Apocalyptic and the Passions: Overcoming a False Dichotomy in Pauline Studies

Abstract

This article deals with how to conceive of sin in Romans 5–8. Currently there are two main views concerning the understanding of sin in these chapters. The apocalyptic school describes sin as a power extrinsic to the person. The moral philosophical interpretation, by contrast, contends that sin is a representation of action or the passions. While these schools are usually opposed to each other, this article proposes that the major concerns of the apocalyptic school – to understand sin as a reality that is universally determinative, that precedes human action and exceeds human strength, and from which only God can deliver humanity – are compatible with the interpretation of sin as action in some passages and as the passions in others. There may therefore be space for further collaboration between two views that are often opposed.

The Justice and Deliverance of God: Integrating Forensic and Cosmological in the ‘Apocalyptic Paul’

“…More names could be added to this survey of solutions to a long-standing Pauline conundrum. (We might, for example, consider the recent work of Joseph Longarino (2021a; 2021b), who offers another argument for transcending the dichotomy, through an incorporation of the cosmological account of sin within a moral-philosophical framework. Ziegler, for his part, leans in the other direction and locates sin it its forensic and moral-psychological registers within the ‘controlling vision of divine liberation’ (2018a: 94).…”

Naming 1 Timothy 3.16b: A ‘Hymn’ by another Name?

“…In Pauline theology σάρξ is normally aligned with the passions, which are unruly (ἐν τῇ σαρκί; Rom 7.5). 87 The ascetic programme of the other teachers, on the other hand, was designed to control and even strip away the flesh and the passions. 88 They 'forbid marriage' (1 Tim 4.3), indicating that they believed as Tatian did that sexual relations were sinful.…”