Elimination of Evil and
Apokatastasis,” Augustinianum 47 (2007): 85–93.
12 See my commentary in Gregorio di Nissa sull’Anima e la Resurrezione (Milan: Bompiani-
Catholic University, 2007).
13 See my “In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius …: Gregory of Nyssa’s Exegesis, Its Derivations from
Origen, and Early Patristic Interpretations Related to Origen’s,” in Averil Cameron
et al. (eds.), Studia Patristica XLIV (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 259–74; also, “Gregory of
Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology in In Illud: Tunc et ipse Filius: His Polemic against ‘Arian’
Subordinationism and Apokatastasis,” in Volker Henning Drecoll and Margitta Berghaus
(eds.), Gregory of Nyssa: The Minor Treatises on Trinitarian Theology and Apollinarism
(Leiden: Brill, 2011), 445–78.
14 This did not escape Patristic exegetes, and especially Origen, who in Princ. 4.6.2 and else-
where joins Phil 2:10–11 with 1 Cor 15:24–28.

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218 Ramelli
This formula, which will prove immensely influential on Patristic eschatology

and exegesis,15 closely echoes that which Paul has used shortly beforehand in
the same letter, in 1 Cor 9:22: τοῖς πᾶσι γέγονα πάντα (“I have become all to all
people”). We can regard it as typical of Paul. He has become as a Jew to the Jews
and as a Gentile to the Gentiles,16 “in order to save all [πάντας].” This reading
is attested by a whole class of Greek mss, in Priscillian, in the Syriac Peshitta,
and in the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate: ut omnes facerem salvos / ut omnes sal-
vos facerem. This is also Origen’s reading in Comm. Cant. 1.4.30: perfecti quique
omnibus omnia fiunt, ut omnes lucrifaciant. This indicates that in his second-
century mss of Paul, Origen read τοῖς πᾶσιν γέγονα πάντα, ἵνα πάντας σώσω.
First Corinthians 15:25–26 contains a quotation of the above-cited Ps 109:1.17
Gregory of Nyssa will interpret this putting all enemies under Christ’s feet as
all enemies’ receiving of Christ’s sign or imprint.18 The rsv translates: “For he
must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to
be destroyed is death.” This translation implies that all other enemies before
death will be destroyed in the same way. And a number of other English and
non-English translations do the same: they all suggest that the enemies men-
tioned in v. 25, with the reference to Ps 109:1, will be destroyed as well before
the annihilation of death, which was not mentioned by the Psalm and is an ad-
dition by Paul. A more correct rendering of Paul’s words is found in the Anchor
Bible translation: “For he has to keep ruling until he puts all his enemies under
15 See Ilaria Ramelli, “Christian Soteriology and Christian Platonism: Origen, Gregory of
Nyssa, and the Biblical and Philosophical Basis of the Doctrine of Apokatastasis,” VC 61
(2007): 313–56, and The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the
New Testament to Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
16 See on this Henry Chadwick, “All Things to All Men,” nts 1 (1955): 261–75, who notes that
“Paul’s practice of adjusting his teaching to his audience did not escape the attention of
his numerous contemporary critics” (p. 263).
17 1 Cor 15:25–26: δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὑ�͂ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τὰς πόδας αὐτοῦ.
Ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος. Ps 109:1: εἶπεν ὁ κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου Kάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν
μου ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου.
18 Gregory, In Illud GNOa III/2, p. 27, 19ff. Downing depends, once again, on a Pauline
statement located in the same passage that inspired the whole treatise, 1 Cor 15:25: “It is
necessary that he goes on reigning until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” The
submission of all his enemies will be accomplished by Christ progressively, during his
reign; in the end, once he has subjected all and has unified all beings (ἑνῶσας τὰ πάντα),
he will hand over everything to the Father, which means—as Gregory explains—to lead
all (προσαγαγεῖν τοὺς πάντας) to God, in one and the same spirit with God. Those who were
God’s enemies will become a stool for God’s feet, according to the phrase of Ps 109:1: they
will receive God’s footprint on themselves, his ἴχνος, which is also his mark and sign—an
idea certainly associated with the so-called “theology of image.”

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his feet. Death is being nullified as the last enemy.”19 The phrasing for v. 26 here
does not intimate that the other enemies referred to in v. 25 will be nullified
as well. Indeed, one ought to render vv. 25–26 as follows: “For he must keep
reigning until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy, instead,
will be annihilated: death,” or “He must keep reigning until he has put all his
enemies under his feet. Death, instead, will be annihilated as the last enemy.”
The verbs, τίθημι (ὐπὸ τοὺς πόδας) and καταργέω, are different, and refer to dif-
ferent categories: respectively, creatures and death (which is no creature). So
too the rulers, principalities, and powers that in v. 24 are said to be destroyed
in the end are the powers of evil, and evil is no creature. It was not created by
God, who created only realities that are good, but it is the fruit of a bad choice
and the origin of death. Unlike the submitting creatures, evil and death will be
annihilated: καταργέω is the same verb used by Paul for the powers of evil in
v. 24 and death in v. 26. In the lxx this verb is employed in 2 Esd 4:21 and 6:8
in reference to the destruction of enemies; in the New Testament it occurs in
Luke 13:7 in reference to the destruction of the earth due to a bad tree, but all
the rest of the occurrences are in the Pauline corpus. Romans 3:3 and 3:31 use
it in reference to the impossible abolition of God’s faithfulness and of the Law;
1 Cor 1:28 in reference to the annihilation of things; 1 Cor 2:6, notably, in refer-
ence to the annihilation of the ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰώνου τούτου—which provides a
close parallel to the ἀρχαί in 15:24; 1 Cor 6:13 and 13:8–10 in reference to all that
will pass away and vanish in the end; 2 Cor 3:7, 11, 13–14 in reference to the van-
ishing of the splendour on Moses’s face and the removal of the κάλυμμα in the
interpretation of Scripture; Gal 3:17 in reference to the impossible annihilation
of God’s promise; Eph 2:15 in reference to the abolition of the law; 2 Thess 2:8 in
reference to the final destruction of the ἄνομος; 2 Tim 1:10 and Heb 2:14, again,
in reference to the eschatological annihilation of death and the devil. In T. 12
Patr. 3:8, καταργέω refers to the destruction of Beliar by Christ and in Barn.
5:6b and 15:5b to the eschatological destruction of death and evil, again as in
1 Cor 15:24–28.
Saw interprets 1 Corinthians as a deliberative argument in which ch. 15 is a
proof within the probatio and 15:20–29 is a τεκμήριον that proves the resurrec-
tion of the dead.20 This is why the complete destruction of death is emphasised
in v. 26. This is also underscored by Robertson and Plummer, who observe that
19 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(AB 32; New York: Doubleday, 1976), 328.
20 Insawn Saw, Paul’s Rhetoric in 1 Corinthians 15 (Lewiston: Mellen, 1995), 77.

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220 Ramelli
the same truth is expressed in Rev 20:14,21 and by Murphy O’Connor, who sees
the eviction of death as the result of the “complete transformation” brought
about by Christ.22 Ackerman too insists on the conquest of sin and death by
Christ with his resurrection and redemption.23 Orr and Walther think that the
powers mentioned in v. 24 “may be related to some superhuman dominions,”24
and Wendland interprets them as the demonic powers of this world.25 Lang
speaks of “elimination” of both the hostile powers and death,26 Hurd speaks
of destruction for both “every rule and every authority and power” (v. 24) and
death (v. 26),27 and Schrage remarks that both death and the demonic cosmic
powers “vernichtet werden.”28
The ancient versions of the Bible all support the interpretation that I have
proposed. The Vulgate translates: Oportet autem illum regnare donec ponat
omnes inimicos suos sub pedibus eius. Novissima autem inimica destruetur
mors.29 The adversative particle autem guarantees that here the sense is: “He
must keep reigning until he has put all his enemies under his feet. But the last
enemy will be annihilated: death.” This is all the more remarkable in that autem
is present also in the most important witnesses to the Vetus Latina: Irenaeus,
Hilary, Ambrosiaster, and Jerome. The Latin version of Irenaeus, Haer. 3.23 has:
Novissima autem inimica evacuatur mors. Hilary, In Ps. 52.8 cites: Novissima
autem inimica evacuabitur mors. Jerome, Ep. ad Amand. 4.163B has: Omnia
enim subiecta sunt sub pedibus eius. Novissima autem inimica destruetur mors.
And Ambrosiaster, In I Cor. 15, 26 quotes as follows: Omnia enim subiecit sub pe-
dibus eius. Novissime autem inimica destruitur mors. As it is manifest from the
passages I quoted from Ambrosiaster and Jerome, the very order found in the
Vetus Latina, with the first part of v. 27 inserted just before v. 26 (Oportet enim
21 Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1914), 356.
22 Jerome Murphy O’Connor, “1 and 2 Corinthians,” in James D. G. Dunn (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to St. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 82.
23 David Ackerman, Lo, I Tell You a Mystery: Cross, Resurrection, and Paraenesis in the Rhetoric
of 1 Corinthians (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2006), chs. 2 and 4.
24 Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 334.
25 Heinz-Dietrich Wendland, Die Briefe an die Korinther (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1968; Italian ed. by F. Ronchi; Brescia: Paideia, 1976), 276.
26 Friedrich Lang, Die Briefe an die Korinther (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994;
Italian ed. by F. Bassani and M. Negri; Brescia: Paideia, 2004), 282.
27 John Hurd, The Earlier Letters of Paul (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1998), 174.
28 Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (4 vols.; ekknt; Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1991–2001), 4:179.
29 Robert Weber, Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesell-
schaft, 1994), 1786.

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illum regnare donec ponat omnes inimicos suos sub pedibus eius. Omnia enim
subiecit sub pedibus eius. Novissimus autem inimicus destruitur mors),30 makes
it still clearer that there is a deep difference between those who will submit
and death, which will be destroyed: “For he must reign until he has put all his
enemies under his feet. For he has subjected everything under his feet. The last
enemy, instead, will be destroyed: death.” We shall see that this order is attested
also in some Greek Fathers: it clearly brings together the two Psalm quotations
in 1 Cor 15:24–28: that from Ps 109:1 and that from Ps 8:6. This order implies that
the two Psalm quotations were caught by readers, who wanted to emphasise
their unity.
The Coptic version, too, strongly separates the sentence concerning the
submission of enemies (v. 25) and that concerning the destruction of death
(v. 26) by way of the adversative particle ⲇⲉ—the transliteration of the Greek
δέ, which was probably present in its Greek Vorlage just as in the Vorlage of
the Latin versions, which translated it with autem.31 Also, the epexegetical ex-
pression ⲉⲧⲉ ... ⲡⲉ ‘that is’, in reference to death, gives rise to the following
reading: ϩⲱϯ ⲅⲁⲣ ⲉⲣⲟϥ ⲛⲧⲉϥⲉⲣⲟⲩⲣⲟ ϣⲁⲧⲉϥⲭⲁ ⲛⲉϥϫⲁϫⲓ ⲧⲏⲣⲟⲩ ⲥⲁⲡⲉⲥⲏⲧ
ⲛⲛⲉϥϭⲁⲗⲁⲩϫ ⲡⲓⲋⲁⲉ ⲇⲉ ⲛϫⲁϫⲓ ϥⲛⲁⲕⲱⲣϥϥ ⲉⲧⲉ ⲫⲙⲟⲩ ⲡⲉ, “For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. As for the last enemy, instead,
he will utterly destroy it: that is, death.” The same is the case with the fifth-
century Syriac version of Abba Isaiah, Ascet. 1.18.14 (S), where v. 26 is translated
as follows: “But [dyn] the last enemy will be destroyed: death.” The particle dyn
often renders the Greek δέ or ἀλλά, with an adversative meaning, and here it
clearly draws an opposition between the submission of other enemies and the
complete suppression of death. We may even suppose that, here too, in the
Greek Vorlage there was a δέ. The verb itself is telling: btl, here passive, means
“to utterly destroy, abolish, bring to nothing, nullify.” Both this verb and the
adversative particle dyn at the beginning of v. 26 appear again, in the seventh
century, in Dadisho‘ Qaṭraya Comm. Is. 79.11: “But [dyn] the last enemy will be
destroyed: death.”
Gregory of Nyssa, who cites 1 Cor 15:25–26 in two passages, In illud: Tunc et
ipse filius (gno 2.2.17.7) and De tridui spatio (gno 9.285.21), stresses the differ-
ence between the submission of the enemies and the annihilation of evil and
death, especially in the latter. Here he states that the first two days between
30 This order is also found in other passages, such as Hilary, In Ps. 9.4.55A: Deus enim omnia
subiecit sub pedibus eius. Novissima inimica deviata est in eo mors. The same quotation
appears also in his Trin. 2.1096B, with ab eo instead of in eo. See also In Ps. 148.590B–C:
Omnibus enim subiectis sub pedibus eius, novissima evacuatur mors.
31 Text from The Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Northern Dialect, Otherwise Called
Memphitic and Bohairic (Osnabrück: Zeller, 1969), 212–13.

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222 Ramelli
Christ’s death and resurrection correspond to the healing of human beings

from sin accomplished by him, whereas the third corresponds to the complete
destruction and disappearing of death and the powers of evil: “On the first
day, the men are purified from their illness; on the second, the women’s race
is healed; on the last day, ‘the last enemy is destroyed: death’, and its powers
and dominions and the forces of the opposing powers are completely elimi-
nated together [συναφανίζονται] with their chief.” The differentiation between
the submission of the creatures and the destruction of death and the powers
of evil is also manifest in Tunc et ipse (gno 2.2.26–27), all the more in that
Gregory, just like Origen, understands the submission of all rational creatures
as their salvation and supports the ontological non-subsistence of evil and
death, which did not exist in the beginning, because they were not created, and
thus cannot subsist in the end. Gregory patently understands Paul’s statement
in the sense that, among the enemies, only death and the powers of evil will
be destroyed—Gregory explains the meaning of καταργεῖται in v. 26—whereas
the others, the creatures, will be subjected, that is, saved.32
The distinction between submission and destruction, and the identification
of universal submission and universal salvation, are also expressed in Tunc
et ipse (gno 2.2.20–21): salvation will involve all creatures—incorporated, in
Gregory’s exegesis, in the “body of Christ” submitting to the Father in the end—
because the enemies being destroyed are not creatures, and after the destruc-
tion of death there will be only Christ’s life.33 Gregory sees in 1 Cor 15:24–28 the
32 The passage (Tunc et ipse [gno 2.2.26–27]) reads as follows:

“The submission of the enemies mentioned by Paul in this passage is not character-
ised by a constriction against their will … but in their case it is clearly salvation that is in-
dicated by ‘submission.’ The proof of this is that, in this passage [1 Cor 15:24–26], «enemy»
is meant by Paul in a double sense. For he states that some of the enemies will submit,
whereas others will be eliminated. Now, what will be eliminated is the Enemy by nature,
that is death, and its principle, the powers and forces of sin. Those who will submit, in-
stead, are the enemies of God in another sense, who have abandoned the Kingdom to em-
brace sin. Paul mentions them also in the Epistle to the Romans, where he says: ‘For, if we
have been reconciled with God even though we were his enemies….’ Now, what Paul here
calls ‘reconciliation,’ in the passage we are examining [1 Cor 15:28] is called by him ‘sub-
mission,’ but by both these terms he points to one and the same notion: salvation…. As
for this kind of enemies, he affirms that they will be subjected to God the Father, whereas
death and its dominion will not subsist any more. This is what is meant by the expression
καταργεῖται. Thus, from this it is clear that the power of evil will be utterly annihilated,
while those who were called God’s enemies due to their disobedience will become God’s
friends thanks to submission.”
33 The passage (Tunc et ipse [gno 2.2.20–21]) is as follows:
“From this passage by the Apostle we learn that we must believe that no being will
remain outside the number of the saved. Scripture indicates this through the destruction

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prophecy of the total vanishing of evil: “What is, then, the aim to which the
argument points, that which the divine Apostle teaches in that passage [i.e.
1 Cor 15:24–28]? That the nature of evil will finally be reduced to non-being,
entirely disappearing from being, and God’s purest Goodness will embrace in
itself each rational nature” (Tunc et ipse [gno 2.2.13–14]). Evil and death will
vanish because—as already Origen had argued—God will be “all in all,” but
God cannot be in evil or in death because God is the Good and Life (Tunc et
ipse [gno 2.2.17]).34
Origen interprets 1 Cor 15:24–26 in many passages, highlighting the Psalm
quotations therein and the opposition between the submission of the en-
emies, of which Pss 109 and 8 speak, and the destruction of death: “Death in
the world will cease after the sin of the world has perished … when he has put
all enemies under his feet, then the last enemy is annihilated: death…. death
has been swallowed” (Cels. 6.36). In Comm. Jo. 6.57.296, Origen quotes Ps 109:1
in its original context, and not in Paul’s shortened form, identifying the first
Lord with God the Father and the second with Christ, but he links Ps 109:1 to
1 Cor 15:24–28, also interpreting “death” in v. 26 as epexegetical of “the last
enemy”: “The Father says to the Lord of each of us: ‘Take your seat to my right,
until I have put the enemies as a stool under your feet.’ And this will take place
until the last enemy, death, has been destroyed by him [ἕως ὁ ἔσχατος ἐχθρός,
ὁ θάνατος, ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ καταργηθῇ].”35 Immediately afterwards, Origen explains
that the submission of all enemies will be their salvation, as opposed to the
nullification of death, within what is a real patchwork of biblical quotations,
especially from Paul:
[καθαιρέσει] of death and the Son’s submission. This is why these two facts that will take
place are strictly related to one another: that, at a certain moment, death will not exist any
more [μὴ εἶναι ποτέ], and that all will find themselves in Life. But this Life is the Lord, who,
according to the Apostle, brings back to the Father his whole body, when he will hand the
Kingdom to God our Father. Now, his body, as we often said, is the whole of human nature,
to which he has united himself.”
34 The passage (Tunc et ipse [GNO 2.2.17]) is as follows:
“With his argument Paul clearly demonstrates the ontological non-subsistence of evil
[ἀνύπαρκτον], for he says that God will be all in all, and will be everything for each one. It is
evident, in fact, that it will be true that God will be in all when it will be impossible to see
any trace of evil in beings. For it is certainly unthinkable that God may be found in evil.
Thus, either God will not be in all, in case any trace of evil should remain in beings, or, if
we truly must think that God will be in all, together with this belief the non-existence of
evil also is demonstrated. For it is impossible that God may be found in evil.”
35 Cf. Comm. Jo. 10.39.267; 19.21.142.

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224 Ramelli
The Father is good and the Son is the image of his goodness [Wis 7:26;
Mark 10:18]. God, however, although he benefits the world by reconciling
it to himself in Christ [2 Cor 5:19], while it had become his enemy as a
consequence of sin, distributes his benefits according to a plan, not put-
ting his enemies as a stool under his feet all at once. In fact, the Father
says to him who is the Lord of each of us: “Take your seat to my right,
until I have put your enemies as a stool for your feet” [Ps 109:1; Heb 10:13],
which will occur when the last enemy, death, has been destroyed by him
[1 Cor 15:26]. So, if we grasp what it means to be subjected to Christ, espe-
cially in the light of this passage: “And when all will be submitted to him,
he himself, the Son, will submit to him who has subjected everything to
him” [1 Cor 15:28], then we shall understand God’s lamb, who takes up
the sin of the world, in a way worthy of the goodness of the God of the
universe.36
Origen distinguishes the eventual abolition of death foretold in 1 Cor 15:26

from the conversion of the devil, who will submit and be saved as a creature of
God: Destruatur non ut non sit sed ut inimicus et mors non sit (Princ. 3.6.5; see
also Comm. Jo. 32.3).
36 The basis of such exegesis consists in the identification of the submission of all to Christ,
maintained by Paul in 1 Cor 15:24–28, with the salvation of all, as Origen states in Princ.
1.6.1. See my “Christian Soteriology.” The same Pauline passages as a basis, and the same
interpretation of universal submission as salvation, are found in Princ. 3.5.6–7:
“The only-begotten son of God, Logos and Wisdom of the Father, ‘must reign until he
has put his enemies under his feet’ and destroyed the last enemy, Death, embracing in
himself, at the end of the world, all those whom he subjects to the Father and who come
to salvation thanks to him … This is the meaning of what the Apostle says about him:
‘When all is submitted to him, then the Son himself will submit to Him who has subjected
everything to him, so that God may be all in all.’ … As the Son’s submission to the Father
means the perfect restoration of all creation, so the submission of his enemies to the Son
means the salvation of his subjects and the restoration of the lost.”
See also Comm. ser. Matth. 8:
“How the Saviour’s enemies are put by the Father as a stool for his feet, we ought to
understand in a worthy way, according to God’s goodness. For we should not believe that
God puts Christ’s enemies as a stool for his feet in the same way as enemies are put under
the feet of the earthly kings, who exterminate them. Instead, God puts Christ’s enemies as
a stool for his feet not for their destruction, but for their salvation…. For all these, submis-
sion means salvation of the subjects.”
Here it is also clear that Origen correctly attributed to God the Father the subjection of
Christ’s enemies in Paul’s words, “He [Christ] must reign until he [God] has put all of his
enemies under his feet [Christ’s].” Cf. Comm. Jo. 6.57(37); Hom. Ps. 36.2.1; Hom. Lev. 7.2.

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In the light of Paul’s well-shaped notion of the death of the soul,37 it is very
probable that Paul himself understood the death that will be abolished in the
end together with the powers of evil as not only physical, but also spiritual
death. Origen caught this point well and interpreted the death of 1 Cor 15:26
as primarily spiritual death, for instance in Comm. Rom. 5.7, Cum mors ani-
mae, quae est novissimus inimicus, fuerit destructa, regnum mortis pariter cum
morte destructum erit, and Comm. Matt. 12.33.12: “The enemy of this life, which
will be destroyed as the last enemy of all his enemies, is death, the death that
the sinning soul dies.” That death in 1 Cor 15:26 is spiritual death, which will
be extinguished, is even clearer from Comm. Jo. 20.39.364: “The enemy of him
who said, ‘I am the life,’ is a tremendously serious death … about which it is
written: ‘The last enemy will be destroyed: death.’ It is regarding this death that
we must consider the Apostle to have said: ‘Sin entered the world because of
one human being, and through sin, death….’” If Paul is speaking of spiritual
death brought to all by Adam, clearly the life brought to all by Christ is spiritual
life and justification (Rom 5:18–19; 1 Cor 15:22–23) that will permeate all after
the eviction of death. The final elimination of death is linked by Origen to its
being no creature and to have entered the world as a result of sin, in Comm. Jo.
20.26.236, where Origen immediately adds Paul’s prediction of the destruction
of death and the submission of all enemies in 1 Cor 15:24–28.38 In Sel. Ps. 21
Origen interprets Ps 109:1 and 1 Cor 15:24–28 as a prediction of the eventual
conversion of all to God, the Good: “That ‘he must reign until he has put all
enemies under his feet’ means: until all wicked have become righteous.” Origen
interprets the reign of Christ of which 1 Cor 15:25 speaks, reading it into Ps 109:1,
as a process of purification and conversion of the creatures lasting over the
aeons: the Lord “will reign throughout the ages [διὰ τοὺς αἰῶνας] until he has
37 See Emma Wasserman, The Death of the Soul in Romans 7 (wunt 2/256; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2008), and my “1 Tim 5:6 and the Notion and Terminology of Spiritual Death:
Hellenistic Moral Philosophy in the Pastoral Epistles,” Aevum 84 (2010): 3–16. On the death
of the soul in 1 Cor 11:30, see my “Spiritual Weakness, Illness, and Death in 1 Cor 11:30,” jbl
130 (2011): 145–63.
38 Here, again, the distinction is stressed between submission and annihilation, just as, e.g.,
in Princ. 3.3.6: “For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet and has de-
stroyed the last enemy … embracing in himself at the end of the aeon all those whom he
subjects to the Father and who, thanks to him, come to salvation … that God may be all in
all” (1 Cor 15:28). Likewise, in Comm. Jo. 9.41.8 he cites 1 Cor 15:24–26 distinguishing the de-
struction of death and the powers of evil and the submission of the enemies understood
as their conversion and reconciliation. In Princ. 3.6.6 Origen, again stressing the same
differentiation, foresees that the creatures will be no more enemies because they will be
reconciled with God; the last enemy, death, will be destroyed and no enemy will remain
in the end.

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226 Ramelli
put all his enemies under his feet” (Sel. Ps. 9). This submission will take place
at the very end of the αἰῶνες, after which will come the absolute eternity or
αἰδιότης of the apokatastasis, when the enemies will have been reconciled and
will have submitted, and evil and death will have disappeared.39
It comes as no surprise that the above-mentioned Syriac version of Abba
Isaiah, which draws a sharp distinction between the submission of creatures
and the destruction of death in 1 Cor 15:24–28, has been recognised by scholars
as deeply influenced by the Origenian Evagrius, who shared with Origen and
Gregory of Nyssa the conviction of the final vanishing of evil based on its being
deprived of ontological subsistence insofar as it is no creature: “There was a
time in which evil did not exist, and there will come a time in which it will no
longer exist” (KG 1.40 S2; Ep. Anat. 23 and 65).40
Another exegete of 1 Cor 15:24–28 who knew and admired Origen,
Athanasius, drew a clear distinction between the submission of all mentioned
in v. 25 and the complete destruction of death and evil mentioned in vv. 24
and 26. Very interestingly, Athanasius joined his exegesis of 1 Cor 15:24–28 to
that of Ps 9:4 (ἐν τῷ ἀποστραφῆναι τὸν ἐχθρόν μου εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω ἀσθενήσουσι καὶ
ἀπολοῦνται, “When my enemy turns back, rearwards, they shall grow weak and
shall perish from before you” [nets]), interpreted by him as a reference to the
return of death to its original nature, i.e., nonexistence: “Once death will have
turned backwards [ἀποστραφῇ εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω], as the Psalm says, then, indeed,
also each opposing power will be destroyed [καταργηθήσεται]: if death will be
destroyed [καταργεῖται] as the last enemy, it is clear that this will happen after
the previous elimination [προαναιρεθεισῶν] of the opposing powers” (In Ps. 9,
6 [PG 27.84.45; cf. 27.461.34]). Clearly, according to Athanasius, the other en-
emies that will be destroyed before death are not all the enemies mentioned
in 1 Cor 15:25, but exclusively the powers of evil mentioned in v. 24. Athanasius
joined Ps 9:4 to the exegesis of 1 Cor 15:24–28 likely because Ps 9, like Ps 109,
was interpreted by him as another eschatological Psalm—being entitled εἰς τὸ
39 This will be what Origen designates as being in the Father in Comm. Io. 13.3: “After the
life in the αἰῶνες, we shall jump into the Father, who is beyond the life in the αἰών. For
Christ is Life, but the Father, who is ‘greater than Christ’ [John 14:28], is greater than life.”
See Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, Terms for Eternity (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2007;
second ed. 2011); Ilaria Ramelli, “Aἰώνιος and αἰών in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa,” in Jane
Baun et al. (eds.), Studia Patristica XLVII (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 57–62, and “Time and
Eternity,” in Mark Edwards (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Early Christian Philosophy
(Oxford: Routledge, 2019).
40 Cf. e.g. Kephalaia Gnostika S2, 1.39: “When we were created at the beginning, we had in us,
by nature, germs of good, not at all of evil.”

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τέλος ὑπὲρ τῶν κρυφίων τοῦ Υἱοῦ, “referring to the ultimate end, for the secrets of
the Son” (Vulgate iuxta lxx: in finem pro occultis filii vs. Vulgate iuxta Hebraeos:
victori pro morte filii)—and because soon after Ps 9:4, in Ps 9:5, the judgment
of God is mentioned (“you sat on a throne, you who judge with righteousness”
[nets]), which Athanasius read as the eschatological judgment by Christ the
King. This could therefore refer very fittingly to Paul’s prophecy in 1 Cor 15:24–
28, just like Ps 109:1.
Eusebius too, another follower of Origen, in his exegesis of 1 Cor 15:24–28
emphasises the elimination of death in the end, and joins Paul’s passage with
one from Isaiah in Comm. Isa. 1.85.107, exhibiting the same strategy of appro-
priating Old Testament prophecies for his own eschatology as Paul himself had
already enacted: “Death reigned from Adam to Moses. Thus, since death, the
last enemy, will be annihilated [1 Cor 15:26], here Scripture very appropriately
says that the face of the ruler will perish altogether [ἀπολεῖσθαι τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ
ἐξουσιαστοῦ].” Death’s face will utterly disappear, as death will no more exist.
In Comm. Isa. 2.53.11, Eusebius interprets 1 Cor 15:24–26 again connecting it
with Isaiah’s prophecies: after quoting Paul’s verses in the same form as we
have them, he applies the destruction only to death and the powers of evil
mentioned in 1 Cor 15:24: “After he has destroyed every power, dominion, and
force,… the last enemy will be destroyed, death. Thus, the present prophecy
indicates the abolition [καθαίρεσιν] of these opposing powers and dominions
and forces.” Here, again, death is annihilated not after the destruction of all
the enemies mentioned in v. 25, but after the elimination of the powers of evil
dealt with in v. 24.
In Comm. Ps., Eusebius—exactly like Athanasius—relates the prophecy in
Ps 9:4 to 1 Cor 15:26. He is commenting on Ps 9:2, “I shall report all your won-
derful deeds,” which Eusebius interprets as words pronounced directly by Jesus
Christ:
I shall do so, he says, [sc. I shall report your wonderful deeds] especially
after I have vanquished the enemy of life, that is, death, regarding which
it is said, “The last enemy will be annihilated, death.” In fact, it will turn
back, that is, to its first constitution, when it did not exist [ἀποστραφήσεται
γὰρ εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, τουτέστι τὴν πρώτην αὐτοῦ κατάστασιν, ὅτε μὴ ὑφεστήκει].
For God did not make death, but death entered this world because of the
devil’s envy. When this has happened, all other enemies and adversaries
of your Logos will be reduced to impotence and will perish [ἀπολοῦνται]
as well.
Comm. Ps. [PG 23.132.31]

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228 Ramelli
Death will be completely abolished when it returns to its original constitu-

tion, that is, to nothing: for it has no ontological consistence, in that it is no
creature of God. It did not exist in the beginning and will not subsist in the end.
Eusebius follows Origen entirely,41 including his Comm. Rom. 6.6.35–37 (Haec
mortem Deus non fecit, neque laetatur in perditione uiuorum, sed inuidia diaboli
mors haec introiuit in orbem terrarum [Wis 1:13]), and thus stresses the radical
annihilation of death and of all the powers of evil alluded to in 1 Cor 15:24,
26. Regarding the submission of the enemies during the reign of Christ, in-
stead, Εusebius understands it as “obedience out of voluntary choice” (ἡ ἐξ
αὐθεκουσίου προαιρέσεως ὑπακοή) and “salvific submission” (σωτήριος ὑποταγή),
insisting on voluntary submission and equating it with salvation, as Origen
had done. Consistently, Eusebius describes Christ’s reign in 1 Cor 15:24–28 as
his “healing and rectifying reign” (θεραπευτικὴ καὶ διορθωτικὴ βασιλεία), during
which those who are unworthy of God’s divinity will be made worthy by way
of purification and cure. For Christ “will prepare all people, making them wor-
thy of the divinity of the Father” (τοὺς πάντας ἀξίους τῆς πατρικῆς θεότητος εἶναι
παρασκευάσῃ). Eusebius, referring to 1 Cor 15:24–26, sharply distinguishes, after
the Judgment, “the rectification of absolutely all” (ἡ τῶν ἁπάντων διόρθωσις) and
“the annihilation [ἀφανισμός] of every opposing power” (Marc. 2.4; Eccl. Theol.
2.8; 3.14–16). Christ is ὁ κοινὸς ἁπάντων σωτήρ ‘the common saviour of absolute-
ly all,’ as Eusebius repeatedly calls him, in that he is the saviour of all creatures,
whereas death and evil are no creatures: this is why Paul in 1 Cor 15:24.26 an-
nounces their eventual destruction.
Eusebius, indeed, in Comm. Isa. 1.85 interprets 1 Cor 15:24–28 as describ-
ing the eventual apokatastasis, the culmination of the goods, foreseen by the
prophets (as declared in Acts 3:20–21, the only biblical passage in which the
expression ἀποκατάστασις πάντων appears), the “original will/intention” of God
(ἀρχαία βουλή) established before creation: “The events pre-established by God
before the foundation of the world and that will come to pass at the end of
the aeons: after the radical elimination of every evilness [ἐκποδὼν ἀρθείσης]
and after the destruction [καταργηθέντος] of the last enemy, death, God will
be ‘all in all.’” Eusebius connects Isa 25:8 to 1 Cor 15:26 in that he considers the
prophet to be announcing the eviction of death, destroyer of all humans: “God
will cause the face of the ruler of all, death, to be swallowed [καταποθῆναι] and
disappear [ἀφανὲς γενέσθαι] … Ιt will be swallowed, so as to appear no longer …
41 Indeed, that Eusebius inclined toward the doctrine of apokatastasis himself is argued at
length in my “Origen, Eusebius, and the Doctrine of Apokatastasis,” in Aaron Johnson and
Jeremy Schott (eds.), Eusebius of Caesarea: Traditions and Innovations (Hellenic Studies
60; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 307–23.

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‘The last enemy, death, will be destroyed’ … Death, which once used to swallow
all people, will be swallowed.”42
Epiphanius, too, stressed the distinction between the submission of all to
the Son (πάντα αὐτῷ ὑποτέτακται, 1 Cor 15:27a, which he also read before v. 26
and after v. 25) and the total eviction and nullification of death: “Then, Paul
says, the last enemy will be destroyed: death. It will be annihilated…. It will not
even exist any longer [οὐδὲ ἔτι ὑπάρχων]” (Pan. 3.224.12–31). The reversed order
of vv. 25, 27a and 26, moreover, which is also present in several witnesses to the
Vetus Latina, further underscores the difference between the submission of
enemies, mentioned in vv. 25 and 27a, in this tradition fittingly joined together,
and the nullification of the powers of evil (v. 24) and death (v. 26, which comes
at the end of this chiastic disposition, ΑΒΒΑ):
[Α] v. 24: destruction of the powers of evil (καταργεῖσθαι)

[Β] v. 25: submission of all enemies (τιθῆναι ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας)
[Β] v. 27a: submission of all (ὑποτάσσειν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας)
[Α] v. 26: destruction of death (καταργεῖσθαι)
Epiphanius followed this order also in Pan. 3.224.10. Cyril of Alexandria too,
likewise, quoted v. 25, v. 27a and then v. 26.43 John Chrysostom, loosely quoting
Paul, put together v. 24 and v. 26, thus making it clear that destruction only ap-
plies to death and the powers of evil (In Ps. [PG 55.319.10]).44 Like Origen and
Gregory of Nyssa, he too notes that the submission of death will not be vol-
untary (οὐ γὰρ προαιρέσεώς ἐστιν εὐγνώμονος), and therefore will be useless to
escape destruction, unlike the submission of creatures, to which John applied
Phil 2:10–11 (In Matth. 57.417.24).
Thus, as it has emerged from the investigation conducted so far, Paul, with
the support of the Psalms,45 emphasises Jesus’s reign and the defeat of all en-
emies in the end, but distinguishing between the submission of all creatures
42 Eusebius contrasts blessedness with the punishment of Moab (Isa 16; Jer 31), which is
interpreted by him as an allegory not of humanity, but of the powers of evil mentioned in
1 Cor 15:24. Eusebius stresses the final destruction of those powers and of death, predicted
by Paul in 1 Cor 15:24, 26: “the end of death … and the destruction [ἀπώλειαν] of the other
opposing powers.”
43 Trin. 609.16 and 612.17 (Aubert).
44 Also the sermon In s. Pascha ascribed to John Chrysostom joins the eventual destruction
of death to the elimination of all evil (Serm. 6.48.1).
45 For Paul’s use of, and quotations from, the Psalms, see also Levente B. Martos, “Authority
of a Forgiven King: David’s Psalms in the Letter to the Romans,” in Géza G. Xeravits,
Tobias Nicklas, and Isaac Kalimi (eds.), Scriptural Authority in Early Judaism and Ancient
Christianity (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 261–78.

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230 Ramelli
and the destruction of death and the powers of evil. In this connection, Paul
transforms the Psalm verses—Ps 109:1 and Ps 8:6—and especially their in-
terpretation, in the service of his own eschatological discourse, which in
1 Cor 15:24–28 seems to be related to the doctrine of apokatastasis (alluded to,
as I have mentioned, in Acts 3:21). It is significant that several patristic exegetes
interpreted both the psalms at stake and 1 Cor 15:24–28 as clear predictions
of the eventual universal restoration. To the Psalm references to the submis-
sion of the enemies to the king, Paul added the destruction of death, Christ’s
handing of the kingdom to God the Father, and the eventual presence of God
“all in all,” which patristic exegetes will see as a further confirmation that, at
that stage, evil will not exist any more and all creatures, liberated from evil
and death, will return to God through Christ. This obviously contributes to ex-
plaining the reason why Paul uses two verses, which in the Psalms referred
to a human being, in reference to the eschatological Christ as King as well as
Priest. It is very probable, indeed, that Paul was thinking of the whole of Ps 109,
and was associating v. 1 with v. 4, both being referred by him to Christ: “You are
priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek” (σὺ ἱερεὺς εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα
κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχισεδέκ). In Ps 109, the promise of eternal priesthood ac-
cording to the order of Melchizedek was addressed to a human being, such
as David or the Messiah son of David. Thus, Ps 109 is used by Paul not only for
Christ’s eschatological reign, but also for his priesthood according to the order
of Melchizedek. The same doubleness—king and high priest—will be used
by Origen for the characterisation of the eschatological Christ within his own
doctrine of apokatastasis, which in turn was heavily based on Paul.46
Paul, thus, reinterpreted Ps 109:1 and Ps 8:6 while introducing them in his
eschatological piece in 1 Cor 15:24–28. Such a reinterpretation and transforma-
tion is clear in Ps 109:1, and is yet more striking in the case of Ps 8:6, where the
psalmist’s reflection focuses not even on a victorious human king, but sim-
ply on the human being in general, in comparison with God, the angels, and
animals:
O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is your name in all the earth, because
your magnificence was raised beyond the heavens.
Out of mouths of infants and nurslings you furnished praise for yourself,
for the sake of your enemies, to put down enemy and avenger,
46 See my “The Universal and Eternal Validity of Jesus’s High-Priestly Sacrifice: The Epistle
to the Hebrews in Support of Origen’s Theory of Apokatastasis,” in Richard J. Bauckham
et al. (eds.), A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts (lnts
387; London: T&T Clark, 2008), 210–21.

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because I will observe the heavens, works of your fingers—moon and

stars—things you alone founded.
What is the human being that you are mindful of him, or the son of the
human being that you attend to him?
You diminished him a little in comparison with angels; with glory and
honour you crowned him.
And you set him over the works of your hands; you subjected all under
his feet, sheep and cattle, all together, and further the beasts of the
plain, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea—the things that pass
through paths of seas.
O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is your name in all the earth!
nets, with slight changes
The presence of the expression “son of the human being,” as well as the sub-
jection of all under his feet, his crowning with glory and honour, and the very
inscription of the Psalm, εἰς τὸ τέλος, “pointing to the telos, the ultimate end,”
could suggest to Paul a reading in reference to Christ’s eschatological victory
over all.
Paul was arguably the first Christian exegete who interpreted, and directly
used, not only Ps 8:6, but also a verse that in the Psalms referred to a human
being (Ps 109:1), represented as a victorious king and a priest like Melkizedek
maternally generated by God, in reference to the eschatological Christ as King.
Shortly afterwards, the authors of Matthew and Acts would follow suit, as I
mentioned at the beginning. Of course it is possible that Jesus himself, as re-
ported by the Gospels, in his debate with Jewish exegetes of his day, questioned
the identification of the second lord in Ps 109:1 with the “son of David.”47 It is
also possible, although very debatable, that Peter, as reported in Acts, chal-
lenged the identification of the second lord with David himself, arguing that
David never ascended to heaven, while Jesus Christ did. However, Paul did not
hear either Jesus’s or Peter’s exegesis of the Psalm, although he might have had
oral reports,48 or might have come into contact with materials that were later
47 This would be a remarkable example of what Michael Wolter calls “Jesus’ self-interpreta-
tion” in Jan van der Watt (ed.), The Quest for the Real Jesus: Radboud Prestige Lectures by
Prof. Dr. Michael Wolter (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 17 and passim.
48 The oral transmission of Jesus traditions has been recently emphasised again by
James D. G. Dunn, The Oral Gospel Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). Oral trans-
mission of Jesus traditions continued even after the writing of the Gospels that became
canonical. Papias himself, in the early second century, still preferred oral testimonies
to written Gospels to compose his own kind of Gospel: Richard Bauckham, “Did Papias
Write History or Exegesis?” JTS 65 (2014): 463–88.

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232 Ramelli
incorporated in Matthew’s and Acts’ passages at stake.49 At any rate, Paul’s own
reinterpretation of Pss 109:1 and 8:6 in reference to the Christ of the parousia,
during whose eschatological reign all the enemies will submit and death and
evil will be destroyed, and who will eventually hand the kingdom to the Father,
that God may be “all in all,” clearly depends on Paul’s complex discourse con-
cerning the resurrection and the restoration in 1 Cor 15, and more immediately
on Paul’s prophecy concerning the telos in vv. 24–28.
To the submission of the enemies, which referred to a human king in Ps 109:1,
Paul adds the cosmic, eschatological dimension of the destruction of death
and the powers of evil, clearly characterizing the reign in which this will come
to pass as divine. In v. 28, then, it becomes clear that this kingdom is Christ’s,
who will entrust it to God the Father, who will thus be all in all. These “all”
seem to be the same as Paul in Rom 11:23–26 designates as “the totality of the
gentiles” and “all Israel,” who “will be saved,” and the same that in Phil 3:20–21
will be subjected to Christ and that in Phil 2:10–11 will submit to the exalted
Christ and will voluntarily admit his lordship, in a universal ὁμολογία. Thus, in
1 Cor 15:24–28 the submission of the enemies of the Israelite king referred to in
Ps 109:1 becomes the universal restoration under Christ, the glorious, victorious
King (Ps 23[24]:7–10).
49 Luigi Walt, Paolo e le parole di Gesù: frammenti di un insegnamento orale (Brescia:
Morcelliana, 2014), 287–88 hypothesizes that Paul used this quotation from Psalm 109(110)
precisely because it was already employed by Jesus. This, of course, remains a hypothesis,
since Jesus’s words are attested in Gospels whose final redaction—that which is known to
us—was later than 1 Corinthians.

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Chapter 12
The Rhetoric of “Consolation” in 2 Corinthians

1:3–11/7:4–13 in the Context of the Jewish and
Graeco-Roman Consolatory Literature
James R. Harrison
1 The Issue of Epistolary Genre
“Consolation” as a topos has been extensively studied in relation to the epistle

to the Philippians.1 The motif of “consolation” in 2 Corinthians has not com-
manded the same attention, apart from J. Kaplin’s study of Paul’s understand-
ing of grief and comfort from the perspective of Epictetus’s philosophy and Old
Testament prophecy and laments (Isa 40:1–11; Lam 1–2).2 Paul’s terminology of
“consolation” (παράκλησις: 2 Cor 1:3, 4, 5, 6[2x], 7; 7:4, 7, 13; παρακαλέω: 1:4 [3x],
6; 2:7, 8; 7:6, 7, 13), “affliction” (θλῖψις: 1:4, 8; 2:4; 7:4; cf. 4:17; 6:4) and “joy” (χάρα:
1:24; 2:3; 7:4, 13; χαίρω: 2:3; 7:7, 9, 13, 16) is woven throughout 2 Cor 1:1–2:13 and
7:4–13. Scholars who subscribe to a partition theory of 2 Cor 1–7 posit a concil-
iatory tone for the two previous passages, whereas 2:14–7:3/7:4, it is proposed,
1 P. A. Holloway, “Notes and Observations Bona Cognitare: An Epicurean Consolation in

Phil 4:8–9,” htr 91 (1998): 89–96; Holloway, Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical Sources
and Rhetorical Strategy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). In addition to the
vast secondary literature on Graeco-Roman consolation cited in Holloway (Consolation
in Philippians, 181–85), see O. Schmitz and G. Stählin, “παρακαλέω, παράκλησις,” tdnt
5:773–79; A. Wilcox, “Sympathetic Rivals: Consolation in Cicero’s Letters,” AJP 126 (2005):
237–55; B. Zimmermann, “Philosophie als Psychotherapie: Die Griechisch-Römische
Consolationsliteratur,” in B. Neymeyr et al. (eds.), Stoizismus in der Europäischen Philosophie,
Literatur, Kunst und Politik (New York: de Gruyter, 2008), 1:193–213; V. M. Hope, Death in Ancient
Rome: A Sourcebook (New York: Routledge, 2007), 172–210; P. A. Holloway, “Gender and Grief:
The Consolation of Women in the Early Principate,” in S. Ahearne-Kroll et al. (eds.), Women
and Gender in Ancient Religions: Essays in Honor of Adela Yarbro Collins (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2010), 299–321; H. Baltussen (ed.), Greek and Roman Consolations: Eight Studies of a
Tradition and Its Afterlife (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2013), passim. On consolation
in 2 Corinthians, see F. V. Filson, “The God of All Comfort—2 Cor 1:3–7,” ThTo (1951–1952):
495–501; C. J. Bjerkelund, PARAKALÕ: Form, Funktion, und Sinn der parakalô-Sätze in den pau-
linischen Briefen (Oslo: Universitetsvorlaget, 1967); R. Bieringer, “The Comforted Comforter:
The Meaning of παρακαλέω or παράκλησις Terminology in 2 Corinthians,” HvTSt 67 (2011): 1–7.
2 J. Kaplin, “Comfort, O Comfort, Corinth: Grief and Comfort in 2 Corinthians 7:5,” htr 104
(2011): 433–55.

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234 Harrison
is polemical. While D. A. DeSilva has challenged this position from the view-
point of rhetorical criticism,3 another approach is to consider each pericope
(1:1–2:13; 7:4–13) against the backdrop of Graeco-Roman consolatory literature
and the writings of Second Temple Judaism. Cicero, for example, speaks of the
role of consolation thus: “These therefore are the duties of comforters: to do
away with distress root and branch, or allay it or diminish it as far as possible,
or stop its progress and not allow it to extend further, or to divert it elsewhere”
(Tusc. 3.31.76). How did Paul, by means of his “consolatory” rhetoric, ensure
reconciliation with the Corinthian church?4 Some of the Corinthian believers
were alienated by Paul’s failure to keep his promises of a return trip (2 Cor 1:15–
2:4), with one leader publicly opposing the apostle on his arrival (2:5–11; 7:12),
and others attaching themselves to the interloping apostles (3:1–3). What dis-
tinctive rhetorical elements from Second Temple Judaism and Paul’s gospel
framed his response?
Although the Graeco-Roman epistolary genre of “consolation” is illuminat-
ing for the rhetoric of 2 Cor 1:1–2:13/7:4–13,5 we must acknowledge the rich
contribution that L. L. Welborn has made in uncovering Paul’s rhetorical strat-
egies in each pericope. In a seminal study,6 Welborn argues that Paul’s rhe-
torical stratagem draws upon the “conciliatory” style (θεραπευτική) of ancient
letters,7 which appealed to the emotions in creating persuasive discourse. Paul
arouses the “pity,” “anger,” and “zeal” of the Corinthians,8 employing in each
case common topoi of the letters of reconciliation. However, Paul’s stratagem
was to move the Corinthians beyond these emotions,9 but, unexpectedly, not
3 D. A. DeSilva, “Meeting the Exigency of a Complex Rhetorical Situation in 2 Corinthians 1

through 7,” AUSS 34 (1996): 5–22.
4 See F. W. Hughes, “The Rhetoric of Reconciliation: 2 Corinthians 1:1–2:13 and 7:5–8:4,” in
Duane F. Watson (ed.), Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor
of G. A. Kennedy (Sheffield: jsot Press, 1991), 246–61; G. K. Beale, “The Old Testament
Background of Reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5–7 and Its Bearing on the Literary Problem
of 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1,” nts 35 (1989): 550–81.
5 On the genre of “consolation,” see J. H. D. Scourfield, “Towards a Genre of Consolation,” in
H. Baltussen (ed.), Greek and Roman Consolations: Eight Studies of a Tradition and Its Afterlife
(Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2013), 1–36. While the “consolation” genre primarily refers
to writings that are intended to comfort the bereaved, it can also refer to writings that are
designed to console recipients facing general adversities.
6 L. L. Welborn, “Paul’s Appeal to the Emotions in 2 Corinthians 1:1–2; 7:5–11,” jsnt 82 (2001):
31–60.
7 For literature on the θεραπευτική letter-style, see Welborn, “Paul’s Appeal,” 36–37.
8 Respectively, Welborn, “Paul’s Appeal,” 39–47, 47–54, 54–57.
9 On the emotions in the Graeco-Roman world, see E. Champlin, Final Judgments: Duty and
Emotion in Roman Wills 200 BC–AD 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991);
S. M. Braund and C. Gill (eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (Cambridge:

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The Rhetoric of “ Consolation ” in 2 Corinthians 1:3–11/7:4–13 235
by thanking God, as was his practice in his epistolary introductions (Rom 1:8;
1 Cor 1:4; Eph 1:16; Phil 1:3; Col 1:3; 1 Thess 1:2; 2 Thess 2:3), but rather by blessing
God (2 Cor 1:3: εὐλεγετός; cf. Eph 1:3) for the consolation mutually experienced
in the sufferings of Christ (2 Cor 1:5: τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ).
In another groundbreaking study,10 Welborn explores Paul’s therapy of pain
(λύπη)—experienced by the apostle and his Corinthian converts in mutual re-
morse (2 Cor 7:7–8) in the debacle of the “wrong-doer” (2 Cor 2:5–8; 7:12a)—
against the backdrop of the popular philosophers. Welborn argues that Paul’s
innovation in his “conciliatory” letter type is the appeal to a wide range of the
emotions in his “pain” therapy for himself and the Corinthians.11 In the Stoic
theory of the emotions, there was no counterpart to λύπη among the “good
emotions” (εὐπάθειαι) that would be a constructive alternative to the destruc-
tive passions.12 Therefore Paul, drawing upon his Old Testament heritage,13
speaks of a divine distress (2 Cor 7:9–10: κατὰ θεόν) that leads to salvation (7:10a:
εἰς σωτηρίαν) for himself, the Corinthians, and the “wrong-doer.” This beneficial
distress for the reconciliation of all was founded on the overflow of Christ’s suf-
ferings (2 Cor 1:5), as well as the pity of the Father (1:3b: ὁ πατὴρ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν).
Cambridge University Press, 1997); R. R. K. Sorabji, Emotions and Peace of Mind: From
Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); M. Graver,
Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2002); Graver, Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007);
W. V. Harris, Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); D. Konstan, The Emotions of the
Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2006); D. LaCourse Munteanu, Emotion, Genre and Gender in Classical Antiquity
(London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011); A. Chaniotis (ed.), Unveiling Emotions: Sources
and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2012);
C. M. Kreinecker, “Emotions in Documentary Papyri: Joy and Sorrow in Everyday Life,” in
R. Egger-Wenzel and J. Corley (eds.), Emotions from Ben Sira to Paul (Berlin: de Gruyter,
2012), 451–72. On emotions and early Christianity, see M. Elliott, Faithful Feelings: Emotion
in the New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: ivp, 2005); S. Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the
Gospels (London: T&T Clark, 2011); Welborn, “Paul’s Appeal to the Emotions”; S. C. Barton,
“Eschatology and the Emotions in Early Christianity,” jbl 130 (2011): 571–91; Barton, Joy in
the New Testament (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2013).
10 L. L. Welborn, “Paul and Pain: Paul’s Emotional Therapy in 2 Corinthians 1:1–2:13; 7:5–16 in
the Context of Ancient Psychagogic Literature,” nts 57 (2011): 547–70; Welborn, An End to
Enmity: Paul and the “Wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 380–481.
11 On the emotions appealed to, see Welborn, “Paul and Pain,” 558.
12 Welborn, “Paul and Pain,” 562–63.
13 See T. E. Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1984); Elliott, Faithful Feelings, 105–13.

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236 Harrison
Welborn’s “conciliatory” letter-type is soundly argued and explains the

intensity of λυπή and the emotions articulated in 2 Cor 1:1–2:13 and 7:4–13.14
However, we must also remember that there was also a “mixed” letter-type in
antiquity (Ps.-Libanius, Epistolary Styles 4: μικτή). As Ps.-Libanius describes the
genre, “The mixed style (μικτή) is that which we compose from many styles”
(Epistolary Styles 45; cf. Ps.-Dionysius, On Epideictic Speeches 276).15 It would be
profitable to ponder what additional letter-styles Paul might have incorporat-
ed in the tortured section of 2 Cor 1–7 in order to effect reconciliation between
himself, the Corinthians, and the “wrong-doer.” Given the complexity of the
painful situation, the misunderstandings generated by Paul’s “inconsistent” ac-
tions towards the Corinthians, the absence of any news from Titus regarding
the Corinthian response to his “letter of tears,” the Corinthians’ own attitude
towards the “wrongdoer,” as well as the lingering issue of the unresolved public
conflict of the “wrongdoer” with Paul, it is likely that Paul worked on more than
one rhetorical front in composing his epistle. Two options suggest themselves
by virtue of their terminology and motifs.
First, in light of the prominence of “consolatory” terminology in 2 Cor 1:1–2:13
and 7:5–16, it is likely that the “consoling” letter-type (Ps.-Demetrius, Epistolary
Types 5) featured in Paul’s rhetorical arsenal as well. Pseudo-Demetrius
(Epistolary Types 5) defines and illustrates the consolatory genre as follows:
The consoling type (παραμυθητίκος) is that written to people who are

grieving (τοῖς ἐπὶ λύπης καθεστηκόσι) because something unpleasant has
happened (to them). It is as follows: When I heard of the terrible things
that you met at the hands of thankless fate (τὰ δεινὰ τῆς ἀχαρίστου σου
τύχης), I felt the deepest grief, considering that what had happened had
not happened to you more than me. When I saw all the things that assail
life, all that day long I cried over them. But then I considered that such
things are the common lot of all, with nature (τῆς φύσεως) establishing
neither a particular time or age in which one must suffer anything, but
often confronting us secretly, awkwardly and undeservedly. Since I hap-
pened not to be present to comfort you (παρακαλεῖν σε), I decided to do so
by letter. Bear, then, what has happened as lightly as you can, and exhort
yourself just as you would exhort someone else. For you know that reason
14 Libanius, Or. 37: “I was composing a speech of reconciliation to heal your feelings towards
our city.”
15 Ps.-Libanius’s example of the “mixed” genre is found in Epistolary Styles 92.

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(ὁ λόγος) will make it easier for you to be relieved of your grief with the
passage of time (χρόνῳ).16
Several interesting similarities and differences with 2 Corinthians occur in this

instance. Because of Paul’s failure to return to Corinth after the collision with
the “wrong-doer” and separation from the Corinthians, he is forced to send
the “letter of tears” to the Corinthians and, subsequently, to dispatch Titus as
his delegate to effect consolation and conciliation. The Corinthians and Paul
were grieving over the situation, as the widespread use of λυπέω (2 Cor 2:2,
4, 5; 7:8[2x], 9, 11) and λυπή (2:1, 3, 7; 7:10[2x]) demonstrates. The deleterious
emotional impact of this mutual grief had to be consoled, as much as recon-
ciliation between the estranged parties had to be established. Paul’s heavy
use of “consolatory” terminology underscores this. However, a vast difference
exists between the epistolary consolation of Paul and Ps.-Demetrius. Pseudo-
Demetrius trades in the stereotyped topoi of consolatory literature (e.g. death
as the common lot of humanity, the fickle role of Nature and Fate, the passage
of time as a healer), beautifully captured in the sample letter.17 Paul’s consola-
tion derives its impetus from his Jewish understanding of God, the sufferings
of Christ, and the advent and consummation of the eschaton.
Apart from Ps.-Demetrius, there are references to the genre of “consola-
tion” in other rhetorical handbooks: Ps.-Menander (On Epideictic Speeches II
16 J. L. White (Light from Ancient Letters [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 203) is cautious
about an identifiable “consolatory” letter-type, given the scarcity of papyrus examples
(P.Oxy. 115 9 [II cent ce]; psi XIII 1248 [235 ce]). J. Chapa, (Letters of Condolence in Greek
Papyri (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 15), however, points out that the evidence
is varied, with some letters being devoted exclusively to consolation (ibid., §§4, 7), while
others seem to be business letters with consolatory elements (ibid., §§6, 11). But, even in
the latter examples, the motif of condolence comes first and is broached with consider-
able tact (ibid., 15).
17 On the Graeco-Roman consolatory commonplaces, see M. Evaristus, The Consolations
of Death in Ancient Greek Literature (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1917);
L. P. McCauley et al. (eds.), The Fathers of the Church: St Gregory Nazienzen and St Ambrose:
Funeral Orations (New York: Catholic University of America, 1953), xii–xiii; Chapa, Letters
of Condolence in Greek Papyri, 34–38. It might be argued that the (generally) later evi-
dence of the epistolary theorists is not relevant to the letter writing conventions of the
first-century period. However, this overlooks the stereotypical nature of the consolatory
literature, noted above, spanning the centuries. Our wide selection of the consolatory
literature, drawn from the fifth century bce (Lysias) through to the fourth century ce
(Julian), demonstrates the consistency of the convention. Our earliest extant sample of a
papyrus παραμυθητίκος letter-type dates from the II cent. ce (Chapa, Letters of Condolence
in Greek Papyri, 18), close enough to the New Testament era. On the relation between
the epistolary handbooks and the παραμυθητίκος papyrus letters, see Chapa, Letters of
Condolence in Greek Papyri, 45–47.

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238 Harrison
413–414, 418–422), Ps.-Dionysius (On Epideictic Speeches 277–283), and, last,

Theon (Progymnasta 3.117). Of particular interest is Pseudo-Menander’s com-
ment that “the speaker of a consolatory speech (παραμυθητικὸν δὲ ὁ λέγων)
himself laments the fallen and raises the misfortune of great significance, am-
plifying the emotion as best he can by means of the topics …” (On Epideictic
Speeches II 413.6–9; cf. 413.28–30). Although Menander’s context for the con-
solatory speech is different from Paul’s, the strategy of enhancing the speech’s
emotional content, as Welborn observed of θεραπευτική discourse, is the tactic
that the apostle adopts before initiating his rhetorical innovation. The same
emphasis on emotion is found in Theon (Progymnasta 3.117), who says that
“expressing pity has great power for consolation,” especially for the bereaved
because they “naturally accept consolations in a better spirit from those who
join in their lamentations.”18
Furthermore, consolation was also an important motif in the lxx, although,
surprisingly, no full-scale monograph has investigated the theme in modern
biblical scholarship.19 How does the understanding of consolation in the lxx
and in Second Temple Judaism interact with the Graeco-Roman consolatory
motifs and Paul’s reconfiguration of both traditions? Last, Paul’s graphic sum-
mation of the divine character as “the Father of mercies (τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν) and
the God of all consolation (πάσης παράκλησεως)” opens up a rhetorical “dou-
ble-front”: the emotions of God are unveiled in his consolation of the afflicted
through the therapeutic sufferings of Christ (2 Cor 1:4–5). In sum, the seamless
unity of Paul’s “conciliatory” and “consolatory” rhetorical purpose in 2 Cor 1:1–
2:13/7:4–13 flows from the very nature of God himself.
18 Pseudo-Dionysius (On Epideictic Speeches, 284), while warning that the sorrow of the be-
reaved should not be increased by bewailing the dead, still advises consolers regarding
a correct therapeutic use of emotion: “In the course of the consolation, give way to the
survivors in their feelings, and not resist too sternly; we shall win them over more easily
like this….”
19 On “consolation” in the Old Testament and the intertestamental literature, see C. G.
Montefiore, Ancient Jewish and Greek Encouragement and Consolation (Bridgeport, CT:
Hartmore House, 1971), 6–36; L. Hartman, “‘Comfort of the Scriptures’—An Early Jewish
Interpretation of Noah’s Salvation, 1 En 10:16–11:2,” SEÅ 41–42 (1977): 87–96; G. B. Sayler,
“2 Baruch: A Story of Grief and Consolation,” sblsp 21 (1982): 243–50; C. A. Muenchow,
Consolation: An Old Testament Perspective (PhD diss., Yale University, 1983); R. E. Watts,
“Consolation or Confrontation? Isaiah 40–55 and the Delay of the New Exodus,” TynBul
41 (1990): 31–59; J. W. Olley, “‘No Peace’ in a Book of Consolation: A Framework for the
Book of Isaiah,” VT 49 (1999): 351–70; R. Bieringer, “‘Comfort, comfort my people’ (Isa 40:1):
The Use of παρακαλέω in the Septuagint Version of Isaiah,” in H. Ausloos et al. (eds.),
Florilegium Lovaniense: Studies in Septuagint and Textual Criticism in Honour of Florentino
García Martínez (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 57–70; L.-S. Tiemeyer, For the Comfort of Zion:
The Geographical and Theological Location of Isaiah 40–55 (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

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Second, another epistolary genre that Paul could have included in the
“mixed” letter-type is the λυπητικός (“grieving”: Ps.-Libanius, Epistolary Styles
4). Pseudo-Libanius (Epistolary Styles 43) defines the λυπητικός genre thus:
“The grieving (λυπητική) is that in which we present ourselves as being grieved
(λυπουμένους).” In the sample letter-type, Pseudo-Libanius (Epistolary Styles
90) reveals raw emotions and vitriol more intense than the hatred of an enemy:
The letter of grief (λυπητική). You caused me extremely much grief (καθ᾽
ὑπερβολὴν λελύπηκας) when you did this thing. For that reason I am very
much vexed with you, and bear a grief (λυποῦμαι λύπην) that is difficult
to assuage. For the grief (αἱ λῦπαι) men cause their friends is exceedingly
difficult to heal, and hold in greater insults than those they receive from
their enemies (μείζους τῶν ἐχθρῶν).
Since the language of grief (or pain) abounds in each of our pericopes, it is
worth speculating whether the Corinthians might have initially construed
Paul’s letter of “tears” as a letter of “grief” (εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼ λυπῶ ὑμᾶς: 2 Cor 2:2a),
in a manner similar to Pseudo-Libanius’s sample letter in its tone and accu-
sation. Was their founding apostle now worse than an enemy in his attitude
towards them because of the depth of insult that he had received at the hands
of the “wrong-doer” while at Corinth? While Paul acknowledges the intensity
of the Corinthian hurt (ἐν λύπῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς: 2 Cor 2:1; πολλῆς θλίψεως καὶ συνοχῆς
καρδίας: 2 Cor 2:4a), he is nonetheless keen to disavow any implication of hav-
ing acted in a hostile manner in his letter, presumably because of his familiar-
ity with the conventions of the letter of “grief” and how easily they could be
misinterpreted: “Not that you should be grieved (οὐχ ἵνα λυπηθῆτε), but that
you may know the love (τὴν ἀγάπην) I have more abundantly (περισσοτέρως)
for you” (2 Cor 2:4b).
In conclusion, Paul employs both “consolatory” and “conciliatory” motifs in
a “mixed” letter-type,20 with a view to healing the mutual hurt of the apostle
and the Corinthian believers and reconciling the estranged parties. In so doing,
the apostle, separated from his converts and waiting news of their response,
works hard to dispel the (unintentional) impression that he had written a
20 Note the intriguing possibility, although the evidence is disputed, that the Athenian ora-
tor Antiphon (V cent. bce) opened up a “grief clinic” at Corinth (Scourfield, “Genre of
Consolation,” 11). See ps.-Plutarch, Lives of the Ten Orators 832B–834B. At the very least,
the tradition points to “what might be called ‘grief management’ reaching back to the fifth
century” (R. K. Sprague [ed.], The Older Sophists [Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press, 1972], 117–18) at Corinth. The Corinthians, therefore, would have been entirely
familiar with and responsive to the genre of “consolation.”

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240 Harrison
letter of “grief” that announced his implacable hostility towards his converts.
Undoubtedly, Paul’s abandonment of his return visit to Corinth not only con-
veyed inconsistency on the apostle’s part in the mind of the Corinthians, but
also for some it was a declaration of enmity. In light of our conclusion regard-
ing the issue of genre in 2 Cor 1:1–2:13 and 7:4–13, we will proceed to discuss the
function of consolation in the Jewish literature and funerary inscriptions,21 the
motifs of the Graeco-Roman consolatory literature and papyri, and the role of
consolation in each pericope.
2 Consolation in Jewish Literature and Funerary Inscriptions
2.1 The Old Testament Literature of Divine Consolation

In the Old Testament literature there is an intriguing interplay between “conso-
latory” and “non-consolatory” perspectives about the desolation experienced
by Israel when under God’s judgement. In the case of the Psalms, the psalmists
often speak conventionally about God’s comforting of his people.22 In Ps 119
the writer finds comfort in God’s promises (Ps 118:50 lxx: παρεκάλεσεν) and
in his compassion towards him (Ps 118:76 lxx: παρακαλέσαι). In particular,
the study of the Law and obedience to its precepts—the refrain underlying
Ps 11923—generates spiritual comfort and resilience for the covenantal people
(Ps 119:52). Psalm 94:19 couples divine comfort (Ps 93:19 lxx: αἱ παρακλήσεις
σου) with the experience of divine love for his soul (ἠγάπησαν τὴν ψυχήν μου).
These conventional perspectives provide a glimpse of the emotional stability
and godly integrity fostered when Israel responds to covenantal grace.
However, the Psalms also speak graphically about the heavy afflictions of
the righteous sufferer who paradoxically encounters divine comfort in the
midst of his afflictions. God shepherds, protects, and consoles the psalmist in
the “valley of the shadow of death” (Ps 23:4 MT [22:4 lxx]: παρεκάλεσαν). In
Ps 86:17 (85:17 lxx: παρεκάλεσάς με) the psalmist desperately pleads for com-
fort from God through his intervening to shame his enemies. The intensity of
21 The evidence of Philo and Josephus will be omitted because divinely initiated consola-
tory activity, if the evidence of παρακαλέω and cognates is representative, does not feature
in their thinking. Other than (possibly) Josephus, Ant. 5.116, the initiative comes from
human supplication, to which God responds (1.268; 3.315; 4.194; 5.256; 6.25; 9.55–56; 10.12;
11.144, 231; Philo, Praem. 166).
22 Muenchow (Consolation, 65) instances Pss 71:21; 86:17; 119:82 as explicit references to God
as “Consoler.”
23 H.-J. Krauss (Psalms 6–150 [2 vols.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993], 2:414) comments: “Ps 119 is
a collection of statements of the individual Torah piety of postexilic times.”

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the palmist’s sufferings is seen in Psalms that depict the psalmist without any
comforters, facing the scorn of neighbours and foes (Ps 69:20 MT [68:20 lxx:
παρακαλοῦντα]). Sometimes the depths of distress (ἐν ἡμέρᾳ θλίψεώς μου) ex-
perienced by the psalmist causes him to refuse to be consoled (Ps 77:2 MT
[76:2 lxx: παρακληθῆναι]). But, contrary to appearances, the psalmist believes
that God will somehow augment his honour, reverse his shame, and com-
fort him (Ps 71:21 MT [70:21 lxx: παρεκάλεσάς με]). Although God may not
answer his pleas or remains inexplicably hidden (Ps 119:82 MT [118:82 lxx:
πότε παρεκαλέσεις με;]), the psalmist determines to remain obedient to God
(Ps 119:83 MT [118:83 lxx]).
Other writers of the Old Testament adopt a “non-consolatory” perspective
when they are confronted with the reality of God’s judgement upon Israel and
Jerusalem (Jer 31:15 MT [38:15 lxx]; Isa 22:4 lxx: μὴ κατισχύσητε παρακαλεῖν
με). Lamentations, written after the fall of Jerusalem (587 bce), expresses the
anguish of a grief-stricken community (Lam 1:2, 9, 16, 17, 21 lxx: ὁ παρακαλῶν;
2:13: παρακαλέσει) in a dirge that underscores their abandonment and isola-
tion in the absence of any comforter.24 By contrast, the “consolation” termi-
nology of Isaiah lxx (Isa 40:1: παρακαλεῖτε, παρακαλέσατε; 49:13: παρεκάλεσεν;
51:3: παρακαλήσω, παρεκάλεσα; 51:12: ὁ παρακαλῶν; 57:18: παράκλησιν; 61:2:
παρακαλέσαι; 66:11: παρακλήσεως; 66:13: παρακαλέσει) depicts God comforting,
relieving and liberating his people from captivity in exile in Babylon, forgiv-
ing their sin, and restoring the broken covenant relationship.25 Moreover, the
Isaianic coupling of “gladness” terminology with the comforting of Zion and
Jerusalem (Isa 49:13; 51:3b lxx: εὐφροσύνη) demonstrates how God, through his
compassion and empathy for the afflicted, overcomes Israel’s despair and re-
jection of his comfort (51:19 lxx: τίς παρακαλέσει σε; 54:11: οὐ παρεκλέθης).
The irony of the Old Testament “wisdom” literature, too, reveals how a su-
perficial understanding of divine comfort dishonours God’s sovereign purpos-
es in history and sometimes unfairly misrepresents the circumstances of those
suffering. Job’s well-intentioned but foolish comforters—whose “orthodox”
theology failed to plumb the issue of theodicy with which Job struggled—ac-
cuse him of not accepting God’s consolations (Job 15:11 MT). Not only does this
inadequate perspective overlook the wider theological reasons for God’s test-
ing of Job (Job 1:1–2:13), but also it is a misguided representation of how God
24 R. B. Salters, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Lamentations (London: T&T Clark,
2010), 39–40. On the genre of “dirge,” see C. Westermann, Lamentations: Issues and
Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 1–11.
25 K. Balzer, Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001),
51; J. D. Smart, History and Theology in Second Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 35, 40–47
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965), 42.

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242 Harrison
rewards and consoles his servants after a period of testing (Job 42:10–11 lxx: cf.
v. 11a: παρεκάλεσαν). The reality was that God the Consoler had brought these
troubles upon Job (Job 42:11b; cf. Ezek 14:22–23: παρακαλέσουσιν [v. 23]) and
would again console him after his pedagogic purposes had been accomplished.
Last, Zech 1:17 LXX is a pivotal text announcing God’s eschatological comfort
of Zion, given the intense feelings of abandonment articulated by the wound-
ed Zion in Lam 1:17 and 2:13.26 Zechariah is commanded to prophesy: “This is
what the Lord Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity (ἐν
ἀγαφοῖς), and the Lord will again comfort (ἐλεήσει) Zion and choose (αἱρετιεῖ)
Jerusalem’.” The mention of divine “comfort” or “mercy” points to the “consola-
tion and healing” empathy that would be extended to the distressed Israelites
suffering in exile in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem.27 The overflow
of “prosperity,” A. E. Hill argues,28 recalls the blessings of the Mosaic covenant
(Deut 28:11), as well as the economic restoration of the fortunes of Jerusalem
and Judah (Jer 32:42–44). In the Hebrew text, the word “again” (‫)עֹוד‬, repeated
in the verse, emphasises the renewal of “an already existing bond between God
and the people.”29 Furthermore, the language of “election” reminds the audi-
tors “that the Babylonian exile had not rendered God’s election of Israel null
and void.”30 In sum, the total restoration of Jerusalem, its Temple and environs
is envisaged.31
2.2 The Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic Literature of Divine

Consolation
In the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature, the theme of divine consola-
tion is present but, surprisingly, it is not terminologically prominent, given the
volume of the literature. As far as the apocryphal writings, the eschatological
comfort of Jerusalem, wisdom teaching, and Old Testament exempla provide
the impetus for understanding the consolation of God’s covenantal people.
First, in the book of Baruch (200–175 bce), God’s comforting of Jerusalem (Bar
4:30: παρακαλέσει σε) is announced in “soaring language.”32 Jerusalem, having
26 Salters (Lamentations, 89, 154) notes that Zion, in the perspective of her neighbours, is a
“filthy item” that is “to be shunned” and, consequently, she is now “beyond repair” in her
ruin.
27 A. E. Hill, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi (Downers Grove, IL: ivp, 2012), 137.
28 Hill, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
29 P. L. Reddit, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 56.
30 Hill, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, 137.
31 A. Petitjean, Les Oracles du Proto-Zacharie: Un programme de restauration pour la com-
munauté juive après l’exil (Paris/Louvain: Librarie Lecoffre, 1969), 137–38.
32 P. F. Ellis, Jeremiah, Baruch (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986), 128. C. Stuhlmueller
(The Books of Jeremiah and Baruch [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1971], 108) suggests

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exchanged her robe of peace for mourning (4:20), is now summoned to put
on the splendour of God in the returning from exile (5:1–4). This unexpected
reversal of fortune will bring joy to Israel (4:36; 5:9) because the dispersed ex-
iles, rejoicing in the glory of God, will return from the East and West (4:37:
χαίροντες; cf. 4:24, 29; 5:5–9) after God’s destruction of Babylon (4:31–35). No
reference to the restoration of the Temple is made in this scenario, other than
the return of the vessels of the house of the Lord, removed from the Temple in
the first exile, back to the land of Judah (1:8).
Second, Sirach (190–180/175 bce), passing on his grandfather’s instruction
regarding the wisdom of the Law, warns his readers about the futility of sorrow
if one is to live a long life (Sir 30:21–23):
Do not give yourself over to sorrow,

and do not distress yourself deliberately.
A joyful heart (εὐφροσύνη καρδίας) is life itself,
and rejoicing lengthens one’s life span.
Indulge yourself and take comfort (παρακάλει τὴν καρδίαν σου),
and remove sorrow far from you,
for sorrow has destroyed many,
and no advantage ever comes from it.
The context of this pericope is the enjoyment of good food (30:18–20, 25)
and happiness (30:14–25). Happiness, according to Sirach, consists in robust
physical health (30:14–17), enjoyable food (30:18–20), and a good disposi-
tion (30:21–25).33 It is worth noticing that the celebration of food occurs in a
non-idolatrous context (30:18b–20). The control of the negative emotions—
sorrow, jealousy, anger and anxiety (30:21, 23, 24)—is thereby implicitly
placed in the framework of the right worship of God as Creator, resulting in
emotional health for participants at the feast. Feasting on fine food, accom-
panied by cheerfulness and merriment (30:25), symbolises a joyous life lived
out under God’s bounty.34 Sirach speaks elsewhere of a merciful and forgiving
that the message of prophetic hope in Bar 4:5–5:9 “may represent … a synagogal sermon,
composed originally in Greek,” with each new stanza (and its subsection) being intro-
duced by a summons (“take courage” [4:5, 21, 27, 30]; “let no one gloat” [4:12]; “let the
neighbours of Zion come” [4:14]; “go” [4:19]; “endure with patience” [4:25]; “look”/“see”
[4:36, 37; 5:5]; “take off” [5:1]; “put on” [5:2]; and “stand upon the heights” [5:5]).
33 D. J. Harrington, Jesus Ben Sira of Jerusalem: A Biblical Guide to Living Wisely (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 50.
34 On the difficulty of translating Sir 30:25, see R. A. Bullard and H. A. Hatton, A Handbook
on Sirach (New York: United Bible Societies, 2008), 628–29. Harrington (Jesus Ben Sira, 51)

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244 Harrison
God granting return to the repentant and comforting those who are losing
hope (17:24: παρεκάλεσεν; cf. vv. 25–29). In sum, emotional resilience and good
health for the truly wise originates in praise for the Creator of the world and in
gratitude to the Redeemer of Israel.
Third, Sirach speaks of the Twelve Prophets sending forth “new life” from
their graves because “they comforted the people of Jacob and delivered them
with confident hope” (Sir 49:10: παρεκάλεσε). Isaiah, too, prophesied the future
and “comforted (παρεκάλεσε) the mourners in Zion” (Sir 48:24). In the face of
national catastrophe and the rebelliousness of the idolatrous Israelites, the
prophets announced the messianic hope, comforting the genuinely repentant
with divine grace.
In the case of the pseudepigraphic writings, there is focus on patriarchal
exempla for consolation, as there was in the apocryphal literature, but the
divine restoration of Zion, symbolically reconfigured as eternal life, becomes
the locus of the consolatory hope, whereas in Baruch it was the restoration
of the exiles to Jerusalem. First, in the Testament of Joseph (second century
bce), the patriarch Joseph, after recounting his imprisonment and scourging
because of the false accusations of Potiphar’s wife, states that God had granted
him mercy in the sight of the prison-keeper (2:1–3). The reason for his pres-
ervation was the covenantal loyalty of God and his consolation of his people
after testing their spiritual faithfulness (2:4–6):
For the Lord does not abandon those who fear him,
neither in darkness, or chains, or tribulation or direst need.
For God does not disappoint as does man,
nor is he timorous like a son of man
nor like an earthborn is he weak or frightened away.
In all these matter he takes his stand,
and in various ways he offers assistance (παρακαλεῖ ἐν βραχεῖ),
even though for a brief time he may stand aside in order to test the dis-
position of the soul.35
regards the food imagery in Sir 30:18–20 as “somewhat obscure.” He sums up Sir 30:14–25
thus: “The positive effects of a good disposition include a long life (30:22) and good diges-
tion (30:25).” Sirach is certainly saying this, but I have argued for an implicit theological
framework to his exposition of the “good life.”
35 In the Testament of Joseph, Joseph describes his slavery and imprisonment in a series of
antitheses, contrasting his vulnerability with God’s consolation and vindication (T. Jos.
1:6–7: παρεκάλεσέ με).

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Second, in the Syriac Apocalypse of 2 Baruch (c. 100 ce), written after the
destruction of the Temple (70 ce) and the Jewish Dispersion among the na-
tions (1:4; cf. 77:4), the author outlines how a renewed study of the Law,36 in the
absence of sacrificial cult at Mount Zion, would precipitate a new world in the
last times (6:8). Meanwhile he comforts the anguished citizens of Jerusalem,
crushed by Rome, with this exhortation and promise (44:5–7; cf. Luke 2:25):
And see what has befallen Zion and what happened to Jerusalem, that
the judgement of the Mighty One will be made known, as well as his ways
which are inscrutable and right. For when you endure and persevere in
his fear and do not forget his Law, the time again will make a turn for the
better for you. And they will participate in the consolation of Zion.
What precisely is meant by the “consolation of Zion” in 2 Bar. 44:7, a pivotal

verse in the speech of 44:3–45:2?37 The author of 2 Baruch emphasises God’s
impartiality and relentless justice in destroying Zion (44:5) when the Law is
not obeyed (44:3–7; cf. 44:13–14), whereas the reversal of the pain of Zion in
44:7 is explained in detail in 44:8–15. In 2 Bar. 44:7, therefore, we are not dealing
with a literal rebuilding of Zion, because everything in the present world, in-
cluding the earthly Temple, is passing away (44:8–11). Rather, the “consolation
of Zion” must refer to “the rewarding of those Jews faithful to the Law by giving
them eternal life in the new world.”38
2.3 The Literature of Divine Consolation in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Not unexpectedly, the Thanksgiving Hymns of Qumran, like the Psalms of the
Hebrew Bible, express the divine consolation that the Psalmist has received
from God as Consoler. A variety of situations evoke the psalmist’s praise
for the divine comfort received. Faced with the roaring of the nations and
the tumult of the assembled kingdoms, the psalmist finds consolation that
God—for the sake of his glory, the magnification of his Law, and praise of the
generations (1QH XIV, 9–13)—would redeem a remnant for his inheritance
(1QH XIV, 7–8).
36 On the commitment to Law in 2 Baruch, see 2 Bar. 3:6; 17:4; 19:1; 31:2; 32:1; 38:1–2; 44:7, 14;
46:3–5; 48:22; 51:3–7; 54:5, 15; 77:3, 16; 78:7; 82:6; 84:1–9; 85:3–4.
37 See F. J. Murphy, The Structure and Meaning of Second Baruch (Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1984), 105–8.
38 Murphy, Structure and Meaning, 107.

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246 Harrison
The personal experience of divine grace also elicits the praise of the psalm-
ist as God, by means of his forgiveness, delivers him from his distress over the
prospect of eschatological judgment (1QH XVII, 12–15):
For it is Thou who hast founded my spirit

and Thou knowest my intent;
in my distress Thou hast comforted me;
I delight in forgiveness,
and am consoled for the former transgression;
for I know that there is hope in Thy grace
and expectation in Thy great power.
For no man can be just in Thy judgement
Or [righteous] in Thy trial.
Last, scholarly debate continues to rage over the fragmentary consolation of

4Q176, with its citation of Isa 40:1–3. The scant evidence allows no other con-
clusion than that the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls appropriated the Isaianic
“consolation” texts for their own context, in a way similar to the application of
the texts to the Babylonian exiles.39
2.4 Jewish Inscriptional Epitaphs on Divine Consolation

A series of conventional expressions express the hope of eschatological conso-
lation after death in the Jewish inscriptional epitaphs.40 Sometimes this hope
is conveyed by the iconography accompanying the epitaph on the stone. Along
with the menorah and other Jewish symbols, a lion was inscribed on the right
bottom side of a marble funerary inscription.41 This Jewish visual identity-
marker of the deceased, alluding to “lion of Judah” (Gen 49:9), symbolically
39 T. R. Hatina, “Consolations/Tanhumin,” in C. A. Evans and S. E. Porter (eds.), Dictionary of

New Testament Background (Downers Grove, IL: ivp, 2000), 226–27; J. Høgenhaven, “The
Literary Character of 4QTanhumim,” Dead Sea Discoveries 14 (2007): 99–123; J. Høgenhaven,
“4QTanhumin (4Q176): Between Exegesis and Treatise?” in G. J. Brook and J. Høgenhaven
(eds.), The Mermaid and the Partridge: Essays from the Copenhagen Conference on Revising
Texts from Cave Four (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 151–68.
40 See P. W. van der Horst, Ancient Jewish Epitaphs (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1991). Conventional
Jewish expressions of eschatological hope and consolation include: (a) “Be of (good)
courage: no one is immortal” (cij 1.314, 335, 380, 401, 544; 2.1209); (b) “Peace (be) on Israel”
(cij 1.397); (c) “Peace and mercy (be) on all your sanctified people” (cij 2.804); (d) “Peace
(be) in this place and in all the places of his people Israel (cij 2.973); (e) “With the saints
(be) your sleep” (cij 1.340); (f) “Blessed (be those) who hope in the Lord” (cij 2.877); (g)
following a citation of Prov 10:7, “In peace (be) your sleep’ (cij 1.76, 86, 370); (h) following
a citation of Deut 33:36, “The One God: help Marciana” (cij 2.1167).
41 c ij 1.281a.

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expressed the consolation of the messianic hope for Israel. Further, a moving
epitaph extols the divine consolation and beneficence experienced by the de-
ceased during his adolescence: “… in my adolescence, the God of my Fathers
showed himself towards me manifestly helpful, (and) in my difficulties granted
me his benefits.”42 Last, a Latin laudatory poem on a marble plaque character-
ises the twenty-one year old Regina as a Torah-abiding Jew, loving towards her
fellow Jews, chaste and devoted to her marriage. Regina’s pure and pious life
has consolatory value for her contemporaries, including her grieving husband:
She will live again, return to the light again, for she can hope that she will
rise to the life promised, as a real assurance, to the worthy and the pious,
in that she deserved to possess an abode in the hallowed land. This your
piety has assured you, this your chaste life, this your love for your people,
this your observance of the Law, your devotion to your wedlock, the glory
of which was dear to you. For all these deeds your hope of the future is
assured. In this your sorrowing husband seeks his comfort (solacia).43
3 Consolation in the Graeco-Roman Literature
3.1 The Consolatory Commonplaces

The commonplaces of Graeco-Roman consolatory therapy are so well known
to ancient letter writers that they comment on their ubiquity, but, significantly,
they do “not omit [them] simply because it is a common phrase.”44 Ancient
grief therapists underscore the fact that since humankind is held hostage to
forces beyond its control, inconsolable grief is an inappropriate response to
death.45 This approach is secured by several therapeutic arguments. In what
follows we are less interested in the differing perspectives enunciated by the
42 c ij 1.847.
43 c ij 1.476.
44 Seneca, Ep. 63.12. Seneca refers to consolatory “stories … droned to death in all the schools”
(24.6) and “a very hackneyed remark” (63.12; cf. Cicero, Fam. 5.16.170: “hackneyed”). Julian
speaks of the “commonplaces considered appropriate for the alleviation of suffering”
(Ep. 69). Instead of the usual philosophical clichés, Pliny (Ep. 1.12) wants “arguments that
are uncommon and resistless.” Lucian (Luct. 1) says that mourners and would-be comfort-
ers “simply commit their grief into the charge of custom and habit.” Cicero cites three
prominent therapeutic clichés (Tusc. 3.23.55, 57, 58), only to modify their implications
(3.23.55–3.24.59; cf. 3.34.81).
45 P. Oxy. 115 (first century ce) consoles the grieving thus: “Be of good courage! I sorrowed
and wept over the departed one … against such things one can do nothing. Therefore,
comfort one another.” Cf. Chapa, Letters of Condolence in Greek Papyri, §§4, 5.

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248 Harrison
philosophical schools than in the general therapeutic arguments advanced for

consolation,46 whatever their pedigree may be.
(1) There is reference to the inevitability of the role of Fortune (Hyperides,
Or. 6.19; ps.-Plutarch, Cons. Ap. 103E–F; 111E; Seneca, Marc. 9.5–6; 21.6; Cicero,
Fam. 5.16.170) and the importance of not railing against its decrees with im-
moderate grief (Lysias 2.67; Plutarch, Cons. ux. 610D–E; 611A–B; Seneca,
Ep. 93.1–2; 98.4–5).47 Fortune gives friends and takes away (Seneca, Ep. 63.10),
only providing us “loans” of our loved ones (Seneca, Marc. 10.1–4; ps.-Plutarch,
Cons. Ap. 106F–107A). Ovid, too, warns Livia in his consolatory poem to her
not to offend Fortune by complaining about the arbitrariness and unjustness
of the goddess in carrying off her son Drusus Nero (Ovid, Consolatio ad Liviam
369–376). However, Seneca (Ep. 83) argues that the study of philosophy for the
achievement of balanced emotions is an impregnable wall that Fortune can-
not assail. Furthermore, the soul is stronger than any circumstance of Fortune
(Ep. 98.2). By contrast, Aelius Aristides speaks of the calamity wrought by the
god of Fortune in ending the young life of Eteoneus who was destined for
“council chambers, orations, emulation and joy” (Or. 31.13). But, according to
Aelius (Or. 31.13), although death is the “common boundary for all,” to finish
life, as Eteoneus had done (Or. 31.13), “with a good reputation and the thought
that we are worthy of the finest prizes” is an irreproachable result in the sight
of gods and men.
(2) The exaggeration of grief is contrary to Nature (ps.-Plutarch, Cons.
Ap. 102D; cf. 107.9–10; Seneca, Marc. 7.3–4). Since normal grief is wrung from
humans by the necessity of Nature (Seneca, Ep. 99.18–19, Cicero, Tusc. 3.24.71),
we should obey Nature and maintain our dignity (Ep. 98.14).
(3) The mortality of all humanity is another restraint on the excess of grief
(Cicero, Tusc. 1.109; Seneca, Ep. 24.15–16; 98.9; ps.-Plutarch, Cons. Ap. 104C–D;
Pliny, Ep. 3.7; Seneca, Ep. 63.15–16),48 though, as Pliny concedes, the imposi-
tion of death can be cruel and premature (Ep. 5.5). Alternatively, Apollonius
46 We will not discuss the famous lost consolatory works of Crantor and Cicero, only known
to us through the citation of other writers (Cicero, Tusc. 1.48.115; 3.6.12; 3.24.71; 3.29.71;
3.31.76; ps.-Plutarch, Cons. Ap. 104C) and of Cicero himself (Tusc. 1.26.65; 1.31.76; 1.34.83).
On the five ancient theories of consolation enunciated by the philosophical schools
(Cicero, Tusc. 3.31.76), see Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 65–74.
47 Seneca, Ep. 63.10: “We have injured ourselves more than Fortune has injured us.”
48 Chapa, Letters of Condolence in Greek Papyri: “But bear it bravely! For this is something
which lies in store even for the gods” (§6, 235 ce); “Therefore, do not be grieved, for these
things are human” (§9, fourth century ce); “But what can we do against mortality?” (§11,
fourth century ce).

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of Tyana (Ep. 55) argues that since life is worse than death,49 the death of his
brother’s wife was actually an honorable event (cf. Cicero, Fam. 4.5.210–211).
Seneca, modifying the tenets of his Stoic school (Ep. 82.9–14), admits that while
death is something “indifferent,” it is not easily ignored (82:16–17). Therefore
the “soul must be hardened by long practice” to consider the “brave endurance
of death” to be “glorious.”50
(4) The passage of Time, “Nature’s great healer” (Seneca, Marc. 1.6), cures
all ills (Seneca, Ep. 99.7–11; Pliny, Ep. 5.16), putting grief in its proper perspec-
tive (ps.-Plutarch, Cons. Ap. 113C–E, 117E–F).51 However, Cicero proposes that if
Nature fixes the “mean” between the extremes of the emotions (Tusc. 3.31.74),
then the continuance of time does not ultimately effect true healing from pain
but rather our continued wise reflection is the real transforming agent (3.30.74;
cf. Fam. 5.16.171).
(5) Another rhetorical strategy that ancient grief therapists employed drew
from the “honorific” and “shame” culture of the Graeco-Roman world. First,
individuals of exceptional merit—supremely Cato—were adduced as exem-
pla to show how one should respond to the vicissitudes of Fortune (Seneca,
Ep. 24.3–11; Cicero, Tusc. 3.23.58). Sometimes the Julio-Claudian women could
be adduced as worthy models. The Stoic response of Livia to bereavement, for
example, was to be preferred to the immoderate grief of Octavia (Seneca, Marc.
2.1–3.4). Seneca also illustrates the Stoic handling of grief by not only refer-
ring to republican luminaries but also to male members of the Julio-Claudian
house from Augustus to Nero (Polyb. 14.4–17.6).52 Second, the virtue of the de-
ceased can be appealed to in a consolatory manner. Dio Chrysostom observes
of the deceased athlete Melancomas that “those whom the gods loved had a
short span of life” (Or. 28.13), whereas Pliny praises the character of Fannia,
one of the Vestal Virgins, whose fever had severely emaciated her (Ep. 7.19).
49 Chapa, Letters of Condolence in Greek Papyri: “Blessed is she who escaped this wretched
and toilsome life before its disasters arrived” (§8, second/fourth century ce).
50 Seneca, Ep. 82.10 (cf. 24.9–14): “Mere death is, in fact, not glorious; but a brave death is
glorious.” Hyperides, Or. 6.41: “We must be brave and lighten our distress to the best of our
ability, and remember not only the deaths of those who fell but also the courage which
they have left behind.”
51 Lucian (Luct. 22): “Regarding grave-mounds, pyramids, tombstones, and epitaphs, all of
which endure but a short space, are they not superfluous, and akin to child’s play?”
52 See J. R. Harrison, “Paul and the Social Relations of Death at Rome (Rom 5:14, 17, 21),” in
S. E. Porter and C. D. Land (eds.), Paul and His Social Relations (PAST 7; Leiden: Brill, 2012),
85–123, esp. 102–3. Note Plato, Menex. 236e: “What is required is a speech that will praise
the dead as they deserve … urging their sons and brothers to imitate the valour of these
men, and consoling their fathers, their mothers, and any of the grandparents who may
remain alive.”

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Third, the truly virtuous sage will make correct judgments concerning the dis-
ciplined handling of grief when it is carried out in conformity with reason and
wisdom (Seneca, Ep. 43.8; 99.18; ps.-Plutarch, Cons. Ap. 118C, 121E–F; Plutarch,
Cons. ux. 609E; Cicero, Tusc. 3.11.24; Plato, Menex. 247d–248c). Employing the
ubiquitous Roman “body” metaphor, Cicero argues that the wise man is not
susceptible to distress, controlling his soul, as he does his body, by the “best
use of reason” (Tusc. 3.7.15). Fourth, ancient grief therapists dishonour those
who do not master their grief by labeling their excessive sorrow as “womanish”
or “barbarian” (Cicero, Tusc. 3.25.62; Seneca, Ep. 63.13; Marc. 7.3; ps.-Plutarch,
Cons. Ap. 113A). Fifth, orators often spoke in exalted terms about the virtue of
their tutors at the funeral oration. Aelius Aristides referred to his deceased in-
structor, Alexander of Cotiaeum, with many superlatives, not only for his own
personal comfort but also for the praise of Alexander’s native city which had
honored him (Or. 21–22). Three superlatives pertaining to Alexander will suf-
fice: “foster-father, teacher, father, comrade, everything” (Or. 32.2); “one could
learn from him whatever one desired relating to education, just like drawing
water from a spring” (32.9); “the throne is his forever, as the best herald and
expounder of the Greeks” (32.34).
(6) The language of “eternity” is used as a consolatory device to alleviate
the mourner’s anguish over the loved one’s departure (Seneca, Marc. 19.6: “ev-
erlasting peace”; 24.5: “the image of your sin … is eternal and has reached now
a far better state”; ps.-Plutarch, Cons. Ap. 111C: “if we fix our gaze on eternity”
[cf. 117E]; Hyperides, Or. 6: “but have passed on from this life to an everlasting
battle array”).
But how does this sense of “eternity” relate to the presence of the god(s) and
the ultimate destiny of the loved one?
3.2 The God(s) and Consolation

An intriguing dimension of the Graeco-Roman consolatory literature is the
role of the god(s) in securing consolation for the departed and their mourn-
ers. Hyperides (Or. 6.43) assumes that Macedonian soldiers in Hades, re-
leased from their pain after fighting for the honour of Macedonia and its gods,
“will win most care and favour from the immortal judge.” The deceased son
of Apollonius, ps.-Plutarch informs us (Cons. Ap. 121F; cf. Dio Chrysostom,
Or. 30.44), now feasts with the gods. Seneca (Marc. 26.6–7; cf. Ep. 93.10; ps.-
Dionysius, On Epideictic Speeches 6.283) states that the souls of the blessed
have secured immortality, waiting for God’s destruction and recreation of the
universe. Pseudo-Demosthenes (Epitaph. 37) argues that the deity is the cause
of pain, “to whom mortal creatures must yield, but of glory and honour the
source is found in the choice of those who willed to die nobly.” Pliny (Ep. 7.19)

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boasts that he was the comforter of Fania and her mother in exile and their
avenger upon their return. Although Pliny writes his epistle in anxiety, he
observes that “should some deity transmute it into joy (in gaudium), I shall
not complain of the alarms I now suffer.” Pseudo-Menander (On Epideictic
Speeches II 414.20 [cf. 421.15]; cf. Julian, Ep. 56) even challenges the mourn-
ers of the loved one who now dwells in the Elysian Fields: “Or rather perhaps
he is living now with the gods. Perhaps indeed he is finding fault with those
who lament him.” With the possible exceptions of ps.-Demosthenes and Pliny
above, the fear of death and its legacy of inconsolable grief are diminished in
each case by the knowledge of the safety of the loved one beyond death in the
hands of the god(s).53
3.3 The Aim of Consolation and Its Consequences for the Emotions
Scattered throughout the writings of the ancient grief therapists are referenc-
es to the aim of grief counseling. The role of the consoler, according to ps.-
Plutarch (Cons. Ap. 106C), was to demonstrate “that the calamity is one which
is common to many, and less than the calamities which have befallen others.”
Cicero’s counsel was that the consoler should eliminate, retard or divert “the
distress root” (Tusc. 3.31.76). Pliny (Ep. 5.16) advised consolers “not to use the
rougher arguments of consolation, and as such seem to carry a sort of reproof
with them, but those of a kind and sympathizing humanity … applied with
tenderness.”54 How does this therapeutic tradition address the issue of “dis-
tress” and the emotions?
Α valuable source for the exposition of λύπη and its relation to the “distress
root” is Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations. In Cicero’s exposition of Stoic theory,
“distress” expresses itself in various emotional forms (Tusc. 3.10.21):
As compassion (misericordia) is distress (aegritudo) due to a neighbour’s

misfortunes, so envy (invidentia) is distress due to a neighbour’s prosper-
ity. Therefore the man who comes to feel compassion (misereri) comes
also to feel envy (invidere). The wise man, however, does not come to feel
53 In contrast to these consolatory traditions, Epicurus (Ep. Men. [= Diogenes Laertius
10.120–127]) dispels the fear of death by asserting there is no afterlife: “So death, the most
terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist death is not with us; but, when
death comes, we do not exist.” Likewise, Lucretius espoused post-mortem personal ex-
tinction (De rerum natura 3.865–869), challenging the foolishness of continuing grief for
loved ones who no longer exist (3:901–911, 931–945).
54 Plutarch, Cons. ux. 4: “… in the midst of passions and misfortunes that require gentle and
kindly treatment”; ps.-Plutarch, Cons. Ap. 118A: “… to dispel our griefs through noble and
dignified consolation.”

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252 Harrison
envy; therefore he does not come to feel compassion either. But if the
wise man were accustomed to feel distress he would also be accustomed
to feel compassion. Therefore distress keeps away from the wise man.
Elsewhere Cicero identifies the forms of distress: envy, rivalry, jealousy, compas-
sion, trouble, lament, mourning, attacks of suffering, wailing, agitation, grief,
vexation, torment, and despondency (Tusc. 3.34.84). According to Chrysippus,
as Cicero informs us, distress “gets its own name λύπη as being a dissolution
of the whole man” (Tusc. 3.25.61). Distress, then, represents “an instant and
pressing great evil” (3.25.61). Cicero’s solution to distress is ultimately elitist.
Only those who set before themselves “the promise of good and a life spent
honourably and brilliantly” would experience solace of body and soul (3.25.61).
How do these therapeutic traditions, Jewish and Graeco-Roman, intersect
with Paul’s gospel of divine consolation in Christ and his reconciliation of the
Corinthians hurt by his (alleged) λυπητικός letter of tears?
4 Paul’s Rhetorical Strategy towards the Corinthians: “Consoler” and

“Consoled” in 2 Corinthians 1:3–11/7:4–13
4.1 The Wider Context: 2 Corinthians 1:3–7:16

At the outset, we have to establish what is the rhetorical and polemical thrust
of the pericope of 2 Cor 1:3–7:16, which, significantly for our purposes, is
framed by our two consolatory passages (1:3–11; 7:4–13). In the wider rhetori-
cal argument, Paul is responding pastorally to the crisis in relations with the
Corinthians (1:15–2:12; 7:5–16). The pastoral crisis was precipitated by Paul’s
perceived inconsistency in visitation of his converts at Corinth (2 Cor 1:15–23;
cf. 1 Cor 16:5–7) and by the local “wrongdoer” of 2 Cor 2:5–11 and 7:12 (ἕνεκεν
τοῦ ἀδικήσαντος) who had publicly opposed Paul on his visit to Corinth on the
way to Macedonia (1:16, 23).55 The apostle penned the much-debated “letter
of tears” in response (2 Cor 2:3–4, 9–11) and dispatched Titus with the letter to
intervene on his behalf at Corinth (2:12–13; 7:6–17).
The crisis was compounded by the appearance of the interloping oppo-
nents of 2 Cor 3:1b at the city. They had brought letters of recommendation
from unidentified churches (3:1b; cf. 10:12a),56 expecting similar commenda-
55 See Welborn, End to Enmity.

56 P. Barnett (The Second Epistle to the Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 163) pos-
tulates a Palestinian provenance for the intruders: “Possibly the source of recommenda-
tion lay with Greek-speaking members of the Pharisaic brotherhoods who were within the

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tion from the Corinthians (3:1b), with a view to establishing a counter-mission

to Paul and his gospel (11:12b), violating not only his apostolic jurisdiction
(10:12–18) but also challenging his apostolic authority (10:7–11).57 Arguably, the
intruders exhibited “judaising” tendencies in their ministry (3:6b–7, 9a, 10a, 11a;
cf. 11:22),58 though without any stated emphasis on circumcision, food laws, or
the Sabbath.59 However, the variety of Second Temple Judaism to which the
opponents subscribed is difficult to specify, given that these boundary markers
orbits of the churches of Judaea and who were profoundly disturbed by what appeared
to be antinominian emphases in Paul’s Gentile mission.” Contra B. Witherington III
(Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995], 383), who argues for a Hellenistic provenance: “They
were Jewish, perhaps Jewish Christian, itinerant preachers who arrived in Corinth …
and … drew on their Jewish heritage and on Hellenistic Jewish apologetics to win over
the Corinthians.” Similarly, V. P. Furnish, II Corinthians (AB 32A; New York: Doubleday,
1984), 53–54.
57 Barnett, Corinthians, 163.
58 On the judaising tendencies of the interlopers, see D. W. Oostendorp, Another Jesus:
A Gospel of Jewish-Christian Superiority in II Corinthians (Kampen: Kok, 1967), 80;
C. C. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 23;
Barnett, Corinthians, 160–61; M. J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 85–87. Contra D. Georgi, The Opponents of Paul in Second
Corinthians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987), passim; M. E. Thrall, The Second Epistle to the
Corinthians, Volume I: I–VII (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 238–39, 241–42. Whether the
interlopers are to be identified with the “super-apostles” of 2 Cor 10–13 (10:10–12; 11:3–5,
12–15, 18–22; 12:11) depends on whether (a) 2 Corinthians is a unity or not (F. Young and
D. F. Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 27–59;
Thrall, Second Epistle, 3–49; D. E. Garland, 2 Corinthians [Nashville: Broadman & Holman,
1999], 33–44; Harris, Corinthians, 8–51; Welborn, End to Enmity, xxix–xxviii); (b) the “letter
of tears” (2 Cor 2:3–4, 9–11) should be identified with 2 Cor 10–13; (c) 2:14–7:4 precedes
or comes after chs. 10–13; (d) the force of the aorist verbs in 12:18 in relation to the ear-
lier references to Titus’ visits to Corinth (2 Cor 8:17–18, 22; cf. 2:13; 7:6–7, 14–15) (Harris,
Corinthians, 39–40). Our position is that 2 Cor 1–9 precedes chs. 10–13, with chs. 10–13 hav-
ing been written after the apostle received news of a renewed deterioration of affairs at
Corinth after the reconciliation effected in 7:4–16. Thus 2 Cor 10–13 is either (a) a second
letter of Paul written in response to the news and attached to chs. 1–9 by a later editor
(Thrall, Second Epistle, 45–47), or (b) a rhetorical tour-de-force added by the apostle when
he, having just finished writing his letter of reconciliation (2 Cor 1–9), received the news
of renewed conflict at Corinth (F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians [London: Oliphants, 1971],
169; Witherington, Corinthians, 336–39; Garland, Corinthians, 41–42). The interlopers of
2 Cor 3:1b are to be identified with the super-apostles of chs. 10–13, though their threat
only became apparent when Titus had left Corinth, having effected what he hoped would
be a lasting reconciliation between the apostle and his converts (C. K. Barrett, The Second
Epistle to the Corinthians [London: A. & C. Black, 1973], 107).
59 J. Lambrecht, Second Corinthians (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 1999), 7;
Witherington, Corinthians, 346.

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254 Harrison
are so central to Jewish identity. One would normally expect boundary mark-
ers to be mentioned, as was the case with the Galatian agitators, irrespective of
the aims and identity of the group. Also there is no indication in our text that
there is subterfuge on the part of the Jewish opponents on the issue of bound-
ary markers (pace, 2 Cor 11:13–15), by playing them down in their message so
that they might be later reintroduced at a more opportune time.
But we should be careful not to read too much into the text’s silence on
boundary markers in this instance. For Paul, the issue at hand may well be
not so much the opponents’ attachment to Moses and Jewish mores—albeit
expressed in a Christian context (2 Cor 11:5a, 13)—but more their commitment
to the agonistic and boastful culture of ancient paideia and rhetoric. Clearly,
the Jewish-Christian opponents embraced prominent Graeco-Roman values
in their emphasis on synkrisis or “comparison” (10:12; 11:12b [“those who want
an opportunity to be considered equal with us”]), boasting (10:12 [“some who
commend themselves”]; 11:12b, 18, 21b), commitment to rhetorical accomplish-
ment (10:10b; 11:6a), and the sophistic practice of accepting monetary support
(2:17; cf. 1 Cor 4:12a; 9:3–19; 2 Cor 12:14–16a). If the educated elite among the
believing Corinthians were attached to the values of the ancient gymnasium
and its paideia, as R. S. Dutch has argued,60 the Corinthian house churches
would have been swayed by the polished rhetoric and stylized boasting of the
opponents (2 Cor 11:5–6) as much as by their (allegedly) “powerful” ministry
(12:11–12).61
Furthermore, while caution has to be exercised in terms of “mirror-reading”
the rhetoric of 2 Corinthians,62 it is nevertheless likely that Paul’s Corinthian
detractors and the interlopers denigrated the apostle’s character. He was de-
picted as an inconsistent and incompetent apostle (1:17; 3:5–6), lacking heart
(4:1, 16), boldness (3:12; 7:4), and confidence (5:6, 8),63 displaying insincerity
(1:12; 2:17),64 going about with cunning (4:2),65 and adulterating the word of
60 R. S. Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians: Education and Community Conflict in
Graeco-Roman Context (London: T&T Clark, 2005).
61 See D. Litfin, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1–4 and Greco-Roman
Rhetoric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); C. Mihaila, The Paul-Apollos
Relationship and Paul’s Stance toward Graeco-Roman Rhetoric (London: T&T Clark, 2009).
62 Furnish (II Corinthians, 50) writes, “One must not presume that every point made by Paul
is designed to counter a point made by his rivals.”
63 2 Corinthians 4:1: οὐκ ἐγκακοῦμεν; 4:16: οὐκ ἐγκακοῦμεν. 2 Cor 3:12: πολλῇ μοι παρρησία; 7:4:
πολλῇ παρρησία. 2 Cor 5:6: θαρροῦντες; 5:8: θαρροῦμεν. This use of repetition throughout
2 Cor 1–7, while rhetorical, may reflect repeated charges made against Paul.
64 2 Corinthians 1:12: ἐν ἁπλότητι καὶ εἰλικρινείας; 2:17: ἐξ εἰλικρινείας.
65 2 Corinthians 4:2: ἐν πανουργίᾳ.

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God (2:17; 4:2).66 Thus, with no news forthcoming from Titus regarding the suc-
cess of the letter of “tears,” Paul goes to Macedonia to meet his co-worker there
(2 Cor 2:12–13), only to discover, upon the arrival of Titus with fresh news from
Corinth (7:5–6), that the Corinthians had repented and had disciplined the
“wrong-doer” (7:8–16). Whether Titus, of course, had seriously underestimated
or misjudged the real threat of the intruders while he was there—only to see
the situation rapidly worsen again upon his exit from Corinth (2 Cor 10–13)—is
a moot point.
A series of important questions emerges from this maelstrom of recrimina-
tion, intense emotions and personal hurt on the part of both the Corinthians
and their apostle. Why does Paul frame his response in 2 Cor 1:3–7:15 to the
Corinthian misconceptions about him and the hurt they had experienced with
two consolatory pericopes (2 Cor 1:3–11; 7:4–13)? What is Paul’s rhetorical and
pastoral strategy? How does it contribute to the rich portrait of the triumphal
(2:14–17), doxological (3:7–18; 4:4b, 17), kerygmatic (2:17; 4:1–6), pneumatic (3:3,
6, 17–18; 5:5; 6:6), cruciform (4:7–12; 6:4–10), eschatological (4:13–5:10) and rec-
onciliatory (5:16–21) dimensions of apostolic leadership and Christian service
that Paul enunciates in 2 Cor 2:14–7:2? How do Jewish and Graeco-Roman
consolatory motifs intersect in the two consolatory pericopes and which tradi-
tion, if either, has primacy in Paul’s thinking? What lxx inter-textual echoes
might be present and what connection might they have with the wider con-
solatory literature of Second Temple Judaism? How does he adapt the Jewish
consolatory tradition in light of the gospel of Christ the “consoler” (Matt 5:4
[παρακληθήσονται]; 11:28–30)? What rhetorical motifs of Paul’s argument reso-
nate with the Graeco-Roman consolatory tradition and what elements of that
tradition might the apostle diverge from or, indeed, critique?
We turn now to a discussion of each pericope in its Jewish and Graeco-
Roman context, evaluating exegetically the impact of each tradition upon Paul.
4.2 Consolation in 2 Corinthians 1:3–11

Before we engage with 2 Cor 7:4–13, an understanding of 1:3–11 in its conso-
latory context is critical for our later reflection. Paul situates his argument
within the rhetorical “double-front” of two divine epithets: “the Father of
mercies” (ὁ πατὴρ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν) and “the God of all consolation” (θεὸς πάσης
66 2 Corinthians 2:17: καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ; 4:2: μηδὲ δολοὺντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ.
S. Kim (The Origin of Paul’s Gospel [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], 233) argues regarding
2 Cor 4:2–3: “They also accused Paul of distorting the gospel by not requiring the Gentile
converts to observe the law of Moses (4:2). They said that such a gospel was ‘veiled’ (4:3),
meaning that it was unintelligible because it cut itself loose from God’s revelation given
to Moses on Sinai.”

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256 Harrison
παράκλησεως)” (2 Cor 1:3b). As noted, this combination of phraseology unites

the “conciliatory” and “consolatory” elements of the letter in a μικτή genre. But,
more importantly, how are we to construe Paul’s two succinct phrases describ-
ing God here? First, while the elements of “blessing” (εὐλογητος: 1:3a) and the
reference to divine mercy (τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν) may reflect earlier forms of post-70
synagogal liturgy,67 the phrase ὁ πατήρ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν (1:3b) draws upon lxx
divine “mercy” terminology, referring contextually to God’s deliverance (2 Sam
24:14a [οἱ οἰκτιρμοὶ αὐτοῦ]; cf. v. 14b), forgiveness (Ps 24:6 lxx: τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν σου;
cf. v. 7; 1QH XVIII, 10; XIX, 29), and covenantal faithfulness (Isa 63:15 [οἰκτιρμῶν
σου]; cf. v. 16).68 Thus Paul’s phrase, from the evidence of the inter-textual
echoes above, embraces God’s unconditioned saving and reconciliatory activ-
ity and becomes the theological springboard for Paul’s reconciliation of the
Corinthians (2 Cor 2:7, 10b; 5:18–21; 6:11–13; 7:2–3).
Second, the phrase θεὸς πάσης παρακλήσεως (2 Cor 1:3b) probably represents
Paul’s summation of the lxx divine “consolatory” tradition, including the
other Second Temple Judaism “consolatory” traditions to which he may have
been exposed.69 The use of the adjective πᾶσα with παράκλησις may have con-
noted for Paul’s auditors the diverse expressions of and varying circumstances
in which Israel experienced consolation in the past. As noted in our discus-
sion of the Jewish literature and documents, God’s consolation was founded
upon God’s Law and promises, as well as upon his love and forgiveness. Divine
consolation had a strong eschatological focus: the messianic hope, the return
of the exiles from Babylon, and the restoration of Zion and Jerusalem. More
immediate concerns—survival amidst the threat of death, the enjoyment of
the good life, and general assistance—were also subsumed under the experi-
ence of divine comfort. It is the breadth and immediacy of divine consolation,
founded on the lxx and the Second Temple Judaism literature, which sharply
differentiates the Jewish hope from the Graeco-Roman hope of post-mortem
fellowship with the god(s). Notwithstanding, as we shall see, the God of all
consolation has now revealed himself in the Christ who suffers and consoles
(e.g. Matt 5:4 [παρακληθήσονται]; 11:28–30; Mark 5:35–43; 9:17–27; John 11:17–
44). A new dimension to God’s consolatory activity had emerged.
This wide range of consolatory activity, further underscored in Paul’s ex-
plosion of consolatory language (2 Cor 1:3, 4, 5, 6: παράκλησις [6x], παρακαλέω
67 A. Marmorstein, The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God (repr., New York: KTAV, 1968), 56.
68 b agd 561. Additionally, Exod 34:6 lxx; Ps 24(25 MT):6; 68(69 MT):16.
69 Muenchow (Consolation, 93, 95) understands divine consolation in the Old Testament to
be broadly “a reversal of fortunes”: i.e. redemption, restoration and vindication, return
from exile, prosperity and security.

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[4x]), is brought into therapeutic dialogue with the series of painful provoca-
tions damaging Paul’s relations with the Corinthians. In the midst of “afflic-
tion” (2 Cor 1:4: ἐπὶ πάσῃ τῇ θλίψει)—a phrase redolent of the affliction of the
righteous suffer and the people of Israel,70 as opposed to the indifference of
the Stoic wise man to distress (Cicero, Tusc. 3.10.21)—God comforts Paul and
his fellow workers (1:4a: ὁ παρακαλῶν ἡμᾶς). The initiative of God in this pro-
cess is strongly emphasized here, silencing any imputation that God is tardy in
comforting his saints, or does so only after a period of exacting testing. There is
no suggestion here of the interplay between “consolatory” and “non-consolato-
ry” perspectives articulated by suffering Israelites when under God’s judgment;
rather, God comforts his suffering apostles without reservation and in timely
manner in the midst of their worst sufferings.
The purpose of the divine comforting of Paul and his coworkers is to com-
fort the Corinthians (2 Cor 1:4b: παρακαλεῖν τοὺς ἐν πάσῃ θλίψει) with their God-
sent comfort (1:4c: διὰ τῆς παρακλήσις ἧς παρακαλούμεθα αὐτοι ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ).
The other-centered focus of Paul’s afflictions (2 Cor 1:6a: “for your encourage-
ment [ὑμῶν παρακλήσεως] and salvation”) finds an other-centered focus in
their consolation (1:6b: “for your encouragement” [ὑμῶν παρακλήσεως]). This
therapeutic paradigm of selfless suffering and other-centred consolation origi-
nates in the redemptive work of Christ on behalf of believers (2 Cor 1:5; 5:15).
It is fundamentally different to the stereotyped commonplaces of consolation
to which Graeco-Roman therapists appealed. In particular, the dynamic is so-
teriological (2 Cor 1:5a: περισσεύει εἰς ἡμᾶς; 1:5b: διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ περισσεύει) in its
origin and promised transformation rather than centred upon the imitation of
worthy exempla in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman consolatory tradition.
However, in Paul’s teaching there are elements of divine pedagogic inten-
tion, foreshadowed, as we have seen, in the book of Job and in the Testament
of Joseph, and experienced when God consoles his people after a long period
of testing and seeming abandonment. The Corinthian experience of the same
sufferings as the apostles—flowing from those of Christ—brings about a last-
ing character transformation for Paul’s converts, demonstrated in their endur-
ance (2 Cor 1:6b: ἐνεργουμένης ἐν ὑπομονῇ). Likewise, the death-like affliction
that Paul experienced in Asia (2 Cor 1:8–9) taught the apostle not to rely upon
himself (1:9b) but instead to trust in the hope of divine rescue (1:10). In sum,
Paul’s pedagogic nexus of extreme suffering, divine comfort, and growth in
Christ—while founded upon the theological bedrock of the Jewish consola-
tory tradition—is transformed by the resurrection power of God in the midst
of tribulation (2 Cor 1:9b). This stands in contrast to the traditions of the lxx
70 H. Schlier, “θλίβω, θλῖψις,” tdnt 3:139–18.

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258 Harrison
and Second Temple Judaism, which view God’s future consolation of Israel in
terms of the restoration of Jerusalem and its temple, or in a renewed study of
the Law among God’s people.
Last, Paul christologically redefines the “consolation” tradition of Second
Temple Judaism, although its messianic funereal iconography and focus on
the consolation of Zion anticipates the direction of Paul’s thought. Unusual is
Paul’s heavy emphasis on the “sufferings of Christ” (2 Cor 1:5: τά παθήματα τοῦ
Χριστοῦ). The emotional dimension of Christ’s sufferings, encompassing both
the Messiah’s afflictions and those of his apostles (2 Cor 1:4, 6),71 is possibly
included within the purview of the phrase, granting that it could allude to the
“messianic woes” and, more definitely, to the believer’s fellowship in his suffer-
ings (Phil 3:9; cf. Col 1:24).72 If the comfort of believers originates in the emo-
tional and volitional commitment of Christ to his soteriological mission, not-
withstanding his deep distress of various kinds (Matt 26:37–38; 27:46; Mark 2:5;
7:34; 8:12; 14:34; Luke 12:30; 19:41; 22:14; cf. Heb 5:7–10),73 the Stoic “mean” of
emotions is undermined by Paul’s approach to divine consolation.
Paul’s hardships in Asia are also reported in the emotion-laden language
of “death” (2 Cor 1:8b–9a, 10a), thereby pinpricking the Stoic understanding
of the “unstressed” wise man, while highlighting the apostle’s daily experi-
ence of “dying and rising” in Christ and his prayerful dependence upon divine
grace (1:9b–11). What is unusual about this construct in a Jewish context is that
God’s eschatological comfort is exercised in advance through Christ’s resurrec-
tion power in the delivery of his apostles from threats of death in the present
(2 Cor 4:8–12; 6:9: “dying and behold we live”; 7:3b: “to die together and to live
together”). Elsewhere, the eternal weight of eschatological glory (2 Cor 4:17b:
εἰς ὑπερβολὴν αἰώνιον βάρος δόξης; cf. 4:18–5:5), emanating from the Spirit of the
risen Christ (3:17–18),74 outweighs our light and momentary affliction (4:17a:
τὸ γὰρ παραυτίκα ἐλαφρὸν τῆς θλίψεως ἡμῶν). It explains the emotional para-
dox at the core of apostolic life: “as sorrowful (λυπούμενοι), yet always rejoicing
(χαίροντες)” (2 Cor 6:10; cf. 7:4b). Also the grief felt by the Corinthians from
Paul’s “letter of tears” is only experienced “very briefly” (2 Cor 7:8b: literally, “if
even for an hour”). In sum, the Graeco-Roman consolatory motifs of the pas-
sage of time and the solace of eternity are engaged and transformed through
the apostle’s christological, doxological, and eschatological thought. Thus, to
71 Barnett, Corinthians, 75.

72 R. P. Martin, 2 Corinthians (wbc, 40; Waco, TX: Word, 1986), 9–10; Thrall, Second Epistle,
108–9.
73 Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions, passim.
74 On the “Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:17) as a reference to Christ, see G. D. Fee, Pauline
Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 177–80.

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return to our introduction, 2 Cor 2:14–7:2, while bristling with polemical ele-
ments (2:17; 3:1–3, 6, 14; 5:12–13; 6:1, 3, 11–13; 7:2–4), is also intended to be conso-
latory and reconciliatory (5:14–21; 6:11–12; 7:2–3).
4.3 Consolation in 2 Corinthians 7:4–13

To what extent, then, does Paul bring “conciliatory” and “consolatory” tradi-
tions into therapeutic dialogue in 2 Cor 7:4–13? Paul’s refrain of his open “heart”
in 2 Cor 6:11b (ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν) and 7:3b (ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις) casts the apostle as the
kind, sympathetic, and tender consoler of the Graeco-Roman consolatory tra-
dition (Pliny, Ep. 5.16, supra). This is reinforced by Paul’s refusal to condemn
(2 Cor 7:3a)—a stance recalling Pliny’s warning about not using “rougher ar-
guments” in consolation lest they be perceived as a “sort of reproof” (Pliny,
Ep. 5.16)—and, more positively, by his boasting in the Corinthian’s own change
of heart (2 Cor 7:4, 7b, 9b, 11, 12b).
Paul asserts that he has acted with παρρησία—to be translated “candour,”
“frankness” as opposed to “boldness”—towards the Corinthians (2 Cor 7:4a; cf.
3:13).75 While Paul’s apostolic παρρησία (“freedom of speech”) involves correc-
tion of the Corinthians (2 Cor 7:2b, 8–9a), it is dispensed in the manner of the
“gentle” philosopher who, as Plutarch explains (Mor. 69B–C), does not savage
the disconsolate with harsh sayings but rather, with consolation, nurses their
hurts before correcting them:
The very circumstances in which the unfortunate find themselves leave

no room for frank speaking (οὐ παρρησίαν) and sententious saws, but they
do require gentle usage and help. When children fall down, the nurses do
not rush up to them to berate them, but they take them up, wash them,
and straighten their clothes, and, after this is done, they then rebuke and
punish them.76
However, Paul the “consoler” is also the “consoled,” having experienced di-
vine consolation (2 Cor 7:6a: παρεκάλεσεν ἡμᾶς; 7:13a: παρακεκλήμεθα; 7:13b: τῇ
παρακλήσει ἡμῶν) in the midst of affliction (7:4b: πεπλήρωμαι τῇ παρακλήσει),
as well as through the arrival of the consoled Titus (7:7b: ᾗ παρεκλήθη ἐφ᾽ ὑμων)
and the encouragement of the repentant Corinthians (7:7a: ἐν τῇ παρακλήσει).
As we noted in the previous section, the impetus for consolation and rec-
onciliation originates with God (2 Cor 1:3–4; 5:18–21; 7:6a), reflecting the
75 Thrall, Second Epistle, 484–85.

76 See A. J. Malherbe, “‘Gentle as a Nurse’: The Cynic Background to 1 Thess ii,” NovT 12 (1970):
203–17.

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260 Harrison
unconditioned perspective of the lxx tradition. But the strong accent on “joy”
(χάρα: 7:4, 13; χαίρω: 2:3; 7:7, 9, 13, 16), while derived from the Old Testament,77
also intersects with the Graeco-Roman consolatory tradition (Pliny, Ep. 7.19,
supra). The wise man exhibits “true joy” (verum gaudium) because he does
“not take joy from things that do not matter” (Seneca, Ep. 23: ne gaudeas vanis);
his joy is the by-product of his virtue (Cicero, Tusc. 5.25.72; Seneca, Ep. 59.2,
16).78 By contrast, in a non-elitist perspective, Paul highlights a communal re-
joicing (χάρα, χαίρω), the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22–23), that is characteristic
of the experience of Christian body-life (2 Cor 1:24; 2:3; 7:7, 16; cf. Phil 2:2), part-
nership in the gospel (Phil 1:4–5, 18b–19a), and mutual consolation in suffering
(2 Cor 7:4, 9, 13; cf. Rom 12:15; Phil 2:17–18).79 Thus the individual and corpo-
rate experience of joy lifts the spirits of the downcast and removes barriers
between the estranged.
Finally, according to Paul, divine distress (2 Cor 7:9–10) results in “salvation”
(7:10a)—both for the Corinthians and the “wrong-doer”—through reconcili-
ation in Christ. Undoubtedly this reflects the Synoptic portrait of Christ’s dis-
tress issuing in salvation, coupled with Old Testament portraits of the divine
imposition of soteriological suffering upon the Isaianic servant (Isa 53:4, 10; cf.
Mark 10:45; 14:24), the righteous sufferer of the Psalms (Ps 22:1; cf. Mark 15:34),
and Zechariah’s stricken shepherd (Zech 13:7; cf. Mark 14:27), notwithstanding
some Graeco-Roman consolatory precedents (Ps.-Demosthenes, Epitaph. 37,
supra).
Conversely, for Paul, “worldly sorrow” issues in death (2 Cor 7:10b; cf.
1 Thess 4:13b). The terminology is intriguing. Does this represent the apostle’s
theological evaluation of the Graeco-Roman consolatory tradition at Corinth?
Probably it does, notwithstanding the apostle’s rich rhetorical interaction with
the Graeco-Roman consolatory tradition. The famous grief clinic of Antiphon,
no longer present in the city of Corinth at the time of Paul but still favourably
remembered by the Corinthians, had been trumped by God’s cruciform dis-
tress which redeems, consoles, reconciles, transforms, and resurrects its bro-
ken clients.
77 χάρα: lxx 1 Chr 29:22; Pss 20[21 MT]:6; 29[30 MT]:11; 125[126 MT]:2; Prov 14:13; 29:6;
Isa 55:12; 66:10; Jer 15:16; 16:9; 25:10; Lam 5:15; Zech 8:19.
78 See Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 78–83.
79 See Barton, Joy, 17–21.

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5 Conclusion
This article has argued that Paul adopts the rhetoric of the “conciliatory” and
“consolatory” epistles of the Graeco-Roman handbooks in healing the rifts and
pain caused by the “wrong-doer” at Corinth. The problem was compounded
by the probability that the Corinthians misinterpreted the apostle’s “let-
ter of tears” as a “letter of grief,” announcing his implacable hostility to the
Corinthians for his recent rebuff in Corinth. Paul’s rhetorical strategy in writ-
ing a “mixed” genre epistle in response to the Corinthian outpouring of pain
would have resonated with his auditors, given the tradition of Antiphon’s “grief
clinic” being present in the city in the fifth century bce.
The lxx and the literature of Second Temple Judaism provide the thera-
peutic framework for Paul’s understanding of suffering, the reign of death,
the messianic hope, and the consolation of Zion. Septuagintal inter-textual
echoes are few, but the phrase θεὸς πάσης παράκλησεως, as we have argued,
represents Paul’s summary of the Jewish consolatory tradition. However, the
pastoral implications of divine consolation in the Body of Christ are radically
transformed through the apostle’s christological, soteriological, eschatological,
and doxological thought. As far as the Graeco-Roman consolatory tradition, its
commonplaces belong to the “worldly sorrow” of this passing age and, like the
powerless deities of the nations, the therapeutic advice of its counselors does
not provide salvation from the finality of death or its searing pain. Paul is aware
of the consolatory techniques of the “gentle” philosopher, adopting the per-
sona where appropriate, but ultimately his ability to reconcile and console the
estranged Corinthians came from the One who wept before Lazarus’s tomb.
Why, then, does the apostle provide a consolatory framework (2 Cor 1:3–11;
7:4–13) for his discourse on apostolic leadership and service in 2 Cor 1:3–7:2?
There is little doubt that Paul wants his ministry discourse to be understood
from a consolatory perspective. We must not forget that Paul writes pastorally
as much as he does theologically, apologetically, and polemically. The apostle
wants to console and reconcile his disaffected and hurt converts back to him-
self and Christ (2 Cor 6:11–13; 7:2–4).
Nor should we underestimate the emotional cost of living “between the
times” articulated in Paul’s apocalyptic gospel: namely, experiencing the so-
teriological power of the “already” of the Kingdom in the present, while strug-
gling with the frustration of the “not yet” of the eschatological Kingdom. Paul
expresses this tension with paradoxical statements throughout the entire sec-
tion (2 Cor 2:14–16; 4:7–12, 16–18; 5:4–10; 6:3–10). Paul alerts his converts that
divine consolation operates just as powerfully in the present age of suffering as
it does at the eschatological culmination of all things.

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262 Harrison
Finally, consolation always has a focus beyond the consoled: the consoled
must seek to become a consoler of the spiritually broken through the over-
flow of divine consolation and divine distress in their lives. Paul’s converts at
Corinth needed to appreciate the “otherness” of consolation if the cruciform
ministry of the apostles was to empower the Body of Christ at Corinth for self-
less service in a manner that was pleasing to God.

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Chapter 13
It’s Not Like Moses Veiled So That the Israelites

Didn’t Stare: a Hypothesis Regarding Paul’s
Understanding of Exodus 34
Christopher D. Land
1 Introduction
In an essay that is now almost a quarter-century old, Linda Belleville makes the
following observation about Paul’s use of Exod 34 in 2 Cor 3:
It has long been noted that Paul’s use of Exod. 34.28–35 does not suf-
ficiently account for his exegetical comments in 2 Cor. 3.7–18. There is,
for example, no mention in the Exodus narrative of the fading glory of
Moses’ face, no reference to the Israelites’ inability to gaze at Moses’ face,
no connection between the Israelites’ gazing at Moses’ face and his don-
ning of a veil, and no motive for the veiling.1
The implication typically drawn by scholars has been that, as regards the ap-
parent “exegetical comments” in 2 Cor 3:7–18, Paul must be relying upon exist-
ing interpretive traditions, or else doing something innovative in his reading of
the Exodus narrative.
As regards the former possibility, there are indeed inferences and associa-
tions that Paul shares in common with other Jews. For instance, Paul is not
the only ancient interpreter to infer from the account in Exod 34 that the
Israelites had to avert their eyes when confronted with the radiance of Moses’s
face.2 He is not the only one who associates the radiance of Moses’s face with
1 Linda L. Belleville, “Tradition or Creation? Paul’s Use of the Exodus 34 Tradition in

2 Corinthians 3:7–18,” in Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders (eds.), Paul and the Scriptures
of Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 165–66. The ancient sources invoked in this
introduction have been drawn from Belleville’s helpful summary of the literature.
2 This is explicitly stated in 2 Cor 3:7, as well as in Philo, Mos. 2.70; MM 6.3, 11; Pesiq. Rab. 10.6;
Cant. Rab. 4.7.5; Zohar 3.58a. Interestingly, Pseudo-Philo states that the Israelites were able to
see Moses; they were simply unable to recognize him. It is not clear, however, whether this
seeing of Moses stands in any real tension with the Israelite’s aversion of their eyes, because
one can see the sun without being able to stare at it. Pseudo-Philo may in fact mean that the

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264 Land
his perception of heavenly things, his status as a spirit-filled prophet of the

Lord, and his role as a revealer of heavenly words/laws to Israel.3 And he is
not the only interpreter to contrast Moses’s unveiled perception of the Lord
on Mount Sinai with the disobedience of the people down below, or to draw a
connection between the people’s disobedience and their subsequent inability
to gaze upon the radiance of Moses’s face.4 Clearly, then, certain inferences
and associations came naturally to early Jewish readers of Exod 34 or were
passed around among them, rendering some features of Paul’s reading unsur-
prising and hence unremarkable.
In other respects, however, readers continue to find Paul’s “exegetical com-
ments” unusual. Specifically, scholars have been unable to find good parallels
to the notion that Moses’s radiance faded behind his veil or the claim that
Moses’s veil sought to prevent the Israelites from seeing this fading. Not only
are these ideas completely absent in the extant sources that precede Paul, but
various early Jewish texts explicitly insist that the radiance increased, that it re-
mained until the time of Moses’s death, and/or that it will remain eternally.5 It
would seem, therefore, that at least two of the exegetical moves that are often
seen in 2 Corinthians—whereby Moses’s facial radiance is said to have faded
Israelites saw a figure with a radiant face but were unable to recognize this figure as Moses
because they could not look into the radiance.
3 For the first of these, see Philo, Mos. 2.69. For the second, see Philo, Mos. 2.271, 280; MM 6.11.
For the third, see MM 3.6; 6.9.
4 Pseudo-Philo seems to contrast Israel’s sin with Moses’s own experience. The relationship is
most explicit, however, in the later literature, which explicitly cites the golden calf episode
as the reason for Israel’s inability to look upon the glory of Moses’s face (e.g. Sifre Num §1;
Cant. Rab. 3.7.5; Midr. Sam. 17; Zohar 1.52a–b) and which exalts in the fact that Moses was able
to speak with God face to face (e.g. Midr. HaGadol [Exod 34:34]). See Belleville, “Tradition,”
179, 181.
5 See the discussion of the Targumim in Belleville, “Tradition,” 170, as well as the discussion of
the Samaritan documents (e.g. MM 5.4) in Belleville, “Tradition,” 177 and the discussion of
the rabbinic literature in Belleville, “Tradition,” 179–80. As Belleville notes, “the Targumim
preserve the tradition that the giving of the law was attended by the glorified face of Moses.
They also, like Paul, refer to the transformation of Moses’ facial ‘image’. But unlike Paul the
Targumim speak of Moses’ glory as increasing rather than decreasing and as a permanent
possession rather than a passing phenomenon” (Belleville, “Tradition,” 171). Notably, com-
ments about the endurance of Moses’s facial radiance tend to co-occur with statements
about the permanence of the Mosaic covenant. See Belleville, “Tradition,” 173–82. Hughes
makes the pertinent observation that the reading here under discussion, in which Moses’s
face fades and so is hidden, “finds no support in the exegesis of the patristic fathers” (Philip
Hughes, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians [NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962], 109).

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a Hypothesis Regarding Paul ’ s Understanding of Exodus 34 265
and his veil is said to have prevented the Israelites from seeing this fading—
need to be treated as potential Pauline innovations.6
At this point, the natural impulse is to attempt an explanation of these
seemingly odd exegetical maneuvers, and numerous interpreters of Paul have
sought to provide one. There is also an alternative, however. Instead of seeking
to explain the passage’s apparently unprecedented interpretation of Exod 34,
one can ask whether Paul’s point has perhaps been misunderstood. A num-
ber of scholars have pursued this alternative approach with respect to the so-
called “fading” (τοῦ καταργουμένου) and with respect to the so-called “end” (τὸ
τέλος) allegedly hidden from the Israelites.7 In this essay, however, I will focus
attention instead on the idea that the purpose of Moses’s veil was to prevent
the Israelites from staring εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου. This alleged purpose
is routinely treated as a key part of Paul’s argument, even though “no other
Jewish interpretation suggests that Moses, by veiling his face, intentionally
concealed anything from Israel.”8 I will argue in this essay that Paul actually
means to reject as a misreading of Exod 34 the idea that Moses’s veil served
such a purpose. In short, the logic of 2 Cor 3:13–14 is that Moses did not veil to
prevent the sons of Israel from staring εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου—rather, he
veiled because their hearts were hard. It follows that Moses’s veil should be un-
derstood as a reactive withdrawal from hard-hearted hearers and hence as an
affronted judgment akin to “shaking the dust off one’s feet.” This way of reading
the text eliminates Paul’s alleged exegetical innovations altogether, allowing
us to see his use of Exod 34 as a straightforward one that relates very directly
6 Belleville observes that Philo’s reading of the Moses narrative “can admit the possibility of
the impermanence of this glory” (Belleville, “Tradition,” 173), but this is merely an argument
from silence. She also observes that Pseudo-Philo “shares the concept of a passing glory” with
Paul (Belleville, “Tradition,” 174), but the basis of this assertion is merely the fact that Moses
is made glorious twice in Pseudo-Philo—a detail that surely has a different emphasis and
function than would the explicit claim that Moses’s glory faded. As for Belleville’s sugges-
tion that there was a rabbinic tradition of a fading glory (Belleville, “Tradition,” 180), there is
nothing like the idea that Moses’s facial radiance faded behind his veil. We find only the idea
that Moses transferred (a potentially lesser form of) his glory to Joshua (Ps. Rab. 21.4; b. B. Bat.
75a), or the general idea that Moses’s strength and glory were diminished as a consequence of
Israel’s sin, together with his ability to behold and communicate heavenly things (e.g b. Ber.
32a; b. Ta‛an. 30b; b. B. Bat. 121a–b; Zohar 3.58a). Notably, even within texts that discuss the
diminishing of Moses’s glory following the golden calf incident, there remains an emphasis
upon the endurance of the glory until his death (e.g. Zohar 1.21b, 31b; 3.58a).
7 The issues that surround these expressions are extensively discussed in the commentaries,
to which I refer readers who have an interest in the various interpretations that have been
proposed.
8 Paul B. Duff, Moses in Corinth: The Apologetic Context of 2 Corinthians 3 (NovTSup 159; Leiden:
Brill, 2015), 172.

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266 Land
to the controversy surrounding Paul in Corinth and that requires only one in-
novative presupposition whereby Jesus of Nazareth’s glory is both the source
of Moses’s glory and its τέλος.
I will begin by explaining, with reference to both literary and historical con-
text, why it makes good sense to read 2 Cor 3:13–14 as first denying that the
purpose of Moses’s veil was to prevent the Israelites from staring εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ
καταργουμένου and then replacing this reading with an alternative in which the
veiling is Moses’s reaction to the behaviour of the people. I will then explain
how the wording of the passage permits the newer reading that I am proposing
alongside the entrenched traditional reading, making some suggestions along
the way as to why the inherent potential for my reading has gone unnoticed
for so long. Finally, I will summarize the implications of my reading as regards
Paul’s understanding of Exod 34, suggesting that he views the veil of Moses pri-
marily through the lens of a Jewish rejected prophet motif, with the phrase τὸ
τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου being a reference to the christological glory that early
Christians regarded as both the source and substance of Moses’s radiance as
well as the ultimate end of his ministry.9
2 Literary Context: the Minister Is Both Unveiled and Veiled
Imagine for a moment that we possess only a single manuscript of 2 Cor 3, and
that our manuscript is illegible only in the latter part of v. 13 where the veil
of Moses is first mentioned. Given the surrounding discussion, what will we
conclude about Paul’s understanding of the Sinai narrative and its relevance
to his own experiences?
In 2 Cor 3:7, Paul mentions that the Israelites were unable to stare at the face
of Moses. This verse first activates the Exod 34 narrative as relevant for the dis-
course of 2 Corinthians—but what specifically is activated?10 Most obviously,
what is relevant here is the manifest glory of Moses’s ministry, since Paul’s
point is that the eschatological ministry of the Spirit is even more glorious.
Indeed, Paul’s argument from the lesser to the greater works precisely because
he exalts Moses’s ministry as glorious. In this way, Moses’s radiant glory is not
9 I first advanced this hypothesis in Christopher D. Land, The Integrity of 2 Corinthians and
Paul’s Aggravating Absence (NTM 36; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015), 124–29. The pres-
ent essay is a clearer, more nuanced, and much expanded presentation of the argument.
10 The larger narrative of Moses’s ministry is activated already in 2:16, inasmuch as Paul’s
question evokes Moses’s claim to be unfit for ministry (οὐχ ἱκανός) on account of being
weak of voice and slow of tongue (see Exod 4:10). For discussion, see Duff, Moses in
Corinth, 98–102.

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introduced to us as something hidden, but as something self-evident, as some-

thing revealed to the people of Israel in all its brilliance. In actual fact, when
Paul first brings up the fact that the Israelites did not stare intently at some-
thing (μὴ δύνασθαι ἀτενίσαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον Μωϋσέως [3:7]), he
explicitly mentions the people’s inability to see—but he relates this inability
not to Moses’s veil but rather to his manifest glory (διὰ τὴν δόξαν τοῦ προσώπου
αὐτοῦ). It follows that, by the time we read in v. 13 about the open public display
(παρρησία) that characterizes Paul and Timothy’s ministry, we are primed to
see Paul and Timothy’s very open conduct as a glorious revealing that is paral-
lel with but even greater than the radiance displayed publicly in Moses’s flesh.11
We are also primed to see that not everyone is able to look and see the glory of
the Lord’s ministers, even when their glory is openly manifested.
Skipping over the damaged portion of our manuscript, we will next come
to v. 14, in which Paul observes that the Israelites were hard of heart. As care-
ful readers, we will take note that Paul here applies the Sinai narrative to his
first-century context by insisting that τὸ αὐτὸ κάλυμμα (‘the same veil’) per-
sists in his own day, and so we will infer that he has introduced Moses’s veil in
the illegible part of the preceding verse. We will not infer, however, that Paul
there introduced the veil of Moses as something discontinuous, as a reality
from Moses’s ministry that does not characterize Paul’s own ministry. To the
contrary, we will almost certainly conclude from the statement “the same veil
remains” that Paul sees somewhere in his own experiences the practice that
characterized Moses’s wilderness ministry, and we will continue reading with
the anticipation that Paul will explain how he and Timothy are veiled in the
manner of Moses.
Paul very helpfully narrows our focus by identifying a specific setting in
which he sees Moses’s veil persisting: it can be observed at the (presumably
public) reading of the old covenant. Will we conclude from this that Paul ex-
periences Moses’s “same veil” in the first century because the written words of
Moses are obscure and hard to penetrate, perhaps due to the fact that Moses
was a very obscure minister who did not conduct his ministry openly? Probably
not. To the contrary, as attentive readers of the preceding text, we have already
learned that Moses revealed his glorious face to the people of Israel. Moreover,
we have learned from v. 14 that the people’s hearts were hard. We will thus
11 See Cook, who rightly observes that “whatever Paul alleges that veil was intended to con-
ceal had already been observed by the people earlier, before the veil could serve its al-
leged function!” (Michael J. Cook, “The Ties that Blind: An Exposition of II Corinthians
3:12–4:6 and Romans 11:7–10,” in Jakob J. Petuchowski [ed.], When Jews and Christians Meet
[New York: SUNY Press, 1988], 131).

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268 Land
recognize in v. 15 that Paul understands the “covering” of Moses in relation to

a related “covering” that lies over people’s hearts, and we will conclude that
“the same veil” of Moses remains in the present day for ministers of the Lord
who publicly read and expound the written words of Moses because the people
remain hard-hearted.12 Thus it is not just that “the same veil” of Moses remains
but that the same reason for the ministerial veil remains, which is why Paul
later describes his own gospel as veiled on account of people’s hardness (see
2 Cor 4:1–12). Almost certainly, therefore, as readers of a fragmentary manu-
script, we will infer from vv. 14–15 that the missing verse introduced Moses’s veil
in order to set up an explanation for why veiling persists in Paul and Timothy’s
own ministry, with the point being that “covered” (i.e. hard-hearted) people
produce “covered” (i.e. veiled) ministers and ministries.
Moving on, we will next find in our manuscript some comments in 3:16–18
that pertain to unveiling. Now, even supposing that we are ignorant of Exodus,
we will have little trouble understanding Paul’s discussion of unveiled people,
because we already know from 2 Cor 3:7–11 that Moses’s ministry began with
great glory and that he was openly glorious when he appeared before the peo-
ple of Israel. At the very least, therefore, we will infer that Paul and Timothy
are, like Moses, both unveiled and veiled, being unveiled because they are re-
cipients of the Lord’s glory and yet veiled because they must minister to hard-
hearted people. Supposing that we are familiar with Exodus, however, we may
also infer that Paul is invoking Exod 34:34–35:
Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would
take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the
Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of
Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil
on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.13
12 Here the shift from the articular τὸ αὐτὸ κάλυμμα to the anarthrous κάλυμμα is crucial.
Specifically, the anarthrous phrase brings the minister’s covering, which is already active
in the discourse, together with a distinct but related covering that affects people’s hearts.
Because I see Paul’s focus in 3:13 to be the reason for Moses’s veil, I think that Paul means
to introduce this second veil as temporally and logically prior to the minister’s veil and
hence as the real reason for it (i.e. “It’s not the minister’s fault, but the people’s fault!”). For
an alternative view, in which the heart-covering in vv. 15–18 is introduced anarthrously
as a “typological” interpretation of the Mosaic head-covering, see George H. Guthrie,
2 Corinthians (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 222–24.
13 Notably, the NA28 treats this as a quotation, and it is now widely accepted that these
remarks invoke Exod 34:34–35, where Moses is said to unveil when entering the tent of
meeting. Matera nicely sums up the effect of Paul’s reading, observing that “the text es-
tablishes a contrast between the Israel of Paul’s day and those who belong to the new

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If we know this text, we will conclude even more confidently that Moses
was unveiled in looking upon the Lord, unveiled when conveying the words of
the Lord to the people of Israel, and then veiled only after fulfilling his ministe-
rial responsibilities.14 In addition, we will likely conclude that Paul understood
Moses’s post-proclamation veiling to be a recurring experience, such that
Moses’s normal, ongoing practice was to withdraw behind a veil after openly
proclaiming the commands of the Lord.15 Here again, therefore, “covered” (i.e.
hard-hearted) people produce “covered” (i.e. veiled) ministers and ministries.
My point in presenting this little imaginative exercise has been to show
that, were it not for the seemingly universal belief that Paul and Timothy are
said in 3:13 to be unlike Moses as regards veiling, a straightforward reading of
2 Corinthians would suggest that Moses’s experience of being veiled is just
as relevant to Paul and Timothy’s ministry as is Moses’s experience of being
unveiled. On the one hand, Moses was a glorious servant of the Lord whose
flesh was characterized by a glory at which the Israelites could not stare even
when it was openly revealed to them. On the other hand, even when ministers
openly reveal their glorious flesh as proclaimers of the words of the Lord or as
covenant, as well as a favorable comparison between the members of the new covenant
and Moses, both of whom stand in the divine presence with face unveiled” (Frank J. Matera,
II Corinthians: A Commentary [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003], 95).
14 This clearly illustrates one of the reasons that the traditional reading of 2 Cor 3:13 is prob-
lematic. As Duff writes, “Paul’s claim about Moses here runs counter to the narrative of
Exodus (34:29–35) for, in that earlier text, there is no indication that the lawgiver intended
to conceal anything from Israel. In fact, according to the Exodus narrative, Moses did not
veil himself at all when he spoke to Israel; it was only after he had finished speaking to
them that he covered his face” (Duff, Moses in Corinth, 172). Furnish similarly observes,
“Paul goes beyond Exod, for in v. 13 he says explicitly that Moses veiled his face in order
to keep the Israelites from seeing the end…. Indeed, this comment presumes what the
Exodus story in its present form specifically contradicts…. According to Exod, his face was
uncovered when addressing them [i.e. the Israelites], just as it was when he spoke with
God” (Victor P. Furnish, II Corinthians [AB 32A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984], 232).
15 For an attempt to challenge this reading of Exod 34:34–35 on the basis of some relevant
details in the LXX, see George Hendrik van Kooten, “Why Did Paul Include an Exegesis
of Moses’ Shining Face (Exodus 34) in 2 Corinthians 3? Moses’ Strength, Well-Being and
(Transitory) Glory, According to Philo, Josephus, Paul, and the Corinthian Scriptures,” in
George J. Brooke, Hindy Najman, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (eds.), The Significance of
Sinai: Traditions about Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity (Themes in Biblical
Narrative Jewish and Christian Traditions; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 149–81, here 159–60. While
I agree that the phrase ἕως τοῦ ἐκπορεύεσθαι in Exod 34:34 LXX is noteworthy, it seems to
me that—without the added motivation of trying to explain Paul’s enigmatic discourse
in 2 Cor 3—it would not prompt readers to conclude that Moses consistently spoke to
the Israelites with a veiled face, inasmuch as an alternative explanation of the phrase is
possible.

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270 Land
readers of Moses, people are often heard of heart, prompting the minister to
withdraw. Thus hard hearts are not only the reason that Moses wore a veil but
also the reason that “the same veil remains” in Paul and Timothy’s own minis-
try, as when they proclaim their gospel at public readings of Scripture only to
find themselves violently rejected (3:14b–4:12).
3 Should the Minister Hide His Flesh?
If the above overview of the literary context surrounding 2 Cor 3:13 is at all
correct, then it is inherently unlikely that Paul is trying to communicate dis-
similarity when he insists in 3:13 that he and Timothy “do not act … like Moses
put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from staring.” More likely, he is
already beginning to develop the argument of 3:14–4:12, wherein ministers of
God boldly expose their flesh, only to encounter negative responses from hard-
hearted people. What, then, does Paul mean in 3:13? Why would he invoke the
idea that Moses wanted to prevent the Israelites from staring at something?
Unquestionably, this odd and otherwise unattested interpretation of Moses’s
veil is very explicitly articulated (Μωϋσῆς ἐτίθει κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ
πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου), and so,
however much we might be tempted to simplify Paul’s use of the Sinai tradi-
tion by eliminating it, we must instead find some way to explain its presence.
My goal in this section is to explore the broad function of 2 Cor 2:14–5:21
as regards the Corinthian situation and to demonstrate that this very odd in-
terpretation of Exod 34 is both relevant and functional within the Corinthian
conflict as a wrongheaded explanation of Moses’s veil that might be inferred from
Exod 34 given certain highly problematic assumptions that Paul sees operative
in criticisms of his ministry.16 For the sake of convenience, I will refer to this
wrongheaded explanation as “the preventative concealing of flesh.”
Let us suppose—for the sake of argument, at least, since it can be rather dif-
ficult to get scholars to agree on things when 2 Corinthians is in view—that the
16 My reasons for treating these verses as a coherent segment are found in Land, Integrity
(see esp. pp. 113–40, 142–43). While my argument in this essay does not rest upon any par-
ticular view regarding literary integrity, it may prove helpful at points to know that I see
canonical 2 Corinthians as a single, coherent letter written not very long after the com-
position of 1 Corinthians. More specifically, I believe that 2 Corinthians had two principal
historical causes, with the first being Paul and Timothy’s reception of news concerning
Titus’s delivery of 1 Corinthians, and the second being the unexpected generosity of the
Macedonian churches. An extended discussion of my reconstruction is available in Land,
Integrity.

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function of 2 Cor 2:14–5:21 as a whole is to counter accusations of weakness and

incompetence by presenting the Pauline mission as faithful, courageous, and
effective as regards the task of gospel proclamation and the endurance of trou-
ble and persecution.17 This explains Paul’s opening remarks (2:14–16), which
ask, in essence, “Who is competent, indeed (τίς ἱκανός)? Who is strong enough
to navigate both the positive and negative responses that follow when the
gospel is rightly proclaimed (οἷς μὲν…οἷς δὲ…)?” It explains why Paul inquires
about evidence that supports his qualifications as a Christian minister (3:1–3).
It explains his insistence that he and Timothy are confident (3:4), competent
(3:5–6), bold (3:12), and fully prepared to endure physical weakness, persecu-
tion, and suffering because of their confidence in the promise of resurrection
and judgment (4:7–5:11a). Finally, it accounts for the concluding remarks of the
segment, which present the Corinthians with a choice: either they can listen to
Paul’s critics and dismiss him as unsound, or they can stop evaluating people
in a worldly manner and support Paul and Timothy’s divinely-authorized min-
istry to the world (5:11b–21).18
All of this material tacitly assumes that Paul is physically weak, whether
by constitution, because of illness, or because he was continually rejected
and abused. But whereas Paul and Timothy claim to take pride in their fleshly
17 In my earlier work (see the preceding footnote), I argued that Paul and Timothy’s
Corinthian ministry is being criticized by other Christian leaders who have come from
elsewhere. Duff, however, advances a reasonable argument for the view that outside op-
ponents are nowhere in view throughout 2:14–7:4 (Paul B. Duff, “Paul’s Elusive Opponents:
Reading 2 Cor 3 Without the False Apostles of 2 Cor 11:13,” BR 54 [2009]: 37–59; see also
Duff, Moses in Corinth), with the criticisms in view originating from within Paul’s com-
munity. As far as my present argument is concerned, I am content to ignore the precise
origin and content of the criticisms. It still seems to me, however, that it is possible to see
all of the criticisms that underlie 2 Corinthians in connection with Paul’s allegedly inad-
equate handling of his Corinthian congregation, such that I would rather re-interpret the
criticisms beneath 2 Cor 10–13 than attempt to re-read 2 Cor 2:14–5:21 without reference to
outside Christian leaders who are fueling the Corinthians’ growing frustration with Paul’s
leadership.
18 C. Andrew Ballard (“Tongue-Tied and Taunted: Paul, Poor Rhetoric and Paltry Leadership
in 2 Corinthians 5.13,” JSNT 37 [2014]: 50–70) correctly observes that the terms used here
by Paul reflect Hellenistic discussions about leadership, and particularly about the pru-
dence that characterizes good leaders. Myself, I think that Paul in 2 Cor 5:13–14 is framing
a clear choice between two perspectives on the Pauline mission’s leadership (‘insensible’
vs. ‘prudent’) and then aligning this with a second choice between the rejection of the
Pauline cruciform mission (which is united with God) or the embrace of that mission
(and hence implicitly, a concomitant rejection or embrace of the cruciform mission of
God): “Either we are behaving insensibly together with God, or we are behaving prudently
together with you. For the love of Christ binds us together when we [together] judge this:
that one person died for all … etc..” See Land, Integrity, 133–34.

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272 Land
weaknesses and to have renounced the hidden practices of shame (4:2), there
are some in Corinth who have a different assessment. Not everyone is con-
vinced that Paul and Timothy are manifesting God’s all-surpassing power in
clay pots (4:7), or that the life of Jesus is revealed when Paul and Timothy are
given over to death (4:10–11), or that Paul and Timothy’s outward wasting away
is matched by their more significant inner renewal (4:16). These people, Paul
writes, take pride in what is seen rather than what is in the heart (5:12) and so
they wrongly dismiss him and Timothy as imprudent (5:13). Essentially, they
know him only “according to flesh” (5:16).19
These conflicting assessments of Paul and Timothy, I suggest, are not only
the unifying focus of everything in 2:14–5:21 but also the reason for the “pre-
ventative concealment of flesh” interpretation of Moses’s veil that we find ex-
pressed in 3:13. Where Paul sees glory in his ministry, these people see shame.
And although Paul claims to be operating with complete transparency, there
are clear signs that not everyone in Corinth agrees. Accordingly, when Paul
writes that he and Timothy very confidently behave with openness (πολλῇ
παρρησίᾳ χρώμεθα) on account of their being even more glorious than Moses,
the Corinthian controversy immediately activates alternative perspectives.
Perhaps Paul and Timothy’s fleshly inadequacies should not be unashamedly
flaunted but rather kept discretely out of sight? And perhaps Paul and Timothy
are not being quite as transparent as they claim, but are in fact covering some-
thing up? Here the resonances with female veiling in the Greco-Roman world
are obvious, such that the “preventative concealing of flesh” interpretation
that Paul makes explicit in 2 Cor 3:13 resonates strongly with the veils worn by
respectable woman all around the Mediterranean.20 Perhaps, like a woman,
19 One suspects that Paul’s critics in Corinth saw their objections very differently. As I have
argued elsewhere (see Land, Integrity, passim), there are hints all around 2 Cor 2:14–5:21
that the objections to Paul’s leadership were focused on three interrelated things: (1) his
failure to return to Corinth; (2) his failure to deal personally with offending community
members; and (3) his preference for blustery letters rather than decisive action. They may
well have interpreted these leadership failings in relation to Paul’s bodily weaknesses,
much as there are signs in 1 Corinthians that Paul’s leadership inadequacies were inter-
preted in relation to his public speaking skills, but we almost certainly misconstrue their
real objections if we construe them (as Paul himself seems to do at times) almost entirely
in terms of physiognomy. Even Paul himself recognizes that there is more substance to
the criticisms than this, which is why he takes time in 2 Cor 1–2 and 2 Cor 7 to explain
his travel plans and letters and why he so vigorously attempts to contain the Corinthian
improprieties in both 1 and 2 Corinthians (and apparently in an earlier letter as well).
20 I am grateful to Cynthia Westfall for numerous insightful conversations regarding female
veiling in the ancient world. Her work on the Apostle Paul (see esp. Paul and Gender:
Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016])
shows a nuanced awareness of the semiotic ambiguity that surrounded women’s bodies

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Moses veiled to conceal himself, to prevent the sons of Israel from staring at his
flesh? And perhaps Paul is in some sense behaving likewise?
One possible objection to this reading is that there is no clear link between
the claim that Moses showed fleshly modesty and the debate surrounding
Paul’s own flesh, since Moses’s flesh was unequivocally glorious whereas Paul’s
flesh is being viewed in Corinth as a shameful liability. Why, one might ask,
would anyone think to draw a parallel between Moses obscuring his glorious
face and people demanding that Paul and Timothy stop leading the church in
Corinth on account of their shameful inadequacies? To my mind, this objec-
tion actually highlights the effectiveness of Paul’s rhetoric here, once we take
into account the complex assessments that surround female bodies not only
in the ancient world but still today. Historically speaking, the practice of fe-
male veiling for the sake of fleshly modesty has always been a double-edged
one, inasmuch as it implies that the female body is somehow both glorious
and shameful.21 So, when Paul invokes “the preventative obscuring of flesh”
in relation to ministerial conduct, he is able to do so in a way that is coherent
both for glorious flesh and for shameful flesh. Indeed, as with the earlier image
of the triumphal procession, the effectiveness of the veiling image hangs pre-
cisely on its ambiguous and perspectival nature, whereby the implications of
exposed flesh depend on the observer and the relevant frame of reference.22
It is also significant that female veiling was associated in the ancient world
and hence bodily coverings (including head coverings), and thus it provides one of the
clearest discussions of why Paul describes the woman’s hair as her “glory” while simulta-
neously describing its public exposure as “shameful.”
21 On the one hand, veiling is regarded as the modest obscuring of something beautiful and
glorious, such that the practice conveys a praiseworthy humility and the wearing of the
veil obtains positive social esteem for the respectable woman. Yet on the other hand, un-
veiled women are negatively regarded as immodest and shameful, the bodies they reveal
are cast as sexually available to observing men, and the veil ultimately serves as a public
manifestation of women’s inferior social status in relation to dominating men. Female
veiling thus enculturates a fascinating, tension-filled (and even contradictory) coming
together of the woman’s body as both honour and shame, in which the covering of the
woman’s body manifests her reduced status in society while simultaneously offering a
means of establishing some (limited) status and honour. For a recent discussion of the
tensions inherent in this complex cultural system, see Carly Daniel-Hughes, “‘Wear the
Armor of Your Shame!’: Debating Veiling and the Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of
Carthage,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 48 (2010): 179–201.
22 As with all semiotic systems, context is highly significant, with the result that the one
cannot determine the status of flesh that might be veiled apart from the social context
in which it is or is not kept hidden. Flesh that is regarded as glorious when veiled can be
regarded as shameful when inappropriately exposed, and flesh that is regarded as glori-
ous within one particular discourse can be regarded as shameful in another discourse by
the same author.

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274 Land
with negative assessments of “feminine nature,” whereby women were regard-

ed with suspicion as agents of concealment and deceit.23 Thus women were
made to conceal themselves, but also regarded with suspicion because of their
concealment. Here again, there are numerous resonances with the Corinthian
controversy, inasmuch as Paul’s critics find his fleshly inadequacies both obvi-
ous and shameful, while at the same time they accuse him of deceitfully trying
to conceal them!
A second possible objection to this reading of 2 Cor 3:13 is that none of Paul’s
critics in Corinth will have found this understanding of Moses’s veil to be a
convincing interpretation of Exod 34. But here we must take the next step and
recognize that these critics will have similarly rejected the earlier parallel be-
tween Moses’s ministry and Paul and Timothy’s even more glorious ministry.
Presumably, if only Paul sees his ministry as more glorious than that of Moses,
then only Paul would think to probe the example of Moses in order to deter-
mine whether he should manifest his glory-filled flesh openly or else hide his
weaknesses and inadequacies. Accordingly, it is Paul himself who is here en-
tertaining a “preventative concealing of flesh” reading of Exod 34. Moreover,
Paul is not entertaining this bizarre reading because anyone in the Corinthian
situation is likely to find it exegetically convincing. To the contrary, his rhetoric
works precisely because he expects his readers to quickly join him in reject-
ing the notion that Moses’s glorious flesh needed to be kept discretely out of
sight as something shameful to expose in public. Do people find Paul’s flesh so
embarrassing that they think he needs to hide it? Do they find his ministry so
imprudent that they want his leadership to cease? Do they think he is avoiding
controversy in Corinth by withdrawing himself and by hiding the truth? Well,
then, do they also think that Moses was like a woman who needed to cover up
in public, lest the sons of Israel should stare εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου?
What nonsense!
Sadly, it is a fact of history that many Christian readers have failed to recoil at
the notion that Moses needed to hide his face in shame, a fact that is exempli-
fied whenever interpreters understand the phrase τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου
to convey a deficiency in the glory of the Mosaic ministry. As numerous recent
23 As noted by Douglas Cairns, “Women’s veiling thus marks them out as potential vehicles
of dishonour…. This belongs with a more general association between women, conceal-
ment, deceit, and the occult (frequently figured in woman’s relation to the production
of textiles). Returning to Hesiod’s Theogony, we remember that woman came to exist
through deceit and manifested her own deceitful nature from the outset in her immedi-
ate need to be clothed and veiled” (D. L. Cairns, “The Meaning of the Veil in Ancient Greek
Culture,” in L. Llewellyn-Jones [ed.], Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World [London:
Duckworth, 2002], 73–93, here 80).

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interpreters have rightly insisted, even though Paul did see the “enduring” cov-
enant as somehow “more” than the “old” covenant which was not an “end” in it-
self (3:3–11), he also persisted in regarding Moses’s ministry as amazingly glori-
ous and would never have tolerated the suggestion that Christ’s glory is Moses’s
shame. Quite to the contrary, the logic of Paul’s argument presumes that Christ
was the true source of Moses’s glory, just as it presumes that Christ is the true
τέλος or “end” of Moses’s glorious ministry. If we miss this, we will run down all
manner of rabbit trails seeking to see the phrase τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου as
something other than an interpretative circumlocution for the glory of Christ
that made (and in hindsight still makes) Moses’s face (and covenant ministry)
glorious. For Paul, the question Did Moses veil in order to stop people from star-
ing at his flesh, in which was visible the eschatological “end” of his temporary but
nevertheless glorious ministry (i.e. the glory of Christ)? is parallel to the question
Does Paul veil in order to stop people from staring at his flesh, in which is visible
the source of his glorious ministry (i.e. the glory of Christ)? And for Paul, the
obvious answer is in both cases a resounding No! So ironically, whereas Paul’s
intention in entertaining the culturally outlandish idea of a shameful Mosaic
ministry was to dismiss out of hand the much more plausible notion that his
and Timothy’s own public ministry should be deemed shameful, Christian in-
terpreters have taken Paul’s glory for granted and then misunderstood him to
be asserting that Moses actually tried to hide the “end” of his glory.24
4 Not Shameful Hiding but Affronted Withdrawal from

Hard-Heartedness
As I have just argued, I think that Paul invokes a very odd and problematic
reading of the Sinai narrative in 2 Cor 3:13 specifically in order to reject the
“preventative concealing of flesh” both as an explanation of Moses’s veil and
as an explanation of the related veiling that characterizes his and Timothy’s
24 With reference to the depiction of Moses in Philo, Kooten observes, “Moses is not only
a spiritual hero; he is also a physical superstar and makes a powerful impression. The
Israelites are simply overwhelmed by Moses’ strength and well-being; they cannot ‘be-
lieve their eyes.’ It is the beauty of his face which makes an impact on them” (Kooten,
“Moses’ Shining Face,” 166.). Similarly, “Moses’ inward growth affects his outward condi-
tion; he increases in strength (ἰσχύς) and well-being (εὐεξία). As a result, he ‘descended
with a countenance far more beautiful than when he ascended (κατέβαινε πολὺ καλλίων
τὴν ὄψιν ἢ ὅτε νῄει)’” (Kooten, “Moses’ Shining Face,” 166.). Given the patriarchal nature of
the ancient world, there is nothing that would have prompted ancient people to see as
shameful the exposure of such a glorious male countenance.

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276 Land
own ministry. In this section I will explore the manner in which Paul presents
an alternative explanation of ministerial veiling in v. 14. For convenience, I will
call this alternative explanation of the veil the “reactive affronted withdrawal”
reading. Whereas the “preventative concealing of flesh” reading aligns with
the view that Paul’s ministry is shameful, the “reactive affronted withdrawal”
reading aligns with the view that those who take issue with Paul’s ministry are
hard-hearted and unable to see the divine glory in the flesh of God’s servants.
I will begin by considering the use of οὐ and ἀλλά in 2 Cor 3:13–14. Second
Corinthians is replete with examples in which these two particles are used for
rejection and replacement. In each case, Paul, having negated one or more
proposals or propositions, introduces by means of ἀλλά (‘rather’) one or more
alternative proposals or propositions that serve to counter or correct the re-
jected one(s).25 Historically speaking, however, interpreters have not treated
the occurrences of οὐ and ἀλλά in 2 Cor 3:13–14 as indicating rejection and re-
placement, but have adopted alternative explanations.26 They have pursued
alternative explanations, I suggest, because they have assumed from the start
that Paul’s logic involves the following propositions:
(Negated) Proposition A: Paul and Timothy act like Moses, who wore a veil
so that the sons of Israel did not stare εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου (v. 13);
Proposition B: The Israelites’ minds were hardened (v. 14).
Since it is difficult to treat Proposition B as directly countering or correcting

the negated Proposition A, interpreters have generally chosen not to relate
the corrective/contrastive meaning of the ἀλλά in v. 14 back to the οὐ in v. 13.
Instead, the ἀλλά in v. 14 is said to signal a contrast with something either as-
sumed in Proposition A or inferred from it, or else the presence of a contrast is
denied altogether.27
25 For a basic introduction to this usage with examples, see Steven E. Runge, Discourse
Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), 56, 92–100.
26 Matera observes that “the strong adversative clause … has always been somewhat puz-
zling to commentators” and that many commentators (correctly, in my opinion) “view
this clause as Paul’s way of highlighting the responsibility of the people and downplaying
Moses’ behavior of veiling his face” (Matera, II Corinthians, 93). This shows that interpret-
ers have rightly understood the discourse function of the clause that opens 2 Cor 3:14,
even if they have not been able to see it as a replacement of something negated in the
preceding verse.
27 Duff (Moses in Corinth, 181–82) astutely asks, “Since he employs ἀλλά here rather than
any of the [alternative] choices, most scholars have understood that term as conveying

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The problem here, I suggest, is that interpreters have uniformly assumed

that Paul’s negation in 2 Cor 3:13 has as its focus an attested practice of Mosaic
veiling. But what if its focus is actually a possible reason for that attested practice
(πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου)?28 Once
we allow for this possibility, the ἀλλά clause in 3:14 can be seen to introduce a
proposition that very plainly corrects what is wrong in v. 13:
(Negated) Proposition A: Moses wore a veil so that the sons of Israel did
not stare εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου;
Proposition B: [Moses wore a veil because] the Israelites’ minds were

hardened.
On this reading, Paul introduces the spiritual condition of the Israelites using
ἀλλά because it provides an alternative explanation for Moses’s veil, produc-
ing a logic that is both straightforward and contextually relevant. Two things
follow, however. First, the negation in v. 13 has nothing to do with Paul and
true adversative force. In other words, they have interpreted the initial phrase of 3:14 …
as providing some kind of correction of 3:13. But, what could Paul have been correcting?”
After discussing some proposals, however, Duff decides not to view ἀλλά as adversative:
“Instead of understanding 3:14a as a correction of 3:13b, it would be more accurate to view
it as a supplement. The opening ἀλλά should then be understood in a progressive rather
than adversative sense, perhaps best translated something like ‘furthermore’” (p. 184). It
is striking that interpreters are so quick to see a contrast between v. 12 and v. 13, such that
Paul simply must be contrasting his own openness with Moses’s use of a veil, when v. 13
is marked only for continuity by means of καί. Then, when there is explicit discontinuity
signaled between vv. 13 and 14 by means of ἀλλά, interpreters attempt to minimize or deny
it altogether!
28 Guthrie (2 Corinthians, 222) suggests with regard to the ἀλλά in 2 Cor 3:14 that “the con-
trast is with what would have been if the Israelites had been afforded a sustained view
of the glory on Moses’s face.” This entails that the hardness of the Israelites was some-
how (even if only indirectly) caused by Moses’s veiling, such that the veil is not merely
evidence of the people’s hardness and thus emblematic of their hardness but an (ad-
mittedly unfortunate) contribution to the people’s hardness and thus an emblem of the
incompleteness of the “old covenant” ministry. The implication, then, would be that Paul
is unveiled, and that his unveiled “new covenant” ministry is gradually removing the hard-
ness that resulted from Israel not seeing the glory and hence not experiencing the telos of
Moses’s ministry. My main reservation with this reading is its failure to follow what I see
as rather clear signals in the text, notably the use of οὐ to negate a perspective that sees
a cause-effect relation between Moses’s physical veil and the people’s imperception, the
use of ἀλλά to introduce an alternative cause of their imperception, and the use of γάρ
to introduce an elaborating explanation that shifts the ostensible cause of the people’s
imperception away from Moses and onto the people themselves.

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278 Land
Timothy being distinguished from Moses and everything to do with the stated
reason for Moses’s veil. Second, there must have been something in Paul’s con-
duct in relation to Corinth that others saw as a veiled concealment, otherwise
we have no good explanation for Paul’s decision to entertain this very odd “pre-
ventative obscuring of flesh” interpretation of Moses’s veil. Here again, there-
fore, I find that Paul’s discourse only makes sense on the assumption that Paul
and Timothy are, throughout, understood to be veiled in some sense, with the
point of the entire discussion of Moses and Exod 34 being to clarify in what way
they are veiled and to whom.
An interesting consequence as regards Paul use of Exodus here is that Paul’s
handling of the narrative becomes very straightforward, involving no surpris-
ing exegetical maneuvers. The veil ceases to be Moses’s attempt to stop the
people from seeing the christological and christotelic glory of his ministry and
becomes instead an affronted reaction to the people’s sin.29 But does this “reac-
tive affronted withdrawal” reading make good sense given the cultural signifi-
cance of veiling in the Greco-Roman world? Actually, it does. But whereas the
“preventative concealing of flesh” reading has its strongest associations with
female veiling and hence bodily glory/shame, Paul’s replacement of that read-
ing has its strongest associations with veiled withdrawal as a response to public
rejection or humiliation. In exploring this practice, Douglas Cairns has demon-
strated that the response of veiled withdrawal was in the ancient world both
coherent and yet multivalent, such that veiled withdrawal could simultane-
ously acknowledge a social humiliation and yet frame it as an inappropriate
affront.30 He cites a clear example from Herodotus 6.67:
Demaratus left Sparta for exile among the Medes as a result of the fol-
lowing insult. After he was deposed from the kingship, he was elected to
serve as an official. It was the time of the Gymnopaidiai, Demaratus was
29 As observed by Duane A. Garrett (“Veiled Hearts: The Translation and Interpretation of
2 Corinthians 3,” JETS 53 [2010]: 729–72, here 758–59), “This ἀλλά tells us that, contrary to
appearances, the veil was the result, not the cause, of the Israelites’ blindness.”
30 After observing with reference to Greek literature that “Hippolytus … veiled his head on
becoming the recipient of … unwanted attentions” and that “men regularly veil out of em-
barrassment, shame at their own actions … etc.”—observations that clearly demonstrate
the potential for male veiling as an embodiment of sexual modesty or shame—Cairns
proceeds to observe that “men (like women) also veil in other emotional scenarios in
which honour and propriety are in question, for example to express grief or anger.” He
concludes: “Clearly, these scenarios are not to be sharply distinguished.… All three emo-
tions (αἰδώς [‘respect, modesty, shame’], anger, and grief) involve self-consciousness and
self-protection, and all focus on one’s vulnerability as an individual for whom interaction
in the public arena has suddenly become problematic” (Cairns, “Meaning of the Veil,” 75).

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in the audience, and Leotychidas, now king in his place, as a joke and an
insult, sent his servant to ask Demaratus what it was like to hold office
after being king. He was grieved by the question and said that he had ex-
perience of both, while Leotychidas did not, but that this question would
be the beginning of either immense evil or immense good fortune for
the Lacedaemonians. Having said this, he covered his head, left the theatre,
and went home. Then he immediately made preparations and sacrificed
an ox to Zeus, and, having sacrificed it, summoned his mother.31
Discussing some additional examples of veiled withdrawal in Greek literature,

Cairns concludes:
What the veiling of Demeter and the literary and artistic depictions of a
veiled Achilles demonstrate is that veiling as a response to an affront is
not merely an expression of the occurrent feeling of mortification caused
by public humiliation; it can also constitute a means of conveying a sus-
tained refusal to engage in social interaction which amounts to a strategy
designed to highlight and retaliate against the original offence and which
thus bears the closest comparison with the phenomenon of withdrawal
as a means of registering one’s anger.32
This discussion, I suggest, resonates very strongly with the ways in which Paul
develops the veil of Moses, such that we can place Moses’s reaction to the
golden calf incident alongside the examples from Greek literature. If Moses’s
veiled withdrawal was an implicit condemnation of the people of Israel for
their hard-hearted rejection of both his leadership and of the commandments
of God, then Moses’s veil becomes a useful image for both the manner in which
Paul has treated the Corinthian congregation by means of his altered travels
plans and harshly worded letters. It also serves as an image for the way he wants
his readers to treat his critics, and for the way he and Timothy respond “at the
public reading of the old covenant” when people reject their claims about the
τέλος of Moses’s glorious ministry and—even more so—its κατάργησις.33
31 As cited in D. Cairns, “Anger and the Veil in Ancient Greek Culture,” Greece and Rome 48
(2001): 18–32, here 18 (italics mine).
32 Cairns, “Anger and the Veil,” 21.
33 I will leave it to my readers to ponder the similarities between this veiling image and Paul’s
statements elsewhere about his controversial gospel mission (e.g. Rom 11) or Luke’s depic-
tion of Paul’s missionary practices in Acts. There are also resonances with the Gospel
instruction to “shake the dust from one’s feet” and with the general Christian insistence
that anger be expressed non-violently. To cite Cairns at greater length,

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280 Land
5 Inferential Constructions and the Denial of Possible Inferences
So far, I have avoided making any precise claims about the syntactic status of
the negated καθάπερ clause in 2 Cor 3:13, observing only that its proposition
fits best into the logic of the discourse as something that Paul wishes to deny,
with the focus of this denial being the purported purpose ascribed to Moses’s
veil. The next matter to consider, therefore, is how the negated comparative
construction in vv. 12–13 functions linguistically. Specifically, is my reading of
3:13 linguistically plausible, and if so, why have previous interpreters not con-
sidered it? In this section, I will present some recent linguistic work on infer-
ential constructions and will demonstrate that comparative subordinators are
exploited by many languages, including Greek, as a means of introducing (and
in many cases rejecting) contextually-relevant inferences. In the next section,
I will discuss the pragmatic ambiguity of the grammar in 2 Cor 3:12–13 and will
suggest why my proposed interpretation has for so long been left unconsidered.
Inferential constructions have become the object of deliberate linguistic
inquiry only fairly recently, with the bulk of the relevant literature appear-
ing within the past several decades.34 They have been given limited attention
because they are relatively infrequent, but there are additional complications
as well. On the one hand, the syntactic status of inferential constructions re-
mains an active debate, and it can be reasonably suggested that the category
should be treated as a discourse function performed by means of a variety of
“Veiling and withdrawal are … not the only ways of visually communicating anger;
they contrast with more confrontational and aggressive forms of visual communication.
All such strategies involve a threatened sanction against the offender, but they also carry
a risk for the individual who implements the strategy: visual cut-off is a (more or less) pas-
sive reaction which stresses one’s own victimhood and the other’s breach of co-operation;
its sanction is the end of the relationship, the loss of the victim as a future co-operative
partner; it is in some ways more attractive than the more aggressive strategy, in so far as it
leaves a greater number of options open (repair of the breach in the relationship, punish-
ment of the offender by ending the relationship, other forms of retaliation in future), but
the risk it entails is that of isolation and humiliation, should the sanction prove to carry
no weight with the offender or if the aggression-blocking response is felt by others to
manifest an insufficient degree of self-respect” (Cairns, “Anger and the Veil,” 27).
34 Delahunty cites a 1979 paper on the Japanese no desu construction as the first extended
discussion of an inferential (Gerald P. Delahunty, “Discourse Functions of Inferential
Sentences,” Linguistics 39 [2001]: 517–45, here 521). In their 2011 paper on English inferen-
tials, Calude and Delahunty observe that “we know surprisingly little about inferentials
despite their cross-linguistic pervasiveness” (Andreea S. Calude and Gerald P. Delahunty,
“Inferentials in Spoken English,” Pragmatics 21 [2011]: 307–40, here 308).

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grammatical constructions.35 On the other hand, the only partially-formulaic

nature of inferential constructions has made it all but impossible to automate
the task of locating them in digital corpora.36
Typologically speaking, inferential constructions have been documented in
many different languages, leading some linguists to speculate that they are a
linguistic universal.37 Although their formal characteristics differ between lan-
guages, there is a common pattern involving two parts. There is always a focal
clause, which is usually marked by a subordinator (i.e. complementizer) and
35 Some linguists regard them as a type of cleft (e.g. Declerck, Delahunty, Koops). Others see
them as copular constructions but not of the cleft variety (e.g. Heggie). Others regard them
as extrapositives (e.g. Collins, Schmid). Still others regard them as discourse markers (e.g.
Pusch, Fraser). For general discussion, see Andreea S. Calude and Gerald P. Delahunty,
“Inferentials: Fixed or Not?” Token 1 (2012): 59–83, here 60. Elsewhere, Calude and
Delahunty write: “In order to draw a line between inferentials and noninferentials, most
analyses … appear to hinge on formal properties of the constructions, that is, the pres-
ence of the non-referential it, a copula, and some kind of subordinate clause. However,
these semantically bleached elements may be replaced by semantically richer items (with
more referential content) or may be modified [e.g. It appears that or It looks like]. When
this happens, it becomes unclear what kind of construction we are dealing with” (Calude
and Delahunty, “Inferentials in Spoken English,” 318 n. 7). In terms of my own view in the
present essay, I employ a broad definition of inferential constructions that encompasses
any grammatical construction capable of explicitly framing some inferred proposition as
a construal that is potentially relevant to the coherence of the immediate discourse and/
or situation.
36 Calude and Delahunty observe that “their elements occur in a wide range of construc-
tions making it impossible to specify a search string that would uniquely identify them”
(Calude and Delahunty, “Inferentials in Spoken English,” 312). They go on to explain that
“the element that is not always present since other subordinators may be used, or none at
all (e.g., It was not like he even cared about her, It is just I hadn’t seen her for ages), and the
copula may be accompanied by modifiers (adverbs, modal verbs, or negation). Moreover,
expressions which [first appear] to be suitable candidates as inferentials …[can be] sim-
ply ambiguous…. Such factors make it impossible to automate the search for inferentials.”
37 Delahunty argues concerning this construction that “it appears to be universal”
(Gerald P. Delahunty, “The Inferential Construction,” Pragmatics 5 [1995]: 341–64, here
341). To date, inferentials have been documented in Akan, English, French, German,
Irish, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swahili (see Thomas Bearth,
“Inferential and Counter-Inferential Grammatical Markers in Swahili Dialogue,” AAP 51
[1997]: 1–22; Thomas Bearth, “The Inferential Gap Condition,” Pragmatics 9 [1999]: 249–
80; Gerald Delahunty and Laura Gatzkiewicz, “On the Spanish Inferential Construction
ser que,” Pragmatics 10 [2000]: 301–22; Delahunty, “Discourse Functions,” as cited in Calude
and Delahunty, “Inferentials in Spoken English,” 308; see also Claus D. Pusch, “Marqueurs
discursifs et subordination syntaxique: La construction inférentielle en français et dans
d’autres langues romanes,” in Martina Drescher and Barbara Frank-Job [eds.], Les mar-
queurs discursifs dans les langues romanes: Approches théoriques et méthodologiques [New
York: Peter Lang, 2006], 173–88).

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which supplies a proposition that is in focus, and there is frequently a matrix

clause, which can vary considerably. Functionally, inferentials serve to intro-
duce into a discourse whatever proposition is expressed by the focal clause,
with the use of different subordinators and different matrices allowing for the
proposition to be introduced in diverse ways. The constructions are called in-
ferential because their discourse function is to make explicit a proposition that
might be inferred from something in the immediate context, perhaps as an
unstated premise or as a logical implication. It follows that inferentials are a
means of drawing explicit attention to the interpretive processes at work in
a discourse. Apart from the matrix clause and/or the subordinator, the focal
clause is merely a contextually-relevant construal of reality; on account of the
matrix clause and/or the subordinator, however, the focal clause is explicitly
framed as a contextually-relevant construal of reality. This draws attention to
the process of interpretation and to potential pragmatic implicatures, so that
possible inferences can be considered, confirmed, or denied.
In modern English, the basic and most common inferential construction
is found in both positive and negative forms, with both forms employing the
subordinator that and the so-called expletive it.38
(1) It’s not that he hates the press the way Nixon did, it’s just that he is
insensitive to the press’ role in our society.
In example (1), there are two focal clauses, each of which advances a proposi-
tion (he hates the press the way Nixon did, and he is insensitive to the press’ role in
our society) marked by a subordinator (that). There are also two matrices, each
of which employs some modality (It’s not, and It’s just). This is only the tip of
the proverbial iceberg, however. As the following examples reveal, a great deal
of variety is possible with inferential constructions. Indeed, as I have already
mentioned, it is a key characteristic of inferential constructions that they are
not entirely formulaic but only partially so.39 There are countless ways to intro-
duce a focal proposition for consideration as a possible interpretive inference
drawn from something in the context.
38 Many of the English examples have been taken from Delahunty, “Inferential Construction.”
39 Calude and Delahunty write: “[Inferentials] are partially formulaic: they are lexically
limited, situationally bound, relatively frequent (compared to other lexical bundles) and
serve a specific discourse function. However, they are not (perhaps, yet) fully established
‘fixed formulae’ since they are semantically transparent, compositional, and non-fluent”
(Calude and Delahunty, “Inferentials in Spoken English,” 310).

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(2) It isn’t only that I’m nosey.

(3) It may be that he lacks some forms of imagination.
(4) Could it be that you left the keys in your office?
(5) It’s as if she just doesn’t care.
(6) It seems like he’s having a rough go of it.
(7) Are you saying it’s my fault?
The last of these examples is perhaps not the type of wording that would usually
be considered an inferential construction, but it seems to me that it manifests
the same basic discourse properties and thus exposes the syntactic broadness
of what is essentially a pragmatic category. Really, the main distinguishing fac-
tor in inferentials is that some inferred construal of reality is explicitly framed
as such by some grammatical means, with the construal being potentially rel-
evant as an interpretation of something in the immediate context. This can
be accomplished by means of a matrix clause (e.g. It is …, It seems …, Are you
saying …, etc.), by means of a subordinator (e.g. that, as if, like, etc.), or by both
means (e.g. It’s that …, It seems like …, You talk as though …, etc.).
Before we consider the syntactic variety that characterizes Hellenistic Greek
inferentials, it is important to observe from the linguistic literature that there
are certain distributional patterns that are specifically associated with negative
inferential constructions. Most notably, it is very common for negative inferen-
tials to be followed by: (a) another independent inferential; (b) another focal
clause within the same matrix; or (c) a positive, non-inferential construction
that is preceded by a contrastive conjunction.
(8) It was not that I felt we had to avoid the Winters at that moment; it
was just that it was raining.
(9) It is not that what is denied must first have been asserted, or that
positive facts are more real or more basic than negative ones, but
simply that knowledge of a positive fact counts for more than
knowledge of a negative one.
(10) It is not that mamma cares about it least in the world, but I know it
is taken notice of by many persons.
As is now well-documented, this distribution can be explained with reference

to the discourse function that negative inferentials perform. They consistently
follow a discourse context of some kind, and they serve to explain or support
that preceding context in some way by rejecting an unhelpful inference so that

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284 Land
a preferable one can be introduced in its place.40 Regarding this discourse pat-
tern, Delahunty writes:
Many [inferential] sequences may be analysed as composed of three

parts. The first part consists of a context which prompts a denial from the
speaker; the second (which may be a negative inferential) rejects a propo-
sition as either not true or not locally relevant; and the third … introduces
a proposition which contrasts with the second in being presented by the
speaker as true or relevant, or provides the narrator’s reasons for rejecting
the proposition in the second part. In all cases the interpretation of the
inferential requires reference to the local context.41
I have already demonstrated, I think, that from a discourse analytic perspec-

tive, this description makes very good sense of the progression found in
2 Cor 3:12–14. Paul first invokes 2 Cor 3:4–11 (ἔχοντες οὖν τοιαύτην ἐλπίδα) and
asserts the public boldness of his and Timothy’s proclamation (πολλῇ παρρησίᾳ
χρώμεθα), a boldness which is perfectly justified given that their Spirit-ministry
is even more glorious than the letter-ministry of Moses, whose radiant face
could not be looked upon by the Israelites (v. 12). Paul then employs a negative
inferential construction to reject the possible counter-suggestion that he and
Timothy are actually, like Moses, withdrawn (i.e. veiled) so as to conceal them-
selves (v. 13). Finally, Paul advances an alternative interpretation of ministerial
veiling, insisting that it has nothing to do with the effectiveness or prudence
of God’s servants but is instead an affronted, withdrawing response to people’s
hardness of heart (v. 14a). Pragmatically, therefore, 2 Cor 3:13 seems to function
in precisely the way that linguists describe negative inferential constructions.42
40 Declerck suggests that inferentials are used to supply the “correct interpretation” of
something that precedes (Renaat Declerck, “The Inferential it is that-Construction and
Its Congeners,” Lingua 87 [1992]: 203–30, here 206). More precisely, Delahunty writes that
“Inferentials occur when a speaker believes (or at least wishes to act as if s/he believed)
that an addressee might process an utterance in a context of assumptions other than
those intended by the speaker” (Delahunty, “Discourse Functions,” 540). Elsewhere, he
writes “the negative inferential denies some proposition relevant to the context, while
the following sentence asserts an alternative proposition with the same relationship to
the context” (Delahunty, “Inferential Construction,” 346).
41 Delahunty, “Inferential Construction,” 347.
42 Consider, for comparison, the following argumentative sequences:
“2 Cor 1:23–24: (1) ‘I call on God as witness against me: it was to spare you that I did
not come again to Corinth’ (statement); (2) ‘Not that we lord it over your faith’ (denial of
wrongheaded inference); (3) ‘Rather, we are workers with you for your joy, because you
stand firm in the faith’ (alternative inference).

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Turning from pragmatic function to syntactic structure, what can be said

about the grammar of Greek inferentials? It can immediately be noted that
Greek does not have a precise parallel to the English expletive it and that Greek
is far more accepting of verbless constructions in general. This is likely why
the most immediately recognizable inferential construction in Greek employs
only the negative particle οὐ and a focal clause marked by the subordinator
ὅτι, eschewing the use of a matrix clause altogether.43 To date, biblical schol-
ars have not described these as inferential constructions, but they have often
translated them using English inferentials. The NRSV, for instance, translates
the οὐχ ὅτι construction in 2 Cor 3:5 using the so-called phonologically reduced
English inferential not that, so that the verse is rendered: “Not that we are com-
petent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is
from God.”44 This example is both formally and functionally a clear example of
a Greek inferential construction.
What about inferential constructions like the English It’s (not) as though,
It’s (not) as if, and It’s (not) like?45 These English expressions use comparative
subordinators in order to signal a correspondence, and then they co-opt that
correspondence as a kind of modality, so that whereas a simple inferential as-
serts or denies that the immediately relevant context permits a given inference
(It’s that it’s too hot; It’s not that it’s too hot), a comparative inferential merely
2 Cor 3:4: (1) Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God (statement);
(2) Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us (denial of
wrongheaded inference); (3) Rather, our competence is from God (alternative inference).
2 Cor 3:12–13: (1) We act with great boldness (statement); (2) And not like Moses put a
veil over his face so that the people of Israel did not stare εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου
(denial of wrongheaded inference); (3) Rather, their minds were hardened (alternative
inference).”
43 Sometimes, scholars have suggested that there is an implied verb in these sorts of con-
structions (e.g. BDAG, which suggests “οὐχ ὅτι (=οὐ λέγω ὅτι)” [p. 732]), but it is better to
recognize their idiomatic nature.
44 An interesting discussion surrounds the use of reduced not that constructions in English,
with some linguists rejecting the idea that they are inferentials (e.g. Calude and Delahunty,
“Inferentials in Spoken English,” 309). A key point at issue is the potential for insincerity
that characterizes many such uses, with the infamous Seinfeld line Not that there’s any-
thing wrong with that being a well-worn example. Because this debate is relevant mostly
for the translation of Greek inferentials, I will not wade into it here.
45 Calude and Delahunty observe that these constructions are “somewhat more distant
from the canonical inferential,” but they grant that they should be treated as inferentials
“because their meanings and discourse properties are similar to those of canonical infer-
entials and their differences from canonical inferentials are predictable from the mean-
ings of as if and like” (Calude and Delahunty, “Fixed or Not,” 63). As mentioned above, I am
working here with quite a broad definition of inferentials, such that these constructions
fit comfortably within my category.

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286 Land
asserts or denies that the immediately relevant context resembles a context

that would permit that inference (It’s like it’s too hot; It’s not like it’s too hot).46 In
essence, comparative inferential constructions introduce a focal proposition
as a contextually-relevant construal of reality that might be worth entertain-
ing, but they employ a comparative subordinator so as to explicitly prevent the
hearer or reader from supposing that any direct logical connection is being as-
serted between the actual context and the proposed construal.47 Accordingly,
when a comparative inferential is negated, the contextually-relevant construal
in the focal clause is very strongly distanced from the speaker. This is why, in
the case of (11), the possibility exists that the focal proposition is true from the
speaker’s point of view, albeit not the appropriate inference in the immediate
discourse context, whereas in (11b), this cannot be the case. In essence, the
comparative and negative combine in the latter example in order to strongly
distance the focal proposition from the speaker.
(11) it’s not that they NEED someone [although perhaps they do] it’s
just they’re just doing it as a favour because susannah’s a mate
(11b) it’s not like they NEED someone [because clearly they don’t] it’s
just they’re just doing it as a favour because susannah’s a mate
Turning again to Hellenistic Greek, it would seem that the language does in-
deed employ comparative subordinators in inferential constructions. Consider,
for example, Paul’s use of οὐχ οἷον as a negative inferential in Rom 9:6.
(12) Οὐχ οἷον δὲ ὅτι ἐκπέπτωκεν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ‘It is not as though the
word of God had failed.’
Although scholars have never labelled this an inferential construction, they

have long recognized what Paul is doing, as is clear from the NRSV’s use of
the English inferential It is not as though in its rendering of this verse. In
context, Paul wishes not only to deny that the focal proposition is the most
46 For the purposes of the present essay, I am using the phrase comparative particles to mean
simply ‘uninflecting lexemes whose meaning involves some element of comparison.’ I am
not presupposing any traditional part of speech, nor do I mean to imply the existence of
a linguistically- or typologically-significant word class.
47 In discussing the like-inferential, Calude and Delahunty suggest (along similar but slight-
ly different lines) that “the proposition represented by the clause introduced by like is to
be interpreted as, to one degree or another, resembling a proposition from which relevant
contextual effects would follow. Crucially, the proposition represented by the inferential
clause … is not a proposition assumed by the speaker; it merely resembles some such
proposition” (Calude and Delahunty, “Inferentials in Spoken English,” 332 n. 10).

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contextually-appropriate inference, but also to convey explicitly that he does

not affirm it. Similarly, but with slightly different syntax, Acts 28:19 denies a
possible construal of Paul’s motives in appealing to Caesar.
(13) ἀντιλεγόντων δὲ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἠναγκάσθην ἐπικαλέσασθαι Καίσαρα οὐχ

ὡς τοῦ ἔθνους μου ἔχων τι κατηγορεῖν ‘With the Jews objecting, I was
compelled to appeal to the emperor—not as though I had some
charge to bring against my nation.’
Here again, the negative combines with the comparative subordinator ὡς in

order to ensure that the content of the participial clause is pragmatically inter-
preted not simply as an incorrect explanation of Paul’s conduct but as some-
thing entirely untrue.
6 “And We Don’t Act Like Moses Put a Veil over His Face to Prevent
the Sons of Israel from Staring …”
Turning now to the construction in 2 Cor 3:13 that is the topic of this essay, I
can articulate with greater clarity the nature of the ambiguity that is latent
in Paul’s words. Syntactically, it is clear that the entire clause beginning with
καθάπερ is being negated, and that this negated clause in some way relates to
the contents of the preceding verse. Depending on how one wishes to treat
the relationship between the phrase πολλῇ παρρησίᾳ and the negated καθάπερ
clause, however, two different syntactic analyses are possible.48 According to
one analysis, the καί that opens v. 13 conjoins πολλῇ παρρησίᾳ and the negated
καθάπερ clause so that they comprise the two parts of a single discontinuous
adjunct (‘So then, we conduct ourselves very openly and not like Moses wore
a veil so that …’).49 According to an alternative analysis, there is a syntactically
48 Some have suggested that we should infer ellipsis of τίθεμεν. Georg Benedikt Winer
(A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek: Regarded as a Sure Basis for New
Testament Exegesis [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1882], 728 n. 1), for instance, cites this type
of ellipsis as “a species of attraction,” proposing that the reader should read οὐ…τίθεμεν
κάλυμμα ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπον ἡμῶν. Other readings infer wording that is not explicit any-
where in the immediate context. Ralph P. Martin (2 Corinthians [WBC 40; Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2014], 210), for example, proposes that “the link with v 12 is broken syntacti-
cally, and so we may add a verb: ‘but [it is with us] not as [it was] with Moses.’”
49 Similar constructions abound: e.g., δουλεύειν ἡμᾶς ἐν καινότητι πνεύματος καὶ οὐ παλαιότητι
γράμματος (Rom 7:6); ἧς ἔδωκεν ὁ κύριος εἰς οἰκοδομὴν καὶ οὐκ εἰς καθαίρεσιν ὑμῶν (2 Cor 10:8);
ἦν γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν (Matt 7:29). This
is arguably the preferred analysis were we to consider the wording of 2 Cor 3:13 in isola-
tion from v. 14. If the latter portion of v. 13 is recognized as a negative inferential with a

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288 Land
significant pause after the verb χρώμεθα, with the result that the καί in v. 13 in-
troduces an independent construction parallel with the one in v. 12, picking up
the verb of the preceding clause via ellipsis (‘So then, we act very openly. And
[we do] not [act] like Moses wore a veil so that …’).50 In the end, since both
analyses treat the negated καθάπερ clause as an adjunct in relation to the verb
χρώμεθα, the pragmatic issues as regards v. 13 are essentially the same regard-
less of which analysis is preferred. The difference between conjoined adjuncts
and conjoined clauses becomes relevant in v. 14, however, in that it has bearing
on the οὐ…ἀλλά construction as a means of rejection and replacement. Overall,
the elliptical analysis has the advantage of making the οὐ…ἀλλά construction
between v. 13 and v. 14 more natural, making this analysis the preferred one if
we take vv. 13–14 as involving a negative inferential construction.
This brings us to the nub of the issue. Why, if v. 13 has the potential to be
a negative inferential, have interpreters failed to treat it as one? According to
both the traditional interpretations and my own, Paul is establishing some kind
of connection between a proposition concerning Moses’s veiling (i.e. that he
veiled so that the Israelites did not stare) and an assertion concerning Paul and
Timothy’s ministry (i.e. that they are very bold and transparent). The two in-
terpretations draw entirely different conclusions about Paul’s meaning, how-
ever, because they make different initial decisions regarding the truthfulness of
what is said about Moses’s practice of veiling (see Table 13.1). Pragmatically, if the
καθάπερ clause in 2 Cor 3:13 is treated as a proposition that Paul and his readers
both accept as true, then Paul is insisting that his and Timothy’s behaviour is not
like the veiling of Moses. But if the καθάπερ clause in 2 Cor 3:13 is interpreted as
a proposition that Paul and his readers will dismiss as untrue (for instance, on
account of the bizarre explanation it assigns to the veil), then Paul is likely deny-
ing a mistaken inference drawn on the basis of faulty assumptions.
corresponding corrective in v. 14, however, this analysis produces a slight awkwardness,

since the clause beginning with ἀλλά now corrects only half of a complex grammatical
adjunct. The same sort of issue has prompted the editors of the Nestle-Aland text to insert
commas in 2 Cor 1:12: ἐν ἁπλότητι καὶ εἰλικρινείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ἐν σοφίᾳ σαρκικῇ ἀλλ᾿ ἐν
χάριτι θεοῦ, ἀνεστράφημεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. In general, the presence of an οὐ…ἀλλά contrast
implies that the relevant wordings are syntactically parallel.
50 There is a similar clarifying elaboration supplied using καί with οὐ…ἀλλά in Irenaeus,
Haer. 1.1.7 (SC 264:66), albeit with no wording inferred from before the καί and with a
much more typical use of καθάπερ: ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ δὲ τὰ πάντα. καὶ οὐ καθάπερ ἡ μήτηρ αὐτῆς,
ἡ πρώτη Σοφία Αἰών, ἑτεροίωσιν ἐν τοῖς πάθεσιν εἶχεν, ἀλλὰ ἐναντιότητα (‘But all of these
were enveloped in ignorance. In these passions, however, she did not suffer a change as
her mother, the first Wisdom and Aeon; no, her nature was opposed to knowledge’ [ACW
55:31]). As in this passage, taking Paul’s καί in 2 Cor 3:13 as the introduction of a clarifying
contrast allows for a more straightforward reading of the οὐ…ἀλλά in vv. 13 and 14.

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Table 13.1 Two pragmatic interpretations of the syntax in 2 Cor 3:13
Interpretive parameter Traditional reading Inferential reading
The truthfulness of the The proposition is true, The proposition is untrue,

proposition regarding albeit unattested and being inconsistent with
Moses’s veiling. hence innovative. both the Sinai narrative and
the immediately preceding
observations regarding Moses’s
glory and the people’s inability
to look intently upon it.
The subordinate status It signals that the clause It signals that the clause is not
of the clause beginning contains additional something Paul asserts, but
Μωϋσῆς ἐτίθει κάλυμμα. information about the rather a construal of reality
behaviour asserted in that the reader must somehow
the main clause. integrate into the logic of the
unfolding discourse.
The lexical It signals that the It creates greater modal
contribution of proposition regarding distance between Paul and the
καθάπερ as involving Moses’s veiling clarifies proposition regarding Moses’s
“comparison.” the manner in which veiling than would be the
Paul and Timothy case if something like ὅτι were
behave. used.
The negation. The comparison is The subordinate clause is
negated because Paul negated because Paul wishes
and Timothy do not to deny the inference that it
behave as did Moses. introduces into the discourse.
7 Colloquial Καθάπερ
So far in this essay, I have made a number of observations about the English
particle like. I do not mean to suggest by this, of course, that the Greek of
2 Cor 3:13 can be plausibly interpreted as a denial simply because a wooden
English glossing of the passage is open to such an interpretation. The fact is,
however, that it was a very wooden English glossing that first allowed me to set
aside the established patterns of interpretation in order to perceive a possible
alternative. In mulling over the logic of Paul’s argument, I found myself con-
tinually coming back to parallels like the following.

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(14) He … acts like God took his mother just to make him miserable.
(Corpus of Contemporary American English)
(15) We act … like Moses put a veil over his face so that the Israelites did
not stare εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου.
(15b) We act very openly. And not like Moses put a veil over his face so
that the Israelites did not stare εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου.
In (14), there is no ambiguity, because the grammatical subject He will not

be understood to cause the death of other people, and certainly not with the
stated purpose (i.e. to make himself miserable). Indeed, the only possible cor-
respondence that makes sense is between the manner of the man’s behaviour
and what would be expected given the truth of the (untrue) proposition that
God took his mother to make him miserable. By way of contrast, ambiguity
arises in (15) and (15b) because these wordings make plausible sense irrespec-
tive of whether one accepts or rejects the proposition that Moses veiled so that
the Israelites did not stare.
My suspicion is that Christian readers, although they can quickly spot the
“imaginary correspondence” in the English of (14) and will perhaps admit the
same interpretive possibility in (15), will not—unless primed using a series of
parallel sentences like this—see the interpretive ambiguity in (15b). This, I sug-
gest, is partly because of their exegetical presuppositions (i.e. they have been
told repeatedly that Moses veiled with this purpose/result), but also because
the alternative interpretation involves an infrequent colloquial usage of like
that will not be primed for Christian readers who have been led not to expect
colloquial language in English Bible translations (i.e. they expect a non-factual
proposition to be subordinated by means of as if or as though). Along these
same lines, my hunch as regards the apparent novelty of my reading is that
these same two factors have applied historically to readers of Paul’s Greek.
Being strongly predisposed to the idea that Paul’s ministry was somehow less
deficient than the ministry of Moses and being almost entirely unexposed to
colloquial uses of Greek particles, Christian interpreters have missed the am-
biguity that is lurking in the Greek of 2 Cor 3:13.
In what remains of this section, I will briefly explore the subordinator
καθάπερ in order to probe its pragmatic interpretation. Specifically, I will ex-
amine the use of καθάπερ with clauses and the pragmatic interpretation of the
propositions conveyed by those clauses. My goal is to determine: (1) whether
the reader of 2 Cor 3:13, when confronted with Paul’s καθάπερ clause, had the
interpretive freedom—even in the absence of other modal indicators—to
treat Paul’s assessment of the proposition expressed by the clause as either fac-
tual or non-factual; and (2) whether there is anything about the use of καθάπερ

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that might help to explain the admittedly problematic fact that, as far as I can
tell, my proposed interpretation of 2 Cor 3:13 has not been considered by any
previous interpreter.
Along with a number of related lexemes, such as καθά, καθό, καθότι, καθώς,
and καθώσπερ (and also such items as ὡς, ὥσπερ, ὡσεί, ὡσπερεί), καθάπερ is
commonly used to mark a relation between one event or state-of-affairs and
another. Usually, a clause introduced by καθάπερ will be analyzed as an adjunct
(i.e. dependent) and will supply information that is somehow relevant to the
reader’s understanding of the primary unit that is being elaborated. A rele-
vant example can be found in 1 Cor 10:10, where an adjunct is used to mark the
grumbling of the wilderness generation—and their subsequent destruction—
as somehow relevant to the reader’s understanding of the grumbling that Paul
is discouraging: μηδὲ γογγύζετε καθάπερ τινὲς αὐτῶν ἐγόγγυσαν καὶ ἀπώλοντο ὑπὸ
τοῦ ὀλοθρευτοῦ ‘do not complain as some of them complained and were de-
stroyed by the destroyer.’51
For their part, Louw and Nida assign particles derived from κατά to several
semantic domains, suggesting that their semantic range encompasses general
similarity or comparison (64.14; 64.15), simultaneity (67.33), sameness of de-
gree (78.53), cause/reason (89.33; 89.34), and manner (89.86).52 Even a cursory
analysis, however, suggests that most of these meanings are not conveyed by
the lexemes themselves but instead emerge as contextual modulations of a
more general meaning that I will gloss simply as correspondence (i.e. these
meanings emerge as potential ways of understanding a correspondence, pro-
vided that context-specific factors activate notions of sameness, time, degree,
cause, and/or manner).53 For the purposes of my argument here, therefore, I
will proceed on the hypothesis that the primary contribution of καθάπερ is to
signal some kind of correspondence, with the additional nuances conveyed
51 Another example can be seen in 1 John 3:11–12: ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους, οὐ καθὼς Κάϊν ἐκ τοῦ
πονηροῦ ἦν καὶ ἔσφαξεν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ.
52 See Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament:
Based on Semantic Domains (2nd ed.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1989).
53 This is not the place to delve deeply into semantics. It should be obvious, however, that I
am adopting a minimalist approach here in my (admittedly underdeveloped) treatment of
the particle καθάπερ. For a recent discussion of minimalist approaches in New Testament
studies, see Ryder A. Wishart, “Monosemy in Biblical Studies: A Critical Analysis of Recent
Work,” BAGL 6 (2017): 99–126. I note that Louw and Nida, who employ a polysemous ap-
proach, observe in the case of domain 78.53 that the similarity of degree is “as specified
by the context” (Greek-English Lexicon, 693), and in the case of domain 89.34 that there
is often “the implication of some implied comparison—‘inasmuch as’” (p. 746). Along
similar lines, even the temporal uses can be said to occur in contexts which implicate a
similarity between two events as regards the time of their occurrence.

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292 Land
by actual καθάπερ clauses deriving either from contrasts with other lexemes
that might signal correspondence (e.g. ὥσπερ) or from the different ways that a
correspondence can be deemed relevant in a particular context.
In the case of 1 Cor 10:10, the reader presumably recognizes the grumbling
of the wilderness generation as a scriptural fact, and so a correspondence is set
up between the fact of the Israelites’ grumbling and the Corinthian grumbling
that Paul is discouraging. A second clause then adds to this correspondence
the fact of the Israelites’ destruction. In a similar way, interpreters of 2 Cor 3:13
have historically treated the clause beginning Μωϋσῆς ἐτίθει κάλυμμα as fac-
tual, so that καθάπερ sets up a correspondence with an established (or at least
assumed) scriptural fact with regard to Moses’s veiling. But do καθάπερ clauses
always construe established facts?
The easiest way to demonstrate that καθάπερ can introduce non-factual
content is to consider instances in which the particle introduces participial
clauses.
(16) Γέσσιος δὲ Φλῶρος καθάπερ εἰς ἐπίδειξιν πονηρίας πεμφθεὶς τὰς εἰς τὸ
ἔθνος ἡμῶν παρανομίας ἐπόμπευεν ‘Gessius Florus, as though dis-
patched to demonstrate wickedness, made a pompous ostentation
of his crimes against our nation.’ (Josephus, Ant. 20:254)
(17) οὐκέτι γὰρ εἴων νέμεσθαι, καθάπερ δὲ συμπεφυκότες αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ τὰς
χρείας ἐξῄεσαν ‘for they no longer let [their horses] graze, but, as if
they had grown together, they went out with them whenever they
had need.’ (Josephus, War 6:155)
(18) κραυγὴ δὲ μεγίστη παρὰ τῶν ἔνδον ἤρθη καθάπερ ἑαλωκότων ἤδη ‘a ter-
rible clamor was raised by the people within the city, as if they were
already taken.’ (Josephus, War 3:221)
As these examples demonstrate, when καθάπερ introduces a participial clause,

an event or state-of-affairs is usually being said to unfold as if some other
event or state-of-affairs were true. Sometimes, the participle takes as its sub-
ject an entity from within the main clause, as in (16) and (17). In other cases,
the participial clause is a genitive construction, as in (18).54 So consistent is
this use of participial clauses for “imaginary correspondences” (i.e. compari-
sons with scenarios that are pragmatically interpreted as either imagined or
non-factual) that my brief survey managed to turn up only one example in
54 I have not yet found a negated participial clause that employs καθάπερ. The use of ὡς in
Acts 28:19, however, exemplifies a negated correspondence with something the speaker
regards as non-factual (see above).

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which a participial clause marked with καθάπερ construes a specific event as

factual—and this example involves a variant reading where other manuscripts
read καίπερ.55 In other words, καθάπερ, when used with participial clauses,
manifests the same sort of modal usage that I observed earlier in connection
with comparative inferential constructions. Where a simple participial clause
might be interpreted straightforwardly as a proposition the speaker deems to
be true, a clause marked with a comparative subordinator such as καθάπερ will
not be interpreted in this way.
The obvious objection at this point is that I have just cited non-finite ex-
amples when the clause at issue in 2 Cor 3:13 is finite. And indeed, my own
(admittedly unsystematic) survey of clauses introduced by καθάπερ does sug-
gest that—in most of the extant written Greek, at least—non-finite clauses are
usually used after καθάπερ when the correspondence is with an unreal event
or state-of-affairs, whereas finite clauses are usually used when the correspon-
dence is with an accepted truth (either general or specific). The word usually
is important here, however, because it potentially explains why interpreters
have so consistently treated Paul’s proposition regarding Moses’s veiling as an
assumed fact. If, in written Greek, καθάπερ usually introduces a finite clause
in discourse contexts where the proposition conveyed by that clause is under-
stood to be true, and if such a reading is plausible in the case of 2 Cor 3:13
(as it apparently has been for most Christian interpreters), then alternative
interpretations will more likely go unnoticed. The casual reader has no moti-
vation to consider alternative inferences, and the exegete has no motivation
to test whether or not the pragmatic interpretation of καθάπερ clauses as fac-
tual or non-factual really does align consistently with the difference between
finite and non-finite clauses. If, however, one finds it implausible to suppose
that Moses veiled himself so that the Israelites did not stare εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ
καταργουμένου, then further linguistic analysis is warranted.
As it turns out, there is very clear evidence that καθάπερ (together with re-
lated lexemes) can be used in Hellenistic Greek to signal a correspondence
with an event or state-of-affairs deemed non-factual even when that event
55 The reference is to Caesar winning over both Pompey and Crassus in Dio Cassius, Hist.
rom. 37.54. Both men were very cleverly courted by Caesar καθάπερ ἀντιπράττοντάς σφισι
(‘as [they were] working against each other’), with the alternative reading being καίπερ
ἀντιπράττοντάς σφισι (‘even [when they were] working against each other’). Oddly enough,
this is the only example supplied in LSJ of καθάπερ functioning “with a part., like ὡς, ἅτε”
(p. 848), with the result that the sole example that LSJ supplies of this usage is both textu-
ally uncertain and inconsistent with the more usual pattern I have observed.

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294 Land
or state-of-affairs is construed by means of a finite clause.56 I am referring, of

course, to cases in which καθάπερ occurs alongside additional particles, with
the most frequent being εἰ and ἄν. LSJ calls these “strengthened” instances of the
basic correspondence, citing as common combinations the wordings καθάπερ
εἰ, καθάπερ ἄν, and καθάπερ ἂν εἰ.57 Some examples are given in (19)–(21).
(19) …μηκέθ᾿ εὑρίσκεσθαι καθάπερ εἰ μηδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐγένετο ‘… being no

longer found, just as if it had never existed at all’ (Philo, Abr. 19)
(20) …οὐ καθάπερ ἄν τις εἰκάσειεν ἀνθρώποις ὑπηρέτην τινὰ πέμψας…
‘… not, as one might imagine, sending to human beings some sub-
ordinate …’ (Diogn. 7:2)
(21) …καθάπερ ἂν εἴ τις γυμνασταῖς ἢ ἰατροῖς προστάττοι μεθ᾽ ἡδονῆς
θεραπεύειν τε καὶ ἰᾶσθαι τὰ θεραπευόμενα σώματα ‘… similar to how
someone might perhaps command trainers or doctors to treat or
cure their patients in a manner that is pleasurable’ (Plato, Spec.
685c)
These examples demonstrate that Greek, like English, sometimes used addi-
tional particles and/or non-indicative grammatical moods in order to explicit-
ly signal a correspondence with something imagined rather than real. Just as in
English we can say that something happened as if something else happened or
as though something else were the case, so in Hellenistic Greek an imaginary
correspondence could be explicitly introduced as such by means of wordings
like καθάπερ εἰ + indicative clause and καθάπερ ἂν + optative clause.
Here again, the obvious objection is that Paul does not supply εἰ before the
indicative clause beginning Μωϋσῆς ἐτίθει κάλυμμα. Rather, he uses καθάπερ to
introduce an indicative clause that within itself contains no explicit indication
that its contents should be interpreted as anything other than a statement of
fact.58 The question then becomes, not whether it is natural to interpret Paul’s
καθάπερ clause as a statement of fact in the absence of explicit signals to the
56 One could possibly cite here the use of καθάπερ with the subjunctive mood, but in many
or even most such cases, the projected event or state-of-affairs is treated as a matter of
fact (even if it is not directly asserted). An example can be found in Philo, who writes:
οὗτοι κἂν ὑπὸ πλήθους ὧν ἐνεφορήσαντο διακορεῖς γενόμενοι πρὸς ὀλίγον χρόνον καθάπερ οἱ
πεπονηκότες ἀθληταὶ τὰ σώματα διαπνεύσωσι, πάλιν ἐπαποδύονται τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἀγωνίσμασιν
‘these men, even if distended for a short time by the abundance of food they have de-
voured, will once again, just as tired prizefighters regain their breath, set to work at the
same contest’ (Philo, Ebr. 207).
57 See LSJ, 848.
58 There is the negative οὐ, of course, but this negates the καθάπερ construction as a whole
(see discussion below).

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contrary, but whether it is necessary to do so. Indeed, the critical question is

whether or not Paul’s καθάπερ clause can be plausibly regarded as introducing
an imaginary correspondence if the reader approaches it with a bias against
the expressed purpose or result of Moses’s veiling (i.e. πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀτενίσαι τοὺς
υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου). Does such a reader have any in-
terpretive options, aside from changing his or her understanding of Exod 34 or
else rejecting Paul’s argument?
Here, I suggest, English continues to provide an interesting point of com-
parison, with one of its main virtues being the widespread availability of non-
literary data. Using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (CCAE),
I found a number of relevant wordings. These examples are by no means typi-
cal as regards their usage of like, with only a small handful of instances appear-
ing amidst a vast number of search results, but they are frequent enough to be
treated as acceptable English.
(22) He doesn’t hear anything. Acts like God took his mother just to
make him miserable.
(23) He didn’t act like the brush bothered his legs or the ground hurt his
feet.
(24) I decided to do like him, act like it never happened.
(25) “We live like the acquisition didn’t happen,” Bill says.
(26) The only thing wrong with that show is that they acted like Rhoda
was unattractive.
(27) I wanted it all to be on me and not like I was relying on anyone’s
coattail to ride.
None of these wordings, I suggest, expects the reader or hearer to treat the
content that follows like as a statement of fact. Rather, in every case, the con-
text somehow makes it obvious that the clauses are not conveying accepted
facts. In essence, the above wordings exemplify the use of like as a less explicit
and hence less formal alternative to as if and as though.59 This is why, as an
academic, I conscientiously avoid this use of like in formal writing, choos-
ing instead one of the more explicit and hence more formal alternatives. In
speech or casual writing, however, such a use of like would be unremarkable,
59 For a recent discussion of the use of comparative complemetizers (including like) in
Canadian English, see Marisa Brook, “Comparative Complementizers in Canadian
English: Insights from Early Fiction,” University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in
Linguistics 20, no. 2 (2014): article 2. See also M. J. Lopez-Couso and B. Mendez-Naya, “On
the Use of as if, as Though, and Like in Present-Day English Complementation Structures,”
Journal of English Linguistics 40 (2012): 172–95.

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296 Land
and I have no trouble inventing imaginary examples that seem (to me, at least)
quite natural.60 According to the website of the Cambridge Dictionary, “We
use as if and as though to talk about an imaginary situation or a situation that
may not be true but that is likely or possible…. In informal English, like can be
used in a similar way to as if, though it is not always considered correct in for-
mal contexts.”61 In short, the use of like to introduce an “imaginary correspon-
dence” is actually quite normal, albeit rare in formal written registers. In fact,
it has been suggested that the versatility of like as regards factuality has been
a significant factor in its surprising proliferation in contemporary Canadian
English.62
Why this foray into English comparative subordinators? It illustrates, I
think, the likely reason that previous interpreters have not treated the indica-
tive clause in 2 Cor 3:13 as a proposition being advanced by Paul as patently
untrue. If the use of καθάπερ + indicative clause for what I am informally calling
“imaginary correspondences” was restricted to more colloquial registers, with
literary Greek strongly preferring the alternatives discussed above (e.g. καθάπερ
+ participial clause, καθάπερ εἰ + indicative clause, etc.), it is unlikely that we
60 My intuitive judgments are confirmed by English “grammarians.” One online author in-
sists that “the word like should never be used before a clause…. Whenever a subject and
verb follow, remember to substitute like with either as though or as if” (GrammarErrors.
com, “Like/as Though/as if,” http://www.grammarerrors.com/grammar/likeas-thoughas-if
[accessed May 30, 2018]). Another claims, “Like is a preposition. As (or as if or as though)
is a conjunction. Use like if it is followed by noun/object. Use as if it is followed by a verb/
clause” (Clifford Garstang, “Tips for Writers: Like Vs. As if,” http://cliffordgarstang.com/
tips-for-writers-like-vs-as-if [accessed May 30, 2018]). Garner’s Modern American Usage
(Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage: The Authority on Grammar, Usage,
and Style [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009], 513) states that, “Although this use of
like can no longer be considered an outright solecism, as it once was, it hasn’t moved far
from the borderline of acceptability. It is acceptable casual English; it isn’t yet in the cat-
egory of unimpeachable English.” One can imagine an eager student of “grammar” saying
what some readers may be saying about the hypothesis that καθάπερ functioned in col-
loquial speech much like the more explicit καθάπερ εἰ: “You can’t interpret Paul’s actual
wording like it’s some other wording!”
61 Cambridge Dictionary, “As if and as Though,” https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/
british-grammar/as-if-and-as-though [accessed May 30, 2018], excerpted from Ronald
Carter, Michael McCarthy, Geraldine Mark, and Anne O’Keeffe, English Grammar Today:
An A–Z of Spoken and Written Grammar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
62 According to Brook (“Comparative Complementizers,” 9), “While the early written texts
show that it was a very infrequent and nonstandard variant, I suggest that its lack of sen-
sitivity to the level of literality in the subordinate clause has made it more versatile than
all four of the older variants from the beginning, and that this has helped like overtake all
of its competition. Neither as if nor as though retains any meaningful level of existence in
vernacular Canadian English.”

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possess very many instances of the usage, since we possess little colloquial
Greek. Moreover, it will likely prove very difficult to find any attested instances.
Not only are digital resources for searching non-literary Greek relatively less
well developed, but the negated inferential is only partially formulaic, requir-
ing the confluence of both syntactic and contextual factors—such that it took
a concerted effort on my part to locate the English examples (22)–(27), despite
the availability of the 520-million-word CCAE. Indeed, it would be foolhardy, I
think, to anticipate that other instances of the proposed usage of καθάπερ will
immediately appear when we look for them using the corpus tools currently
available.
No doubt, the existence of a typologically-common pattern involving the
use of comparative subordinators in inferential constructions will seem a pal-
try proof to some. I can only urge the development of better digital corpora
and reiterate some reasons for the less-than-ideal supporting evidence. First,
the multifunctional nature of particles makes it very difficult to isolate particu-
lar usages when searching the available corpora.63 Second, negative compara-
tive inferentials involve a confluence of syntactic and even pragmatic factors
and they are only partially formulaic, making them difficult to find even for
modern languages with more robust corpus tools. Third, given that many ex-
amples attest to the use of non-finite examples such as καθάπερ + participial
clause and more explicit alternatives such as καθάπερ εἰ + indicative clause, it
would seem likely that the καθάπερ + indicative clause construction was used
to introduce imaginary or non-factual correpondences predominantly in col-
loquial speech and informal written texts, with literary Greek preferring more
explicit alternatives.64 Fourth, because it still makes coherent sense of Paul’s
syntax, Christian interpreters have, for roughly two thousand years, treated
Paul’s remarks about the purpose/result of Moses’s veil as factual, and so other
inferential uses of καθάπερ that have survived may have been similarly (mis)
interpreted as straightforward comparisons.
63 “[The] use of like can be problematic since it is not always straightforward to distinguish
subordinator like (used in inferentials) from comparative like or quotative like … (which
are not inferentials).” Calude and Delahunty, “Inferentials in Spoken English,” 316.
64 Calude and Delahunty write, “Inferentials with modifying clauses are extremely rare
in actual discourse” (“Inferentials in Spoken English,” 323). V. Atayan and U. Wienen
(“Inferential Cleft Constructions in Translation: French c’est que in Political Texts,” in
Anna-Maria De Cesare (ed.), Frequency, Forms and Functions of Cleft Constructions in
Romance and Germanic, Contrastive, Corpus-Based Studies [Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton,
2014], 373) explain, “The main difficulty in studying inferential cleft constructions is the
fact that they are very rare in written texts, particularly in those which are subject to
translation.”

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298 Land
8 Another Pauline Example?
I have just ended a linguistic analysis of 2 Cor 3:13–14 with the admittedly lack-
luster conclusion that Paul’s wording was probably ambiguous—although it
is difficult to demonstrate the point conclusively because of the limitations
of the extant evidence, the practical difficulties involved in actually finding
inferential constructions, and the fact that the pragmatic ambiguity of com-
parative subordinators may have allowed other inferential uses to go similarly
unrecognized. On a more positive note, I think that a good case can be made
that there is another unrecognized negative comparative inferential elsewhere
in 2 Corinthians.
In 2 Cor 8:1, Paul begins to talk about the Christians of Macedonia, observ-
ing that they gave generously to his collection despite their extreme poverty
and their ongoing suffering. He then begins to make a series of observations
about the nature of their generosity, noting that they begged Paul and Timothy
to grant them the favour of partnership in their ministry. We then encoun-
ter the following Greek wording: καὶ οὐ καθὼς ἠλπίσαμεν ἀλλὰ ἑαυτοὺς ἔδωκαν
πρῶτον τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ ἡμῖν διὰ θελήματος θεοῦ εἰς τὸ παρακαλέσαι ἡμᾶς Τίτον.
As with 2 Cor 3:13, I suggest, this wording is pragmatically ambiguous, allow-
ing for multiple interpretations of the clause introduced by the comparative
subordinator καθώς. Usually, interpreters understand the clause as a descrip-
tion of the manner in which the Macedonians gave, so that Paul is taken to
mean that the people did not behave in the manner he expected. As the NIV
puts it, the Macedonians may have given in a way that “exceeded expecta-
tions.” Another plausible inference, however, is that the Macedonians gave
because they believed Paul and Timothy expected them to do so. Here again,
as with 2 Cor 3:13, the surrounding discourse makes it clear that this infer-
ence is one that Paul would surely reject, with Paul explicitly insisting that the
Macedonians freely initiated their donation. It is possible, therefore, to read
2 Cor 8:5 as meaning that the Macedonians did not give generously as though
Paul and Timothy had expectations (οὐ καθὼς ἠλπίσαμεν); rather (ἀλλά), they
devoted themselves to Paul and Timothy according to the will of God.
If I am correct in viewing this καθώς clause as yet another negative inferen-
tial, with the point being to reject a proposition that might be inferred as an
explanation of the Macedonians’ generosity, then the point of Paul’s correc-
tive in the ἀλλά clause is that the contribution of the Macedonians caught him
completely off-guard. It was not at all in his plans—although it was apparently
part of the plan of God. This then explains the adjunct εἰς τὸ παρακαλέσαι ἡμᾶς
Τίτον: Paul, caught entirely by surprise, has begun to worry about what the un-
expected Macedonian representatives will find upon their arrival in Corinth

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and so he has dispatched Titus to complete the Corinthians’ preparations in

advance of his arrival, writing 2 Cor 8–9 as a somewhat apologetic explanation
of this unanticipated need to ensure that the Corinthian collection prepara-
tions are completed in advance of his upcoming arrival.65
9 Conclusion
According to Carol Stockhausen, “Paul has nearly single-mindedly chosen the

picture of Moses as prophet as his model of apostleship in II Corinthians, es-
pecially II Corinthians 3” and “his conformance to that model is the backbone
of his self-defense.”66 Indeed, Paul reads Exod 34 within a web of interrelated
scriptural texts that speak about divine theophanies, prophetic ministries,
Israel’s hardness and imperception, the coming of a new covenant, and the
spiritual transformation of stone into flesh (e.g. Isa 6; 29; Ezek 11; 36; Jer 38
LXX), and, in keeping with common Christian belief, he treats Israel’s hard-
heartedness as the reason for the rejection experienced by Jesus as well as the
persecutions suffered by Jesus’s followers. Stockhausen concludes her argu-
ment as follows: “The argument of II Corinthians 3 as a whole now appears
to be based on Moses and several stories about his life and activity as proto-
typical for Christian life and the activity of the Christian minister or apostle….
65 See Land, Integrity, 268–70.

66 Carol K. Stockhausen, Moses’ Veil and the Glory of the New Covenant: The Exegetical
Substructure of II Cor. 3,1–4,6 (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1989), 155–56. She
also writes, “Paul’s definitive answer to those who accuse him … is given with [a] posi-
tive comparison drawn between Moses and himself” (Stockhausen, Moses’ Veil, 85). For a
time, scholars were more apt to see the invocation of Exod 34 as something initiated by
Paul’s opponents rather than Paul himself. Most notably, Siegfried Schulz developed the
hypothesis that 2 Cor 3:7–18 incorporates and corrects a pre-existing midrash on Exod 34,
and then Dieter Georgi popularized this idea by adopting it in his work on Paul’s oppo-
nents. While the tide has turned, such that most recent studies begin with the premise
that Paul has, for his own reasons, chosen to invoke Exod 34, it remains remotely possible
that Paul’s critics were the ones to first invoke the radiance of Moses. For example, van
Kooten suggests that Paul is opposing a reading of Exod 34 that overemphasizes Moses’s
strength and bodily well-being (Kooten, “Moses’ Shining Face,” 181). My main objection
would be that Paul’s discourse is predominantly focused on veiling as a sign of ministerial
withdrawal and the wider context of the letter frames his Exod 34 discourse as a justifi-
cation for his recent handling of Corinthian problems. This being the case, the physiog-
nomic facets of the discourse are probably a red herring. Physiognomics is clearly one of
Paul’s strongest objections to his critics (i.e. they have fleshly conceptions of good leader-
ship), but it may not represent their strongest objection to Paul (i.e. they might say that
he has blown out of proportion the physiognomic undertones of their remarks about his
strongly-worded but ultimately ineffective letters [cf. 2 Cor 10:10]).

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300 Land
Unbelieving, veiled Israel could not see in Moses’ day and still cannot see
in Paul’s.”67
I suggest, as the conclusion to this essay, that my reading of 2 Cor 3:13 ren-
ders Stockhausen’s general conclusion even more compelling than it already
was. Paul does read Moses’s experiences at Sinai as an instance of the rejected-
prophet motif seen also in Isaiah, and he does positively align himself with
Moses and Isaiah. Like Paul, Moses and Isaiah were called to be prophets of
God despite their apparent disqualifications (Exod 3–4; Isa 6:5–8). Like Paul,
Moses and Isaiah saw the Lord (Exod 33:12–34:7; Isa 6:1–4).68 Like Paul, Moses
and Isaiah had to endure Israel’s hardness of heart (Exod 32; 29:13–16). And like
Paul, Moses and Isaiah ministered to imperceptive people (Exod 34; Isa 6:9–
13; 29:10–12). These alignments are clear not only from 2 Cor 3, but also from
Rom 9–11.69 Their import, however, is that Paul is like Moses both in that the
Lord’s glory is made manifest in his body and in that he often withdraws (i.e.
veils) in the aftermath of seemingly unsuccessful ministry efforts. He does not
withdraw, however, because he is timid or inadequate or ashamed, but as an
affronted reaction to the non-receptive and even rebellious conduct of his
listeners, which he attributes metaphorically to a psychological covering or a
mental blindness.70
67 Stockhausen, Moses’ Veil, 153.

68 It is likely that Paul understood the theophany in Exod 34 as a christophany (see
Stockhausen, Moses’ Veil, 389). As Cook writes, “The consequence of such an interpreta-
tion would be that what Moses was concealing from the Israelites was not the fading away
of the splendor of the Mosaic legislation but rather the evidence that he had encountered
and conversed with the Christ, that evidence being the glory resplendent on Moses’ face!”
(Cook, “Ties,” 130). Following this, Cook immediately notes, “It becomes incumbent upon
those urging this interpretation also to furnish the rationale for why Moses would have
attempted such concealment.” Given my argument here, I would retort that Moses did
not conceal the τέλος that made both his ministry and his face glorious, such that Cook’s
proposed reading makes very good sense not only of 2 Cor 3 but also of Exod 34, with all of
his objections falling away—apart from the critical issue of the identity of the Lord with
whom Moses conversed.
69 In this way, Paul in 2 Corinthians is doing something remarkably similar to what we see
him doing in Rom 9–11. In Romans, Paul presents himself as a faithful servant like Moses,
who intercedes on behalf of Israel (Rom 9:1–3; 10:1); he argues that Moses knew about and
even wrote about Christ as the telos of the Law (Rom 10:4–13); and he invokes the rejected-
prophet motif in order to frame himself as a faithful servant and to deflect responsibility
for his negative reputation onto hard-hearted hearers (10:16–11:32).
70 Unfortunately, Stockhausen complicates what is otherwise a straightforward and com-
pelling reading of 2 Cor 3 by introducing a contrast between Paul and Moses. She writes,
“Because the promised new covenant has arrived with its gift of the spirit, Paul no longer
must display the humility of his predecessor Moses. Moses could not reveal everything.
Paul may. Paul need not veil his face and may behave with the boldness and freedom

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Stockhausen is also convincing, I think, in other more contested respects, al-

though I am unable to include here the requisite argumentation or documen-
tation. I agree with her, for instance, in viewing the participles καταργουμένην,
καταργούμενον, and καταργουμένου in 2 Cor 3:7, 11, and 13 as referring to a pro-
cess contemporary with Paul rather than one unfolding at the time of Moses,
and I am in agreement with her conclusion that the verb καταργεῖται in 3:14
likely has as its implied subject the Mosaic ministry referred to in 3:14 as ἡ
παλαιὰ διαθήκη (‘the old covenant’).71 In context, the controversial phrase τὸ
τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου really does construe “not only the glory of [Moses’s]
face but the [eschatological] end of that glory, his ministry and his covenant.”72
My argument perhaps makes this a bit more palatable (for some, at least) by
eliminating the odd idea that Moses tried to conceal the fact that the coming
of the Christ would bring to an end his covenant and hence his ministry.73 In
actual fact, Paul explicitly denies that Moses concealed this from the people
and instead blames Israel’s hardness of heart. One might even suppose that
Paul would say of Moses exactly what he says of himself in 2 Cor 4:4: the work
of both men involves τὸν φωτισμὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν
εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ (‘the revealing of the good news of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God’). The difference is simply that Moses’s ministry of the letter has
served its purpose, whereas Paul’s enduring ministry of the Spirit is the begin-
ning of something eschatological that is just getting started.
characteristic of the full-fledged member of Greek society” (Stockhausen, Moses’ Veil, 153).
In essence, my argument eliminates this unnecessary complication. Paul is like Moses pre-
cisely in that he does not hide the glory of God revealed in his flesh but openly proclaims
the words of the Lord. Yet at the same time, Paul is also like Moses in that he withdraws
himself from spiritually ignorant and imperceptive people who fail to hear and heed the
commandments of God.
71 For a helpful overview of the difficulties surrounding these key terms in 2 Cor 3, albeit
one that advocates different conclusions, see Emmanuel Nathan and Reimund Bieringer,
“Paul, Moses, and the Veil: Paul’s Perspective on Judaism in Light of 2 Corinthians 3,” in
Thomas G. Casey and Justin Taylor (eds.), Paul’s Jewish Matrix (Bible in Dialogue; Rome:
Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2011), 201–28.
72 Stockhausen, Moses’ Veil, 126.
73 In rejecting my preferred reading of τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένου in 2 Cor 3:13, the commen-
tator Alfred Plummer insists that “St Paul could not mean that Moses veiled his face to
prevent the Israelites from seeing Christ. Nor does τὸ τέλος mean the final cause, the aim
and object of the Law. Why should that be concealed from the people?” (A Critical and
Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians [ICC; Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1915], 97). Once it is acknowledged that Paul means to deny any such conceal-
ment, however, there is no longer any reason to deny that the phrase τὸ τέλος is a refer-
ence to the glory of Christ, which for Paul is what made (and makes) Moses’s ministry so
glorious.

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302 Land
Of course, even when framed as positively as possible, Paul’s remarks about

Moses’s glory, ministry, and covenant remain controversial, including his use
of the term τέλος, his willingness to call Moses’s covenant “old,” his decision to
contrast the glory of Moses’s ministry with the glory of “that which remains,”
and his repeated use of the term καταργέω in connection with Moses’s minis-
try. So even though Paul sees glory in the ministry of Moses, he is completely
out of step with the mainstream Jewish view that Moses’s glory, and ministry,
and covenant are enduring, permanent, and eternal. To my mind, Paul saw the
entire Christian movement as inherently out of step with mainstream Judaism
in this respect, and this is why, amidst a discussion of his allegedly inadequate
leadership and his badly weakened body, he brings up the fact that his claims
about Jesus are rejected “at the reading of the old covenant.” This is, essentially,
a diversion. In a context in which Paul’s fleshly inadequacies as a Christian
leader are being contested by other Christian leaders (i.e. amidst an inter-
nal Christian dispute involving Paul’s handling of problems in Corinth), Paul
draws repeated attention to the violent controversy that surrounds his evange-
listic readings of Scripture and to the physical infirmities that he has suffered
as a result (i.e. he points to the work he is doing to advance Christian teachings
in the face of widespread rejection and even persecution). He does this, I think,
because he thinks that other Christian leaders should stop engaging in “arm-
chair criticisms” and get on with the dangerous task of evangelism themselves
(cf. 2 Cor 10–13). He also thinks that, if they will not do this, they are blind to
the work of the Spirit and no better than the hard-hearted non-Christians who
reject his gospel.
As the publication of this edited volume shows, controversies still surround
Paul’s readings of Scripture even today. My hope is that I have eliminated as
spurious one of the more problematic “exegetical comments” usually seen in
2 Cor 3, so that discussions of Paul’s use of Exod 34 can proceed more clearly.

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Chapter 14
The Centrality of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 8–9

Craig L. Blomberg
Second Corinthians 8–9 does not appear, at first glance, to comprise a prom-
ising portion of Paul’s letters for a study of his use of the Hebrew Scriptures.
While not entirely void of unambiguous quotations, as Philippians is, nei-
ther does it come anywhere close to utilizing the Old Testament to the extent
that Romans does. The fifth edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New
Testament prints seven passages in thirteen chapters in its characteristic bold-
face type (part of 4:13, 6:2a, most of 6:16b–18a, 8:15, 9:9, 10:17 and 13:1b) to indi-
cate that the editorial committee believed the words to be close enough to one
or more passages of Scripture to merit the label quotation rather than merely
allusion or echo.1
The seven passages do not obviously fall into any uniform pattern.2 “I be-
lieved; therefore I spoke” in 4:13 quotes Ps 116:10 and serves as a simple anal-
ogy for Paul and Timothy’s bold speech proclaiming the gospel. The quotation
of Isa 49:8 in 6:2 is much more theologically pregnant. Paul appeals to the
Corinthians not to receive the grace of God in vain because this is the eschato-
logical time of salvation to which the prophet looked forward. Chapter 6:16–18
draws on a collage of quotations from a variety of texts (the ubs5 includes
Lev 26:12, Jer 32:38 and Ezek 37:27 as references for v. 16b; Isa 52:11, Ezek 20:34
and 41 for v. 17; and 2 Sam 7:8 and 14, Isa 43:6 and Jer 31:9 for v. 18a) to sandwich
the call to abstain from idolatry between parallel promises by Yahweh to be his
people’s God and Father.3 In 10:17 Paul repeats the passage he cited in 1 Cor 1:31
from Jer 9:24 about boasting only in the Lord, which is why he does not com-
pete with other evangelists in “sheep stealing” from their territory. In 13:1 he in-
vokes the Mosaic Law metaphorically to liken his coming third trip to Corinth
to the third witness in a law court that establishes a matter as true (Deut 19:15).
In none of these five instances, however, does Paul dwell on the topic raised
or reinforced by the biblical quotation. 4:13 is the only verse in its paragraph
1 Barbara Aland et al. (eds.), The Greek New Testament (5th rev. ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 2014), 590–616.
2 Cf. the diverse categorizations throughout Paul Han, Swimming in the Sea of Scripture: Paul’s
Use of the Old Testament in 2 Corinthians 4.7–13.13 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).
Han also deals with numerous allusions to the Old Testament in this section of 2 Corinthians.
3 Aland et al. (eds.), Greek New Testament, 602.

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304 Blomberg
(vv. 7–15) about belief and speech; the rest highlights resurrection as the glo-
rious compensation for acute suffering in this life. 6:1–2 transitions between
Paul’s much lengthier discussion of reconciliation (5:11–21) and his next cata-
logue of his sufferings (6:3–10). The collage of 6:16b–18a supports Paul’s claim
that believers are God’s temple (v. 16a) with language that reminds them of
the special relationship between God and his people and the call for purity
via separation from the unholy. This call buttresses the fourfold contrast in
vv. 14–16 which illustrates his command against unequal yoking: light vs. dark-
ness, Christ vs. Beliar, belief vs. unbelief, and God’s temple vs. idols. But 6:14–7:1
intrudes so much in its context in 2 Corinthians that it has often been identi-
fied as a separate letter awkwardly inserted at this point in the epistle.4 All of
chs. 10–12 can be viewed as related to right and wrong boasting, but the main
contrast is between the rival apostles’ boasts in their accomplishments and
Paul’s boasts in his weaknesses. Boasting explicitly “in the Lord” (10:17) does
not actually reappear anywhere in these three chapters. The testimony of two
or three witnesses (13:1), finally, does not relate to any of Paul’s contents out-
side of vv. 1–2a.5
The most striking treatment of the Old Testament in 2 Corinthians, more-
over, involves Paul’s strong salvation-historical contrasts between the old and
new covenants (3:7–4:6). It is precisely in 3:14 where we find the one New
Testament use of the phrase “the old covenant” (τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης), com-
ing shortly after one of seven New Testament uses of “new covenant” (καινῆς
διαθήκης). Only Heb 8 rivals this section of 2 Corinthians in the extent of the
“obsolescence” of the old covenant that is affirmed.6 One might not therefore
expect this epistle to be fertile ground for influential, authoritative quotations
of the Hebrew Scriptures.
4 For full studies of these verses, see esp. William J. Webb, Returning Home: New Covenant
and Second Exodus as the Context for 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 (Sheffield: jsot Press, 1993);
J. Ayodeji Adewuya, “Holiness and Community” in 2 Cor 6:14–7:1 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang, 2001).
5 Nor is it entirely clear how Paul is envisioning this testimony. The most contextually natural
interpretation would take it as referring to Paul’s two previous visits to Corinth along with
his upcoming third visit. But numerous commentators have imagined more literal legal pro-
ceedings which Paul will set in motion, if necessary, in Corinth. For details of both views, but
supporting the view adopted here, see Margaret E. Thrall, 2 Corinthians 8–13: A Critical and
Exegetical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 871–76.
6 On this material in 2 Corinthians, see esp. Scott J. Hafemann, Paul, Moses and the History
of Israel: The Letter/Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians (Milton
Keynes: Paternoster, 2006). Cf. also Linda L. Belleville, Reflections of Glory: Paul’s Polemical
Use of the Moses-Doxa Tradition in 2 Corinthians 3.1–18 (London: Bloomsbury, 1991).

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The Centrality of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 8–9 305
On first inspection, the biblical quotations in 2 Cor 8–9 do not appear that
much more significant.7 Why on earth would Paul appeal to the miraculous
and very situation-specific provision of manna in the wilderness (Exod 16) to
support his entreaty for the Corinthians to give more generously to his col-
lection for the impoverished believers in Judea (2 Cor 8:15)? The quotation of
Ps 112:9 is more understandable because it commends generosity to the poor
(2 Cor 9:9), but why not cite more directly one of the many Mosaic commands
to the same effect?
A closer look nevertheless suggests that these two Old Testament quotations
actually influence Paul’s thinking in the entire subsections in which they are
embedded—8:1–15 and 9:6–15. Moreover, although it is often treated more as
an allusion than a quotation, the appeal to Prov 3:4 lxx in 2 Cor 8:21 accounts
for the bulk of the intervening subsection—8:16–9:5. Second Corinthians 8–9
has long been recognized as a very discrete and self-contained portion of Paul’s
letter.8 After a brief reference in 1 Cor 16:1–4 to his embarking as he travels on
a collection from the various congregations to help the materially deprived
Christians in Judea, these two chapters elaborate on the enterprise in consider-
able detail. Despite widespread agreement on these straightforward observa-
tions, consensus quickly dissolves on related questions.9 Should chs. 8–9 be
seen as part of what Paul originally wrote when he penned chs. 1–7 (if, indeed,
even these chapters form a unity)? Should they be seen as integrally related to
chs. 10–13 also, making it possible though not necessary that the entire epistle
was conceived as a unity from the outset? Also, whatever the answers may be
to those two questions, are at least chs. 8–9 united? Or, as Hans Dieter Betz
made famous in his Hermeneia commentary, are they made up of two distinct
7 Neither text is verbatim lxx, but both are very close. For a discussion of the possible rea-
sons behind the slight changes that Paul makes, see Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the
Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 231–33.
8 The fullest recent study of these two chapters by themselves, which takes them as historically
separate from the rest of the letter, is Kieran J. O’Mahony, Pauline Persuasion: A Sounding in
2 Corinthians 8–9 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000).
9 New Testament introductions quickly disclose the diversity of opinion. M. Eugene Boring
(An Introduction to the New Testament: History, Literature, Theology [Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 2012], 254–65) explores half a dozen of the major options, creating a new varia-
tion with five Pauline letters in the sequence of 8:1–15, 2:14–6:13 plus 7:2–4, chs. 10–13, 1:1–2:13
plus 7:5–16, and 9:1–15, with 6:14–7:1 as a later non-Pauline interpolation! For a thorough sur-
vey of proponents and arguments for and against the unity of the letter through the early
1990s, see R. Bieringer and J. Lambrecht, Studies on 2 Corinthians (Leuven: Leuven University
Press, 1994), 67–179.

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306 Blomberg
letters, one per chapter?10 What is the narrative flow within each of these two
chapters; in other words, how should they be outlined, whether taken together
or separately?
The third of these four questions may be treated most easily. Betz offers an
excellent overview of previous scholarship on the topic, complaining that the
same arguments for and against the unity of chs. 8–9 continue to be rehearsed
without any real advances in research. What is lacking, he determines, is a
detailed rhetorical analysis in the light of ancient Greco-Roman forms.11 This
is the task he undertakes with meticulous care, creating an outline with 141
separate lines or entries for the twenty-four verses of ch. 8 and with a total of
103 entries for the fifteen verses of ch. 9! Most of the subordinate lines are la-
beled, however, merely based on their content; distinctive rhetorical categories
come into play only at the first level of subdivisions. For ch. 8, Betz assumes
the epistolary prescript and postscript are lacking (since this short letter has
been incorporated into a larger, composite epistle). This leaves only the letter
body, which he determines to include an exordium (vv. 1–5), a narratio (v. 6),
a propositio (vv. 7–8), and a probatio (vv. 9–15). But for vv. 16–24, Betz aban-
dons rhetorical categories, identifying vv. 16–22 merely as “The commendation
of the delegates” and vv. 23–24 as “The authorization of the delegates.” With
ch. 9, he manages to preserve rhetorical headings throughout. Again omitting
a prescript and postscript, the letter subdivides into an exordium (vv. 1–2), a
narratio (vv. 3–5a), a propositio (vv. 5b–c), a probatio (vv. 6–14), and a perora-
tio (v. 15).12
The inability of 8:16–24 to fit Betz’s rhetorical outline proves to be its fatal
weakness. It is one thing to identify the majority of a letter as following a cer-
tain rhetorical form, as Loveday Alexander does in her outline of Philippians as
a family letter.13 Content-wise, 8:16–24 and 9:1–5 mesh very closely. They both
deal with the emissaries Paul is sending to Corinth to ensure that the collec-
tion is in good shape when Paul arrives and to accompany it to its destina-
tion to safeguard that it arrives complete and intact. They both underscore the
confidence Paul has that the Corinthians will “ante up” and demonstrate their
love with a generous gift. While Titus, who is one of the emissaries, appears
elsewhere in the letter, the two unnamed “brothers” that will accompany him
10 Hans Dieter Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985).
11 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 3–36.
12 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 38–41, 88–90.
13 Loveday Alexander, “Hellenistic Letter-Forms and the Structure of Philippians,” jsnt 37
(1989): 87–101.

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appear nowhere else in the letter, not even in 8:1–15 or 9:6–15. But they are dis-
cussed in detail in 8:18–24 and again in 9:3–5.
Several other recent outlines in major studies of 2 Cor 8–9 likewise fail to
deal adequately with the similarities between 8:16–24 and 9:1–5. Byung-Mo
Kim sees two sections of unequal length—8:1–6 on the exemplary behavior
of the Macedonians concerning the collection and 8:7–9:15 with its encour-
agement to the Corinthians to complete their part in the collection.14 But
the shift to encouraging the Corinthians actually comes at the beginning of
v. 6, in the middle of a single Greek sentence, and the appeal to the model
of the Macedonians is just one of several tactics Paul employs to encourage
the Corinthians to be faithful to their commitment. So, this cannot be the one
major dividing point of these two chapters. Andrzej Wodka recognizes that the
end of ch. 8 belongs with the first part of ch. 9 but divides the two chapters into
8:1–5—a gift given out of poverty; 8:6–17—true riches; 8:18–9:5—the service of
giving; and 9:6–15—giving by God and humans.15 But 8:16 and 17 belong more
with what comes after than with what comes before, as they introduce Titus’s
role in coming to Corinth to play the same role as the unnamed brothers in the
subsequent verses.
Stephan Münch reverts to seeing 8:1–24 and 9:1–15 as the two main seg-
ments, by seeing each of them structured as a palindrome, his term for an ABA
structure. But the perceived parallels between the two pairs of sections he la-
bels with “A” are exceedingly vague: the appeal to the Macedonians and the
sending of the emissaries in 8:1–9 and 16–24 are both designed to facilitate
the Corinthians’ merciful giving, while 9:1–5 and 12–15 refer to the task and
accomplishment of giving the gift. Münch’s labels for the two “B” sections ac-
tually more resemble one of the “A”s in each triad than do the two A sections
themselves! Thus 8:1–9 he abbreviates as “the mercy of giving” and vv. 10–15
as “the scale of giving” while vv. 16–24 boil down to “the sending of Titus and
his two companions.” Chapter 9:6–11 forms “God’s capability to give with sim-
plicity (i.e., single-mindedness)” and vv. 12–15 “the outworking of giving with
simplicity,” while 9:1–5 represents “the mission of those sent.”16 Thus Münch’s
headings in his outline actually support a three-part structure of 8:1–15, 8:16–
9:5, and 9:6–15 better than they do his own divisions!
14 Byung-Mo Kim, Die paulinische Kollekte (Tübingen: Francke, 2002), 124.
15 Andrzej Wodka, Una teologia biblica del dare nel contesto della coletta paolina (2 Cor 8–9)
(Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2000), 348–49.
16 Stephan Münch, Das Geschenk der Einfachheit: 2 Korinther 8,1–15 und 9,6–15 als Hinführung
zu dieser Gabe (Würzburg: Echter, 2012), 24–25.

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308 Blomberg
Vocabulary analysis of these three portions of 2 Cor 8–9 yields numer-

ous additional supporting arguments for this tripartite division. No less than
nine different theologically significant words or word groups that appear in
8:1–15 reappear in 9:6–15: χάρις, δοκίμ-, περισσ-, πλούσ/τ-, ἁπλότης, δύναμ/τ-,
κοινωνία, διακονία, and ὑστερήμα. Some of these represent terms that are com-
mon throughout 2 Corinthians or at least appear no more frequently in chs.
8–9 than elsewhere in the letter. The δύναμ/τ- word group appears three times
in these two chapters but nine times elsewhere in the epistle, while διακονία
occurs three times in these two chapters and seven times elsewhere. The fre-
quency per segment of text remains slightly higher in 2 Cor 8–9 for both but
hardly enough to be noteworthy.
On the other hand, χάρις appears eight times in chs. 8–9 and only eight times
in all the other eleven chapters of the letter. Δοκίμ- occurs four times in these
two chapters and only three times in the remaining eleven. Πλούσ/τ- emerges
three times in our focal chapters and only once in the rest of the letter. Κοινωνία
is found twice in chs. 8–9 and twice in the rest of the epistle. The word ἁπλότης
comes up three times in these chapters and twice in the rest of the book, while
ὑστερήμα registers three times in 8:1–9:15 and only once elsewhere. Περισσ-,
finally, occurs a full nine times in the two chapters and only five in the other
eleven. When one combines these statistics with the content of the chapters
to which these words or word groups point, it is obvious that 2 Cor 8–9 forms a
distinctive and discrete part of the epistle.17
It is likewise clear that 8:1–15 and 9:6–15 closely match each other in content
and not merely vocabulary. Both sections enjoin generous, willing/cheerful
giving, rather than being based on direct commands by Paul, in the context of
a holistic devotion to God in Christ. Both appeal to God’s model of gracious-
ly giving to others, as preeminently illustrated in the gospel of Christ’s self-
giving. Both refer to God’s ability, through his people, to care for those who
may worry about giving too much, and both highlight the positive reactions
of others to their generous giving that will occur. Other details in 8:1–15 and
9:16–24, of course, differ, more so than when one compares 8:16–24 with 9:1–5,
but that is precisely what one might expect of two sections not so immedi-
ately juxtaposed. Nevertheless, the commonalities of vocabulary and contents
strongly justify an ABBA structure,18 or even an ABA structure, leading to a sub-
division of chs. 8–9 into A (8:1–15—Models and Principles for the Corinthian
17 For studies of the (sometimes distinctive) meanings of many of these and related words
in 2 Cor 8–9, see Münch, Das Geschenk der Einfachheit, passim.
18 See esp. Philippe Rolland, “La structure littéraire de la deuxième Épître aux Corinthiens,”
Bib 71 (1990): 76.

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Completion of Their Part in Paul’s Collection), B (8:16–9:5—Mechanisms and

Accountability for this Completion), and A (9:6–15—Additional Models and
Principles for the Corinthian Completion of Their Part in Paul’s Collection).19
In other words, if one is convinced that chs. 8–9 remain separate from the
rest of 2 Corinthians, one does not need to divide them into two additional,
distinct letters. If one is convinced that a rhetorical outline does best justice to
their contents, one may see all of 8:10–9:12 as the probatio,20 without having to
follow Betz and abandon a rhetorical outline for 8:16–24 or try to fit 9:1–5 into
the earlier sections of a new letter. But it is not as obvious as some allege that
the categories of Greco-Roman rhetoric are needed to make sense of Paul’s
contents, especially since they typically presuppose that at least chs. 8–9 form
the bulk of a letter separate from the rest of 2 Corinthians. It is possible, but
not necessary, to outline chs. 1–9 coherently, with or without Greco-Roman
rhetorical categories.21
The one remaining literary feature that has most often given interpreters
pause in assessing the unity of these two chapters is 9:1. Why would Paul in-
sist there is no need for him to write the Corinthians about this collection for
the Jerusalem saints, when he has just spent a chapter talking about that very
topic? Why would he start his statement with the introductory formula περὶ
μὲν γάρ, as if he were beginning a new topic? First Corinthians, after all, marks
off the start of a new section, or at least a new subsection within Paul’s flow of
thought, with a περὶ δέ formula no less than six times (7:1, 25; 8:1; 12:1; 16:1, 12),
all in the section in which he is responding to the letter the Corinthians wrote
him (7:1).22 Paul also uses this introduction in 1 Thess 4:9 and 5:1, and no other
New Testament author employs it at all.
Nevertheless, although we might have imagined that they would function
similarly, περὶ μὲν γάρ does not function in the same way as περὶ δέ. Its only
19 For a detailed outline with these three passages as the major subdivisions of the two
chapters, see C. H. Talbert, “Money Management in Early Mediterranean Christianity: 2
Corinthians 8–9,” RevExp 86 (1989): 361 (who separates v. 15 off as the concluding thanks-
giving for the whole).
20 Fredrick T. Long, Ancient Rhetoric and Paul’s Apology (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 176. For a slightly different rhetorical outline that nevertheless preserves the
unity of chs. 8–9, and keeps 8:9–9:10 together as confirmations, see O’Mahony, Pauline
Persuasion, 140.
21 See Ben Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical
Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 335–36; and
Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005), ix–xi, respectively.
22 On which, see esp. Margaret M. Mitchell, “Concerning περὶ δέ in 1 Corinthians,” NovT 31
(1989): 229–56.

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310 Blomberg
other use in the Greek Bible comes in Acts 28:22 in the middle of a sentence
(ἀξιοῦμεν δὲ παρὰ σοῦ ἀκοῦσαι ἃ φρονεῖς περὶ μὲν γὰρ τῆς αἰρέσεως ταύτης γνωστὸν
ἡμῖν ἐστιν ὅτι πανταχοῦ ἀντιλέγεται)! It simply introduces a causal clause that
gives the reason for the interest of the Jewish leaders in Rome in Paul’s mes-
sage: “Concerning this sect, it is known among us that it is spoken against ev-
erywhere.” Stanley Stowers’s study of almost ninety uses of the expression in
Greek literature outside of the Bible demonstrates that it never once functions
as an introduction to a new topic but only in a more subordinate role.23
Were we not so used to thinking of a new chapter, or at least a new para-
graph, beginning at 2 Cor 9:1, then, we might more readily envisage it as supply-
ing a reason for Paul’s command in 8:24 that the Corinthians prove their love in
a visible way via generous giving. While 9:1 does not give a reason for showing
their love per se, it does supply a rationale for why Paul can confidently call
on the Corinthians to do so. As for the puzzling statement about having no
need to discuss the topic after a significant amount of text that does just that,
the problem is not resolved by partitioning chs. 8–9 into two letters. After all,
much of the rest of ch. 9 continues in the same vein! Rather, this is a classic
example of a stock expression that meant one did not need to say much about
a topic, especially when the author believed the addressees already had a good
understanding of it.24 Again we should conclude that 9:1 does not indicate a
literary seam in this epistle’s composition.25
More than just contents, vocabulary, rhetoric, and literary devices, however,
point to 8:1–15, 8:16–9:5, and 9:6–14 as the three main parts of these two chap-
ters. We have already asserted that the three most prominent appeals to the
Hebrew Scriptures, one per section, can be seen to account for a significant
portion of their contents.26 It is time now to flesh out this claim in more detail.
The quotation of Exod 16:18 lxx in 2 Cor 8:15 clearly determines the form of the
short paragraph spanning vv. 13–15. What was accomplished miraculously with
the manna in the wilderness should provide the model for the Corinthians’
23 Stanley K. Stowers, “Peri Men Gar and the Integrity of 2 Cor. 8 and 9,” NovT 32 (1990):
340–48.
24 Stowers, “Peri Men Gar,” 345.
25 Further reasons for this conclusion are enumerated by Craig S. Keener, 1–2 Corinthians
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 210–11.
26 Hans Klein (“Die Begründung für den Spendenaufruf für die Heiligen Jerusalems in 2Kor
8 und 9,” in Dieter Sänger [ed.], Der zweite Korintherbrief: Literarische Gestalt—historische
Situation—theologische Argumentation [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2012],
105) is more typical in seeing the biblical evidence as just one of five lines of support
(which also include ecclesiological, christological, creational, and sapiential) and cover-
ing only 8:15; 9:7 and 10.

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non-miraculous generosity in the collection.27 Some of the ancient Israelites

gathered more than others just as some had greater needs than others. The
result was not that every individual or family acquired identical amounts of
provision but that no one had “too little.” And the way the Corinthians, like the
Israelites of old, can ensure that no one has “too little” is by no one retaining
“too much.”28
These amounts clearly cannot be quantified. Paul’s point is simply that
as long as there are people, especially fellow Christians, who have no ability
to gain for themselves even the most minimally acceptable standard of liv-
ing while other people have surplus, then at least some of those others have
“too much.” Someday the shoe might be on the other foot, so to treat others
as we would want to be treated means that all those with surplus should help
those with “too little” (v. 14).29 In this context, ἰσότης cannot mean “equality” in
the sense of identical resources or buying power but “equity,” “fairness” (esv)
or “a fair balance” (nrsv, njb).30 Ἰσότης was a much discussed ideal among
“friends” in the ancient Mediterranean world. Patron-client relations created a
fictitious equality, Dionysus of Halicarnassus viewed it as a principle of justice,
and Aristotle thought of it as equity, proportional to merit.31 But Paul is apply-
ing it across ethnic and religious lines, thereby challenging ancient prejudices
and socio-political theories alike.32 Steven Friesen highlights three features
that he believes most demonstrate Paul’s distinctives: (1) givers and receivers
are groups of people not individuals; (2) the principal donors can thus not be
identified and honored; and (3) the majority of the givers are people of very
modest means.33
27 Homer A. Kent, A Heart Opened Wide: Studies in 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982),
130–31. Cf. also Kar Yong Lim, “Generosity from Pauline Perspective: Insights from Paul’s
Letter to the Corinthians,” Evangelical Review of Theology 37 (2013): 29.
28 Or in the words of Sze-kar Wan, Power in Weakness: The Second Letter of Paul to the
Corinthians (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 2000), 111: “Equality, finally, does not
mean sameness but is realized in proportion to what everyone needs.”
29 John M. G. Barclay (“Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Corinthians 8:1–15,”
in J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe, and A. Katherine Grieb [eds.], The Word Leaps the Gap:
Essays in Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2008], 413) argues that Paul’s point is precisely that some are given an abundance, a “sur-
plus caused by grace,” so that they can pass it on to others.
30 Cf. further Dieter Georgi, Remembering the Poor: The History of Paul’s Collection for
Jerusalem (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991 [Germ. orig. 1965]), 84–91.
31 Keener, 1–2 Corinthians, 205–6.
32 Julien M. Ogereau, “The Jerusalem Collection as Κοινωνία: Paul’s Global Politics of Socio-
Economic Equality and Solidarity,” NTS 58 (2012): 360–78.
33 Steven J. Friesen, “Paul and Economics: The Jerusalem Collection as an Alternative
to Patronage,” in Mark D. Given (ed.), Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives on the Apostle
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), 49–51.

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Paul further insists that he is not calling for any reversal of roles between
rich and poor (v. 13) but a narrowing of the gap between the poorest and the
richest. Precisely because of the Jewish belief that the messianic age would be
characterized by some new form of providing manna to Israel, Paul, convinced
that the eschaton has been inaugurated in Jesus, finds a timeless principle in
Exod 16:18 to apply to the fledgling church.34 In light of the larger narrative of
Exod 16, he also “sees in this manna story an economic parable whose moral
is that God provides for those who rely on him for their daily bread, taking no
thought for the morrow.”35
The example of limits on riches and poverty among God’s people, illus-
trated by this text from the Torah, does not merely determine the contents of
2 Cor 8:13–15, however. It also inspires Paul’s remarks throughout 8:1–12 as well.
Verses 1–5 depict the Macedonians’ exemplary model. Although Paul speaks
of the depth of their poverty (v. 2), he says nothing to suggest that they were
as desperate as the Judeans for whom the collection was being undertaken.
Nor does he suggest that after their surprising generosity, they had reduced
themselves to penury. Given the extent of his concern for the impoverished
Judeans, had any of the congregations contributing to the gift to be deliv-
ered to Jerusalem been similarly insolvent, Paul would have certainly added
them in as recipients of the donations and not accepted offerings from them
for others.36 The reason he calls the Macedonians so poor is to inspire the
much richer Corinthians in their giving. Compared to the affluence of the
Corinthians, the Macedonians seemed extremely poor.37 Compared to the dire
needs of the Judeans, the Macedonians still had surplus to give.
Given the tone and contents of chs. 1–7, along with Paul’s specific praise in
8:7, it appears that the church in Corinth had made substantial improvement
in all the other areas in which 1 Corinthians disclosed they were deficient.
Only the matter of the collection, first introduced in 1 Cor 16:1–4, remains.38
These would hardly be the only Christians in the history of the church for
34 Hans-Josef Klauck, 2 Korintherbrief (Würzburg: Echter, 1988), 70. Cf. also Scott J. Hafemann,
2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 341.
35 Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989), 90.
36 Burkhard Beckheuer (Paulus und Jerusalem: Kollekte und Mission im theologischen Denken
des Heidenapostels [Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1997], 139 [author’s translation])
writes: “God brings such care for them, that he wants no community to come up short.”
37 Overall, the Macedonians were reasonably prosperous. Their “severe trial” in Christian
circles probably refers to persecution that left some financially worse off, but hardly des-
titute. See further C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians
(BNTC; London: A. & C. Black, 1973), 180–81.
38 Georgi (Remembering the Poor, 82) explains that Paul’s point is “to make the Corinthians
see that participation in the collection was the consequence of all the gifts of grace

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whom sanctification began to affect their use of material possessions last of

all! Verse 8 creates some irony, since Paul does indeed give a direct command
with an imperative verb (ἐπιτελήσατε) in 8:11. His point is not that he gives no
straightforward instructions about how the Corinthians should resume their
eagerness to give. Rather, he is not commanding them in any heavy-handed
way but is appealing to their honor.39 If less well-to-do Macedonian Christians
could give sacrificially, surely the better-off Corinthian believers could at the
very least keep their previous financial commitments, if not prove even more
generous (vv. 10–12). Along the way, Paul appeals to the amazing sacrifice and
condescension of Jesus (v. 9). This verse is not a comment on the socio-eco-
nomic bracket of Jesus’ earthly family or his standard of living as a young adult.
Instead, it reflects the amazing “poverty” Christ accepted simply to leave his
heavenly glory for the restrictions and comparative degradations of human ex-
istence of any kind. He is giving, incredibly sacrificially, out of his abundance
or surplus.40
All of 2 Cor 8:1–15 may thus be seen as unpacking the point of the Exodus
quotation in v. 15. Giving for the Christian is not determined by tithing or any
other fixed percentage of one’s income. The more surplus one has, the more
one can be freed up to give even a higher percentage of one’s assets than oth-
ers might (vv. 11b–12).41 The chapter can be viewed as Paul’s appealing to the
model of the Macedonians who gave sacrificially even from their small surplus
(vv. 1–8), the model of Jesus’ incomparable sacrificial giving from his divine
surplus (v. 9), and the appeal to the Corinthians to give generously from their
considerable surplus (vv. 10–14), all stemming from the restrictions on surplus
and deficit inherent in the “manna economy” while the Israelites wandered in
the wilderness (v. 15, with its Old Testament quotation).42
(charismata) they had previously been granted,” including those that helped them grow
in all the other areas Paul had previously addressed.
39 It is noteworthy, however, that 8:11 contains the only imperative verb in these two chap-
ters. All the rest of Paul’s instructions are communicated via more indirect grammatical
forms. Verlyn D. Verbrugge (Paul’s Style of Church Leadership Illustrated by His Instructions
to the Corinthians on the Collection [San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press,
1992]) argues that 2 Cor 8 and 9 represent the first fund-raising letters in the ancient
Mediterranean world, and that Paul’s deteriorating relationship with the Corinthians led
him to avoid the more consistent tone of commanding found in 1 Corinthians.
40 Rudolf Brändle, “Geld und Gnade (zu II Kor 8, 9),” TZ 41 (1985): 246–71.
41 David E. Garland, 2 Corinthians (Nashville: B&H, 1999), 381. Cf. esp. David A. Croteau, You
Mean I Don’t Have to Tithe? A Deconstruction of Tithing and a Reconstruction of Post-Tithe
Giving (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2010).
42 An interesting debate sees Paul’s strategy as either fitting in with (e.g., Mark A. Jennings,
“Patronage and Rebuke in Paul’s Persuasion in 2 Corinthians 8–9,” JGRChJ 6 [2009]: 107–
27) or combatting (e.g., Laurence L. Welborn, “‘That There May Be Equality’: The Contexts
and Consequences of a Pauline Ideal,” NTS 59 [2013]: 73–90) conventional patronage

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Second Corinthians 9:6–15 likewise proceeds from its one Old Testament
quotation (v. 9). The two lines of the couplet found in Ps 112:9 (111:9 lxx) speak
of (a) freely scattering gifts to the poor, and (b) the righteousness of those who
do so enduring forever. Second Corinthians 9:6–8 clearly anticipates (a), with
its proverb on sowing and reaping being matched either in generosity or stin-
giness. Sowing seed by hand (v. 6) is a perfect example of one form of “scat-
tering,” as an ancient farmer sought to distribute the grain relatively evenly
throughout his field.43 That Paul still has the application to giving “gifts to the
poor” saints in Judea becomes clear in vv. 7–8. A hint of (b) may emerge in v. 8
as well. Because God can bless those who give generously and replace what
they have given away, they are enabled to continue to give. “For both Paul and
the Old Testament, righteousness is not simply an inner quality of purity or a
right heart. It also involves justice and generosity toward others.”44
Verse 10 then explicitly rephrases (b). God will “enlarge the harvest of your
righteousness.” Verse 11 confirms that this is not for the purpose of self-gratifica-
tion but so that one’s generosity may continue. The harvest of the specific form
of righteousness in view here—generous giving—will indeed be enlarged.
Verse 11b introduces an additional upshot of continued generosity—others’
thanks and praise toward God. This theme then permeates the rest of the pas-
sage (vv. 12–15).45 Verse 12 speaks of “many expressions of thanks to God,” v. 13 of
others praising God, and v. 14 of others praying also for the gift-givers as a result.
Paul’s own thanksgiving to God for such an indescribable gift (v. 15) rounds out
the section and the chapter. References to (a) continue throughout vv. 10–15
also. If gifts to the poor represent the Corinthian generosity, then v. 11 makes
note of this feature, v. 12 more specifically refers to “supplying the needs of the
by means of these instructions. Best of all may be David J. Downs (The Offering of the
Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts
[WUNT 2/248; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), who argues that Paul takes the model of
patronage but reapplies it to God with all of his people as his clients so that all patron-
client relationships among them are relativized. But all sides in this debate appear to
agree on the strategy outlined here.
43 Kim, Die paulinische Kollekte, 79–80; Cf. Betz, 2 Corinthians 8–9, 116.
44 Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth, 427. Cf. also Frederick W. Danker
(II Corinthians [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989], 141) who finds the link between generosity
and righteousness “very striking” in light of Greco-Roman perspectives.
45 Stephan Joubert (“Religious Reciprocity in 2 Corinthians 9:6–15: Generosity and Gratitude
as Legitimate Responses to the χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ,” Neot 33 [1999]: 79–90) summarizes vv. 6–15
as God’s grace providing the Corinthians with the material and spiritual autarkeia (self-
sufficiency) to contribute generously to the collection for the Judeans, who will in turn
offer prayers of thanksgiving, providing concrete expression to the reciprocal relation of
koinōnia between them.

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Lord’s people,” v. 13 mentions their “generosity in sharing,” v. 14 presents the

collection as an act of “surpassing grace,” and v. 15 includes it within the “inde-
scribable gift.” But to the extent that other people’s thanks and praise are the
product of the Corinthians’ righteous giving, (b) is likewise present throughout.
Their righteousness endures on earth at least as long as they live and its effects
may last much longer. The results for the righteous, of course, remain eternal.46
A possible objection to this interpretation of 9:6–15 comes from the per-
spective that takes the subject of v. 9 as God rather than the righteous person.
There is no question that the psalmist sees the subject as a human being (see
esp. Ps 112:6), but the verses immediately surrounding 2 Cor 9:9 have God as
the subject. “God is able to bless you abundantly …” (v. 8), and “he [God] who
supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase
your store of seed” (v. 10).47 Supporters of the interpretation that takes God
as the “he” of v. 9 additionally point to the unity of Pss 111–12 and how the first
appearance of “his righteousness endures forever” in this narrative sequence is
about God (111:3).48 On the other hand, Ps 112:3, closer to the text Paul quotes,
also employs this refrain but with the person fearing the Lord as the one who
is righteous. Back in 2 Cor 9, v. 8 may begin with God as the subject, but his
abundant blessing comes expressly in order “that in all things at all times, hav-
ing all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” The Corinthians are
the subject of all the clauses in v. 8 after the first one. The same logic attaches
to vv. 10–11. God supplies more than what his people need so that they can be
generous to others. The singular masculine pronouns and third person verb
forms of v. 9 do not refer to God, therefore, but, generically, to any believer who
gives liberally to the needy.49
46 See further Frank J. Matera, II Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 206;
Mark A. Seifrid, The Second Letter to the Corinthians (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2014), 359–60. For a different but complementary analysis of the unity of 9:6–15 utiliz-
ing the Greco-Roman categories of logos and pathos, see Bart B. Bruehler, “Proverbs,
Persuasion and People: A Three-Dimensional Investigation of 2 Corinthians 9:6–15,” NTS
48 (2002): 209–24.
47 E.g., Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1997), 440.
48 Once the decision is made to take God as the subject, a “theological interpretation of
Scripture” may suggest, especially in light of 8:9, that the “he” of 9:9 is actually Christ.
See David Starling, “Meditations on a Slippery Citation: Paul’s Use of Psalm 112:9 in
2 Corinthians 9:9,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 6 (2012): 241–55. Cf. Thomas
Stegman, The Character of Jesus: The Linchpin to Paul’s Argument in 2 Corinthians (Rome:
Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2005), 192–96.
49 Raymond F. Collins, Second Corinthians (Paideia; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), 185; Hafemann,
2 Corinthians, 368. For a “both-and” approach to the issue, see Simon J. Kistemaker,
2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 314.

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We have already seen numerous resemblances between 8:1–15 and 9:6–15,

along with ways in which both of those two sections differ from 8:16–9:5 in
between them. We should not necessarily expect, therefore, that one key Old
Testament text must govern all of this middle section the way a passage from
the Hebrew Scriptures does for each of the two framing sections. But, in fact,
it would appear that the same pattern repeats itself in 8:16–9:5 as well. The key
verse is 8:21, which should be seen as a quotation of, not merely an allusion to,
Prov 3:4. After all, every word of the lxx of this proverb reappears in 2 Cor 8:21,
even if one of the five is in a different form derived from the same root.50
If Paul stresses how his co-workers and he strive to do what is right or good
in the eyes both of God and of fellow human beings, then the rest of this mid-
dle section of 2 Cor 8–9 elaborates on the mechanism of accountability that
will make this happen. As commentators consistently point out, Paul takes
pains not merely to be accountable before God with what he is hoping will
be a sizable sum of money to convey to Jerusalem, he wants to be seen to be
accountable by others who observe the details of the collection and its trans-
portation. 8:16–20 explain that Titus will be accompanying the gift—someone
who is universally praised for his service to the gospel and therefore for his
integrity (vv. 16–19). That way, no one can justifiably criticize them for misman-
aging the funds in any way (v. 20).
After the Old Testament quotation, Paul introduces the two unnamed
Christian “brothers” who will further the quest for accountability (vv. 22–24). It
has been plausibly suggested that the first brother is someone Paul particularly
trusted (“often proved to us”—v. 22), and that the second brother is one whom
the churches, and perhaps especially the Corinthians, particularly trusted.
Given that both Paul and the church apparently thought well of Titus, we thus
have at least two out of the three individuals that Paul thinks very highly of,
and two out of the three that the churches (or just Corinth) esteem greatly.51
This mitigates any skepticism that either Paul or the Corinthians might have
had about the third individual brother going on the trip whom each knew less
well. Of course, Paul is less likely to have been suspicious of any of the three
emissaries than the Corinthians were. Verse 20 is not just a hypothetical clause.
Paul has been receiving criticism on a number of fronts (cf. 2 Cor 1:12; 2:17; 4:2;
50 The lack of any citation formula is the main reason that it is generally taken to be an allu-
sion. But various other New Testament texts labeled quotations (or put in bold-face type
in the ubs5) lack specific introductions, including the quotation of Jer 9:24 in 2 Cor 10:17,
so this should not become the decisive criterion. Kim (Die paulinische Kollekte, 49) says
that Paul “cites” Prov 3:4.
51 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 78. Cf. Victor P. Furnish, II Corinthians (AB 32A; New York:
Doubleday, 1984), 437.

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and, if part of the same letter, 10:2–4; 12:16–17; 13:8), so he wants to minimize
the potential for criticism concerning his handling of the collection.52
Just as Paul began this two-chapter portion of his epistle with an appeal to
the model of the Macedonians, he next appeals to the sense of public honor
and rivalry that always existed between cities or regions in the ancient Roman
Empire (9:1–5). That the Macedonians proved generous with a little had earlier
motivated Paul to try to inspire the Corinthians to be generous with a lot more.
Now he warns them of the shame they will accrue if the Macedonians coming
to Corinth to accompany the collection find out how comparatively little they
had actually given. God alone knows their hearts and their motives but they
should at least look like what the Christian subcultures had come to identify
as generous. Verse 4 refers explicitly to the shame that would accrue to them if
Macedonian delegates accompanying the collection sailed down the coast to
Corinth and discovered the Corinthians’ comparative stinginess. They would
not have gone away convinced that the Corinthians had done right in the eyes
of God or people. That Prov 3:4 plays a central role in Paul’s thinking is rein-
forced by his reuse of it to enjoin the same principles in Rom 12:17.53
What implications for the larger literary questions surrounding 2 Corinthians
might our findings thus far produce? If 2 Cor 8–9 form a unity, with one of its
three main subsections clearly spanning the supposed literary seam at 9:1, are
there other apparent literary seams that have been mislabeled? Is Paul’s use of
the Old Testament of help in answering this question at any point? Once we
realize the important role that Prov 3:4 plays in 8:16–9:5, it is natural to look
for other examples of Paul wanting to do what is right not only in the Lord’s
eyes but also in people’s eyes. While we have seen that other Old Testament
quotations dictate Paul’s logic in the framing sections of 8:1–15 and 9:6–15, the
principle of 8:21 actually provides a unifying thread for all three parts of chs.
8–9. Paul wants God and the Macedonians to recognize that the Corinthians
have done well in supporting the collection, so he challenges them with the
Macedonians’ sacrificial commitment (8:1–15), he sets up an accountability
mechanism for them to give in a way that would not make them ashamed
when the Macedonians arrive (8:16–9:5), and he encourages them to give liber-
ally in the sight of God because God is able to supply all their needs (9:6–15).54
52 David R. Hall, The Unity of the Corinthian Correspondence (JSNTSup 251; London:
T&T Clark, 2003), 96. Cf. Larry Kreitzer, 2 Corinthians (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic,
1996), 90–91.
53 Philip E. Hughes, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1962), 317.
54 By way of contrast, most scholarship on the collection treats 8:16–24 in the least de-
tail of all. Münch (Geschenk der Einfachheit), for example, devotes sixty-five pages to

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With this thread tying together chs. 8–9, we may then look back to 7:13–16
and see numerous foreshadowings of the contents of these two chapters. Paul
mentions Titus’s ongoing role as an intermediary between the Corinthians and
him (v. 13). He stresses that he had boasted to Titus about them and they had
not embarrassed him, so that his boasting proved true (v. 14). The same cluster
of concepts reappears in 9:2–4. Paul has been boasting about the Corinthians
to Macedonia (v. 2), he wants that boasting not to prove hollow (v. 3) or to cause
the Corinthians or him to experience any shame for being so confident (v. 4).
The same verbs for boasting (καυχάομαι) and for being ashamed (καταισχύνω)
recur in both contexts as well. There is even a possible allusion to Ps 2:11 lxx in
7:15–16 which should lead the Corinthians “to treat one another with respect
like that given to God himself,”55 the very contrast introduced by 8:21.
But we can say more. Second Corinthians 7:13–16 aptly illustrates the theme
of 8:21 in other ways as well. That the Corinthians have made progress on so
many other fronts in which they were previously deficient has vindicated Paul’s
confidence in them that they would obey God in these matters, but also has
vindicated this confidence as he had expressed it to Titus (7:14). So even if the
topic has changed in ch. 8 to the collection, Paul’s strategy and vocabulary in
addressing the Corinthian problems remains constant. A spate of recent stud-
ies has turned the tide from seeing chs. 8–9 as separate from chs. 1–7,56 and the
points of connection just mentioned here between 7:13–16 and 8:1–9:15 simply
add to the case for the unity of chs. 1–9.57 In a previous study, I suggested that
1:12–7:16 should be outlined as an extended chiasmus.58 Many of the seemingly
abrupt transitions, particularly in chs. 6–7, can be explained because Paul is
returning to subjects he introduced in the first half of his inversely parallel
8:1–15 (68–153), only five pages to 8:16–24 (153–58), and fifty-five pages to 9:1–15 (158–213).
Second Corinthians 8:21, with its quotation of Prov 3:4, receives one paragraph of just over
four lines (155), which comments solely on how Paul’s rephrasing of the lxx highlights
the contrast between Paul’s assurance of God’s verdict and his uncertainty and mistrust
concerning the Corinthians’ response.
55 Han, Swimming in the Sea of Scripture, 115.
56 See esp. David A. Hester, “The Unity of 2 Corinthians: A Test Case for a Re-Discovered and
Re-Invented Rhetoric,” Neot 33 (1999): 411–32; J. D. H. Amador, “Revisiting 2 Corinthians:
Rhetoric and the Case for Unity,” NTS 46 (2000): 92–111; Ivor H. Jones, “Rhetorical Criticism
and the Unity of 2 Corinthians,” NTS 54 (2008): 496–524.
57 Hans-Michael Wünsch (Der paulinische Brief 2Kor 1–9 als kommunikative Handlung: Eine
rhetorisch-literaturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung [Münster: Lit, 1996], 293–326) goes so
far as to make 7:4–9:15 a unified subsection of chs. 1–9, which he in turn outlines accord-
ing to the conventional categories of Greco-Roman rhetoric. But this does not do justice
to the major change of topic at 8:1.
58 Craig L. Blomberg, “The Structure of 2 Corinthians 1–7,” CTR 4 (1989): 3–20.

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outline. In particular, the stark contrasts of 6:14–7:1 can be seen as correspond-

ing to similar dualistic reflection in 2:14–4:6.
The entire outline appears as follows:
A. Paul’s Confidence in His Motives A. Paul’s Confidence in the Corinthi-

(1:12–22) ans (7:13b–16)
B. Paul’s Sorrow (1:23–2:11) B. The Corinthians’ Sorrow (7:8–13a)
C. Paul’s Travels to Macedonia (2:12–13) C. Paul’s Travel Report Resumed (7:5–7)
D. Contrasting the Saved & the Per- D. Believers vs. Unbelievers (6:11–7:4)
ishing (2:14–4:6)
E.
Present Afflictions vs. Coming E. Present Afflictions vs. Present
Glory (4:7–5:10) Glory (6:1–10)
F. The Core of Ministry: Reconciliation (5:11–21)
But my previous study focused solely on the first seven chapters of this epis-
tle. Now we may be in a position to say something about their connection to
chs. 8 and 9.
The most significant part of a chiasmus is its center. Reconciliation has been
viewed as the heart of Paul’s theology in this letter and even throughout his
epistles, irrespective of the structure of 2 Corinthians, so it certainly forms a
fitting climax.59 But the second most important part of extended inverse par-
allelism is the framing material.60 Second Corinthians 1:12–22 matches 7:13–16
with its emphasis on Paul’s boasting and confidence, the very themes, we have
just seen, that form the bridge from 7:13–16 to 8:1–9:15. This should cause no
surprise, if they are important enough to Paul to form the beginning and end
of his outline of the letter body in chs. 1–7. Even though Paul’s narrative flow
seems to take several unexpected turns throughout the first seven chapters,
if his overall strategy is to declare his confidence in his relationship with the
Corinthians and in their ability to respond to God’s requirements properly, we
should find it completely natural that it forms the unifying thread of the next
two chapters also.
But why might Paul not have wanted to include the issue of the collection
within his giant chiastic structure? Presumably, so that it would stand out more.
If reconciliation with God and humans is the theological center of the letter, if
doing what is right in the sight of God and humans is the unifying thread that
59 See esp. Ralph P. Martin, Reconciliation: A Study of Paul’s Theology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981).
60 See esp. Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes: A Literary and
Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke (combined ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983),
49–56.

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ties chs. 1–7 and 8–9 together, then applying that principle to generous giving
for impoverished fellow believers forms the ethical climax or center of the let-
ter. It is the one area in which there is a pressing need for the Corinthians to
demonstrate their spiritual maturity.
Is it a weakness of our proposal that it finds Paul juxtaposing two such dif-
ferent structures in these nine chapters? Not necessarily. Other Hellenistic let-
ters mix and match subordinate structures at times.61 Credible proposals for
the outlines of other New Testament letters occasionally do so as well.62 But
in fact, our proposal merely juxtaposes an extended chiasmus with an ABA
structure that could easily be considered a chiasmus if we were to subdivide
8:16–9:5 into 8:16–24 and 9:1–5 on the basis of the famous literary seam of 9:1.63
Then we would have an ABBA structure—the simplest form of chiasmus—and
the first nine chapters, after the salutation and introductory thanksgiving or
blessing in 1:1–11, would comprise a pair of chiastic structures.
Do our findings, finally, help with the perplexing issues surrounding chs.
10–13? If Paul’s boasting in his own motives, and also in the Corinthians’ pres-
ent and future response to God’s word, is crucial for chs. 1–9, it is of no little
interest that his favorite verb for boasting (καυχάομαι) appears a whopping sev-
enteen times in chs. 10–13 (10:8, 13, 15, 16, 17 [2X]; 11:12, 16, 18 [2X], 30 [2X]; 12:1,
12:5 [2X], 6 and 9). Of course, many of these uses are Paul boasting as a self-
described “fool,” a rhetorical device designed to shame the “super-apostles”
or “false apostles” who are troubling the Corinthians.64 And these opponents
have not figured in the earlier chapters of the letter at all. But Paul also knows
that true boasting must be solely “in the Lord” (10:17)—another Old Testament
quotation (Jer 9:24). The significance of this principle is demonstrated further
by the fact that he had already used this same quotation in 1 Cor 1:31.
It is certainly possible that Paul deliberately avoided the issue of the rival in-
terlopers in Corinth until he had dealt with all the other matters he wanted to
address. Psychologically, in the ancient and modern worlds alike, there is great
benefit in giving as much praise and good news as possible before addressing
61 See esp. Thomas Schmeller, “Die Cicerobriefe und die Frage nach der Einheitlichkeit der
2. Korintherbriefs,” ZNW 85 (2004): 181–208.
62 Most commonly with Philippians, the letter that, after 2 Corinthians, has next most often
been viewed as composite.
63 Some studies errantly refer to this kind of structure as chiastic, but it merely contains
an inclusio. For a thorough study of Chiasmus in Antiquity, see the volume so-titled
edited by John W. Welch (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981). For a thorough bibliography,
see http://chiasmusresources.johnwwelchresources.com/biblio. See, however, Garland,
2 Corinthians, 422–23, although the two B sections of his ABCCBA outline seem to have
little to do with each other.
64 See esp. Christopher Forbes, “Comparison, Self-Praise and Irony: Paul’s Boasting in the
Convention of Hellenistic Rhetoric,” NTS 32 (1986): 1–30.

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remaining problems. It is possible that Paul actually had a more linear out-
line in mind throughout the epistle and saved this, most serious of issues for
the climactic final position. There is no obvious chiastic structure in chs. 10–13
nor have significant scholarly publications proposed any. On the other hand, if
fresh news reached Paul about new problems in Corinth after he had dictated
chs. 1–9, one can easily imagine him “dashing off” something of a much more
ad hoc and less intricately structured form. If chs. 10–13 form the heart of a sep-
arate letter altogether, whether the “sorrowful letter” referred to in 2:4 and 7:8
or a later letter after chs. 1–9 were sent off, then a different form or structure is
no less surprising than the striking differences in form and structure between
1 and 2 Corinthians.
Ford and Young have made an intriguing proposal that preserves the original
unity of all thirteen chapters. The entire letter should be viewed as an ABA form
with the instruction about the collection as the climactic center.65 Although
Paul is not typically considered one of the major biblical theologians on the
topic of material possessions, this underestimates his contribution to the
topic.66 Generous giving to the poor would actually form a very appropriate
center, especially given Paul’s remarkable statement in Gal 2:10. After a serious
theological debate about the heart of the gospel, in almost offhanded fashion
Paul concludes, “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the
poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” In all the ink spilled in
modern scholarship over Gal 2:1–10 and the theological divide between Paul
and the Jerusalem apostles, this conclusion has received comparatively little
attention.67 All parties in this otherwise tense and divided council quickly
agreed that remembering the poor was important, and Paul stressed that it
had been an abiding commitment of his. It probably says more about modern
Western reluctance to part with surplus possessions than it does about Paul’s
priorities when we wonder if the collection in 2 Cor 8–9 could merit a climac-
tic central position of an entire letter focusing on Paul’s apostolic ministry.68
65 Frances M. Young and David F. Ford, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (London: spck,
1987), 16–40.
66 See Craig L. Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions
(Downers Grove, IL: ivp, 2001), 177–211, and the literature there cited. More recently,
see esp. Bruce W. Longenecker, Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2010).
67 In the last thirty years of New Testament Abstracts, only three articles are devoted to
Gal 2:10. One of them is in Dutch, one is about contemporary application, and the only
one that centers on historical and exegetical matters in one of the three major European
languages is F. K. T. Clarke, “‘Remembering the Poor’: Does Galatians 2.10a Allude to the
Collection?” ScrB 31 (2001): 20–28.
68 See, e.g., the disparaging remarks in Harris (Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 111–12) about
chs. 8–9 as the possible climactic center of a chiasmus. For a succinct, Greek Orthodox

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322 Blomberg
But the depth of analysis necessary to properly assess Ford and Young’s
outline goes well beyond the scope of this essay. The perspective that Paul
wrote chs. 10–13 after he sent 1–9 (or at least after he received fresh news from
Corinth) still has much to commend it.69 Our conclusions must be restricted to
chs. 1–9. We may enumerate them in a list of ten items. (1) Second Corinthians
8–9 contains three actual quotations of the Hebrew Scriptures. Not only does
Exod 16:18 appear in 8:15 and Ps 112:9 in 9:9 but Prov 3:4 is quoted in 8:21.
(2) Content and vocabulary analysis show that the three main subdivisions
of 2 Cor 8–9 are 8:1–15, 8:16–9:5, and 9:6–15. (3) Much of the content and vo-
cabulary in each subdivision stems from or is suggested by the Old Testament
quotation in that section. Indeed, the entire narrative flow of each subdivi-
sion reinforces the main point or points of the quotation. (4) The less com-
monly recognized quotation, Prov 3:4, introduces the theme or motif that in
fact unifies all of chs. 8–9: doing what is right in the sight of God and also in
the sight of other human beings. (5) Chapter 7:13–16 contains several concepts
and key words that predominate in chs. 8–9, especially surrounding Paul’s
confidence in the Corinthians to do what is right in God’s and people’s eyes.
(6) This theme is part of the framing theme of the extended chiasmus that
spans 1:10–7:16. Proverbs 3:4 can thus be seen as reinforcing, perhaps even
contributing to, the production of the unifying thread that ties chs. 1–7 and
8–9 together. (7) This thread provides one additional argument for the unity
of 2 Cor 1–9, showing just how steeped Paul is in the Hebrew Scriptures.
(8) Despite first appearances, the Hebrew Bible remains formative and au-
thoritative for Paul in 2 Corinthians, even as he recognizes a new era in salva-
tion history to have arrived. (9) The importance of chs. 8–9 for Paul’s theology
and ethics is only enhanced in all of this. If 2 Cor 1–9 was the extent of what
Paul originally formulated, then chs. 8–9 form the climax of the letter via end-
stress. If chs. 10–13 formed part of what he envisioned from the outset, then
chs. 8–9 turn out to be the central climax of an ABA inclusio. (10) Contemporary
Christians should therefore take Paul’s teaching about stewardship more seri-
ously than they typically do.70
presentation that puts things in better perspective, see Petros Vassiliadis, “Equality
and Justice in Classical Antiquity and in Paul: The Social Implications of the Pauline
Collection,” SVTQ 36 (1992): 51–59.
69 Structurally, see esp. Jones (“Rhetorical Criticism and the Unity of 2 Corinthians”), who
limits that unity to chs. 1–9.
70 Chrysostom’s fourth-century comments about athletes and entertainers remain haunt-
ingly applicable today: “Look at how much people give to players and dancers—why not
give just half as much to Christ?” (quoted in Gerald L. Bray [ed.], 1–2 Corinthians [ACCS;
Downers Grove, IL: ivp, 2006], 281). See further Craig L. Blomberg, Christians in an Age of
Wealth: A Biblical Theology of Stewardship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013).

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Part 4
Other Pauline Letters

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Chapter 15
The Sinai-Mεσίτης Tradition in Galatians 3:19–20

Linda L. Belleville
The presence of details in Paul’s engagement with the Israelite wilderness nar-
ratives that go beyond what is found in the Hebrew Scriptures has long been
noted. All too often, these details are attributed to Paul’s creative genius or to
an overactive imagination. However, to do so is to overlook the biblical and
extra-biblical tradition-history in which Paul stands.1 One text that profits
from a consideration of tradition-history is Gal 3:19–20. In answer to the ques-
tion, “Why, then, the law [Τί οὖν ὁ νόμος]?” Paul responds, “It was added χάριν
transgressions [τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν προσετέθη]… instituted through angels
[διαταγεὶς δι’ ἀγγέλων] by the hand of the mediator [ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου].”2
It is the scholarly consensus that Paul’s question points to the Sinai tradition
of law-giving. Yet no angelic mediation appears in the Hebrew narrative and
the title ‫ּבינֵ ינּו‬-‫ׁש‬
ֵ ֵ‫‘ י‬mediator’ is absent from the Sinai story. Even more difficult
is Paul’s following statement, which all concede to be one of the most abstruse
comments in the Pauline corpus: ὁ δὲ μεσίτης ἑνὸς οὐκ ἔστιν, ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἷς ἐστιν
(“Now the mediator is not of one, but God is one”).3 While most concede that
Gal 3:19–20 is Paul’s response to Judaizing intruders, there is scholarly debate
about the exact thrust of Paul’s polemic.4 At the heart of this debate is the term
μεσίτης and its relationship to Paul’s question about law-giving. The purpose of
1 The Midrashim show the felt need to fill in the gaps left in the biblical narratives regarding
people and events.
2 All Greek references are from Barbara and Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo
Martini, and Bruce Metzger, The Greek New Testament (5th rev. ed; Stuttgart: German Bible
Society, 2014).
3 Author’s translation. English Bible references are taken from the nrsv unless otherwise
specified.
4 Some argue that Paul’s intent is to show the theological inferiority of Mosaic Law to the
Abrahamic promise. See, for example, F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary
on the Greek Text (nigtc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 177; Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians:
A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress,
1979), 171–72; Walter Hansen, Galatians (ivpntc 9; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994),
103; Richard Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1975), 120. Yet, this is at odds with both Paul’s and the New Testament’s stance elsewhere (see
below).

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326 Belleville
this essay is to see what light the Sinai-μεσίτης tradition sheds on Paul’s use of
Scripture and on his theological intent.
1 The Law: Διαταγεὶς δι’ ἀγγέλων
It is first to be noted that Paul’s mention of angelic mediation finds no place

in the MT Sinai narrative. Exodus 19:18 has Yahweh descending upon Mt. Sinai
‫‘ ָּב ֵאׁש‬in fire’ and accompanied by smoke and the quaking of the mountain:
“Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the LORD had descended
upon it in fire.” Deuteronomy 33:2 adds that Yahweh came “from [the midst of]
holy myriads” (‫)וְ ָא ָתה מ ִֵ‍ר ְבבֹת ק ֶֹדׁש‬.5 The rest of the verse is textually uncertain.
As bracketed, it translates “from his right hand a fiery law for them” [‫[אׁש‬ ֵ ‫ִ‍ימינֹו‬
ִ ‫מ‬
ָ . This is reflected in Symmachus’s πυρινὸς νόμος and the Vulgate’s in
‫[ּדת] ָ ֽלמֹו‬
dextera eius ignea lex. However, Targum Onkelos Deuteronomy has “from his
right hand there was flashing fire” (‫אֹור ָיתא‬ ָ ‫יׁש ָתא‬ ִ ) which may reflect
ָ ‫יַמינֵ יה ִמגֹו ִא‬
another Hebrew text in circulation at the time.
Yet what is ambiguous in the Hebrew text is made explicit in the lxx:
Yahweh descends on Mt. Sinai “with myriads of Kadēs [σὺν μυριάσιν Καδης]6
and angels with him on his right hand [ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτοῦ ἄγγελοι μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ].”7
Aquila’s translation has both myriads of holy ones (ἀπὸ μυριάδων ἁγιασμοῦ)
and “from his right hand a fiery decree for them” (ἀπὸ δεξιᾶς αὐτοῦ πῦρ δόγμα
αὐτοῖς).
Mediating angels play a prominent role in tradition-history. They appear
in a wide range of extra-biblical materials, confirming that angelic media-
tion of the Law was not the product of Pauline creativity. Jubilees 1:27–28 has,
“[God] said to the angel of the presence, ‘Write for Moses from the beginning
of creation until my sanctuary has been built among them for all eternity.’”8
In T. Dan 6:2 Israel is instructed to “draw near to God and to the angel who in-
tercedes for you [τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῷ παραιτουμένῳ ὑμᾶς] because he is the mediator
5 The lxx and Symmachus have σὺν μυριάσιν Καδης. Aquila has ἀπο μυριάδων ἁγιασμοῦ. The
Vulgate has et cum eo sanctorium milia.
6 Some retain Καδης as a transliterated proper noun. The Jewish association of Καδης with holi-
ness makes “holy ones” a probable rendering. See, for example, Aquila ἀπὸ μυριάδων ἁγιασμοῦ.
7 The Göttingen critical edition surmises that the Greek translator had ‫ ֵא ְׁשרו ֵאלים‬instead
of ‫ ֵא ְׁש ָּדת ָלמֹו‬in his Hebrew text. See John Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy
(Septuagint and Cognate Studies; Atlanta: sbl, 1995), 540 n. 3.
8 Compare Isa 63:9; T. Jud. 25. R. H. Charles supposes that “the angel of the presence” is Michael
(The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English [Oxford: Clarendon,
1913]). Later Judaism rejected this idea.

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The Sinai-Mεσίτης Tradition in Galatians 3:19–20 327
between God and humans [ὅτι οὗτός ἐστι μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων] for the
peace of Israel.” Josephus asserts, “The most excellent of our doctrines and our
most holy things in the laws, we learned through angels from God [ἡμῶν δὲ
τὰ κάλλιστα τῶν δογμάτων καὶ τὰ ὁσιώτατα τῶν ἐν τοῖς νόμοις δι᾽ ἀγγέλων παρὰ
τοῦ θεοῦ μαθόντων]” (Ant. 15.136).9 Philo states, “the sacred Scripture calls
them angels; for they report the injunctions of the father [God] to his chil-
dren [Israel], and the necessities of the children to the father [ἀγγέλους καλεῖν
γὰρ τὰς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐπικελεύσεις τοῖς ἐγγόνοις καὶ τὰς τῶν ἐγγόνων χρείας τῷ πατρὶ
διαγγέλλουσι” (Somn. 1.141–142). Some suppose that τῷ πατρὶ διαγγέλλουσι is a
reference to human messengers rather than to angels. However, the broader
context makes it clear that Philo is speaking of angels. Indeed, he states that
the sacred Scripture calls them angels (ὁ δὲ ἱερὸς λόγος ἀγγέλους εἴωθε καλεῖν).
Pseudo-Philo lab 11.5 states, “And the angels ran before, until God established
the law of an everlasting covenant with the children of Israel and gave to them
an eternal commandment which will not pass away.” Early Rabbinic tradition
has much the same.10 While the MT (‫ֹלהים ִרּב ַֹתיִ ם‬
ִ ‫ ; ַא ְל ֵפי ֶר ֶכב ֱא‬Ps 68:18) and the
lxx (τὸ ἅρμα τοῦ θεοῦ μυριοπλάσιον χιλιάδες εὐθηνούντων; Ps 67:18) respectively
have the God of Sinai dwelling on his mountain and at his disposal “mighty
chariotry, twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands,” Pesiq. Rab. 21.7
states that the psalmist “bears witness to the presence of thousands of angels.”
This Sinai tradition-history of angelic mediation makes it quite improb-
able that δι᾽ ἀγγέλων refers to prophetic or priestly messengers as some have
argued.11 Tradition-history also makes “ordained by angels” (asv, dra, erv,
gnv, kjv, nrsv, nau, rsv), “ordered by angels” (bbe, csb), “put into effect”
(niv, esv; cf. nkjv)12 or “promulgated by angels” (nab, njb)13 improbable. The
aorist διαταγείς is more likely a divine passive: God is the agent; angels are his
instrument. Thus, “God gave his law through angels” (nlt). This fits Josephus’s
9 Francis Watson thinks that δι᾽ ἀγγέλων is a reference to the biblical writers rather than
to angels (Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith [New York: T&T Clark, 2004], 280 n. 17).
However, such a usage appears unprecedented.
10 Some later Rabbis countered the idea that the Law was mediated and contended that it
was given directly to Israel by Yahweh. Angels are no longer mediators of the Law but ad-
versaries, trying to prevent Moses from receiving it. See Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the
Jews (6 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909–1938), 3:109–14.
Pesiqta Rabbati 21.8 (on Ps 68:18) goes so far as to state that the angels came down on the
world sharply intent on destroying it.
11 See W. D. Davies, “A Note on Josephus Antiquities 15.136,” htr 47 (1954): 135–40;
Francis R. Walton, “The Messenger of God in Hecataeus of Abdera,” htr 48 (1955): 255–57.
12 See J. Louis Martyn, Galatians (AB 35A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1997), 354.
13 See Frank J. Matera, Galatians (SP 9; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 126.

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328 Belleville
phraseology δι᾽ ἀγγέλων παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ μαθόντων (Ant. 15.136). God is involved
albeit once-removed.
Some suppose the Sinai-angelic tradition shows the inferiority of the law.14
Yet both angelic presence and angelic mediation in tradition-history uniformly
add to the stature of the giving of the law. Others think that Paul is pushed by
Judaizing intruders to engage in ad hominem argumentation that is at odds
with the tradition in which he stands.15 However, Paul does not draw any con-
clusions or develop any arguments. He merely states what all Jews at that time
understood, namely, that the law was instituted “through angels.” The very
fact that Paul offers no explanation for his statement supports a traditional
explanation.
Nor does Paul’s phraseology suggest inferiority from a Christian perspec-
tive. The presence of angels and their role as Sinai mediators were understood
by other New Testament writers to signify the great glory—not inferiority,
of Mosaic law. A Sinai angelic tradition appears twice elsewhere in the NT.
Acts 7:53 has, “You are the ones that received the law as delivered by angels and
did not keep it [οἵτινες ἐλάβετε τὸν νόμον εἰς διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων καὶ οὐκ ἐφυλάξατε]”
(esv) (i.e., God directed angels to transmit the law).16 The two nouns in regi-
men διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων leave little room for grammatical ambiguity.17 This an-
gelic tradition is also found in Heb 2:2, where the law is identified as “the word
spoken through angels [ὁ δι’ ἀγγέλων λαληθεὶς λόγος].” The aorist λαληθείς here
is likely a divine passive similar to Gal 3:19. God is the agent; the angels are his
instruments (δι’ ἀγγέλων). Εἰ with the indicative ἐγένετο βέβαιος assumes the
factual character of what is being reported: “Since the word spoken through
angels was firm [εἰ γὰρ ὁ δι᾿ ἀγγέλων λαληθεὶς λόγος ἐγένετο βέβαιος].”18 The line
of argumentation is an a fortiori one: “How will we escape if we turn our backs
on a salvation so much greater [τηλικαύτης]?” This makes the law “good” but
salvation through Christ “better.”19
14 See, for example, Bruce, Galatians, 177; Betz, Galatians, 171–72; Hansen, Galatians, 103.
15 See Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 120.
16 See bdag, s.v. “διατάσσω.”
17 See bdf, §259; Edwin Mayser, Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemäerzeit
(2 vols.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1933–36), 2:2.118.
18 Εἰ with the indicative of all tenses denotes a simple conditional assumption with empha-
sis on the reality of the assumption (bdf, §371).
19 Watson thinks that the evidence for an angelic presence at Sinai is less clear than is often
thought (Paul, 280 n. 17). However, given the witness of the lxx, the Psalter, Acts, Paul,
Hebrews, and a range of other Jewish authors, the evidence is quite substantial.

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2 The Law: ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου
Angels are not the only Sinai mediators mentioned in Gal 3:19–20. Paul adds ἐν
χειρὶ μεσίτου. Some have linked the two prepositional phrases and in-so-doing
have identified δι’ ἀγγέλων and ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου.20 There is some support for this.
In Somn. 1.143, Philo uses μεσίτης of the Sinai angels whom Israel approached,
asking that one of them (τινος τῶν μεσιτῶν) speak to God on their behalf and
so avoid death from direct divine communication. In T. Dan 6:2 the angel
who intercedes for Israel is a μεσίτης between God and humans (τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῷ
παραιτουμένῳ ὑμᾶς ὅτι οὗτός ἐστι μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων).
On the other hand, there is much to commend identifying ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου
with Moses.21 First there is the grammar. Δι’ ἀγγέλων is plural and ἐν χειρὶ
μεσίτου is singular. Also, the articular ὁ μεσίτης in v. 20 points to singular versus
multiple mediators. The article could be merely anaphoric, referring back to ἐν
χειρὶ μεσίτου in v. 19b: “Now this mediator is not of one.” It could also function
to make the abstract noun concrete, referring to “the actions of a mediator” or
to “the nature of mediation.”22
Second, the Sinai tradition uniformly supports Mosaic mediation. The
nrsv rendering “by a mediator” is literally “by the hand of the mediator” (ἐν
χειρὶ μεσίτου). Apollonius’s Canon regarding two nouns in regimen as definite
applies.23 There are, of course, exceptions. However, in these cases, it is typi-
cally the article with the nomen rectum that is dropped. That is not so here.
’Εν χειρί is a literal lxx rendering of the Hebrew idiom ‫ ְּביַ ד‬which denotes in-
strumentality: “by means of a mediator.”24 ’Εν χειρὶ Μωυσῆ appears regularly in
the lxx with reference to Moses’s role both as God’s spokesperson and as me-
diator of the Law. For example, lxx Lev 26:46 has, “These are the judgments,
20 See, for example, Charles Cosgrove, The Cross and the Spirit: A Study in the Argument and
Theology of Galatians (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988), 158.
21 Because μεσίτης is used in 1 Tim 2:5 of Christ as the sole mediator between God and hu-
mans, many of the early church fathers and later Reformers identified ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου with
Christ. See A. Oepke, “μεσίτης,” tdnt 4:624. See also Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24.
22 So Oepke, “μεσίτης.” Ernest De Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Epistle to the Galatians (icc; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1921), 190.
23 This is particularly the case with the kind of fixed prepositional phrase found in Gal 3:19.
See bdf, §259; Mayser, Grammatik, 2:2.118.
24 See Henry St. John Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1909), 44–45; Nigel Turner, Syntax (A Grammar of New
Testament Greek 3; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1963), 93; C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom Book of
New Testament Greek (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 184.
Compare also Acts 11:30, ὃ καὶ ἐποίησαν ἀποστείλαντες πρὸς τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους διὰ χειρὸς
Βαρναβᾶ καὶ Σαύλου.

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330 Belleville
ordinances, and the Law between the Lord and the children of Israel which he
gave on Mt. Sinai “by the hand of Moses [ἐν χειρὶ Μωυσῆ].”25 Although the noun
μεσίτης does not occur, the functional equivalent ἀνὰ μέσον does. According to
Deut 5:5 lxx, Moses stood ἀνὰ μέσον the LORD and Israel to declare the words
of the Law spoken on Mt. Sinai (κἀγὼ εἱστήκειν ἀνὰ μέσον κυρίου καὶ ὑμῶν ἐν τῷ
καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ἀναγγεῖλαι ὑμῖν τὰ ῥήματα κυρίου).
It is thus not surprising that Sinai tradition-history assigns the title of μεσίτης
to Moses. Philo calls Moses “mediator and reconciler” on Israel’s behalf regard-
ing the golden calf (Mos. 2.166; καταπλαγεὶς δὲ καὶ ἀναγκασθεὶς πιστεύειν ἀπίστοις
πράξεσιν οἷα μεσίτης καὶ διαλλακτὴς). Assumption of Moses 1:16–17 (T. Mos. 1:1)
states that God prepared Moses before the foundation of the world to be
μεσίτην of his covenant (Καὶ προεθεάσατό με ὁ θεὸς πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου εἶναι
με τῆς διαθήκης αὐτοῦ μεσίτην). In the Samaritan Memar Marqah’s midrashic
rewriting of the Pentateuch, Moses is given the title ‫ מ יס טה‬or ‘middleman.’26
In Rabbinic materials, Moses is similarly called ‫‘ ֵּבין‬middleman.’
The title has no deprecatory or inferior overtones in antiquity. Josephus
gives God the title μεσίτης: “This they said with an oath, and called God for
the arbitrator of what they promised [ταῦτα δὲ ὀμνύντες ἔλεγον καὶ θεὸν μεσίτην
ὧν ὑπισχνοῦντο ποιούμενοι]” (Ant. 4.133). Plutarch notes that Zoroaster placed
Mithras midway between (μέσον ἀμφοῖν) the gods of darkness and light and
that for this reason the Persians give to Mithras the name τὸν μεσίτην ‘Mediator’
(Isis and Osiris 398E). Jesus Christ himself is named “the one mediator between
God and human beings [εἷς καὶ μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων]” (1 Tim 2:5).
It is therefore quite surprising that the vast majority of Galatians commen-
tators understand Paul’s language of mediation to be deprecatory of the law.
It is commonly stated that it is almost impossible to read “instituted through
angels” and “by the hand of a mediator” in any other way than with the intent
“to depreciate the law as not given directly by God.”27 Yet no Jew, Gentile, or
Christian in antiquity would take Paul’s language in this way.
Some concede that Paul’s reference to Moses as a mediator in itself carries
no necessary nuance of disparagement of Moses or the law. However, they
claim that Paul’s further statement in v. 20 is undeniably derogatory.
25 Compare Num 4:37, 41, 45, 49; 9:23; 10:13; 15:23; 17:5; 33:1; 36:13; Josh 21:2; 22:9; Judg 3:4; 1 Chr
16:40; 2 Chr 33:8; Ps 76:21; 2 Bar. 2:28. See also Watson, Paul, 317.
26 See H. Baneth, Des Samaritaners Marqah (Berlin, 1888), 42; Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in
Jewish Palestine (Texts and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America 18; New
York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962), 80–81.
27 See in particular Burton, Galatians, 189, and Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (wbc 41;
Dallas: Word, 1998), 140–41.

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3 The Law: ὁ δὲ μεσίτης ἑνὸς οὐκ ἔστιν, ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἷς ἐστιν
Paul’s rehearsal of these well known “facts” of tradition history leads him to
conclude: “Now the mediator is not of one but God is one [ὁ δὲ μεσίτης ἑνὸς
οὐκ ἔστιν, ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἷς ἐστιν]” (Gal 3:20 [author’s translation]). While abstruse to
modern ears, Paul’s meaning must have been clear to the Galatian churches,
probably due to a shared worldview that escapes us today. Despite all modern
commentators conceding that Paul’s meaning is abstruse, attempts to unpack
v. 20 are numerous. The most common proposals are that the Sinai mediator is
“not of one” or “of the one God” because:
(1) he mediates between the angels and Israelites as plural persons;
(2) he mediates between two entities, God and Israel;
(3) the angels (or perhaps a single angel) mediate for God, while Moses me-
diates for Israel.
One difficulty with all three interpretations is that Moses is not named any-
where in Galatians (while Abraham is), suggesting that the focus is on the act
of mediation rather than on the person mediating.
Perhaps the main interpretive obstacle is to be found in reading modern
notions of mediation back into the term μεσίτης. The present-day concept
involves a neutral person who negotiates between two persons or parties at
variance.28 However, in the Sinai narrative, Moses does not function as a go-
between for God and Israel. His role is that of speaking and acting on behalf
of Israel alone. In Exod 20:19, Israel says to Moses, “You speak to us, but do not
let God speak to us, lest we die.” In the lxx, Deut 5:5 states that Moses “stood
between” (ἀνὰ μέσον) the Lord and Israel. This was not because God needed an
intermediary but because Israel feared to approach God directly.
When Moses stands on the side of God over against Israel, it is in the capac-
ity of a commissioned spokesperson. In Exod 4:15, God states, “You [Moses]
shall speak to him [Aaron] and put the words in his mouth; and I will be
with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.”
Similarly, in Deut 18:18 God says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you
from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the proph-
et, who shall speak to them everything that I command.”29 As God’s spokes-
person, he is διηγήσατο τῷ λαῷ, communicating the unilateral decrees of God
to Israel (Exod 24:3). However, when Moses stands over against God on the
side of Israel, his role is that of intercessor and informant. Ηe is the people’s
28 Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003) s.v.
29 Compare Moses as God’s spokesperson to Pharoah: θεὸν Φαραω (Exod 7:1).

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332 Belleville
representative, “bringing their concerns before God [ἀνοίσεις τοὺς λόγους αὐτῶν
πρὸς τὸν θεὸν]” (Exod 18:19).
The range of meaning for the Hellenistic term μεσίτης certainly includes that
of a go-between.30 In Job 9:33 lxx, Job opines for a μεσίτης, that is, someone to
physically interpose himself between God and Job: “Would that our mediator
were present, and a reprover, and one who should hear the cause between both
[εἴθε ἦν ὁ μεσίτης ἡμῶν καὶ ἐλέγχων καὶ διακούων ἀνὰ μέσον ἀμφοτέρων].” However,
this is not the role of the μεσίτης in the Sinai tradition. As Philo states, the Sinai
μεσίτης is Israel’s intercessor before God because of human frailty: “For God
himself who knows everything has no need of interpreters. But because it is
the lot of us miserable mortals to use speech as a mediator and intercessor,
because of our standing in awe of and fearing the Ruler of the universe, and …
we are in need of mediators (τῶν μεσιτῶν) to speak for us” (Somn. 1.143–45). As
the Sinai μεσίτης, Moses does not represent the “one” powerful God but the
“many” frail Israelites.
One difficulty lies in translating ὁ δὲ μεσίτης ἑνὸς οὐκ ἔστιν, ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἷς ἐστιν
as, “A mediator is not of one but God is one” (most translations). Translated
this way, v. 20 sounds like Paul is citing a truism about mediation, with me-
diation by its very nature involving two entities. As a truism, though, it adds
nothing, and so some have speculated about Paul losing track of what he was
dictating. However, if the article is anaphoric, then the sense becomes clearer.
Paul cites a piece of tradition-history: “The law was instituted through angels
by the hand of a mediator.” If v. 20 is Paul’s interpretive comment, the article
would be anaphoric and we should translate, “Now, this Sinai mediator does
not represent the ‘one’ but the many. And since God is not a plurality, the Sinai
mediator doesn’t represent God.”
I have argued elsewhere that Paul makes the same interpretive move in
2 Cor 3:16–17.31 Verse 16 is a citation from Sinai tradition-history: “But whenever
he turns πρὸς κύριον, the veil is removed.” Verse 17 is then Paul’s interpretive
comment: “Now this κύριος today is the Spirit [ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν].” The
same could be said of 1 Cor 10:4. “For they [Israel] drank from the spiritual rock
that followed them [ἔπινον γὰρ ἐκ πνευματικῆς ἀκολουθούσης πέτρας]. Now, this
rock was Christ [ἡ πέτρα δὲ ἦν ὁ Χριστός].”
What then is the point of Gal 3:20 saying that “this mediator is not of one”
or “does not represent the one”? The one what? Tom Wright understands “the
30 The role of μεσίτης also includes “guarantor” (Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist. 4.54.7), “negotia-
tor” (Polybius 28.17.8), “intercessor” (Philo, Somn. 1.142), “equestrator,” “pawnbroker” et al.
See Oepke, “μεσίτης,” 4:598–624.
31 Linda L. Belleville, Reflections of Glory: Paul’s Polemical Use of the Moses-Doxa Tradition in
2 Corinthians 3.1–18 (JSNTSup 52; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991).

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one” to be “the one covenant,” that is, the Abrahamic covenant. The Mosaic
law divides Jew and Gentile and hence is not “of the one [covenant],” while the
Abrahamic covenant unites them in the person and work of Jesus Christ: “In
Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:28).32 Yet Wright’s interpretation
presupposes a point that Paul has not yet made in the letter and that has no
place in his argument thus far in Galatians. Closer at hand is Paul’s distinc-
tion three verses earlier between the singular “seed” and the plural “seeds.” In
Gal 3:16, Paul states that the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed
(singular, καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ). “Scripture does not say ‘and to his seeds [plu-
ral]’ [καὶ τοῖς σπέρμασιν, ὡς ἐπὶ πολλῶν], referring to the many but ‘and to your
seed [singular]’ [ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἐφ᾽ ἑνός· καὶ τῷ σπέρματί σου] referring to Christ [ὅς
ἐστιν Χριστός].” This is the only other time in Gal 1:1–3:20 that ἑνός is used and it
is the only other time that σπέρμα is used. The link is significant and provides
the needed context for what in v. 20 is otherwise redundant. The mediator rep-
resents Israel and its “seeds” and not Abraham and his “seed.” Therefore, the
mediator is not of the “one [seed],” but God is.
4 Conclusion
The Law as διαταγεὶς δι’ ἀγγέλων and the Law ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου are so firmly en-
trenched in Sinai tradition-history that it is reasonable to think that they are
echoes of Scripture. Although Paul’s readers are clearly Gentiles, the fact that
he introduces these Sinai traditions without explanation indicates familiarity
on the part of his listeners. This familiarity could be due to Paul’s past preach-
ing and teaching. The Galatians’ use of the lxx would have exposed them to
Yahweh’s angelic host and “by the hand of Moses” in a way that the Hebrew
Scriptures would not have.
It is important to note that Jewish tradition uniformly understood angelic
presence at Sinai as an enhancing one rather than a detracting or debasing
one. As H. J. Schoeps pointed out in 1959, “The presence of angels at the event
of the giving of the law was a favorite bit of embroidery in rabbinic tradition,
and was meant to enhance the glory of Sinai.”33 Nor is Moses’s involvement
debasing or detracting. Acts 7:38 and Heb 2:2 indicate that both traditions were
familiar to first-century Jews and viewed positively by them. If these bits of
tradition debase anything or anyone, it is Israel. The presence of Yahweh with
32 N. T. Wright, Justification (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 122–36.
33 H. J. Schoeps, Paulus: Die Theologie des Apostels im Lichte der jüdischen Religionsgeschichte
(Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1959); Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in Light of the Jewish
Religious History (trans. Harold Knight; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 182.

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334 Belleville
his “myriads of angels” at Sinai caused the Israelites to fear their ability to bear
the Shekinah glory so much that they entreated Moses to “draw near and listen
to all that the LORD our God says; then tell us whatever the LORD our God
tells you” (Deut 5:27). In his role as Israel’s representative, Moses is identified
in Deut 5:5 lxx as ἀνὰ μέσον—a buffer. Tradition-history not only included an-
gelic presence but angelic agency. This was not because God was in need of
agency but because of Israelite frailty. According to Philo it was Israel, and not
God, who was in need of mediators: “We are in need of mediators (τῶν μεσιτῶν
[Exod 20:19]) to speak for us; God, however, proffers us of his own accord, with-
out employing the ministrations of any other beings” (Somn. 1.143–45).
This fits the grammar of Gal 3:19–20. The aorist passive implies God’s pres-
ence and ὁ μεσίτης Moses’s presence. But neither is central. The prepositions
διά with the genitive and ἐν with the dative focus attention away from the spe-
cific players and onto the nature of the action through angels and a mediator.
C. A. A. Scott in Christianity According to St. Paul calls this action “reaching
man at two removes from God and hence the Law’s inferiority.”34 Yet indirect
communication does not point to the law’s inferiority but rather to Israel’s
frailty and need. The “one” God’s covenant activity is direct and unilateral as it
was with Abraham (Gal 3:16).
It is significant that the institution of the Law to the “many seeds” is not
called a διαθήκη in Gal 3. It is God’s promises to Abraham and his “seed” that
are called a διαθήκη. If not a covenant, what then is the Law? The Law was an
addition (προσετέθη). And while changes and additions to a testament or cov-
enant were valid and superseded what was in the original (as today), Paul also
states that the law was not a valid codicil. It was only a “temporary” addition
(ἄχρις οὗ ἔλθῃ τὸ σπέρμα) and necessary τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν. In the context of
Sinai, the law was given not to increase Israel’s sin but to restrain it. The golden
calf episode is almost a deal breaker. However, Moses intercedes for Israel and
the law-giving continues. Israel states, “Tell us whatever the LORD our God tells
you. We will listen and obey” (Deut 5:27). Because Moses’s report begins with
ἄκουε Ισραηλ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν, it is difficult not to hear Deut 6:4
in Paul’s ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἷς ἐστιν and to recall that Yahweh descended Sinai to com-
municate directly with Israel. He needed no mediator.35 It is Israel who needed
an “intercessor” and “representative”—both meanings of μεσίτης.
34 C. A. A. Scott, Christianity According to St. Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1927).
35 For further discussion, see Linda L. Belleville, “‘Under Law’: Structural Analysis and the
Pauline Concept of Law in Galatians 3:21–4:11,” jsnt 26 (1986): 53–78.

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Chapter 16
The Use of Job 13:16 in Philippians 1:19: Direct

Quotation or Allusion?
Lau Chi Hing
1 Introduction
It is said that “Paul’s letter to the Philippians is totally lacking in direct Old
Testament quotations, and even its allusions to the Old Testament are subtle
enough that they can easily be missed.”1 Yet “it would be a grave mistake …
to infer that the Hebrew Scriptures play no role in Philippians. Paul’s indirect
uses of the Old Testament in this letter demonstrate clearly that even when
the apostle does not give a formal quotation, his language and thought pat-
terns are heavily dependent on Scripture and particularly so in its Greek
form.”2 What can be inferred from this lengthy citation of Moisés Silva is his
conviction that (1) there are no “direct” or “formal” Old Testament quotations
in Philippians; (2) there are “allusions” or “indirect uses” in Philippians; and,
more importantly, (3) allusion itself assumes a heavy dependence on the Old
Testament passage used. Consequently, τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν (“this
will turn out for my deliverance”) in Phil 1:19, a five-word verbatim reproduc-
tion of Job 13:16 lxx—without any explicit quoting formula such as γέγραπται
γὰρ (“for it is written”)—is termed an Old Testament allusion.3
By contrast, Stanley Porter adamantly maintains that this verbatim repro-
duction of Job 13:16 in Phil 1:19 should be regarded as a direct quotation, la-
menting how the study of Paul’s quotations of the Old Testament is generally
confined to the Hauptbriefe, and how it might be altered if definitions could
be properly clarified.4 In a sequel article nearly a decade later, Porter puts for-
ward a more refined and precise classification with five categories of formulaic
1 M. Silva, “Philippians,” in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New
Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 835.
2 Silva, “Philippians,” 835.
3 Silva, “Philippians,” 836.
4 S. E. Porter, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief Comment on Method
and Terminology,” in C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders (eds.), Early Christian Interpretation of the
Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (JSNTSup 14; ssejc 5; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic, 1997), 79–96.

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336 Lau
quotation, direct quotation, paraphrase, allusion, and echo in the hope of re-
solving the chaos of terminologies and finding a way forward, meanwhile still
holding on to his view of the nature of Phil 1:19.5
The present paper will examine the criteria put forward by Porter in his clas-
sification of the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, with par-
ticular attention given to direct quotation and allusion. It will then reveal a
potential problem possibly incurred by such criteria. The task will begin by
briefly reviewing the definitions of direct quotation and allusion by different
critics, followed by a proposal of differentiation from a functional perspective.6
Ultimately, the traditional proposal that Paul’s use of Job 13:16 in Phil 1:19 con-
stitutes an allusion is substantiated.
2 Various Definitions
Christopher Stanley has suggested three criteria to determine what should be

counted as a citation (equivalent to direct quotation): (1) those introduced by
an explicit quotation formula (“as it is written”); (2) those accompanied by a
clear interpretive gloss (e.g. 1 Cor 15:27); and (3) those that stand in demonstra-
ble syntactical tension with their present Pauline surroundings (e.g. Rom 9:7;
10:18; Gal 3:12).7 On the other hand, for the same category of direct quotation,
Porter in his earlier paper had already hinted that “the focus would be upon
formal correspondence with actual words found in antecedent texts. Although
there would of course be the question of how many words would qualify as
a quotation, at least there is now debate over data.”8 The criterion is further
refined and rendered more explicit in his sequel paper:
The minimum number of words for a direct quotation [essentially differ-

entiated from formulaic quotation which contains explicit introductory
formula] I would contend, is three words (taking into account necessary
morphological changes for the sake of citation)…. With three words … it
5 S. E. Porter, “Further Comments on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament,”
in T. L. Brodie, D. R. MacDonald, and S. E. Porter (eds.), The Intertextuality of the Epistles:
Explorations of Theory and Practice (ntm 16; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), 98–110.
6 By “functional perspective” in the present paper, I refer to Paul’s general purpose of develop-
ing his theological argument and polemics by using Old Testament references.
7 C. D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and
Contemporary Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 37.
8 Porter, “Use of the Old Testament,” 95.

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Use of Job 13:16 in Philippians 1:19: Direct Quotation or Allusion ? 337
is unlikely that one has a coincidence, but the three form a minimal unit
of determinable syntax and conceptual relation.9
Stanley admits that the rigid application of his narrow criteria means that a
number of texts normally regarded as Pauline citations will not be addressed,
with the result that the uninformed reader could take any or all of them as
Pauline formulations.10 This is also precisely the criticism from Porter. To
Porter, the labels have a heuristic value and end up shaping the interpretation.
He thinks that limiting oneself to discussing those passages that are introduced
by an explicit quotation formula clearly skews the evidence and makes the evi-
dence arbitrarily and unjustifiably narrow, an arbitrariness that has severely
curtailed discussion of the use of the Old Testament in Philippians.11 However,
it will be shown later that the evidence then becoming diametrically too broad
under Porter’s criteria is a problem that cannot be evaded.
With allusion, the definition and criteria are no less diverse. Michael
Thompson states that “literary critics concur that allusion involves (1) the use
of a sign or marker that (2) calls to the reader’s mind another known text (3) for
a specific purpose.”12 For Old Testament allusion, Grant Osborne outlines five
principles for finding and evaluating allusions: (1) The wording and style point
to an Old Testament passage; (2) the individual writer’s traits are reflected; (3)
a sensible reflection of an Old Testament background in the New Testament
context; (4) besides the allusion itself, the original Old Testament context be-
hind the allusion is also presupposed; and (5) the Old Testament passage is not
over-exegeted in the New Testament.13 Porter once quoted the definition of a
literary critic, Holman, that allusion
includes several significant elements: (1) reference may be to historical

or literary entities, including people, events, or objects; (2) reference is
indirect, as opposed to quotation or paraphrase, both of which are di-
rect; (3) the allusion is intentional on the part of the author toward the
reader; (4) allusion may occur without the knowledge of the reader; and
9 Porter, “Further Comments,” 108–9.

11 Porter, “Use of the Old Testament,” 92, 94.
12 M. B. Thompson, Clothed with Christ: The Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1–
15.13 (JSNTSup 59; Sheffield: jsot Press, 1991), 29.
13 G. R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical
Interpretation (2nd ed.; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 167–69.

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338 Lau
(5) allusion is most effective when there is a body of shared knowledge

between the author and reader.14
Porter then comments that allusion, in other words, is a figure used by an au-
thor to reference specific types of material for a functional purpose.15 Porter
also gives his own definition of allusion as “the nonformal invocation by an
author of a text (or person, event, etc.) that the author could reasonably have
been expected to know.”16 This invocation “may or may not be consciously in-
tentional, but involves the invoking of a person, place, or literary work … An
allusion is less concerned with language and more with the bringing of the ex-
ternal person, place, or literary work into the contemporary material.”17 What
these various definitions show is that whereas an author’s intentionality and
reader’s understanding may be issues unsettled in the discussion of allusion, it
is generally accepted that an allusion involves the invocation of or reference to
a person, object, event, or text.
It can be seen that Porter’s criterion for direct quotation is essentially for-
mal, whereas the criterion for allusion is semantic and functional. It seems
strange that direct quotation cannot also be examined from a similar perspec-
tive (although for allusion this is, of course, far less practical). Steve Moyise
has mentioned that Paul’s quotation of the prophets, psalms and the wisdom
books are largely related to the themes of proclamation of the gospel, the in-
clusion of the Gentiles, the current unbelief of the Jews, and future salvation.18
Granted, this being the case, the following investigation of the use of Job 13:16
in Phil 1:19 will start with tracing the semantic content of both passages to de-
termine whether the development of Paul’s major theological argument or
polemics is functionally being argued for and then to consider from thematic
coherence between the two in their larger contexts whether an allusion to the
figure of Job can be substantiated.19
14 S. E. Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” in S. E. Porter and C. D. Stanley (eds.), As It is Written:
Studying Paul’s Use of Scripture (Atlanta: sbl, 2008), 30–31.
15 Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” 31.
16 Porter, “Use of the Old Testament,” 95.
17 Porter, “Further Comments,” 108–9.
18 S. Moyise, Paul and Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 74, 97, 110.
19 Granted that Moyise’s proposition is a correct observation, it may be adapted to mean
that Paul’s quotation of the Old Testament is generally related to developing his major
theological argument. If the use of Job in Philippians were a quotation, such a theological
argument should be reflected primarily in the close proximity in the semantic content of
two passages. And this is where the subsequent investigation begins. On the other hand,
if the semantic content not only denies a direct quotation, but also goes so far as to deny
any common themes between the two passages, the verbal similarity that remains may

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3 Semantic Content
3.1 Job 13:16
‫י־ל ֹא ֜ ְל ָפ ָ֗ניו ָח ֵנ�֥ף ֽיָבֹוא‬

֥ ‫יׁשּועה ִּכ‬
֑ ָ ‫ם־הּוא־לי ִ ֽל‬
ִ֥ ַ‫) ּג‬MT(
καὶ τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν οὐ γὰρ ἐναντίον αὐτοῦ δόλος
εἰσελεύσεται (lxx Rahlfs)
This also will be my salvation, for a godless man may not come before His
presence. (nas)
3.2 Philippians 1:19
οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν διὰ τῆς ὑμῶν δεήσεως καὶ
ἐπιχορηγίας τοῦ πνεύματος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (NA27)
For I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers
and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. (nas)
4 Τοῦτο and Σωτηρίαν in Job 13:16
The Hebrew ‫יׁשּועה‬

֑ ָ ‫ם־הּוא־לי ִ ֽל‬
ִ֥ ַ‫ ּג‬in Job 13:16 is rendered as καὶ τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται
εἰς σωτηρίαν in the lxx. The independent personal pronoun ‫( הּוא‬3rd person
masculine singular) is understood by kjv to be of pronominal use and treated
as the subject of the verbless clause20 and hence translated as “He also shall
be my salvation.” The Syriac and Vulgate (ipse, “God himself will be my sav-
iour”) also treat ‫ הּוא‬in this way.21 However, the pronoun is understood to be
of demonstrative and explicative use by the lxx (yet similarly as the subject
of the clause) and rendered as neuter singular τοῦτο, presumably referring to
a situation of Job’s own. The latter translation has almost become a consensus
not be sufficient to substantiate and justify any claim of allusion (the invocation of per-
son, event, place …). Hence, I pursue my investigation by considering the thematic coher-
ence of the texts.
20 See R. J. Williams, Williams’ Hebrew Syntax: Third Edition (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2007), 46.
21 J. Reumann, “The (Greek) Old Testament in Philippians 1:19 as Parade Example—Allusion,
Echo, Proverb?” in S.-W. Son (ed.), History and Exegesis: New Testament Essays in Honor of
Dr. E. Earle Ellis for His 80th Birthday (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 190.

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340 Lau
among most common English versions. As the verbatim reproduction of τοῦτό

μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν is from the lxx, the first use above and the corre-
sponding reference to “God” should be out of the question as regards Phil 1:19.
Meanwhile, Job explicitly states, “See, He will kill me; I have no hope; but I
will defend my ways to His face” (13:15 nrsv). David Clines says that
Job is so conscious of the dangers he runs, and so hopeless about the

outcome … It cannot be God who is Job’s “salvation” here … since “the
fact that a godless man does not dare to appear before God is not a reason
why God should be the salvation of Job.”22
In addition, Job 13:16 begins with a ‫ּגַ ם‬, meaning “also,” “and” (‫ ּגַ ם‬for addition23),
showing that the following clause ‫יׁשּועה‬
֑ ָ ‫הּוא־לי ִ ֽל‬
ִ֥ is related to the defence of his
conduct in v. 15b.24 Hence, τοῦτο should be taken to mean Job’s boldness in
presenting his case before God, as Tremper Longman III comments: “Job ex-
presses his determination to press his case against God even though he thinks
his chances are slight or even nil. Nevertheless, he wants to go in and confront
God’s treatment of him in light of his (innocent and blameless) behaviour.”25
For ‫ׁשּועה‬
ָ ְ‫( י‬σωτηρίαν), the meaning is usually “salvation by God, primarily
from external evils, but often with added spiritual idea” (bdb) and “with focus
on transcendent aspects in the lxx” (bdag [2] p. 986). Yet Clines holds that
The “salvation” must consist in what is affirmed in the second half of

the line. An evil person would not willingly approach God: Job’s bold-
ness must argue his innocence … Salvation from what? In the context,
not from death,… Not from God either … The only person Job has any
faith in is himself, the one certain conviction he has is that he is innocent.
Therefore the one person he has to fear is himself. If he loses his nerve
22 D. J. A. Clines, Job 1–20 (wbc 17; Nashville: Nelson, 1989), 313–14, citing E. Dhorme,
A Commentary on the Book of Job (trans. H. Knight; London: Nelson, 1967), 188.
23 Parenthetically, the asseverative use of ‫ ּגַ ם‬by niv, thus rendered as “Indeed, this will turn
out for my deliverance,” is questionable. The niv’s understanding is most probably re-
lated to its Qere reading in 13:15a, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely
defend my ways to his face,” which is rejected by Tremper Longman III according to the
Codex Leningradensis. An additional problem with the niv’s reading is that the opening
interjection particle ‫ ֵהן‬is treated, in an unlikely manner, as concessive; see T. Longman
III, Job (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 208. I would venture to add that the niv’s rendering
causes its interpretation of ‫ ַאְך‬in 13:15b to be asseverative too (“I will surely …”), whereas
most of the other translations take it to be restrictive (“but,” “yet,” or “nevertheless”).
24 Clines, Job 1–20, 282.
25 Longman, Job, 208.

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and ceases to believe in himself, his case crumbles and God wins. What
he needs “salvation” from is self-doubt, loss of confidence in the rightness
of his cause … Salvation is nothing more than effective consolation.26
To conclude that σωτηρίαν means “effective consolation” is, in Clines’s words,

too psychological. However, as the deliverance from the impending death
(13:15) is not in view and a foretelling of his righteousness is to be seen in 13:18,
σωτηρίαν should be taken to mean “the maintenance of his innocence and in-
tegrity in the case before God,” so that ‫ׁשּועה‬
ָ ְ‫ י‬of Job 13:16 is listed under “help
through things” in halot (446). “Job is expressing, not a hope of acquittal,
but his conviction of innocence. It is a matter of actually being in the right to
start with … rather than being vindicated or acquitted in the end.”27 Reumann
also quotes the words of an early twentieth-century critic, J. H. Michael, that
“the point of comparison [between Job and Paul] is integrity. Job maintains his
integrity before God and expects ‘victory in his argument with the Almighty.’”28
5 Τοῦτο and Σωτηρίαν in Philippians 1:19
The interpretation of τοῦτο is more or less unanimous whereas that of σωτηρίαν

is quite divided among the critics. Τοῦτο “must mean Paul’s present circum-
stances, described since verse 12.”29 “Βy τοῦτο, ‘this,’ Paul refers to all the things
that had happened to him, good or bad, ‘perplexities and annoyances’ and so
on, that had come to him as the result of his preaching the gospel”30 and “…
this from Job does not here refer to the proclamation of Christ in 18c but to the
situation he began describing in 1:12, events affecting me, and hope in the face
of them.”31 In short, τοῦτο describes the whole scenario of τὰ κατ᾽ ἐμέ (“what
has happened to me”) starting from 1:12, bracketing Paul’s proclamation of
the gospel, his subsequent imprisonment, the knowledge of Christ among the
praetorian guard, the fortified preaching of the brothers and sisters and the
divided motives of the fellow preachers.
With the eschatological sense of the word in view by most critics, the in-
terpretation of σωτηρίαν still predominantly divides into two camps: (1) Paul’s
26 Clines, Job 1–20, 314.

27 Clines, Job 1–20, 315.
28 Reumann, “(Greek) Old Testament,” 192.
29 M. Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians (bntc 11; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), 83.
30 G. F. Hawthorne, rev. by R. P. Martin, Philippians: Revised Edition (wbc 43; Nashville:
Nelson, 2004), 51.
31 J. Reumann, Philippians (AB 33B; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 243.

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release from prison and detention and (2) Paul’s eternal vindication before
God. Though acknowledging that σωτηρίαν is a special word Paul uses to refer
to the ultimate “salvation” that people will experience at the last judgment
(Rom 1:16; 10:10; 13:11; 2 Cor 7:10; 1 Thess 5:8–9; 2 Thess 2:13), Hawthorne argues
for the meaning of release from prison on the following grounds. (1) The pri-
mary meaning of σωτηρίαν is deliverance from impending death (bdag). (2) It
is wrong to say that Paul must always give σωτηρίαν the meaning of an ultimate
cosmic saving act of God to be completed at the turn of the ages or the end
of the world. (3) Paul, seeing in the Job story parallels to his own sufferings
and the misunderstandings of these sufferings by the others, and knowing that
God saved Job out of all his troubles and vindicated him, was led to the convic-
tion that he too would be “saved,” released from prison, and vindicated in the
eyes of Jews and Romans. (However, precisely at this point of reference to Job,
vindication or acquittal in the sense of immediate deliverance and alteration
of the condition of Job is not in view and hence Hawthorne is compelled to
say that a vindication in Yahweh’s court seems also to be included.) (4) Finally,
Paul repeats this same verb οἶδα, “I know,” later on when he states, “I know that
I am going to stay and remain on with all of you” (vv. 25–26). He uses an even
stronger verb πέποιθα when he assures the Philippians that he will soon come
to see them (Phil 2:24). Hawthorne closes his argument by asking the question:
“How could this be, unless he knew that his release was certain?”32
Hawthorne’s view has been bolstered by Witherington, with perhaps more
compelling reasons: “Did the Philippians think they were praying for Paul to
be ‘saved’ in the theological sense? Certainly not. Besides all this, Paul will
not need prayers or a supply from the Spirit for his final salvation,” and “The
Philippians have more likely been praying for Paul’s release, not for his final
vindication before God, and Paul has suggested that he believes the outcome
will turn out as they have prayed.”33
However, Bockmuehl, on the other hand, holds that “the word deliverance
in this context is certainly more than merely physical release from detention.
Although its meaning is potentially broader, Paul’s use of the term is normally
eschatological: it describes people being restored to a full relationship with
God, most often in relation to the final judgment. This is the primary reference
here.”34
Similarly, Silva also refutes with a series of reasons: (1) He maintains that
Paul specifically ties in his adversity with his deliverance. Paul is not merely
32 Hawthorne, Philippians, 50–51.

33 B. Witherington III, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 83 n. 50, 84.
34 Bockmuehl, Epistle to the Philippians, 83.

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Table 16.1 Parallelism between Phil 1:12 and 1:19
Phil 1:12 Phil 1:19
ὅτι ὅτι
τὰ κατ᾽ ἐμέ τοῦτο
εἰς προκοπὴν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου εἰς σωτηρίαν
ἐλήλυθεν ἀποβήσεται
talking about his deliverance, but that his adversity will result in his deliver-
ance. To say that what Paul has suffered will lead to his release does not make
much sense. Silva also draws our attention to the conceptual parallelism be-
tween v. 12 and v. 19 and claims that the basis for Paul’s encouragement is not
merely that things will turn out all right in spite of the problems, but that the
problems themselves assist the Christian experience (see Table 16.1).
(2) The deliverance that Paul speaks about is one that he will experience
irrespective of what happens to him in prison: εἴτε διὰ ζωῆς εἴτε διὰ θανάτου
(v. 20). (3) Silva notices that most commentators are aware that Paul is here
alluding to Job 13:13–18 in the lxx, but are hardly able to point out that this
passage clearly deals with matters affecting Job’s eternal destiny in which Job’s
own standing before God is at issue. (However, Job’s own standing before God
cannot be simply equated with his eternal destiny. Similar to the criticisms to
Hawthorne’s claims when the reference to Job is called forth, one may have
to differentiate Job’s insistence of his own righteousness before God not only
from his quest for immediate deliverance on the one hand, but also from his
quest for vindication or acquittal in an eschatological sense on the other, as it
has been maintained that the main concern of wisdom literature is predomi-
nantly the present life but not the eternal life after death. C. L. Seow also com-
ments that “a common response offered to those who suffer is to encourage
them to look beyond the present to the future…. Job’s theology is unapologeti-
cally based on the present and has to do with the experience of people. It does
not accept the deferment of justice in the name of piety. His is not a theology
in abstract. Rather, it is a theology that insists on the practical consequences
of injustice.”35)
Silva provides two further reasons. (4) The pathos of Paul in κατὰ τὴν
ἀποκαραδοκίαν καὶ ἐλπίδα μου (“according to my earnest expectation and
hope” in Phil 1:20) ill suits a mere reference to his desire for physical freedom.
35 C. L. Seow, Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013),
89–90.

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The particularly emphatic word ἀποκαραδοκίαν appears another time only in

Rom 8:19, 22 to refer to the eager desire of creation for the final redemption. In
addition, the word ἐλπίδα is Paul’s standard term for the distinctive and certain
hope of the believer which will not make believers ashamed. Such soteriologi-
cally charged words simply do not match with the description of Paul’s desire
to be released from prison. (5) The hope Paul expresses is loaded with the nu-
ances of eternal import. The hope is a hope that Paul shall not be put to shame
in anything, and shame is less a subjective feeling of guilt than the objective
disgrace experienced by those on whom the judgment of God falls.36
Judging both explanations in the light of the larger context of Phil 1:12–26
and the eschatological shading and implication of the description in vv. 20–26,
the refutations from Silva seemingly give a more commendable explanation
for the word σωτηρίαν and the challenge from Witherington may well be ad-
dressed if salvation in the sense of eschatological vindication is explained
in terms of the magnification of Christ—it is precisely the joint effort of the
prayers of the Philippians and Jesus’ Spirit guiding Paul’s perseverance to this
goal. Yet the real motive may be a deliberate ambiguity, as Silva admits that his
emphasis on a soteriological interpretation of Phil 1:19–20 does not necessarily
exclude Paul’s desire and expectation to be released from prison to continue
the work of evangelization, even if the primary reference is to Paul’s persever-
ance in faith: the magnification of Christ—not his own freedom or even his
life—is Paul’s salvation σωτηρίαν.37
In short, the reference of τοῦτο and σωτηρίαν in Job 13:16 and Phil 1:19 may be
summarized as:
Table 16.2 τοῦτο and σωτηρίαν in Job 13:16 and Phil 1:19
τοῦτο σωτηρίαν
Job Job’s boldness in presenting his case The maintenance of his innocence
13:16 before God. and integrity in the case before God.
Phil The whole situation Paul began Predominantly Paul’s perseverance

1:19 describing from 1:12, events affecting in faith: the magnification of Christ,
him, and his hope in the face of them. but not excluding the implication of
expecting release from prison.
36 M. Silva, Philippians: The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988),
75–80.
37 Silva, Philippians, 78.

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The diverse references of the five-word verbatim “quotation” in the above

semantic analysis unmistakably attest that the use is not related to the devel-
opment of any major Pauline theological arguments or polemics.
6 Thematic Coherence
Though a direct correspondence between the reference of τοῦτο and σωτηρίαν

in Job 13:16 and Phil 1:19 cannot be established, it does not follow that Paul’s
thought has nothing to do with the figure of Job, as attested by various descrip-
tions with thematic coherence in the surrounding passage.
Job 12–14 situates in the first round of dialogue between Job and his friends,
essentially a reply to Zophar’s speech in Job 11. Zophar draws an analogy be-
tween Job’s circumstances and God’s shutting-up (confinement in prison) and
calling for an assembly (convention of a court) (11:10 MT),38 whereas Job also
describes himself as being “put … in stocks by God” (13:27), this is in line with
Paul’s imprisonment described in Philippians. In a litigation setting, Job says
that “he desires to argue with God” (Job 13:3) and “I will defend my way to his
face” (Job 13:15), Paul also says that “he has been put here for the defense of the
Gospel” (Phil 1:15), which is precisely the reason for his imprisonment.
Job is afflicted by his friends, including Zophar, who attributes his suffering
to his iniquities (11:2 MT; 11:6, 11, 14 MT and lxx) and charges Job’s babbling
and mocking as “shame” (11:3 MT). Job replies that his justice and blameless-
ness has become the laughingstock of his friends and retorts that it is, anti-
thetically, his friends who should be regarded as “whitewash with lies” (13:4
MT), “speaking deceitfully for God” (13:7), “deceiving God, as one person de-
ceiving another” (13:9) and those “godless who shall not come before Him”
(13:16) whereas the “godless” here is rendered as “deceit” (δόλος) in the lxx.
Similarly in Philippians, Paul is also inflicted by his own fellow preachers who
are among the “most of the brothers and sisters daring to speak the word with
38 Strictly speaking, a proper comparison should be done with the lxx only as the whole un-
dertaking is stemmed from the five-word verbatim reproduction from the lxx. However,
to do so would imply that all studies of Paul and Scripture should then be based on the
lxx as it is assumed to be the text Paul read and quoted. Assumptions have also to be
made that the Hebrew text was never Paul’s version and the surviving lxx of today is
the same as that of Paul. Origen (c. 200 ce) had once mentioned that Job 35:7 used in
Rom 9–11 (a text deviating from MT) belongs to a number of verses of the lxx which
are different from the one known to himself. See Moyise, Paul and Scripture, 110. Hence,
the content of the MT will be employed here for argumentative purposes and the occur-
rences in MT/lxx will be listed.

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346 Lau
greater boldness and without fear” (1:14) and those “increase Paul’s suffering in
his imprisonment” (1:17). Paul further describes them as “with false motives”
(1:18) and insists that “he will not be put to shame in any way” (1:20).
Another point for comparison which has been mentioned is “integrity.” Job
maintains his integrity before God and expects “victory in his argument with
the Almighty” and it is Paul’s consciousness of integrity, the feeling that he has
been in the right in all that has brought him to his present situation, that justi-
fies his hope of vindication. Stemming from this belief is the boldness shared
in common by Job and Paul. “Speaking with all boldness (παρρησίᾳ)” (1:20) re-
flects also one of Job’s characteristics,39 especially when Paul says, “whether by
life or by death” (1:20) and Job says, “let come on me what may” (13:13).
It has also been debated whether the designation of “righteous sufferer” or
the “poor man” suits Job and Paul. Yet various critics contend that it is diffi-
cult to relate the self-image on Paul’s part of himself as the righteous sufferer.
There is no evidence of explicit identification of Paul himself with the Isaianic
Servant of the Lord except in Acts 13:47, and the theme of “righteous sufferer,”
while prominent in Psalms and the prophetic books but uncommon in Job,
verily points to its denial (“the just man who suffers” in Job 12:4) in its occur-
rence and “the tradition of the pious person who thus prays to Yahweh entered
into a new crisis in Job.”40
Finally, the appeal to the theme of righteousness is undoubtedly common
to Job and Paul. Notwithstanding that the discussion of his own righteousness
only appears at Phil 3:6–11, τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν points to Paul’s
salvation and vindication before God that his eschatological hope and perse-
verance of faith are affirmed, whereas the vindication or acquittal for Job, pro-
vided the term aptly applies, points more to the upholding of righteousness on
Job’s part and less to the actual outcome of his case before God.
Some more comments can be made on the vocabulary used in Phil 1:19. Not
only could we find τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν verbatim in Job 13:16, but
also οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι (“for I know that”) is particularly related to Job lxx (Job 9:28,
19:25, 30:23). Other peculiarities may be noted as follows:
39 See Reumann, “(Greek) Old Testament,” 192 n. 20.

40 Reumann, “(Greek) Old Testament,” 198–99.

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Table 16.3 More comments on the vocabulary used in Phil 1:19
Phrase Occurrence in lxx Occurrence in NT
οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι Deut 31:29; Job 9:28; 19:25; 30:23 Matt 28:5; Rom 7:18; Phil
(4x) 1:19 (3x)
ἀποβήσεται Job 8:14; 13:5, 12, 16; 15:31, 35; 18:5; Luke 21:13; Phil 1:19 (2x)
(ἀποβαίνω) 34:20; Wis 2:3 (9x)
ἀποβήσεται εἰς Job 13:16 (1x) Phil 1:19 (1x)
All forms of Job 8:14; 13:5, 12, 16; 15:31, 35; 18:5; Luke 21:13; John 21:9; Phil
ἀποβαίνω 34:20; Wis 2:3 (9x) 1:19 (3x)
Exod 2:4; Prov 9:12; 2 Macc 9:25 (3x)
All occurrences of οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι in the lxx are unanimously related to the des-
tiny of the protagonists (Moses and Job) and ἀποβήσεται is predominately re-
lated to Job. As οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι is not a common Pauline phrase, nor is ἀποβήσεται
common Pauline vocabulary (in fact a rare word in the New Testament), their
composite use may lend further credence to a close or deliberate invocation of
the figure of Job in Paul’s mind during the writing of Philippians.
7 Reconsidering the Use of Job 13:16
Before applying the criteria put forward by Porter, a review of some analysis
made by Lukas Bormann concerning Philippians may be helpful.41 Bormann
says three Scripture references in Philippians are very clear:
1. Phil 1:19 takes up a formulation from Job 13:16;
2. Phil 2:10–11 refers to Isa 45:23;
Phil 2:10–11: πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ (“every knee should bend”) and καὶ πᾶσα
γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσηται (“every tongue should confess”);
lxx: ὅτι ἐμοὶ κάμψει πᾶν γόνυ καὶ ἐξομολογήσεται πᾶσα γλῶσσα τῷ θεῷ (“be-
cause to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall acknowledge
God”);
3. Phil 2:15 uses the wording of Deut 32:5;
41 L. Bormann, “Triple Intertextuality in Philippians,” in T. L. Brodie, D. R. MacDonald, and

S. E. Porter (eds.), The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice
(ntm 16; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), 91–97.

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Phil 2:15: τέκνα θεοῦ ἄμωμα μέσον γενεᾶς σκολιᾶς καὶ διεστραμμένης (“chil-
dren of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse
generation”);
Deut 32:5 lxx: ἡμάρτοσαν οὐκ αὐτῷ τέκνα μωμητά, γενεὰ σκολιὰ καὶ
διεστραμμένη (“blemished children, not his, have sinned, a generation
crooked and perverse”).
He also subsequently arranges some more allusions in Philippians based on
the number of words consisting in a text relation into three groups, respec-
tively, of three words, two words, and a single word (and a somewhat similar
context, syntactic or semantic). For the time being, only the group of three
words is to be considered.
1. Phil 1:19: οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι (“for I know that”) (cf. Job 9:28; 19:25; 30:23);
2. Phil 2:15: φαίνεσθε ὡς φωστῆρες (“shine like stars”) (cf. Dan 12:3);
3. Phil 2:16: οὐδὲ εἰς κενὸν ἐκοπίασα (“did not run in vain”) (cf. Isa 49:4; 65:23)
4. Phil 4:18: δεξάμενος… ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας, θυσίαν δεκτήν… θεῷ (“having re-
ceived … a fragrant aroma … an acceptable sacrifice … to God”) (cf.
Exod 29:18; Ezek 20:41; Lev 6:14; 17:4; Num 15:3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14, 24; 18:17; 28:6,
8, 13, 24, 27; 29:2, 6, 8, 11, 13, 36; Isa 56:7; Gen 8:21; Sir 35:5–6)
Assessed with Porter’s criteria, all of Bormann’s three “clear Scripture refer-
ences” (Porter contends the first and the third to be direct quotations) and
four allusions should be regarded as direct quotations. Excluding the case of
Phil 2:10–11 which, as part of the Carmen Christi, may be related to a preexist-
ing early Christian hymn, the other two references can hardly be attributed any
significance in Paul’s theological argument. More detrimental is the inclusion
of the phrase οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι in the “databank.” Can it be said that it represents a
complete “conceptual relation” (albeit it may have a “determinable syntax”)
and that it justifies the claim of a direct quotation? If the answer is yes, what is
the significance of labelling such an introductory phrase as a direct quotation?
If the answer is none, one must ask what other criteria may come in next for
further screening. The criterion based on the number of words will certainly
not “skew the evidence”; however, it will undeniably entail a wide range of ir-
relevant phrases (especially with a threshold of three words) whose signifi-
cance in being called direct quotation is highly questionable, and the evidence
will then diametrically become too broad. The crux is not how many words
suffice to claim an instance of direct quotation, but what significance the Old
Testament text used carries and why other definitions for direct quotation
fail. Furthermore, neither the phrases φαίνεσθε ὡς φωστῆρες (three words) and
γενεᾶς σκολιᾶς καὶ διεστραμμένης (four words), nor even τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται
εἰς σωτηρίαν (all satisfying the criteria for direct quotation) can be strictly ex-
cluded from Porter’s own refined category of allusion as they all involve the
invocation of a person, an event, or a text.

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Bormann thinks that the allusions would claim their importance for the
interpretation of Philippians when they are related to the four main themes:
(1) Paul’s situation “in chains”; (2) the relationship between the apostle and the
Philippian community; (3) the christology (the present rule of Christ as kyrios
and his parousia as saviour from heaven); and (4) the problem of the oppo-
nents (Phil 3). However, in none of these themes of Philippians are allusions of
fundamental importance; the strategy of Paul, his argumentation, does not de-
pend on the allusion at all.42 To put it another way, the various uses of the Old
Testament in Philippians are not related to its main themes; if direct quotation
(with or without explicit quotation formula) is a tool for arguing major theo-
logical issues in Pauline Epistles, the various Old Testament uses in Philippians
are then far from justifying this label. To consider the use of the Old Testament
in Philippians from a functional perspective provisionally opts for Stanley’s
“narrower” criteria of direct quotation (the second criterion of “accompanied
by a clear interpretive gloss” is in effect another way of stating that the use of
the Old Testament has a further function to serve). Even on Porter’s own defini-
tion for allusion, the view that Phil 1:19 be counted as an allusion, instead of as
a direct quotation, is, I think, still credible.
8 Conclusion
This paper has examined Porter’s criteria of direct quotation, as applied to the
use of Job 13:16 in Phil 1:19, and discussed the inadequacy of the criteria in its
inevitable inclusion of irrelevant materials such as οἶδα γὰρ ὅτι. Consideration
of direct quotation from a functional perspective is instead proposed. This may
serve as an augmentation and complement to the differentiation of direct quo-
tation merely from a formal angle.
The use of Job 13:16 in Phil 1:19 has been examined with reference to seman-
tic content and thematic coherence. The function of the usage, however, can
hardly be said to advance major Pauline arguments or theological polemics
and the nature of the use is to be maintained as an allusion. Recall the words of
Silva in the introduction referring to the Old Testament dependence the allu-
sion assumes. Reumann’s words may serve as concluding remarks: “The clause
from Job has overtones of vindication, relationship to ‘friends’ (Job’s comfort-
ers, other Christians in Ephesus), and Paul’s understanding of salvation as both
present and future for a justified believer facing suffering.”43
42 Bormann, “Triple Intertextuality in Philippians,” 93.

43 Reumann, “(Greek) Old Testament,” 200.

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Chapter 17
Reception of the Old Testament in 1 Thessalonians

and in Philippians?
Markus Öhler
In investigating Pauline reception of Scripture, the letters to the communi-

ties of Thessalonica and Philippi seem to be of minor importance. Both texts
contain no explicit quotations or explicit references to the Old Testament.
However, this observation already raises the question of what “quotation,” “ref-
erence,” or other terminology might mean. Approaches to categorizing Pauline
reception of Scripture, either in the context of antiquity or by means of mod-
ern models (“intertextuality”) therefore abound.1 This paper will not add to
these manifold concepts. The following systemization, drawing on previous
research, uses a simplified differentiation between four variants in the recep-
tion of Scripture: (1) quotations that are marked either by a corresponding
introduction or a clear distinction from context; (2) paraphrases that receive
the source text in terms of content, wording, and structure; (3) allusions that
integrate elements of the source text into the receiving text; (4) echoes that
refer to the source text with only a few linguistic elements. Of course, it must
be acknowledged that the transition between these categories is fluid and not
every reference to Scripture can be clearly assigned to one of the four catego-
ries. Insofar as they nevertheless provide the necessary terminology to label
and distinguish various kinds of reception of Scripture, the following will draw
on them repeatedly.
Additionally, this contribution focuses on the principal significance of
Scripture in the two letters and offers explanations for why their use of the
Old Testament cannot be compared to that in Paul’s other letters in terms of
extent and intensity. Following an initial discussion of the findings, historical
considerations are given from the perspective of the author as well as from that
of the initial recipients, prior to a concluding discussion of individual texts
from both letters.
1 The following article was published in German in M. Öhler and F. Wilk (eds.), Paulinische
Schriftrezeption: Grundlagen—Ausprägungen—Wirkungen—Wertungen (frlant 268;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), 113–35. On the categories of Pauline reception of
Scripture, see the contributions of D. Lincicum and S. E. Porter in that volume.

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Reception of the Old Testament in 1 Thessalonians & Philippians 351
1 The Findings: the Lack of Quotations and Paraphrases from

Scripture
It is beyond doubt that Philippians and 1 Thessalonians differ from other letters
by the apostle in that they contain few or—depending on the definition—no
explicit references to Scripture.2 That means that both letters contain neither
introductions to quotations, nor do they reproduce entire sentences from the
lxx in content, wording, and structure.
However, it must be noted that the length of the letters to the Philippians
and Thessalonians is less than a third of that of the long letters, in which nu-
merous quotations from Scripture can be found. One is, of course, less likely
to find a more or less clear reference to an Old Testament text in shorter texts.
Even the longer letters do not contain quotations from Scripture consistently
but rather contain them mostly within those sections in which Paul obviously
deemed them necessary. Moreover, prescript, proem, and closure comprise
relatively larger parts of the text in the shorter letters compared to Corinthians
and Romans. These sections of Paul’s letters never contain quotations from
Scripture. The density of the reception of Scripture to be found in the longer
letters, placed first in the canon, should therefore not lead to excessive expec-
tations regarding the short letters. Nevertheless: Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians
shows that even in the span of a short text there can be an intense treatment
of Scripture.
The following consideration of several possible explanations for the lack of
quotations focuses on the perspective of the author as well as of the initial
recipients. These should not be thought of as alternative but complementary,
differentiating between 1 Thessalonians and Philippians.
2 See M. Silva, “Philippians,” in G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New
Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 835–39, here 835: “Paul’s
letter to the Philippians is totally lacking in direct Old Testament quotations, and even
its allusions to the Old Testament are subtle enough that they can easily be missed.” Also
J. A. D. Weima, “1–2 Thessalonians,” in Beale and Carson (eds.), Commentary, 871–89, here 871:
“A superficial reading of 1–2 Thessalonians might suggest that the Old Testament had little if
any impact on Paul’s wording and thinking in these letters. After all, neither letter contains
even one explicit citation of the OT.” This also applies to 2 Thessalonians, not included in the
present discussion, which does not deviate from its template’s treatment of Scripture.

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352 Öhler
2 The Author’s Perspective
2.1 First Approach to an Explanation: Paul Had No Access to Scrolls,

Collections of Testimonials, or Notes
The discussion of the material foundation for Paul’s reception of Scripture,
which addresses, amongst others, questions about the form (scroll/codex/
notebook), about the context (entire texts, excerpts, or paraphrases), and
about the proportion of memorized quotations, is complicated by the fact
that deviations from the lxx text do not necessarily indicate quotations from
memory but may also relate to other variants of the Greek version—possibly
also returning to Hebrew3—or free changes by Paul himself.4 Even the deute-
ro-Pauline note 2 Tim 4:13 referring to carrying βιβλία of parchment (μεμβράνα)
does not necessarily imply that Paul himself was carrying books or scrolls that
helped him to find or verify textual references. Recourse to scrolls in local
synagogues or later also local Christian communities would have been just as
viable.5 Due to the specific situation of the apostle—travelling under difficult
social conditions—I think it more likely that he himself was only travelling
with light luggage. Even taken by themselves, the three shipwrecks noted in
2 Cor 11:25 imply with some degree of certainty that all potential scrolls were
lost, being both expensive and difficult to obtain.6
Given these circumstances, the following observations must be considered
for 1 Thessalonians and Philippians. The Epistle to the Thessalonians presup-
poses Paul’s sojourn in Corinth. At the time of writing, Paul was apparently
still able to spread the gospel without disruption, since he reports nothing of
any difficulties on site, although these would have fitted quite well with the
letter’s topic (1 Thess 2:14; 3:3–7). The narrative about his stay in Corinth in
Acts 18 also allows us to surmise a phase of undisturbed activity. The letters
to the Corinthians moreover make it likely that Paul had strongly familiarized
the community there with Scripture, in which written materials in whatever
form and of whatever origin would at least have been helpful if not a necessity.
3 F. Wilk, “Schriftbezüge im Werk des Paulus,” in F. W. Horn (ed.), Paulus Handbuch (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 479–90, here 480.
4 See, most recently, S. Docherty, “New Testament Scriptural Interpretation in its Early Jewish
Context: Reflections on the Status Quaestionis and Future Directions,” NovT 57 (2015): 1–19,
here 3–7. This also contains comments on the use of collections of testimonials (see pp. 9–10).
5 See Wilk, “Schriftbezüge,” 480. I think it highly likely that communities did possess scrolls of
the LXX; see the discussion in B. J. Abasciano, “Diamonds in the Rough: A Reply to Christopher
Stanley Concerning the Reader Competency of Paul’s Original Audiences,” NovT 49 (2007):
153–83, here 156–61.
6 See also, e.g., C. D. Stanley, “‘Pearls Before Swine’: Did Paul’s Audiences Understand His
Biblical Quotations?” NovT 41 (1999): 124–44, here 127.

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While this must not by any means include all texts of the lxx, it cannot be
restricted to Paul’s knowledge of Scripture either. In any event, the situation
of writing and the circumstances of the author do not explain the absence of
explicit quotations from Scripture in 1 Thessalonians.
This is different in the Epistle to the Philippians. Wherever Paul may have
been imprisoned (Ephesus or Rome7), the situation made access to scrolls or
similar sources substantially more difficult if not impossible. This is not due to
the basic situations at the two possible sites of writing: Galatians, with its elabo-
rate exegesis of Scripture, suggests that Paul was able to study individual scrolls
of biblical books while he was writing at Ephesus. In contrast, Romans not
only shows that Paul had access to Scripture even in Corinth, but also that he
assumed the same to be true for the mainly non-Jewish addressees (Rom 1:5–6,
13; 10:1–3; 11:13, 17), but naturally also for the Jewish believers in Christ in Rome
(16:3, 6–7, 11). Should Philippians have been written in Rome, sufficient scrolls
would certainly have been available. In the specific situation of imprisonment
(Phil 1:13–14, 19–26), however, this resource was difficult to gain access to. Of
course, this depends also on the specific conditions of imprisonment. Paul was
probably not completely isolated, as apparently communication with the out-
side world and writing letters were possible. Imprisonment did not mean that
Paul could not have had access to scrolls either.8 His familiarity with Scripture,
which must be assumed because of his Pharisaic education as well as long
practice as a preacher and religious teacher,9 makes it unlikely that he was
so dependent on written texts as to be forced to completely forego the use
of Scripture. Nevertheless, imprisonment presupposes a different context of
7 I still think it most likely that Paul wrote the letter in Ephesus. Most recently, Hermut Löhr
has revisited the arguments: H. Löhr, “Philipperbrief,” in F. W. Horn (ed.), Paulus Handbuch
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 203–10, here 205–6.
8 Comparable situations are rare in Greco-Roman literature and are not always to be taken at
face value. Thus, Lucian in his presentation of Peregrinus’s imprisonment mentions that he
was also read to from the Holy Scripture (λόγοι ἱεροί) (Lucian, De morte Peregrini 12). A factual
presentation, however, cannot necessarily be assumed due to the satirical character of the
work. Suetonius in Tib. 61.4 mentions that reading was not possible in prison, but he may
have indicated an increase in penalty. Epictetus also seems to assume that being read to was
possible (Diss. 2.6.27). See B. Rapske, The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting III: Paul in
Roman Custody (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 332–33.
9 On the religious outlook of Paul, see J. Frey, “Die religiöse Prägung: Weisheit, Apokalyptik,
Schriftauslegung,” in F. W. Horn (ed.), Paulus Handbuch (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013),
59–66.

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writing which would at least not make it easy to employ scriptural texts in the
manner familiar from the letters to the Romans or the Galatians.10
2.2 Second Approach to an Explanation: Paul Deemed Scriptural

Reasoning Not Useful for the Contents of His Letters to Thessalonica
and Philippi
To pursue this approach, it is worth investigating specific topics from both
letters which also appear in other letters by the apostle with respect to their
scriptural references. This cannot be done at length here. Two examples will
suffice to show that the absence of quotations from Scripture is not related to
the topics negotiated in the letters to the Macedonian communities.
According to 1 Thessalonians, eschatology and resurrection were important
topics in the communication between the apostle and his community, per-
haps even the main occasion of the letter—apart from the positive news from
Timothy (4:13–5:11). But the resurrection of the dead is also an important topos
in 1 Cor 15. In connection with this elaboration we find at least three quotations
from Scripture, which can be recognized as such either from the context or
explicit references: Ps 110[109 lxx]:1 is used in 1 Cor 15:25 for the subjection of
all powers under Christ, a motif, however, that does not occur in 1 Thess 4–5.11
Genesis 2:7 in 1 Cor 15:45 (introduced by οὕτως καὶ γέγραπται) is used by Paul
to argue the pneumatic quality of the resurrection body. This aspect, too, has
no part in 1 Thessalonians. However, in 1 Cor 15:54b–55, Paul combines Isa 25:8
and Hos 13:14 to prove that the future overcoming of death is supported by
Scripture.12 The quotation is explicitly introduced as “written word” (ὁ λόγος
ὁ γεγραμμένος). That the dead will actually be resurrected in Christ, however,
is also the point in 1 Thess 4:13–18. The question of what will happen to the
10 Philemon as the second letter to be certainly written by Paul in imprisonment un-
fortunately cannot be used to verify these theses as its status as a brief, private let-
ter sufficiently explains why it does not contain any quotations. Even if Colossians,
which does not contain any quotations from Scripture either (see Lukas Bormann,
“Schriftgebrauch im Kolosser- und im Epheserbrief: Zur Praxis frühchristlicher Text-
und Interpretationsgemeinschaften,” in M. Öhler and F. Wilk [eds.], Paulinische
Schriftrezeption: Grundlagen—Ausprägungen—Wirkungen—Wertungen [frlant 268;
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017], 217–34), could be assigned to Paul via the
assumption of a secretary, it cannot be used to answer this question insofar as the lack of
quotations would have to be attributed to the secretary.
11 The wording ὅταν δὲ εἴπῃ in 1 Cor 15:27 probably refers to Scripture or to God as its au-
thor; for a contrary view, see W. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther. 4. Teilband: 1Kor
15:1–16:24 (ekknt 7/4; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 182–83.
12 See F. Wilk, Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches für Paulus (frlant 179; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 116–19.

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deceased is in focus, so that a reference to the effect that this is already estab-
lished in Scripture would fit well. Thus, there would have been ample occasion
to also point the Thessalonians to Isa 25 and Hos 13 instead of a word by Kyrios.13
With regard to the Letter to the Philippians, polemics against circumcision
move to the foreground (Phil 3:2–11), in which are addressed the topics of law,
justice, and faith, as well as the Scripture’s prescription of circumcision on the
eighth day. A comparison with the elaboration of these issues in Galatians and
Romans indicates that argumentation by Scripture plays an important part in
this context. It is therefore highly unlikely that Paul would not also think it
meaningful in Philippians.
Admittedly, the argument in both cases is one from silence, given that the
absence of references to Scripture cannot be identified beyond doubt as delib-
erate avoidance. It seems to me, however, that we can in any event conclude
that topical reasons were not the occasion for foregoing references to Scripture
in the writing of either 1 Thessalonians or Philippians.
2.3 Third Approach to an Explanation: Paul Deemed the Explanation

from Scripture Unnecessary
In light of the topics that would have made references to Scripture plausible
for Philippians and 1 Thessalonians, the communicative situation might have
been different. This approach therefore focuses on the relationship between
Paul and the members of the two addressed communities. Indeed, for both
Thessalonica and Philippi, it is obvious that Paul at least thinks himself to have
a very good understanding with his readers, nor is there reason to doubt this
impression. Statements such as in the respective proems (1 Thess 1:2–3, 6ff.;
Phil 1:3–11), the praise for keeping the faith (1 Thess 3:6–10), or the gratitude
for support (Phil 4:10–20) make this clear especially in comparison with his
other letters. Does this support the conclusion that he did not need Scripture
as authority to confirm his statements, because he felt that he would be be-
lieved without them? Should we follow this explanation, could we in reverse
conclude that Scripture represented first-and-foremost an authority on which
he drew in difficult situations, but not a theological source of insight that could
be understood differently through the Christ-event?
As a counterweight to the findings in Philippians and 1 Thessalonians, the
other genuine epistles by Paul (excepting Philemon) can be used: Paul had to
struggle with the communities in Galatia and Corinth for recognition of the
legitimacy of his preaching and authority. Romans, similarly, was likely written
13 Not even the minimal version κατὰ τὰς γραφάς à la 1 Cor 15:3–4, although it is very likely
part of the pre-Pauline tradition, can be found in 1 Thessalonians.

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in an apologetic context, which required argumentation relying on Scripture.

To draw on Scripture appears to have been necessary in communication with
these communities, because the word of the apostle by itself did not suf-
fice as explanation. This may well have been different in the communities of
Macedonia, although the polemics against circumcision in Phil 3 has strong
parallels in Galatians.
However, the impression that Paul is consistently using the authority of
Scripture, e.g. in the Corinthian letters, is deceptive. Focusing on those pas-
sages that contain referencing phrases, which indeed are needed to fore-
ground Scripture as authority, the picture changes notably: in long and central
passages of 1 Corinthians there is no trace of explicit references to Scripture
(1 Cor 4:1–6:11; 7:1–8:13; 10:14–14:19; 16:1–24). Paul’s struggle for his apostolate in
2 Cor 10–13 makes do with only two unmarked quotations (10:17; 13:1b). Even
Galatians does not draw on scriptural evidence for the first two chapters. The
different length of the two letters (see above) further relativizes the great sig-
nificance of references to Scripture for authority.14
It cannot, therefore, be taken as a given that Paul forewent the use of quota-
tions from Scripture only due to his positive relationship with the communi-
ties in Thessalonica and Philippi. Indeed, a negative mood or apologetic con-
text did not provoke constant references to divine authority; rather, this was
based on the line of argumentation and volition of the apostle in elaborating
at length on a specific topic.
3 The Perspective of the Initial Readers
3.1 Fourth Approach to an Explanation: the Addressees Did Not Know

Scripture
The two communities in Macedonia to which letters from Paul have been pre-
served belong to those comprised entirely—possibly with a few exceptions—
of non-Jews. Although the Acts of the Apostles reports relations with the re-
spective Jewish communities—through the God-fearing women at the place
of prayer/worship (προσευχή) in Philippi (Acts 16:13) or the sermon of Paul in
the synagogue of Thessalonica (17:1–2)—it is highly unlikely that Paul meant
to address primarily Jews. The warning in Philippians against the opponents,
who are caricatured for their circumcision as “those who mutilate the flesh”
14 In contrast, Paul does not forego references to authority in 1 Thessalonians and Philippians
either. The reference to the word Kyrios (1 Thess 4:15) serves this function, as does the ap-
peal to his advantages as an Israelite (see Phil 3:5–6).

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(Phil 3:2) as well as the reevaluation of, for example, circumcision as σκύβαλον
(3:3–9), make it likely that Paul saw the Philippians threatened by the same
people he had already fought in Galatians. This makes it highly probable that
the believers in Christ in Philippi, like those in Galatia, were not circumcised.
This conclusion is indirectly supported by Acts, which does not mention
Jews in Philippi (Acts 16:12–40). Similarly, the reminder of the renunciation
of idols in favor of God (1 Thess 1:9), so prominently placed in the proem of 1
Thessalonians, indicates non-Jews as more or less its only addressees (unlike
Acts 17:4a). This does, indeed, correspond to Paul’s self-presentation as Apostle
to the Nations (Gal 1:16; Rom 11:13–14; 15:15–16) as well as the allocation of re-
sponsibilities for preaching at the Apostolic Council (Gal 2:7ff.).15 Thus, we
need to look into whether the members of these two communities—though
in distinct ways—were familiar with Scripture at all.16
For Thessalonica, it must be acknowledged that Paul, who includes Silvanus
and Timothy in the retrospective account of the foundational visit in 1 Thess 1:1,
had left the community against his will (3:4), something presumed in Acts 17.
Their stay very likely did not last long, and a lengthy introduction to Scrip-
ture does not seem plausible in that case. Even if scriptural evidence was an
important part of preaching, due to the non-Jewish origin of the audience it
must nevertheless be assumed that other concerns must have been important
initially,17 not discussion and introductions to Scripture.
Can the lack of scriptural knowledge in Thessalonica be balanced by the so-
called “god-fearers”? Acts 17:4b at least presumes their existence in the commu-
nity. Doubts can indeed be raised, not as to the existence of this special group
of sympathizers of Judaic culture and religion, but as to their significance for
15 See M. Öhler, Barnabas: Die historische Person und ihre Rezeption in der Apostelgeschichte
(wunt 156; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 73–74.
16 Even if Jews were a relevant part in the communities of believers in Christ in Macedonia,
it cannot be assumed that they were particularly familiar with Scripture. Knowledge of
Scripture is not a given for diaspora Jews. Stanley (“Pearls,” 143) rightly points out that the
Epistles allow us to reconstruct primarily Paul’s “implied readers” rather than their real
readers. However, provided that Paul wanted to be understood (at least by some), real and
implied readers cannot be so far apart as to make it impossible for us to grasp the histori-
cal, initial recipients.
17 These can possibly be reconstructed from 1 Thess 1:9–10; see the discussion in,
e.g., M. D. Hooker, “1 Thessalonians 1.9–10: A Nutshell—but What Kind of Nut?” in
H. Lichtenberger et al. (eds.), Geschichte—Tradition—Reflexion: FS Martin Hengel, Vol. 3:
Frühes Christentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 435–48, here 443–47; R. S. Ascough,
Paul’s Macedonian Associations: The Social Context of Philippians and 1 Thessalonians
(wunt 2/161; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 202–3; C. Blumenthal, “Was sagt 1
Thess 1.9b–10 über die Adressaten des 1 Thess? Literarische und historische Erwägungen,”
nts 51 (2005): 96–105, here 104–5.

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the preaching of the gospel by Paul. After all, they do not appear in any of
Paul’s epistles as a group or as individuals, but are important only in the Lucan
perspective. Even when Paul in his initial proclamation did indeed turn to
this group in particular, no ancient evidence that I am aware of indicates that
Scripture had any special significance for the god-fearers.18 It therefore seems
plausible to assume that the believers in Christ in Thessalonica were not famil-
iar with Scripture at all, or at most in a rudimentary fashion. For the few allu-
sions or echoes that modern exegesis is able to prove (see below), that would
mean that Paul could not depend on them being recognized as such, much
less that the respective context of the biblical text would be drawn on for their
understanding. Allusions and echoes would then be significant only for him,
not for his readers.
For the Epistle to the Philippians, the situation is entirely different in several
respects. Here, one can indeed assume that this community, which very likely
also consisted (almost) entirely of non-Jewish believers in Christ, had had suf-
ficient time in the interim to acquire detailed knowledge of at least parts of
Scripture (four or, in case of writing in Rome, ten years).19 Moreover, corre-
sponding instruction at meetings of the community by Paul, his associates, or
leading figures from Philippi on parts of Scripture and their meaning for un-
derstanding the Christ-event are very plausible.20 Probably, this also included
possession of the most important scrolls. Lack of knowledge is therefore quite
certainly no reason for the lack of quotations from Scripture in Philippians.21
18 See the overall presentation in B. Wander, Gottesfürchtige und Sympathisanten: Studien
zum heidnischen Umfeld von Diasporasynagogen (wunt 104; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1998). R. E. Ciampa, The Presence and Function of Scripture in Galatians 1 and 2 (wunt
2/102; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 261–66, is unable to provide even a single piece of
evidence for his claim that the god-fearing were also familiar with Scripture. For the justi-
fied, contrary position, see Stanley, “Pearls,” 130 n. 18: “Of course, non-Jews were familiar
with Jewish beliefs and practices, including their reverence for a collection of holy texts,
but they did not (so far as we know) read the Jewish Scriptures for themselves.”
19 For a contrary view, see, e.g., M. Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians (bntc; London:
A. & C. Black, 1997), 10ff., who does not consider the history of the communities, even though
he regards Rome as the site of writing (p. 32). The same applies to the view held by Stanley,
“Pearls,” 132–35, who underestimates the educational process within the congregation and
names Philippi, of all places, as an example of Scripture being unknown to the readers.
20 Although Philippians does not mention teachers, one can indeed assume on the basis of
1 Cor 12:28–29; Gal 6:6; Rom 12:7 (and Acts 13:1) that a certain degree of scholarship had
developed over the years, also with respect to Scripture, which individuals introduced to
the congregation.
21 The fact that multiple readings of the letter would allow new insights into biblical reason-
ing is obvious (see, e.g., Abasciano, “Diamonds,” 169–70), but will not be pursued further
here, since the focus is on the initial reception.

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3.2 Fifth Approach to an Explanation: the Scripture Held No Authority

for the Addressees
The more-or-less taken-for-granted precondition that the Scripture held a po-
sition of authority for all believers in Christ is doubtful for both the history
of reception for the Pauline texts—as shown by the example of the Pauline
Marcion—and the diverging cultural conditions. For people coming from the
Hellenistic-Roman tradition, references to an authoritative text, which more-
over came from a different culture (the Judaic), certainly took some trouble
and considerable argumentative effort.
For 1 Thessalonians and Philippians, the above applies equally: to demon-
strate knowledge of Scripture to non-Jewish believers in Christ, indeed to show
them that their beliefs should be understood as the fulfillment of promises
made in the Old Testament, presumes a thorough reorientation of the address-
ees. The primary preaching in these contexts therefore probably did not hap-
pen by invoking Scripture, since its claim to authority still needed to be recog-
nized. Only later did it come into play as a relevant and faith-affirming revela-
tion of God. Indeed, the foreign text, perhaps taken for some kind of oracle
book,22 could only be deciphered by means of what the believers had already
learned from the Holy Spirit. Thus, on the one hand, the short time between
the first proclamation and the writing of the epistles makes it likely that Scrip-
ture held no authority in Thessalonica yet for Paul to draw on, and that this is
why he did not refer to it. On the other hand, it is very likely that Scripture had
been recognized as authority in Philippi. Here, there had been sufficient time
to build an appropriate foundation.23
Can we thus take 1 Thessalonians as evidence that Paul in his preaching to
the nations—and to them the apostle saw his mission (Gal 1:16; Rom 11:13–
14; 15:15–16)—forewent referencing Scripture? I think so. Can we also take
Philippians as evidence that Paul also forewent tying faith to scriptural tra-
dition in the later history of a community of non-Jewish believers in Christ?
I think not.
3.3 Sixth Approach to an Explanation: the Addressees Knew Scripture

Well Enough for Allusions and Echoes to Suffice
For 1 Thessalonians, the arguments laid out above preclude this explanation.
As a potential alternative solution, we might again consider the god-fearers or
other individuals whose knowledge of Scripture Paul might have counted on.
However, it is neither verifiable nor likely that such educated people belonged
22 See Stanley, “Pearls,” 140–41.

23 See Abasciano, “Diamonds,” 154.

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to the community. This shows in the fact that the few intimated references to
Scripture are hardly more than linguistic reminiscences. For an understanding
of the argumentation, neither the biblical context, nor indeed any knowledge
of the fact that the author is alluding to Scripture, is necessary. Four examples,
to be discussed below, illustrate this clearly.
With regard to Philippians, however, it can be demonstrated that Paul relied
on detailed knowledge of Scripture, which is plausible due to the apostle’s lon-
ger history with this community. This, too, will be shown in several examples.
4 Allusions and Echoes
The lack of quotations from the Old Testament, regardless of how well one
can explain it, does not preclude Paul’s thoughts and formulations having
been guided by Scripture. In exegetical research on the reception of Scripture
in 1 Thessalonians and Philippians, this has been shown repeatedly. While one
can indeed argue about some of the references, it is beyond doubt that Paul’s
language, his thought, as well as his theology, are substantially informed by
Scripture, specifically by the lxx. Hence, in the following, a few examples will
suffice to illustrate this form of referencing Scripture. The examples are consid-
ered primarily with respect to the question whether the choice of words and
context of the allusions to Scripture were important for their understanding
or whether Paul’s argumentation depended on his readers recognizing them
as such.24
4.1 Selected Allusions and Echoes in 1 Thessalonians

4.1.1 1 Thessalonians 2:4: God Tests the Heart
In 1 Thess 2:4 Paul includes as part of his self-justification that he (along with
his fellow apostles Silvanus and Timothy) is not intent on pleasing people but
God, “who tests our hearts” (τῷ δοκιμάζοντι τὰς καρδίας ἡμῶν). The phrasing is
unique within Paul’s epistles (as well as the New Testament), but several paral-
lels to the lxx can be identified. In Ps 16:3 lxx the praying man recalls that
God tested his heart and found nothing unjust in it.25 This conception can also
24 See also Abasciano, “Diamonds,” 179: “Surely Paul’s perception of their identity and cir-
cumstances—including their knowledge of Scripture—would have conditioned his com-
munication to them.”
25 Psalm 16:3 lxx: ἐδοκίμασας τὴν καρδίαν μου, ἐπεσκέψω νυκτός∙ ἐπύρωσάς με, καὶ οὐχ εὑρέθη ἐν
ἐμοὶ ἀδικία. This topic is wide-spread in the psalms. Thus, Ps 138 lxx begins with the words:
κύριε, ἐδοκίμασάς με καὶ ἔγνως με, and in conclusion (v. 23) pleads with God: δοκίμασόν με,
ὁ θεός, καὶ γνῶθι τὴν καρδίαν μου.

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be found in Jer 11:20 lxx, where God is called upon as the one “who judge[s]
righteously and test[s] the heart and mind,”26 which is then also incorpo-
rated as first-person speech of God (Jer 17:10 lxx: ἐγὼ κύριος ἐτάζων καρδίας
καὶ δοκιμάζων νεφρούς).27 The fact that this statement contains references to a
number of texts from the lxx, however, counterindicates the thesis that this
might be a conscious inclusion of one of these passages. This also invalidates
the question of the scriptural context and its effect on the argumentation.
Rather, the phrase is part of the apostle’s language as informed by biblical
motives.
Indeed, the notion of God testing hearts is known exclusively from Jewish
and Christian texts, although the two words δοκιμάζω and καρδία can of course
be used in a similar sense in the Greco-Roman world. In antiquity, the heart is
widely seen as the seat of spiritual life,28 whose testing by the deity would, of
course, also seem plausible without prior knowledge of the OT. Certainly, the
phrasing as well as the anthropomorphic notions are so deeply rooted in the
Jewish context that it is hardly likely that Paul would have used this without
recourse to its cultural character.29 The “biblicist phrasing,”30 however, should
by no means be understood as a quotation, but instead formally belongs to the
self-evident character of Paul’s speech about God.31
Is it necessary for the addressees to recognize the allusions to Scripture?
Hardly. For in the context of the echo, Paul attempts to show that he was in
no way intent on his own benefit in the proclamation. The testing by God
(1 Thess 2:4a), which happened before he was entrusted with the gospel, en-
sures this as much as the continuous testing of the hearts. This thought cor-
responds to numerous occasions on which people are tested before they take
26 Jeremiah 11:20 lxx: κύριε κρίνων δίκαια δοκιμάζων νεφροὺς καὶ καρδίας. This is varied in
12:3 (καὶ σύ, κύριε, γινώσκεις με, δεδοκίμακας τὴν καρδίαν μου ἐναντίον σου). See also 20:12.
The fact that Jeremiah himself is commissioned by God to test the people (Jer 6:27) is
not relevant to 1 Thessalonians; for a contrary view, see K. P. Donfried, “The Epistolary
and Rhetorical Context of 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12,” in K. P. Donfried and J. Beutler (eds.),
The Thessalonians Debate: Methodological Discord or Methodological Synthesis? (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 31–60, here 51. There are no hints at the connection to Timothy’s
mission.
27 For the connection between καρδία and ἐτάζω, see also Ps 7:10; 1 Chr 28:9; 29:17.
28 See J. B. Bauer, “Herz,” rac 14:1093–131, passim.
29 See, e.g., P.-G. Müller, Der erste und zweite Brief an die Thessalonicher (rnt; Regensburg:
Friedrich Pustet, 2001), 127–28.
30 T. Holtz, Der erste Brief an die Thessalonicher (ekknt 13; Zürich: Neukirchen-Vluyn,
1990), 74.
31 On predictive divine speech in Paul, see G. Delling, “Partizipiale Gottesprädikationen in
den Briefen des neuen Testaments,” ST 17 (1963): 1–59.

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an office or during its practice. It is related, for example, to the right to speak
in the ekklesia of a polis (Aeschines, Tim. 2), the eligibility of magistrates (Lys.
15.2), being drafted into an army (P.Lond. 3.982) as well as, in principle, all cases
in which a dokimasia was precondition for admittance to a function or com-
munity. The manner of speech can thus be understood “correctly” in a number
of ways by the members of the community in Thessalonica, without requiring
knowledge of the language of the Psalms or the Book of Jeremiah. The specifics
of Paul’s statement remain nonetheless: not all people have tested him or will
test him, but rather God, who is the only measure of action.
4.1.2 1 Thessalonians 3:5: the Labor Is in Vain

Equally identifiable as informed by the language of the Old Testament is the
phrasing εἰς κενὸν γένηται ὁ κόπος ἡμῶν (1 Thess 3:5), which Paul uses several
times in variations. In Gal 2:2 and 4:11 as well as Phil 2:16 the apostle speaks
very similarly of the possibility of his labor being in vain (see also 1 Cor 15:58).
The parallel in Isa 49:4 lxx (κενῶς ἐκοπίασα) is relevant insofar as it corre-
sponds to Paul’s self-representation as Suffering Servant.32 In 1 Thess 2:9, Paul
had already mentioned the labor he had undertaken with his fellow apostles
Silvanus and Timothy, so that 3:5 must also be read as a reminder of this pre-
sentation of his independence.
The use of this phrasing, however, does not intend more than is vis-
ible at first glance. In fact, no self-presentation as prophet is recognizable in
1 Thessalonians, nor is it relevant to understanding Paul’s role in Thessalonica
or in relationship with the community. The apostle rather styles himself in the
context of Hellenist wandering teachers, the Cynics, only to also set himself
apart from them positively. Thus, Paul may have seen the reference to Scrip-
ture as relevant for himself; in the communication with the believers in Christ
in Thessalonica, however, it was meaningless. His worry over “labor” being
“in vain” is understandable without any knowledge of Scripture. The allu-
sion is part of Paul’s characteristic manner of speech, whose origin in the Old
Testament may indeed have been significant in other passages, in which pro-
phetic self-presentation is important (Gal 2; Phil 3).
32 Isaiah 49:1 is adopted in Gal 1:15 in order to express Paul’s prenatal election by God.
See A. J. Najda, Der Apostel als Prophet: Zur prophetischen Dimension des paulinischen
Apostolats (ehs 23/784; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2004), passim; A. J. Malherbe, The Letters to
the Thessalonians (AB 32B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 195.

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4.1.3 1 Thessalonians 3:13: the Coming of the Kyrios with All His Saints
At the end of the prayer in 1 Thess 3:11ff., Paul comes to an eschatological per-
spective on the Second Coming of the Kyrios Jesus μετὰ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων
αὐτοῦ. Research has varied in its reading of the “saints” between angels and
believers in Christ, the former reading finally prevailing: the angels accompany
the Kyrios as his host.33 On the one hand, ἅγιοι is a traditional term for angels
in the lxx (Deut 33:3; Ps 88:6, 8; Job 15:15; Exod 15:11). On the other hand, ac-
companiment by angels is part of early Christian expectations of the Second
Coming (Mark 8:38; 13:27 amongst others). The context in 1 Thess 3 also sup-
ports this: holiness is identified as the state of believers (3:13a), which is juxta-
posed with the coming of the saints.
The decisive factor as regards the meaning of ἅγιοι, however, is the reference
text in the Old Testament to which Paul alludes here: Zech 14:5 expresses the
expectation that God (θεός) will come on his day καὶ πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι μετ’ αὐτοῦ.
In this context, this very likely indicates the heavenly host of God.34 The allu-
sion to the text in Matt 25:31, applied to the Son of Man, indicates that it is an-
gels who are meant here, the evangelist changing ἅγιοι to ἄγγελοι.35 This makes
1 Thess 3:13 not so much a reinterpretation of angels into believers in Christ or
an integration of the two groups, but simply the adoption of an apocalyptic
motif, phrased in the style of Zech 14:5. This is also the interpretation followed
by the author of 2 Thessalonians (see 2 Thess 1:7: ἐν τῇ ἀποκαλύψει τοῦ κυρίου
Ἰησοῦ ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ μετ’ ἀγγέλων δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ).
Was it necessary, however, to know Zech 14:5 in order to recognize an in-
terpretation of the saints as angels? Probably not, for the reading of ἅγιοι as
believers in Christ presupposes a Pauline use of language, which is not in
evidence in 1 Thessalonians. Moreover, the warning of the coming wrath in
1 Thess 1:10 indicates, among other things, that the discussion of eschatologi-
cal perspectives had already been part of the first proclamation of the apostle.
That the Kyrios would be accompanied by a host upon his return, which would
33 See the excursus in Holtz, Thessalonicher, 146–47; S. Schreiber, Der erste Brief an die
Thessalonicher (ötk 13; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2014), 199–200. For a reading
on the believers in Christ, the usage in Rom 8:27 has been pointed out. The Holy Spirit, it is
argued, “intercedes for the saints.” 1 Corinthians 6:2 prophesies: “The saints will judge the
world.” It can frequently be found in the information on addressees (1 Cor 1:2; Phil 4:22;
Rom 1:7 among others), but not in 1 Thessalonians. However, neither do the statements
on healing (1 Thess 4:3–7) indicate that this means the preparation of those who are to
accompany the Lord, nor can 3:13 be reconciled with the presentation of the Second
Coming in 4:16, according to which the resurrection will happen only after the coming of
the Kyrios.
34 See, e.g., I. Willi-Plein, Haggai, Sacharja, Maleachi (zbk:at 24; Zürich: tvz, 2007), 220.
35 However, Zech 14:5 in Did. 16:7 hints at the resurrected.

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be analogous to the arrival of a governor or even an emperor and would under-

score his dignity and power,36 was part of the addressees’ “encyclopedia” with-
out requiring any knowledge of Scripture.37 Moreover, the use of ἅγιοι for the
domain of gods, to which angels belonged as well, was a matter of course since
Hellenistic times.38 Paul could thus assume that the term was comprehensible
without any knowledge of the Old Testament.
4.1.4 1 Thessalonians 5:8: the Armor

A clear reference to Scripture, it seems to me, can be recognized in the new
approach to describing the armor which Paul undertakes in 1 Thess 5:8 in refer-
ence to Isa 59:17 (see Wis 5:18). The mention of breastplate and helmet, which
are connected to faith, love, and hope for salvation, corresponds to the image
in Trito-Isaiah that has God wearing righteousness as a breastplate, on his head
the helmet of salvation, and clothed in garments of vengeance. This is certain-
ly not a quotation, but the allusion is so clear that it is hardly to be seen as
only a characteristic manner of speech, but rather as Paul consciously drawing
on this conception.39 At the same time, a conscious reference to Isa 59 would
clarify that the context played no part for the apostle, since he transforms the
armor of God into that of the believers. Maybe one can even take this argu-
ment so far as to say that, although transferring this image to human beings is
possible for Paul, the source text cannot—indeed, must not—play any role in
his argumentation.40 He can do so, because the Thessalonians simply do not
know that Paul is referencing Scripture here, since no scholarship of Scripture
was necessary for understanding: the metaphors are easy to grasp due to com-
mon encounters with weapons or corresponding illustrations or narratives.41
36 See Schreiber, Thessalonicher, 199.

37 On the concept of the encyclopedia as a necessary precondition for understanding,
see M. Mayordomo, Den Anfang hören: Leserorientierte Evangelienexegese am Beispiel
Matthäus 1–2 (frlant 180; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 47–51.
38 See O. Procksch, “ἅγιος κτλ.,” TWNT 1:87–97, here 88.
39 For a contrary view, see Holtz, Thessalonicher, 226, who assumes a characteristic tradi-
tion as an intermediary stage. For yet another position, see T. R. Yoder Neufeld, Put on
the Armour of God: The Divine Warrior from Isaiah to Ephesians (JSNTSup 140; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic, 1997), 86–91.
40 For a contrary view, see Wilk, Bedeutung, 320–22, who assumes an “adaptation according
to plan.”
41 In contrast, see Yoder Neufeld, Armour, 91, who identifies a principal statement about
the standing of the Thessalonians in God’s judgment behind the adaptation of these
metaphors.

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Equally, it must be acknowledged that different philosophical traditions had

already used the metaphor of weapons in a similar fashion.42
4.1.5 Summary: References to Scripture in 1 Thessalonians

The above overview has shown by way of example that although Paul does not
explicitly quote Scripture, he does use expressions and echoes in order to ex-
press his concerns to his addressees. He has no other option. At the same time,
it has become evident that Paul at no point presupposes knowledge of Scrip-
ture as a prerequisite for comprehension. Indeed, some passages even indicate
that a direct comparison to the corresponding passage in Scripture would have
provoked new questions rather than given necessary answers.43 This can be
explained plausibly in terms of the situation of the community, in particular in
terms of the fact that Paul as apostle of the nations can only slowly and tenta-
tively begin to use scriptural exegesis as part of his proclamation and preach-
ing. For Thessalonica—an exclusively Gentile Christian community—this was
not possible a mere six months after its founding.
4.2 Selected Allusions and Echoes in Philippians

In addition to the possible, indeed likely, familiarity of the community at
Philippi with the lxx, the Epistle to the Philippians also contains allusions and
echoes that were recognized by readers. The following examples are intended
to illustrate this.44
4.2.1 Philippians 1:19: the Suffering of Job

Using the example of Phil 1:19, Stephen Fowl among others has followed
Richard B. Hays in demonstrating—quite conclusively, I think—that Paul
in Philippians intended more than just using the phrasing of Scripture.45
Indeed, the phrasing in Phil 1:19a τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν should be
42 See Malherbe, Thessalonians, 297–98.

43 In my opinion, present readings also show this well inasmuch as they indicate how con-
troversially such texts are interpreted once the reference text in the Old Testament is
identified and used in exegesis. Does Paul correct Scripture, does he interpret it anew,
does Scripture predetermine the interpretation, or does the gospel predetermine the in-
terpretation of Scripture?
44 References to Scripture within the Philippian Hymn (Phil 2:6–11) will not be treated in the
following, since it certainly cannot be identified as Pauline wording; for an overview on
this, see Silva, Philippians, 836ff.
45 See R. B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989), 21–24; S. Fowl, “The Use of Scripture in Philippians,” in C. D. Stanley (ed.),
Paul and Scripture: Extending the Conversation (ecl 9; Atlanta: SBL, 2012), 163–84, here
171ff.

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understood as an allusion to Job 13:16. The lxx text in this passage uses τοῦτό
μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτηρίαν, so that Phil 1:19 actually includes a verbatim refer-
ence. The meaning of the phrase is primarily that, despite his imprisonment
and the suffering connected to it, Paul does not lose confidence in receiving
salvation through the support of the Philippians and the Holy Spirit, for he had
proven himself in that situation as a preacher of the gospel, even if it would
lead him unto death.
This is, of course, easily comprehensible without anyone having to recognize
the allusion to Job. Even if ἀποβαίνω is only used here in all of Paul’s writings,
it is still a frequently used word in Greek literature. And Paul’s intended mean-
ing for σωτηρία as salvation (rather than merely liberation from prison) would
have been immediately plausible for the Philippians as well (see Phil 1:28; 2:12).
However, the reference to Scripture gains another dimension in this case, for
Paul thus makes Job’s voice his own, which is of considerable significance in
the context of Phil 1. Job, following Job 13, finds himself in a dispute with his
friends, who situate his life in the connection between sin and punishment.
Job, afflicted with illness, which he describes inter alia as imprisonment (13:27),
must argue with those who believe in the same god but connect these with
false motives. Paul now finds himself similarly face-to-face with some brothers
who do indeed promulgate Christ but do so, according to his view, for dishon-
est motives and thereby aggravate his suffering (Phil 1:15, 17). One can read this
as Paul intending the self-chosen analogy with Job to express his confidence
in receiving salvation (as in Job 42).46 One may further point out the contrast
the apostle builds between himself and Job: there, Job arguing with God, seek-
ing rescue in his own self-justification; here, Paul, still trusting in God despite
all his troubles, thus presenting himself as an example for the Philippians.47
Regardless of how one evaluates this, in my opinion Paul’s allusion to Job 13:16
opens up a strand of argumentation that corresponds so closely to the pur-
pose of the letter that it is neither accidental nor likely to be overlooked by the
addressees.48
But could the Philippians even recognize this allusion? The phrasing does
come with dramatic emphasis, after all, so that it stands out from its context.
From the description of his situation, Paul immediately moves to σωτηρία,
46 See Hays, Echoes, 23.

47 See Fowl, “Use,” 172–73.
48 See also Bockmuehl, Epistle, 82–83; Silva, Philippians, 836. Skeptical in this regard are, e.g.,
Reumann, “The (Greek) Old Testament?” 189–200 (summarized in J. Reumann, Philippians
[AB 33B; New Haven: Doubleday, 2008], 232–33); N. Walter, “Der Brief an die Philipper,”
in N. Walter, E. Reinmuth, and P. Lampe, Die Briefe an die Philipper, Thessalonicher und an
Philemon (ntd 8/2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 11–101, here 41.

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which relegates all personal problems to secondary importance. In the lxx

text, the verb ἀποβαίνω is used mainly in the Book of Job (fifteen of twenty oc-
currences), although in a very different meaning. And, finally, although Paul’s
writings overall contain only a few quotations from Job (1 Cor 3:19; Rom 11:35),
the figure of Job is to be expected in the context of paraenesis on suffering.
It therefore seems to me that recognizing this allusion and its dimension did
not require close knowledge of the Book of Job and even less the presence of
any scrolls in which the passage could be read.49 Rather, it is plausible to as-
sume that Paul and other early Christian teachers who found themselves in
threatening situations would have told the story of Job, considering that, as a
whole, it represents the overcoming of suffering through patience (see Jas 5:11).
It is possible that Job’s testimony represents such a reception of the Book of
Job, anchored in Paul as it were in contemporary Christianity, in which sen-
tences affirming that everything would lead to salvation became important.50
Assuming, therefore, that it was indeed possible that the Book of Job was
known to the Philippians as narratio and that the allusion would indeed trigger
that knowledge, one can conclude that Paul deliberately drew on this phrasing:
The readers of his letter were meant to understand his situation as analogous
to Job and he thought they would be able to do so.
4.2.2 Philippians 2:14–15: Israel in the Wilderness

A further example for the deliberate use of Scripture in Philippians can be
found in 2:14–15.51 The wording that has the Philippians do everything χωρὶς
γογγυσμῶν καὶ διαλογισμῶν plays on the use of the word γογγυσμοί for the
narrative about Israel wandering in the wilderness (see Exod 16:7–12; 17:3;
Num 14:27ff.; 16:11; 17:6, 20; Sir 46:7). In 1 Cor 10:10, Paul also includes the grum-
bling of Israel, but does so in the context of an extended discussion of the
actions and fate of that generation. Philippians 2, in contrast, does not clearly
identify the target of the Philippians’ possible or already factual complaints—
quite intentionally so, I would think.52 The context of the Old Testament also
49 A more principal point is made by Stanley, “Pearls,” 138: “In other words, instead of assum-
ing that his audience understood the context of his quotations and could evaluate his
interpretations accordingly, Paul seems to have crafted his quotations in such a way that
readers with very little biblical knowledge could grasp his essential point.”
50 See J. Herzer, “Jakobus, Paulus und Hiob: Die Intertextualität der Weisheit,” in T. Krüger
et al. (eds.), Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beiträge zum Hiob-Symposium auf
dem Monte Verità vom 14.–19. August 2005 (atant 88; Zürich: tvz, 2007), 329–50.
51 See, e.g., Bockmuehl, Epistle, 155ff.; Fowl, “Use,” 175ff.; Silva, Philippians, 838.
52 See Bockmuehl, Epistle, 155: The complaints could be directed against outsiders, local
members of the community, leading figures or against God. Bockmuehl decides for defi-
ance against local community leaders.

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suggests several possibilities, all of which imply God as the ultimate target of
the complaints (thus also in 1 Cor 10), even if Moses might have been the ini-
tial addressee.53 With respect to the readers, recognition of the reference to
Scripture is plausible, considering that the people’s complaints are a recurring
motif in the lxx text and that exact knowledge of the wording is not neces-
sary. Moreover, that Paul also intends to indicate to his readers an allusion to
Israel’s behavior in the wilderness is made clear by the following allusion to
the lxx text.
Indeed, Paul’s description of the environment of the Philippian believers in
Christ as γενεὰ σκολιὰ καὶ διεστραμμένη draws on Deut 32:5. There, γενεὰ σκολιὰ
καὶ διεστραμμένη indicates the disobedient generation in the wilderness (see
also 32:20). The Song of Moses in Deut 32 in this context also refers to Israel’s
falling away from God and to the worship of other gods. It is therefore logical
that Paul in Philippians describes the pagan environment of the believers in
Christ as “a warped and crooked generation.” Although no ulterior motive on
the apostle’s part is recognizable here—such as intimating that the Christian
community will replace Israel54—this is a second indication that the apostle
intended for the analogy between the community and Israel to be recognized.
During its time in the wilderness, Israel became indistinguishable from the na-
tions, and the community is located in a world that is far from God and from
which it must clearly distance itself.
This is followed by a third allusion (or, rather, an echo) in this passage, this
time to Daniel: Paul applies the wise shining with the brightness of the firma-
ment (ὡς φωστῆρες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ [Dan 12:3]) to the situation of the Philippians
(ὡς φωστῆρες ἐν κόσμῳ [Phil 2:15]).55 While the focus in the context of Dan 12 is
not on Israel as a whole, it is still on the community of the wise (οἱ συνιέντες).
Thus, the attention in Philippians moves from Israel as a cautionary example
to the community that is proving itself in similar circumstances.
Admittedly, these three or even four allusions might be owed only to Paul’s
manner of speech. Paul might have used the phrasing of the lxx text without
intending for his readers to recognize this.56 However, the context of the argu-
mentation also supports the conclusion that the apostle deliberately wants to
53 This is phrased explicitly in Exod 16:8: οὐ γὰρ καθ’ ἡμῶν ὁ γογγυσμὸς ὑμῶν ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ἢ κατὰ
τοῦ θεοῦ.
54 This is asserted in M. Silva, Philippians (becnt; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 124–25; see for
the contrary but correct view, Bockmuehl, Epistle, 156–57; W. G. Hansen, The Letter to the
Philippians (pntc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 182.
55 See Bockmuehl, Epistle, 158 on the question of whether Paul is drawing on a diverging text
form. Allusions to Isa 42:6 and 49:6 are not present here; see Fowl, “Use,” 176–77.
56 See, e.g., Reumann, Philippians, 403.

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trigger the memory of Israel’s fate.57 On the one hand, the wilderness genera-
tion is a negative example that defiance against God and those commissioned
by him—thus against Paul himself or even against the leaders of the commu-
nity as well—can lead to missing σωτηρία (see Phil 2:12). On the other hand,
the community can experience the godlessness into which Israel had fallen in
the wilderness through its defiance against God and its worship of idols and
must prove itself against it. This is the only way for it to attain what God has
promised: a partaking of heavenly splendor (see 3:21; 4:19).
4.2.3 Philippians 4:18: the Gift as Sacrifice

Finally, let us take a look at the specific passage in which Paul elaborates on
the financial support of the Philippians. In 4:18 he uses the triple qualifica-
tion “an odor of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God” (ὀσμὴ
εὐωδίας, θυσία δεκτή, εὐάρεστον τῷ θεῷ). Above all, the wording ὀσμὴ εὐωδίας
should be recognized as the incorporation of a coined phrase occurring a total
of forty-nine times in the lxx but not otherwise in extant Greek literature.
Even if sacrifices were also understood as sweet smells for the deity in the
pagan tradition,58 the coined phrasing strongly indicates the lxx text in the
background.
However, the frequency in the lxx on the other hand does not permit any
conclusions as to which biblical text Paul had in mind.59 Nor does the fact
the apostle used phrasing of the Old Testament serve to clarify the concrete
meaning intimated by Phil 4:18. There are several possibilities for interpret-
ing this verse,60 but to me the most likely one still seems to be the one which
takes the sacrifice to be the money donated by the Philippians. However, this
cannot be explained by Paul’s ὀσμὴ εὐωδίας reference to the factual sacrificial
cult in Jerusalem or to historical or eschatological sacrificial acts. Nor are the
subsequent wordings θυσία δεκτή and εὐάρεστον τῷ θεῷ helpful in this context.
While the lxx does contain the notion that a sacrifice is righteous or correct,61
57 See Fowl, “Use,” 179.

58 Already in Mesopotamia, see also, for example, Homer, Il. 1.315ff., which mentions the
odor (κνίση) of the sacrifice to Apollo ascending to heaven.
59 Possible are, for example, Noah’s sacrifice (Gen 8:21), the priest’s sacrifice (Exod 29:18, 25,
41), the sacrifice by fire (Lev 1:9, 13, 17) etc., but also the sacrifices by the nations for their
gods (Ezek 6:13) or the sweet-smelling sacrifice at Zion in the context of eschatological
expectations (Ezek 20:40–41).
60 For an overview of the discussion, see Reumann, Philippians, 713ff.
61 See Mal 2:13; Jer 6:20; Sir 35:9; Wis 15:8 in a figurative sense; Isa 56:7 in the context of the pil-
grimage of nations. To verify correctness, possibly even by Paul himself, see L. Bormann,
Philippi: Stadt und Christengemeinde zur Zeit des Paulus (NovTSup 78; Leiden: Brill,
1995), 157.

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with respect to the sacrifice the lxx does not describe it as pleasing to God.
Parallels to this latter phrasing can be found, above all, in Paul (Rom 12:1–2;
14:18; 2 Cor 5:9), so that indeed it is only the first, clearly cultic phrasing ὀσμὴ
εὐωδίας which refers to the lxx.
In light of the fact that tradition also connected sacrifices to pleasant
smells,62 it remains uncertain whether the allusion to Scripture could have
been recognized. However, even if a certain familiarity with biblical language
allowed the “sweet smell” to be recognized as a wording from the lxx, this does
not guarantee that Paul counted on this recognition. Indeed, the reference to
the lxx has no argumentative significance.63
4.2.4 Summary: References to Scripture in Philippians

The letter to the Philippian community contains—as the examples above have
shown—allusions to and echoes of lxx texts which are recognizable as delib-
erately placed markers of Old Testament tradition by virtue of their unique
character (Phil 1:19), the clustering of scriptural references (Phil 2:14–15), or use
of a typical wording (Phil 4:18). Even if it is not always clear to what extent
the reference to the lxx as such has an argumentative function, the examples
above do indicate that Paul likely counted on the reference being recognized at
least in Phil 1:19 and 2:14–15. If one assumes a certain familiarity with Scripture
on the part of the addressees—and there are good reasons to do so—then he
was probably successful in this.
5 Conclusion: Results and Outlook
The examples for references to Scripture—all of them allusions and echoes—

have supported the historical evaluation insofar as one can safely assume that
the lack of quotations from Scripture in the letters to the Macedonian com-
munities had different reasons.
For 1 Thessalonians it has been shown that the short period between the ini-
tial proclamation and writing of the letter kept Paul from making argumenta-
tive use of references to Scripture. Wordings reminiscent of the lxx need to be
explained in terms of the apostle using the language of his holy text; they are
not meant to trigger any further associations with their intended readers. This
also corresponds to what we know about the actual initial recipients.
62 This is indicated, e.g., by Bockmuehl, Epistle, 266; Reumann, Philippians, 669.
63 Contrary to this, see Silva, Philippians, 838, who argues that Paul is here expressing the
transferal of Israel’s cultic system to the Christian congregation.

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For Philippians, the situation we find is indeed different. On the one hand,
the references to Scripture are made more clearly; on the other hand, they are
instrumental for the apostle’s intended meaning. The lack of explicit quota-
tions from Scripture can thus be explained either in terms of the situation of
writing in imprisonment or in terms of Paul thinking it unnecessary, due to
his good relationship with the addressees, to appeal explicitly to scriptural
authority.
In summary, these findings indicate that future work on the reception of
Scripture in Paul should focus more specifically on the historical environment
of the writing and initial reading, and should avoid general solutions. The situ-
ation of writing as well as of the specific community is a decisive factor in the
use of Scripture, not only regarding theological concerns. In combination with
comparative studies on the reception of authoritative literature in antiquity,
with deliberations in literary studies or empirical research on intertextuality,
such work can facilitate nuanced insights that do justice to the historical situ-
ation of Paul’s individual letters as much as possible.

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Chapter 18
The Pastoral Epistles and the Scriptures of Israel

Arland J. Hultgren
The status and role of Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles cannot be assessed
without paying attention to the larger purposes of the letters. All references to
the Old Testament are embedded within rhetorical contexts that are, by and
large, hortatory.1 As in other letters of the Pauline corpus, the Old Testament—
a source deemed authoritative for both author and audience alike—is quoted
or alluded to primarily for the purpose of sustaining an argument.2 In the case
of the Pastorals in particular, the Scriptures are appealed to in contexts where
the author is contending for some form of prescribed belief and conduct.
What little has been said to this point should be obvious for even the most
casual reader of the Pastorals. But it prompts the need for two comments at
the outset. First, on the matter of authorship, by far the majority of scholars
consider these letters to be post-Pauline (or deutero-Pauline), and that is the
point of view taken in this essay.3 One could ask whether the matter of author-
ship is important. Why not simply deal with the use of the Old Testament in
1 The use of the Old Testament in the Pastorals is discussed briefly in Anthony T. Hanson,
The Pastoral Epistles (ncbc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 139–41; Margaret Davies, The
Pastoral Epistles (ntg; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 15–16; and Philip H. Towner, The
Letters to Timothy and Titus (nicnt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 58–59; and at length by
Charles M. Nielsen, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” PRSt 7 (1980): 4–23, and B. Paul Wolfe,
“Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles: Premarcion Marcionism?” PRSt 16 (1989): 5–16.
2 Cf. Christopher D. Stanley, Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of
Paul (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 9–21; and his essay, “The Rhetoric of Quotations: An Essay
on Method,” in Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders (eds.), Early Christian Interpretation
of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (JSNTSup 148; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic, 1997), 44–58.
3 For discussion leading to this conclusion, see Arland J. Hultgren, “The Pastoral Epistles,”
in James D. G. Dunn (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), 141–44. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament
(abrl; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 668, estimates that “about 80 to 90 percent of modern
scholars would agree that the Pastorals were written after Paul’s lifetime.” Raymond F. Collins,
1 and 2 Timothy and Titus: A Commentary (ntl; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 4,
says that at the end of the twentieth century, scholarship was “virtually unanimous in affirm-
ing that the Pastoral Epistles were written some time after Paul’s death.” That is an overstate-
ment. Two major commentaries published since 2000 and written from the perspective of
Pauline authorship are those by Luke T. Johnson, The First and Second Letter to Timothy (AB
35A; New York: Doubleday, 2001) and Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus (2006).

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The Pastoral Epistles and the Scriptures of Israel 373
the text as it stands? While that might be desirable, there is in any case a dis-
tinctive approach to the use of the Old Testament in the Pastorals. If Paul was
the author (or either authorized or supervised the composition of the letters
in some way), he clearly took a different approach when writing these letters.
Or else the author was someone other than Paul, who impersonated him but in
ways that lead most interpreters to sense a significant difference in what is said
in these letters from what one finds in the undisputed letters. Actually, either
way, the “text as it stands” can be honored, without blurring its distinctiveness.
But if the author was someone other than Paul, as most interpreters think, it is
incumbent upon us to discern and honor his achievement or, at the very least,
to take note of his peculiarities.
A second concern is about sources. Although the author uses the terms “sa-
cred writings” and “scripture” (2 Tim 3:15–16), it is impossible to known how
many writings of the present Old Testament (with or without the apocrypha/
deutero-canonical books) were referred to by those terms. To attempt a deter-
mination, one has to know when the Pastorals were composed, where they
were composed, what of the present Old Testament was known and available
to the writer to have standing as “sacred writings” and “scripture,” and what as-
sessments of Old Testament books were being made in the larger Christian and
Jewish communities. There is no way that one can be confident. All that can be
said for certain is that, for the author of the Pastorals, there were “Scriptures”
inherited from the Jewish tradition of teaching and liturgy that were known,
considered authoritative by him and by other believers in Jesus as the Christ,
and used as a basis for preaching, teaching, doctrine, and discipline (or in the
words of the author, “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training
in righteousness,” 2 Tim 3:16). In this essay, consequently, the terms “Scripture”
and “Old Testament” are used in a fluid, indeterminate sense; neither term pre-
supposes a fixed “canon” of the Old Testament at the time and place that the
Pastorals were written. Moreover, it must be acknowledged that we have no
certainty whether the writer of the Pastorals had scriptural texts at hand and
if so, which ones;4 and if he did not have them available, what other resourc-
es—written or oral—he had that supplied him with words and phrases from
Israel’s scriptural heritage.5
4 The rare availability of books (both scrolls and codices) in Second Temple Judaism, their
high cost, their difficulty to use, the necessity of memory for those who had to use them,
and how they were known by most persons only from hearing them read is summarized
by Martin S. Jaffe, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism
200 BCE–400 CE (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 15–20.
5 The same questions arise concerning Paul’s use of Scripture. That Paul did not quote from
the biblical text in the moment of dictation, but that during his private study he would have

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374 Hultgren
There is also an additional problem with discerning the use and signifi-
cance of the Old Testament in the Pastoral Epistles. It is possible, even prob-
able, that the writer had access to some or all of the letters of Paul, disputed
and undisputed.6 We do not know just when or where the letters of Paul were
collected; theories vary.7 But if the author had access to Paul’s letters, or some
of them, could the author’s actual Old Testament have consisted of quota-
tions already existing in those letters; and so there was no direct use of the
Old Testament at all?8 That has been proposed as a probability,9 and it will be
raised as an issue at the end of this essay. Regarding the reference to “the books,
above all the parchments” (2 Tim 4:13, or “the books, namely the parchments”),
excerpted texts from biblical scrolls available to him for use in sermons and letters, is held by
Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline
Epistles and Contemporary Literature (sntsms 74; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992), 67–79. That Paul would have studied scriptural texts in synagogues, committed them
to memory, kept lists and abstracts, and quoted from memory in the writing of his letters
is proposed by Leonard Greenspoon, “By the Letter? Word for Word? Scriptural Citation in
Paul,” in Christopher D. Stanley (ed.), Paul and Scripture: Continuing the Conversation (ecl
9; Atlanta: sbl, 2012), 9–24. “Most likely [Paul] cited Scripture both from memory and from
written texts, with the latter including both anthologies and manuscripts of entire books,”
according to Stanley E. Porter, “Paul and His Bible: His Education and Access to the Scriptures
of Israel,” in Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley (eds.), As It Is Written: Studying
Paul’s Use of Scripture (SymS 50; Atlanta: sbl, 2008), 122.
6 Walter Lock, The Pastoral Epistles (icc; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934), xxiv; Hanson,
Pastoral Epistles, 28–31, 199; idem, Studies in the Pastoral Epistles (London: SPCK, 1968), 118–
19; Jouette M. Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus (antc; Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 23–24;
James W. Aageson, “The Pastoral Epistles, Apostolic Authority, and the Development of the
Pauline Scriptures,” in Stanley E. Porter (ed.), The Pauline Canon (past 1; Leiden: Brill, 2004),
5–26. Hanson (Pastoral Epistles, 28) writes: “The author of the Pastorals echoes every letter in
the Pauline corpus (including Ephesians and Philemon) except 1 and 2 Thessalonians.” More
judicious, however, is the view of I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (icc; Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1999), 66: “The echoes are in fact so faint that the theory of literary dependence
cannot be used as an argument for post-Pauline authorship,” although Marshall himself con-
tends for post-Pauline authorship (pp. 79, 92).
7 For a comprehensive view of prevailing theories, see Stanley E. Porter, “When and How was
the Pauline Canon Compiled? An Assessment of Theories,” in Porter (ed.), The Pauline Canon
(past 1; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 95–127. He concludes that “there is reasonable evidence to see
the origin of the Pauline corpus during the latter part of Paul’s life or shortly after his death”
(pp. 126–27).
8 Lock, Pastoral Epistles, xxiv: “Nearly all the reminiscences of the O.T. are of passages quoted
by St. Paul”; a list is provided. Nevertheless, that does not mean dependence upon the Pauline
texts. Different wordings of such texts show the contrary. Moreover, some phrases from the
Old Testament do not appear in the letters of Paul. Both of these points are made and dis-
cussed later in this essay.
9 Nielsen, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 16–17.

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opinions vary as to what the author is referring.10 Moreover, it is unclear wheth-

er the reference is to one or two sets of materials. It is possible that only one set
is meant and that the words should be translated as “the books, particularly the
parchments.”11 Another proposal is that the words should be translated as “the
books, that is, the notebooks.”12 The parchments could also be blank writing
material, rather than writings. In any case, it is impossible to know the con-
tents of anything that is referred to at this point.
The Pastorals fill about eighteen pages of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testa-
ment (28th edition). Upon those pages there are 38 marginal notes that direct
the reader to Old Testament materials (although in one case the reference is
pseudepigraphal writings: 1 Tim 6:10, referencing T. Jud. 19:1), amounting to 67
texts that, at least for the editors, appear to be quoted or alluded to by words or
phrases in the Pastorals (36 texts in 1 Tim; 19 in 2 Tim; and 12 in Titus). Italicized
font is used in a few places to indicate actual quotations from the Old Testa-
ment. It is these and possibly any other direct quotations that can be consid-
ered first in importance for the topic at hand.
1 Direct Quotations
The first and most obvious quotation appears at 1 Tim 5:18a: “For the scripture
says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain’” (nrsv). The
quotation is ostensibly from Deut 25:4. Although the ordering of the words
differs, the terminology in 1 Tim 5:18 (βοῦν ἀλοῶντα οὐ φιμώσεις) is the same
as in Deut 25:4 lxx (οὐ φιμώσεις βοῦν ἀλοῶντα). A similar saying appears at
1 Cor 9:9, but the verb used is not identical to either (οὐ κημώσεις βοῦν ἀλοῶντα).13
Therefore, it is unlikely that the author of the Pastorals borrowed it from Paul’s
letter to the Corinthians.14
The Old Testament quotation is introduced with the phrase for the scrip-
ture says (λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή). Whether the term ἡ γραφή means Scripture in its
10 The range of opinions is provided by, among others, Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 818–21.
11 b dag, 613 (μάλιστα).
12 T. C. Skeat, “‘Especially the Parchments’: A Note on 2 Timothy IV.13,” jts 30 (1979): 173–77.
13 The textual witnesses are admittedly mixed. Some important witnesses (p46, ‫א‬, et al.)
have the verb φιμώσεις, while others (B*, D*, et al.) have κημώσεις. It is possible that the
text was conformed by some scribes to the lxx. For discussion, see Bruce M. Metzger,
A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; New York: United Bible
Societies, 1994), 492.
14 Contra Nielsen, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 6, 17.

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376 Hultgren
entirety or a particular passage in Scripture is debated.15 Here and wherever

else the phrase is used it introduces a specific passage within the Old Testament,
which is quoted (John 19:37; Rom 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; Gal 4:30; Jas 4:5). Yet ἡ γραφή
alone cannot mean a specific passage of Scripture here. Rather, the writer is
saying that the Scripture says—i.e., Scripture has something to say—in regard
to the matter at hand. The word Scripture is used to assert the writer’s author-
ity. Scripture is understood to be inspired by God (2 Tim 3:16), and therefore
its teachings can be called forth and asserted without being contested. A verse
from the Old Testament follows that speaks directly to the occasion at hand.
The Old Testament context of the verse quoted is not important for the au-
thor. For him it speaks to the present. In this regard the writer of the Pastorals
uses passages from the Old Testament in a manner similar to others of his day,
as in the writings of Philo (Mos. 2.188; Somn. 1.193; Spec. 3.1; 4.50; Legat. 1.210),
Josephus (Apion 2.201), and writings from Qumran (e.g., 1QpHab II, 1–10; V, 3–8;
VI, 12–VII, 3; CD VII, 14–21). Paul, like Philo,16 speaks of the Scriptures as “the
oracles of God” (τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ, Rom 3:2) and can speak of them as address-
ing the present (Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:11);17 likewise, in the Epistle to the Hebrews it
is said that the Holy Spirit speaks to the present through the Scriptures (3:7–19;
10:16–18; cf. 12:5–6).
An additional saying follows in 5:18b: “The laborer is worthy of his wages”
(ἄξιος ὁ ἐργάτης τοῦ μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ). Here a number of issues call for attention.
The two most important questions are: (1) From where did the author derive
the saying? It is not in the Old Testament. And (2) since the saying is from some
source (or tradition) other than the Old Testament, did the author consider
that to be Scripture? The two questions are closely related and can hardly be
treated as separate issues.
The saying is almost identical to the saying of Luke 10:7 (ἄξιος γὰρ ὁ ἐργάτης
τοῦ μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐστίν), generally considered a Q logion (// Matt 10:10, ἄξιος γὰρ
ὁ ἐργάτης τῆς τροφῆς αὐτοῦ).18 Since that is the case, various viewpoints have
been expressed concerning it: (1) the author of the Pastorals quoted from the
15 The term designates Scripture as a whole for bdag, 206 (γραφή, 2, b, Β); Martin Dibelius
and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972),
78–79; Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 615; Nielsen, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 18; and
Wolfe, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 14. Gottlob Schrenk, “γραφή,” tdnt 1:753, is not
certain, but considers it a possibility. Either reading is possible, but would mean the same,
according to Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 364.
16 Philo, Spec. 4.50 (θεῖα λόγια, “divine oracles”).
17 On Scripture as a word of address in Paul’s letters, see Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture
in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 165–68.
18 James M. Robinson et al., The Sayings Gospel Q in Greek and English (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2002), 98–99.

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Gospel of Luke;19 (2) the author quoted the saying from a collection of say-
ings of Jesus used also by Q (but not necessarily from Q);20 (3) the author may
well have quoted from an apocryphon of the Old Testament (hence, Scripture
in a broad sense), otherwise unknown;21 and (4) the author probably quoted
from oral tradition, which would not therefore be included under the term
Scripture.22
In regard to the question whether the source for 5:18b was considered by
the author to be Scripture, again there is a division of judgment on the matter.
Some interpreters have thought so, or have said that the saying had the same
status as Scripture.23 Others have rejected that view.24
In the final analysis, it is impossible to know the answer to the questions
posed. But it is surely plausible that “scripture says” applies only to the quota-
tion from Deut 25:4, that the second saying was not taken from Luke’s Gospel,
Q, or any other document, and that it came from a common and well-known
oral tradition that also appears at Matt 10:10 and Luke 10:7 (presumably from
Q, although worded slightly differently in Matthew, using τῆς τροφῆς instead of
τοῦ μισθοῦ). In that case, the author does not concern himself with whether it
is a quotation from the Old Testament or from Jesus, but simply appends it as a
common proverbial saying that carries its own weight as apostolic tradition in
reference to the compensation of “elders who rule well” and “especially those
19 Hans Hübner, “γραφή,” ednt 1:261; Burton S. Easton, The Pastoral Epistles (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947), 159, 161; C. Spicq, Saint Paul: Les Épîtres Pastorales (4th ed.;
ÉB; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1969), 543–44; Fred D. Gealy, “The First and Second Epistles to
Timothy and the Epistle to Titus,” in George A. Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter’s Bible
(12 vols.; New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1951–57), 11:442–43; E. K. Simpson, The
Pastoral Epistles (London: Tyndale, 1954), 78; George W. Knight, III, Commentary on
the Pastoral Epistles (nigtc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 234; Wolfe, “Scripture in the
Pastoral Epistles,” 13–14.
20 Lock, Pastoral Epistles, xxiii, 62–63; Hanson, Pastoral Epistles, 102; Donald Guthrie, The
Pastoral Epistles (tntc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 105–6; Jürgen Roloff, Der erste
Brief an Timotheus (ekknt 15; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), 310;
Nielsen, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 17–18.
21 Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 79; J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral
Epistles (hntc; New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 126.
22 C. K. Barrett, The Pastoral Epistles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 79; Johnson,
First and Second Letters to Timothy, 278; Collins, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, 146.
23 Easton, Pastoral Epistles, 161–62; Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, 126; Hanson, Pastoral Epistles, 102;
James D. G. Dunn, “The First and Second Letters to Timothy and the Letter to Titus,” in
Leander A. Keck (ed.), The New Interpreter’s Bible (12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon, 2000),
11:822; Roloff, Erste Brief an Timotheus, 309; Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, 100;
Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 615.
24 Lock, Pastoral Epistles, xxiii; Benjamin Fiore, The Pastoral Epistles (SP 12; Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 111; Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 59, 364.

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378 Hultgren
who labor in preaching and teaching” (1 Tim 5:7), in the one instance, and ref-
erence to care for those who proclaim the gospel (Q, Luke 10:7 // Matt 10:10) in
the other. A similar saying concerning compensation for those who preach the
gospel appears at 1 Cor 9:13–14. Consequently, one need not claim the existence
of a literary source common to Q and 1 Timothy.
The following verse (5:19) may or may not be an actual quotation from the
OT. The author exhorts the community not to “accept an accusation against
an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ δύο ἢ τριῶν
μαρτύρων). Two texts in Deuteronomy require the presence of two or more wit-
nesses in legal proceedings. At Deut 17:6 the text reads: “On the testimony of
two witnesses or upon three witnesses the person to die shall be executed”
(ἐπὶ δυσὶν μάρτυσιν ἢ ἐπὶ τρισὶν μάρτυσιν ἀποθανεῖται ὁ ἀποθνῄσκων). Then at
Deut 19:15 the text reads: “A matter shall be established on the testimony of two
or three witnesses” (ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων καὶ ἐπὶ στόματος τριῶν μαρτύρων
σταθήσεται πᾶν ῥῆμα). The first of the texts is quoted (with a direct reference
to the “law of Moses”) within Hebrews (10:28). The second is quoted by Paul
almost verbatim at 2 Cor 13:1 (ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων καὶ τριῶν σταθήσεται
πᾶν ῥῆμα) and by Matthew at 18:16 (ἐπὶ στόματος δύο μαρτύρων ἢ τριῶν σταθῇ πᾶν
ῥῆμα). It is also alluded to at John 8:17, and the principle of having two or three
witnesses in controversies is invoked in the writings of Josephus, Qumran
texts, and the Mishnah.25
Although it has been held that 1 Tim 5:19 contains a quotation from the deu-
teronomic texts, either singly or together,26 or at least alludes to those texts,27
it is also possible that the author alludes to traditional practice within early
Christian communities that continued Jewish practice as a just procedure in
controversies.28 The fact that quotations or allusions appear in the Gospels of
Matthew and John and the letters of Paul and Hebrews—in addition to the
Jewish texts cited—demonstrates how broadly the principle was held. Insofar
as that is the case, it is not likely that the author of the Pastorals deliberately
quoted from, or even consciously alluded to, the Old Testament at this point.
The second instance of direct quotation from the Old Testament is at
2 Tim 2:19: “But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this inscription: ‘The
25 Josephus, Life 256; CD IX, 16–23; m. Sot. 6.3; m. Makk. 1.7, 9. For a procedure using two wit-
nesses, rather than an expression of the rule itself, cf. m. Sanh. 5.1–5.
26 Hanson, Pastoral Epistles, 102; Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, 100; Towner, Letters to
Timothy and Titus, 367–70; Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 617.
27 Johnson, First and Second Letters to Timothy, 279.
28 Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, 126; Fiore, Pastoral Epistles, 111; Collins, 1 and 2 Timothy and
Titus, 146.

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Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who calls on the name of
the Lord turn away from wickedness.’”
The terms firm foundation (στερεὸς θεμέλιος) and inscription (σφραγίς) are
clearly metaphorical in some sense. What they refer to is less clear.29 The first
of these most likely refers to the witnessing community, the church,30 which
is referred to in the next verse. The foundation stands in opposition to hereti-
cal teachers who upset the faith of believers (2:17–18). Similarly, in 1 Tim 3:15
the church is called “the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” upholding the truth
in the midst of conflicting claims. The metaphor of a foundation for a believ-
ing community, or for a foundation holding it up, is not unique to the Pastoral
Epistles. In Qumran literature the community of the righteous is to establish
a foundation of the truth.31 At Eph 2:19–20 the church is called the “house-
hold of God, built on the foundation (ἐποικοδομηθέντες ἐπὶ τῷ θεμελίῳ) of the
apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” Although
here the “foundation” is the apostles and prophets rather than the church it-
self, the concepts are closely aligned. The second metaphor is drawn from the
practice of placing an inscription on something (such as animals, slaves, vari-
ous objects, and legal documents) to identify their owner.32 Consequently, the
church is stamped with two inscriptions, which are written out in the remain-
der of the verse.
The first of the inscriptions is possibly a quotation from a portion of
Num 16:5. The wording there is ἔγνω ὁ θεὸς τοὺς ὄντας αὐτοῦ (“God knows those
who are his”), whereas 2 Timothy has ἔγνω κύριος τοὺς ὄντας αὐτοῦ (“the Lord
knows those who are his”). The second quotation produced is not a quotation
from the Old Testament at all, but is at best an amalgam of words and phrases
here and there in the Old Testament. The nrsv does not reflect the amalgam
very well. A more literal translation would be “Let everyone who names the
name of the Lord turn away from wickedness” (ἀποστήτω ἀπὸ ἀδικίας πᾶς ὁ
ὀνομάζων τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου). The expression to “name (or confess) the name of
the Lord” appears at Lev 24:16 (ὀνομάζων δὲ τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου) and Isa 26:13 (κύριε
29 Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 765–56, lists seven different proposals by interpreters.
30 Among interpreters who favor this are Karl L. Schmidt, “θεμέλιος,” tdnt 3:63–64; Gerd
Petzke, “θεμέλιος,” ednt 2:139; Easton, Pastoral Epistles, 60; Dibelius and Conzelmann,
Pastoral Epistles, 112; Barrett, Pastoral Epistles, 106; Fiore, Pastoral Epistles, 158; Marshall,
Pastoral Epistles, 755; Collins, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, 235; Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy,
Titus, 153; Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy
(ecc; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 684–86; Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 530.
Paul uses the metaphor for a local congregation (Rom 15:20; 1 Cor 3:10–12).
31 1QS IV, 4; cf. VIII, 4–10.
32 Tim Schramm, “σφραγίς,” ednt 3:316–17.

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380 Hultgren
ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν…τὸ ὄνομά σου ὀνομάζομεν), and the expression to “turn away from
wickedness” at Sir 17:26 (ἀπόστρεφε ἀπὸ ἀδικίας); similar expressions appear in
Jeremiah (44:5) and Ezekiel (3:19; 18:27; 33:12). None of these phrases from the
Old Testament appears in the undisputed and disputed letters of Paul.
2 Allusions
Allusions to the Old Testament are few, but significant.33 The most obvious
allusion is at 1 Tim 2:13–14, an allusion to Gen 2–3. The creation of Adam prior
to Eve is the sequence of the second creation story (Gen 2:7, 22), but not the
first (Gen 1:27). What is remarkable and puzzling is the declaration that while
the woman was deceived, which corresponds to the Genesis account (Gen 3:1–
7, 13), the man was not; for surely he too was tricked. The explanation that
seems best is that the author’s eye was fastened on the words of the woman,
when she says, “the serpent deceived me” (ὁ ὄφις ἠπάτησέν με, Gen 3:13), for
the author uses forms of the same verb (ἀπατάω, “to deceive”) in saying that
“Adam was not deceived (οὐκ ἠπατήθη), but the woman, having been deceived
(ἐξαπατηθεῖσα), became a transgressor.” That being the case, and regardless of
the objection to his view stated here, the author demonstrates skill in working
with the texts of Genesis. He reflects a tradition that claims that it is through
Eve that the human race has fallen (Sir 25:24; Philo, Agr. 1.108; Prot. Jas. 13.1),
a viewpoint that appears also in the writings of Paul (2 Cor 11:3),34 where the
apostle says that “the serpent deceived Eve” (ὁ ὄφις ἐξηπάτησεν Εὕαν). Yet the
dominant claim in the writings of Paul is that Adam was the first transgressor,
whose transgression brought death to all others (Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:21–22,
45–49). The author of the Pastorals highlights the tradition concerning Eve in
this context of silencing women.
Another allusion to the Old Testament and related texts is at 2 Tim 3:8: “As
Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people [the opponents of the
community being addressed], of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also op-
pose the truth.” The allusion is found nowhere else in the New Testament. It
alludes to the story in Exodus where the Pharaoh calls forth magicians to do
miracles comparable to those performed by Moses and Aaron in order to dis-
credit the latter (Exod 7:11–12, 22). The names of the two men are not given in
33 The term “allusions” is used here to designate indirect extra-textual references to the Old
Testament that are not quotations or paraphrases and appear to be intentional on the
part of the author to achieve his purpose. For a definition, on which this understanding
is based, see Stanley E. Porter, “Allusions and Echoes,” in Porter and Stanley (eds.), As It Is
Written, 30–36.
34 These and related texts are discussed by Hanson, Studies in the Pastoral Epistles, 65–77.

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the Old Testament account, but must have existed in an apocryphal document
available to the author of the Pastorals, such as the (now lost) “Book of Jannes
and Jambres.”35 Other than that, there seems to be no documentary evidence
of the two names linked together and existing at the time that the Pastorals
were written. “Jannes and his brother” are mentioned in Qumran literature
(CD V, 17–19). Both names appear together in presumably later rabbinic litera-
ture, early Christian texts, and other sources.36 The author refers to these per-
sons, who opposed Moses, as comparable to the heretical teachers of his own
time. As they opposed the truth when they opposed Moses, so the opponents
“oppose the truth” in the present. Moreover, as the former could not succeed,
neither will the opponents.
There is an allusion to the Decalogue, if only a somewhat vague one, at
1 Tim 1:8–10. The writer says that “the law (ὁ νόμος) is good,” and that it “is laid
down not for the innocent” but for those kinds of persons listed, fourteen in
number. The fourteen types appear in vice-lists of both Jewish and Gentile
Hellenistic texts.37 Although the author does not quote from the Decalogue,
the types of persons listed correspond sequentially to things prohibited in
the Decalogue:38 (1) the “lawless and disobedient” do not heed the words of
God (Exod 20:1); (2) the “godless and sinful” do not honor God as the Lord
(Exod 20:2); (3) the “unholy and profane” do not keep the commandment con-
cerning God’s name (Exod 20:7); (4) “those who kill their father or mother” do
not keep the commandment concerning parents (Exod 20:12); (5) “murderers”
do not abide by the commandment against murder (Exod 20:13); (6) the “forni-
cators” and other sexual offenders (ἀρσενοκοῖται, translated variously as “ped-
erasts,” “sodomites,” “practicing homosexuals,” and “sexual perverts”39) do not
keep the commandment prohibiting adultery (Exod 20:14), interpreted broadly
35 On references to the book in antiquity, see Emil Schürer et al., The History of the Jewish
People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC–AD 135) (3 vols.; rev. ed.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1987), 3.2:781–83. According to Albert Pietersma, “Jannes and Jaambres,” abd 3:639, “The
date of origin of the tradition can hardly be much later than the 2nd century BCE, while
the book was written probably at least as early as the 2nd century CE.”
36 Texts are cited by Schürer, History, 3.2:781. For discussion and translation of fragments of
the Book of Jannes and Jambres, see A. Pietersma and R. T. Lutz, “Jannes and Jambres,”
otp 2:427–42.
37 These are illustrated in Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 22–23, and by
Neil J. McEleney, “The Vice Lists of the Pastoral Epistles,” cbq 36 (1974): 204–10.
38 The discussion here follows what is in Arland J. Hultgren, I–II Timothy, Titus (acnt;
Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 57.
39 For the translation “pederasts,” see bdag, 134; Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles,
22; and the German Luther Bible (Knabenschänder). The term “sodomites” is used in
the nrsv; “practicing homosexuals” is used in the net; and “sexual perverts” is used by
Johnson, First and Second Letters to Timothy, 170.

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382 Hultgren
in reference to sexual morality in general; (7) “slave traders” are the worst of
thieves,40 and so they violate the law against stealing (Exod 20:15); and (8) the
“liars” and “perjurers” do not keep the commandment against false witness
(Exod 20:16). It has been suggested that the passage represents a “Hellenistic
transformation of Jewish ethics.”41 While that is probably true, it can be seen
that the Decalogue provides the essential framework and background of the
passage. “The list echoes the Decalogue in such a way that the relationship is
close enough not to be missed and broad enough to appeal to the Hellenistic
ear of the church that would have overheard this letter.”42 The Decalogue is
being alluded to, but its contents have been contemporized for a non-Jewish
readership accustomed to lists of virtues and vices.
Finally, at 2 Tim 4:14 there is the assertion concerning Alexander the copper-
smith. In consequence of the harm he caused, “the Lord will repay him for his
deeds” (ἀποδώσει αὐτῷ ὁ κύριος κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ). The wording is close to that
in lines appearing twice in the lxx concerning divine justice, and so it could
have been lifted out of the lxx directly:
Ps 62:12: “For you repay to each according to his deeds” (61:12 lxx: ὅτι σὺ
ἀποδώσεις ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ).
Prov 24:12: “He will repay each according to his deeds” (ἀποδίδωσιν ἑκάστῳ
κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ).
But the wording appears also at Rom 2:6: “He will repay each according to his
deeds” (ὃς ἀποδώσει ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ). Could this be a case where the
writer took material from Romans rather than from the Old Testament? One
cannot be certain.43 It is surely possible that the author simply states what has
become a common formula concerning divine retribution found in both Jewish
and early Christian literature, using the same or nearly the same language:
Ps 28:4 (27:4 lxx, δὸς αὐτοῖς κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν); Job 34:11 (ἀποδιδοῖ ἀνθρώπῳ
καθὰ ποιεῖ ἕκαστος αὐτῶν); Hos 12:2 (κατὰ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα αὐτοῦ ἀνταποδώσει
αὐτῷ); Sir 16:12 (ἄνδρα κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ κρινεῖ); 1 En. 100:7 (ὅτι κομιεῖσθε κατὰ τὰ
ἔργα ὑμῶν); Pss. Sol. 2:16 (ὅτι ἀπέδωκας τοῖς ἁμαρτωλοῖς κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν); 2:34
(ἀποδοῦναι ἁμαρτωλοῖς εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν); Matt 16:27 (ἀποδώσει
40 Philo, Spec. 4.13.

41 Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 23.
42 Towner, Letters to Timothy and Titus, 125.
43 According to Quinn and Wacker, First and Second Letters to Timothy, 813, the passage is
independent of Romans.

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ἑκάστῳ κατὰ τὴν πρᾶξιν αὐτοῦ); and 1 Pet 1:17 (κρίνοντα κατὰ τὸ ἑκάστου ἔργον).44
It has been suggested that the saying was a common formula used against one’s
enemies.45 Whether that is so or not, it is not likely in this particular instance.
The saying is a prediction, based on divine justice, not a curse. In any case, the
saying is more of an echo of scriptural language, or perhaps simply the rep-
etition of a common by-word, rather than an Old Testament allusion, strictly
speaking.
3 Scripture as Doctrinal Source
Beyond actual direct quotations from the Old Testament and allusions to sto-
ries within it, there are innumerable words and concepts which are rooted in
the scriptural traditions of Israel. One cannot be content with a discussion of
Scripture in the Pastorals by limiting attention to the most obvious references.
The theology of the Pastorals is essentially a biblical theology with expansions
of thought from Scripture into present conditions.
Above all, the teachings of the Pastorals concerning God and creation
are thoroughly scriptural. God is conceived of as king, eternal, wise, living
(1 Tim 1:17; 3:15; 4:10) and as the one who, in the end, will exercise judgment on
all (2 Tim 4:8, 14). Meantime, the creation is a good gift of God and the home in
which the believer in Christ is to dwell. God gives life to all things (1 Tim 6:13),
has created them good (1 Tim 4:4), and has provided “everything” for human
enjoyment (1 Tim 6:17). All of these assertions are based upon Old Testament
materials, primarily in Genesis (1:1–31) and the Psalms (8:1–9; 19:1–6; 95:1–7;
104:1–35; 136:1–9; 145:15–16; 148:1–14). Moreover, the author affirms the good-
ness of marriage and having children (1 Tim 3:4–5; 5:10, 14; Titus 2:4), which are
instituted or established in the Old Testament (Gen 1:28; 2:24), but forbidden
by the opponents (1 Tim 4:3). The opponents also demand abstinence from
certain foods, but the author asserts that foods are to be received with thanks-
giving (1 Tim 4:3); foods of all kinds are a gift of God according to scriptural tra-
dition (Gen 1:29; 9:3–4). Living within the good creation that God has given, the
life of the believer is to be one of good works (1 Tim 2:10; 2 Tim 2:21; 3:17; Titus
3:1), moderation (1 Tim 6:8), generosity (1 Tim 6:17–18), compassion (Titus 3:2,
8, 14), care of the elderly (1 Tim 5:4), and respect for civil authority (1 Tim 2:1–2;
44 Still other sayings, expressing the same thought but in different language, are at Eccl 12:14;
Ezek 33:20; Jer 17:10; Sir 35:22; 2 Esd 8:33 Pss. Sol. 9:5; 17:8; and elsewhere.
45 According to Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 123, it could have been “a Jewish
curse formula” based on the Old Testament passages.

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384 Hultgren
Titus 3:1–2). All this means that one does not flee from this world, but will live
within it in a manner consistent with belief in God as creator, and to whom
one is responsible (2 Tim 4:8, 14).
A distinctive note sounded in the Pastorals concerning God is that God is
“Savior” (σωτήρ). The term is applied to God no less than six times (1 Tim 1:1;
2:3; 4:10; Titus 1:3; 2:10; 3:4) and to Christ four times (2 Tim 1:10; Titus 1:4; 2:13;
3:6). Paul and the author of Ephesians use the term for Christ only once each
(Phil 3:20; Eph 5:23) but never for God. The title of Savior for God is famil-
iar from the Psalms (lxx 24:5; 26:1, 9; 61:3, 7; 64:5; 78:9), Isaiah (12:2; 45:15, 21;
62:11), and elsewhere (1 Sam 10:19; Judg 9:11; 1 Macc 4:30; Pss. Sol. 8:33; 16:4), and
the concept of God as a redeeming or saving God—apart from the specific
title—is common (2 Sam 22:3; lxx Pss 16:7; 105:21; Isa 43:3; 49:26; 60:16; 63:18;
Jer 14:7–9; Hos 13:4).
To be sure, the theological expressions in the Pastorals could have been me-
diated to the author from sources other than the Old Testament, including the
letters of Paul (disputed and undisputed) and from common early Christian
tradition. In fact, it is even likely that the author learned and adopted his theo-
logical expressions over extended periods of time primarily from participating
in worship and from whatever education he had. His knowledge of the Old
Testament would have been gained from teachers before him. But that is true
for most, if not all, Christian theologians, ancient and modern. That in itself
has no direct bearing on his convictions concerning Scripture. For that, one
has to look elsewhere.
4 The Locus Classicus on Scripture
We come now to the passage that deals directly with the status of Scripture in
the Pastoral Epistles (2 Tim 3:14–17), citing it from the nrsv:
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed,
knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have
known the sacred writings (ἱερὰ γράμματα46) that are able to instruct you
for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God
(πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος) and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for cor-
rection, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs
to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
46 The definite article τά appears before ἱερά in the Nestle text, but it is set within brackets.
It appears in some ancient witnesses but is lacking in others. It is more likely to have been
added than deleted. In any case, the meaning is the same in both cases.

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The passage is known for its difficulties in translation and interpretation. The
reference to the “sacred writings” (ἱερὰ γράμματα, 3:15) is not contested, for in-
terpreters have taken the term to mean the writings of the Old Testament (the
law, the prophets, and the Psalms at least). The term appears nowhere else in
the New Testament nor in the lxx, but it is used in Hellenistic Judaism with
that meaning.47 Likewise, the expression πᾶσα γραφή (3:16) is found nowhere
else in the New Testament nor in the lxx. Two closely related expressions are
ἡ δὲ περιοχὴ τῆς γραφῆς (“and the passage of scripture,” Acts 8:32) and πᾶσα
προφητεία γραφῆς (“every prophecy of scripture,” 2 Pet 1:20).
In 3:15 Timothy is said to have known the sacred writings from childhood.
Being the son of a Jewish mother (Acts 16:1), the claim is plausible. According
to Jewish tradition, a boy is ready for the study of Scripture at the age of five.48
In any case, the rhetorical significance of the verse is that it gives credence to
Timothy as a faithful and informed son of the scriptural traditions of Israel.
The saying at 3:16 is known in particular for its difficulties in translation and
interpretation. The Greek allows for several possibilities: (1) “all scripture is in-
spired by God and is useful” (nrsv; rsv has “is profitable”); (2) “every scripture
[passage] is inspired by God and useful” (net); (3) “all scripture inspired by
God is also useful”; and (4) “every scripture [passage] inspired by God is also
[useful]” (rsv and nrsv footnote).
The term γραφή in this context most certainly refers to the Scriptures of
Israel, as known at the time of writing. Although the term can mean simply
a written document of any kind,49 it is used in the New Testament elsewhere
(including the writings of Paul) to refer to the Old Testament as a whole,50 al-
though more commonly—and less ambiguously—the plural form (αἱ γραφαί)
is used when the Old Testament as a whole is meant.51 The singular is more
frequently used in the New Testament (and in the writings of Paul) to refer to
a particular passage of Scripture.52 The same dual usage of γραφή (singular) for
referring to Scripture as a whole or to a particular passage is found in Jewish
texts outside the New Testament.53
47 Philo, Mos. 2.292; Legat. 195; Praem. 79; Josephus, Ant. 1.13; 10.210; 13.167; War 6.312; Apion
1.54; 1.127.
48 Cf. m. Aboth 5.24.
49 Cf. references in Schrenk, “γραφή,” tdnt 1:749–50.
50 John 2:22; 10:35; 20:9; Acts 1:16; Gal 3:22; 2 Pet 1:20.
51 Matt 21:42; Mark 14:49; Luke 24:27; John 5:39; Acts 17:2; Rom 1:2; 15:4; 1 Cor 15:3–4; 2 Pet 3:16
et al.
52 Mark 12:10; Luke 4:21; John 13:18; 19:24, 36–37; Acts 8:32, 35; Rom 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; Jas 2:8, 23.
53 For Scripture as a whole, cf. Philo, Mos. 2.84; Let. Arist. 155; 168; and T. Zeb. 9.5. For particu-
lar passages, cf. 4 Macc 18:14; Philo, Her. 266.

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386 Hultgren
Concerning the various possible translations, each is possible as it stands

on the page. But the third and fourth54 can be dismissed within the context of
the passage. They imply that there could be Scripture that is not inspired; and
only that which is inspired is useful. But to make such a distinction cannot be
the purpose of the writer. The point has been made in the previous verse that
Timothy has been reared since his youth in the “sacred writings” of Israel, a
collection that would be equivalent to “scripture” in this verse.
The alternatives remaining in 3:16 are “all scripture” or “every scripture [pas-
sage].” The former is favored by those who see here a reference to the total-
ity of Scripture, based on the identity of that totality in the previous verse.55
The latter is favored by others, primarily by those who conclude that the au-
thor should have written πᾶσα ἡ γραφή (including the article) if he meant “all
scripture.”56 Yet that is not without problems, for not “every scripture [pas-
sage]” can be considered “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and
for training in righteousness.”
The argument that the definite article is needed if the author intended to
say “all scripture” is not decisive. The article is not used in many expressions
in the lxx and the New Testament (and the same is true of classical Greek57)
that use the term “all,” particularly where abstract nouns are used, such as
πᾶσα σάρξ (“all flesh,” Gen 6:12; Isa 40:6; Acts 2:17), πᾶσα ἐξουσία (“all authority,”
Matt 28:18), πᾶσα σοφία (“all wisdom,” Col 1:9, 28), and πᾶσα κτίσις (“all creation,”
54 The fourth rendering has the support of Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 120,
and E. F. Scott, The Pastoral Epistles (mntc; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1936), 127.
55 Lock, Pastoral Epistles, 110; J. L. Houlden, The Pastoral Epistles (Pelican New Testament
Commentaries; New York: Penguin, 1976), 128; Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (rev.
ed.; nibc; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 279; Knight, Pastoral Epistles, 445; Simpson,
Pastoral Epistles, 150–51; Bassler, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, 167; Wolfe, “Scripture in the
Pastoral Epistles,” 11. Major English versions rendering the words as “all scripture” include
the kjv, rsv, niv, and nrsv.
56 Schrenk, “γραφή,” tdnt 1:754; bdag 206 (γραφή, 2, a); A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the
Greek New Testament in Light of Historical Research (3rd ed.; London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1919), 772; Hanson, Pastoral Epistles, 151–52; similarly, idem, Studies in the Pastoral Epistles,
44; Barrett, Pastoral Epistles, 114; Joachim Jeremias, Die Briefe an Timotheus und Titus
(11th ed.; ntd 9; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 62; Gottfried Holtz, Die
Pastoralbriefe (thknt 13; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1965), 188; Gealy, “First and
Second Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus,” 11:506; Guthrie, Pastoral Epistles,
163; Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, 202; Fiore, Pastoral Epistles, 171; Alfons Weiser, Der zweite Brief
an Timotheus (ekknt 16/1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2003), 268, 279–83;
Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 791–92; Johnson, First and Second Letters to Timothy, 423; and
Collins, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, 263. “Every scripture” is the rendering of the asv and
the net. Nielsen, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 21, goes beyond the views of all other
scholars by saying that “Scripture mainly means Paul’s letters.”
57 l sj, 1345 (πᾶς, II) provides examples.

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Col 1:15).58 This follows the dictum that “the article is not used with πᾶς [or its
feminine form πᾶσα] if the noun, standing alone, would have no article.”59 In
the case of γραφή, the term appears without the article in 1 Pet 2:6 (περιέχει ἐν
γραφῇ, “it stands in scripture”); 2 Pet 1:20 (πᾶσα προφητεία γραφῆς, “every proph-
ecy of scripture”); T. Zeb. 9:5 (ἐν γραφῇ, “in scripture”); and Josephus (ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ
ἀνακειμένη γραφή, “scripture, deposited in the temple,” Ant. 3.38). In each case
the reference is to the Scriptures of Israel. The usage is not unusual, since fre-
quently the term πᾶς/πᾶσα can encompass everything (Old Testament books
in this case) belonging to a class designated by a noun (γραφή in this case).60 It
is important to ask here: “If the author intended to say ‘all scripture’ within a
moment of exhortation to a particular person (‘But as for you,’ 3:14), how would
he do it?” It is surely possible, and perhaps even probable, for him to make a
sweeping and comprehensive statement about the significance of Scripture as
a whole without the definite article.
It has been said that the distinction between the two possible readings
(“all scripture” or “every scripture passage”) is immaterial, for the result is the
same whether one speaks of the particulars of Scripture or the totality as being
inspired.61 Translation requires a choice, however, and the translation “all
scripture” is to be preferred, since the context (the “sacred writings” of 3:15)
speaks of the Scriptures in their entirety and because of their purpose collec-
tively (teaching, reproof, correction, and training). Moreover, as already said, it
is not likely that “every” passage is suitable for these.
The Scriptures are considered “inspired” (most major English versions; but
niv has “God-breathed”), translated from θεόπνευστος, a word not appearing
elsewhere in the lxx or New Testament, but occasionally in other ancient
works, both Jewish and Gentile.62 No particular theory of inspiration is im-
plied. The range of viewpoints concerning inspiration in Judaism runs all the
way from the view that the Holy Spirit takes over the human consciousness and
dictates what is to be said to the view that what is said was mediated through
human agency and consciousness (cf. 2 Pet 1:21, “men moved by the Holy Spirit
spoke from God”).63 In the final analysis, whatever the view of inspiration, the
58 Similarly, the article is not used when “all” is in reference to people collectively, as in πᾶσα
Ἱεροσόλυμα (“all Jerusalem,” Matt 2:3); πᾶς οἶκος Ἰσραὴλ (“all the house of Israel,” Acts 2:36);
and πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ (“all Israel,” Num 16:34; Dan 9:11; 1 Macc 2:70; Rom 11:26).
59 Herbert W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (rev. ed.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1959), 296.
60 b dag, 784 (πᾶς, 5); various examples are given.
61 Easton, Pastoral Epistles, 67.
62 Ps.-Phoc. 1.129; Sib. Or. 5.308; 5.406; T. Ab. A 20:11; Plutarch, Mor. 904–905; Ps.-Callisth. 1.25.
63 Philo, Mos. 2.188, speaks of three possible views concerning inspiration. Other texts on
inspiration are Philo, Spec. 1.65; 4.49; and Josephus, Apion 1.37.

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388 Hultgren
idea was that inspiration is the basis for the authority of Scripture.64 Within
the present context the emphasis is not on a doctrine of inspiration but the
use of Scripture. The heretical teachers apparently make a selective use of
Scripture and emphasize those portions—myths, genealogies, and human
traditions (1 Tim 1:4; Titus 1:14)—“that promote speculations rather than the
divine training that is known by faith” (1 Tim 1:4). Over against that, the author
asserts that “all scripture” is to be employed, for it is inspired—authoritative in
its entirety—and thus “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for
training in righteousness.”
5 The Status and Role of Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles
As indicated at the outset, the status and role of Scripture in the Pastoral
Epistles cannot be assessed without paying attention to the larger purposes
of the letters. Quotations and allusions to Old Testament passages and stories
exist within rhetorical contexts that are hortatory. The most explicit passage in
which the author claims to quote from Scripture is at 1 Tim 5:18 (“For scripture
says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain’”), quoting
from Deut 25:4. Here the author, as so often elsewhere, talks past Timothy to
the larger community concerning compensation for their elders. The presup-
position for both the author and the community is that Scripture is the final
authority, and can be appealed to, in the present. The saying about the inspi-
ration of Scripture (2 Tim 3:16) is addressed to Timothy himself, but it is to
be heard by the larger community. It is Scripture in its entirety, not as in the
manner of the heretical teachers who give attention to “myths and endless ge-
nealogies” (1 Tim 1:4; cf. Titus 1:14) that is to be used, and in particular by those
who are equipped to interpret “the word of truth” correctly (2 Tim 2:15). When
the author quotes from Num 16:5 at 2 Tim 2:19 (“the Lord knows those who are
his”), he does so to claim, in effect, that Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have
swerved from the truth, do not belong to the household of God. It does not
matter what the context of the passage is in the Old Testament, but for the
author it is clear from it that God makes a distinction between those who are
of the household and those who are not; and the opponents certainly do not
qualify.
In cases where allusions are made, such as at 1 Tim 2:13–14 concerning Adam
and Eve, at 2 Tim 3:8 concerning Jannes and Jambres, and at 1 Tim 1:8–10 where
there is an allusion to the Decalogue, the author draws upon Scripture to make
64 Eduard Schweizer, “θεόπνευστος,” tdnt 6:453–55.

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his arguments concerning the silencing and subordination of women in the

first instance, to illustrate in the second how people in the present who “op-
pose the truth” have their antecedents in Scripture, and to combat in the third
those who want to be teachers of the law without understanding what is in it.
In all of these cases there is a noticeable distinction between the use of
Scripture in the undisputed letters of Paul and in the Pastorals. When Paul em-
ploys texts, he does so to further a theological argument that is underway and
that concerns the entire readership of a community. But when the author of
the Pastorals employs Scripture, the aim has to do primarily with leadership
in the church, particularly in regard to the role of official, designated leaders
(bishops and elders in particular), support for them, or for encouraging them
in fending off beliefs and behaviors that are unacceptable. The leader himself
is exhorted to employ Scripture in the ministry of teaching in order to equip
the community for doing good (1 Tim 4:13; 2 Tim 3:14–17).
It is clear that the author of the Pastorals possesses an acquaintance with
Scripture in his own right. He can make use of Old Testament texts to estab-
lish points in his arguments. It is important to assert this, for the claim has
been made that the author had no “lively interest” in the Old Testament at
all; indeed, the Old Testament “has no independent standing ground” for him;
and that which is used generally comes from the letters of Paul, not from the
Old Testmaent itself.65 To be sure, it is impossible to know what of the Old
Testament was available to the writer. If he resided in Ephesus or Rome at the
time(s) of writing—the two places that scholars have considered most like-
ly66—we can assume that Old Testament texts were probably available to him.
Nevertheless, his quotations and allusions are not precise; they may rely on
his memory of texts with which he had an acquaintance, but not necessarily
in his possession. In any case, the quotations and allusions are not taken from
the letters of Paul.
One always runs the risk, when dealing with the question of the status and
use of Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles—and perhaps it is inevitable—of
using the apostle Paul himself as the standard by which to judge the author
of the Pastorals. It is probably inevitable, since the author seeks to imperson-
ate Paul. We find nothing in the Pastorals to compare with the skill of Paul in
65 Nielsen, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 4, 16–17. For a response to Nielsen and further
discussion, see Wolfe, “Scripture in the Pastoral Epistles,” 5–16.
66 Hanson, Pastoral Epistles, 14 (Ephesus); Hultgren, I–II Timothy, Titus, 21–25 (Ephesus);
Quinn and Wacker, First and Second Letters to Timothy, 21 (Ephesus or more likely Rome);
Brown, Introduction, 670 (Rome). According to Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 89–90, propos-
als for Rome or Ephesus are possible, but “we know so little … that it is pointless to specu-
late further.” Similarly, Bassler, 1 Timothy 2 Timothy Titus, 20.

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390 Hultgren
using the Old Testament that is demonstrated in Rom 9:1–11:36, 1 Cor 10:1–11, or
Gal 3:6–18. But comparison can too easily detract from the author’s own skills.
A. T. Hanson puts it well when he writes concerning the author: “He does not
have Paul’s brilliance, originality, or creative vision, but he does know how to
handle Scripture effectively for his own purposes.”67
More can be said on this. The author of the Pastorals dealt with issues
that arose after the passing of the apostle Paul. Paul’s originality and bril-
liance belong to the dawn of the Christian movement, when the new move-
ment of believers in Jesus was emerging. The author of the Pastorals lived and
worked at a later time. He was an heir to traditions (creedal, catechetical, and
organizational68) that had already been formed in some locales and were de-
veloping in others, but were under threat. There was a “mystery of the faith”
to preserve (1 Tim 3:9), a “good deposit” (παραθήκη, 2 Tim 1:14; translated as
“good treasure” in the nrsv) to guard, “sound teaching” to follow (1 Tim 4:6;
2 Tim 1:13), “the faith” to hold on to (1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 4:7), and a “message”
to proclaim (2 Tim 4:2). His use of Scripture in his arguments was limited to
enlisting those passages and illustrations that could be used to put down the
opposition. In doing so, he tended to use Scripture in the manner of making
a legal brief. But that does not mean that he lacked originality and brilliance.
Any gifts he had came to expression for the needs of a different situation.
Finally, as often pointed out, the author’s use of Scripture was sparse. Again,
comparisons with other New Testament writers are inevitable. Yet the author’s
use may well be on a par with that of other writers. The varied purposes of
each writer must be taken into account. There are contrasts to be found even
within the letters of Paul. While Paul often made eloquent use of Scripture in
his Hauptbriefe (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians), the same can-
not be said for his letters to the Philippians and the Thessalonians.69 Different
occasions call for different uses. But whether the use is abundant or sparse, that
does not mean a higher or lower estimation of the significance of Scripture.
The significance rests on the actual use that exists.
67 Hanson, Pastoral Epistles, 141.

68 On creedal statements, cf. 1 Tim 2:5; 3:16; 2 Tim 2:11–13; Titus 3:4–5; on the importance
of teaching, cf. 1 Tim 4:13, 16; 2 Tim 1:13; Titus 1:1; organizational matters are taken up at
1 Tim 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9.
69 Scholarship on the use of Scripture in Philippians and 1 Thessalonians has not received
much attention in the past, but it has more recently and with fresh approaches by
E. Elizabeth Johnson, “Paul’s Reliance on Scripture in 1 Thessalonians,” and Stephen Fowl,
“The Use of Scripture in Philippians,” in Christopher D. Stanley (ed.), Paul and Scripture:
Continuing the Conversation (ecl 9; Atlanta: sbl, 2012), 143–62 and 163–84, respectively.
Cf. also the study of intertextuality in Phil 1:19 by Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of
Paul, 21–24.

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Index of Ancient Sources
Old Testament 21:23 (LXX) 139

22 143
Gen 22:4 202, 203, 205, 206
1:1–31 383 22:12 134
1:27 380 22:15–18 126
1:28 383 24:27 (LXX) 139
1:29 88, 383 25:21 83
2–3 380 25:23 26, 84
2:7 209, 354, 380 29:31 193
2:17 81 32:11 (LXX) 139
2:22 380 38:24 165
2:24 12, 383 42:17 202, 203
3:1 380 42:18 204, 205
3:6 81 49:9 246
3:7 380
3:13 81, 380 Exod
3:15 81 2:4 347
3:17–19 81 3–4 300
3:19 81, 207 3:14 213
4:17 87 4:10 266
5:29 81 4:15 331
6:3 135 4:21 84
6:5 83 4:22 83
6:12 135, 386 7:1 331
6:13 135 7:3 84
8:21 83, 348 7:11–12 381
9:3–4 383 7:22 381
9:3 88 8:23 142
9:6 207 9:12 84
12:1–3 126 9:16 84
12:3 146 9:16 (LXX) 26
15 21 9:27 139, 145
15:5–6 79 12:7 91
15:6 79, 140, 146 12:14–20 170
16 21 14:4 84
17 21 15:11 (LXX) 363
17:1–14 146 16 305, 312
17:5 79, 146 16:7–12 367
17:6–11 125 16:17 90
18:10 26, 83 16:18 312
18:14 26, 83 16:18 (LXX) 310
18:25 95, 129 17:3 367
19:19 (LXX) 139 18:19 332
20:13 (LXX) 139 19–20 21
21 21 19:6 205
21:12 26, 84 19:16 205

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392 Index of Ancient Sources
Exod (cont.) 18:5 24–26, 79, 83

19:18 326 18:22 81
20:1 381 19:5–6 125
20:2 381 19:18 87
20:5–6 95, 115 20:13 81
20:7 381 24:16 379
20:12 12, 13, 381 26:11–12 170, 171
20:13–15 87 26:12 303
20:13 381 26:39 95
20:14 382 26:40–45 129
20:15 382 26:46 (LXX) 329
20:16 382
20:17 87 Num
20:19 334 4:37 330
23:7 141 4:41 330
24:3–8 143 4:45 330
24:3 331 4:49 330
25:8 170 9:23 330
25:17–22 143 10:13 330
29:13–16 300 11 90
29:18 348, 369 14 90
29:25 369 14:18 95
29:41 369 14:27ff. 367
29:45 170–71 15:3 348
32 300 15:6 348
32:32 83, 91 15:7 348
33:7 132 15:13 348
33:12–34:7 300 15:14 348
33:19 26, 84 15:20 86
34 263–66, 269, 270, 274, 295, 15:23 330
299, 300, 302 15:24 348
34:6–7 115 16:5 29, 379, 388
34:6 127 16:11 367
34:6 (LXX) 256 16:34 387
34:7 95 17:5 330
34:28–35 263 17:6 367
34:29–35 269 17:20 367
34:34–35 268, 269 18:17 348
34:34 264, 269 20 90
20:10–13 129
Lev 20:24–28 129
1:9 369 23:10 208
1:13 369 23:19 83, 116
1:17 369 24:4 126
6:14 348 24:16 126
6:16 91 25:10–13 61, 62
16:6–19 143 27:12–23 129
17:4 348 28:6 348

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28:8 348 21:8 142

28:13 348 21:21–22 155
28:24 348 21:21 170
28:27 348 22:21 170
29:2 348 23:2–9 170
29:6 348 24:7 170
29:8 348 24:16 95
29:11 348 24:18 142
29:13 348 25:1 141
29:36 348 25:4 29, 91, 375, 377,
31 62 388
33:1 330 25:4 (LXX) 375
36:13 330 27:26 155
28:11 242
Deut 29:4 84
4:7–8 82 30:6 125
4:15–19 82 30:11–20 107
4:35 146 30:11–14 80
4:39 146 30:12–14 24
5:5 (LXX) 330, 331, 334 30:14 79
5:9–10 115 31:16 207
5:9 95 31:29 347
5:16 12, 13 32:4 84, 129
5:21 87 32:4 (LXX) 127
5:27 334 32:5 347, 368
5:32–6:3 79 32:5 (LXX) 28, 29
6:2 134 32:20 368
6:4 81, 145, 334 32:21 24, 84, 89
6:7 108 32:35 87
7:6 83, 125 32:39 197, 205, 207, 208
7:8 142 32:43 80
7:9–10 95 32:46 168
9:4 24 33:2 326
9:26 142 33:3 (LXX) 363
10:15–16 125 33:6 207, 208
10:16 125 33:9 126
10:17 82
11:18 168 Josh
13:5 142, 170 2:16 203–5
14:1–2 83 21:2 330
15:15 142 22:9 330
17:6 378 22:30ff. 62
17:7 170
18:18 331 Judg
19:15 303, 378 3:4 330
19:19 170 9:11 384
20:3–8 170 21:16 62
21:5 (LXX) 348 21:25 62

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1 Sam Neh
4:21–22 141 9:32–33 127
10:19 384 10:37 86
12:7 139 13:1–3 170
22:11 213 13:23–27 170
2 Sam Esth
7:8 303 4:17 206
7:14 171, 303 5:1 202–4, 206
12:13–14 128, 129 5:5 206
22:3 384 5:6 206
24:14a 256 8:17 (LXX) 63
24:14b 256
Job
1 Kgs 1:1–2:13 241
8:60 146 1:19 (LXX) 28
11:11–13 129 3:16 345
17:1ff. 62 5:16 (LXX) 135
19 (LXX) 85 8:3 129
19:10 85 8:14 347
19:14 85 9:28 346, 347
19:18 85 9:33 (LXX) 332
21:29 129 10:4 135
11 345
2 Kgs 11:10 345
2:11ff. 62 11:11 345
14:6 95 11:11 (LXX) 345
20:1 189, 192 11:13 345
20:5 189, 192, 203 11:14 345
20:8 192 11:14 (LXX) 345
11:16 345
1 Chr 11:16 (LXX) 345
16:40 330 12–14 345
28:9 361 12:4 346
29:22 (LXX) 260 12:7–9 81
13 366
2 Chr 13:3 345
15:12–13 132 13:4 345
15:15 132 13:5 347
25:4 95 13:7 345
29:17 361 13:9 345
32:8 135 13:12 347
33:8 330 13:13 346
13:15 340, 341, 345
Ezra 13:15a 340
8:15 204, 205 13:15b 340
8:22 132 13:16 336, 338, 339, 341, 344–47,
9:1–2 170 349, 366

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13:16 (LXX) 27–29, 335, 339 13:1b (LXX) 131

13:18 341 13:2 (LXX) 131
13:27 345, 366 13:2a 131
15:8 86 13:2b 132
15:11 241 13:3a (LXX) 131
15:15 (LXX) 363 13:5 (LXX) 131
15:31 347 14:1–3 82
15:35 347 14:7 86
18:5 347 15 170
19:25 346, 347 16:3 (LXX) 360
30:23 346, 347 16:7 (LXX) 384
34:10–13 129 18:7 213
34:11 382 18:49 80
34:17 129 19:1–6 383
34:20 347 19:4 25, 85
34:23 129 19:4 (LXX) 24
35:7 345 20:6 (LXX) 260
41:3 86 21:6 (MT) 260
41:11 86 22:1 203, 204, 260
42 366 22:4 (LXX) 240
42:10–11 (LXX) 242 22:5 79
42:11a 242 23:4 240
42:11b 242 23:7–10 231
24:3–4 170
Pss 24:5 (LXX) 384
1 168 24:6 (LXX) 256
2:2 201 24:7 (LXX) 256
2:11 (LXX) 318 25:6 256
4:4 13 25:20 79
4:4 (LXX) 12, 19 26:1 (LXX) 384
5 132 26:9 (LXX) 384
5:9 82 27:4 (LXX) 382
5:10a (LXX) 132 28:4 382
5:10b (LXX) 132 29:11 (LXX) 260
7:9–12 95 30:11 260
7:10 361 31:1 139
7:17 139 32:1–2 79
8 159, 216, 223 35:2–5 (LXX) 133
8:1–9 383 35:2 (LXX) 89, 133
8:6 216, 217, 221, 230, 231 35:2b (LXX) 133
9:2 227 35:8 84
9:4 139, 226, 227 35:13 88
9:5 227 35:24 139
9:7–8 129 36:1 82, 89
9:8 139 36:2 134
9:28a (LXX) 133 37:31 168
10:7 82 40:8 168
13:1 (LXX) 131 44:22 90

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Pss (cont.) 87:6 (LXX) 215

50:4–23 95 88:6 (LXX) 363
50:4b (LXX) 128 88:8 (LXX) 363
50:6 139 89:14 139
50:6 (LXX) 127 89:31–35 116
50:11 200 89:31 97
50:16 (LXX) 140 89:33–35 97
51:4 82 90:40 198
51:5 83 93:19 (LXX) 240
51:5b 128 94:1–2 95
51:6 97 94:14 86
51:14 139 94:15 139
52:2b (LXX) 131 95:1–7 383
52:3 (LXX) 131 97:2 139
52:3a 131 98:2 139
52:4 (LXX) 131 103:17–18 95
58:11–12 95 104:1–35 383
59:7b–8a (LXX) 133 105:8 95
61:3 (LXX) 384 105:21 384
61:12 (LXX) 382 106:42 (LXX) 135
62:12 382 109 213, 216, 223, 230
62:12c (LXX) 135 109 (LXX) 354
64:5 (LXX) 384 109:1 213, 214, 218, 221,
65:5 139 223–25, 227, 230, 231
67:4 139 109:1 (LXX) 216
67:18 (LXX) 327 109:4 230
68:16 (LXX) 256 110 354
68:18 12, 327 110 (LXX) 213
68:20 (LXX) 241 110:1 79, 216
69:9 88 111–112 315
69:16 256 111:3 315
69:20 241 112:3 315
69:22–23 84 112:6 315
70:21 (LXX) 241 112:9 91, 305, 322
71:2 139 114:2 170
71:15 139 115:2b (LXX) 127
71:21 240, 241 116:10 303
72:8 200 116:11 97
74:11 142 117:1 80
74:19–22 95 118:6 79
76:2 (LXX) 241 118:50 (LXX) 240
76:21 330 118:76 (LXX) 240
77:2 241 118:82 (LXX) 241
77:15 142 118:83 (LXX) 241
78:9 (LXX) 384 119 240
78:39 135 119:11 168
85:17 (LXX) 240 119:52 240
86:17 240 119:82 240, 241

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119:83 241 6:1–4 300

119:98 168 6:5–8 300
125:2 (LXX) 260 6:9–13 300
126:2 260 8:14 86
136:1–9 383 8:14 (LXX) 26
138 (LXX) 360 10:22–23 85
138:23 360 10:22–23 (LXX) 26
139:4b (LXX) 133 11:1 21
140:3 82 11:10 80
142:2b (LXX) 135 12:2 384
143:1 140 14:19 21
143:9 140 16 229
143:11 139 22:4 (LXX) 241
145:15–16 383 24:23 199, 201
145:21 135 25 355
148:1–14 383 25:8 228, 354
26 215
Prov 26:13 379
1:7 134 27:9 (LXX) 104
1:16 (LXX) 133 28:13 126
3:1–3 168 28:16 25, 226, 80
3:4 316, 317, 322 28:16 (LXX) 24, 26
3:4 (LXX) 305 29 (LXX) 299
3:7 88 29:10–12 300
8:15 88 29:10 86
9:12 347 29:16 85
14:13 260 33:14–17 170
17:15 141 34:4 199
24:12 382 35:2 141
25:21–22 87 40:1–11 233
29:6 260 40:1–3 246
40:1 (LXX) 241
Eccl 40:5 135
1:2 81 40:6 135, 386
7:15–22 82 40:13 86
7:20 82 41:14 142
7:20 (LXX) 131 42:6 368
12:14 383 43:1 142
43:3 142, 384
Isa 43:6 171, 303
1:9 85 43:14 142
2:3 156 43:20–21 125
2:4a 129 44:22–24 142
2:11 196 45:8 139
4:2 21 45:9 85
5:11 303 45:12 384
5:21 88 45:13 142
6 (LXX) 299 45:15 86

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Isa (cont.) 59:8–9 133

45:20–25 145 59:8a 133
45:21 139, 384 59:11 133
45:23 21, 28, 88 59:12–13 133
46:1 140 59:13 132
46:13 139, 140 59:14–15 133
48:20 142 59:17 139, 364
49:4 (LXX) 362 59:18–19 133
49:6 368 59:20–21 (LXX) 104
49:8 303 59:21 104
49:13 (LXX) 241 60:16 384
49:26 384 61:2 (LXX) 241
50:1 130 62:1–2 139
50:8 79 62:11 384
50:8 (LXX) 128 62:12 142
50:20–21 86 63:1–6 95
51:3 (LXX) 241 63:1 139
51:3b (LXX) 241 63:7 139
51:4 (LXX) 33 63:9 142, 326
51:5 139 63:15 256
51:6 139, 199 63:16 256
51:8 139 63:18 384
51:11 142 65:1 85
51:19 (LXX) 241 65:1 (LXX) 24
52:3 142 65:2 25, 85
52:5 21, 82 65:2 (LXX) 24
52:5 (LXX) 125 66:10 260
52:5b 130 66:11 (LXX) 241
52:7 24, 26, 80, 200 66:13 (LXX) 241
52:9 142 66:18 146
52:11 171
52:13–53:12 143 Jer
53:1 25, 26, 85, 91 2:35 (LXX) 128
53:1 (LXX) 24 4:4 125
53:4 260 6:20 369
53:10 260 6:27 361
54:5–8 140 7:9 170
54:11 (LXX) 241 9:24 303, 316, 320
55:8 86 11:20 (LXX) 361
55:12 260 12:3 361
56:7 146, 348, 369 14:7–9 384
56:8 146 15:16 260
57:18 (LXX) 241 16:9 260
59 133, 364 17:5 135
59:2–3 133 17:10 383
59:4 133 18:6 85
59:5–7 133 20:12 361
59:7–8 82 23:5 21
59:7a (LXX) 133 23:18 86

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24:7 104 18:27 380

25:10 260 20:34 303
31 229 20:38–40 170
31:1 171 20:40–41 369
31:9 303 20:41 303, 348
31:15 241 33:12 380
31:29–30 95 33:20 383
31:31–34 104 34:24 104
31:33–34 86, 104 36 (LXX) 299
31:33 104 36:20–23 125
31:34 108 36:26–27 104
32:18–19 95 36:27 109
32:31 (LXX) 128 36:28 104
32:38 104, 303 37:12–14 207
32:39–40 104 37:12 193
32:40 109 37:24 104, 109
32:42–44 242 37:26–28 170
33:15 21 37:27 171, 303
38 (LXX) 299 43:11 209
38:15 (LXX) 241 44:6–9 170
44:5 380
Dan
Lam 4:34 (LXX) 142
1–2 233 7:13–18 (LXX) 216
1:2 (LXX) 241 7:22 171, 172
1:9 (LXX) 241 9:7 145
1:10 170 9:11 387
1:16 (LXX) 241 9:16 139
1:17 242 12 215, 368
1:17 (LXX) 241 12:2 215
1:18 145 12:3 141, 368
1:21 (LXX) 241
2:13 242 Hos
2:13 (LXX) 241 1:1–3 191
5:15 260 1:10 26, 27
2:21–22 (LXX) 127
Ezek 2:23 26, 27, 80
3:19 380 3 171
6:13 369 3:2–3 171
11 (LXX) 299 3:3 171
11:16 170 4:12 191
11:16b–20 171 6:1–2 188, 195
11:19–20 104, 109 6:2–3 192
11:20 104 6:2 188, 189, 191, 192, 194, 195,
11:22–23 141 197, 199, 201, 203–9, 211
14:22–23 242 6:2 (LXX) 189
16:61 82 6:3 194
16:63 82 6:7 127
18 95 8:6 191

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Hos (cont.) New Testament

11:1–12 127
11:2 191 Matt
12:2 382 1:3b 256
13:4 384 2:3 387
13:14 354 5:3–12 93
5:4 255, 256
Joel 5:17 139, 147
2:32 24, 80 7:12 139
10:10 376–78
Amos 11:28–30 256
3:2 95, 125 12:34 132
5:15 87 12:36 93
12:40 188
Jonah 15:11 156
2:1 188, 202–5 15:18 132
2:11 203 16:27 93
18:16 378
Mic 19:28–29 93
6:5 139 19:28 171
7:2 (LXX) 131 20:28 142
7:9 (LXX) 140 21:13 146
7:20 86, 127 21:42 385
22:23–32 90
Nah 22:23–28 90
1:2–8 95 22:29–32 91
1:15 85 22:40 139
22:41–46 213
Hab 23:2 156
2:4 78 23:15 155
25:31 363
Zech 26:37–38 258
1:17 (LXX) 242 27:46 9, 258
8:16 12, 19 28:5 347
8:19 260 28:18 386
9–14 18
12:10 201 Mark
13:7 260 2:5 258
14:5 363 5:35–43 256
14:9 146 7:1–15 156
14:16 146 7:34 258
8:12 258
Mal 8:38 363
1:2–3 26, 27, 84 9:17–27 256
2:13 369 10:18 224
2:17 95 10:29–30 93
3:17 125 10:45 142, 260
3:18 112 12:29 145
3:23 200 13:27 363

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14:24 260 2:36 387

14:27 260 3:20–21 228
14:34 258 3:21 213, 230
14:49 385 5:1–11 93
15:34 9, 260 5:34 156
7:38 333
Luke 7:51 125
2:25 245 7:53 328
4:17 11 13:1 358
4:20 11 13:47 346
6:15 64 15:5 156
6:20–26 93 16:1 385
6:45 132 16:12–40 357
7:36–50 156 16:13 356
10:7 376–78 17 357
12:30 258 17:1–2 356
13:7 219 17:2 385
14:1–6 156 17:4a 357
18:11–14 156 17:4b 357
18:29–30 93 17:18 175
19:41 258 17:31 102
21:13 347 18 352
22:14 258 18:1–11 154
22:30 171 18:1–4 122
24:27 385 18:2 123
18:11 165
John 18:17 165
2:20 107 18:18 165
2:22 385 18:26 122
2:27 107 19:22 123
3:1 156 20:2–3 123
3:6 108 21:37–40 9
5:29 93 22:3 156
5:39 385 23:6–9 156
8:17 378 24:14 139
10:35 385 26:5 156
11:17–44 256 28:14–16 121
12:38 26 28:14 121
14:28 226 28:15 121
19:37 376 28:19 287, 292
20:9 385 28:23 139
21:9 347
Rom
Acts 1–2 120
1:13 64 1:1–3 78
1:16 385 1:1–2 130, 145
2:10 122 1:2–6 127
2:17 386 1:2 385
2:34–36 213 1:3–4 102

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Rom (cont.) 3:1–8 130

1:5–6 123, 353 3:1–2 130
1:7 121, 363 3:1 114, 120, 125
1:8 121, 235 3:2 82, 83, 113, 114, 146, 157,
1:10–15 121 376
1:13–15 123 3:3–9 139
1:13 122, 353 3:3–4 97, 116, 144
1:14–15 147 3:3–4a 98
1:15 121 3:3 113, 127–29, 219
1:16–17 138–40 3:4–5 113
1:16 342 3:4 82, 113, 114, 128, 130
1:16b–15:13 120, 138 3:4a 127
1:17 78, 130 3:4b 98, 128
1:18–8:30 90 3:5–8 98
1:18–4:25 120, 144 3:5 98, 113, 128, 129
1:18–3:20 138, 141 3:6 129, 147
1:18–2:29 130 3:7–8 129
1:18 81, 138, 144 3:7 113
1:20 81 3:8 21, 94, 111, 113
1:23 82 3:9–20 137
1:27 81 3:9–19 98, 101, 113
2:1–3:8 82, 132 3:9–17 130
2:1–29 137 3:9 130, 131
2:3 128 3:9b 134
2:5–11 128 3:10–18 134, 146, 147
2:6–11 126, 129 3:10–13 82
2:6 82, 382 3:10–12 130, 131
2:9–10 93, 103 3:10 131, 132
2:11 82 3:10b–12 131
2:12 134 3:10b–11 131
2:13 136 3:11 131
2:15–16 126 3:12 131
2:16 128, 129 3:13–18 132
2:17–29 125 3:13–14 82
2:17–24 123, 137 3:13 132
2:17–21 137 3:13b 133
2:17–20 136 3:14 133
2:18 157 3:15–17 82, 133
2:20 83 3:15 133
2:23–29 125 3:16–17 133
2:24 21, 82, 125, 130 3:16 133
2:25–29 137 3:17 133
2:26–27 125 3:18 82, 89, 133
2:29 104, 125 3:19–20 134
3:1–4:25 140 3:19 135, 136, 146
3 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 113, 3:19a 134
115–17, 120, 146–49 3:20 135, 136, 138, 145
3:1–9 125 3:21–31 134, 140

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3:21–26 138–40, 145 5:6–9 102

3:21–24 140 5:6 95
3:21–22 78, 139, 140 5:8 95
3:21 98, 113, 138, 143, 146 5:9–11 138
3:22–24 119 5:12–21 380
3:22 138–40 5:12–19 101
3:23–26 141 5:12 81, 130
3:23–25 146 5:16 101
3:23 113, 130–32 5:17 141
3:23b 141 5:18–19 102, 225
3:24–26 113, 141 5:18 101
3:24–25 140 5:20–6:1 94
3:24 138, 140–42 5:20 95
3:24b–25 142 5:21 130
3:25–26 113, 143 6 94, 106
3:25–26a 98 6:1 111
3:25 138, 142, 143, 147 6:2 106
3:26–31 119 6:3 169
3:26 115, 138, 144 6:4 104, 106
3:27–31 145, 146 6:6 104, 130
3:27 135, 145 6:12–23 130
3:28 139, 144 6:12 87, 169
3:29–30 136 6:15 94, 111
3:29 145 6:17–18 104
3:30 81, 146 6:18 106
3:30a 145 6:21 82
3:31 33, 146, 147, 219 6:22 106
3:31a 146 7:1 169
3:31b 146 7:6 94, 104, 106
4 146 7:7–12 137, 138
4:1–25 140 7:7 81, 87
4:1–5 139 7:8–11 82, 130
4:3 79, 140, 376 7:10 83
4:5 95 7:11 81
4:6–8 79, 139 7:14 83, 130
4:9–12 146 7:15–25 107
4:9 140 7:18 83, 347
4:17 146 7:25 38
4:18 79 8:1–2 106
4:22 79, 140 8:1 102, 138
4:23–25 141 8:2 94
4:23–24 89 8:3–4 147
4:25 102 8:3 147
5 101, 103, 115, 117 8:4 147
5:1–11 90 8:15 106
5:2 141 8:17 118
5:3 118 8:18 141
5:5 79, 104 8:19 344

via free access
Rom (cont.) 9:27 26, 85, 114

8:20 81 9:29 26, 85
8:21 141 9:30–31 113
8:22 344 9:32 86
8:23 142 9:33 26
8:30 141 10 120
8:31–39 90, 118 10:1–3 353
8:31–34 102 10:1 114, 300
8:31 79 10:3 86, 113
8:32 102 10:4–13 300
8:33 79 10:5–7 113
8:34 79, 102, 214 10:5 24, 25, 79
8:35–39 90 10:6–8 24
8:35 90 10:6 24
8:36 90 10:8 79
9–11 104, 113, 114, 116, 117, 144, 10:10 342
300 10:11 24, 25, 80, 376
9:1–11:36 389 10:13 24, 80
9 27, 84 10:15 24, 80, 85
9:1ff. 114 10:16–11:32 300
9:1–29 139 10:16 24, 25, 85, 91
9:1–5 83, 114 10:18 24, 25, 85, 336
9:1–3 300 10:19 24, 84, 89
9:3 83, 91 10:20 24, 85
9:4–5 114, 130 10:21 24, 25, 85
9:4 83, 157 11 115
9:6–18 26, 27 11:1–2 86, 113
9:6 83, 113, 114, 116, 286 11:1 114
9:7 26, 84, 336 11:2 376
9:9 26, 83 11:3–4 85
9:10 83 11:5 85, 114
9:11–14 94, 95 11:6 137
9:11 116, 345 11:7 114
9:12 26, 84 11:8 84
9:13 26, 27, 84 11:9–10 84
9:14 26, 84, 113 11:11–32 132
9:15 84 11:11 84, 113
9:17 26, 84, 376 11:12 169
9:18 84 11:13–29 124
9:19–33 26, 27 11:13–24 123
9:19 113 11:13–14 357, 359
9:20 85 11:13 114, 353
9:21 85 11:15 117
9:22–23 113 11:16 86
9:22 115 11:17–24 21
9:25–26 80 11:17 353
9:25 26, 27 11:18 86
9:26 26, 27 11:23–26 231

via free access
11:25–27 126 16:20 81

11:25 114, 116 16:23 123
11:26–27 86, 104 16:25–26 78, 126
11:26 387
11:28–29 86 1 Cor
11:29 113, 116 1:1 165
11:30–31 117, 138 1:2 363
11:32 113 1:4 235
11:33–36 114 1:14 123, 165
11:33–34 86 1:23 155
11:34 86 1:28 219
11:35 86, 367 1:30 142, 143, 159
12:1–2 370 1:31 303, 320
12:7 358 2:1 159
12:9 87 2:6–7 159
12:15 88, 260 2:6 219
12:16 88 3:13 159, 292
12:17 317 3:16–17 169, 170
12:19 87 3:19 367
12:20 87 4:1–6:11 356
13 96 4:12a 254
13:1 88 5 170
13:3–4 103 5:5 170
13:9 87 5:6–13 154
13:11 138, 342 5:6–8 91
13:12 68, 69 5:6 169
14:1–6 137 5:7–8 159
14:2 88 5:9–13 165
14:11 88 5:9 159, 165
14:12 93 5:10 130
14:18 370 6 171
15 120 6:2–3 171
15:3 88 6:9–10 159
15:4 87, 89, 376, 385 6:9 169
15:8 86 6:13 183, 219
15:9–12 80 6:19–20 169, 171
15:9 130 6:20 143
15:15–16 123, 357, 359 7:1–8:13 356
15:22–29 121 7:1 309
15:22–24 121 7:18 159
15:23 122 7:25 309
16 121 8:1–11:1 175
16:3–5 121, 122 8–10 174, 175, 178
16:3 124, 353 8:1–10:22 185
16:6–7 353 8 173, 175, 180, 184
16:7 122 8:1–13 175, 180
16:11 353 8:1–3 184
16:14–15 121 8:1 174, 182, 183, 309

via free access
1 Cor (cont.) 15:14 214

8:4–6 184 15:17 214
8:4 174, 183 15:19 214
8:6 145, 159 15:20–29 219
8:7 183 15:20–28 215
8:8–9 183 15:20 215
8:10 173, 174, 180, 181, 185 15:21–22 159, 380
8:13 159 15:22–23 214, 225
9:3–19 254 15:24–28 212, 213, 217, 219, 221–28,
9:8–9 159 230, 231
9:9–10 91 15:24–26 222, 223, 225, 227–29
9:9 375 15:24 217, 219, 220, 226–29
9:13–14 378 15:25–26 218, 219, 221
9:13 91, 169 15:25 216, 218, 221, 225–27, 229,
9:22 218 354
9:24 169 15:26 219–21, 223–29
10 368 15:27 159, 216, 220, 336, 354
10:1–22 180, 184–85 15:27a 229
10:1–13 90 15:28 217, 222, 224, 225, 231
10:1–11 159, 389 15:44–45 159
10:4 332 15:45–49 380
10:6–11 90 15:45 354
10:7–8 173 15:54b–55 354
10:10 292 15:58 362
10:11 376 16:1–24 356
10:13–11:1 179 16:1–4 305, 312
10:14–14:19 356 16:1 309
10:14–22 184 16:2 309
10:14 180 16:5–7 252
10:18–22 180 16:8 159
10:19 182 16:19 122
10:20–21 182 16:21 9
10:22 174
10:23–11:1 175, 180, 181, 184–86 2 Cor
10:25 183 1–9 253, 309, 318, 320–22
10:27 174 1–7 233, 236, 254, 305, 312,
11:8–9 159 318–20, 322
11:12 159 1–2 272
12:1 309 1:1–2:13 233, 234, 236, 238, 240,
12:28–29 358 305
13:8–10 219 1:1–11 320
14:34 159 1:3–7:16 252
15 188, 214, 217, 219, 231, 354 1:3–7:15 255
15:3–5 188 1:3–7:2 261
15:3–4 159, 355, 385 1:3–11 252, 255, 261
15:3 215 1:3–4 259
15:4 188, 189, 198, 211 1:3 233, 235, 256
15:8 214 1:3a 256

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1:3b 256 2:13 253

1:4–5 238 2:14–7:14 253
1:4 233, 256–58 2:14–7:4 233, 271
1:4a 257 2:14–7:3 233
1:4b 257 2:14–7:2 255, 259
1:4c 257 2:14–6:13 305
1:5 233, 235, 256–58 2:14–5:21 270–72
1:6 233, 256, 258 2:14–4:6 319
1:6a 257 2:14–17 255
1:6b 257 2:14–16 261, 271
1:7 233 2:17 254, 255, 259, 316
1:8–9 257 2:23–24 284
1:8 233 3 263, 266, 269, 299–302
1:8b–9a 258 3:1–18 92
1:9a 257 3:1–11 104
1:9b–11 258 3:1–3 259, 271
1:9b 257 3:1b 252, 253
1:10–7:16 322 3:3–12 159
1:10 257 3:3–11 275
1:10a 258 3:3 255
1:12–7:16 318 3:4–11 284
1:12–22 319 3:4 271, 285
1:12 316 3:5–6 254, 271
1:15–2:12 252 3:6 159, 255, 259
1:15–2:4 234 3:6b–7 253
1:15–23 252 3:7–4:6 304
1:16 252 3:7–18 255, 263, 299
1:17 254 3:7–11 268
1:18–20 117 3:7 219, 263, 266, 267, 301
1:20 102 3:9a 253
1:23–2:11 319 3:10a 253
1:23 252 3:11 219, 286, 301
1:24 233, 260 3:11a 253
2:1 237 3:11b 286
2:2 237 3:12–14 284
2:2a 239 3:12–13 279, 285
2:3–4 252, 253 3:12 254, 271, 284, 287, 288
2:3 233, 237, 260 3:13–14 219, 266, 276, 288, 297
2:4 233, 237 3:13 259, 266–70, 272, 274, 275,
2:4a 239 277, 279, 284, 287–90, 293,
2:4b 239 296, 298, 300, 301
2:5–11 234, 252 3:14–4:12 270
2:5–8 235 3:14 159, 259, 267, 276, 277,
2:5 237 287–89, 301, 304
2:7 237, 256 3:14a 277, 284
2:9–11 252, 253 3:14b–4:12 270
2:10b 256 3:15–18 268
2:12–13 252, 255, 319 3:15 268, 289

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2 Cor (cont.) 5:18–21 256, 259

3:15b 289 5:19 95, 224
3:16–18 268 5:21 102, 106
3:16–17 332 6–7 318
3:17–18 255, 258 6:1–10 319
3:17 106, 258, 332 6:1–2 304
4 255 6:1 259
4:1–12 268 6:2 303
4:1–6 255 6:2a 303
4:1 254 6:3–10 261, 304
4:2–3 255 6:3 259
4:2 254, 255, 272, 316 6:4–10 255
4:3 255 6:4 233
4:4b 255 6:6 255
4:7–5:11a 271 6:9 258
4:7–5:10 319 6:10 258
4:7–15 304 6:11–7:4 319
4:7–12 255, 261 6:11–13 256, 259, 261
4:7 272 6:11–12 259
4:8–12 258 6:11b 259
4:10–11 272 6:14–7:1 304, 305, 319
4:13–5:10 255 6:14–16 304
4:13 303 6:16–18 171, 303
4:14–15 268 6:16b–18a 303, 304
4:14 214 6:16b 303
4:16–18 261 6:17 303
4:16 254, 272 6:18a 303
4:17 233, 255 7 274
4:17a 258 7:2–4 259, 261, 305
4:17b 258 7:2–3 256, 259
4:18–5:5 258 7:2b 259
5:4–10 261 7:3a 259
5:5 255 7:3b 258, 259
5:6 254 7:4–9:15 318
5:8 254 7:4–16 253
5:9 370 7:4–13 233, 234, 236, 238, 240,
5:10 93 252, 255, 259, 261
5:11–21 304, 319 7:4 233, 254, 259, 260
5:11b–21 271 7:4a 259
5:12–13 259 7:4b 258, 259
5:12 272 7:5–16 236, 252, 305
5:13–14 271 7:5–7 319
5:13 272 7:5–6 255
5:14–21 259 7:6–17 252
5:15 257 7:6–7 253
5:16–21 255 7:6 233
5:16 272 7:6a 259
5:17 105 7:7–8 235

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7:7 233, 260 8:7–8 306

7:7a 259 8:7 312
7:7b 259 8:8 313
7:8–16 255 8:9–9:10 309
7:8–13a 319 8:9–15 306
7:8–9a 259 8:9 299, 303, 313, 315
7:8 233, 237 8:10–9:12 309
7:8b 258 8:10–15 307
7:9–10 235, 260 8:10–14 313
7:9 233, 237, 260 8:10–12 313
7:9b 259 8:11 313
7:10 237, 342 8:11b–12 313
7:10a 235, 260 8:13–15 310, 312
7:10b 260 8:13 312
7:11 237, 259 8:14 311
7:12 234, 252 8:15 303, 305, 306, 310, 313, 322
7:12a 235 8:16–9:5 305, 309, 310, 317, 320, 322
7:12b 259 8:16–24 306–8, 317, 318, 320
7:13–16 318, 319, 322 8:16–20 316
7:13 233, 260, 318 8:16–19 316
7:13b–16 319 8:16 307
7:13b 259 8:17–18 253
7:14–15 253 8:17 307
7:14 318 8:18–9:5 307
7:15–16 318 8:18–24 307
7:16 233, 260 8:20 316
8–9 305–10, 316–18, 320–22 8:21 305, 316–18, 322
8:1–9:15 308, 318, 319 8:22–24 316
8:1–9:5 316 8:22 316
8 306, 307, 318, 319 8:23–24 306
8:1–24 307 8:24 310
8:1–15 305, 307, 308, 310, 313, 9 306, 307, 310, 319
316–18, 322 9:1–15 305, 307, 318
8:1–12 312 9:1–5 306–9, 317, 320
8:1–9 307 9:1 309, 310, 317, 320
8:1–8 313 9:2–4 318
8:1–5 306, 307, 312 9:2 318
8:1–2 306 9:3–5 307
8:1 298, 318 9:3 318
8:2 312 9:4 317, 318
8:3–5a 306 9:6–15 305, 307–9, 315–17
8:5 298 9:6–14 310
8:5b–c 306 9:6–11 307
8:6–9:5 307 9:6–8 314
8:6–17 307 9:6–7 159
8:6–14 306 9:6 93, 314
8:6 306, 307 9:7–8 314
8:7–9:15 307 9:7 310

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2 Cor (cont.) 12:5 320

9:8–11 91 12:6 320
9:8 315 12:9 320
9:9 303, 305, 314, 315, 322 12:11–12 254
9:10–15 314 12:11 253
9:10–11 315 12:14–16a 254
9:10 310, 315 12:14 159
9:12–15 307, 314 12:16–17 317
9:13 314, 315 13:1–2a 304
9:14 314, 315 13:1 304, 378
9:15 314, 315 13:1b 303, 356
9:16–24 308 13:8 317
10–13 253, 255, 271, 302, 305, 16:16a 304
320–22, 356
10–12 304 Gal
10:2–4 317 1–2 156
10:7–11 253 1:4 102
10:8 320 1:10–22 69
10:10–12 253 1:10–16 67
10:10 291, 299 1:10 69
10:10b 254 1:11–12 71
10:12–18 253 1:12–2:14 67
10:12–15 253 1:12–15 73, 74
10:12 254 1:12–14 70, 72
10:12a 252 1:12–13 70, 71
10:13 320 1:12 69, 70
10:15 320 1:13–14 59–61, 66, 67, 69, 155
10:16 320 1:13 61, 68, 69
10:17 303, 304, 316, 320, 356 1:13a–b 70
10:18–22 253 1:13c–d 70
11:3–5 253 1:14 61, 68–70
11:3 380 1:15–16 69
11:5–6 254 1:15 69
11:5a 254 1:16 357, 359
11:6a 254 1:17–22 69
11:12 254, 320 1:22 156
11:12b 253, 254 1:23 68
11:13–15 254 2 362
11:13 254 2:1–10 321
11:16 320 2:2 362
11:18 254, 320 2:7ff. 357
11:21b 254 2:10 321
11:22–12:13 156 2:12–16 136
11:22 155, 253 2:17 94
11:25 352 2:19 94
11:28–30 255 2:20 102, 106
11:30 320 3 334
12:1 320 3:1–5 72

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3:1ff. 70 5:31 12
3:6–18 389 6:2–3 12
3:8 146 6:8 93
3:12 26, 336
3:13 99, 102, 155 Phil
3:16 333, 34 1 366
3:17 219 1:3–11 355
3:19–20 325, 329, 334 1:3 235
3:19 329 1:4–5 260
3:19b 329 1:10–11 347
3:20 330–33 1:12–30 29
3:22 130, 385 1:12–26 344
3:28 333 1:12 343
4:2–3 21 1:13–14 353
4:6–7 106 1:14 346
4:11 362 1:15 345, 366
4:22–23 21 1:17 346, 366
4:24–25 21 1:18 346
4:24 21 1:18b–19a 260
4:29 68 1:19–26 353
4:30 376 1:19–20 344
5:1 106 1:19 27–29, 335, 336, 338, 339,
5:11 68 341, 343–49, 365, 366, 370
5:13 94, 96, 106 1:20–26 344
5:18 106 1:20 343, 346
5:22–23 260 1:24 342
6:2 34 1:25–26 342
6:6 358 1:28 366
6:7–8 93 1:29 118
6:11–16 9 2:2 260
6:15 105 2:5–11 102
2:6–11 365
Eph 2:9–11 88
1:3 235 2:10–11 21, 22, 28, 217, 229, 231,
1:16 235 348
2:6 105 2:12 366, 369
2:15 219 2:13 106
2:19–20 379 2:14–15 367, 370
4:8 12 2:15 28, 29, 347, 348, 368
4:22–24 105 2:16 348, 362
4:22 106 2:17–18 260
4:24 106 3 362
4:25 12, 19, 20 3:2–11 355
4:26 12, 19, 20, 28 3:2 357
4:29 132 3:3–9 357
5:2 102 3:4b–6 155
5:23 384 3:5–6 9, 69, 73, 356
5:25 102 3:5 156

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Phil (cont.) 5:8–9 342

3:6–11 346 5:8 364
3:9 258
3:20–21 214, 231 2 Thess
3:20 384 1:7 363
3:21 217, 369 2:3 235
4:10–20 355 2:8 219
4:18 348, 369, 370 2:13 342
4:19 369 3:17 9
4:22 363
1 Tim
Col 16 340
1:3 235 1:1 384
1:9 386 1:4 388
1:15 387 1:8–10 381
1:24 258 1:17 383
1:28 386 2:1–2 383
3:25 93 2:2 383
4:18 9 2:3 384
2:5 329, 330, 340
1 Thess 2:10 383
1:1 357 2:13–14 380, 388
1:2–3 355 2.17–18 379
1:2 235 3:1–13 340
1:6ff. 355 3:4–5 383
1:9 357 3:8–10 388
2:4 360 3:9 340
2:4a 361 3:15 379, 383
2:9 362 3:16 340
2:14 352 4:3 383
3 363 4:4 383
3:3–7 352 4:6 340
3:4 357 4:10 383, 384
3:5 362 4:13 340, 389
3:6–10 355 5:4 383
3:11ff. 363 5:7 378
3:13 363 5:10 383
4–5 354 5:14 383
4:3–7 363 5:18 29, 375, 388
4:5 157 5:18a 375
4:9 309 5:18b 376, 377
4:13–5:11 354 5:19 378
4:13–18 214, 354 6:8 383
4:13b 260 6:10 375
4:14–16 214 6:12 340
4:15 356 6:13 383
4:16 214, 363 6:17–18 383
5:1 309 6:17 383

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2 Tim Heb
1:10 219, 384 2:2 328, 333
1:13 340 2:14 219
1:14 340 3:7–19 376
2:11–13 340 5:7–10 258
2:15 388 6:10 93
2:19 29, 378, 388 8 304
2:21 383 8:6 329
3:8 380, 388 9–10 141
3:14–17 384, 389 9:5 143
3:14 387 9:15 329
3:15–16 373 10:12–13 216
3:15 385, 387 10:13 224
3:16–17 91, 92 10:16–18 376
3:16 374, 376, 385, 10:28 378
388 11:35 142
3:17 383 12:5–6 376
4:2 340 12:24 329
4:7 340
4:8 383, 384 Jas
4:13 352, 374 2:19 145
4:14 382–84 4:5 376
4:20 123 5:11 367
Titus 1 Pet
1:1 340 1:17 93, 383
1:3 384 2:6 387
1:4 384 2:13–16 96
1:5–9 340 2:16 94, 96, 106
1:14 388 2:20–21 118
2:4 383 3:10–12 93
2:10 384 3:18 95
2:13 384 4:5 93
2:14 102
3:1–8 96 2 Pet
3:1–2 384 1:20 385, 387
3:1 383 1:21 387
3:2 383 2:18–21 94, 96, 106
3:4–5 340 3:16 385
3:4 384
3:6 384 1 John
3:8 383 1:5–2:2 110
3:14 383 1:7 110
7:14 318 1:8–2:2 109
1:8 108
Phlm 2:1–4 108
19 9 2:1–2 110

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1 John (cont.) Wis

2:3–6 110 1:13 228
2:3 108 2:3 347
2:12–14 108 3:7–8 171
2:12 108 5:18 364
2:20 108 7:26 224
2:28 110 9:8–18 169
3:2 110 12:12 85
3:4–10 108 15:2 134
3:4–5 110 15:7 85
3:6–10 94, 96, 106 15:8 369
3:6–9 109–12
3:9 108, 109 Sir
5:16–18 108 4:11 171
5:16 109 4:15 171
5:18 108 8:8–9 155
16:12 382
2 John 16:14 82
1:9 110 17:24 244
2:14 108 17:26 380
5:18 110 24:8 156
24:11 156
3 John 24:23 156
2:13 108 25:24 380
30:14–25 243, 244
Jude 30:14–17 243
4 94, 96, 106 30:18–20 243, 244
14–15 171 30:18b–20 243
30:21–25 243
Rev 30:21–23 243
2:23 93 30:21 243
2:26–27 171 30:22 244
20:4 171 30:23 243
20:12 93 30:24 243
20:14 220 30:25 243, 244
22:12 93 35:5–6 348
35:9 369
35:22 383
Apocrypha 44:19 146
46 367
Tob 48:24 244
1:4 169 49:10 244
3:3–5 95 49:12 169
14:6–7 169 51:23 155
Jdt Bar
9:8 169 1:8 243
4:5–5:9 243

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4:5 243 14:31 169

4:12 243 14:83 60
4:14 243
4:19 243 1 Esd
4:21 243 1:3 169
4:24 243 1:41 169
4:25 243 1:49 169
4:27 243 1:53 169
4:29 243 2:10 169
4:30 242, 243 6:18 169
4:31–35 243 7:2 169
4:36 243 8:17 169
4:37 243
5:1–4 243 3 Macc
5:1 243 2:14–23 169
5:2 243
5:5–9 243 2 Esd
5:5 243 4:21 219
5:9 243 6:8 219
8:33 383
Pr Azar
1:16 169 4 Macc
1:31 169 2:5 87
4:9–10 169
1 Macc 4:26 60
2:70 387 17:21–22 144
4:30 384 18:10–19 155
4:49 169
2 Macc Pseudepigrapha
2:19–23 70, 71
2:21–22 70, 71 Apoc. Mos.
2:21 60, 70, 71 21:6 141
5:15 169
6:1 60 Apoc. Zeph.
7 63 4:7–284 195
7:19 60
7:21–42 72 2 Bar.
7:21–23 72 1:4 245
7:23–29 72 2:28 330
7:31–36 72 3:6 245
7:35 72 6:8 245
7:37 72 17:4 245
8:1 60 19:1 245
8:36 134 31:2 245
9:13–17 60 32:1–9 169
9:25 347 32:1 245
13:10 169 38:1–2 245

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2 Bar. (cont.) 1:27–28 326

44:3–45:2 245 3:10–13 169
44:3–7 245 4:26 169
44:5–7 245 5:12 104
44:5 245 8:19–20 169
44:7 245 24:29 171
44:8–15 245
44:8–11 245 LAB
44:13–14 245 11.5 327
44:14 245 48 61
46:3–5 245
48:22 245 Let. Aris.
48:22b 134 105–106 169
51:3–7 245
54:5 245 Liv. Pro.
54:15 245 5 188
77:3 245 15 188
77:4 245
77:16 245 Ps.-Phoc.
78:7 245 1.129 387
82:6 245
84:1–9 245 Pss. Sol.
85:3–4 245 1:8 169
2:3 169
3 Bar. 2:13 169
4:16 141 2:16 382
2:34 382
1 En. 8:13 169
1:9 171 8:25–26 169
1:38 171 8:33 384
5:8–10 104 9:5 383
12:4–5 169 16:4 384
14:22–25 169 17:8 383
15:3–4 169 17:32 104
38:5 171 17:36 104
95:3 171 17:40–41 104
96:1 171 17:44 104
98:12 171
100:7 382 Sib. Or.
108:12 171 3–6 169
5.308 387
3 En. 5.406 387
28:10 195
T. Ab. A
4 Ezra 20:11 387
10:21–22 169
T. Benj.
Jub. 9:1–5 169
1:27–29 169

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T. Dan XII, 1–2 169

6:2 326, 329 XIX, 16 169
XX, 22–23 169
T. Jos.
1:6–7 244 1QH
2:1–3 244 II, 15 169
2:4–6 244 IV, 10 169
XII, 3 134
T. Jud. XIV, 7–8 245
19:1 375 XIV, 9–13 245
25 327 XVII, 12–15 246
XVIII, 10 256
T. Levi XIX, 29 256
3:28 169 XX, 12 169
5:1 169
8:1–19 169 1QpHab
9:9–10 169 II, 1–10 376
13:1 134 V, 3–8 376
14:1–8 169 V, 4–5 171
15:1–2 169 VI, 12–VII, 3 376
16:1–5 169 VIII, 8–13 169
18:2 104 XII, 6–9 169
18:5 104
18:6 169 1QS
18:9–12 104 I, 21–26 169
III, 17–19 107
T. Mos. IV, 4 379
1:1–17 330 IV, 20–25 109
1:1 330 IV, 20–22 104
3:1–3 169 IV, 21 169
5:3 169 IV, 23 104, 107
V, 4–13 169
T. 12 Patr. V, 21 137
3:8 219 VI, 16–17 169
VI, 18 137
T. Zeb. VII, 19–20 169
9:5 387 VIII, 4–10 379
VIII, 5 169
VIII, 16 169
Dead Sea Scrolls IX, 4–6a 169
IX, 33ff. 169
CD XI, 11–15 139
II, 19 169
IV, 19b–V, 11 169 4Q174 137
V, 17–19 381
VII, 4–6 134 4Q274 1
VII, 14–21 376 I, 1–9 169
IX, 16–23 378

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4Q398 2 195 385

II, 3 137 210 155
II, 7 137
Mos.
4Q514 1 2.69 264
I, 1–6 169 2.70 263
2.166 330
4QFlor 2.188 376, 387
I, 7 137 2.271 264
2.280 264
4QMMT 2.292 385
113 137
117 137 Praem.
79 385
11Q19 166 240
XLV, 7–10 169
XLV, 15–16 169 Somn.
1.62 169
1.141–142 327
Philo 1.142 332
1.143–145 332, 334
Abr. 1.143 329
19 294 1.147 190
1.149 169
Agr. 1.193 376
1.108 380
Spec.
Cher. 1.65 387
98 170 1.66–67 169
1.116 169
Conf. 1.269 169
166 126 2.163–164 169
3.1 376
Decal. 4.13 382
16 126 4.30 376
4.49 387
Ebr. 4.50 376
207 294
Ios. Josephus
95 126
Apion
Legat. 1.37 387
1.210 376 1.54 385
36 164 1.127 385
155 122 2.102–104 170
157 122 2.175 155

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2.178 155 6.155 292

2.201 376 6.312 385
2.204 155
Life
Ant. 14 170
1.13 385 75 170
1.268 240 256 378
3.38 387
3.180–181 170
3.315 240 Rabbinic Literature and Other Jewish
4.133 330 Literature
4.194 240
5.116 240 Ascet.
5.256 240 1.18.14 221
6.25 240
9.55–56 240 b. B. Bat.
10.12 240 73b 200
10.210 385 75a 265
11.144 240 121a–b 265
11.231 240
13.167 385 b. B. Meṣ.
13.288 156 85b 195
13.289 156
13.401–415 156 b. Ber.
13.423 156 32a 265
14.110–118 164
15.136 327, 328 b. Roš Haš.
17.330 121 31a 197
18.15 156
18.17 156 b. Pesaḥ.
18.19 170 68a 208
20.254 292
b. Sanh.
War 90a 198
1.148–153 170 91b 208
2.156–157 94 97a 197, 198
2.104 121 113a 194
2.105 121
2.129 170 b. Sem.
2.162 156 8.1 197
2.454 63
2.651 63 b. Taʿan.
3.221 292 2a 194
4.160 63 30b 265
4.201 170
5.217–218 170 Cant. Rab.
6.93–110 170 3.7.5 264
4.7.5 263

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CIJ m. Mik.
1.76 246 8.1 156
1.86 246
1.281a 246 m. Oh.
1.314 246 2.3 156
1.335 246 18.6 156
1.340 246
1.370 246 m. Sanh.
1.380 246 5.1–5 378
1.397 246 10.1 198
1.401 246
1.476 247 m. Sot.
1.544 246 6.3 378
1.847 247
2.804 246 MM
2.877 246 3.6 264
2.973 246 5.4 264
2.1167 246 6.3 263
2.1209 246 6.9 264
6.11 263, 264
Deut. Rab.
7:6 194 Midr. ʾAggadah
7:137 194 42 203
Eccl. Rab. Midr. Leqaḥ Tov Esth

2:1 104 4:17 206
Esth Rab. Midr. Leqaḥ Tov Gen

9:2 203 22:4 204
42:18 205
Gen. Rab.
12:5 141 Midr. Sam.
56:1 204, 206 17 264
73:4 194
91:7 203 Midr. Tannaim Deut
100:7 196 32:39 207
m. Ab. Midr. Tehillim

5:21 155 78.5 194
m. Aboth Midr. Teh. Pss

5.24 385 22:1 203, 204
m. Kel. Midr. Wa-yosha Exod

1.6 156 15:17 199
m. Makk. Pesiq. Rab.

1.7 378 10.6 263
1.9 378 21.7 327

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21.8 327 Yalq. Gen

42.6 194 22:4, 99 205
Pirq. R. El. Yalq. Hos

11 200 6:2, 522 197
51 199
Yalq. Josh
Ps. Rab. 2:12, 347 205
21.4 265
Zohar
S. Eli. Rab. 1.21b 265
6 195 1.31b 265
1.52a–b 264
Sifre Num 3.58a 263, 265
1 264
Sifre Deut Apostolic Fathers

329 208
Barn.
Tg. Ket. Ps 5:6b 219
50:11 200 15:5b 219
Tg. Kev. Esther 2 1 Clem.

1:1 200 47:1 165
Tg. Neb. Hos Did.

6:2 190, 193 6:3 184
Tg. Neof. Gen Diogn.

30:22 194 7:2 294
y. Ber. Pol. Phil.

5:2, 9a 193 7:1 96
y. Sanh.
11:8, 30c 192 New Testament Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha
y. Taʿan.
1:1, 63c 193 Ep. Pet James
2:4 96
y. Yebam.
16:3, 15c 196 Prot. Jas.
13:1 380
y. ʿErub.
5:7, 23a 196 Ps.-Clem.
2:4 96
Yalq. Deut
32:39, 946 205

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Ancient Christian Writings Hist. Eccl.

5.8.10 191
Athanasius
In Ps. Marc.
9, 4 (PG 27.84.45) 226 2.4 228
109, 1 (PG 27.461.34) 226
Gregory of Nyssa
Ambrosiaster Tunc et ipse
In I Cor. 2.2.13–14 223
15, 26 220 2.2.17 223
2.2.17.7 221
Augustine 2.2.20–21 222
Serm. 2.2.26–27 222
6.48.1 229
De tridui spatio
In Ps 9.285.21 221
PG 55.319.10 229
Hilary
Clement of Alexander In Ps.
Strom. 9.4.55A 221
2.22.134.4 217 52.8 220
148.590B–C 221
Cyprian
Text. Trin.
2.25 188 2.1096B 221
609.16 229
Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya 612.17 229
Comm. Is.
79.11 221 Hippolytus
Haer.
Epiphanius 9:21 64
Pan.
3.224.10 229 Irenaeus
3.224.12–31 229 Haer.
1.1.7 288
Eusebius 3.21.1 191
Comm. Isa. 3.23 220
1.85 228
1.85.107 227 Jerome
2.53.11 227 Comm. Phlm.
1:23 65
Comm. Ps.
PG 23.132.31 227 Ep. ad Amand.
4.163B 220
Eccl. Theol.
2.8 228 Vir. Ill.
3.14–16 228 5 65

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John Chrysostom Ex.

In Matt. 5.2 188
57.417.24 229
Hom. Lev.
Justin 7.2 224
1 Apol.
67.1–4 165 Hom. Ps.
36.2.1 224
Lactantius
Epit. Princ.
42.2 188 2.3.3 217
3.3.6 225
Inst. 3.5.6–7 224
4.19.9 188 3.6.5 224
Macarius Sel. Ps.

Apoc. 9 226
4.19 96 21 225
Origen Sozomen
Cels. Hist. Eccl.
6.36 223 9.17.1–6 188
Comm. Cant. Tertullian

1.4.30 218 Adv. Jud.
13.23 188
Comm. Jo.
6.57 224 Marc.
6.57.296 223 4.43.1 188
9.41.8 225
10.99.267 223
13.3 226 Greco-Roman Literature
19.21.142 223
20.26.236 225 Aelius Aristides
20.39.364 225 Or.
32.3 224 31.13 248
32.2 250
Comm. Matt. 32.9 250
12.33.12 225 32.34 250
Comm. Rom. Aeschines

5.7 225 Tim.
6.6.35–37 228 2 362
Comm. ser Matth. Apollodorus

8 224 Epit.
2.3 190

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Cicero Diodorus Siculus

Cic. Fin. Bib. hist.
3.21 176 4.54.7 332
3.23 176
3.34 176 Diogenes Laertius
7.95–99 176
Fam. 10.120–127 251
4.5.210–211 249
5.16.170 247, 248 Epictetus
5.16.171 249 Diss.
2.6.27 353
Nat. d.
3.85 94 Euripides
Orestes
Tusc. 420 99
1.26.65 248
1.31.76 248 Herodotus
1.34.83 248 6.67 278
1.48.115 248
1.109 248 Homer
3.6.12 248 Il.
3.7.15 250 1.315ff. 369
3.10.21 251, 257
3.11.24 250 Hyperides
3.23.55–3.24.59 247 Or.
3.23.55 247 6 250
3.23.57 247 6.19 248
3.23.58 247, 249 6.41 249
3.24.71 248 6.43 250
3.25.61 252
3.25.62 250 Julian
3.29.71 248 Ep.
3.30.74 249 56 251
3.31.74 249
3.31.76 234, 248, 251 Lucian
3.34.81 247 De morte Peregrini
3.34.84 251 12 353
5.25.72 260
Luct.
Dio Cassius 1 247
Hist. rom. 22 249
37.54 293
Lucretius
Dio Chrysostom De Rerum natura
Or. 3.865–869 251
28.13 249 3.901–911 251
30.44 250 3.931–945 251

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Lysias Pollux
2.67 248 Onom.
15.2 362 3.108 190
Ovid Polybius
Consolatio ad Liviam 28.17.8 332
369–376 248
Ps.-Callisthenes
Pausanias 1.25 387
Descr.
2.2–5 179 Ps.-Demetrius
Epistolary Types
Plato 5 236
Menex.
236e 249 Ps.-Demosthenes
247d–248c 250 Epitaph.
37 250, 260
Spec.
685c 294 Ps.-Dionysius
On Epideictic Speeches
Pliny the Younger 6.283 250
Ep. 276 236
1.12 247 277–283 238
3.7 248
5.5 248 Ps.-Libanius
5.16 249, 251, 259 Epistolary Styles
7.19 249, 250, 260 4 236, 239
43 239
Plutarch 45 236
Comm. not. 90 239
1061F–1062A 176
1069C 176 Ps.-Menander
On Epistolary Speeches II
Cons. ux. 413–414 238
4 251 413.6–9 238
609E 250 413.28–30 238
610D–E 248 414.20 251
611A–B 248 418–422 238
421.15 251
Is. Os.
389E 330 Ps.-Plutarch
Cons. Ap.
Mor. 102D 248
904–905 387 103E–F 248
104C–D 248
Sera 104C 248
2 94 106C 251

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Cons. Ap. (cont.) 98.14 248

106F–107A 248 99.7.11 249
107.9–10 248 99.18–19 248
111C 250 99.18 250
111E 248
113A 250 Marc.
113C–E 249 1.6 249
117E–F 249 2.1–3.4 249
117E 250 7.3–4 248
118A 251 7.3 250
118C 250 9.5–6 248
121E–F 250 19.6 250
121F 250 21.6 248
24.5 250
Lives of the Ten Orators 26.6–7 250
823A–834B 239
Polyb.
Quintilian 14.4–17.6 249
Inst.
4.3.14 174 Vit. Beat.
22 176
Seneca
De Providentia Stobaeus
1.6 93 Ecl.
2.7.5–12 176
Ep. 2.46.8–10 175
23 260 2.83.10–11 176
24.3–11 249 2.85.4–6 176
24.6 247
24.9–14 249 Suetonius
24.15–16 248 Claud.
43.8 250 25.4 123
59.2 260
59.16 260 Tib.
63.10 248 61.4 353
63.12 247
63.13 250 Theon of Alexander
63.15–16 248 Progymnasta
69 247 3.117 238
76.9–10 176 21–22 250
82.10 249
83 248 Tyana
93.1–2 248 Ep.
93.10 250 55 249
98.2 248 82.9–14 249
98.4–5 248 82.16–17 249
98.9 248

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Papyri 7 237
9 237
P.Lond 11 237
3.982 362 15 237
P.Oxy. 115 PSI 13

4 237 1248 237
6 237

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Index of Modern Authors
Aageson, J. W. 374 Betz, H. D. 66, 67, 305, 306, 309, 314, 316,
Abasciano, B. J. 84, 352, 358–60 325, 328
Achtemeier, P. 166 Bieringer, R. 233, 238, 301, 305
Ackerman, D. 220 Binder, D. D. 164
Adewuya, J. A. 304 Bitner, B. J. 164
Adriaen, M. 197 Bjerkelund, C. J. 233
Aland, B. 302, 325 Blaschke, A. 63
Aland, K. 325 Blomberg, C. L. 318, 321, 322
Albeck, C. 196, 206 Blumenthal, C. 357
Alexander, L. 306 Boccaccini, G. 157
Amador, J. D. H. 318 Bock, D. L. 131, 132
Amir, Y. 60, 61 Bockmuehl, M. 341, 342, 358, 366–68, 370
Archer, G. L. 13, 24–27 Boda, M. J. 18
Ascough, R. S. 161, 162, 357 Boring, M. E. 305
Atayan, V. 297 Bormann, L. 347–49, 354, 369
Aune, D. E. 162 Börner-Klein, D. 199
Ausloos, H. 238 Bowker, J. 97
Bowman, A. K. 160
Baehrens, W. A. 188 Boyarin, D. 61
Bailey, K. E. 319 Brändle, R. 313
Balla, P. 171 Braude, W. G. 195
Ballard, C. A. 271 Braund, S. M. 234
Baltussen, H. 233 Bray, G. L. 87, 322
Balzer, K. 241 Brook, M. 295, 296
Baneth, H. 330 Brooke, A. E. 108, 109
Bar-Ilan, M. 163 Brooten, B. J. 122
Barclay, J. M. G. 311 Brown, R. E. 123, 372, 389
Barnett, P. 252, 253, 258, 315 Bruce, F. F. 122, 253, 325, 328
Barré, M. L. 189 Bruehler, B. B. 315
Barrett, C. K. 87, 126, 134, 144, 147, 181, Buder, S. 203, 204, 206
184–86, 253, 312, 377, 379, 386 Bullard, A. A. 243
Barton, S. C. 235, 260 Bultmann, R. 177
Bassler, J. M. 374, 379, 386, 389 Burch, V. 18
Bauckham, R. 100, 231 Burton, E. D. W. 329, 330
Bauer, J. B. 361 Buttenwieser, M. 201
Bauer, W. 61, 68 Byrne, B. 79, 87
Beale, G. K. 234
Beard, M. 158 Cairns, D. 274, 278–80
Bearth, T. 281 Calude, A. S. 280–82, 285, 286, 297
Beavers, J. 44 Carlo, M. 325
Becker, J. 98, 99, 104, 106 Carroll, J. T. 98
Beckheuer, B. 312 Carter, R. 296
Belleville, L. L. 122, 263–65, 304, 332, Castelo, D. 189
334 Cathcart, K. J. 190, 191
Berman, J. 36 Chadwick, H. 218

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Champlin, E. 234 Dibelius, M. 376, 377, 379, 381–83, 386

Chaniotis, A. 235 Dines, J. 8
Chapa, J. 237, 247–49 Dochertz, S. 352
Chapman, D. W. 155 Dodd, C. H. 17, 95, 111, 114, 119, 172, 177
Charles, R. H. 326 Donfried, K. P. 361
Charlesworth, J. H. 98 Dorival, G. 14
Cheung, A. T. 173–75, 178, 180, 182, 183, 186 Downs, D. J. 314
Chilton, B. D. 191 Dronsch, K. 166, 168
Chirichigno, G. 13, 24–27 du Toit, A. B. 121–23
Chow, J. K. 179, 181, 185 Duff, P. B. 265, 266, 269, 271, 276, 277
Ciampa, R. E. 154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 165, Dunderberg, I. 114
169–72, 358 Dunn, J. D. G. 33, 35, 87, 94, 96, 101, 119, 121,
Clarke, A. D. 161 122, 124–26, 129, 131, 133, 134, 136–40,
Clarke, F. K. T. 321 142, 143, 145, 147, 184, 231, 377
Clines, D. J. A. 340, 341 Dutch, R. S. 254
Cohen, M. 209
Cohen, S. 61 Easton, B. S. 377, 379, 387
Cole, S. G. 158 Edsall, B. A. 169
Collins, R. F. 178, 182, 315, 372, 377–79, 386 Ego, B. 200
Contini-Morava, E. 41 Eisenstein, J. D. 197, 201, 202
Conzelmann, H. 142, 376, 377, 381–83, 386 Ejohnson, E. E. 390
Cook, J. G. 96, 103 Elledge, C. D. 214
Cook, M. J. 267, 300 Elliott, M. 235
Cope, L. 186 Ellis, E. E. 77, 119
Cosgrove, C. 329 Ellis, P. F. 242
Coutsoumpos, P. 174, 175, 178, 181, 182, 184, Engberg-Pedersen, T. 177
185, 187 Epp, E. J. 122
Cranfield, C. E. B. 87, 120–22, 124, 126, Eskola, T. 115
129–33, 135, 138, 139, 141, 146, 147 Evans, C. A. 120, 131, 132
Crenshaw, J. L. 97 Evaristus, M. 237
Cribiore, R. 158, 162
Croteau, D. A. 313 Fairchild, M. R. 64, 65
Fantin, J. D. 213
Daniel-Hughes, C. 273 Fee, G. D. 174, 179, 180, 184, 185, 258, 386
Danker, F. W. 314 Ferguson, E. 174
Das, A. A. 32 Filson, F. V. 233
Davies, M. 372 Finkelstein, L. 208
Davies, W. D. 327 Fiore, B. 377–79, 386
Dawes, G. W. 175 Fisk, B. N. 180
De Boer, M. 213 Fitzmyer, J. A. 79, 219, 220
De Cesare, A. M. 297 Flesher, P. M. 191
Declerck, R. 281, 284 Foley, J. M. 166
Delahunty, G. P. 280–82, 285, 286, 297 Foltz, P. W. 47
Delling, G. 361 Forbes, C. 320
Delobel, J. 173–75 Ford, D. F. 253, 321, 322
Deming, W. 174, 187 Fotopoulos, J. 179, 180, 182, 184
DeSilva, D. A. 234 Fowl, S. 365–69, 390
Dhorme, E. 340 Fraikin, D. 116

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430 Index of Modern Authors
Freedman, H. 194, 196, 206 Harris, Z. S. 43

Fretheim, T. E. 235 Harrison, J. R. 249
Frey, J. 353 Hartman, L. 238
Friedlander, G. 200 Hatina, T. R. 246
Friesen, S. J. 311 Hatton, H. A. 243
Furnish, V. P. 178, 180, 182, 184, 253, 254, 269, Hawthorne, G. F. 341, 342
316 Hays, R. B. 33, 120, 126, 130, 154, 172, 212, 312,
365, 366, 376
Gamble, H. Y. 158, 167 Hengel, M. 61, 64, 65, 156, 213
Garland, D. E. 175, 183, 253, 313, 320 Herzer, J. 367
Garner, B. A. 296 Hester, D. A. 318
Garrett, D. A. 278 Hill, A. E. 242
Garstang, C. 296 Hock, R. 177
Gathercole, S. 134 Hoffmann, D. 207
Gealy, F. D. 377, 386 Hofius, O. 157
Geeraerts, D. 47 Høgenhaven, J. 246
Georgi, D. 253, 299, 311, 312 Holloway, P. A. 233, 260
Gill, C. 234 Holmes, M. W. 167
Ginzberg, L. 327 Holtz, G. 386
Glenny, W. E. 190 Holtz, T. 361, 363, 364
Goldberg, B. S. 41 Hong, S. 189
Gordon, R. P. 190, 191 Hooker, M. D. 357
Goulder, M. D. 178, 182, 185 Hope, V. M. 233
Grant, R. M. 174 Horbury, W. 170
Graver, M. 235 Horowitz, C. M. 200
Green, J. B. 98 Horsley, R. A. 64, 160, 173, 181, 183, 184
Grieb, A. K. 311 Houlden, J. L. 386
Grief, T. S. 45 Hübner, H. 377
Grossman, A. 208 Huffman, A. 41
Guggenheimer, H. W. 192, 193, 196 Hughes, F. W. 234
Guthrie, D. 377, 386 Hughes, P. E. 317
Guthrie, G. H. 268, 277 Hultgren, A. J. 372, 381, 389
Hurtado, L. 163
Hafemann, S. J. 304, 315 Hurd, J. C. 179, 185, 220
Hagner, D. A. 165 Hutton, C. 39
Hall, D. R. 317
Hammer, R. 208 Instone-Brewer, D. 193
Han, P. 302, 318 Irwin, T. H. 175
Hansen, W. G. 325, 328, 368
Hanson, A. E. 162 Jaffe, M. S. 373
Hanson, A. T. 372, 374, 377, 378, 380, 386, James, P. 9
389, 390 Jaquette, J. L. 174–77, 183, 186, 187
Harl, M. 14 Jastrow, M. 195
Harland, P. A. 161, 162 Jellicoe, S. 191
Harrington, D. J. 243 Jennings, M. A. 313
Harris, J. R. 17, 18, 25 Jeremias, J. 386
Harris, M. J. 253, 309, 322 Jewett, R. 90
Harris, W. V. 158, 160, 162, 235, 11 Jobes, K. H. 9, 11, 15

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Johnson, L. T. 93, 372, 377, 378, 381, 386 Lewis, B. 202

Jones, I. H. 318 Lichtenberger, H. 34
Joubert, S. 314 Lieberman, S. 194, 330
Lim, B. H. 189
Kahana, M. I. 208 Lim, K. Y. 311
Kahle, P. 15 Lim, T. 23
Kaplin, J. 233 Lincicum, D. 350
Kapstein, I. J. 195 Lindars, B. 106
Karavidopoulos, J. 325 Lipschitz, A. 210
Keck, L. E. 119, 120, 125, 127, 128, 133, 143 Litfin, D. 254
Keener, C. S. 140, 119, 123, 130, 310, 311 Liu, Y. 169
Keith, C. 162, 163 Loader, W. G. 165
Kelly, J. N. D. 377, 378, 386 Lock, W. 374, 377, 386
Kent, H. A. 311 Löhr, H. 353
Kenyon, F. G. 14 London, M. S. 194
Keown, G. L. 104 Long, F. T. 309
Kern-Ulmer, R. 194 Longenecker, B. W. 34, 321
Kim, B. 307, 314, 316 Longenecker, R. N. 119, 120, 325, 328, 330
Kim, S. 155, 255 Longman, T., III 340
Kippenberg, H. G. 64 Lopez-Couso, M. J. 295
Kistemaker, S. J. 315 Louw, J. P. 53, 55, 57, 291
Kittay, E. F. 46 Lutz, R. T. 381
Klauck, H. 312 Lyons, J. 38
Klein, H. 310
Kloppenborg, J. S. 161, 162 Malatesta, E. 108
Klostermann, E. 202 Malherbe, A. J. 177, 259, 362, 365
Klumbies, P. 80 Marcos, N. F. 8
Knight, G. W., III 377, 386 Mark, G. 296
Koch, D. A. 154 Marmorstein, A. 256
Konstan, D. 214, 226, 235 Marshall, I. H. 108, 109, 111, 169, 374–79, 386,
Kraus, W. 190 389
Krauss, H. 240 Martin, R. P. 258, 287, 319, 341
Kreinecker, C. M. 235 Martos, L. B. 229
Kreitzer, L. 317 Martyn, J. L. 327
Kruse, C. G. 78–81, 121, 124, 125, 129, 130, 132, Mason, S. 61
139 Matera, F. J. 105, 106, 113, 268, 269, 276, 315,
Kuhn, K. A. 160 327
Mayordomo, M. 364
Labov, W. 44, 45 Mays, J. L. 189
Laham, D. 47 Mayser, E. 328, 329
Lambrecht, J. 253, 305 McArthur, H. K. 191, 203
Land, C. D. 266, 270–72, 299 McCarthy, M. 296
Landauer, T. K. 47 McCasland, S. V. 188
Lang, F. 220 McCauley, L. P. 237
Law, T. M. 10, 213 McEleney, N. J. 381
Lehmann, K. 191 McLay, R. T. 7, 15, 18, 20, 24
Lehrer, A. 46 Meeks, W. A. 181
Levine, L. I. 164 Meggitt, J. J. 178

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Mell, U. 156 Osborne, G. R. 337

Mendez-Naya, B. 295 Otheguy, R. 41
Metzger, B. M. 325, 375
Mikolov, T. 49 Pang, F. G. H. 49
Millard, A. 163 Patai, R. 201
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Paul and Scripture

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/past

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

1 Introduction to Paul and Scripture 1

2 Paul and His Use of Scripture: Further Considerations 7

3 Paul’s Use of Νόμος: Torah, Law, or Custom? 31

4 The Reception of 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Letters of Paul 59

5 Paul’s Use of Scripture in Romans 77

6 Obedience in Covenant and in Christ: Paul’s Theodicean Solution 93

7 The Centrality of Jewish Scripture in Paul’s Theology: Romans 3 as a

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

8 From the Perspective of the Writer or the Perspective of the Reader:

9 Paul’s View of Αδιάφορα in 1 Corinthians 8–10 173

11 Paul on Apokatastasis: 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 and the Use of

12 The Rhetoric of “Consolation” in 2 Corinthians 1:3–11/7:4–13 in the

14 The Centrality of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 8–9 303

15 The Sinai-Mεσίτης Tradition in Galatians 3:19–20 325

16 The Use of Job 13:16 in Philippians 1:19: Direct Quotation or

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

17 Reception of the Old Testament in 1 Thessalonians and in

18 The Pastoral Epistles and the Scriptures of Israel 372

Index of Ancient Sources 391

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Volume 11: Pauline Ethics (2020)

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

OTP Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. 2 vols.

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

TWNT Theologische Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

John Granger Cook

Lau Chi Hing

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

H. H. Drake Williams, III

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Introduction to Paul and Scripture

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004391512_002

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

while still favouring an author-oriented approach, Williams concludes that a

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Part 4 is devoted to other Pauline letters. In an essay on Gal 3, Linda

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Paul and His Use of Scripture: Further

Of the roughly eighty-three biblical texts adduced by Paul in his undis-

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004391512_003

Based on Stanley’s calculations, we see that roughly 40% of the quota-

2 Foundational Issues for Further Consideration

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

2.1 Paul’s Citations Are in Greek

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

2.2 Conventions of Handling Scripture

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land - 978-90-04-39151-2

20 Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, 81.

14 Winger, By What Law? 32.

18 Porter, Letter to the Romans, 77.

26 See Luther’s Works, 26.134, cited in Winger, By What Law? 2.

33 Winger, By What Law? 40.

39 Zellig S. Harris, “Distributional Structure,” Word 10 (1954): 156.