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The Nature of Paul's Early Eschatology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Richard N. Longenecker
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Extract

It is fairly common today to explain the development of New Testament thought along the lines of an early fixation on the future and progressive shifts brought about by the parousia's delay. On such a view, it was apocalyptic eschatology that dominated Paul's outlook in his early days, while soteriology, christology, ecclesiology and ethics came to assume importance only later. Few scholars, of course, lay out Paul's thought quite so explicitly as that. Yet it is something like that which has become fairly fixed in the minds of many.

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New Testament Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 1985, pp. 85 - 95
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

NOTES

[1] E.g. Käsemann, E.: ‘Ever since the eschatological understanding of the New Testament replaced the idealistic interpretation, we can and must determine the various phases of earliest Christian history by means of the original imminent expectation of the parousia, its modifications and its final extinction’ (New Testament Questions of Today, trans. Montague, W. J. [London: SCM Press, 1969] 236–7).Google Scholar

[2] Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892Google Scholar; 2nd. ed. 1902); ET = Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, trans. Hiers, R. H. and Holland, D. L. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971).Google Scholar

[3] The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. Montgomery, W. (London: A. & C. Black, 1910) 222–401Google Scholar. See also The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, trans. Lowrie, W. (London: A. & C. Black, 1914Google Scholar); The Psychiatric Study of Jesus, trans. Joy, C. R. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948Google Scholar); The Kingdom of God and Primitive Christianity, trans. Garrard, L. A. (London: A. & C. Black, 1968).Google Scholar

[4] Quest of the Historical Jesus, 365 ff.Google Scholar

[5] The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, trans. Montgomery, W. (London: A. & C. Black, 1931) 52 ff.Google Scholar

[6] Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols., trans. Grobel, K. (New York: Scribner, 1951, 1955) 1, 4Google Scholar (italics his). See also Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting, trans. Fuller, R. H. (London: Thames & Hudson, 1956) 86–93Google Scholar; History and Eschatology (Edinburgh: The University Press, 1957) 29–37.Google Scholar

[7] Theology of the New Testament, 1, 5–11Google Scholar; Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting, 87–8.Google Scholar

[8] Theology of the New Testament, 1, 189.Google Scholar

[9] Ibid., I, 74–9; History and Eschatology, 38–55.Google Scholar

[10] Cf. New Testament Questions of Today, 108–37; 236–51Google Scholar; Perspectives on Paul, trans. Kohl, M. (London: SCM Press, 1971) 123–4.Google Scholar

[11] Cf. ‘The Mind of Paul: Change and Development’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 18 (1934) 3–44Google Scholar (now in New Testament Studies [Manchester University Press, 1953] 83–128).Google Scholar

[12] ‘The Mind of Paul: Change and Development’, BJRL, 18 (1934) 31Google Scholar (New Testament Studies, 113).Google Scholar

[13] ‘The Mind of Paul: Change and Development’, BJRL, 18 (1934) 27 ff.Google Scholar (New Testament Studies, 109 ff.).Google Scholar

[14] Saint Paul. A Study of the Development of His Thought (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1969) 12–13.Google Scholar

[15] The Origin of I Corinthians (New York: Seabury Press, 1965Google Scholar). See also ‘Pauline Chronology and Pauline Theology’, in Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, edd. Farmer, W. R., Moule, C. F. D., and Niebuhr, R. R. (Cambridge University Press, 1967) 225–48. Hurd is now working on the Thessalonian letters for the Anchor Bible.Google Scholar

[16] Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977) 431–556Google Scholar; esp. 552. Cf. also Beker's, J. C. recent two books: Paul the Apostle. The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980Google Scholar); and Paul's Apocalyptic Gospel. The Coming Triumph of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982).Google Scholar

[17] Ibid., 514–15.

[18] Ibid., 513.

[19] Cf. ‘On the Concept of Development in Pauline Thought’, in Perspectives on Evangelical Theology, edd. Kantzer, K. S. and Gundry, S. N. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979) 195–207.Google Scholar

[20] Cf. Origin of I Corinthians.

[21] Commentary on I and II Thessalonians (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1950) 89Google Scholar; though note also Neil's shorter St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians (London: SCM Press, 1957), where a similar statement (i.e. ‘the same question gives the Thessalonian correspondence a characteristically eschatological flavour’) is appropriately tempered (83 ff.).Google Scholar

[22] The Parousia in the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1966) 108; though Moore also insists: ‘It is not, however, unimportant’.Google Scholar

[23] Ibid.

[24] Cf. Best, E., A Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians (London: A. & C. Black, 1972) 42–5.Google Scholar

[25] St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians (London: Macmillan, 1908) 46.Google Scholar

[26] A Commentary on St. Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians (London: Robert Scott, 1918) 57.Google Scholar

[27] Cf. Best, E., Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, 186–8.Google Scholar

[28] Cf. ‘Isolated Sayings of the Lord’, in New Testament Apocrypha, 2 vols., edd. Hennecke, E., Schneemelcher, W. and Wilson, R. McL. (London: Lutterworth Press, 1963) 1, 87–8Google Scholar; Unknown Sayings of Jesus, trans. Fuller, R. H. (London: S.P.C.K., 1964) 80–3.Google Scholar

[29] Cf. Davies, J. G., ‘The Genesis of Belief in an Imminent Parousia’, Journal of Theological Studies, 14 (1963) 104–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Best, E., Commentary on the First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, 189–93.Google Scholar

[30] St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904) 56.Google Scholar

[31] Cf. Ladd, G. E., ‘Why Not Prophetic-Apocalyptic?’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 76 (1957) 192–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[32] Cf. van Unnik, W. C.: ‘Has the delay of the parousia really wrought that havoc that it is sometimes supposed to have done, or did the early Christians react differently from the way modern scholars would have done? In the light of the history of early Christianity this effect of the Parousieverzögerung is highly overrated. The faith of the early Christians did not rest on a date but on the work of Christ’Google Scholar (‘Luke-Acts, a Storm Center in Contemporary Scholarship’, in Studies in Luke-Acts, edd. Keck, L. E. and Martyn, J. L. [Nashville: Abingdon, 1966] 28).Google Scholar

[33] Cf. Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London: S.P.C.K., 1948Google Scholar), passim and ‘Conclusion’. Also see the Preface to the fourth edition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), esp. xxix–xxxviii.Google Scholar