Completing Christ's Afflictions: Christ, Paul, and the Reconciliation of All Things

203 Pages·2015·3.049 MB·English

by  Bruce T. Clark

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen
zum Neuen Testament · 2.Reihe
Herausgeber / Editors
Jörg Frey (Zürich)
Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors
Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford)· James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala)
Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL)· Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg)
J.Ross Wagner (Durham, NC)
383

Bruce T.Clark
Completing Christ’s Afflictions
Christ, Paul, and the Reconciliation
of All Things
Mohr Siebeck
Bruce T.Clark, born 1977; 2013 PhD at the University of Cambridge (UK); ministerial
position in Durham, NC (USA).
e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-153627-4
ISBN 978-3-16-153334-1
ISSN 0340-9570 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2.Reihe)
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliogra-
phie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2015 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen. www.mohr.de
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tions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems.
The book was printed by Laupp & Göbel in Nehren on non-aging paper and bound by Buch-
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Printed in Germany.
Dedication
This book is an edited and slightly enlarged version of my PhD thesis, complet-
ed at the University of Cambridge, under the extremely patient supervision of
Dr. Simon Gathercole. While I thoroughly enjoyed our supervisions in the
moment (though a few were deservedly unpleasant!), as with other great gifts in
my life, their full value has been discerned only in retrospect. Though sorely
missed, happily our interaction is still paying hearty dividends.
My examiners, Prof. N. T. Wright and Dr. Justin Meggitt, offered much in-
sightful and judicious critical feedback. I must also thank Drs. Jim Aitken, Rob
Crellin, and Patrick James, all of whom helped especially with chapter 2. With
both Rob and Patrick, whose linguistic and lexicographical skills I intensely
envy, I had the pleasure of meeting to read Greek on Thursday mornings. It is
customary for authors to claim responsibility for whatever faults remain in their
work after it has benefited from the critical eye of far more capable scholars.
Being especially naïve and recalcitrant, I must make this claim most of all.
Also, I am grateful to have had occasions to present material from this work in
the “Biblical Lexicography” and “Disputed Paulines” sections at several of the
Annual Meetings of the Society for Biblical Studies.
Many thanks must go to Pete Williams and the gang at Tyndale House, both
the fellows and the readers, all of whom endured my presence with great grace.
Hopefully, when pestering the fellows with ignorant questions about matters
text-critical or linguistic, I was at least a source of comic relief.
Abundant thanks go to those whose prodigal financial support made my re-
search possible – Carol, Bill, and Scott are just three of many who could be
named. I am deeply grateful to my parents, Rex and Marabee Clark. It would
be impossible to imagine that one could have better parents than mine. They
have encouraged, challenged, inspired, supported, admonished, sympathized,
and (perhaps most importantly) prayed for me and my family. Throughout my
research my children – my twin daughters Lydia and Rosemary, who were
three when we arrived in Cambridge, and Winston, who was seven months
when we departed – were pure oxygen when suffocating from self-importance
and other maladies common to graduate students.
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VI

To my wife Sarah, who at great cost to herself has loved me when at my
very worst and enabled me to be my very best, I dedicate this work. By Jesus’
standard, she is far greater than I.

Bruce Clark
June 16th, 2014
The Church of the Good Shepherd
Durham, North Carolina
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Preface
Colossians 1.24 has long intrigued, perhaps even disturbed, interpreters of
Paul. It is not infrequently regarded as one of the most perplexing verses in
the New Testament. I first became interested in the verse while studying the
various passages in the Pauline corpus that concern suffering – both Paul’s
own and that of the communities he founded.
While a keen interest in Paul’s conception of suffering remains, the pre-
sent investigation, as it turns out, concerns primarily the intersection of three
of the most fascinating aspects of Pauline thought – namely Christology,
redemptive history, and Pauline apostolic identity, or, more precisely, the
identity of Paul the diakonos.
Colossians 1 is well known and justly so. Its “hymn” (vv. 15-20) is one of
the crowning peaks of New Testament Christology. Yet as much as the letter
has been studied with respect to its introductory issues and its Christology,
the letter’s general flow of thought and the manner in which the hymn and
1.24 actually “fit” into the argument remain quite enigmatic. Far more atten-
tion has been given to the parts than to the whole. The major concern of the
present investigation is to read 1.24 in its immediate literary context. Even if
the letter was penned by a student of Paul, it is unfair, at least at the outset, to
presume a lesser degree of coherence in logic and flow of thought.
A second major concern of the present investigation is to ground its exe-
gesis of all too familiar material in rigorous lexico-semantic investigation.
Too often scholars have relied on the lexicons and theologischen Wörter-
buchern, whose limitations, if not outright methodological flaws, are well
known. As such, in what follows we have devoted significant effort to word
studies, and while final judgment of course lies with the reader, the results
have been significant, enabling fresh readings grounded in the welcome in-
flexibility of sound lexico-semantic methodology.
Unless otherwise stated, at all points English translations (of Greek or
Hebrew) are my own. While English translations of German commentaries
have at times been cited, when I thought it better to cite the German, I have
done so. All secondary literature abbreviations are in accord with the SBL
Handbook of Style.

Bruce Clark Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
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Table of Contents
Preface ...................................................................................... VII
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Enigma of Col. 1.24 ...................... 1

A. Introduction .................................................................................................... 1

1. History of Interpretation: A Verse Without a Context ................................ 2

2. Col. 1.24 and Introductory Matters ........................................................... 10

B. Methodology ................................................................................................. 11

Chapter 2: An Analysis of Ἀνταναπληροω in Col. 1.24 ............ 13

A. Introduction .................................................................................................. 13

B. Ἀνταναπληρόω in the Ancient Greek Corpus .............................................. 14

1. Demosthenes, Περὶ τῶν συµµοριῶν, 17 (line 4) ....................................... 15

2. Epicurus, Epistula ad Herodotum, 48 ....................................................... 17

3. P. Oxy. II 326 ............................................................................................ 19

4. Apollonius Dyscolus, Περὶ συντάξεως, Α, §19 ........................................ 20

5. Apollonius Dyscolus, Περὶ συντάξεως, Β, §44 ........................................ 22

6. Apollonius Dyscolus, Περὶ συντάξεως, Γ, §111 ....................................... 23

7. Apollonius Dyscolus, Περὶ συντάξεως, Δ, §64 ........................................ 24

8. Ptolemy, Μαθηµατικῆς συντάξεως, ς΄, section θ΄ (6.9) ........................... 26

9. Ptolemy, Ἁρµονικά, Α΄, section ια΄ .......................................................... 28

10. Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, XLIV, ε΄ (5) .......................................... 29

11. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 7.12.4 ............................................... 31

12. Eusebius, Commentarius in Isaiam, II, ν΄ (2.50) .................................... 32

13. Eusebius, Supplementa quaestionum ad Marinum, Ε΄ ........................... 33

14. Basil of Caesarea, Epistulae, XCII, 2 ..................................................... 35

C. Synthesis and Initial Conclusions ................................................................. 37

1. Consideration of the ἀντανα- Double Prefix ............................................ 44

2. Synonyms or Antonyms? .......................................................................... 45

D. Summary and Conclusion ............................................................................. 48

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