Controversies in 1 Cor 15:50–53
(avg. read time: 10–21 mins.)
The last portion of 1 Cor 15 is arguably its most controversial in terms of the number of interpretive controversies and the number of options proffered. Here, we will be focusing on the controversies that arise in the history of interpretation of vv. 50–53. The opening verse is perhaps the most controversial, considering that much has been written on what Paul means in saying that “flesh and blood” will not inherit the kingdom of God. But to properly understand this phrase, we first must grasp how the reference functions in context.
Flesh and Blood
James D. G. Dunn has argued that 1 Cor 15:50 serves as a kind of hinge between vv. 42–49 and 51–57. He compares it to Rom 3:20 and 5:20–21 in that all of these texts demonstrate Paul’s practice, “both of summing up an argument by using language different from the terms in which the argument has been developed hitherto, and of using sum-up verses as transitions to a different phase of his argument.”1 As such, the references to “flesh and blood” and “the kingdom of God” may not be grammatical links per se to the preceding segment, but these phrases function as thematic links to the different sides of his contrasts.2 At the same time, the final clause of this sentence maintains semantical links with vv. 42–49 through the use of φθορά and ἀφθαρσία, which constituted the first contrast in v. 42. It seems likely, as Timothy Brookins and Bruce Longenecker argue, that “‘Flesh and blood’ seems to be synecdoche for the σῶμα ψυχικόν as a whole, the corruptible body of the present life, inasmuch as σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα and ἡ φθορά are set in parallel.”3 In both texts, the operative assumption is that bodies of the present age experience in themselves and in the world around them the characteristic principle of decay, while bodies of the new age will experience decay’s reversal in complete vivification. Indeed, Paul says that for humans to participate in the new creation characterized by this complete vivification (ἀφθαρσία), they must be transformed to have that same attribute (vv. 53–54).
These semantical and thematic links also create cohesion with the segment of vv. 42–49 in another way. Based on the opening questions of v. 35 and the first sentence of v. 42, it is clear that the segment is directly concerned with the resurrection of the dead, not so much with the fate of the living on the day of resurrection. Paul does not expand this teaching to include both the dead and the living until the subsequent segment of vv. 50–57. The dead are raised (ἐγείρω) while the living are transformed (ἀλλάσσω). However, the fact that Paul also uses direct (φθορά, ἀφθαρσία) and thematically synonymous (σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα, βασιλεία θεοῦ, θνητός, ἀθανασία) connections in his language between how he is describing the fates of the dead and the living entails that the ultimate fates of both groups—in terms of the qualities of their bodies—are the same. Likewise, Paul illustrates the common transformation of the living and the dead through his use of the same language regarding both groups (vv. 53–54), which itself is based on the language of the segment of vv. 42–49 (and, more distantly, vv. 20–28). Another more implicit link is Paul’s use of the demonstrative τοῦτο in vv. 53–54. The only clear nominal antecedent for this τοῦτο is the body all the way back in the previous segment. Specifically, because this body is on the negative side of the contrast with the transformed outcome in all four contrasts of vv. 53–54, it is the parallel for the state of Adam-like humanity in vv. 45–49 and for the σῶμα ψυχικόνin vv. 42–44.4 By extension, what Paul describes as fully vivified and immortal is the parallel for the state of Christ-like humanity and for the σῶμα πνευματικόν.
But given these parallels, what does the controversial phrase σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα refer to here? Today, this “flesh and blood” phrase is often interpreted as denying that the body as such is what will be resurrected, and this same interpretation was often presented by the opponents of the patristic authors.5 In their responses, the patristic authors proffered a few options for what the phrase could mean. Some understood it as a description of people who lacked the indwelling Holy Spirit (Irenaeus, Haer. 5.9.1; Methodius, Res. 2.17–18; Epiphanius, Pan. 66.87; Novatian, Trin. 10). Others thought it more specifically referred to disobedience and wickedness, being defined by the ways of the “flesh” (Tertullian, Res. 49–51; Marc. 5.10; John Chrysostom, Hom. 1 Cor. 42.2; Jerome, Hom. 54 on Ps. 143; Ambrosiaster, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:50; Gregory the Great, Mor. Job 14.72; Isaac of Nineveh, Asc. Hom. 5; Aquinas, Comm. 1 Cor. §1000). A few claimed that the phrase referred to mortal nature (Severian of Gabala, In Ps. 96; Theodoret, Comm. 1 Cor. 15:50). Within these variations, some would make precise distinctions in order to argue for the compatibility of resurrection of the flesh and this statement. For example, Irenaeus suggested, in specific reference to the “flesh,” that in the resurrection of the flesh it is not the flesh that inherits; rather, it is inherited (Haer. 5.9.4). Similarly, Tertullian noted that Paul denied the kingdom of God, not the resurrection, to the flesh, for people are excluded from the kingdom by sin, not by substance, and the Spirit is still required for entry into the kingdom (Res. 50).6
In contemporary scholarship, the view that the phrase refers to mortal—and thus frail and weak—nature or to humanity as opposed to the divine has become much more common.7 Indeed, such an interpretation is well supported by the parallelism with φθορά, the larger structure of parallels outlined above, and consideration of how Paul and others used the phrase in the ancient world (Sir 14:18; 17:31; 1 En. 15:4; T.Abr. 13:7; Matt 16:17; Gal 1:16; Eph 6:12; Heb 2:14; m. Naz. 9.5; m. Soṭah 8.1; b. Sanh. 91a; b. Ber. 28b; cf. Lev 17:11; Philo, Heir 57). This interpretation is also able to account for why Paul refers to both flesh and blood, whereas the aforementioned interpretation in modern scholarship fixates on “flesh” and thus assumes that Paul is referring to compositional substance, leaving “blood” unaccounted for while never explaining why Paul did not simply refer to “flesh” if such were his point.
Still, one would do well not to entirely discount the impact of sin on the understanding of this phrase, as in the parallel statement of exclusion from the kingdom in 6:9–10. The patristic authors who noted that such a phrase signified an absence of the Spirit were on the right track, as without the Spirit’s presence, flesh and blood cannot hope to inherit the kingdom of God characterized by everlasting life. Furthermore, the phrase parallels qualities we have noted previously are not simply characteristics of mortality per se, but of mortality under the domination of sin. After all, their exemplar is Adam, not merely the prototypical mortal human, but the one who introduced sin into humanity.8 The notion of sinfulness may not be primary in the phrase itself, but the note of its influence is nevertheless present in the context.9
But what one can more safely discount is the interpretation of synthetic parallelism popularized by Joachim Jeremias and occasionally advocated by others.10 Whereas most interpreters see v. 50 as a synonymous parallelism, this interpretation of synthetic parallelism holds that “flesh and blood” refers to the living, while “corruptibility” refers to the dead. This interpretation fails for two reasons. One, as noted in my last entry, φθορά does not refer to death or the dead as such, but to that which is susceptible to destruction, corruption, decay, and mortality. It is this quality, not a quality of being identical with death, that makes it incapable of receiving what lasts forever.11 Two, it is exceedingly difficult to explain why the A members in this parallelism (“flesh and blood” and “corruptibility”) are supposedly in synthetic relationship, but the B members (“kingdom of God” and “absolute vivification”) are not.12 Indeed, that the B members are synonymous is demonstrable from the larger parallel structure of this portion of Paul’s argument, as well as the use of ἀφθαρσία already in v. 42 to describe kingdom reality.
In any case, the continued set of contrasts here once again relies on the foundation of resurrection belief in the promises of the kingdom of God and new creation. Paul uses one of the key phrases explicitly in v. 50, and he reuses one of the terms characterizing the new creation from v. 42, the latter of which will continue to be a key term for describing resurrected and transformed existence in this segment. It is a reality so different from the present creation that no mortal, alive or dead, can receive it without transformation to conform them to the cosmic reality. This body must be adapted to its new environment. This foundation is thus a driving force in Paul’s argument here for the necessity of transformation as it also drove the argument in vv. 20–28 and 42–49.
The Dead and the Second Coming
But previously Paul was concerned chiefly with the dead, and here he now must take explicit account of those who will be alive at the time of the Parousia. How exactly Paul does so in vv. 51–52 has engendered much controversy, which I can only (relatively) briefly address here. The first point of controversy here is that some have supposed that the Corinthian deniers were all along of the same mindset as those Paul addressed in Thessalonica (1 Thess 4:13–18), thinking that only those who were alive at the time of the Parousia would participate in the salvation brought by the same.13 This proposal could only help to make sense of Paul’s statements about the dead, but not about the consequences for the living outlined in vv. 12–19, wherein the Parousia plays no part, since the denial is in principle.14 Nor would this idea make sense of the larger ethical import described in vv. 29–34 and 58. This argument also does not do well to make sense of the objection in v. 35, which may or may not reflect the objections of the “some” in v. 12, but still speaks to an entirely different concern than what this view proposes. It is also odd that Paul would apparently argue against this idea in such a roundabout way if it is the same kind of idea he heard from the Thessalonians, with whom he spent much less time than those in Corinth, a few years before he wrote this letter.15 Finally, Andrew C. Perriman notes that it would be peculiar for Paul to engage in such an extended argument about the fate of the dead if, on the popular assumption that Paul both thought and taught that he would be alive at the time of the Parousia, “the majority of believers would have had to forego resurrection.”16 But I shall need to return to this last point below.
Who Is Sleeping and Who is Changing?
A second point of controversy, which was more controversial in the early church, is what exactly Paul said in v. 51. The textual history has varied in the placement and number of negatives:
Reading A (B, K, L, P, Ψ, 075, 81, 104, 1881, and many others, Byz, sy, co, Origen [Fr. 1 Cor. 88; Cels. 2.65], Ambrose [Satyr. 2.93], John Chrysostom [Hom. 1 Cor. 42.3], Gregory of Nyssa [Op. hom. 22.6], Theodoret [Comm. 1 Cor. 15:51]; accepted by the vast majority of scholars): “we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.”17
Reading B (א, A*, C, 0243*, 33, 1241, 1739, Didymus of Alexandria [Fr. 1 Cor. 15:51],18 Jerome [Ep. 119], Aphrahat [Dem. 8.3], also attested by Rufinus [Symb. 43]): “we will all sleep, but we will not all be changed.”
Reading C (P46, Ac, F, G): “we will not all sleep, and we will not all be changed.”
Reading D (D*, lat, Tertullian [Res. 42], Ambrosiaster [Comm. 1 Cor. 15:51], also attested by Rufinus [Symb. 43]): “we will all rise, but we will not all be changed.”19
As noted, the vast majority of scholars regard Reading A as the earliest recoverable reading. Reading C appears to be a simple amalgamation with slight attestation, which also does not make sense in this context. Reading D suspiciously has only one Greek attestation in a dubious manuscript and seems otherwise preferred by the Latin tradition because it is taken as a comment on the universal resurrection that singles out some for transformation, even though Paul is otherwise focused on believers in the resurrection up to this point in the text. Paul has not prepared his readers for this universal scope of the first-person plural. Reading B shares with the other two alternatives the idea that not all will be changed, being a reserve for the saints of superior virtue. But differentiations of reward otherwise do not appear in this context. It is also difficult to reconcile with vv. 42–49, given the contrasts and the continuity of vocabulary in this segment, to claim that Paul would suddenly limit the scope of transformation to some among those raised. The only way to do so is, again, to assume that Paul has broadened the scope of the first-person plural in a way that he has not done to this point in the chapter. On the basis of internal cohesiveness and far superior external attestation, Reading A is most likely the earliest recoverable reading with the others being a combination of confusion on where to place the negative and concerns of how to fit this text with certain theological schemes.
Paul conveys here that not all the faithful will die before the Parousia and that, contrary to what is now a common way of reading Paul, not all will need to die to experience transformation, but both the living and the dead will be transformed. Perriman in particular takes this common reading to the extreme. He thinks the parallelism of vv. 21–22 somehow requires that everyone must die in order to be made alive.20 But this overreads the parallelism and raises further problems that I have identified elsewhere. It is rather more likely that Paul makes a general statement here contrasting fates of death and resurrection and that this last segment represents an expansion and clarification on that general statement. It would still work as a statement that those in Christ will receive resurrection life, but the ones who are alive at the time simply do not need to die first. While Perriman is correct that vv. 30–32 undermine the idea that Paul is confidently declaring in vv. 51–52 that he expects to be alive at the time of the Parousia, it is overreading again to infer that Paul positively expected to die before the Parousia.21 It is important to remember that resurrection can function as a synecdoche. In that particular passage it also evokes expectations of final judgment. Likewise, in vv. 42–49, resurrection was a synecdoche for both sides of the event of being raised and being transformed. But when Paul must address the fate of the living at the time of the Parousia, he must break the synecdoche apart to say that only the transformative aspect applies to the living, while the dead receive the transformative resurrection.22
In any case, Paul describes this statement as a “mystery” or “secret.” In other words, it is something that was once previously unknown, but which God has made known in the fullness of time (Rom 11:25–27; 16:25–26; 1 Cor 2:7–10; Eph 1:9–10; 3:1–13; Col 1:25–27; 2:1–3; 4:1–4; 1 Tim 3:16). But what makes this declaration a mystery? The aforementioned discourse in 1 Thessalonians indicates that it was no mystery that not everyone would die prior to the Parousia. Nor is the mystery simply the fact of the need for transformation to inherit the kingdom. If that was the mystery, Paul already spoiled it in the previous segment. More likely is Ben F. Meyer’s argument that it is the combination of the two that represents the mystery: “although those still living at the Parousia would not die, they too—like those raised from the dead—would at that same moment be transformed.”23
Did Paul Expect to Be Alive for Jesus’s Return?
The third point of controversy is whether Paul expected—both in personal thinking and public teaching—to be alive at the time of the Parousia (which I have also addressed here). Both v. 52 and 1 Thess 4:15 are construed as evidence that Paul thought and taught such because in both cases Paul uses the first-person plural in reference to those alive at the time of the Parousia (“we” will be changed vs. “the dead” will be raised), rather than a third-person plural. I am only concerned here with v. 52, though much of what I say will also apply to the 1 Thessalonians text.24 Those who make this argument consistently fail to demonstrate why Paul’s statements imply him thinking that he would live to see the Parousia, as opposed to him thinking that he could live to the see the Parousia. Since the former kind of statement would be stronger and more direct, it does not appear to be what Paul is saying, wherein the strongest evidence in its favor is simply his use of the first-person plural. But if he were to use the third-person plural, the implication would be that he expected he would most likely not live to see the Parousia. He needed ways of articulating himself to express an expectation that the Parousia could precede his death, without either implying knowledge he did not have (per 1 Thess 5:1–11) or undermining the eschatological urgency of his message.25 I suggest he found exactly such ways of articulating himself.
That Paul found adequate ways of expressing a genuine possibility about which he was uncertain is actually indicated by his use of the first person. Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians, he declares his expectation that God will raise “us” (6:14). He reiterates the same point in his later letter to the Corinthians, what is supposed to be a “development” of his expectations regarding the Parousia, in saying that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise “us” also with Jesus (2 Cor 4:14).26 Paul thus places “us” on both sides of the living-dead divide. In this light, it becomes clear that when Paul says, “the dead will be raised … and we will be changed,” he is making no statement about his degree of confidence about being alive at the time of the Parousia beyond it being a genuine possibility. After all, the statement of v. 51 implies that the dead will be changed as well. Likewise, v. 51 determines the content of “we.” Paul has already indicated that at least some of the “we” will sleep, as some have already fallen asleep (vv. 6, 18), and Paul had reason to believe that he could too (vv. 30–32). But all of the people in the sphere of “we,” whether they are asleep at the time or not, will be changed.
Will the Resurrection Involve Change or Exchange?
A fourth point of controversy related to the aforementioned debates about the nature of resurrection in Paul—whether it is bodily or not, in what sense there is continuity and/or discontinuity, and so on—is the meaning of the verb for “change”: ἀλλάσσω. It is sometimes suggested that this word could mean “exchange” in this context (as in Rom 1:23), so that the fates of both the dead and the living imply leaving one body behind and receiving an entirely new one. The parallel with the clothing language in vv. 53–54 could conceivably support this “exchange” interpretation as well, but in each case where ἐνδύω implies exchange of clothing, rather than simply focusing on what is put on, there is also a verb in the context that indicates the subject has taken something else off (Eph 4:22–24; Col 3:9–10). Otherwise, the concept is additive for something put on.
As for ἀλλάσσω itself, it is notable that, although bodies are clearly in the background of this description, given the discourse since v. 35, the syntax simply states “we” will be changed. What could it mean that “we” are exchanged?27 However, the statement that we will be changed, in the generally accessible sense of alteration or transformation (as opposed to a change of substance, as Troels Engberg-Pedersen argues),28 functions well enough as a general statement for Paul to give further detail to later.29 This is indeed the function of this declaration of mystery, on which Paul expounds.
Perhaps the clearest indication that Paul is using a transformative sense of ἀλλάσσω and an additive (rather than exchanging) sense of ἐνδύω is his use of the demonstrative pronoun τοῦτο in vv. 53–54. It is “this” body that must be clothed with the qualities of the resurrection body in order for it to be transformed. Multiple ancient authors described Paul as tactilely pointing to his own body when he says “this,” and such an account is certainly plausible in the context of a reader performing a public reading (Tertullian, Res. 51; Origen, Princ. 2.3.2; Rufinus, Symb. 45; cf. Jerome, Jo. Hier. 29).30 But in any case, Paul states that it is this present body, the body currently characterized by corruptibility and mortality, that must be clothed. Furthermore, Paul’s use of Scripture below indicates that it is not the body that is swallowed up, as the metaphor of “exchange” might demand, but the death that dominates the present mortal body. This body is rescued, redeemed, and renewed, not replaced.
One of the terms Paul uses for describing the transformation is ἀφθαρσία, one he has already used, while he also introduces another synonymous term for what the body must receive: ἀθανασία (“immortality”).31 Peter Carnley, in line with his larger assumptions that align with Engberg-Pedersen and others, thinks that the use of both terms arises from Plato’s influence on Paul. In his reasoning, this supports the idea that Paul expected a transformation of substance, so that the resurrection body would be composed of spirit, since Plato applies these terms and the associated adjectives to the soul/ψυχή.32 Of course, this analysis has already noted several reasons why this construal of Paul’s argument is unconvincing. It is also notable that Paul never associates the ψυχή with immortality in any fashion, through use of the terms discussed here or otherwise, a peculiar fact about someone apparently influenced by Plato in this crucial aspect of his eschatology. More generally, this reading overestimates the influence of Plato at the time (Plutarch, Mor. 328e; Suetonius, Nero 52; Origen, Cels. 6.1–2) and underestimates the importance of other contexts for this language, to which I now must turn.33
The noun only appears elsewhere in the NT in 1 Tim 6:16 as an attribute of God alone. It is also nearly absent from Second Temple Jewish writing. The only exceptions are in Jos. Asen. 8:5 and 15:1–4, where the term is associated with benefits of worshiping God. Outside of Plato and other references to the soul and associated entities, the term was used in Greek literature for a quality of the gods (Isocrates, Panath. 260; Apollodorus 2.7 §160; 3.11 §137; Maximius, Dial. 40.1.g; 41.4.h). Much more frequently, the associated adjective ἀθἀνατος applied to the gods, especially in the foundational works of Homer and Hesiod.34 Indeed, Plato and other philosophers applied the associated terms to the soul to convey its divinity.35
In light of these uses, and in light of Paul’s use of ἀφθαρσία previously in this chapter, one should likewise see ἀθανασία as referring to the communication of God’s life. What the resurrection deniers might have thought was the reserve of God/the gods and heroes by special dispensation, based on the traditions in which they were raised, and possibly of the soul, based on philosophical influence, Paul now insists is what God wills for them all as embodied beings. The life of God is available as God’s gracious gift not only to his Son the Christ, who the deniers might have analogized to the heroes of their myths, but to all who are in Christ, both living and dead.36 Those who are in union with Christ by the Holy Spirit are also in union with God and will receive the same life of God by virtue of that union. With God communicating his own qualities in this union, one can also see an indirect expression of the second foundation of God’s inexorable, faithful love in this transformation. The transformation given to the living, like the transformative resurrection of the dead, thus fulfills God’s creative will of making humans in his image and likeness.
James D. G. Dunn, “How Are the Dead Raised? With What Body Do They Come? Reflections on 1 Corinthians 15,” SwJT 45 (2002): 13.
John Gillman, “Transformation in 1 Cor 15,50-53,” ETL 58 (1982): 317–18, 328–29; Ronald J. Sider, “The Pauline Conception of the Resurrection Body in 1 Corinthians XV.35–54,” NTS 21 (1974–75): 437.
Timothy A. Brookins and Bruce W. Longenecker, 1 Corinthians 10-16: A Handbook on the Greek Text, BHGNT (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 180.
Sider, “Pauline Conception,” 437; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000), 1297; James P. Ware, “Paul’s Understanding of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:36–54,” JBL 133 (2014): 825.
Elaine H. Pagels, Mystery of the Resurrection: A Gnostic Reading of 1 Corinthians 15,” JBL 93 (1974): 286; Jennifer R. Strawbridge, “How the Body of Lazarus Helps to Solve a Pauline Problem,” NTS 63 (2017): 589–91.
Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Progress and End of History, Life after Death, and the Resurrection of the Human Person in Christianity,” trans. David W. Lutz, in Progress, Apocalypse, and Completion of History and Life after Death of the Human Person in the World Religions, ed. Peter Koslowski (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 85.
E.-B. Allo, Saint Paul: Première Èpitre aux Corinthiens, 2nd ed. (Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1956), 431; Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2014), 884; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, AB 32 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 603; Paul Gardner, 1 Corinthians, ZECNT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 722; John Gillman, “A Thematic Comparison: 1 Cor 15:50-57 and 2 Cor 5:1-5,” JBL 107 (1988): 443; Gillman, “Transformation,” 316–19; Sarah Harding, Paul’s Eschatological Anthropology: The Dynamics of Human Transformation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 399–400; Andrew Clinton Johnson, “On Removing a Trump Card: Flesh and Blood and the Reign of God,” BBR 13 (2003): 182; Brian John Schmisek, The ‘Spiritual Body’ as Oxymoron in 1 Corinthians 15:44,” BTB 45 (2015): 236; Eckhard J. Schnabel, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, Historisch Theologische Auslegung (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 2006), 980–81; Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor. 15,1-16,24), EKKNT 7/4 (Düsseldorf: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 368; N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 359; Dieter Zeller, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, KEK 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 519.
I owe this point to Gardner, 1 Corinthians, 723.
For more, see Gardner, 1 Corinthians, 723–26. Gillman, “Transformation,” 319 observes that the emphasis on Adam as the one through whom sin entered the world is absent here and so he thinks Paul is simply referring to mortality as such. But one wonders if Paul needed to make this point emphatically for his audience to understand the connection. Given how he traces the relationship of sin and death in vv. 17 and 56 in such abbreviated form, he seems to think of it as something he can safely assume would be comprehensible to this familiar audience, as opposed to the Romans context (5:12–21) in which he perceived a need to spell it out further.
Joachim Jeremias, “Flesh and Blood Cannot Inherit the Kingdom of God,” NTS 2 (1956): 151–59. Cf. C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1968), 379; Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians, ConBNT 29 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1998), 273; Johnson, “Trump,” 185–88. Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 2nd ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1914), 376 adumbrated Jeremias’s argument, but Jeremias made it more extensively and scholars tend to make arguments for and against it today with reference to him. For a more extensive review of scholarship on the type of parallelism, see Gillman, “Transformation,” 310–15.
Fee, Corinthians, 884.
Andrew C. Perriman, “Paul and the Parousia: 1 Corinthians 15:50-57 and 2 Corinthians 5:1-5,” NTS 35 (1989): 514; Schrage, Korinther, 368–69; Ben Witherington III, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 199–200.
Wolfgang Kraus and Martin Kraus, “On Eschatology in Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians,” in Eschatology of the New Testament and Some Related Documents, ed. Jan G. van der Watt, WUNT 2/315 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 210, 217; William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther, 1 Corinthians, AB 32 (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 319, 340; Winfried Verburg, Endzeit und Entschlafene: Syntaktisch-sigmatische, semantische und pragmatische Analyse von 1 Kor 15, FB 78 (Würzburg: Echter, 1996), 283–85.
If this were the reason for the denial, one might expect Paul to pronounce a word on target by saying that if Christ has not been raised, then there will be no Parousia. This would be a natural outcome of what he says anyway, but why would he not emphasize this point?
Jürgen Becker, Auferstehung der Toten im Urchristentum, SBS 82 (Stuttgart: KBW, 1976), 72.
Perriman, “Paul and the Parousia,” 512.
As in the Greek of 2 Cor 7:3, this attachment of the negative to the verb actually negates another part of the sentence. Cf. Barrett, Corinthians, 380; John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis, WUNT 410 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 587 n. 83; David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 748; Schrage, Korinther, 370.
Karl Staab, ed., Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche, 2nd ed. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1984), 11.
Aquinas, Comm. 1 Cor. §§1002–1004, 1011 attests to both Reading A and Reading D, arguing the Latin preference for Reading D.
Perriman, “Paul and the Parousia,” 513.
Perriman, “Paul and the Parousia,” 513.
Perriman, “Paul and the Parousia” 515–16 offers a peculiar interpretation of those who “sleep” as a restatement of the failure to inherit, referring specifically to those who are not in Christ (so that it can be translated “we all will not sleep”). I describe this interpretation as peculiar because it does not fit with the three previous uses of the verb in this chapter (vv. 6, 18, 20), nor with the other uses in 1 Corinthians (7:39; 11:30), nor with his earlier teaching (1 Thess 4:13–15). If this was Paul’s point, he chose a needlessly obscure fashion to convey it.
Ben F. Meyer, “Did Paul’s View of the Resurrection of the Dead Undergo Development?” TS 47 (1986): 378 (italics original).
For fuller responses to claims surrounding these texts and others, see Meyer, “Development,” 363–87; Witherington, Jesus, passim.
In the words of Thiselton, “In 1 Thessalonians 4 and in 1 Corinthians 15 the exclusion of we or not all would simply denote a lack of seriousness in regarding the issue as genuinely possible as well as open: Paul’s major concern is God’s orderly plan for humankind as a corporeity, and for believers as the corporate body of Christ.” Thiselton, Corinthians, 1294–95 (emphases original).
B. J. Oropeza, 1 Corinthians, NCCS (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017), 219.
I owe this point to Andrew W. Pitts, “Paul’s Concept of the Resurrection Body in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58,” in Paul and Gnosis, ed. Stanley E. Porter and David Yoon, PAST 9 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 57.
Troels Engberg-Pedersen, “Complete and Incomplete Transformation in Paul: A Philosophical Reading of Paul on Body and Spirit,” in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity, ed. Turid Karlsen Seim and Jorunn Økland (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 126–28; Engberg-Pedersen, “The Material Spirit: Cosmology and Ethics in Paul,” NTS 55 (2009): 185–87.
Ware, “Paul’s Understanding,” 830–31.
Cf. Pitts, “Paul’s Concept,” 57; Robertson and Plummer, Corinthians, 377.
I have not yet found an appropriate positive translation of this term that does not assimilate it to “everlasting life” or to my translation of ἀφθαρσία. Thus, I default to the standard negative translation of “immortal” or “deathless.”
Peter Carnley, The Reconstruction of Resurrection Belief (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019), 269–88; Carnley, Resurrection in Retrospect: A Critical Examination of the Theology of N. T. Wright (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019), 245–51.
Cf. Paul J. Brown, Bodily Resurrection and Ethics in 1 Cor 15, WUNT 2/360 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 81–84; Dag Øistein Endsjø, “Immortal Bodies, before Christ: Bodily Continuity in Ancient Greece and 1 Corinthians,” JSNT 30 (2008): 418–19.
From pre-Platonic writers: Homer, Il. 1.520; 2.741; 3.158, 298, 308; 4.64, 128; 5.130, 442, 882; 6.108; 7.102; 10.441, 463; 12.9; 13.19, 525, 818; 14.434; 15.73, 85, 96, 107; 17.78; 18.116, 420; 20.347; 21.2, 380, 476, 500; 22.366; 24.135, 464; Od. 1.31, 67, 79, 201, 420; 2.432; 3.2, 47, 242, 346; 4.479, 592; 5.447; 8.343, 348, 352; 10.2; 11.133, 602; 13.128; 14.53, 119; 16.265; 18.112; 21.365; 23.280; 24.64, 371, 444, 447; Hesiod, Theog. 43, 57, 118–120, 204, 272, 296, 302, 373, 391, 394, 407, 415, 588, 624, 766, 775, 804, 968; Op. 62, 110, 336, 668; Euripides, Phoen. 235; Bacc. 522–525; Sophocles, Oed. tyr. 903–905; Herodotus 2.44; 7.148. Herodotus says that the Egyptians were the first to teach that the human soul is immortal (2.123). For a few examples of post-Platonic writers, see Apoc. Mos. 28:3–4; Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.30, 33, 36, 41; 4.55. Also see the inscriptions of IG II2 3830; 12403; IG IV2,1 128; 129; IG V,1 960; 1186; IG XII,3 28; 1345; SEG 6:402; 46:313; Epigr. tou Oropou 308; FD III 2:191; Smyrna 277; Milet VI,2 738; TAM VI,1 75; IK Iznik 1352; LBW 1188; MAMA I 229; 230; 267; MAMA III 119 (and many others from this collection that refer to God as “the only immortal”).
Endsjø, “Immortal Bodies,” 429: “To become immortal was the same as becoming divine. And, just as in Christianity, the move from mortality to immortality involved a physical transformation of the body. When the various men and women became immortal, this meant that their bodies received the same incorruptible nature as that of the divine bodies.” Obviously, Plato and other philosophers dissolved this bond of body and soul but maintained the association of the concept with divinity. For some examples of those who became immortalized in a bodily fashion, see Endsjø, Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 64–99; K. R. Harriman, “A Synthetic Proposal About the Corinthian Resurrection Deniers,” NovT 62 (2020): 192–94. For other references to immortal bodies and the immortal “ichor,” see Cook, Empty Tomb, 323–29.
For more on the relationship of resurrection and immortality, see Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 209–36.