Once more — Paul’s Letter a Rewritten Scripture?

This one is my own “find” (if it is indeed a real find; that’s up to you to decide). I begin with Paul’s reference to the veil of Moses. That’s the easy part. What we are looking for, however, is not scattered references to “Old Testament” passages but indications of lengthy passages that have been rewritten for a “New Covenant” context.

So we begin with Moses veil and Paul’s comparison of that with the blindness of the unsaved as well as the complementary comparison of both Moses and Christians taking on the glory of God.

What precedes Paul’s points about being changed into a glorious image is

• Paul’s refusal to visit the Corinthians and instead sending them a letter that made them grieve
• An appeal for mercy to the wrongdoer
• The image of the church as a procession of a divine epiphany that promised life and death [many translators have described a prisoner in a Roman triumphal procession but we will see that that image is incomplete and misleading]
• Comparison of letter and spirit: letter kills.

What precedes Moses having a shining face is

• God’s refusal to go with his people and their remorse
• Moses appeals to God for mercy for the wrongdoers
• God showing himself to Moses and making promises of both mercy and death
• The ten commandments repeated: the cause of the death of 3000

What follows Paul’s point about being transformed into God’s glory is a discussion of

• our earthly tabernacle and how we long to have it changed into a heavenly tabernacle, with tabernacle being a metaphor for body, of course.

What follows the description of Moses face shining with divine glory is

• the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness.

That is:

.

The details where the devils are. . .

For those who are curious about my substitution of a religious epiphany procession for the Roman triumphal procession in 2:14, here are some passages from a 1991 article by Paul Duff:

Paul characterizes himself as “led in triumph” by God because he wants to communicate a broader interpretation of θριαμβεύω . . . [T]he art and literature of the Greco-Roman world provide indications that this image of the triumphal procession need not be strictly limited to the military procession of a victorious general. Such indications suggest that an epiphany procession of a deity could be metaphorically portrayed as a triumphal procession.

This metaphorical usage—an epiphany procession metaphorically depicted as a triumphal parade—probably came about because many deities in the ancient world were considered victors. Dionysus was, of course, seen as such. In Greco-Roman times, he was considered the triumphator par excellence as well as the inventor of the triumphal procession. Isis was also viewed as a victorious deity.
(Duff 83)

Since the worshippers of a deity were not uncommonly referred to as prisoners in the Greco-Roman world, it should come as no surprise that the epiphany procession of deities such as Dionysus or Isis could be characterized as triumphal processions, as the above examples demonstrate.
(Duff 86)

It is not the vengeance of God “leading the apostle captive” before the eyes of the Corinthians as 2 Cor 2:14 would, at first glance, seem to indicate. Rather, it is the love of Christ which has “taken Paul captive.” The image that Paul calls forth in 2 Cor 5:14a is comparable to the metaphor of the Roman triumph that the Latin poet Ovid uses to articulate the power that his lover had over him:

In thy train shall be captive youths and captive maids; such a pomp will be for thee a stately triumph. Myself, a recent spoil, shall be there with wound all freshly dealt, and bear my new bonds with unresisting heart. Conscience shall be led along with hands tied fast behind her back, and Modesty, and all who are foes of the camp of Love. Before thee shall all tremble; the crowd, stretching forth their hands to thee, shall chant with a loud voice: “Ho Triumph!”

By introducing the term συνέχω in 2 Cor 5:14, Paul reinterprets the verb θριαμβεύω of 2 Cor 2:14 according to his own understanding of his mission. Paul, if you will, “plays” with the definition of θριαμβεύω . . . . Although Paul might look like he is being “led in triumph,” a victim of defeat, the object of the vengeance of God, he is in fact a captive of the “love of Christ.” He is a participant not in a military victory parade but in an epiphany procession. He has been captured, not as a prisoner of war, but as a devotee of the deity.
(Duff 87)

• • • [H]e depicts himself as the fragrant substances spread in such processions which informed the bystanders of the god’s or goddess’s presence (2:14-16).
    • In 2 Cor 4:7 he describes himself as the vessel holding the sacred objects of the cult, which are, in turn, the bearers of the deity’s power.
    • In 2 Cor 4:10, he describes himself as manifesting the beneficent or saving activity of the deity in the manner that a religious procession would carry about and display the epiphany of the deity.
    • Finally, at the end of the letter fragment, in 2 Cor 6:13 and 7:2, he addresses the Corinthian community: “Be wide open (πλατύνθήτε) for us. . . . Make room (χωρήσατε) for us.” Here he represents himself as the herald who walked before the sacred object or image, announcing its presence, and preparing bystanders for the deity’s epiphany.

Each time Paul alludes to processions, following the introduction of the motif in 2:14, he emphatically demonstrates that his ministry is comparable to the epiphany type “triumphal” procession rather than to the procession of prisoners of war on the way to their death.
(Duff 88), my formatting and highlighting)

In v 10, Paul uses the word περιφέρω (“to carry around”) to describe his preaching activity. This particular verb is often found in descriptions of epiphany processions. Here Paul portrays his public sufferings metaphorically with an allusion to an epiphany procession of the ancient world. In such a procession an image of the deity, a cult object, or even a scene from the life of the deity was paraded in front of the worshippers. In such a way the epiphany procession mediated “the power of God” (2 Cor 4:7) to the believer. In this verse Paul describes that which is being carried about as “the dying of Jesus.” In other words, the “dying of Jesus” represents the cult object which mediates the epiphany.
(Duff 89)

The verb φανερόω of 2:14b accurately describes the primary function of the epiphany procession. This type of procession presented to onlookers the manifestation of the deity in one form or another. Several passages from Greco-Roman literature explicitly ascribe this function to the epiphany processions of the time.
(Duff 90)

[T]he paramount purpose of Greco-Roman epiphany processions was the manifestation of the sacred.

Accordingly, in 2 Cor 2:14b, Paul ties the verb φανερόω with an allusion to Greco-Roman epiphany processions. Just as those processions featured aromatic substances such as incense or scented oil whose function was to indicate to those present the epiphany of the deity, so Paul depicts his evangelizing efforts as the manifestation of “the scent of [God’s] knowledge.”
(Duff 91)

Duff, Paul Brooks. “Metaphor, Motif, and Meaning: The Rhetorical Strategy behind the Image ‘Led in Triumph’ in 2 Corinthians 2:14.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53, no. 1 (1991): 79–92.

Rosner, Brian S. Paul, Scripture, and Ethics: A Study of 1 Corinthians 5-7. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Pub Group, 1999.

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Neil Godfrey

Neil is the author of this post. To read more about Neil, see our About page.

Latest posts by Neil Godfrey (see all)

• Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 2: Certainty and Uncertainty in History - 2024-11-18 01:15:24 GMT+0000
• Jesus Mythicism and Historical Knowledge, Part 1: Historical Facts and Probability - 2024-11-16 01:05:37 GMT+0000
• Palestinians, written out of their rights to the land – compared with a new history - 2024-10-15 20:05:41 GMT+0000