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English
222
Literature of the Bible
Wendy Furman-Adams
Acts and Epistles: The Teachings of the Early
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Acts 1-2
Chapter 1:
The resurrected Jesus' forty days of appearances
to his disciples.
His promise of "power from on high" with the
coming of the Holy Spirit (O.E. "ghost").
His Ascension and the angels' announcement of
his coming return.
The disciples' waiting in the "upper room."
The casting of lots for Judas Iscariot's
replacement (Matthias chosen).
Chapter 2:
The birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost.
Things to notice:
1. The coming of the Spirit takes place during
Pentecost (or the Feast of Weeks): the Festival
of the Early Harvest (c.f. Ephesians 1.8-10).
Here scattering gives way to gathering.
2. Pentecost is represented by Luke as a kind of
anti-Babel event (or, perhaps more accurately,
casts the Tower of Babel incident as a kind of
anti-Pentecost). In that earlier story (Genesis
11.1-9) people all share a language, which God
"confuses" into scattered languages. Here people
speaking countless languages are gathered back
together by hearing their own language spoken.
The disciples speak not out of pride (as in the
Babel event) but "as the Spirit gave them
ability"--and "each one heard them speaking in
the native language of each" (2.4 and 2.6).
KJV: "And when the day of Pentecost was fully
come, they were all with one accord in one
place. [Compare Genesis 11.6.] And suddenly
there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing
mighty wind, and it filled all the house where
they were sitting. And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them. And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance" (2.1-4).
3. Peter's speech:
a. his reason why the problem cannot be that the
disciples are drunk with wine (it's only 9:00
a.m.!).
b. his use of the prophet Joel and Psalm 16 as a
gloss on the glossalalia event.
Epistles and Writings of the Early Church (mid
to late first century c.e.)
These epistles and writings circulated during
the first century of the Church's life, and for
the most part are believed to have been composed
earlier than any of the gospels (with the
possible exception of Mark). As such, they were
crucial to the establishment of
doctrine--especially Christology, but also
ethics and polity. Most are regarded to have
been written by the Apostle Paul--formerly Saul
of Taursus. (See Acts 9.1-22 for the story of
his remarkable conversion.) Others became
associated with Jesus' brother James, with the
apostle Peter, and with the writer of the Gospel
of John. Hebrews, long attributed to Paul, was
written by an anonymous, highly educated Jew,
who introduces the elaborately allegorical
method of exegesis of Hebrew scriptures that
will become normative in the work of St.
Augustine (d. 430) and will dominate European
art and literature for the next 1600-1700 years.
[Paul's?] Letter to the Colossians 1.15-20
Along with John 1.1-14, one of the great
Christological passages in the New Testament--a
portrait of what theologian Matthew Fox has
called the "cosmic Christ." In many editions,
the passage is cited as poetry--suggesting that
it may be an early hymn.
Paul's Letter to the Philippians 2.5-11
Paul's great testament to Christ's kenosis, or
"self-emptying"--existing in the form of God,
but "emptying himself," taking the form of a
human being, obedient "to the point of
death--even death on a cross." Like Colossians
1.15-20, the passage is often printed as a hymn.
For literary appropriations of this text, see
Milton's Nativity Ode and Gerard Manley Hopkins'
sonnet "The Windhover" (hand-out).
Paul's Letter to the Romans
The longest and arguably the most important of
all New Testament epistles, dealing (a) with
natural and Mosaic law (chapters 1 and 2); (b)
with the special place of Jews (and Paul was
one) in Yahweh's plan for salvation of humankind
(chapters 3 and 9-11); (c) with the special
significance of Abraham as hero of faith
(chapter 4); and (d) with the behavior
appropriate to those who are "not conformed to
the ways of this world," but rather are in the
process of being "transformed by the renewing of
[their] minds" into goodness and perfection
(chapters 12-16).
At the heart of the letter lies Paul's mediation
on the relationship of sin to the law.
Romans 5
a. Justification by faith and the production of
hope through suffering (5.1-5).
b. Christ's death for the ungodly, "while we
were yet sinners . . . and enemies" (5.6-11).
c. The two Adams, one bringing death into the
world, the other restoring life through grace
("As by one man . . . "; 5.12-18).
For literary appropriations of this text, see
Dante's Paradiso and Milton's Paradise Lost.
Romans 6
a. Baptism into Christ's death and resurrection
(6.1-11).
For a literary appropriation of this passage,
see Milton's pastoral elegy "Lycidas."
b. The end of the "dominion of sin" in the
mortal body (6.15-23):
"the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of
God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"
(6.23).
Romans 7-8
At the core of Paul's theology, these two
chapters, like a gigantic funnel, offer a final
view of the theme of vanity/futility--both as
psychological reality (Romans 7) and as cosmic
fact (Romans 8)--and end with the redemption of
both the microcosm and the macrocosm.
Romans 7
The fundamental dilemma (explored by Sophocles
and other Greek poets, but left unsolved by
Greek philosophy) of righteous law versus the
corrupted will:
"For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am
of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do
not understand my own actions. For I do not do
what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now
if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law
is good. . . . I can will what is right, but I
cannot do it. So I find it to be a law that when
I want to do what is good, evil lies close at
hand. . . . I see in my members another law at
war with the law of my mind. . . . Wretched man
that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of
death?" (7.14-16; 18; 21-24).
For literary appropriations of this text, see
John Bunyan's Holy War and John Donne's Holy
Sonnet 10, "Batter my Heart" (hand-out).
Romans 8
The meaning of life in the Spirit (the Paraclete,
Comforter, Advocate--c.f. John 14).
a. the glory of life in the Spirit, freed from
the law of sin and death (8.1-17).
b. the creation--subjected to futility in hope,
and groaning in labor--awaiting redemption
(8.18-25).
For a literary appropriation of this text, see
Milton's Paradise Lost (especially Books 9-12).
c. the intercession of the Spirit through "sighs
too deep for words" (8.26-27).
d. the certainty of salvation and the depth of
the love of God:
"For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (8.38-39).
Paul's Letters to the Corinthians
1 Corinthians 12
On the metaphor of the Church as Christ's body
and on the various spiritual gifts.
1 Corinthians 13
The famous "love chapter":
"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we
shall see face to face. Now I know only in part;
then I shall know as I am known. And now faith,
hope, and love abide, these three; and the
greatest of these is love" (13.12-13).
2 Corinthians 2.14-3.18
a. Christ as a fragrance going forth into the
world (2.14-17).
b. From the dead letters of the law to the
living letters of the heart: "for the letter
kills, but the Spirit gives life" (3.1-6).
c. From gaze to transformation: "And we all,
with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the
Lord, are being changed into his likeness from
one degree of glory to another" (3.18).
For the ultimate literary appropriation of all
these chapters, read Dante's Paradiso:
Like a geometer wholly dedicated
to squaring the circle, but who cannot find,
think as he may, the principle indicated--
So did I study the supernal face.
I yearned to know just how our image merges
into that circle, and how it here finds place;
but mine were not the wings for such a flight.
Yet, as I wished, the truth I wished for came
cleaving my mind in a great flash of light.
Here my powers rest from their high fantasy,
but already I could feel my being turned--
instinct and intellect balanced equally
as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars--
by the Love that moves the Sun and the other
stars.
(Paradiso 33.133-46; trans. John Ciardi)
[Paul's?] Letter to the Ephesians 1-3
The mystery of redemption and reconciliation
revealed in Christ--in which Jews and Gentiles
(both "by nature children of wrath") are brought
together into "one new humanity":
"For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not your own doing, it is the gift
of God . . . lest anyone should boast" (2.8-9).
"So then remember that at one time you Gentiles
by birth . . . were . . . aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the
covenants of promise, having no hope and without
God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you
who once were far off have been brought near by
the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his
flesh he has made us both one and has broken
down the dividing wall of hostility, by
abolishing the law of commandments and
ordinances, that he might create in himself one
new humanity . . . . So then you are no longer
strangers and aliens, but you are citizens . . .
and members of the household of God" (2.11-15;
19).
"I bow my knees before the Father, from whom
every family on heaven and on earth is named,
that according to the riches of his glory he may
grant you to be strengthened . . . that you,
being rooted and grounded in love, may have
power to comprehend with all the saints what is
the breadth and length and height and depth, and
to know the love of Christ which surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled with the
fullness of God" (3.14-19).
Beatrice to Dante:
. . . We have ascended
from the greatest sphere to the heaven of pure
light.
Light of the intellect, which is love unending;
love of the true good, which is wholly bliss;
bliss beyond bliss, all other joys transcending.
(Paradiso 30.38-42)
Colossians 3.1-4
Thy mystery of the "hidden life" in the City of
God (which is God): "For you have died, and your
life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who
is your life is revealed, then you also will be
revealed with him in glory" (3.3-4).
Hebrews 1 and 11.1-12.2
Chapter 1: Christ, "the exact reflection of
God's glory," in the context of the angels, as
read in the "messianic" psalms.
Literary appropriations: Paradise Lost (especially books 3 and 5).
Chapters 11-12.1
The heroes of faith, from Abel to the early
Christian martyrs, who wandered as pilgrims and
died without seeing the promised land:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great
a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside
every weight, and sin which clings so closely,
and let us run with perseverance the race that
is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer
and perfecter of our faith" (12.1-2).
Literary appropriation: Paradise Lost
(especially Books 11-12).
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