2 Corinthians 5:1-10: Watershed In Paul’s Eschatology? -- By: Murray J. Harris

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 22:1 (NA 1971)
Article: 2 Corinthians 5:1-10: Watershed In Paul’s Eschatology?
Author: Murray J. Harris


2 Corinthians 5:1-10: Watershed In Paul’s Eschatology?

M. J. Harris

The Tyndale New Testament Lecture, 1970*

* Delivered at Tyndale House, Cambridge, July 1970.

In 1870 there appeared in France from the pen of a Protestant theologian who was a disciple of Schleiermacher and Ritschl, a volume entitled L’Apôtre Paul. Esquisse d’une histoire de sa pensée.1 Louis Auguste Sabatier’s aim was, in his own words, ‘to write not a general biography of Paul, but a biography of his mind and the history of his thought’2 which would refute the denial, both by the orthodox and by the Tubingen rationalists, of progression in Pauline theology.3 As the first thoroughgoing proponent of the ‘progressive character of Paulinism’, as he termed it,4 Sabatier ignited a flame which has been burning steadily ever since, despite repeated attempts to extinguish it or reduce its size.

Numerous a priori objections, for example, have been levelled against the hypothesis that development is traceable in Pauline theology: precisely what constitutes development or progression of thought is disputed, it is alleged; the extent of the corpus Paulinum is contested; the chronological sequence of Paul’s Epistles is uncertain; any criteria used for grouping Paul’s letters for the purposes of comparison must necessarily be arbitrary; the Pauline correspondence is largely occasional; the argument from silence, which is not infrequently appealed to in support of developmental theories, is notoriously insecure; Paul’s extant letters all fall within a limited period of his life— roughly speaking, the second half of his career as a Christian missionary, when he might fairly be supposed to have reached Christian maturity; the essentially paradoxical character of

Christian verities gives pause to the effort to classify parts or the whole of Paul’s theology according to successive stages of development. The validity of such arguments is not to be denied, but rather than rendering the quest to retrace any part of the apostle’s spiritual and intellectual pilgrimage nugatory, these a priori objections simply form easily discernible signposts which remind travellers of the hazards of the way.

The present paper does not aim to offer a systematic exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, but rather will highlight three issues arising from the passage which i...

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