As I have already noted (see §3.2, §4.3.2, §4.3.4.b), 1 Cor 15 is Paul’s most extensive discussion of the resurrection, and it is organized around three distinct and related sections (15:1-11; 12-34; 35-58; the final unit can be subdivided into15:35-49 and 15:50-58). Its inclusion in 1 Cor 15 is particularly relevant because it is one of two texts where Paul juxtaposes Adam with Jesus Christ; in both instances Paul uses this typology to inform his readers about the implications of the Christ event (cf. Rom 5:12-21). Additionally, in 15:45, Paul cites a modified version of Gen 2:7, weaving several of the creation themes into his discourse (e.g., ‘ground’, ‘earth’, ‘image’). What becomes clear is that for Paul the
distinctives of the new creation inaugurated by Jesus Christ are further clarified by way of first creation themes and motifs.
The questions presented in 15:35, ‘How are the dead raised?’ and ‘With what kind of body do they come?’ indicate that the Corinthians were confused about the modality and the corporeal dimensions of the resurrection. The nature and source of their misunderstanding is unclear, yet scholars have suggested a number of possibilities. One proposal that is not as prevalent among scholars today is that some members of the Corinthian community, persuaded by spiritual enthusiasts, had adopted an over-realized eschatology which posited that the resurrection had already taken place. This view correlates to the situation in Ephesus as reflected by the teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus (2 Tim 2:16-18).140 Another
commonly proposed interpretive option is that some denied an embodied resurrection. This would be reflective of the Platonic philosophical traditions that were prevalent within such Hellenistic centers as Corinth; these traditions were characterized by a ‘tempered dualism’ that considered the material creation a ‘copy’ of the heavenly realm and denied outright the possibility of an embodied resurrection.141 Regardless of which proposed reading reflects the
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139 Although my analysis is here limited primarily to 1 Cor 15, many scholars suggest that Paul’s Adam
Christology expands into many other texts. For a brief discussion of the options, see Fee, Christology, 513– 14. Also see M. Hooker, “Adam”.
140 See for example, Fee, 1 Corinthians, 10–12.
141 The notion of a bodily resurrection would have been offensive and incomprehensible to those with this kind
of dualistic view (cf. 6:12-20; Acts 17:32). A few representative presentations of this view include, C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (BNTC; London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968), 374–75; B. A. Pearson, The Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in 1 Corinthians (SBLDS;
actual historical situation, Paul’s three-fold response (15:12-34; 35-49; 50-58) effectively counters both extremes by denying a disembodied future existence and by exhorting the Corinthians to a balanced eschatological realism in the present.142 Here I further explore the
Adam/Christ typology that Paul develops in response to the Corinthians’ misunderstandings. In the second major unit (15:12-34), Paul develops the implications of his antithetical presentation of ‘death’ and ‘resurrection of the dead’ (15:21) by way of a double parallelism of Adam and Christ (1 Cor 15:21-22):
ε’πειδη` γα`ρ δι• α’νθρω'που, θα'νατος, και` δι• α’νθρω'που, α’να'στασις νεκρωñν. ε’πειδη` ω«σπερ γα`ρ ε’ν τωñ, Α’ δα`μ πα'ντες α’ποθνη',σκουσιν, ου«τως και` ε’ν τωñ, Χριστωñ, πα'ντες ζω,οποιηθη'σονται.
The first clause, ‘through a man comes death’, is most often considered a concise summary of Gen 3:17-19 and read in light of Rom 5:12, which states that ‘sin came through one man and death through sin’.143 In these verses in 1 Corinthians, however, it more likely references the
Gen 2:7 narrative of the creation of Adam. Paul’s point here is not to explain sin and/or disobedience (Gen 3:17-19; cf. Rom 5:12-21) but, rather, to distinguish between types of ‘bodies’.144 This text is the entry point into the text he later develops in 1 Cor 15:42-50 where
his reference to Gen 2:7 becomes explicit. In the creation narrative, the breath of God made Adam ‘a living being’ (15:45), but it did not make him immortal.145 Thus, the emphasis
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Against the Background of Jewish Sapiential Traditions in the Greco-Roman Period (Lanham/New
York/London: University Press of America, 1984); Martin, Body, 104–36; Engberg-Pedersen,
Cosmology, 8–74. For more general discussion of how cosmologies in the ancient world fueled speculations
on the form of the afterlife, see E. Adams, “Graeco-Roman and Ancient Jewish Cosmology,” in Cosmology
and New Testament Theology (LNTS; New York: T & T Clark, 2008), 5–27.
142 For a succinct yet thorough analysis of these interpretive options see, Thiselton, First Corinthians, 1,288. 143 The motif of Adam as the culprit for death was a common theme in Jewish works. For example, 4 Ezra 3:5-7,
20-21; 4:30-31; 7:118-119; 2 Baruch 17:2-3; 23:4; 48:42-43; 53:14; 19; 56:6; Jubilees 3:17-25; 4:29-30;
Life of Adam and Eve 13:8-9; Wis 10:11.
144 Beker convincingly develops Paul’s discussion here as grounded in an apocalyptic framework of the two
ages. See J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 100, 135–81.
145 See a discussion of this in P. C. Bouteneff, Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation
Narratives (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 43; W. P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 89. See also the insight
of J. Barr, who correctly observes, “The story [Gen 1-3] nowhere says that Adam, before his disobedience, was immortal, was never going to die. . . . To die was human; only gods — generally speaking — lived for ever” (5). See Barr, Garden, 5–20.
throughout this chapter is on the mortality of Adam’s body; it is physical, living, from the earth, and more graphically described as from the dust. In other words, it is perishable and subject to death. Paul’s argument is that all humanity shares in death because Adam, as the first human, stands as the origin for the process of death.
Paul then juxtaposes another α»νθρωπος to the representative first α»νθρωπος. This human, however, reverses the process of death through resurrection, clearly alluding back to verse 20. The next set of parallel clauses (15:22) identifies each respectively as Adam and Christ and then further articulates the universal consequences of each: namely, ‘all die’ and ‘all will be made alive’.146 Of particular interest here are the implications of ζω,οποιε'ω in the
final clause. First, this verb both echoes the original creation account where God breathes life into humanity (ε’νεφυ'σησεν . . . πνοη`ν ζωηñς, Gen 2:7, LXX), and it anticipates 15:45 where Paul cites a modified form of the final clause of Gen 2:7 and then adds ο‘ ε»σχατος Α’ δα`μ ει’ς πνευñμα ζω,οποιουñν. Semantically, ζω,οποιε'ω is also closely related to ζω,ογονε'ω, which is regularly used in the LXX with God as the subject.147 Thus, through semantic resonance, Paul
draws a parallel between God breathing life into Adam in the first creation narrative and Christ serving as the life-giving source of life in the new creation.148 C. Beker suggests that
this typology ‘operates not in terms of continuity but in terms of discontinuity. Here the last (eschatological) Adam reverses radically what the first Adam has initiated in world history (Rom 5:12-21; cf. 1 Cor 15:20-22) so that the dualistic apocalyptic thrust of the Adam typology underscores the radical newness of God’s act in Christ’.149
These verses establish Jesus Christ as the eschatological turning point of the ages with the resurrection as the inaugural event. As Fee concludes, these verses establish that as ‘the “man” who stands at the beginning of the old creation brought death into the world, so also it is the “man” who stands at the beginning of the new creation who has brought bodily
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146 This is likely not a reference to a general or universal resurrection. In 15:18 and 15:23, Paul clearly has the
church in view, and likewise, this text should be read within that ecclesiological framework. See the discussion by Beker, Triumph, 303–27. Also Fee, 1 Corinthians, 749–50.
147 For example, Neh 9:6; 2 Kgs 5:7; Ps 70:20; 2 Sam 2:6; Ezra 9:8-9; Jos. Asen. 8:10. See also Bultmann,
“ζωοποιε'ω,” TDNT, 2:874-875.
148 The NT attributes this life-giving function to God, Christ, and the Spirit, see for example, Rom 4:17; 8:10-
11; 2 Cor 3:2-6; John 5:21-24; 1 Pet 3:18; and so on. See Minear, New Creation, 71–72.
resurrection into the world. The analogy is straightforward, and the emphasis is on Christ’s human role in the new creation’.150 In 15:23-28, Paul immediately follows these verses with
an outline of the sequence of events that will ultimately unfold in the eschaton, as Christ, God’s Son, hands the kingdom back to God (§3.2).
Paul returns to the Adam/Christ typology in 1 Cor 15:42-49. Semantically, this
passage is connected to the immediately preceding analogy by the adverbial phrase ου«τως και' and to the larger sub-unit by its response to the introductory question ‘With what kind of body do they come?’(15:35b-41). Certainly the reoccurrence of σωñμα seven times in these verses indicates the prominence of Paul’s desire to correct misguided notions.151 One of the first
distinctives of this unit is its shift from subtle echoes of the creation narrative as observable truisms drawn from nature (15:38-41; cf. Gen 1:11-26) to an explicit citation from Scripture that juxtaposes the first Adam with the second Adam (15:45-49).152 By placing this explicit
reference between the texts that allude to the creation narrative and by making use of a sown seed analogy (1 Cor 15:42-44), Paul clarifies the relationship between the physical body (σωñμα ψυχικο'ν) and the spiritual body (σωñμα πνευματικο'ν). These verses are organized with four parallel pairs of contrasting clauses that use vocabulary from earlier in the letter.153,154
Within each of these clauses, the repetition of the verbs σπει'ρω and ε’γει'ρω keeps alive the immediately preceding analogy yet applies the metaphor to the sown seeds and the raised body. This literary anaphora contrasts features of the present with the future, paradoxically affirming genuine discontinuity between the present body and its future bodily expression while simultaneously maintaining continuity through the use of σωñμα. The final two binary contrasting clauses depart from this pattern by excluding the repetition of ε’ν as well as
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150 Fee, Christology, 516.
151 1 Cor 15:35, 37, 38 (2x), 44 (3x).
152 Minear suggests that the intertextual density of Genesis within 1 Cor 15 is so pervasive that “it served as a
map of Paul’s thought world.” See Minear, New Creation, xiii. Also note Fee’s observation that the different types of flesh are drawn from the fifth and sixth days of the original creation, Fee, 1 Corinthians, 783.
153 For example, φθορα' and α’φθαρσι'α are unique to this letter which may indicate their distinctive use among
the Corinthians. The next contrast between α’τιμι'α and δο'ξα echo an earlier text where Paul identifies the Corinthians as those who are “held in honor” in comparison to himself who is in “disrepute” (4:10). The final pair α’σθε'νεια and δυ'ναμις also picks up prior themes when Paul compares himself with those at Corinth (e.g., 1:24f; 4:10; cf. 2 Cor 12:10; 13:3, 9). See also G. E. Sterling, “‘Wisdom Among the Perfect:’ Creation Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism and Corinthian Christianity,” NovT 47, no. 4 (1995): 354–84 (357).
introducing a combination of vocabulary that is unique to this text (σωñμα ψυχικο'ν and σωñμα πνευματικο'ν).
The combination of σωñμα with πνευματικο'ν is likely significant as well. Scholars have often noted the disproportionate amount of attention Paul gives to πνευματικο'ς in this letter, perhaps indicating that it was a Corinthian catch phrase or preoccupation (e.g., 2:13- 16). If there were those who denied bodily resurrection, then the use of πνευματικο'ς to describe the raised, imperishable σωñμα would have been a troubling oxymoron. This makes identifying precisely what Paul envisions here difficult. Fee suggests, ‘The transformed body, therefore, is not composed of “spirit”; it is a body adapted to the eschatological existence that is under the ultimate domination of the Spirit’.155 Whereas C. Wolff more precisely states,
‘The spiritual body of the resurrection (der pneumatische Auferstehungsleib) is through and through a body under the control of the divine Spirit, according to v. 45 a creation of Christ (cf. also vv. 21-22) who is “the life-giving Spirit”’156 Given the goals of my study, it is not
critical to outline the different possibilities of what might constitute the spiritual, resurrected body, but what is relevant is that Paul here wishes to emphasize that Jesus Christ, as the first fruits of future resurrection, has inaugurated an entirely new reality within the first cosmos. In part, this eschatological reality is one feature of what Paul understands as the new creation.
To support this assertion, Paul shifts from abstract descriptors to a scriptural citation (15:44b, γε'γραπται; 15:45-49). He offers a modified reading of Gen 2:7 (LXX) to logically substantiate and explain the immediately preceding thesis (Ει’ ε»στιν σωñμα ψυχικο'ν, ε»στιν και` πνευματικο'ν, 15:44). The primary text (Gen 2:7, LXX) and Paul’s hermeneutical addenda are included below with Paul’s additions underlined for reference:
και` ε»πλασεν ο‘ θεο`ς το`ν α»νθρωπον χουñν α’πο` τηñς γηñς και` ε’νεφυ'σησεν ει’ς το` προ'σωπον αυ’τουñ πνοη`ν ζωηñς και` ε’γε'νετο ο‘ α»νθρωπος ει’ς ψυχη`ν ζωñσαν (Gen 2:7, LXX) ε’γε'νετο ο‘ πρωñτος α»νθρωπος Α’ δα`μ, ει’ς ψυχη`ν ζωñσαν, ο‘ ε»σχατος Α’ δα`μ ει’ς πνευñμα ζω,οποιουñν (1 Cor 15:45-46) ---
155 Fee, 1 Corinthians, 786. See also 1 Cor 6:17 and 2 Cor 5:1. These analogies seem to confirm a new form of
the body.
156 C. Wolff, “Exkurs: Deutungsvorschläge zu 1 Kor 15:29,” in Der erste Brief der Paulus an die Korinther
Although the language in Paul’s citation may reflect a textual tradition no longer extant, it is more likely that it reflects an intentional modification that was necessary to counter the Corinthians’ misunderstandings. Paul adds the terms πρωñτος and Α’ δα`μ to modify α»νθρωπος. The significance of these qualifiers becomes apparent with Paul’s added interpretive clause: ο‘ ε»σχατος Α’ δα`μ ει’ς πνευñμα ζω,οποιουñν.157 Through the addition of πρωñτος and ε»σχατος, Paul
establishes a contrasting parallel between the first created Adam and the last Adam.158 C. D.
Stanley describes this as a hermeneutical foundation for the flow of the argument: ‘the addition brings to formal expression the fundamental contrast between Adam and Christ . . . that forms the backbone of the ensuing argument’.159
The description of the last Adam as πνευñμα ζω,οποιουñν echoes two themes embedded in the phrase πνοη`ν ζωηñς (Gen 2:7), and it further develops what was introduced in 1 Cor 15:21-22. Πνοη' and πνευñμα are related semantically, and the shift from ζωη' to ζω,οποιε'ω is significant. Just as the first creation was enlivened by God breathing ‘a breath of life’ into humanity, Christ as ‘life-giving Spirit’ substantiates the ongoing creative work of God inaugurated by the second Adam, Jesus Christ. As I have already noted, a clear distinction is made here in that the first human was given life, not immortality; only through Christ is immortality possible. Andrew Lincoln identifies the significance of this semantic connection: whereas the first Adam was the recipient of life, the second Adam ‘has a new quality of life, for as πνευñμα ζω,οποιουñν he is no longer merely alive and susceptible to death but rather has now become creatively life-giving’.160 This contrast is emphatic, as Paul explicitly describes
the unique role of Christ as the source/beginning point of the eschatological new creation. As I discussed earlier in this chapter (§4.3.2), in the following passage (1 Cor 15:47- 49), Paul develops the parallel between the first and second Adam to clarify their roles as
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157 As noted by some scholars, 15:45b is cited by Paul as if he perceives it as part of Scripture, see Conzelmann,
1 Corinthians, 284.
158 M. D. Hooker, From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 28. 159 C. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and
Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 208. See also J. D. G.
Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, MI/ Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 200; D. Koch,
Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums (Tübingen: Mohr, 1986), 134–37.
160 A. Lincoln, Paradise Now and not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought
with Special Reference to His Eschatology (SNTSMS; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 43–
representative figures. This further distinguishes between the first creation and the new
creation by emphasizing the continuity and discontinuity between the two Adams. The second human is described as ε’ξ ου’ρανουñ whereas the first human is described as ε’κ γηñς χοι¨κο'ς. Paul brings this didactic section to a crescendo by shifting from singular to plural (οι‘ χοι¨κοι' to οι‘ ε’πουρα'νιοι), thereby extending the analogy collectively to groups or classes of human persons, including his Corinthian readers.
These texts demonstrate that when Paul seeks to explain the radical newness which the Christ event has inaugurated, he goes back to the very beginning. By juxtaposing Adam with Christ, the universality of what each represents comes into sharper focus. Christ
overcomes mortality and as the life-giving Spirit he is aligned with the creative power of the primal Creator in Genesis — yet Christ represents the new creation of God. This text provides a clear example of how the Christ event has shifted the epicenter for Paul and of how
important origins are for his theology. For those in Christ, ‘in the beginning’ of Gen 1:1 has become eclipsed by ‘in the new beginning, in Jesus Christ’. Yet this is not only grounded on the distinctions between the two representative humans but also on their continuity; the resurrection is predicated on the incarnation and the relationship that Christ has with creation.