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University of Groningen Paul and God's Temple Hogeterp, Albert University of Groningen Paul and God's temple Hogeterp, Albert Livinus Augustinus IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2004 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Hogeterp, A. L. A. (2004). Paul and God's temple: a historical interpretation of cultic imagery in the Corinthian correspondence. s.n. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license. More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne- amendment. Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 01-10-2021 CHAPTER 7 CULTIC IMAGERY IN 1 CORINTHIANS 1. Introduction: Towards a new perspective on Paul’s temple imagery 1.1 From cultic imagery to theological message In the analysis of Paul’s metaphor of God’s Temple, scholarly discussion has focused on the key passages 1 Cor 3:16-17, 6:19, and 2 Cor 6:16 in a way which leaves certain questions about the coherence of Paul’s temple imagery unsolved. It is often stressed that 1 Cor 3:16-17 and 2 Cor 6:16 relate to the community as Temple, whereas 1 Cor 6:19 concerns the individual body as Temple.1 Some scholars have tried to resolve the tension between these two applications of the temple concept by additonally associating 1 Cor 6:19 with a corporate idea.2 The search for a theological message underlying Paul’s cultic imagery, in particular his temple imagery, is further complicated by the fact that 2 Cor 6:16 stands apart in the discussion about the authenticity of 2 Cor 6:14-7:1. It is therefore necessary to discuss whether and how 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 fits into a survey of Pauline temple imagery (see chap. 8). My starting point for discussing Paul’s cultic imagery in the Corinthian correspondence is that Paul’s theological message expresses itself significantly and irreplaceably through this cultic imagery. I oppose the minimising point of view on Paul’s cultic terms, for instance in 1 Cor 3:16-17, as ‘rhetorical devices’ in the sense of mere examples in passing, which are subordinate to other, more important theological themes.3 The overarching theme which is often discerned by commentators as dominating 1 Cor 1:10-4:21 concerns Paul’s response to the factionalism within the Corinthian congregation, 1 See Gärtner, The Temple and the Community, 49-60, 141-142, 141 n. 2; McKelvey, The New Temple, 92-107 at 102 about 1 Cor 6:19 as a “particularization of the conception of the church as the temple”; Klinzing, Die Umdeutung des Kultus, 167-184 at 183 about 1 Cor 6:19, noting that Paul’s temple imagery is not homogeneous. E. Schüssler Fiorenza, ‘Cultic Language in Qumran and in the NT’, CBQ 38 (1976) 159-177 at 172 about temple imagery in 1 Cor 6:19 applied “not to the community, but to the body of the individual Christian”. Strack, Kultische Terminologie, 235-252 at 251 about the contrast between the application to the community in 1 Cor 3:16 and to the individual in 1 Cor 6:19; R. Kirchhoff, Die Sünde gegen den eigenen Leib. Studien zu und in 1Kor 6,12-20 und dem sozio-kulturellen Kontext der paulinischen Adressaten (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen, 1994) 177-188 explains the application of the metaphor of the Temple to the individual body, which is untypical of contemporary Judaism, as related to the idea of the indwelling Holy Spirit which does apply to individuals in Jewish tradition (183-184); C. Böttrich, ‘“Ihr seid der Tempel Gottes”’, in Ego et al. (eds.), Gemeinde ohne Tempel, 411-425 at 419-420 also notes the difference between the collective temple concept in 1 Cor 3:16-17 and 2 Cor 6:16 and the individual concept in 1 Cor 6:19. 2 Cf. M. Newton, The concept of purity at Qumran and in the letters of Paul (Cambridge UP: Cambridge, 1985) 53-58 about ®Ì‚ úÌ®Ó in 1 Cor 6:19 as a corporate entity; S.-W. (Aaron) Son, Corporate elements in Pauline anthropology (Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico: Rome, 2001) 124 argues for “a certain oscillation in Paul’s thought between the corporate and the individual”, comparing 1 Cor 6:19 to 1 Cor 3:16-17. 3 G.D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Mich., 1987) 146-147, 146 n.4 hypercritically discusses Gärtner’s book cited in n.1 above for putting “too much weight on the language of what seems rather to be a rhetorical device in this letter”. Cf. W. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther 1 1Kor 1,1-6,11 (EKKNT; Benziger Verlag: Zürich and Braunschweig & Neukirchener Verlag: Neukirchen- Vluyn, 1991) 287 n.59 who calls the idea “die Tempelsymbolik den ganzen Abschnitt beherrschen zu lassen” a fallacy. Paul and God’s Temple due to a strife about wisdom and status.4 Since the issues in 1 Cor 4:10-4:21 are consequently understood as constituent elements of this overarching theme, the cultic imagery in 1 Cor 3:16-17 is therefore often discussed as an example of subordinate importance. This approach usually leaves the significance of Paul’s temple imagery undervalued, while scepticism about comparative studies between Paul’s temple imagery and temple theology in contemporary Judaism (cf. n.1 above) reduces the investigation of a context to a survey of parallels. A comparable case presents itself with the temple imagery in 1 Cor 6:19. Commentators usually interpret this verse in the context of 1 Cor 6:12-20, emphasising the issue of and the notion of the indwelling Spirit which sanctifies the body. While these issues are discussed, marginal attention is paid to the temple imagery to the extent that Paul’s image of the Temple appears almost arbitrary as a term for the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.5 In this way, the Pauline temple imagery in 1 Corinthians remains a kind of Fremdkörper among other more recognisable categories of Pauline theology. To borrow a term from Karl Paul Donfried, the cultic imagery in Paul’s Corinthian correspondence should not be treated as a ‘stepchild’ of Pauline theology, but it should be taken fully into account in the study of Paul’s Letters.6 The ancient cultural context to Paul’s cultic imagery is tangible in another main section of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 1 Cor 8:1-11:1, in which food offered to idols, an aspect of idolatry, is a main theme. In this section, Paul also suggests an analogy between the priestly service and the gospel mission (1 Cor 9:13) and he refers to Israel’s cult (1 Cor 10:18). In view of this ancient cultic setting, the image of God’s Temple cannot have been a relatively unimportant theme for Paul and his original readers. Another problem with the point of view which explains Paul’s cultic imagery away as flexible ‘rhetorical devices’ consists in the fact that such an approach implies a reductionist perspective on metaphorical language as far as Paul’s metaphor of the Temple is concerned. Since the community or the individual cannot literally be a physical temple, we may indeed 4 E.g. A. Robertson and A. Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians (ICC; T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1914) 55-69 about 1 Cor 1:10-4:21 as Paul’s ‘case’ against the (69); C.K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (A&C Black: London, 1968) 93f.; H. Conzelmann, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen, ¹¹1969) 90 about the recurring theme of parties, factions; Fee, First Corinthians NICNT, 150 views 1 Cor 3:18-23 as a ‘preliminary conclusion’ to the matter; Schrage, 1Kor 1,1-6,11 EKKNT, 127 refers to the subdivision of 1 Cor 1:10-4:21 as “Die Gemeindespaltung aufgrund von Weisheitshypertrophie (Kreuz und Weisheit)”; C. Wolff, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (THKNT 7; Evangelische Verlagsanstalt: Leipzig, 1996) 24 refers to the theme of 1 Cor 1:10-4:21 as “Die gefährdete Einheit der Gemeinde 1,10-4,21”. Apart from discerning 1 Cor 1:18-4:21 as a major section in Paul’s argument against factionalism, Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation. An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (HUT 28; Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 1991) understands the entire Letter as a case of deliberative rhetoric for concord among the Corinthians, that is, against factionalism; see the criticism by Anderson, Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul, 229-238 who contrasts the case for analysing Galatians and Romans as “sustained rhetorical argumentation” to the case of 1 Corinthians which resists such analysis in Anderson’s view.
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