These background notes are for 1 Corinthians 15:35-58.
Verse 35: Paul advances the case by answering an imaginary objector, raising the sort of objection often raised to the resurrection belief. For example, some asked what happened if the body was destroyed by fire. (Later rabbis implausibly declared that the body would be resurrected from an indestructible bone in the back of the neck.)
36: “Fool!” was a common response to rhetorical adversaries, including imaginary ones.
37-38: Paul argues that the present body provides the pattern for the future one, regardless of how much remains. Later rabbis also used the seed analogy.
39: Paul argues in 15:39-41 that God can create various kinds of bodies, analogies that allow for a body of glory rather than of flesh (15:43, 50). In these verses Paul lingers on the point rhetorically, developing it by the rhetorical devices of antithesis (contrasts) and various cases of anaphora (x…/x… repetition).
40-41: Most pagans considered stars divine, and Jews saw them as angels. Many believed that stars consisted of fire, as Jews often believed about angels. Many Gentiles considered the heavens pure, the place where souls released from their bodies would ascend. Even some Judeans compared resurrection bodies to angels; given the link between stars and angels in Jewish thought, Paul may compare “angelic” bodies here. He also knows of end-time glory for God’s people (e.g., Isaiah 60:1-2, 19; 61:3; 62:2).
42-43: In 15:42-44, Paul rouses emotion with the ancient rhetorical devices of antithesis and anaphora (x…/x… repetition), in four parallel contrasts. Greeks cherished immortality, but only for the soul. Some Jewish views of the resurrection involved being raised initially in precisely the form in which one died (whether maimed or anything else); Paul seems to envision it differently.
44: Paul contrasts not a “physical” body with a “spiritual” body (though Stoics believed that even “spirit” was material), but rather bodily existence dominated by human life versus the future bodily existence fitted for life by God’s Spirit .
45-47: The first Adam became “a living soul,” or person (Genesis 2:7), a quality in some respects shared with animals (Genesis 2:19). Perhaps since the Holy Spirit characterizes the end-time and resurrects bodies, Paul can associate the new Adam with the Spirit (perhaps like the very breath God breathed into Adam in Genesis 2:7). Some think that Paul is challenging an idea in Corinth (documented in the Jewish philosopher Philo) where Genesis 1:26-27 depicts a “heavenly man” and Genesis 2 a later, earthly “living soul.”
48: Paul returns to his rhetorical contrasts in 15:47-48. Ancients emphasized the principle of like begetting like; what was heavenly produced what was heavenly, and what was earthly, what was earthly. Adam was made from dust (Genesis 2:7).
49: Jewish people believed that God created Adam in his image, but also believed that God stamped his image on people or creation through his Wisdom, his perfect image.
50: “Flesh and blood” was a common figure of speech for mortal humans. In much Greek thought (and Jewish thought influenced by it), whatever was heavenly was eternal, but whatever was earthly was perishable.
51: For examples of end-time “ mysteries” see Daniel 2:28-30, 47. “Sleep” was a frequent euphemism for death.
52: Trumpets were used for gathering and for battle; Jewish prayers spoke of a trumpet gathering God’s people at the time of the end (perhaps based on Isaiah 27:13). Paul may borrow the image from Jesus (Matthew 24:31).
53: In 15:53-54 Paul returns to the rhetorical antithesis, here between mortal and immortal.
54: Paul adapts Isaiah 25:8, “He will swallow death forever,” changing “forever” to “in victory” to correspond with his next citation (it was common to link texts based on common key terms; Jewish teachers also selected textual traditions that worked best, and evidence suggests that some others had already translated “in victory” in the Greek of this verse). (The change also alludes back to 1 Corinthians 15:25-26.) The context could support resurrection (Isaiah 26:19).
55: One could construe Hosea 13:14 negatively, but Paul may reverse that reading in light of the destined positive restoration of God’s people (Hos 14:4-7). Paul changes “hades” to “death” (fitting the meaning and parallel), but more surprisingly changes “punishment” to “victory”; midrash sometimes changed words slightly to play on them. In this way he can link Isaiah 25:8 (in v. 54) with Hosea 13:14, as he builds toward a rhetorical crescendo (1 Corinthians 15:57).
57-58: Speakers and writers often closed a section by summarizing. Ancients often connected belief in the afterlife or, in Judaism, the resurrection, with moral behavior.
(Adapted from Dr. Keener’s personal research. Used with permission from InterVarsity Press, which published similar research by Dr. Keener in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Buy the book here.)
