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Welcome to the Onscript podcast, your

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And if you'd like to

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donate to Onscript, you can

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do so onscript.study/ donate. Thanks

1:08

for listening. Well, welcome

1:10

to another episode of Onscript.

1:12

Today I am thrilled to

1:14

welcome Timothy Brookings. He's professor.

1:17

of early Christianity at the

1:19

University of St. Thomas in

1:21

Houston, and we're going to

1:24

be discussing today his 2024

1:26

monograph, Rediscovering the Wisdom

1:28

of the Corinthians, Paul,

1:31

Stoicism, and Spiritual Hierarchy,

1:33

published with Erdmans. You may

1:35

have heard of him before, because

1:38

this work serves as a sequel,

1:40

a revision, an update to his

1:42

acclaimed 2014 monograph,

1:44

Corinthian wisdom, Stoic philosophy.

1:47

and the ancient economy which

1:49

was an S-N-T-S book published

1:51

with Cambridge and it's such

1:53

this this 2024 book is

1:56

so well organized and argued

1:58

it's so crisply it's

2:00

a model really for how books

2:03

should be argued, that how

2:05

an argument should be executed,

2:07

and it leads the reader straight

2:09

back to the text, to

2:11

exegesis. It insists consistently on

2:14

the importance of exegesis. And

2:16

so this is rightly being

2:18

hailed as a hugely important

2:21

work in the development

2:23

of scholarship. on First Corinthians

2:25

and therefore of course Paul

2:27

generally. So it's a real

2:29

privilege to speak to you today.

2:31

Timothy, welcome to Onscript. Thank you

2:34

so much and thank you for

2:36

that kind introduction. It's really an

2:38

honor to be here. Well maybe you could

2:40

just start by telling us a bit

2:43

about your journey into biblical

2:45

scholarship, especially how your interest

2:47

in the wisdom of the Corinthians

2:49

first emerged. Yes, happy to do

2:52

that. I had taken Latin all

2:54

the way through school and it's

2:56

interesting it sort of started there.

2:58

This is a story of how

3:00

classics and biblical studies

3:02

intersected for me in a way

3:04

that seemed accidental but I think was

3:06

probably providential. So having a

3:08

Latin background through college even, biblical

3:11

studies was not yet a twinkle

3:13

in my eye. All I knew

3:15

was that I wanted to attend

3:17

seminary and had planned to become a

3:20

youth pastor. Upon starting seminary,

3:22

however, I quickly discovered that

3:24

I did not want to

3:26

be a youth pastor. And

3:29

my love of biblical studies,

3:31

particularly at the beginning, biblical

3:34

languages came alive, as I saw

3:36

how it related to my study

3:38

of Latin much earlier on. And

3:40

so from that point, I decided

3:42

to pursue a PhD, and the

3:44

question was... whether I wanted to

3:46

do it in classics or in

3:48

New Testament. And after wavering a

3:50

bit, I decided on New Testament

3:52

and headed to Baylor where I started

3:55

a PhD in 2008. And during my

3:57

first semester, I very quickly

3:59

realized how much biblical studies

4:01

and classics would intersect. And

4:04

my first semester I simultaneously

4:06

took seminars on First

4:09

Corinthians and a Latin course on

4:11

Seneca's letters. And I started

4:13

to draw some connections that eventually

4:15

led me to my dissertation

4:18

topic on First Corinthians, the Corinthians

4:20

Church. and the background of that

4:22

letter in relation to stoicism. Now

4:25

what you can't see on the

4:27

podcast, I think I can make

4:29

it out anyway, is the

4:31

low web, the low web classical

4:33

library editions. There's a lot of

4:36

them in the background here. Yeah,

4:38

that was not intentional, but I

4:40

mean, you really do bring all

4:42

of that learning to the table,

4:45

don't you, excellently with this

4:47

particular contribution. So what...

4:49

Is your argument in a nutshell?

4:51

Let's just say you've got

4:53

a couple of minutes to

4:55

explain it to an educated

4:58

MA student. They've done a

5:00

course in biblical studies. Maybe

5:02

they've read some Greek

5:05

language commentaries. I'm sorry,

5:07

commentaries on the Greek

5:09

text of Corinthian correspondence.

5:12

What is your elevator pitch in

5:14

a nutshell? Yes, so focusing on first

5:16

Corinthians one through four as I do

5:18

in the monograph in these chapters, these

5:21

chapters are all more or less

5:23

about wisdom. Paul was discoursing about

5:25

wisdom, but he's talking in a

5:27

negative way about what he ultimately

5:29

calls a human wisdom or a

5:31

wisdom of this world where Paul

5:33

doesn't actually elsewhere use wisdom

5:36

language very often. This has

5:38

led many interpreters or most

5:40

interpreters to believe. that there was

5:42

particularly a problem in the Christian

5:44

church about some wisdom that they

5:46

were enamored with or had espoused.

5:48

And over the history of modern interpretation

5:51

there have been many ideas about

5:53

what kind of wisdom this was,

5:55

whether it was to be related with

5:57

Greek philosophy or a popular philosophy.

6:00

some kind of Hellenistic

6:02

religiosity or some other ideology,

6:04

and most recently with the

6:06

wisdom of eloquence, the ability

6:09

to speak well as people learned

6:11

in school. And so what I

6:13

argue in this book, there are

6:16

elements of through the history of

6:18

modern interpretation, but nobody develops it

6:20

in the sort of specific way

6:23

that I do. And what I'm

6:25

doing is very different from

6:27

recent trends, particularly since the

6:30

1980s and 90s, in reconstructing

6:32

the wisdom of the Corinthians.

6:34

So what I argue is that

6:37

there were some in the Christian

6:39

church, not all, but who espoused

6:41

this wisdom and were calling themselves

6:43

wise men and understood themselves as

6:45

wise men in a stoic-like

6:48

way that I'll call sub-stoicism.

6:50

So it's this particular wisdom that

6:52

Paul is opposing, not necessarily all

6:54

wisdom or higher learning or anything

6:56

like that. But the second

6:58

component of this in chapters

7:00

one through four of First Corinthians,

7:03

is that this wisdom somehow intertwines

7:05

with a problem of factionalism. So

7:07

Paul tells us in 112, some of you

7:09

say I'm of Paul, others I'm of Apollus,

7:11

others I'm of Cephas, and others I'm of

7:13

Cephas, and others I'm of Cepus, and others

7:16

I am. of Christ. And so the

7:18

trick through the history of interpretation

7:20

has been not only to explain

7:22

what this wisdom was, but also

7:25

how it relates to the factions.

7:27

Thank you for answering so well

7:29

because I completely butchered the question.

7:31

I was almost tempted to stop

7:34

and let's just redo that. So

7:36

thank you. Now your new book,

7:38

this rediscovering the wisdom of the

7:40

Corinthians, is a sequel, you say,

7:43

of sorts to your earlier work.

7:45

that I mentioned earlier on. Could you

7:47

summarize without too many spoilers because

7:49

we're going to get into the

7:51

details? Could you summarize what's new

7:53

in this book and how your

7:55

thinking has evolved? Yes, it's a

7:57

great question because my thinking has...

8:00

involved some, as I mentioned

8:02

in the preface, although the

8:04

main or essential thesis remains

8:06

pretty much the same. And

8:08

so what I had argued

8:10

in the 2014 monograph that

8:12

came out of my dissertation,

8:14

one was an argument against

8:16

the going interpretation of this

8:18

wisdom, that it was a

8:20

wisdom of rhetoric or an

8:22

obsession with the sophistic movement.

8:24

tackle that largely through a

8:26

semantic argument and tracing wisdom

8:28

language in Greek and Roman

8:30

sources, the language of Sophia

8:32

and Sophos in Greek, sapientia

8:34

and sapiens in Latin. And

8:36

so there it's largely a

8:38

negative argument against the rhetorical

8:40

thesis initially. The second part

8:42

of that work was to

8:44

trace certain themes that I

8:46

think recur in the letter

8:48

and that recur in what

8:50

we know of the Corinthians

8:52

perspective. Based on places where

8:54

Paul seems to quote the

8:56

Corinthians, what we call the

8:58

Corinthians slogans, so looking at

9:00

their slogans, some other language

9:02

that's embedded in the letter

9:04

from the Corinthians, and some

9:06

of the recurring topics, I

9:08

identify some themes that I

9:10

think experimentally I look through

9:12

the problems in the letter

9:14

from chapters 1 to 15,

9:16

and I argue that many

9:19

of these problems, there's a

9:21

recurring theme that can be

9:23

traced to doctrines that are

9:25

distinctive of stoicism. So what

9:27

I wasn't able to do

9:29

in that monograph because I

9:31

was doing a sweeping look

9:33

at the entire letter is

9:35

really focus in and do

9:37

for one a proper exegesis

9:39

that really tested this at

9:41

a granular level. And so

9:43

the new monograph focuses on

9:45

chapters one through four as

9:47

opposed to the entire letter

9:49

and spends about 40% of

9:51

the book doing an exegesis

9:53

of these in the way

9:55

that a good Greek level

9:57

commentary would. testing current theories

9:59

or reconstructions about what's happening

10:01

in chapters one through four

10:03

as I begin to test

10:05

and build a case for

10:07

my own thesis. So the

10:09

second thing that's different is

10:11

that I look at the

10:13

Corinthians stoic-like view or their

10:15

substotism at a more technical

10:17

level of stoic doctrine. And

10:19

then finally, I offer a

10:21

more developed reconstruction of how

10:23

their wisdom roommates to the

10:25

factions, the nature of those

10:27

factions. And this is where

10:29

I differ even from my

10:31

2020 commentary. I argue here

10:33

that it was the Paul

10:35

faction, in fact, that were

10:38

the Wiseman and that they

10:40

had interpreted him in such

10:42

a way that led to

10:44

their subsidism, although I think

10:46

Paul would have said they

10:48

had misinterpreted him. Yeah, brilliant.

10:50

And we're going to come

10:52

to that point, I hope,

10:54

towards the end, where you

10:56

really nailed this down. And

10:58

I think it's the last,

11:00

the last chapter. The book

11:02

is... structured in three parts.

11:04

So maybe we'll just dive

11:06

straight into the first part,

11:08

which is rediscovering the wisdom

11:10

of the Corinthians, where you're

11:12

looking at modern scholarship and

11:14

some methodological issues. And I

11:16

found this particularly challenging. I

11:18

mean, it was going over

11:20

some older ground that you

11:22

covered in your first monograph,

11:24

but I must admit I

11:26

used to be quite swayed

11:28

by the on a shame

11:30

approach. patrons and clients. So

11:32

this was a very helpful

11:34

overview of modern scholarship on

11:36

First Corinthians 1 to 4.

11:38

Can you outline some of

11:40

the dominant trends in the

11:42

scholarship on those chapters and

11:44

why you believe that the

11:46

recent consensus has missed the

11:48

mark? Yeah, so there's a

11:50

particular stage in the history

11:52

of interpretation of First Corinthians.

11:54

That has a lot to

11:57

do with broader trends on

11:59

what's been happening. in biblical

12:01

studies since say the 1970s.

12:03

And one line is the

12:05

socio historical line or sociological

12:07

interpretation. interpretations that were common.

12:09

at that particular time, like

12:11

a patron client system. Another

12:13

trend that's been prevalent since

12:15

around the same time is

12:17

looking at the biblical text

12:19

through the categories of ancient

12:21

rhetoric, what we'll call rhetorical

12:23

criticism. And I think it's

12:25

partly also the interest in

12:27

rhetorical criticism that led scholars

12:29

to look anew at first

12:31

Corinthians and say, ha, I

12:33

wonder here if it's an

12:35

infatuation with rhetoric. that's in

12:37

fact the problem in the

12:39

church and the wisdom that

12:41

they've espoused. And so in

12:43

looking at this, of course,

12:45

there are some very important

12:47

and valid advances that have

12:49

been made through these methods,

12:51

including on First Corinthians. What

12:53

I found with studies in

12:55

these lines on First Corinthians,

12:57

though, is that they initially

12:59

presented themselves as trying to

13:01

quote unquote supplement other interpretations

13:03

by saying there are some

13:05

sociological factors here in the...

13:07

controversy in addition to theological

13:09

factors. But what I also

13:11

saw is that they were

13:14

offering at the same time

13:16

a new sociological interpretation for

13:18

those very passages that were

13:20

once interpreted in sort of

13:22

theological terms. So it didn't

13:24

seem to me that they

13:26

were really supplementing so much

13:28

as trying to supplant. But

13:30

what you see is each

13:32

time a new insight is

13:34

made on the text. Nobody

13:36

wants to abandon earlier insights

13:38

because the more people you

13:40

disagree with the more this

13:42

is an obstacle. to publication

13:44

and acceptance of your thesis.

13:46

And so as I began

13:48

to read Corinthians Scholarship, I

13:50

began to see a real

13:52

fragmentation of insights on the

13:54

text, where so many different

13:56

things were happening based on

13:58

incorporating insights of different studies,

14:00

that I couldn't see how

14:02

you could integrate that all

14:04

into a coherent picture, how

14:06

that made sense of first

14:08

Corinthians one through four as

14:10

a coherent discourse, and how

14:12

that led to a kind

14:14

of coherent reconstruction reconstruction of.

14:16

the occasion. And so I

14:18

think what it required was

14:20

less exegesis of those chapters

14:22

in order to be able

14:24

to make those cases. And

14:26

as I began to test

14:28

those theories, began to see

14:30

that these theories only work

14:33

if you sort of neglect

14:35

the fine points, how propositions

14:37

are connected to each other

14:39

through conjunctions like death and

14:41

gar, and how... If we

14:43

look at this not just

14:45

at the level of sentences

14:47

and paragraphs and themes, then

14:49

something else emerges. And so

14:51

I identify in studies what

14:53

I call an approach that

14:55

looks at the background of

14:57

the text, and what I'm

14:59

intending to capture is how

15:01

studies will often spend 50,

15:03

100, 200, 200 pages. tracing

15:05

a particular background or social

15:07

convention, something like the history

15:09

of ancient rhetoric or the

15:11

history of patronage practices, and

15:13

there will spend a very

15:15

small portion of a book

15:17

applying that to what they

15:19

see happening in the text.

15:21

And I wanted to reverse

15:23

that, and rather than having

15:25

a background of the text,

15:27

having a background of the

15:29

text, and beginning with exegesis

15:31

and looking at the problem

15:33

anew. Yeah, wonderful. I very

15:35

much resonated with that strategy.

15:37

I sought to do something

15:39

very similar in Paul's divine

15:41

Christology. Now, chapter two addresses

15:43

some methodological concerns, including the

15:45

challenge of comparing these two

15:47

concepts on the one hand

15:49

stoicism and then the Corinthian

15:52

Sophia. There's a lot going

15:54

on here. You speak of

15:56

sub-stoicism as a way forward.

15:58

Can you explain this? Yeah,

16:00

and this is a very

16:02

important chapter because part of

16:04

the trends of the last

16:06

50 years has been. away

16:08

from a kind of comparative

16:10

religion approach to New Testament

16:12

ideas, New Testament theology, going

16:14

back especially to a seminal

16:16

article by Samuel Sandmel about

16:18

parallel Romania, a tendency to

16:20

identify verbiage that's shared between

16:22

Greco-Roman texts and New Testament

16:24

texts. And with that has

16:26

come a reluctance to identify...

16:28

anything in the New Testament

16:30

distinctively with some kind of

16:32

external Greek or religious system.

16:34

And so what I try

16:36

to do in the book

16:38

is to develop a more

16:40

sophisticated way of comparing that

16:42

builds on recent work by

16:44

Max Lee and his book

16:46

on moral transformation in the

16:48

Greco-Roman philosophical tradition. What he

16:50

does is he looks at

16:52

ancient philosophical schools where they

16:54

were quite sectarian, and you

16:56

tended to identify with one

16:58

particular school and to swear

17:00

allegiance to the teaching of

17:02

the founder of that particular

17:04

school. And so there wasn't

17:06

actually much eclecticism going on,

17:08

even though that's a term

17:11

that's often firm about. What

17:13

Lee does, he says, let's

17:15

look at the dynamics of

17:17

the way in which rivaling

17:19

philosophical schools interacted with each

17:21

other. And in that book,

17:23

he lays out six different

17:25

ways of interacting with the

17:27

material of arrival school. You

17:29

could refute the teachings of

17:31

that school, but you could

17:33

also. in a number of

17:35

different ways incorporate the teachings

17:37

of that school. You could

17:39

do it more competitively or

17:41

you could do it more

17:43

ironically and so on. In

17:45

a later article, Lee adds

17:47

a seventh category that he

17:49

calls doctrinal reformulation. And this

17:51

would be where, say, a

17:53

member of a particular philosophical

17:55

school, say a Platonist, doctrinally

17:57

reformulated the teachings of their

17:59

founder. say pointo, by filling

18:01

in gaps, by answering objections

18:03

that competitors have identified, and

18:05

that in some ways could

18:07

modify the teaching of the

18:09

founder, but in a way

18:11

where the student would claim

18:13

that they were still adhering

18:15

faithfully to the teaching of

18:17

the founder. And so what

18:19

I wanted to do in

18:21

comparing the Corinthian viewpoint with

18:23

stoicism was to say they

18:25

were appropriating elements of stoicism.

18:27

in a way that they're

18:30

not taking stoicism wholesale. And

18:32

in taking stoicism, they're also

18:34

taking something from Paul. And

18:36

so what I saw happening

18:38

was a sort of competitive

18:40

appropriation of stoicism by the

18:42

Corinthians, where they don't think

18:44

of themselves as stoics. They

18:46

think of themselves as students

18:48

of the school of Paul.

18:50

So they have to have

18:52

doctrinally reformulated his teaching in

18:54

some way. to convince themselves

18:56

that they were in fact

18:58

faithful to his teachings, although

19:00

they were refracting it through

19:02

the categories of stoicism, I

19:04

think in a fairly systematic

19:06

way, in a particular cross-section

19:08

within stoicism. And all of

19:10

this leads, I suppose, to

19:12

much more nuanced in handling

19:14

the question of definitions, right?

19:16

defining stoicism is something that

19:18

you go about in a

19:20

very particular way, bearing in

19:22

mind everything you've just said.

19:24

But maybe you could, you

19:26

know, just on board the

19:28

listeners, how do you go?

19:30

about defining stoicism in the

19:32

non-essentialist terms that you do.

19:34

What are some of the

19:36

key issues that you have

19:38

to put in place in

19:40

order to make that answer

19:42

make sense? Yeah, that's the

19:44

key as you said non-essentialist

19:47

terms. And so stoicism is...

19:49

is founded by a figure

19:51

named Zeno around 300 BC,

19:53

but his doctrines are further

19:55

systematized and codified by, especially

19:57

his later student, Chrysippus. And

19:59

over time, you do see,

20:01

as you would expect, some

20:03

different inflections even within stoicism

20:05

itself. And so what you

20:07

mean when you talk about

20:09

non-essentialism is that But you

20:11

can't take something like stoicism

20:13

and say it's only stoicism

20:15

if it has all of

20:17

these traits every time. So

20:19

for example, there were leading

20:21

stoics that denied the stoic

20:23

doctrine of a final fiery

20:25

conflagration in which the universe

20:27

came to an end, although

20:29

we tend to think of

20:31

that as a distinctive of

20:33

stoicism. But having rejected or

20:35

doubted that doctrine, they still

20:37

held held to a large

20:39

cluster, if not all of

20:41

the other distinct of stoicism.

20:43

So as opposed to an

20:45

essentialist approach to definition, I'm

20:47

taking an approach typically referred

20:49

to as family resemblance, where

20:51

if you have a cluster

20:53

of typical characteristics and you

20:55

have enough of them, stoicism

20:57

looks one way in this

20:59

case and one way in

21:01

this case, but they all

21:03

have a strong family resemblance

21:06

to each other. And I

21:08

argue that looking at it

21:10

that way, if we compare

21:12

stoicism to the Corinthian viewpoint,

21:14

that we may have enough

21:16

family resemblance in a particular

21:18

cross-section to say this is

21:20

an inflection of stelism of

21:22

some sort. Yeah, and that

21:24

helps you then engage, doesn't

21:26

it, with the text in

21:28

a much more creative and

21:30

robust? way I thought. And

21:32

now let's just dive in

21:34

then to part two, which

21:36

is really where you're going

21:38

to do a lot of

21:40

the exegetical heavy lifting. It's

21:42

a reading of first Corinthians

21:44

one to four, as you

21:46

mentioned earlier on. Let's just

21:48

dive in. So the first

21:50

chapter in part two begins

21:52

with first Corinthians one, 17

21:54

to 31, where you're contrasting

21:56

these two loggy. What is

21:58

the significance of this passage

22:00

for understanding Paul's critique of

22:02

the Corinthian Sophia? How does

22:04

Paul subvert their self-perception in

22:06

these opening verses? Yeah, yeah,

22:08

this is a critical passage

22:10

because in 117 we get

22:12

the first co-location of the

22:14

term Sophia and Lagu, wisdom

22:16

and word, it's very basically

22:18

translated. And what the... Those

22:20

who advocate for a rhetorical

22:22

interpretation of this wisdom say

22:25

is that Paul's dealing with

22:27

a wisdom of rhetoric or

22:29

persuasiveness. We're saying Christ didn't

22:31

send me to preach eloquently

22:33

or persuasively using the techniques

22:35

of rhetoric, which would then

22:37

invalidate the cross of Christ.

22:39

And what I argue is

22:41

that Paul actually is contrasting

22:43

two kinds of wisdom or

22:45

two kinds of logaway. So

22:47

Lagas, which can be translated

22:49

word, often means simply an

22:51

account or a theory. And

22:53

I think that throughout 117

22:55

through 25, Paul is actually

22:57

developing an antithesis between two

22:59

accounts of the world and

23:01

how things are. One is

23:03

a wisdom of the world,

23:05

and that wisdom prioritizes things

23:07

like stats, achievement, And Paul

23:09

is contrasting that with the

23:11

wisdom of God that is

23:13

embodied in Christ. crucified which

23:15

seems to epitomize a weakness

23:17

but which Paul is saying

23:19

is in fact wisdom and

23:21

if this is true then

23:23

it subverts common ways of

23:25

thinking that are endemic certainly

23:27

to recoroman society but in

23:29

some ways to all of

23:31

the way that human beings

23:33

think which is that I

23:35

always want to be recognized

23:37

for my credentials as being

23:39

in some ways better than

23:41

other people. So in 126

23:44

through 31, Paul then turns

23:46

and says, look, when you

23:48

were called, God did not

23:50

call you based on any

23:52

credentials. Your calling was not

23:54

congruous with your worth, as

23:56

that's usually assessed by other

23:58

human beings. Rather, he called

24:00

you despite your worth, leaving

24:02

you know grounds for boasting.

24:04

Yeah, well put. So that's

24:06

straight to chapter four. So

24:08

we're effectively just going sequentially

24:10

through here. The next couple

24:12

of chapters are dealing with

24:14

chapter two of first Corinthians,

24:16

but in chapter four you

24:18

examine the first five verses

24:20

of chapter two and Paul's

24:22

proclamation of Christ crucified. Maybe

24:24

you can just unpack your

24:26

argument in a nutshell there.

24:28

Yeah, and this is another

24:30

important key text for those

24:32

who advocate the rhetorical thesis

24:34

because it seems more clearly.

24:36

than anywhere else to show

24:38

Paul is denying using rhetoric.

24:40

And I look at this

24:42

a little bit differently. And

24:44

what I see Paul doing

24:46

is basically applying the principles

24:48

that he's laid out in

24:50

117 through 31, about the

24:52

wisdom of the cross and

24:54

lowliness and humility. And he

24:56

begins to apply it to

24:58

himself and to show that

25:01

he became an embodiment of

25:03

that. So when Paul starts

25:05

in 2-1 with Cago and

25:07

Greek, and I... So he's

25:09

laid out the wisdom of

25:11

God and he says, and

25:13

for my part, I embodied

25:15

this when I was among

25:17

you. I didn't come trying

25:19

to impress you with my

25:21

wisdom rather. came in weakness

25:23

and in fear and in

25:25

trembling and the reason I

25:27

did this was so that

25:29

your faith might not be

25:31

in the world's wisdom of

25:33

credentialing but that your faith

25:35

might be in the power

25:37

of God that your faith

25:39

might be in the idea

25:41

of Christ crucified. Yeah and

25:43

so it seems to me

25:45

there then that the cross

25:47

of Christ is is a

25:49

key way for Paul to

25:51

deal with factionalism to deal

25:53

with the issues with the

25:55

spiritual Sophia of the Corinthians.

25:57

Maybe you could speak then,

25:59

if I'm slightly unfair, but

26:01

just to speak a little

26:03

bit more broadly about how

26:05

you see Paul's theology of

26:07

the cross relating to this,

26:09

you know, I was reading

26:11

Galatians six a couple of

26:13

days ago in my devotionals

26:15

where it's about... the world

26:17

being crucified to me and

26:20

me to the world? You

26:22

know, can you maybe unpack

26:24

some of this for listeners

26:26

who may think it's surprising

26:28

to talk about the cross

26:30

at this point? This is

26:32

an idea of course that

26:34

we find all over Paul's

26:36

letters. First Corinthians 1 through

26:38

4 is one of the

26:40

great statements of this theology

26:42

of the cross, or the

26:44

idea of what we often

26:46

call cruciformity, cross-shaped life, which

26:48

we see also in 2nd

26:50

Corinthians 3 through 5, text

26:52

like Philippians 2 4 through

26:54

11 with the Christ hymn.

26:56

And this theology of the

26:58

cross is really the idea

27:00

of a world upside down.

27:02

Naturally human beings tend towards

27:04

dominance, status, achievement, self-promotion. And

27:06

this is why the idea

27:08

of Christ was such a

27:10

stumbling block for Paul prior

27:12

to coming to Christ. Was

27:14

that Christ was disgraced, crucified,

27:16

rejected by his own people.

27:18

And what Paul found when

27:20

he had his encounter with

27:22

Christ and became convinced that

27:24

Christ was moored is that

27:26

his values had to be...

27:28

turned upside down, and that

27:30

in fact all of the

27:32

things that he valued now

27:34

had to be redefined in

27:36

terms of the paradigm of

27:39

Christ, and Christ crucified. And

27:41

this is the point that

27:43

Paul was driving home in

27:45

these chapters of First Corinthians.

27:47

Yeah, beautifully put. I do

27:49

think this is so important

27:51

for many to hear as

27:53

well. This is Paul's theology

27:55

of the cross, maybe not

27:57

what people expect. Now to

27:59

Chapter 5. You focus on

28:01

the rest of Chapter 2

28:03

of 1st Corinthians, where Paul

28:05

is describing spiritual Sophia. Now,

28:07

as I was dealing with

28:09

your argument, as I was

28:11

working my way through, I

28:13

initially thought that Paul's language

28:15

of, we have the mind

28:17

of Christ, might pose a

28:19

problem for your thesis, that

28:21

Paul is contradicting the Corinthians

28:23

Sophia, which they viewed, and

28:25

as you describe as a

28:27

particular... a peculiar property of

28:29

themselves. You know, it sounds

28:31

an awful lot like what

28:33

Paul is saying about the

28:35

mind of Christ. We have

28:37

the mind of Christ. But

28:39

actually, you tackle this passage

28:41

extensively in this chapter, and

28:43

maybe you could explain how

28:45

Paul's exclamation that we have

28:47

the mind of Christ fits

28:49

in to your developing argument.

28:51

Yeah, I think that 26

28:53

through 16 are really a

28:55

continuation of the antithesis that

28:58

he's been developing. And basically

29:00

that's there are two ways

29:02

of thinking. There's the world's

29:04

way of thinking and there's

29:06

God's way of thinking and

29:08

the only way to come

29:10

to God's way of thinking

29:12

is through an epistemological transformation

29:14

that comes through the spirit.

29:16

And so believers have the

29:18

spirit. I think what the

29:20

Corinthian wise men were doing

29:22

though is they had come

29:24

to see the spirit as

29:26

a peculiar property of themselves

29:28

as human beings, that it

29:30

was intrinsic to what they

29:32

were. rather than something that

29:34

was externally given. And so

29:36

you have a key text

29:38

where Paul in this passage

29:40

contrasts the wisdom of the

29:42

world, right? Sophia to Cosmu,

29:44

and then he changes the

29:46

syntax, the wisdom that is

29:48

from God. I'm sorry, the

29:50

spirit. The spirit of the

29:52

world versus the spirit that

29:54

is from God. And I

29:56

think what he's doing in

29:58

the first case in referring

30:00

to the spirit of the

30:02

world in a kind of

30:04

layered ways, he's referring to

30:06

the stoic idea of a

30:08

spirit or numa that actually

30:10

fills the world, because it

30:12

fills the world and fills

30:14

us. we actually have spirit

30:17

as part of what we

30:19

are as human beings. This

30:21

divine spirit or numa. But

30:23

Paul says you actually have

30:25

the spirit that is from

30:27

God, right? The numa, ta,

30:29

ek, to the ooh. So

30:31

it's not something that we

30:33

have, but it's something that

30:35

comes from God and is

30:37

given to us and that

30:39

we share in. And it's

30:41

this that gives us the

30:43

epistemological transformation to see the

30:45

wisdom of the cross as

30:47

wisdom. And so when Paul

30:49

comes at the end of

30:51

this section to say we

30:53

have the mind of Christ,

30:55

I take this consistent with

30:57

what I see happening to

30:59

mean the mindset of Christ.

31:01

We have the way of

31:03

thinking that embodies Christ crucified

31:05

and that has been given

31:07

to us by the spirit.

31:09

And so the mind of

31:11

Christ here I see as

31:13

analogous to what Paul is

31:15

saying in Philippians 2.5, for

31:17

example, where he talks about...

31:19

having that mind in you

31:21

that is also in Christ

31:23

Jesus, which he then lays

31:25

out as a mindset of

31:27

humility and preferring others above

31:29

yourself. Wonderful, and this of

31:31

course will have relevance, just

31:34

as you have articulated it

31:36

there, to some of the

31:38

other debates relating to the

31:40

material spirit and Falkarabans and

31:42

some of his work on

31:44

this as well. At least

31:46

that's where my own mind

31:48

went at that particular point.

31:50

Now chapters six to seven

31:52

you're you're tackling here. I'm

31:54

just a beautiful chapters in

31:56

in the scripture first Corinthians

31:58

three through to four. five

32:00

and you describe that

32:02

text as addressing both

32:04

divine wisdom and apostleship.

32:07

What is the purpose of

32:09

Paul's extended narrative

32:11

about himself and Apollo's

32:14

in these chapters? How does Paul

32:16

use these themes

32:18

to critique Corinthian

32:20

factionalism or redefine

32:22

spiritual maturity? So the purpose

32:24

of this section is very commonly

32:27

believed to be sort of putting

32:29

Apollo's in his place, because

32:31

Paul speaks at length here

32:33

about his relationship with Apollo's,

32:35

and some see a kind

32:38

of hidden script or an

32:40

attempt to subvert Apollo's very

32:42

subtly. I see Paul actually

32:44

doing something very different in

32:46

talking about himself and Apollo's

32:48

as co-workers. He's presenting them

32:50

as examples, as examples, as

32:52

exemplars of believers, fellow believers

32:55

who work together to do God's

32:57

work and are one, and who

32:59

don't credit themselves because God

33:01

gives the growth. So when

33:04

we come then to 310 through

33:06

17, there's an interesting shift

33:08

where Paul begins not to

33:10

talk about Apollo's or any

33:12

named people. He talks about

33:14

Tis, someone. So if someone

33:17

lays a different foundation, if

33:19

anyone thinks that they are

33:21

wise, Or a lot of people think that

33:23

Paul is here talking about Apollo's having

33:25

come and laid a new foundation and

33:27

taught a different wisdom. I think that

33:29

contradicts what Paul has already said about

33:32

Apollo's, which is that they were coworkers

33:34

that have created the field, that is

33:36

the Corinthians. It's someone else that's

33:38

laying a different foundation. And I think

33:40

it's the soft boy or the wise

33:42

men in court that Paul is not

33:44

identifying by name. But that's the reason

33:46

for the shift to that indefinite or

33:48

anonymous refererent. And so as

33:50

Paul continues into Chapter 4,

33:52

he comes back again to

33:54

presenting himself in Apollo as stewards

33:57

of the mystery of the

33:59

kingdom. lowly people who are

34:01

doing God's work and are not

34:04

evaluating each other in comparison with

34:06

others. Yeah, indeed. So, you know,

34:08

you have I planted a polys

34:11

watered, we got servants working

34:13

together. Yeah, indeed. So it was

34:15

really helpful to see to see

34:18

that development in those verses

34:20

there. Chapter 8. I mean, concludes

34:22

this section of First Corinthians. with

34:24

Paul's portrayal of himself as,

34:26

you know, full for Christ's sake,

34:29

as their father through the gospel.

34:31

How does this passage, where Paul

34:34

is reflecting a little bit more

34:36

on his own relationship to them,

34:38

sum up what he said in

34:41

the previous chapters? Right. So here

34:43

he brings his discussion of himself

34:46

and Apalos to a close. He

34:48

says, look, I've just discussed

34:50

myself in Apalos. When really what

34:52

we should be talking about is

34:55

your relationship with each other,

34:57

he said, the reason I've done

34:59

this is to give you an

35:02

example of how you should

35:04

work together with each other. And

35:06

so he comes in for 10

35:08

through 13 to this contrast that,

35:11

as you said, sums up what

35:13

he's been doing with this antithesis

35:16

of two kinds of wisdom. And

35:18

he's saying, look, you guys

35:20

say that you're wise in Christ,

35:22

that you're strong, that you're distinguished.

35:25

We Apostle say that we're

35:27

fools that we're weak, that we're

35:29

dishonored, and we own that because

35:32

that's the model that Christ

35:34

has shown. And if from the

35:36

world's perspective, this is demeaning, then

35:38

we simply accept that from their

35:41

perspective, although it's in fact just

35:43

the wisdom of God that we

35:46

embody. And so as Paul finally

35:48

concludes chapters one through four, he

35:50

comes back and says, look, I

35:53

am your father in Christ. There

35:55

is an element here of

35:57

Paul sort of playing on the

36:00

way. that the Corinthians are viewing

36:02

him, which is, as I

36:04

argue, is as a teacher and

36:06

founder of the philosophical school. And

36:09

Paul says, yes, that's right.

36:11

I am your teacher, so allow

36:13

me now to admonish you, where

36:16

I see you, string. It's a

36:18

clever, clever little twist, very typical

36:20

of Pauline rhetoric, I think. Now

36:23

chapter 9, which brings, I believe,

36:25

the entire section, second section

36:27

to an end. I thought was

36:30

an important chapter, you know, in

36:32

a nutshell. We've already spoken

36:34

about this already, but I'd love

36:37

to hear something a little bit

36:39

more extended. What is the

36:41

sub-stoic wisdom of the Corinthians? And

36:43

how does it relate to their

36:46

identity damage their identity as Christ

36:48

followers? Yeah, briefly the first thing

36:51

to say is how did they

36:53

come to this stoicism if they

36:55

believed that they were getting

36:57

it from Paul? And we just

37:00

know so little about their perspective,

37:02

but I think two points

37:04

are essential where we see an

37:07

overlap that gives them a point

37:09

of departure, I think, from

37:11

which they come from Paul to

37:13

their substoicism. One is the idea

37:16

of the wise man in stoicism

37:18

and in Greek philosophy broadly. The

37:21

wise man was considered the human

37:23

being par excellence, the perfect human

37:25

being. And it was in fact

37:28

a kind of divine figure because

37:30

he was given divine reason. So

37:33

the wise man is the

37:35

one who through use of divine

37:37

reason has actualized full human potential.

37:39

And so this is a

37:41

one kind of category of what's

37:44

sometimes been called the theos an

37:46

air or the the divine

37:48

man. The wise man as philosopher

37:51

would be one. sort of that.

37:53

And I think if the Corinthians

37:55

are looking at Paul's portrait of

37:58

Jesus, they could very easily have

38:00

interpreted Jesus through the cat. of

38:03

the wise man type of

38:05

divine man. The second key point

38:07

meets their view from Paul is

38:09

the idea of an indwelling

38:11

spirit, which is obviously there in

38:14

Paul, which in Stoicism is key

38:16

as well, because God exists

38:18

in the form of Numa or

38:21

spirit and fills the entire universe

38:23

as spirit. And it's that indwelling

38:25

spirit that gives various things the

38:28

faculties that they have. to exist.

38:30

And I'll pick that thread up

38:33

in just a second. And so

38:35

from there, I think there are,

38:37

I think I lay out maybe

38:40

four ways in which Corinthians'

38:42

substosism resembles stosism, and I try

38:44

to show that these are all

38:47

sort of systematically related ideas.

38:49

So the first is that when

38:51

the Corinthians or some of them

38:53

call themselves wise men. They

38:56

are thinking of themselves as wise

38:58

men in the mode of the

39:00

Stoic wise man. That category of

39:03

wise man was really first developed

39:05

as a technical category by the

39:08

Stoics. The Stoics also described their

39:10

wise man using formulas called

39:12

the paradoxes, which really just means

39:14

surprising things. So they would say

39:17

something like only the wise

39:19

man is rich, only the wise

39:21

man is king. And these were

39:24

not sociological categories, though, for

39:26

philosophers. It was a way of

39:28

taking conventional values and applying them

39:30

in a transcendent way to the

39:33

wise man. So in what way

39:35

was the wise man rich? Because

39:38

he has everything that he needs

39:40

within, which is his ability

39:42

to be virtuous, his ability to

39:44

be happy in all circumstances. In

39:47

what way was a wise

39:49

man king because he was a

39:51

master of himself. He ruled over

39:54

his passions. And the Corinthians

39:56

that are using these expressions, I

39:58

think is clearest and for eight,

40:00

where Paul says, already you're rich,

40:03

already you're kings. Very common predicates

40:05

seen in the stoic paradoxes, where

40:08

we actually have examples that say.

40:10

only the wise man is rich

40:12

and only the wise man is

40:15

king as Paul does there and

40:17

several other points Paul uses

40:19

the language of the paradoxes to

40:22

describe them. Second is an idea

40:24

that comes from stoic physics

40:26

about tension in the universe and

40:28

what that means is the strength

40:31

with which spirit in dwells

40:33

different things. They call Tanas as

40:35

tension. The idea was that spirit

40:38

indwelled, say, human beings at the

40:40

highest level of strength, and because

40:42

of that, we had the faculty

40:45

of reason, which only humans and

40:47

God have. Below that, you

40:49

have spirit infusing, say, animals with

40:52

a different level of tension, not

40:54

reaching the threshold to give

40:56

animals the capacity to reason, but

40:58

giving them the faculties of movement

41:01

and since perception, for example.

41:03

And so these just focusing on

41:05

those two categories for the stoics

41:08

that was the logicost level of

41:10

tension or the reason level and

41:12

the pzuka cost level of tension.

41:15

And what I see the Corinthians

41:17

doing is playing on these two

41:20

levels of tension with one substitution.

41:22

Instead of logicost or reason tension,

41:24

they substitute pneumatic costs or

41:27

spirit tension. Well then having the

41:29

same lower category as the Stoics,

41:31

the Psukakas, tension. So within

41:33

the church, then they saw tears

41:36

of believers, those that had spirit

41:38

at the highest level, and

41:40

those that had it at a

41:43

lower level. So only those with

41:45

pneumaticas spirit were wise and were

41:47

perfect. We're using the word teleos

41:50

there, as opposed to those who

41:52

were Psukakas, and inferior and mature

41:55

or... or napiose. So with

41:57

this, I see the idea of

41:59

stoic self-sufficiency emerging. So a third

42:01

category. here and that is

42:03

that if spirit infuses human beings

42:06

at a level sufficient to give

42:08

them reason then we have

42:10

all that we need to reach

42:13

the happy life. The philosopher has

42:15

had a slogan don't look to

42:17

God for what we can get

42:20

from ourselves. Happiness is within our

42:22

reach we have all that we

42:25

need because this divinity is

42:27

a property of what we are.

42:29

It's not external, it's within each

42:31

of us. And so the

42:33

last thing I tried to develop

42:36

here is the way in which

42:38

their emphasis on the spiritual

42:40

substitutes for the stoic emphasis on

42:43

virtue. And so without trying to

42:45

develop this too much here, the

42:47

stoic said that the only good

42:50

is virtue, the only vice is

42:52

moral evil, and that all other

42:55

things were indifferent. So what would

42:57

fall into the category of indifference

42:59

would be things like health, health,

43:02

health, or wealth, poverty. sickness.

43:04

Those things are indifferent, those things

43:06

aren't good or bad because they're

43:09

not virtue or vice. And

43:11

so I think because the Corinthians

43:13

have so emphasized spirit, they've put

43:15

spirit in the place of

43:17

reason, and in the same way

43:20

they've put spirit in place of

43:22

virtue. And so to them, the

43:25

real standard of value becomes your

43:27

level of spiritual achievement, your ability

43:29

to manifest the spirit. and against

43:32

that standard one's value is

43:34

measured. And all who don't have

43:36

spirit or able to manifest spirit

43:39

at the same level would

43:41

be considered inferior and not spirit

43:43

people, pneumoticos, but supercos people. People.

43:45

A beautiful and rich response,

43:47

thanks for that. Okay, to the

43:50

quick fire round, I've just got

43:52

a cat on my lap at

43:55

the moment who's purring rather loudly

43:57

and sniffing the microphone, so if

44:00

that's being heard, then just be

44:02

cute, just be cute it out.

44:04

Now do you understand the quick

44:07

fire round? Well I think so

44:09

I understand. that I don't

44:11

know the questions. Exactly, and the

44:14

idea is just sort of off-the-cuff

44:16

responses. One of them is

44:18

completely unfair just as a heads

44:20

up. Oh, you know, we'll get

44:23

there. So if, first one,

44:25

this fun one, if you had

44:27

to pick one chapter of your

44:30

book as the most important or

44:32

exciting, which would it be? Oh,

44:34

wow. You know, I think the

44:37

chapter in the final section... where

44:39

I developed the most speculative

44:41

part of the thesis. I can't

44:44

remember if it's 12 or 13.

44:46

But there, after trying to

44:48

lay out the case that the

44:50

wise Corinthians looked at Paul as

44:53

the founder of a philosophical

44:55

school, that they were imitating practices

44:57

of philosophical allegiance to the teachings

45:00

of a founder, that it's possible

45:02

they had set themselves up in

45:04

the house of a man named

45:07

tedious justice that's mentioned in acts.

45:09

and that it was there

45:11

that the sort of conception of

45:14

their school as a philosophical school

45:16

began to germinate. Yeah. Well,

45:18

speculative part of the thesis and

45:20

I emphasize that it's totally unnecessary

45:23

to accepting them. Which is

45:25

fair, yeah. And now, now, now

45:27

the quick question, what hobby or

45:30

interest do you have that might

45:32

surprise our listeners? Well, I try

45:34

to pick up piano in recent

45:37

years. about four years ago I

45:39

inherited a piano for my grandmother

45:42

and it's been a couple years

45:44

playing so picking that up as

45:46

an adult and it wasn't

45:48

easy and I don't have a

45:51

teacher so I've kind of been

45:53

out of it for a

45:55

while but there's that. That is

45:58

that is wonderful. My boy is

46:00

learning to play the piano

46:02

at home and say the last

46:04

20 years. Wow, oh this is

46:07

a quick fire around so I

46:09

just have to say so something

46:12

maybe Abraham Mel Herbie Pauline the

46:14

Thessalonians, the philosophical tradition of pastoral

46:16

care. Yeah, great. And really

46:18

brought the Thessalonian letters alive for

46:21

me. Yeah, yeah, okay. Two of

46:23

the most important influences on

46:25

your work. So in a methodological

46:28

way, I'd say Wayne Meek's, the

46:30

first urban Christians, really sort

46:32

of in the line of that

46:35

socio-historical kind of interpretation, that I

46:37

think Bruce Longaneker, also represents, of

46:39

course, he was my doctor father.

46:42

And so I'm not sure if

46:44

this book in particular I'd consider

46:47

one of the main influences, but

46:49

Longaneker's sort of work generally. My

46:51

first year at Baylor we went

46:54

through his book Paul and

46:56

Poverty, where he does a lot

46:58

of the socio-economic scaling that I

47:01

rely on in the crossopography

47:03

chapter of my book. Yeah. Yeah.

47:05

If you could change one thing

47:07

about the way we practice

47:09

New Testament scholarship, what would it

47:12

be? Um, quickness to follow trends.

47:14

Hmm. Oh, I meant of that

47:17

one. Yes. Yes. Great answer. Answer.

47:19

Now I think you just a

47:21

couple more, but how do you

47:24

feel about the emergence of

47:26

what I'm... I understand to be

47:28

kind of popular stoicism in the

47:31

sort of self-help tradition. Darren

47:33

Brown, what's his name, popularized by

47:35

the scholar William Irving? Have I

47:37

got that right? Irving? William

47:39

Irving. And I'm not sure. There

47:42

are a number of very recent

47:44

books in self-help on modern appropriations

47:47

of stoicism. This is Quick Fire

47:49

still. Yeah. Largely antithetical to The

47:51

Wisdom of the Wisdom of the

47:54

Cross. the idea of Christ

47:56

crucified, an idea of human beings

47:58

as inherently dependent on God. Yeah,

48:01

I just came across a

48:03

Facebook post before we met, Daily

48:05

Stoic. So it's clearly out there,

48:07

and a lot of it

48:09

is... Now here's the unfair one.

48:12

Just three quick ideas. Imagine the

48:14

person interviewing you is writing a

48:17

commentary on Second Corinthians, which I

48:19

apparently am. First or second? Second

48:21

Corinthians. Okay. What's important to draw

48:24

from your own work for Second

48:26

Corinthians? We have the early chapters

48:29

of Second Corinthians are in a

48:31

way developing this idea of

48:33

wisdom of Christ crucified, right, with

48:35

the ministry of reconciliation and these

48:38

these these earthen vessels. And

48:40

so, you know, perhaps thematically, that

48:42

particular point, also in addressing Second

48:45

Corinthians 10 through 13, a

48:47

lot of attempts have been made

48:49

to connect the Super Apostles with

48:51

what's happening in First Corinthians 1

48:54

through 4. and to associate both

48:56

of those things with rhetoric. I

48:59

think if one thing I'd try

49:01

to emphasize in my book

49:03

is that we have to test

49:06

theories that are really granular level,

49:08

not just that these grand

49:10

levels of reconstruction, and that second

49:12

gradients 10 through 13 therefore would

49:15

have to be evaluated on

49:17

its own terms for that thesis

49:19

and shouldn't look too much to

49:22

what we think is happening at

49:24

first, Corinthians 1 through 4. Great

49:26

answers. Thank you. Very useful. I

49:29

will be making notes. Now to

49:31

part three, reconstructing the occasion, this

49:34

is chapters 10 to 12, in

49:36

chapter 10 you explore the Paul

49:38

faction, you know, with this

49:40

self-perception of a philosophical school, how

49:43

did this cause them to misunderstand

49:45

Paul and their discipleship? I

49:47

thought this was a really great

49:50

question, and I had to think

49:52

about it a little bit.

49:54

And one thing that came to

49:56

mind was the distinction between... Most

49:59

philosophical schools as sect, or the

50:01

word hyresace or sect, they were

50:04

more or less exclusive,

50:06

but came with certain dogmatic

50:08

content. In contrast to cynicism, which

50:10

was not a dogmatic school or hyresis,

50:12

it was a way of life that

50:14

did not come with its own

50:16

extensive dogmatic content. And I

50:18

started to wonder if the

50:20

Corinthians, by viewing themselves as a

50:23

little scholastic community or philosophical school,

50:25

maybe in the house of tedious

50:27

justice, They were starting to think

50:30

too much in terms of their

50:32

dogma that they were developing into

50:34

a system as opposed to philosophy

50:36

as a way of life. The second

50:39

thing I thought of was the

50:41

problem of identity, how they identified

50:43

who they identified themselves

50:45

with. And Paul of course hits

50:47

this problem immediately in the

50:50

letter saying, you say I'm of Paul, I'm

50:52

of Sevis, but was Paul

50:54

crucified for you? Were you baptized into

50:56

the name of Paul? No, we're all one

50:58

in Christ into whom we were

51:00

all baptized. And so, again, if

51:02

the lossipers of that time identified

51:05

themselves by their teacher or

51:07

founder, I'm a Platonist, I'm

51:09

a Pythagorean. In fact, Stoics

51:11

were initially called Xenonians, right?

51:13

Paul would say, you're not Paulanists,

51:16

right? You're Christ followers. Yeah,

51:18

yeah, and of course this

51:20

relates exactly to how you

51:22

define or rather deal with

51:24

definitions of Stoicism earlier on. in

51:26

the book as well. We sort of loop

51:28

back to that. Chapter 11 has

51:31

at its stated purpose in

51:33

criticism of a number of

51:35

really famous well-known positions and here

51:37

I quote you at length I

51:40

think. The stated purpose is

51:42

to demonstrate from ancient sources

51:44

that philosophy did in

51:46

fact have perceptible and significant direct

51:49

influence on the extensive population within

51:51

the Roman Empire, not just in

51:53

the most thriving intellectual centers in

51:55

the Greek East, but also in

51:58

Roman colonies and in Rome. itself,

52:00

and not just among the

52:02

highest elites, but also among

52:04

lower level magistrates, the

52:06

middle classes, and more

52:09

marginalized groups like Friedman,

52:11

women, and slaves. That comes

52:13

to the end of that section

52:15

I've just quoted from your book.

52:17

You know, can you tell us how

52:19

you make this case and why others

52:22

you think have underestimated the

52:24

strength of this position? Yeah,

52:26

so again, I think this has to

52:28

do with trends in the swinging of

52:30

the pendulum. There was a time in

52:32

the 80s and 90s where we started

52:35

to appreciate that that court in

52:37

the first century was a Roman colony.

52:39

It was not the same as the

52:41

Greek court. And so what you find

52:44

in studies repeatedly are people saying it's

52:46

a Roman, not a Greek city, as

52:48

if everything is now Roman about it.

52:51

And that. than sort of excluding

52:53

the influence or the visibility

52:56

of Greek philosophy. But I

52:58

think that what's also been

53:00

emphasized is that since ancient

53:02

schooling was about rhetoric from

53:04

beginning to end, as it really

53:07

was, we've sidelined philosophy for

53:09

that reason also. This is

53:11

based partly on a

53:13

one-sided reading of the

53:15

ancient sources about education.

53:17

For example, Quintelian. Quintilian

53:20

Theon Cicero, a number of

53:22

Latin sources from around the

53:24

first century, emphasize that the

53:27

Rator order also needs studying

53:29

philosophy. And they advocated for

53:31

it very early in the

53:34

school curriculum. You might find

53:36

something different in school exercises

53:38

preserved in proprietary, but as

53:41

far as elite writers on

53:43

ancient rhetoric, they emphasize the

53:45

importance of... philosophy, but more

53:47

important than that is a neglect

53:50

for non-literary sources. And so I

53:52

spend this chapter in looking at

53:54

ancient inscriptions primarily. There have been

53:56

a number of databases that have

53:59

brought together. philosopher inscriptions, which in

54:01

fact a seven volume dictionary

54:03

of ancient philosophers that catalogs

54:05

almost 3,000 ancient individuals. And

54:07

what I do, based on

54:09

that work and some work

54:11

that's distilled that into geographical

54:13

representation, representation by school in

54:15

century, is to show that

54:17

philosophy was quite prevalent. and

54:19

that it's not just our

54:21

cynicas and our and our

54:23

Plato's and our epithetuses that

54:25

were philosophers, but that there

54:27

were people that are otherwise

54:29

hidden or lost in the

54:31

record except through brief mentions

54:33

in an inscription that that

54:35

are there that we're just

54:37

not talking about. And so

54:39

within the first century, stoicism

54:41

was the most prevalent philosophical

54:43

school. And in first and

54:45

second century quarant, we have

54:47

in fact... slightly more philosophers

54:49

on record than we have

54:51

orators in Corinth at that

54:53

time. I also looked at

54:55

the lexicon of Greek personal

54:58

names online where you can

55:00

do a search by profession

55:02

and they found that during

55:04

that time you had slightly

55:06

more philosophers acknowledged in at

55:08

that time in the first

55:10

and second century than than

55:12

orators. And I also noticed

55:14

that in first century Corinth

55:16

we do have at least

55:18

two examples of identifiable stoics

55:20

from the middle, the first

55:22

century, and we have no

55:24

orders from that particular period.

55:26

Now there were more philosophers

55:28

and more orders in Roman

55:30

Corinth in the first century

55:32

than have survived. But I

55:34

did find it interesting, so

55:36

we're just pushing back against

55:38

the view that oratory was

55:40

so important and so much

55:42

more popular than philosophy that

55:44

it's... inherently a more plausible

55:46

background for the Corinthian controversy.

55:48

I wanted to show that

55:50

philosophy was in fact much

55:52

more important and widely attested

55:54

than people have appreciated. Yeah,

55:56

maybe that is a trend

55:58

that we should get behind

56:00

thinking along those lines. Now

56:02

in Chapter 12, you know,

56:04

as suggested in the title,

56:06

you use pro-sobog- I was,

56:08

I knew I was going

56:10

to screw this up. Pro-sophographical

56:12

methods. I've said it wrong.

56:14

It's all I'm going to

56:16

say. Not going to repeat

56:18

it. Maybe you can first

56:20

explain what pro-so-prosop, for goodness

56:22

sake. Can you say that?

56:24

Yeah, well, you just anglicized

56:26

it. That's a perfectly anglicized

56:28

pronunciation. Just explain first what

56:30

it is to the business.

56:32

So this is actually a

56:34

subfield of classics and essentially

56:36

it's the study of ancient

56:38

persons. So, you know, take

56:40

somebody who's mentioned an inscription

56:42

as, you know, Sassibius, the

56:44

son of Sassibius. That's the

56:46

only thing we know about

56:48

that person from antiquity. Well,

56:50

we catalog these individuals and

56:52

we can sort of trace

56:54

who they are and gather

56:56

as much information as we

56:58

can about each of them.

57:00

So if we're doing a

57:02

prosyphographic analysis of individuals in

57:04

Paul's churches, we're sort of

57:06

saying, let's gather all of

57:08

the information that we know

57:10

about these people and decide

57:12

what sort of profile can

57:14

we build based on that

57:16

information. And so this was

57:18

done first and in Wayne

57:21

Meek's first urban Christians, here

57:23

Tyson has done this. more

57:25

recently, Stephen Friesen and Bruce

57:27

Longaneker, trying to scale individuals

57:29

in the Corinthian church to

57:31

say how far or low

57:33

are they on the socio-economic

57:35

scale? Based on things like

57:37

did they hold public offices?

57:39

Do their names indicate Roman

57:41

citizenship? They have the ability

57:43

to travel to give gifts

57:45

to support Paulin's ministry. And

57:47

what you find when you

57:49

look at ancient philosopher inscriptions

57:51

is that most people in

57:53

the Greek East at that

57:55

time who identify as philosophers

57:57

in inscriptions were actually magistrates

57:59

in those cities, which would

58:01

have put them rough. in

58:03

the elite level, the lower

58:05

elite level. So what I

58:07

needed to know is were

58:09

there Corinthians, members of the

58:11

church, that approximate that socio-economic

58:13

level, since most of the

58:15

identifying phosphors were there. Although

58:17

I do point out as

58:19

you read in the quotation

58:21

that there were philosophers represented

58:23

at all social levels, among

58:25

men, women, children, adults. So

58:27

my thesis wasn't dependent on

58:29

this, but I wanted to

58:31

say. people who had a

58:33

formal education and philosophy extensively

58:35

were more likely higher class

58:37

than lower. My goal was

58:39

not to identify which Corinthians

58:41

belong to the wise group.

58:43

There's no way to know

58:45

and Paul certainly doesn't mention

58:47

everyone who's a member of

58:49

the community and Paul has

58:51

a tendency not to name

58:53

opponents in his letters as

58:55

well. So his opponents here

58:57

could be unnamed individuals. My

58:59

purpose though is to see

59:01

whether it was plausible that

59:03

you had Corinthians at that

59:05

socioeconomic level, sort of lower,

59:07

lower, elite, upper middle level,

59:09

just to see do people

59:11

meet the criteria for candidacy

59:13

in the group of people

59:15

likely to be philosophically educated?

59:17

And what you find is

59:19

that Erastus certainly was, there's

59:21

been some debate about Erastus

59:23

in his social level from

59:25

a number of studies. But

59:27

in Roman 1623, Paul identifies

59:29

him as a Corinthian and

59:31

is the Edo of the

59:33

city of Porte. And the

59:35

most recent studies have persuasively

59:37

shown that Erastus here is

59:39

in fact identified as an

59:42

Edo, although Paul calls an

59:44

Orkana mass, and that did

59:46

identify him as one of

59:48

the highest elites in the

59:50

city of Roman court. Other

59:52

candidates include Gaius, who had

59:54

a fairly large home, apparently.

59:56

And I would include tedious

59:58

justice, although he's only known

1:00:00

from acts. He does provide

1:00:02

Paul with hospitality and shelter

1:00:04

while Paul was in court

1:00:06

after he's ejected from the

1:00:08

synagogue. So I don't know

1:00:10

that any of these individuals

1:00:12

were necessary. members of the

1:00:14

Paul faction. Based on the

1:00:16

most speculative part of my

1:00:18

thesis, I suggest, well, maybe

1:00:20

Teddy's Justice's home was the

1:00:22

center for this philosophical activity,

1:00:24

but there's no way to

1:00:26

know. But I think that

1:00:28

I successfully showed that it

1:00:30

is plausible that you had

1:00:32

in the Corinthian church male

1:00:34

Gentile members who are of

1:00:36

higher socioeconomic class that possibly

1:00:38

fit the profile of a

1:00:40

typical educated philosopher. Yeah, certainly

1:00:42

the more speculative claims come

1:00:44

out in Chapter 12, though

1:00:46

quite plausible when I think

1:00:48

of some work on 1st

1:00:50

Corinthians, 8, 6, and 11,

1:00:52

but anyway, maybe you could

1:00:54

summarize just the main... I

1:00:56

mean, you've already done this

1:00:58

a little bit in the

1:01:00

quickfire round, but just the

1:01:02

main points of your argument

1:01:04

in this important chapter. The

1:01:06

most important point is the

1:01:08

possibility of candidates. in the

1:01:10

church membership in this group.

1:01:12

I don't know that Gaius

1:01:14

or Titus or Titus Justice

1:01:16

were any of them in

1:01:18

it, but plausibility is important.

1:01:20

If you have a church

1:01:22

of, say, 10 artisans, as

1:01:24

you might have had in

1:01:26

the Thessalonian church, how plausible

1:01:28

is it that some of

1:01:30

them had an extensive philosophical

1:01:32

education? the leisure to study

1:01:34

with the philosopher not very

1:01:36

high. I think the situation

1:01:38

is different in the Corinthian

1:01:40

church. Well, I do want

1:01:42

to ask just a couple

1:01:44

more questions. I know we're

1:01:46

running out of time, but

1:01:48

let me just ask you

1:01:50

a more general one. You

1:01:52

know, how do the themes

1:01:54

of wisdom, boasting, factionalism in

1:01:56

First Corinthians resonate with the

1:01:58

challenges faced by the contemporary

1:02:00

church? And let's just keep

1:02:02

it. or you know, open-ended

1:02:05

there, that particular, rather than

1:02:07

a locale. In what way?

1:02:09

might your own arguments help

1:02:11

us hear the arguments in

1:02:13

first Corinthians one to four

1:02:15

as a word in season

1:02:17

for us today? I think

1:02:19

it's a perennial human problem

1:02:21

that we value strength power

1:02:23

credentials and so you see

1:02:25

that and you could see

1:02:27

it in any kind of

1:02:29

church but it's easier to

1:02:31

see I think in a

1:02:33

mega church that centers around

1:02:35

a strong personality in the

1:02:37

pulpit who say is good

1:02:39

looking. They have the image,

1:02:41

maybe they drive a nice

1:02:43

car, they have charm, they

1:02:45

have these speaking abilities, and

1:02:47

we esteem these people for

1:02:49

those qualities, not necessarily for

1:02:51

the qualities that have much

1:02:53

to do with the gospel

1:02:55

or the way of Christ.

1:02:57

And we see that I

1:02:59

think in politics also the

1:03:01

way in which even, say,

1:03:03

evangelicals in America tend to

1:03:05

vote in a certain way.

1:03:07

when they see a candidate

1:03:09

as strong, powerful, even domineering

1:03:11

and bullying, which they can

1:03:13

overlook because it supports their

1:03:15

side. Yeah, yeah, well put.

1:03:17

Undermining the reality of the

1:03:19

cross. Timothy, what's next for

1:03:21

you? Wow, I've come off

1:03:23

a rapid burst of publications

1:03:25

over the last five or

1:03:27

six years. So what I've

1:03:29

tried to do is just

1:03:31

clear the agenda for now.

1:03:33

I have a book coming

1:03:35

out in May with Hendrickson,

1:03:37

an introduction to Greek and

1:03:39

Roman philosophy for students of

1:03:41

the New Testament. Oh, wonderful.

1:03:43

I'm excited about that one

1:03:45

and having gotten that one

1:03:47

off my desk was my

1:03:49

last major item on my

1:03:51

agenda. I'll be contributing some

1:03:53

essays to the series new

1:03:55

documents illustrating early Christianity. the

1:03:57

Thessalonica and the Corinthian volumes.

1:03:59

And that's as far as

1:04:01

I've planned at this point.

1:04:03

Trying to take a break

1:04:05

and I'm trying to be...

1:04:07

very selective and thoughtful about

1:04:09

the next major project. Wonderful,

1:04:11

wonderful. And maybe finally, what's

1:04:13

the one thing you hope

1:04:15

your readers take away from

1:04:17

this fantastic book? Well, apart

1:04:19

from everybody accepting the thesis,

1:04:21

I suppose it would be

1:04:23

the wider influence of the

1:04:25

idea of the wisdom of

1:04:28

the cross, as opposed to

1:04:30

the self-help culture today. as

1:04:32

seen partly in the surge

1:04:34

of stoicism today, as you

1:04:36

mentioned, that culture is antithetical

1:04:38

to the ideas of our

1:04:40

self-limitations, our dependence on God,

1:04:42

although we often don't recognize

1:04:44

it, and the idea that

1:04:46

we ought to embrace humility

1:04:48

and and wellness, and that

1:04:50

domination, although it's often valued,

1:04:52

is antithetical to the cross.

1:04:54

And it doesn't solve our

1:04:56

problems, right? Domination leads to

1:04:58

an escalating cycle of domination.

1:05:00

And then what breaks that

1:05:02

cycle is a love. Love

1:05:04

conquers all. And in dealing

1:05:06

with that in First Corinthians

1:05:08

13, Paul was really just

1:05:10

talking in another way about

1:05:12

the wisdom of the cross.

1:05:14

That service giving up our

1:05:16

own interests, living so-called in

1:05:18

weakness for the sake of

1:05:20

others is love. It's the

1:05:22

solution. Beautiful answer. Thank you

1:05:24

very much for that. And

1:05:26

thank you for joining us.

1:05:28

This was Chris Tilling, talking

1:05:30

to Timothy Brookings about his

1:05:32

book, Rediscovering the Wisdom of

1:05:34

the Corinthians. Thank you so

1:05:36

much for joining us. Thank

1:05:38

you Chris, thank you for

1:05:40

having me. You have been

1:05:42

listening to OnScript, Delectable Conversations

1:05:44

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1:05:46

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