Today I received a book that is hot off the press: Christ’s Body in Corinth: The Politics of a Metaphor, by Yung Suk Kim. I haven’t read it yet, but just looking at the contents, he has a great looking overview of 1 Corinthians. He rightly notices the importance of the body – and in particular, the crucified body – for the flow of the letter:
Outline of the Discursive Figurative Structure of 1 Corinthians:
1:1-17: Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus, and the Corinthians, Sanctified in Christ Jesus
1:18-4:21: The Cross as God’s Power, Exemplified by the Corinthians and Embodied by Paul
5:1-11:34: The Corinthians’ Failure to Embody Christ Crucified, Paul’s Exhortation to the Corinthians Calling for Participation in Christ Crucified
12:1-15:11: Exhortation: The Corinthian Body as Christic Embodiment
15:12-58: As Christ Crucified was Raised, So the Crucified Body of the Christians Will be Raised
16:1-24: Conclusion
Looks good – I’m looking forward to having a read!
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I’m about halfway through Kim’s book right now (and plan to finish today). There are things I like about it, but I enjoyed the earlier books in this series a lot more.
Matthew, thanks for sharing this outline. I love. I have to copy and print it as a Word document.
TC: Yeah I like the outline – it’s not exactly the same as the way I’d do it, but I think he hits on some important themes, and isn’t tied to Margaret Mitchell’s way of dividing it up – so that’s a good thing.
Dan: Ah okay, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts then. As I look at the intro, I have a couple of initial reactions: I think he may well be attentive to the importance of cruciformity in the use of “body” terminology in 1 Corinthians (and this is a much needed emphasis) – but I think he wants to stretch that corrective way too far, denying that ‘body of Christ’ also envisages a distinction between believers and unbelievers.
Of course, I may be off the mark with this, having not read it through yet.
I do find it a bit of a frustration though, that those who examine Paul’s letters from the perspective of philosophy or politics all too often seem to disregard the most recent work in the field of biblical studies – in Kim’s bibliography I see no reference to the most important recent commentaries on 1 Corinthians – by Schrage, Fee, Thiselton, Wolff, – and yet he makes reference to no less than seven works by Derrida… I’m not against listening to Derrida, but I’m just apprehensive that there are not more major commentators on 1 Corinthians in there.
Yes, he does stretch too far. Or, rather, he ignores the gaps his argument creates. By focusing so much on ‘diversity’ and arguing so strongly against prior ‘boundary’-oriented interpretations, Kim never really deals with the situations in which boundaries must be recognised and addressed.
Furthermore, I found his focus on ‘diversity’ to be anti-climactic given his emphasis upon ‘Christic embodiment.’ What I really liked about this book was Kim’s argument that ‘the body of Christ’ in Corinthians, should be understood as a way of life and not as an institutional entity (hence he distinguishes between ‘the body of Christ’ and ‘the ekklesia’ in Corinthians, although he does note how the Deutero-Pauline epistles go on to blur the two together). Thus, ‘the body of Christ’ is an individual and communal way of living that is modeled after Christ crucified. Now, I find this all very interesting and exciting, but then to extrapolate from this that the main thing we need to be doing is to be recognising ‘diversity’ feels like a let-down. I mean, why go to all this exegetical work, if all we’re doing is simply reaffirming liberal democratic values? Surely embodying Christ takes us much deeper than that!
Now, to be fair to Kim, he does emphasise that Paul’s reflections on ‘the body of Christ’ are rooted in his own relationships, and radical acts of solidarity, with those who are oppressed in his day. Again, I find this point good and exciting, but Kim doesn’t seem to sufficiently connect this point with his thoughts on contemporary application so I found that to be disappointing.
Finally, as you mentioned, I found Kim’s scholarship to be a little weak — like you, I was puzzled by the scholars who chose to engage or not engage in his discussion of these things. Really, this is the weakest book so far in the “Paul in Critical Contexts Series” and I hope it doesn’t put you off of the others. I’d really be interested in hearing your thoughts on the books by Elliott or Lopez if you get to them (Elliott’s book is the strongest, as Lopez also tends to stretch too far in her gender-critical hermeneutic).
Thanks for those thoughts Dan. I think his provocative questioning of the way we understand what ‘body of Christ’ means will turn out to be a worthwhile contribution to the study of 1 Corinthians… but I wonder if the fact that this corrective is so firmly put into the service of – as you say – ‘liberal democratic values’ will turn out to put off some readers.
I’m curious about Elliott’s book – The description of the book that mentions “an emerging Christianity already tempted by the seductive ideology of imperial power” is certainly intriguing – and has echoes of Roman Corinth…
Hey Matt,
Regarding what you say about ‘put[ting] off some readers’, I actually think that this happens a lot, despite the fact that scholars are supposed to be objective. For example, Crossan makes some great points related to Paul’s socio-political location, but he loses a lot of his audience because of his view on Paul’s Christology and some other things; Kim makes some good points about ‘the body of Christ’ but I think he will put more people off due to his emphasis on diversity; Lopez also makes some captivating and convincing points when arguing that the term ‘the Gentiles’ is better understood as ‘the (conquered) nations’ but I fear that she will lose a lot of her audience based on her gender-critical approach. It’s too bad really.
As for Elliott’s book, I thought it was really excellent. He addresses some questions I had about counter-imperial readings of Paul (like how do we determine what might, or might not, constitute an ‘hidden transcript’), and he does some great work reading Paul in light of imperial propaganda. I’ve been waiting a long time for this book (since reading Liberating Paul) and it didn’t disappoint.
[...] scholars, but he doesn’t seem to engage the most influential commentaries on 1 Corinthians (Matthew first pointed this out on his blog), instead Jacques Derrida seems to be his primary dialogue [...]