“The Quartodeciman Question:
Johannine Roots of a Christian Controversy”
Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 52:4 (2022) 253-261.
Abstract
In the ante-Nicene era the Quartodecimans (the “fourteeners”) preserved a tradition that was said to go back to “John.” They commemorated 14 Nisan rather than Easter Sunday, the day that the larger Christian community commemorated as the day of the resurrection. For more than a century now, scholars have addressed the ‘Quartodeciman question,’ defined in various ways but essentially, “What did their observance of 14 Nisan mean? What did it commemorate?” This brief paper offers additional support to arguments posited by others that, as theological descendants of Johannine thought, the Quartodecimans preserved a tradition which commemorated Jesus’ death as the paschal lamb, which was simultaneously a glorification, the exaltation of the Christ.
“Luke as the Master Architect of ‘God’s Plan’:
An analysis of a distinctive Lucan concept”
Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 50:4 (2020) 227-235.
Abstract
Luke is the singular evangelist to use the term “plan” (boulē) (of God). He is also the only NT author to use the related terms horizō/hōrismenos, and these he uses in a sense similar to “boulē.” This article investigates Luke’s construction and use of the term “plan (of God)” to convey a fundamental proclamation of faith, namely, that the Jesus event fulfilled a predetermined divine plan. Primarily three examples from Luke (Peter’s Speech at Pentecost, Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, and the claim that the Messiah must suffer) demonstrate this claim. Luke’s use of this term reflects Greco-Roman concepts more than those in the LXX and would therefore have been readily understood by his predominantly Gentile audience. Luke may be properly understood as the master architect of God’s plan. This image and language that he forged was ultimately so effective it influenced centuries of Christian thought and catechetical formulae.
“The ‘Spiritual Body’ as Oxymoron in 1 Corinthians 15:44”
Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 45:4 (2015) 230-238.
Abstract
In the entire undisputed Pauline corpus, the term body is used with respect to resurrection in only two verses: 1 Corinthians 15:44 and Philippians 3:20–21. In neither case does it mean resuscitated flesh, as some theologians would have it. In Corinthians, Paul uses the rhetorical device of oxymoron in modifying the term body by “spiritual.” The oxymoron expresses the ineffability of Paul's experience of the Risen Christ, which for him is something beyond precise description.
“The Body of His Glory: Resurrection Imagery in Philippians 3:20–21”
Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 43:1 (2013) 23-28.
Abstract
In the entire Pauline corpus, the term “body” is used with respect to resurrection in only two verses: 1 Corinthians 15:44 and Philippians 3:20–21. In neither case does it mean resuscitated flesh. In Philippians, Paul modifies the term body by “glory,” which he uses to express the radiant presence of God, in which Christ now and ultimately in which all believers will share. This article will attempt to show that for Paul the Risen Christ's “body of glory” is a term that indicates Christ's presence with God, rather than a descriptive phrase about properties of the resurrected body. The article concludes with some modest pastoral and theological implications.
Paul’s Vision of the Risen Lord
Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 41:2 (2011) 76-83.
Abstract
Paul, the one New Testament author who states clearly that Jesus appeared to him, has been cited as one who understood the resurrection of Jesus as fleshly, or physical. This article examines whether Paul himself understood the result of what happened to Jesus after his death to be a physical reality akin to the return of Jesus alive in the flesh. By investigating the three passages in which Paul refers to his own life-changing experience of the risen Christ (Gal 1:16; 1 Cor 9:1; 1 Cor 15:8), the article shows that there is just as much evidence to argue that Paul’s encounter with the risen Lord was a real, but interior, experience.
Abstract
It has been posited that in his early career, Augustine was unaware of the doctrine of the resurrection. Whether or not that is the case, throughout much of his career he was defending the bold claim, dicimus carnem resurgere, “we say that the flesh rises again.” This article will seek 1) to review the development of the term “resurrection of the flesh” in some of the early Christian fathers, 2) to review briefly Augustine’s concept of resurrection and 3) to see how Augustine understood and used the Pauline term “spiritual body” from 1 Cor 15:44. It will be shown that Augustine had the idea of a fleshy resurrection before incorporating the Pauline notion of “spiritual body” into his theology. Augustine then was able to interpret “spiritual body” in such a way as to claim a resurrection of the flesh, and even a spiritual flesh, even though that is not the Pauline meaning of the term, as is clear from Paul's own discussion in 1 Cor 15:50.