Paul, the Temple, and Building a Metaphor

(Hardback)

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David Basham argues that Paul and the Corinthians share a system of associated commonplaces about the Jerusalem temple. He proposes that when Paul applies temple language to the Corinthians by calling them naos theou (Gods temple), he sparks a creative process of interaction between the temple and the Corinthian assembly; a process of selecting, emphasizing, and organizing information from the source domain (temple) to see the target domain (the Corinthians) in a new light. Basham suggests that, in understanding Pauls fraught relationship with certain institutions of Second Temple Judaism and his conception of gentile inclusion, we can appreciate the creative ways in which he employs cultic imagery to describe his ministry and the ritual life of early gentile believers. By exploring the construction of metaphor, metaphor as both desperation and interaction, the depiction of the Jerusalem Temple in Pauls letters, questions of attendance, access and inclusion, and the Judaean religion among Gentiles, Basham demonstrates that Pauls temple metaphor speaks to a new cultic reality for gentiles-in-Christ that is linked to Israels worship, though detached from its actual expression in Jerusalem.

Author Bio

David Anthony Basham is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio, USA.