[B-Greek] Col. 2:11 Going beyond grammar?

yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Sun Aug 16 18:24:56 EDT 2009


Iver,

	What, exactly about the "AUTOU is very significant .. and indicates  
that a different sense of SARX is intended"? Why would it seem to you  
to indicate that this is NOT equivalent to ἐν τῷ σώματι  
τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ διὰ τοῦ θανάτου EN  
TWi SWMATI THS SARKOS AUTOU DIA TOU QANATOU in 1.22? I do not follow  
your reasoning. In fact, it would be odd for the phrase not to refer  
to the same thing. Rather, the rhetorical figure would seem to apply  
the same meaning to the developing point of Colossians. That it is now  
being _applied_ to the experience of believers in "EN hWi" [i.e.  
CRISTWi], and they too participate in the metaphorical "stripping"  
does not negate a back reference to 1:22, the phrase is enriched. In  
this case Paul does NOT say SWMA THS hHAMARTIAS but SWMA THS SARKOS  
because the human, physical body is being conceptualized in its  
weakness, its vulnerability to death. This vulnerability to death is a  
counterpoint to the QEIOTHS of v. 9-10. The point there is just as he  
(Christ) enjoys the fullness of deity, believers also experience the  
same fulness "EN AUTWi." This is not "by him" or "with him" but "in  
union with him." Again, Paul's Christ mysticism. The next verse,  
however, must deal with the corollary. What about the "body of  
flesh" (brought up in 1:22) that both Christ and the believers share.  
The weakness of that physical body (cp. 2 Cor. 13:4) had to be dealt  
with. How? Through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But  
Paul here changes that progression of images. He has already mentioned  
death. Here he metaphorically refers to it as "as stripping off" "the  
circumcision of Christ." The progression we have in Col. 2:11-12 is  
circumcision, burial, resurrection. But this circumcision is a  
metaphorical reference to the death, the "stripping off of the body of  
flesh" in death. What relevance does this idea have to the context?  
That has to do with ancient attitudes about the visual representation  
of deity. And the significance of "stripping off the body of flesh."
	What is the meaning of "stripping off the body of flesh"? The image  
of "stripping off" is found in Col. 2:11, 15, and 3:9. I take it in  
the following ways. Christ came in the "likeness of sinful flesh,"  
that is as a weak, human being. Truly human. But, he was a the divine  
Son, the Logos incarnate (Col. 1:15ff). In the cross the powers and  
principalities conspired to killed him,  they "stripped off" his body  
of flesh, as it were. However, in the very act of stripping off his  
body of flesh, the resurrection revealed his true, divine nature  
(2:9-10). Thus, the principalities and powers were themselves  
"stripped" of their weapons (2:15), their ability to maintain control  
of guilty human beings because enslaved to sin. Given both the divine  
and human nature of Christ (an essential part of the thematic of this  
epistle), he is in a position to release humans from their debt of sin  
and provide a way for them to be released from the bondage to sin.  
That is, when Christ was murdered on the Cross it was his divine  
prerogative to bring merciless retaliation on the whole world. But, in  
a reversal of all expectations, he forgave all who would trust in him.  
In this way the principalities and powers have all their weapons  
taken, stripped from them when the body of flesh is stripped from  
Christ. Thus, Paul spends considerable time in Col. 3 explaining how  
believers are to "strip off" the old man by virtue of their union with  
Christ (3:9) in such a way that "Christ is all in all" (3:11 which  
passage, by the way, gives an important clue as to what EN hWi means  
in 2:11).
	The image of the stripping off of the body of flesh [i.e. as if it  
were a garment] had an interesting history in the second century. The  
2 Apocalypse of James, for example, develops this theme from  
Colossians. Colossians cites populate several gnostic tractates.  
Christ is depicted as (1) he who stripped himself and went about naked  
N.H V. 4:46, 15 (2) the first one who will strip himself NH V. 4.56,  
11 and (3) naked, and there is no garment clothing him. The dualism of  
the gnostic writer of this work is clear. Christ stripped off his body  
of flesh [understood as clothing]. _What does this mean?_ The  
operative idea here is that,_ in Greco-Roman art the nakedness of a  
_heroic figure_ is an indication of divinity. This equation is so  
familiar and widespread in the Imperial iconography of Rome that it  
does should not require comment or proof. But, if you are wondering  
why so many statues of ancient emperors are naked, it is because they  
are representing themselves as deity. The nakedness of imperial  
statues was not a source of shame, but of great honor. Indeed, it  
signaled that the emperor had stripped off "his body of flesh" and  
joined the pantheon of divinities and was guiding the Roman state from  
above. But emperors began permitting and promoting naked statues of  
themselves during life as well, indicating that, even in their body of  
flesh the should still be recognized as deity.
	Hippolytus, in his Commentary on the Song of Songs 24-25 (late second  
or early third century), is very little studied because up to recently  
it only survived in Georgian and in a very rough Latin translation by  
Garitte (CSCO), also depicts Jesus, as the Second Adam and naked. Adam  
and Eve, he says, were not naked in that they were clothed with virtue  
and later with fig leaves. Now the New Eve (representing the church)  
is clothed in the works/gifts of the Holy Spirit. Hippolytus makes use  
of a popular domestic art image of Heracles in the Garden of the  
Hesperides battling a serpent in an apple tree with three women  
present to exegete Song of Songs 3:1-7 and draws in Adam/Eve typology  
along with the visit of the women of the Gospels to the tomb "by  
night" in search for the body of Jesus. In domestic artistic  
depictions sometimes Heracles is clothed in leopard skin, sometimes he  
is naked (indicating his promotion to divinity).
	I would venture to guess that the notion of the "stripping off of the  
body of flesh" is, in Colossians 2:11 functions in a similar way, to  
suggest a revealing of Christ's deity,  a necessary corollary with  
2:9-10, i.e. the affirmation that in Christ the fullness of the deity  
dwells SWMATIKOS would suggest to the audience the notion that a  
stripping off of the body of flesh was necessary for Jesus' true  
divinity to be revealed. It might also imply that the image of  
salvation that Colossians is implicitly developing here is QEIOSIS, or  
"divinization" (cp. 3 Peter 1:3). It also might imply (I say might)  
that the "false teachers," whoever they were and whatever they taught,  
were taking QEIOSIS to an direction that made Paul very uncomfortable.  
I am test flying this notion on the list because i am gathering  
textual evidences for a paper I will read a an upcoming Bible  
Translation Seminar in Dallas on re-imagining our texts (New  
Testament, specifically) in the context of Roman visual culture,  
specifically domestic art, coming off of David L. Balch's recent work,  
_Roman Domestic and the Early Christian House Churches_ (Mohr Seibeck,  
2008 with CD Rom and hundreds of images!). An upcoming book by Peter  
Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompey will take a similar approach to the  
Letter to the Romans. Though our primary means of reconstructing the  
ancient context of NT books must always be textual evidence, more and  
more scholars are recognizing the importance of non-literary and now  
non-textual evidence for reconstructing popular culture. The household  
(the original NT churches inhabited domestic space) was a visually  
rich context and that wealth left its mark on the NT itself, and  
certainly on how the NT was understood, as references to art images  
sprinkled through the early patristic fathers shows. For example,  
Balch shows that Gal. 3:1-3 takes on on new meaning when we realize  
that Paul is verbally referring to themes and practice of wall  
painting in the first century B.C. - A.D.
	Again, the point is background context, later development of similar  
ideas, co-text in the epistle provide the clues as to how to take the  
grammar. The grammar is not definitive, it provides clues and guidance  
for the process of discovering meaning and constraining relevance in  
the primary context. In this case a little background goes a long way  
to bringing coherence to the reading of Colossians.


Yancy Smith
Yancy Smith, PhD
yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
yancy at wbtc.com
5636 Wedgworth Road
Fort Worth, TX 76133
817-361-7565






On Aug 16, 2009, at 2:16 PM, Iver Larsen wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- From: <yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net>
> To: "greek B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Cc: "Ken Berry" <ken at wbtc.com>
> Sent: 15. august 2009 21:00
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Col. 2:11 Going beyond grammar?
>
> <snip>
>>
>> So, is the above interpretation strange, new and idiosyncratic. I  
>> hope
>> my musings have shown that it is not entirely so. But, just in  
>> case, I
>> asked my off-list friend Ken L. Berry to offer some further comments.
>> Here is Ken:
>>> Hi Yancy,
>>>
>>> My earlier brief note regarding Col 2:11 was along these lines:
>>>
>>> Re “in the stripping off of the body of flesh, in the circumcision
>>> of Christ,”  I am inclined to think both of these parallel phrases
>>> refer to Christ’s death, with “body of flesh” simply meaning
>>> “physical body.” This interpretation is favored by CFD Moule,
>>> (CGTC, 94-96), Peter O’Brien (WBC, 117), JDG Dunn (NIGTC, 157-8),
>>> Andrew Lincoln (NIB, 624), and Ben Witherington (157).
>
> Thanks, I accept that the interpretation is not as new and novel as  
> I thought. It was only new to me. I still think it is mistaken and  
> strange, because it goes against the immediate and wider context,  
> and very few commentators have taken this view.
>
> The phrase SWMA THS SARKOS in Col 2:11 does not mean "physical  
> body". It is equivalent to SWMA THS hAMARTIAS in Rom 6:6, but it is  
> different from SWMA THS SARKOS AUTOU in Col 1:22. The AUTOU is very  
> significant here and indicates that a different sense of SARX is  
> intended. The contexts of Col 2:11 and Rom 6:6 are quite similar,  
> but 1:22 is very different.
>
> The Byzantine text (followed by KJV) has clarified the connection by  
> having TOU SWMATOS TWN hAMARTIWN THS SARKOS in 2:11. I am not  
> suggesting that this was the original text, only that it helps to  
> see the connection between 2:11 and Rom 6:6.
>
> Iver Larsen




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