Theodicy and the Cross of Christ: A New Testament Inquiry 9780567671868, 9780567671882, 9780567671875

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Chapter 1 Introduction: The Cross as a Source of Theodicy Thinking
Chapter 2 Theodicy in Context: Providence and Covenant
Chapter 3 Historical Considerations: The Death of Jesus as a Theodicy Problem
Chapter 4 Theological Considerations: Paul and Others on Understanding Suffering
Chapter 5 Practical Considerations:  Coping with Suffering
Chapter 6 General Summary of Conclusions
Bibliography
9780567671868_txt_index_ePDF.pdf
Index

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LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

567 formerly the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement series

Editor Chris Keith

Editorial Board Dale C. Allison, John M.G. Barclay, Lynn H. Cohick, R. Alan Culpepper, Craig A. Evans, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, Juan Hernandez, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Love L. Sechrest, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Catrin H. Williams

THEODICY AND THE CROSS OF CHRIST

A New Testament Inquiry

Tom Holmén

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Copyright © Tom Holmén, 2019 Tom Holmén has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Holmen, Tom, author. Title: Theodicy and the cross of Christ : a New Testament inquiry / Tom Holmâen. Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. | Series: Library of New Testament studies, ISSN 2513–8790 ; volume 458 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018019117 | ISBN 9780567671868 (hardback) | ISBN 9780567671875 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Theodicy. | Jesus Christ–Crucifixion. | Suffering–Religious aspects–Christianity. | Bible. New Testament–Theology. ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-7186-8 ePDF: 978-0-5676-7187-5 eBook: 978-0-5676-8482-0 Series: Library of New Testament Studies, ISSN 2513–8790, volume 567 Typeset by Newgen KnowledgeWorks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS Preface vii List of Abbreviations viii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CROSS AS A SOURCE OF THEODICY THINKING 1.1 The Point of Departure: Understanding and Coping with Suffering 1.2 The Cross and Modern Theodicy Discussion: Co-suffering 1.3 New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Jesus 1.4 Course of Research

1 1 4 11 15

Chapter 2 THEODICY IN CONTEXT: PROVIDENCE AND COVENANT 2.1 Introductory Remarks 2.2 Theodicy and the Greco-Roman World: Providence 2.3 Theodicy in the Jewish Context: Covenant 2.3.1 The Nature of the Covenantal Care 2.3.2 The Problem and Its Solutions 2.3.3 The Struggle Continued 2.4 Summary

17 17 17 23 25 34 48 54

Chapter 3 HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS: THE DEATH OF JESUS AS A THEODICY PROBLEM 3.1 Introductory Remarks 3.2 The Only Possible Route: Crucifixion Hermeneutics in Contemporary Judaism 3.3 The Route (Eventually) Taken: A New Hermeneutics of the Cross Arises 3.4 Rethinking the Theodicy Problem and Its Solution Chapter 4 THEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS: PAUL AND OTHERS ON UNDERSTANDING SUFFERING 4.1 Introductory Remarks 4.2 Covenant as the Guarantee for God’s Care – Christ as the Guarantee 4.3 The Nature of Covenantal Care – Care in Christ 4.4 Keeping the Covenant – Living with Christ

57 57 59 69 76

81 81 82 89 95

vi



Contents

4.4.1 The Validity of the Action-Consequence Principle 96 4.4.2 Paul’s View of the Problem of Theodicy 99 4.4.3 Paul’s New Covenant-Obedience 105 4.4.4 1 John in Comparison 109 4.5 Theodicy of the Covenant – Its Continuance in Christ 114 4.5.1 Paul and God’s Promises to Israel 114 4.5.2 Reception of the Covenantal Re-solution in the New Testament118 4.6 Conclusions 125

Chapter 5 PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS: COPING WITH SUFFERING 5.1 Introductory Remarks 5.2 Individual Theodicean Motifs 5.3 Conclusions

129 129 130 156

Chapter 6 GENERAL SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS 6.1 Theodicy as an Issue of Consequence 6.2 The Theodicy Problem of Jesus’s Death Reassembled 6.3 The New Testament and the New Theodicean Situation 6.4 Paul’s Theodicy and Theology 6.5 The Modern Theodicy Discussion 6.6 Theodicy of the Cross?

161 161 162 163 164 165 167

Bibliography 169 Index 181

PREFACE This book stems from my long-standing interest in Jewish covenant theology. I have previously studied the notion of the covenant in both the Old Testament/ second temple Judaism and the New Testament, and particularly as a means to interpret the message of the so-called historical Jesus. However, the immediate reason for addressing the present subject came through being introduced to the contemporary discussion on the problem of suffering, or theodicy. The modern philosophic-theological discussion of theodicy has, for some considerable time already, strongly leaned towards practical approaches that in dealing with the problem seek to reach beyond mere academic interest and genuinely work to mitigate suffering. Some such approaches often implement the New Testament narratives of the cross, especially the proclamation of the cross of Christ, in their hermeneutics. The opening setting of the volume at hand reflects this origin of my interest in the subject. I wish to thank Bloomsbury T&T Clark for accepting this volume for publication in the respected Library of New Testament Studies series.

ABBREVIATIONS Bibliographical abbreviations as well as abbreviations for the books of the Bible and other ancient literature follow the Bloomsbury Publishing Plc House Style Guidelines. For rabbinic literature, see the Soncino Talmud 1952, online: http:// halakhah.com/tabbrev.html. ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt ATR Anglican Theological Review Bib Biblica BSac Biblica Sacra BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin BTZ Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly ChrCent Christian Century ER Encyclopedia of Religion EuroJTh European Journal of Theology EvT Evangelische Theologie ExpTim Expository Times IDB Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible Int Interpretation JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament KD Kerygma und Dogma Neot Neotestamentica NT Novum Testamentum NTS New Testament Studies SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament SR Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses TBeit Theologische Beiträge TQ Theologische Quartalschrift TRE Theologische Realenzyklopädie TTod Theology Today TWNT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament TZ Theologische Zeitschrift VC Vigiliae christianae VT Vetus Testamentum ZKG Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Chapter 1 I N T R O DU C T IO N :   T H E C R O S S A S A S O U R C E O F T H E O D IC Y T H I N K I N G 1.1  The Point of Departure: Understanding and Coping with Suffering The task of this study is to examine the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy thinking. By ‘the death of Jesus’ I do not mean only the historical fact that Jesus died on the cross,1 but also the belief in it as displayed in the New Testament, including interpretations, that is, the various (theological) responses to the fact, the most notable among them being the interpretation of the death of Jesus as the cross of Christ. Further, by ‘theodicy’ (and cognates) I do not mean only attempts to solve the intellectual problem of suffering, that is, the difficulty of understanding suffering in a world construed as divinely conditioned, but also attempts to cope with suffering, to come to terms with it. As will be seen, the inclusion of these two aspects – understanding and coping with – within the concept of ‘theodicy’ corresponds both to the modern apprehension of the concept and to the ways suffering was encountered and dealt with in the New Testament world.2 The reason for focusing on the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy thinking is twofold: the many-sided relevance of the theme and the lack of thoroughgoing investigations into it. The death of Jesus is commonly regarded as the one radically novel perspective from which (the problem of) suffering is viewed in the New Testament.3 In many other respects the New Testament has appropriated viewpoints present elsewhere in contemporary Jewish writings and 1. For the historicity of Jesus’s crucifixion, see section 1.3. 2. See section 1.2 as well as Chapter 2. To be sure, the experience of suffering, raising questions of both understanding and survival, has had no temporal or cultural boundaries. Naturally, a full-blown theodicy of modern times should not be sought in archaic documents. See here, for instance, C.-F. Geyer, ‘Zur Bewältigung des Dysteologischen im Alten und Neuen Testament’, TZ 37 (1981): 219–35, esp. 219; U. Heckel, ‘Gottes Allmacht und Liebe: Paulinische Überlegungen zur Theodizee-Problematik’, TBeit 31 (2000): 237–42, esp. 237. For this reason, especially when discussing the New Testament and its context, I  prefer to use expressions such as ‘theodicean motifs’, ‘theodicean ideas’, ‘language of theodicy’ or ‘theodicy thinking’. 3.  J. Bowker, Problems of Suffering in Religions of the World (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1970), 46; E. S. Gerstenberger and W. Schrage, Leiden (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1977), 142; D. J. Simundson, Faith under Fire: Biblical Interpretations of

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ

in the Old Testament.4 Such are, for example, the idea of God’s retribution5 as well as perceiving suffering as God testing6 and disciplining7 of his own.8 Adhering to these views, in fact, the New Testament agrees with theodicean traditions known almost universally in its contemporary world.9 However, the message about Jesus’s death on the cross – according to the New Testament interpretation, the cross of Christ, Son of God  – was perceived by the world of the change of the eras as ‘ridiculous’,10 ‘mad’,11 ‘repulsive’,12 ‘absurd’,13 ‘impossible’14 and ‘perversely superstitious’.15 It is this radicalness, then, that also granted the novelty of the perspective of the cross in viewing (the problem of) suffering. The novel New Testament perspective has, however, remained rather unexplored in biblical exegetical scholarship. There is an abundance of studies into the New Testament interpretations of the death of Jesus.16 Similarly, the approaches to suffering in the Christian Bible in general have been surveyed relatively often.17 Suffering (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1980), 124; H. Klein, ‘Die Bewältigung der Not im Alten und Neuen Testament’, TZ 40 (1984): 257–74, esp. 272–3. 4. R. M. Green, ‘Theodicy’, ER 14 (1987): 430–41, esp. 436; M. Wolter, ‘Der Apostel und seine Gemeinden als Teilhaber am Leidensgeschick Jesu Christi:  Beobachtungen zur paulinischen Leidenstheologie’, NTS 36 (1990): 535–57, esp. 536–7; D. J. Simundson, ‘Suffering’, ABD 6 (1992):  219–25, esp.  224. See, further, J. L. Crenshaw, Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 5. Cf. Dan. 12.1-3; 2 Maccabees 7; Mt. 5.3-12. 6. Cf. Job 1; 1 Cor. 10.13; Jas 1.2-4. 7. Cf. Prov. 3.11-12; Wis. 11.9-10; Heb. 12.5-11. 8.  See further, for instance, Simundson, Faith under Fire; J. Lambrecht and R. F. Collins (eds), God and Human Suffering (Louvain: Peeters, 1990); C. H. Talbert, Learning through Suffering: The Educational Value of Suffering in the New Testament and Its Milieu (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991); G. A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997). 9. See Chapter 2. 10.  D. R. Schwartz, ‘Two Pauline Allusions to the Redemptive Mechanism of the Crucifixion’, JBL 102 (1983): 259–68, esp. 259. 11. M. Hengel, The Cross of the Son of God. Containing The Son of God, Crucifixion, The Atonement (London: SCM, 1986), 93–4. 12. J. Blank, ‘Das Kreuz: Anstoss und Hoffnung. Gedanken zum Kreuz des Jesus von Nazareth und seiner Bedeutung für den christlichen Glauben’, in Studien zur biblischen Theologie, ed. R. Mahoney (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholische Bibelwerk, 1992), 147–65, esp. 150. 13. M. D. Hooker, Not Ashamed of the Gospel: New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Christ (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1994), 12. 14.  T. Elgvin, ‘Der Messias, der am Holz verflucht wurde’, in Tod eines Messias: Messiasgestalten und Messiaserwartungen im Judentum, ed. K. Kjær-Hansen (Neuhausen/ Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1996), 55–62, esp. 55. 15. H. Merklein, Studien zu Jesus und Paulus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 288. 16. See section 1.3. 17. See references in footnotes 3, 4 and 8 above.

Introduction

3

Nevertheless, the relevance of Jesus’s death to New Testament theodicy thinking is regularly settled with the brief remark that the experience of Jesus having died in reality led to a diminished interest in theodicean questions on the part of the New Testament writers.18 As I shall demonstrate later on, such a remark is not accurate at all but there are many questions that require further attention. However, one should also be cognizant that there is indeed a lively discussion going on about the cross of Christ and theodicy, although not within New Testament scholarship. During the recent hundred years or so, the theme of the cross of Christ has importantly fuelled the modern philosophic-theological discussion of the theodicy problem. In particular, the theme has provided apposite material for elaborating the so-called suffering of God theodicy.19 In this context, the cross of Christ appears not exclusively or primarily as the locus of the vicarious suffering of Christ for the sins of the world, but as an expression of God’s empathy, solidarity and co-suffering with the suffering creation.20 In part due to the contribution of the theme of the cross,21 the suffering of God theodicy nowadays forms one of the central practical approaches to the problem of suffering.22 Such 18. Klein, ‘Die Bewältigung der Not’, 273–4; M. Wolter, ‘Leiden III’, TRE 20 (1990): 677– 88, esp. 686–7; G. Baudler, ‘El–Jahwe–Abba: Der biblische Gott und die Theodizeefrage’, Theologie der Gegenwart 41 (1998): 242–51, esp. 248–51; J. H. Charlesworth, ‘Theodicy in Early Jewish Writings’, in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 470–508, esp. 504–5. Interestingly, the articles dealing with theodicy in ABD and TRE, for instance, do not at all discuss theodicy in the New Testament. 19. M. Steen, ‘The Theme of the “Suffering” God: An Exploration’, in God and Human Suffering, ed. J. Lambrecht and R. F. Collins (Louvain: Peeters, 1990), 69–93, esp. 73. For the suffering of God theodicy, see, for example, P. Koslowski, ‘Der leidende Gott – Theodizee in der christlichen Philosophie und im Gnostizismus’, in Theodizee – Gott vor Gericht?, ed. W. Oelmüller (München: Wilhelm Fink, 1990), 33–66; P. S. Fiddes, The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); B. L. Whitney, Theodicy: An Annotated Bibliography on the Problem of Evil 1960–1991 (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University, 1998), 317–37. 20. A. Kreiner, Gott im Leid: Zur Stichhaltigkeit der Theodizee-Argumente (Freiburg im Breisgau:  Herder, 1997), 176–7; M. McCord Adams, ‘God Because of Evil:  A Pragmatic Argument from Evil for Belief in God’, in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, ed. J. P. McBrayer and D. Howard-Snyder (Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), 160–73, esp. 172. Much of the discussion has been devoted to Trinitarian questions. See, for example, J. Moltmann, Der gekreuzigte Gott:  Das Kreuz Christi als Grund und Kritik christlicher Theologie (München: Kaiser, 1981); J. P. Mackey, The Christian Experience of God as Trinity (London: SCM, 1983); Fiddes, Creative Suffering, 112–13. 21. D. D. Williams, What Present Day Theologians Are Thinking (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 171–2. 22. See K. Surin, Theology and the Problem of Evil (New York: Blackwell, 1986), 112–41; B. Davies, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (London: Continuum, 2006), 25: ‘A very contemporary angle.’

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ

approaches have, with emphasis, come to the side of many more theoretical and traditional approaches that are increasingly being accused of coldness and cynicism inappropriate in view of the subject matter in discussion.23 Despite the many exclusive starting points that such a ‘theodicy of the cross’ – as we could call it – owes to New Testament ideas or at least figures of speech, the philosophic-theological discussion has not been interested in viewing the issues involved from the viewpoint of the New Testament writings themselves. This may be understandable since, needless to say, such an interest is the trademark of the discipline of biblical exegesis. Nonetheless, the fact remains and only emerges as more conspicuous that a proper New Testament inquiry into the question of the death of Jesus as a source of theodicy thinking is lacking. The possibility that such an inquiry could, besides its significance for New Testament research, serve even wider purposes only gives further reason for embarking on the enterprise. The following sections of this introductory chapter will set the stage for the implementation of the outlined study. Aligning with the task, stated above, the approach of the study will be an exegetical one, standing in the tradition of New Testament scholarship. This orientation applies to the method, to the questions posed, as well as to the contextualization of the New Testament texts. However, the scholarly discussion about the death of Jesus and theodicy has almost exclusively taken place within the realm of modern philosophic-theological research. Not even a study approaching the theme from a New Testament perspective can neglect familiarizing itself with this discussion. Accordingly, a short review of the philosophic-theological usage of the theme of the cross of Christ in tackling theodicean questions will be in order (cf. 1.2). Afterwards, I shall briefly survey some central interpretations of the death of Jesus in the New Testament (cf. 1.3). This survey will display the general theological ambiance of the New Testament in dealing with Jesus’s death, the ambience in which the looked-for theodicean motifs and ideas are like plants in the soil. It will also provide a basic inventory, which can be referred to in the various parts of the study.

1.2  The Cross and Modern Theodicy Discussion: Co-suffering It is good, at first, to recollect that the dominantly intellectually grasped difficulty of reconciling the benevolence and omnipotence of God with the reality of evil in the world (trilemma), so trying to plead the cause of God24 (theo-dicy), did not 23.  Kreiner, Gott im Leid, 180. For such criticism, see, for instance, P. Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations:  Essays in Hermeneutics (ed. D. Ihde; Evanston:  Northwestern University Press, 1974), 312–14; S. K. Pinnock, Beyond Theodicy:  Jewish and Christian Continental Thinkers Respond to the Holocaust (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 1–21, 129–44. 24. For this formulation as the ‘classical or canonical form’ of the problem, see Surin, Theology, 1.  See also, for instance, Green, ‘Theodicy’, 431; R. van Woudenberg, ‘A Brief History of Theodicy’, in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, ed. J. P. McBrayer

Introduction

5

take firm shape until the Enlightenment and the work of philosophers such as Leibniz.25 In fact, this era brought about many kinds of changes in dealing with the problem of suffering. For instance, in earlier times, when experiencing a contradistinction between the reality of suffering and certain characteristics of God, people were prompted to seek an improved understanding of the deity.26 After the rise of the modern problem of theodicy in the Enlightenment, the crucial question has largely been how to altogether believe in the existence of a divine being.27 The immediate context for the use of the theme of the cross of Christ in modern theodicy is, however, formed by the theopaschite debates and the idea of a suffering God  – an idea which, in turn, required further changes to be introduced into the then usual discourse and use of concepts.28 For a long time, in both pre- and post-Enlightenment discussion, the impassibility of God was something taken for and D. Howard-Snyder (Malden:  Wiley Blackwell, 2013), 177–91, esp.  177. Cf. Seneca’s formulation:  ‘Causam deorum agam’ (On Providence, 1:1). Cf. also Ps. 74.22:  ‘Rise up, O God, plead your cause.’ But compare Isa. 51.22. 25.  Surin, Theology, 39–46; W. Schoberth, ‘Gottes Allmacht und das Leiden’, in Der Allmächtige:  Annäherung an ein umstrittenes Gottesprädikat, ed. W. H. Ritter et  al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 43–67, esp. 51–9; R. Feldmeier, ‘Theodizee? Biblische Überlegungen zu einem unbiblischen Unterfangen’, BTZ 18 (2001):  24–38, esp. 25–6. For the pre-Enlightenment discussion, C.-F. Geyer, ‘Das Theodizeeproblem: Ein historischer und systematischer Überblick’, in Theodizee – Gott vor Gericht?, ed. W. Oelmüller (München: Wilhelm Fink, 1990), 9–32, esp. 14, passim, applies the term ‘Theodizeemotive’. 26. See the discussion of the New Testament’s religious-cultural context in Chapter 2. See also, for instance, Bowker, Problems of Suffering, 25. Cf., however, for instance, the twofold question of Boethius (ca. 480–525 CE) in De Consolatione Philosophae, 1:P4: ‘Si quidem deus . . . est, unde mala? bona uero unde, si non est?’ 27. See M. McCord Adams and R. Merrihew Adams, ‘Introduction’, in The Problem of Evil, ed. M. McCord Adams and R. Merrihew Adams (Oxford:  University Press, 1990), 1–24, esp.  3; A. Laato and J. C. de Moor, ‘Introduction’, in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (Leiden:  Brill, 2003), vii–liv, esp. xiii–xiv. Equally, the modern period has shifted the focus of human existence from heaven to mundane life, placing new demands on the quality of the before-death period. A. S. Jensen, Divine Providence and Human Agency: Trinity, Creation and Freedom (Farnham: Routledge, 2014), 154–6, underlines the great difference this can make in assessing the problem of suffering. ‘God stands in the dock, accused of not making good the promise of human flourishing in this life’ (155). 28.  The theopaschite discussion has interesting connections with the situation in the New Testament world where a message centering on the proclamation of the crucified Messiah and Son of God was a σκάνδαλoν and a μωρία (cf. 1 Cor. 1.18–24; Hengel, The Cross, 93–102). Later the impassibility of the Godhead was sustained by declarations of great Church Councils. For a historical review, see J. K. Mozley, The Impassibility of God: A Survey of Christian Thought (Cambridge: The University Press, 1926).

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granted, a dogma that could be thought of as being differently construed no more than other epithets of the divine.29 The Council of Chalcedon (451 CE) states: But there are those who are trying to ruin the proclamation of the truth, and through their private heresies they have spawned novel formulas: . . . others by introducing a confusion and mixture, and mindlessly imagining that there is a single nature of the flesh and the divinity, and fantastically supposing that in the confusion the divine nature of the Only-begotten is passible. It [the Holy Synod] expels from the assembly of the priests those who dare to say that the divinity of the Only-begotten is passible.30

And long after that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a well-known thinker still argues for the impassibility dogma by articulating his mystical experience: And here . . . appeared Joy, pure joy, an Ocean of it, unplumbed, unplumbable, with not one drop of Evil within it – not one drop of Sin or Suffering or of the possibility of either. And I did not want it otherwise – far, far from it! God was too much our Friend for us not to rejoice that He does not suffer; and this Joy of God is too much our sustenance, it too much shows us, contrastingly, our indigence, a sight of ourselves which constitutes our specific dignity, for me, for any of those great lovers of His, to wish His Joy mixed or limited or conditional.31

For certain reasons, however, attitudes to the passibility question have since undergone a radical change, indeed, so much so that today the suffering-of-God theodicy can be considered a central approach to the problem of suffering.32 While single voices against what formerly was the consensus had been even previously raised, it is the early decades of the twentieth century that mark a clear turning point. Not infrequently has the impetus been traced in the horrors of the World Wars.33

29.  Fiddes, Creative Suffering, 1; R. Goetz, ‘The Suffering God:  The Rise of a New Orthodoxy’, ChrCent 103 (1986): 385–9, esp. 385. 30. Quotations from The Council of Chalcedon 451 CE, Definiton of the Faith. 31.  F. von Hügel, Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion. Second Series (London: J. M. Dent, 1926), 212. 32. Nonetheless, the impassibility of the Godhead is likewise sustained. See, for instance, R. E. Creel, Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: University Press, 1986). For this reason, the claim of Goetz, ‘The Suffering God’, 385, that ‘the ancient theopaschite heresy that God suffers has, in fact, become the new orthodoxy’, may be an overstatement of some degree (see Whitney, Theodicy, 318). 33. See J. Moltmann, In der Geschichte des dreieinigen Gottes: Beiträge zur trinitarischen Thologie (München: Kaiser, 1991), 56–7; Whitney, Theodicy, 319; Pinnock, Beyond Theodicy, passim.

Introduction

7

A theology after Auschwitz would be impossible, were not the sch’ma Israel and the Lord’s prayer prayed in Auschwitz itself, were not God himself in Auschwitz, suffering with the martyred and the murdered. Every other answer would be blasphemy.34 Then the SS sentenced him [a child] to death, with two other prisoners who had been discovered with arms . . . To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child . . . ‘Where is God? Where is He?’ someone behind me asked. At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over . . . Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive. For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him . . . Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him; ‘Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows.’35

The overwhelming calamities, hitting hard after times of advancement and optimism, prompted a questioning of God’s sovereignty (Is God dead?) and justice. Guilt, which in earlier times had been a specifically human attribute, was applied to God as well: How could God justify himself in the face of the cruelty of his world? Disappointment arose in the coldness and cynicism of the traditional, highly theoretical models of explaining the existence of evil and suffering  – models that were mainly based on a theistic view of the divinity, now considered too philosophical to be compatible with the Christian conception of God.36 For the victims, there was no use for ‘solutions’ that aspired to an intellectual grasp of pain. On the contrary, by rationalizing evil, it was, in a way, justified; its existence was accepted.37 It was concluded that instead of cherishing theories that reconciled God with evil, the problem of suffering should be viewed from the standpoint of the sufferers themselves.38 For many, the image of a suffering God alone, a God 34. J. Moltmann, ‘The Crucified God’, TTod 31 (1974): 6–18, esp. 10. 35. E. Wiesel, Night. Foreword by F. Mauriac (translated by S. Rodway; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987), 76–7. 36. Moltmann, Der gekreuzigte Gott, 193–204; Kreiner, Gott im Leid, 178–9; see even J. B. Pool, God’s Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering (two vols; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2011). The theistic view had already for some time been undermined by the scholarly reappraisal of the Bible; D. Sölle, Leiden (Stuttgart:  Kreuz, 1973), 42; Goetz, ‘The Suffering God’, 387–8. 37. See, for example, Ricoeur, Conflict of Interpretations, 310–14; T. W. Tilley, The Evils of Theodicy (Washington:  Georgetown University Press, 1991), 221–55; Pinnock, Beyond Theodicy, 7–12. 38.  Surin, Theology, 51–2. Cf. the charge of I. Greenberg, ‘Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire:  Judaism, Christianity and Modernity after the Holocaust’, in Auschwitz:  Beginning of a New Era?, ed. E. Fleischner (New  York:  KTAV, 1977), 7–55, esp.  23:  ‘No statement,

8

Theodicy and the Cross of Christ

who could bear empathy and solidarity, who could co-suffer with the suffering creation, and in this way even be seen as justifying himself, could offer a solution. Thus, though previously rejected, in the wake of new experiences and thinking, a view regarding God as obliged to parallel the pain of his creatures became a serious alternative in discussing theodicy. Appropriately for this alternative, it was possible to picture the God of the Bible as making himself known through anthropomorphisms, such as feelings, and by participating in the history of his people.39 Moreover, besides the Old Testament image of covenant relationship, the story about God’s act on the cross of Christ served more than well as material for spotting God’s co-suffering and empathy: The whole world is re-constituted in the Cross as its last moral principle, its key, and its destiny. The Cross is at once creation’s fatal jar and final recovery. And there is no theodicy in the world except in a theology of the Cross. The only final theodicy is that self-justification of God which was fundamental to His justification of man. No reason of man can justify God in a world like this. He must justify Himself, and He did so in the Cross of His Son.40 Gott lässt sich aus der Welt herausdrängen ans Kreuz, Gott ist ohnmächtig und schwach in der Welt und gerade und nur so ist er bei uns und hilft uns . . . Hier liegt der entscheidende Unterschied zu allen Religionen. Die Religiosität des Menschen weist ihn in seiner Not an die Macht Gottes in der Welt, Gott ist der deus ex machina. Die Bibel weist den Menschen an die Ohnmacht und das Leiden Gottes; nut der leidende Gott kann helfen.41 Als Kreuzestheologie ist christliche Theologie die Kritik und Befreiung vom philosophischen und politischen Monotheismus. Gott kann nicht leiden, Gott kann nicht sterben, sagt det Theismus, um das leidende, sterbliche Sein in seinen Schutz zu bringen. Gott litt in Jesu Leiden, Gott starb im Kreuz Christi, sagt der christliche Glaube, damit wir leben und in seine Zukunft auferstehen . . . Es gibt kein Leiden, das in dieser Geschichte Gottes nicht Gottes Leiden, es gibt keinen Tod, der nicht in der Geschichte auf Golgatha Gottes Tod geworden wäre . . . Hat Gott den Tod am Kreuz auf sich genommen, so hat er das ganze Leben und das theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children [of Auschwitz].’ 39. See especially A. J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962); vol. 2, Chapter 1: ‘The Theology of Pathos’. Some newer contributions include G. Hoaas, ‘Passion and Compassion of God in the Old Testament: A Theological Survey of Hos 11, 8–9; Jer 31,20, and Isa 63,9+15’, SJOT 11 (1997): 138–59; and E. Talstra, ‘Exile and Pain: A Chapter from the Story of God’s Emotions’, in Exile and Suffering, ed. B. Becking and D. Human (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 161–80. 40. P. T. Forsyth, The Justification of God: Lectures for War Time on a Christian Theodicy (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999), 124–5. 41. D. Bonhoeffer, Widerstand und Ergebung: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft (ed. E. Bethge; München: Kaiser, 1958), 242.

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9

wirkliche Leben, wie es unter Tod, Gesetz, und Schuld steht, angenommen . . . Ohne Grenzen und Bedingungen wird der Mensch in das Leben und Leiden, in den tod und die Auferstehung Gottes hineingenommen und nimmt im Glauben leibhaftig an der Fülle Gottes teil.42 The death of God’s Christ is in part God’s atonement to his creatures for evil. Only on the basis of God’s terrible willingness to accept responsibility for evil do we have grounds to trust God’s promise to redeem evil. Only in God’s daring willingness to risk all in the death of his own son can we have confidence that God finally has the power to redeem his promise.43

The writers’ wish to adjoin a New Testament pattern of thinking, or at least pattern of words and expressions, is clear. We may note the terminology which largely builds on New Testament utterances. Within these few, short examples we observe such typically New Testament expressions as Jesus Christ, God’s Son, his sufferings, Golgotha, justification, atonement, redemption, resurrection, death, the law and guilt, faith and God’s promises. With the key word ‘cross’ combining with these expressions, the atmosphere is strongly reminiscent of that of the New Testament (Pauline) theology of the cross.44 The conspicuous closeness is readily explainable. Cut out for creating problems, as it were, the message about the crucified Messiah and Son of God – σκάνδαλoν and μωρία45 at its time  – had pushed the New Testament writers to exhausting explicatory exercises. It only makes sense, then, that, seeking to justify the idea of a suffering God, the modern theodicists turned to the New Testament texts about the cross of Christ as an important source of inspiration. In fact, the contribution of the theme of the cross to the popularity of the suffering of God theodicy has been substantial.46 There is no need to go deeper into the philosophic-theological theodicy discussion about the passibility question and the cross of Christ. Suffice it to point out some existing differences in interpreting the theodicean purport of the cross. ●●

In a significant part of this discussion, the cross has prompted Trinitarian considerations.47 Since in the cross of Christ God himself suffered death, all the suffering of the world is made into God’s own suffering.48

42. Moltmann, Der gekreuzigte Gott, 201, 233, 265. 43. Goetz, ‘The Suffering God’, 389. 44.  For a recent important study on the theology of the cross, see A.  Dettwiler and J. Zumstein (eds), Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). 45.  See 1 Cor. 1:18-24; Hengel, The Cross, 93–102. See section 1.1. Cf., further, in Chapter 3, section 3.2. 46. Williams, Present Day Theologians, 171–2. 47. Mackey, Christian Experience; Fiddes, Creative Suffering, 112–13. 48. So especially Moltmann, Der gekreuzigte Gott.

10 ●●

●●

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ

In a number of explanations, the cross has specifically been seen as attesting to God’s weakness. While for some this weakness is in fact the power of God,49 for others it speaks of a helpless God who can be effective in the world only through those who suffer.50 As representatives of God, these people do God’s work by moving us to change. Yet for others, the cross of Christ should particularly be understood as God’s self-justification and atonement to his creatures for the evils of the world.51 However, it has also been suggested that the cross will probably be able to provide a meaningful approach to suffering only for those who have faith in Christ.52

There has, of course, also occurred continuous, although diverse, criticism against the depiction of God as capable of suffering. Some scholars have pointed out the revolution of many attributes of God, bound up with the idea of his impassibility, that, in fact, the acceptance of the picture of a passible God entails.53 Besides omnipotence, we can, for instance, think of such epithets as eternity and invariability.54 Likewise, the genuine relevance of the scenario of a suffering God to the theodicy problem has been doubted. Can the scenario do more than elicit some psychological comfort?55 Does it not, in reality, imply a God where there is no salvation?56 Further, picturing the cross as the place of God’s suffering could obscure or overshadow God’s true co-suffering wherever there is agony in the world.57 One can perhaps also count in as a kind of criticism the characterization of God’s handing over of his Son as divine child abuse.58 Hence, there is a lively discussion going on regarding theodicy and the cross of Christ. Nonetheless, the lively discussion has, as maintained, largely been exempt from critically scrutinizing the ‘theodicy of the cross’ from the viewpoint 49. See Bonhoeffer, Widerstand und Ergebung. 50. See Sölle, Leiden. 51. See Forsyth, The Justification of God; Goetz, ‘The Suffering God’. See, further, Jensen, Divine Providence and Human Agency, 159. 52. See S. Hauerwas, Naming the Silences: God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). 53. Fiddes, Creative Suffering, 1; Davies, The Reality of God, 166–8. 54. See Kreiner, Gott im Leid, 166–73. A good, manageable and recent discussion is A. Ottesen Søvik, The Problem of Evil and the Power of God (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 129–34. 55.  Goetz, ‘The Suffering God’, 389. Or maybe not even that; see Pinnock, Beyond Theodicy, 133. 56. D. Cupitt, Taking Leave of God (London: SCM, 1980), 112–13. 57. F. Young, ‘Incarnation and Atonement: God Suffered and Died’, in Incarnation and Myth: The Debate Continued, ed. M. Goulder (London: SCM, 1979), 102–3. 58. See J. Carlson Brown and R. Parker, ‘For God So Loved the World’, in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, ed. J. Carlson Brown and C. R. Bohn (New York 1989), 1–30, esp. 26.

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11

of the New Testament texts. While not intending to directly address the modern philosophic-theological theodicy discussion, the present study will call off this exemption. Whether or not the philosophic-theological discussion can benefit from the results of a New Testament inquiry is a question the present writer cannot properly decide on. Still, even a few suggestions, which, if nothing else, inform that discussion about the New Testament’s understandings of the death of Jesus as evoking thoughts about the problem of suffering, will be put forward.59

1.3  New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Jesus In the end, the main theological environment of the ‘theodicy of the cross’ is formed by the New Testament writings dealing with the death of Jesus. The cross posed a critical problem to early Christians who wanted to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. It brought upon them hard times whether it meant their own need to understand God’s plans or the difficult missionary situations. In this way, being a σκάνδαλoν and a μωρία, the cross of Christ became a major source of creative theology60 filling the New Testament with interpretations and explanations that sought to encounter the shameful fate of the Master of its writers. This centrality of Jesus’s death in the New Testament proclamation, readily discernible, naturally adds to its centrality with respect to the theodicy question as well. The New Testament interpretations of the death of Jesus have gained vast amounts of scholarly attention.61 Perhaps a corollary of the intricateness of the issue to the New Testament writers themselves, as many as there are interpretations, 59. See here mainly Chapters 5 and 6. 60. J. B. Green and M. D. Baker, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2000), 15–6. 61.  To name only a few investigations:  G. Delling, Der Kreuzestod Jesu in der urchristlichen Verkündigung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972); L. Ruppert, Jesus als der leidende Gerechte? Der Weg Jesu im Lichte eines alt- und zwischentestamentlichen Motivs (Stuttgart: KBW Verlag, 1972); H.-R. Weber, Kreuz: Überlieferung und Deutung der Kreuzigung Jesu im neutestamentlichen Kulturraum (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1975); Der Tod Jesu: Deutungen im Neuen Testament, ed. K. Kertelge (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1976); M.-L. Gubler, Die frühesten Deutungen des Todes Jesu:  Eine motivgeschichtliche Darstellung aufgrund der neueren exegetischen Forschung (Freiburg:  Universitätsverlag, 1977); Theologia Crucis–Signum Crucis, ed. C. Andresen and G. Klein (Tübingen: Mohr 1979); G. Friedrich, Die Verkündigung des Todes Jesu im Neuen Testament (NeukirchenVluyn:  Neukirchener Verlag, 1982); Hengel, The Cross; D. C. Allison, The End of the Ages Has Come:  An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985); C. B. Cousar, A Theology of the Cross: The Death of Jesus in the Pauline Letters (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990); K. Grayston, Dying, We Live: A New Enquiry into the Death of Christ in the New Testament (New  York:  Oxford University Press, 1990); D. D. Sylva (ed.), Reimagining the Death of the Lukan Jesus (Frankfurt am

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there are also problems for scholars to be unravelled. This is not the place to go into the questions of the provenance of the various ways of giving meaning to the cross,62 of their mutual relationships or of the definitions of the knotty concepts used in illuminating the significance of Jesus’s death.63 A quick schematic overview of the main interpretations will do. Of course, in explaining the death of Jesus, the New Testament does not display any schematic, systematic whole. Even within the letters of Paul, who is responsible for the New Testament’s most elaborate bulk of the theology concerning the death of Jesus, one encounters overlapping ideas, which are reconciled only with difficulty. Consequently, scholarship has established no customary way of categorizing the various themes, motifs, pictures, concepts and expressions employed in assessing the death of Jesus. The following arrangement is mainly my own.64 It does not intend to be comprehensive, but should still contain the most elementary interpretations of the death of Jesus, augmented with such interpretations that are relevant especially with a view to the purposes of the present study. Main: Hain, 1990); G. Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi im Verständnis des Neuen Testaments (Neukirchen-Vluyn Neukirchener Verlag, 1992); D. Seeley, ‘Jesus’ Death in Q’, NTS 38 (1992): 222–34; Hooker, Not Ashamed; J. T. Carroll and J. B. Green, The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995); M. C. de Boer, Johannine Perspectives on the Death of Jesus (Kampen:  Pharos, 1996); C. J. den Heyer, Jesus and the Doctrine of the Atonement:  Biblical Notes on a Controversial Topic (Harrisburg:  Trinity Press International, 1998); L. Morris, The Cross in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); D. Searle, ‘The Cross of Christ 1: Why Did Christ Die? Romans 3:9–20’, EuroJTh 8 (1999): 3–12; D. Searle, ‘The Cross of Christ 2: The Righteousness of God. Romans 3:21– 22’, EuroJTh 8 (1999): 13–22; D. Searle, ‘The Cross of Christ 3: Justified and Redeemed. Romans 3:24’, EuroJTh 8 (1999): 115–22; D. Searle, ‘The Cross of Christ 4: Satisfaction for Sin. Romans 3:25–26’, EuroJTh 8 (1999):  123–32; R. E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah:  From Gethsemane to the Grave. A  Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2008); C. Breytenbach, Grace, Reconciliation, Concord: The Death of Christ in Graeco-Roman Metaphors (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Some recent reviews of the issue: J. B. Green, ‘Death of Christ’, in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. G. F. Hawthorne et al. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 201– 9; H. Blocher, ‘The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ: The Current Theological Situation’, EuroJTh 8 (1999): 23–36; C. Stenschke, ‘The Death of Jesus and the New Testament Doctrine of Reconciliation in Recent Discussion’, EuroJTh 9 (2000): 131–58; Dettwiler and Zumstein, Kreuzestheologie. 62. Cf. the labels (i)–(xii) below. 63. Cf., for example, atonement, redemption, justification, ἱλαστήριoν. 64.  Compare, for example, the dispositions in Friedrich, Verkündigung des Todes Jesu; Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi; and M. Karrer, Jesus Christus im Neuen Testament (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 72–173. The biblical references are mostly selective.

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Soteriological interpretations (i)

vicarious satisfaction Christ was handed over/gave himself (Rom. 4.25; 8.32; Mk 10.45; Tit. 2.14) and died (Rom. 5.6; 1 Cor. 15.3; 1 Thess. 5.10; see also Jn 11.5052; 1 Jn 3.16) for us; by suffering the punishment for our sins (Gal. 3.13; 1 Pet. 3.18; 1 Jn 4.10); in this way he provided us with, inter alia, forgiveness (Mt. 26.28; Eph. 1.7; Heb. 10.14-18), atonement (2 Cor. 5.19; Col. 1.20; Heb. 2.14, 17) and justification (Rom. 5.9; 2 Cor. 5.21; 1 Pet. 2.24). (ii) redemption The death of Jesus is the price (and ransom) by which we are bought and redeemed from the slavery of various powers: the curse of the law (Gal. 3.13), lawlessness (Tit. 2.14), the vain way of life (1 Pet. 1.18), the earth (Rev. 14.3). A Christian should therefore regard himself/herself as a slave of Christ (1 Cor. 7.22-23). ( iii) sacrifice Christ was sacrificed as our paschal lamb (1 Cor. 5.7; Jn 1.29; 18.28; 19.36); his blood is an offering for our cleansing (Heb. 9.14; 13.12; 1 Jn 1.7; Rev. 7.14) and atonement (1 Pet. 1.19; Rev. 1.5), and for the making of a covenant (Mk 14.24; Heb. 10.29; 12.24; 1 Pet. 1.2); he has given himself as a sacrifice (Eph. 5.2; Heb. 9.26-28; 10.10). (iv) victory over the dominion of evil God triumphed over principalities and powers in the cross of Christ (Col. 2.15; cf. Lk. 11.22); Jesus has overcome the world (Jn 16.33), abolished death (2 Tim. 1.10) and through his own death destroyed the devil (Heb. 2.14; cf. Jn 12.31; Mk 3.27; Mt. 12.29). Therefore, he has the keys of Death and Hades (Rev. 1.18); a Christian, again, has died with him from the elemental spirits of the world (Col. 2.20) and been transferred from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1.13; cf. Jn 5.24; 8.51; 11.25-26; see also, for instance, Mt. 27.51-53). Interpretations based on identification ( v) rejected messenger of God Jesus’s death is a result of the people’s inclination to kill prophets and messengers sent to them by God (Mt. 23.29-37/Lk. 11.47-51; 13.34; 13.31-33; 1 Thess. 2.14-15; cf. 1 Kgs 19.10, 14; Mt. 5.12/Lk. 6.23). What had happened earlier also became the fate of God’s only beloved son, the Righteous One (Mk 12.1-12; Acts 7.52). (vi) righteous sufferer Jesus died since it is often the lot of just people to suffer because of their righteousness (Mk 14.18, 34; 15.24, 29, 34, 36; Mt. 27.34; Lk. 23.46; see

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Pss. 22; 31; 41; 42; 43; 69 [LXX]; cf. also Mk 8.31; 9.31; 10.33-34; Acts 2.22-28; 3.14-15; 13.27-30; Phil. 2.5-9). (vii) heavenly high priest Through his humiliation Jesus learnt obedience and was made perfect in order that he could act as the eternal high priest (Heb. 2.17-18; 4.14-5.10; see Ps. 110.4; cf. 1 Pet. 3.18; 5.4). As such he has expiated sins once for all in the heavenly temple by sacrificing himself (Heb. 7.23–8.5; 9.11-14, 24-26). Thus he has also established the new covenant (Heb. 8.6-13; 9.15; 10.12-22). (viii) new  Adam Jesus’s death was a reversal of Adam’s history (Rom. 5.12-21). While Adam’s disobedience made everyone a sinner, the obedience of Jesus (i.e., his death; cf. Phil. 2.8), the new Adam (Rom. 5.15; 6.6; 1 Cor. 15.45; Eph. 4.22-24; Col. 3.9-10), will make everyone righteous (Rom. 5.19). Therefore, a Christian is a ‘new creation’ (1 Cor. 15.22; 2 Cor. 5.17). This will apply to the creation as a whole as well (Rom. 8.20-22). Interpretations with a social function ( ix) participation in the death of Christ All Christians have died together with Jesus and are or will be made alive with him (Rom. 6.3-11; 7.4; Gal. 2.19.20; Col. 2.12-13; 2 Tim. 2.11-12; 1 Pet. 2.24; 4.12-13; cf. 1 Cor. 15.12-32). In the present life, what happened to Jesus will happen to them too (Mt. 10.24-25; Mk 8.34-38; Jn 15.18-20; Rom. 8.17; 2 Cor. 4.10-11; Phil. 3.10; Col. 1.24; 1 Pet. 4.12-13). (x) example Jesus’s death furnishes an example for the believers to follow. They are indebted to serve (Mk 10.45; Rom. 15.2-3; Phil. 2.1-8) and love (Jn 15.12-13; Eph. 5.2, 25; 1 Jn 3.14-16; 4.10-11; cf. Lev. 19.18; Jn 13.34-35; Rom. 13.8; Gal. 6.2; 1 Thess. 4.9; 1 Pet. 1.22-25; 4.8; 1 Jn 2.9; 4.21) each other; they are encouraged to withstand tests and temptations (Phil. 2.5-8; Heb. 4.14-15; 12.1-3; cf. Lk. 22.28; Rom. 5.1-9; 1 Pet. 1.3-9); and they are exhorted to suffering gratuitously, innocently (1 Pet. 2.19-25; 3.17-18; 4.1). (xi) a new way of knowing The death of Jesus poses a critique of the human way of knowing (1 Cor. 1.19-22). In contrast to worldly judgements, the cross of Christ displays the wisdom and power of God (1 Cor. 1.23-25; cf. Rom. 1.16). This ‘epistemology of the cross’ entails a new way of valuing reality in other perspectives too (Mk 10.42-45; Jn 13.1-15; 1 Cor. 1.26-28; 2.1-5; 8; 2 Cor. 4.7-11; 12.9-10; 13.4). (xii) revelation of God’s love The death of Jesus shows God’s love towards humankind (Jn 3.16; Rom. 5.8; Gal. 2.20; 1 Jn 4.10; Rev. 1.5).

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Indeed, the death of Jesus was, for the writers of the New Testament, the difficult point which became the point; it was what made their mission a burden, but, altogether, it was what their mission was all about.65 It would require an endeavour of its own to study why, in the first place, the followers of Jesus took it upon themselves to proclaim the burdensome message about the cross of Christ.66 With this question also lies one of the reasons why the historicity of Jesus’s death on the cross is considered to be beyond any reasonable doubt. M. D. Hooker refers precisely to the unlikeliness that the followers had invented the ‘crazy gospel’ of a crucified Lord.67 Scholars seem to share the estimation of G. Barth: ‘Nichts ist am Leben Jesu historisch so sicher wie sein Tod am Kreuz.’68

1.4  Course of Research I shall now delineate the course of research that should be followed in order to carry out the task of the present study, that is, examining the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy thinking. It is important, especially considering the lack of investigations into the chosen subject, to place the New Testament in context. I  shall therefore, in Chapter  2, study theodicean ideas in both Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts. While the Greco-Roman world had a relevance of its own to the New Testament writers, most relevant to us is, no doubt, to become familiar with the Old Testament and Jewish theodicean background.69 My aim here will be to try to establish a repertoire of motifs, elements and themes that can then be followed in the New Testament, thus hopefully revealing something about its theodicy thinking. In Chapter 3, I shall take up the question of Jesus’s death as having presented a theodicy problem to Jesus’s followers. At focus here is the fact of Jesus’s death on 65. Hengel, The Cross, 181. 66. See some reflections on this theme in Chapter 3. 67. Hooker, Not Ashamed, 9. 68. Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi, 1. See, for instance, Blank, ‘Das Kreuz’, 148; N. A. Dahl, ‘Messianic Ideas and the Crucifixion of Jesus’, in The Messiah:  Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 382– 403, esp. 382. For reviews and discussion of the death of Jesus as a historical event, see R. A. Horsley, ‘The Death of Jesus’, in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. B. Chilton and C. A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 395–422; P. Balla, ‘What Did Jesus Think about His Approaching Death?’, in Jesus, Mark and Q: The Teaching of Jesus and Its Earliest Records, ed. M. Labahn and A. Schmidt (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 239–58; S. McKnight, Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005). 69. Cf., for example, B. Chilton and J. Neusner, Judaism in the New Testament: Practices and Beliefs (London: Routledge, 1995), xii–xix.

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the cross, not so much the variety of New Testament interpretations thereof. The chapter serves an important purpose in seeking to determine whether as well as how Jesus’s death can actually be seen to have borne theodicean relevance. Chapters  4 and 5 concentrate on examining the death of Jesus as a source of theodicy thinking, taking into account the two aspects established in 1.1 above:  questions on understanding and coping with suffering. Chapter  4 will study how the death of Jesus can be seen to have led to new and interesting ways of understanding theodicy. Chapter  5, again, will concentrate on ferreting out individual practical theodicean motifs that attach to the various responses to the death of Jesus. We have observed that, in the modern philosophic-theological theodicy discussion, the cross of Christ has in particular served as a practical approach to the theodicy problem, that is, as an approach that seeks to provide answers to the question of how to cope with suffering. We therefore understand that it is this chapter that will best allow comparisons between modern and ancient theodicean reasoning and how they adopt and apply the death of Jesus as their foundational interpretative material. In Chapter 6, I shall summarize the results and general conclusions concerning the task of the study. I  shall also reflect the modern philosophic-theological theodicy discussion. With its special role both generally in the New Testament and within the New Testament perspectives on suffering in particular, as well as with its importance in the modern theodicy discussion, the death of Jesus forms a starting point interesting in many respects for viewing New Testament approaches to suffering.

Chapter 2 T H E O D IC Y I N C O N T E X T:   P R OV I D E N C E A N D C OV E NA N T 2.1  Introductory Remarks I shall now turn to discuss theodicean themes in the religious-cultural context of the New Testament. While Judaism largely constituted the matrix of the message of the early followers of Jesus, the Greco-Roman world came into view mainly by being the receiver of the message. As a result, the New Testament emerged through reflecting Jewish legacy and encountering the Gentile world. Both of these settings, thus, had an important but also somewhat different bearing on the New Testament writings.1 I will first provide a somewhat briefer look at the GrecoRoman theodicy discussion, and then dwell longer on the Jewish counterpart.

2.2  Theodicy and the Greco-Roman World: Providence The key element of theodicy thinking in the New Testament’s Gentile world was the question of divine providence (πρόνoια; providentia), the divine care for the world and people.2 The difficult state of affairs that continuously caused astonishment was seeing ‘good men of whom the gods approve toiling and sweating, with a steep road to climb, and bad men, on the other hand, enjoying themselves, surrounded by pleasures’.3 How should one reconcile this bitter experience with the idea of providence?

1. Naturally, Hellenism had also for long influenced Judaism. The main purpose of the analyses of the present chapter is to acquire a means to gauge how the concerns of the Gentile world contributed to the New Testament writers’ moulding of what they knew from the traditions of Judaism. 2. Closely related concepts are, for example, εἱμαρμένη, μoῖρα, τύχη, δαίμων. 3. Seneca, De Providentia, 1:6. (English quotations of De Providentia are from Seneca, Dialogues and Essays: A New Translation by John Davie [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007].) The sentiment was universal; see section 2.3.2, point 1 below for Jewish views; cf. also R. K. Williams, ‘Theodicy in the Ancient Near East’, in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. J. L. Crenshaw (London: SPCK, 1983), 42–56, for the question in ANE.

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Some people simply gave up the idea of providence. Epicureans, for one, pictured the gods as serene, untroubled by anger, partiality and so on, unmoved by passions.4 A famous saying, which has been attributed to Epicurus, depicts the problem of theodicy almost5 in the fashion of the modern ‘trilemma’: ‘Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?’ Whether genuinely deriving from Epicurus or not,6 Epicurus did not seek to argue against the existence of the deity, as the saying would tend to do if read in certain modern interpretative contexts.7 Epicurus confessed to a belief in gods, but his point was that they knew better than to become involved in earthly businesses.8 The correct disposition of human beings was to imitate this divine attitude of staying away, and so stay out of trouble.9 Besides Epicureans, there were also the sceptics who maintained that those who confess a god, a mind that governs the world, are forced to commit impiety since they have no alternative but to ascribe the evils that happen to the god.10 It is, therefore, best to say nothing conclusive about religious matters.11

4. H. Usener, Epicurea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), §§ 242–4. 5.  The following quotation is from the modern theodicist D. Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (South Bend: Infomotions, Inc., 2001), 62–3. The saying was originally related in greater length and detail by the Christian philosopher Lactantius (ca. 240–320 CE), De Ira Dei, 13:20–21, who ascribed it to Epicurus and referred to it as bygone thinking. 6.  For a discussion on the genuineness, see, for example, R. Glei, ‘Et invidus et inbecillus:  Das angebliche Epikurfragment bei Laktanz, De ira Dei 13, 20-21’, VC 42 (1988): 47–58. 7. Instead, in Antiquity, the view held by Epicurus that gods did not care for the world could be branded as a kind of atheism; see, for instance, Plato, Laws 10:899c–909e; Cicero, De Natura Deorum 1:43–44, 85. 8.  R. W. Sharples, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics:  An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy (New  York:  Routledge, 1996), 56–8. According to Diogenes Laertius (Lives 10:139:1), the Epicurean divine being had no trouble himself and would bring no trouble to any other being. 9.  G. Roskam, Live Unnoticed (Λάθε βιώσας):  On the Vicissitudes of an Epicurean Doctrine (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 63–6. 10. See Sextus Empiricus, PH 3:11. 11. Here, the sceptics could make use of a stream of conclusions akin to that ascribed to Epicurus (quoted above; see Sextus Empiricus, PH 3:9–10). The aim was, however, not to argue for the non-existence of a providential god but merely to create indeterminacy about the issue (cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3:85 quoted below and the comment in footnote 15). In general, the view that all questions of importance were bound to remain indeterminate was the prerequisite for ataraxia, for achieving tranquillity and an undisturbed life (PH 3:235; see also R. J. Hankinson, The Sceptics [New York: Routledge, 1995], 237–67).

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And yet another way to compromise the idea of divine providence was dualism (or dualistic polytheism).12 The assumption of the existence of a rivalling power (or many rivalling powers), besides the good god(s) and the picture of the cosmos as a battlefield between them, could no doubt effectively account for the irrational occurrence of evil in the world. Generally, however, the idea of providence was upheld. It appears to have been something one could refer to quite spontaneously and reflexively,13 although, of course, more elaborate considerations were also put forward by thinkers and orators. For many, Epicurus served as a phantom opponent.14 Yet, the real soil of the elaborations was not so much competing philosophies but simply the experience of the disorderly dispensation of good and evil in human life. In effect, attempts to uphold the belief in the divine care and guardianship presupposed a defence of a teleological view of the world, a view that a greater order and purpose is involved in all that happens. One had to claim, sometimes in explicit contradiction to experience, that human affairs indeed followed a cause-effect principle. Whatever seems to be the reality, there is a connection between a person’s actions and what happens to the person. A good action is rewarded, while wrongdoings will have punishment as a consequence. Everything depended on holding to this principle. In the words of Cotta in Cicero’s De Natura Deorum (3:85):15

12. See P. F. M. Fontaine, The Light and the Dark: A Cultural History of Dualism. Vol. 6: Dualism in the Hellenistic World (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1991). 13.  See, for instance, Aeschines, Speeches 3:115 (δαίμων, τύχη); Apollodorus, Library 2:7:4 (πρόνoια); Diodorus Siculus, Library 17:66:7 (δαίμων, πρόνoια); Herodotus, Histories 1:62:4 (θείῃ πομπῇ χρεώμενος); Homer, Odyssey 9:105–10; Livy, History of Rome 5:51:5(-10); Lysias, Speeches 13:63 (τύχη, δαίμων); Pausanias, Description of Greece 5:13:6 (πρόνoια); Tacitus, Annals 15:34 (providus). Underlying is the idea that god(s) will see to it that ‘you reap what you sow’ (Gal. 6.7; see esp. Livy and even Homer, which, for the sake of branding Cyclopes as ‘overweening and lawless’, turns the idea on its head). The idea was shared by all people of antiquity: if there is a just god who cares for human beings, his dealings with people will follow a kind of action-consequence principle. See, for instance, R. C. Cover, ‘Sin, Sinners: Old Testament’, ABD 6 (1992): 31–40, esp. 38–9; J. Krašovec, Reward, Punishment, and Forgiveness: The Thinking and Beliefs of Ancient Israel in the Light of Greek and Modern Views (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 785–92. 14. Interesting is, for example, Plutarch’s De Sera Numinis Vindicta, which begins with a situation where Epicurus has spoken out his views, but has then departed the company without waiting to hear how others would answer him. As a result, Plutarch can put forward his arguments as if having an excuse for not reflecting how Epicurus would have responded to them. See also, for instance, Cicero, De Natura Deorum 1:57–61. 15. In the work, Cotta is the spokesman for academic scepticism. It is still logical that he opposes Epicureanism this way; see footnote 7 above.

20

Theodicy and the Cross of Christ Destroy this, and everything collapses; for just as a household or a state appears to lack all rational system and order if in it there are no rewards for right conduct and no punishments for transgression, so there is no such thing at all as the divine governance [moderatio] of the world if that governance makes no distinction between the good and the wicked.16

So, the experiences attesting against the cause-effect principle necessarily required explanations. The following list contains some of the more important ones that were put forward: ●● ●● ●●

●● ●● ●● ●● ●●

metempsychosis and the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds17 the difficulty of human beings to understand divine purposes the idea that God postpones punishment in order to make room for repentance (μετάνoια) and the idea of a post-mortem retribution (also apart from metempsychosis)18 the claim that nothing that is beyond our control can truly harm us19 divine disciplining or training of the best of people the view that good fortune can sometimes be a curse20 and some persons’ suffering as being advantageous for others.21

Besides explanations like these, interesting is also the question of why, on the whole, defending the idea of providence was experienced as so imperative. One reason can surely be found in the method of deriving theology from physics and cosmology. God’s being was inferred from the shape of the world. Generally, the world was seen as permeated by reason, harmony and fixed laws. For Seneca and many others, therefore, that providence rules over the universe and that God is ever present was proven by the orderly fashion of the world: It is superfluous for present purposes to show that this great edifice of the world does not stand without some power to guard it, or that the stars that assemble and disperse above us are not propelled by chance; that, though bodies whose motion is due to accident frequently become disordered and swiftly collide, our rapidly revolving heavens, governed as they are by eternal law, proceed without hindrance, displaying so many things by land and sea, so many radiant lights in the sky all gleaming in fixed order.22

16.  English quotations of De Natura Deorum are from Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods – Academics (translated by H. Rackham; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933). 17. Plato, Timaeus 41–2 and 27–31 respectively. 18. Plutarch, De Sera Numinis Vindicta 4, 6, and 18 respectively; cf. 32. 19. Epictetus, Encheiridion 1, 31. 20. Seneca, De Providentia 2:1–4 and 4:9–10 respectively. 21. Lucan, Bellum Civile 2:304–19. 22. Seneca, De Providentia 1:2.

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In other words, the idea of providence was upheld since it corresponded to the perceived nature of the universe and to what this implied about the deity. This way of thinking was not only the lesson of Stoicism but common goods of the archaic times.23 As a matter of fact, the correspondence between the shape of the world and the being of the deity was affirmed even by those who would rather join Epicurus. Keeping to such logic, Lucretius, who championed the Epicurean denial of providence, also embraced the view of a universe without design. Containing so many imperfections, the universe was certainly not created by a divine power: I have taught that the sky in all its zones is mortal and its substance was formed by a process of birth, and I have also elucidated most of the phenomena that occur in the heavens and that must inevitably occur . . . Ignorance of the causes of the phenomena drives them [human beings] to commit everything to the rule of the gods and to acknowledge their sovereignty. For it may happen that men who have learnt the truth about the carefree existence of the gods fall to wondering by what power the universe is kept going . . . Then the poor creatures are plunged back into their old superstitions and saddle themselves with cruel masters whom they believe to be all-powerful.24

Another reason for the tenacious defence of providence can be seen in the phantom menace cast by Epicurus’s doctrines on society and state.25 The idea that gods will not intervene in the matters of human beings to reward the good and to punish the wrongdoers was obviously a potential source of social disorder. As Patrocleas in Plutarch’s De Sera Numinis Vindicta (2) states26: ‘These and none other are the very thoughts with which the wicked are likely to encourage and incite one another when they set out to do wrong.’27 The divine providence, in the form of vengeance, was considered a factor that hampered the wrongdoers. Accordingly, the ‘delay of the Deity’, as it was called, constituted a severe problem and obscured those who believed in providence. Olympichus continues after Patrocleas: 23. This also plays a role in the Jewish tradition; see section 2.3.1. See also, for instance, Jer. 31.35-36; Rom. 1.20. Appropriately, in the Jewish tradition the cosmological argument was linked with the concept of the covenant: Jer. 33.20-26. Compare, further, the quotation of Lucretius following in the text with Gal. 4.3, 8-11; Eph. 2.1-3; 6.12; Col. 2.8, 20; 4.3, which are reflective of a revolution in theodicean thinking; see further in Chapter 4. 24. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 6. The text is from the revised edition of Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe (translated by R. E. Latham; revised with an introduction and notes by J. Godwin; New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 167. 25.  P. Green, Alexander to Actium:  The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 623–30. 26. English quotations of De Sera Numinis Vindicta are from Plutarch, Moralia: Volume VII (translated by P.  H. De Lacy and B.  Einarson; Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1959). 27. See also, for instance, Cicero, De Natura Deorum 1:3–4.

22

Theodicy and the Cross of Christ His [god’s] slowness destroys belief in providence, and the wicked, accounting the ill that does not follow close upon each separate misdeed, but comes later, ill luck, and naming it not punishment, but mischance, derive no profit . . . The Justice [Δίκη] that falls upon the wicked with soft tread and slow and in her own season, as Euripides says, resembles the fortuitous rather than the providential in the want of certainty, of timeliness, and of order. I accordingly fail to see the good in that proverbial slow grinding of the mills of the gods, which obscures the fact of punishment and allows the fear of wickedness to fade.28

Of course, there was always the resort of post-mortem retribution. Even if the culprits would remain without penalty in this life, the afterlife would balance the accounts. Epicurus, however, was also known as having advocated for the finality of death.29 Lactantius sums up the obvious response to such doctrines: Who, when he hears this affirmed, would abstain from the practice of vice and wickedness? . . . If any chieftain of pirates or leader of robbers were exhorting his men to acts of violence, what other language could he employ than to say the same things which Epicurus says: that the gods take no notice; that they are not affected with anger nor kind feeling; that the punishment of a future state is not to be dreaded, because souls die after death, and that there is no future state of punishment at all; that pleasure is the greatest good; that there is no society among men.30

*** Hence, seen in these terms, theodicy was an issue of interest and consequence in Greco-Roman antiquity. It had important bearing both on the basics of the worldview and on political and social concerns. It also evoked substantial discussion leading to attempts to account for the apparently arbitrary distribution of fate. The importance of the theodicean questions for the New Testament’s GrecoRoman world is further illuminated by some remarkable passages from Flavius Josephus. In striving to give the Hellenistic reader a concise as well as an illuminating account of the most significant groupings of Judaism, Josephus mentions their attitude to the question of providence. The sect of Essenes, however, declares that Fate [εἱμαρμένη] is mistress of all things, and that nothing befalls men unless it be in accordance with her decree31 . . . The doctrine of the Essenes is wont to leave everything in the hands of God.

28. Plutarch, De Sera Numinis Vindicta 3. 29. Sharples, Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics, 59–62. 30. Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, 3:17. The English quotation is from The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume VII: Fathers of the Third and Fourth Century, ed. A. Roberts, J. Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe (Lactantius translated by W. Fletcher; New York: Cosimo, 2007), 88. 31. Ant. 13:172.

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They regard the soul as immortal and believe that they ought to strive especially to draw near to righteousness.32 The Pharisees . . . attribute everything to Fate [εἱμαρμένη] and to God; they hold that to act rightly or otherwise rests, indeed, for the most part with men, but that in each action Fate co-operates. Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment. The Sadducees . . . do away with Fate [εἱμαρμένη] altogether, and remove God beyond, not merely the commission, but the very sight, of evil. They maintain that man has the free choice of good or evil, and that it rests with each man’s will whether he follows the one or the other. As for the persistence of the soul after death, penalties in the underworld, and rewards, they will have none of them.33

One may doubt Josephus’s depiction of the Sadducees on several accounts.34 Just like he elsewhere compares the Essenes to Pythagoreans,35 his aim with the above kind of categorization of the Pharisees and the Sadducees is evidently to play on the well-known antagonism between Stoic and Epicurean views and the common preference for the Stoic understanding of providence.36 In this outlook, the Sadducees are bound to emerge as underdogs, which would reflect Josephus’s desire to cast them in a negative light.37 In any event, however, the passages show how central a place theodicean ideas occupied in contemporary Greco-Roman discussion, and how one was to take this into account when seeking to drive home a point. I will now turn to reviewing the veins of theodicy thinking in the Old Testament and early Jewish literature.

2.3  Theodicy in the Jewish Context: Covenant As much as the key concept of theodicy in the New Testament’s Gentile world was providence, in the Judaism of the time it was covenant (‫ ;ברית‬διαθήκη). Basically, 32. Ant. 18:18. 33. War 2:162–165. See also Ant. 13:172–173; 18:13–17. 34. See also War 2:166; Ant. 18:17. 35. Ant. 15:371. 36.  R. Marcus, Josephus:  Jewish Antiquities Books XV–XVII (completed and ed. A. Wikgren; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 179; J. H. Neyrey, ‘Acts 17, Epicureans, and Theodicy: A Study in Stereotypes’, in Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. D. L. Balch, E. Ferguson and W. A. Meeks (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 118–34, esp. 130–1. 37. The date in the Josephus accounts is roughly prior to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. To be sure, after the destruction the standing of the Sadducees must have changed radically.

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covenant conveyed the idea of the special kind of relationship between the one God, Yahweh, and the Jewish people.38 This was the fundament, the ground for Jewish self-conception and religiosity.39 It was the covenant relationship God had chosen Israel for; it was for this reason he had given Israel the Torah and separated her from all other nations to be his holy people and to reside in the promised Land.40 The covenant was cherished in Scriptures and evoked in the worship on an everyday basis.41 It functioned as the undercurrent that nourished and gave structure for life, while not so much being the explicit subject of discussion.42 The impact of the covenant belief on Jewish theodicy thinking was profound. While Hellenistic thought knew the resort of compromising the idea of divine providence, for instance, by the means of Epicurean or dualistic views, Jews had no such possibility.43 That their God was providential was instituted in the covenant. Yahweh was a caring, philanthropic, just God. He was love itself. He was also the master of the universe. He was in the control of everything that happened.44 In order to gain insight into how the covenant belief and Judaism’s wrestling with

38. So, for instance, A. F. Segal, Rebecca’s Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 4; G. E. Mendenhall and G. A. Herion, ‘Covenant’, ABD 1 (1992):  1179–202, esp.  1201; R. Rendtorff, Die ‘Bundesformel’:  Eine exegetisch-theologische Untersuchung (Stuttgart: Katholisches Biberwerk, 1995), 80. See T. Holmén, Jesus and Jewish Covenant Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 2–7, for the scholarly view of covenant, which fundamentally understands covenant belief as focusing on the relationship between God and the people. See even Holmén, Jesus and Jewish Covenant Thinking, 40–4. 39. See, for example, A. Jaubert, La Notion D’alliance dans Le Judaisme aux abords de l’ère chrétienne (Paris:  Éditions du Seuil, 1963), 15–6; N. H. Thompson, ‘The Covenant Concept in Judaism and Christianity’, ATR 64 (1982):  502–24, esp.  506; G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin, 1990), 36; N. T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God 1: The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 262. 40.  See, for instance, S. Nigosian, Judaism:  The Way of Holiness (London:  Crucible, 1986); M. R. Wilson, Our Father Abraham:  Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 259; J. D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways: Between Christianity and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM, 1996), 18–36. 41. Deut. 6.4-5; 1QS 10:10; m.Ber. 1:1-3. See also, for example, Shemoneh Esreh; m.Taan. 4:3; m.Tam. 4:3–5:1. 42. G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 313–15; J. Neusner, Major Trends in Formative Judaism: The Three Stages in the Formation of Judaism (Chico:  Scholars Press, 1985), 31–2; A. F. Segal, ‘Covenant in Rabbinic Writings’, SR 14 (1985): 53–62, esp. 55–6. 43. This is the effect of monotheism as well; see Crenshaw, Defending God, 54. 44. For these statements, see the following review in section 2.3.1.

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theodicean problems go together, we need to have a closer look at the nature of God’s covenantal care.45 2.3.1 The Nature of the Covenantal Care 1. The only true God According to the Jewish scripture, Yahweh was the only true God.46 This conviction was stressed especially in distinction to the futile gods of the Gentiles, made by human hand, carved of lifeless wood, stone or metal. The main argument against them was that they do not fulfil the crucial criterion of being a god, namely, being able to help, while Yahweh indeed does.47 There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, majestic through the skies . . . Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph!48 Do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; and do not turn aside after useless things that cannot profit or save, for they are useless.49 They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.50 To you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: ‘Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. Can mortals make for themselves gods?51 Such are no gods!’52 45. ‘[F]‌or all biblical historians, the ultimate “cause” is God’s rule of the world, determined by his attributes’; S. Japhet, ‘Theodicy in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles’, in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 429–69, esp. 446. 46. ‘Yahweh’ being the particular (and sacred) name of the true God. Even the generic ‘Elohim’ often implies the one true God of Israel. See W. H. Lockyear, The Old Testament Names of God: A Perspective (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1999), 5, 21–2, 28. Further on the topic, see C. J. Labuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1966), 8–30, 64–123. 47.  This was an often-upheld argument in situations of direct confrontation with other gods, even when political options were on the table. Cf. J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34–66 (Waco: Texas, 1987), 160–3, on Isa. 45.20-21. 48. Deut. 33.26, 29. 49. 1 Sam. 12.20-21. 50. Isa. 45.20-21. 51. There is a reversal of Gen. 1.26 here: ‘God said, “Let us make a man.” ’ 52. Jer. 16.19-20.

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Hence, Yahweh was seen as true in comparison to other deities who were false,53 not really gods at all since they could not act as a god would:  providentially.54 Additionally, Yahweh was true because he was trustworthy. On the one hand, he was faithful in that he would keep his words, promises and vows; God never lies! On the other, he was also righteous and just. He could not be blamed of having acted wrongly vis-à-vis human beings, but one could trust in his judgements. God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?55 I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David.56 Therefore, you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.57

The covenant God was thus not at all like human beings or their idols. Contrary to all other ‘gods’, the Lord was truly capable of caring and helping, and was truthful, loyal and righteous. The covenant was the guarantee that he would faithfully attend to these qualities. 2. The God who sustains justice and order As a central implementation of his care and guardianship, Yahweh would see to that good acts got their due reward and that wicked acts were punished, thus guaranteeing the making of ‘distinction between the good and the wicked’.58 That human affairs would follow this action-consequence principle59 was nailed down in the covenant agreement:  53. Cf. Amos 2.4, where ‫כזב‬, ‘lie’, probably takes on the meaning ‘idol’; see F. Brown, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), 469. 54. See also, for example, Isa. 41.21-24; 44.8-10; 46.4-7; 57.12-13; Jer. 2.8, 11-14; 10.5; Hab. 2.18-20; Ep. Jer. 6.34-38. 55. Num. 23.19. 56. Ps. 89.34-35. See also, for instance, 1 Sam. 15.29; Ps. 33.4. 57. Ps. 51.6. 58. Cf. the quotation of Cicero above on p. 20. Cf. also in section 2.3.2 point 2. 59. See already footnote 13 above. The claim here is not that the action-consequence principle would necessarily or always be found as an inherent element in human actions. On the contrary, the idea of divine providence naturally posits god(s) as engaged in upholding the principle. I  share Y.  Hoffman’s critique of some aspects included by K. Koch in his concept of ‘Tat-Ergehen-Zusammenhang’; see Y. Hoffman, ‘The Creativity of Theodicy’, in Justice and Righteousness:  Biblical Themes and Their Influence, ed. H. G. Rewentlow and Y. Hoffman (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 117–30; see also, for example, B. Janowski, ‘Die Tat kehrt zum Täter zurück’, ZTK 91 (1994):  247–71; P. D. Miller, Sin and Judgment in the Prophets: A Stylistic and Theological Analysis (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982), 122–37. For Koch’s exposition of his views, see, for instance, K. Koch and J. Roloff,

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I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.60

For good or ill, God’s measures in sustaining the principle thus came about because of the covenant.61 Indispensable in this respect were judgement and revenge. Without these tools all the covenant promises of preservation and safety would have been void. Besides keeping the good from coming under judgement, God’s justice was seen as corresponding to his ability to sentence and retaliate evil. Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?62 The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous, you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God. God is my shield, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day.63 The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. People will say, ‘Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth.’64

Somewhat similarly to Greco-Roman thinking, a guarantee and proof that God’s dealings with human beings would follow an orderly principle was also seen in the perception that nature and the universe pursued fixed laws.65 The covenant with creation, as God’s rule over the universe was sometimes called, was referred to as revealing his faithfulness to his covenants with people.66 ‘Tat-Ergehen-Zusammenhang’, in Reclams Bibellexikon, ed. K. Koch et al. (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1987), 493–5; K. Koch, ‘Is There a Doctrine of Retribution in the Old Testament?’, in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. J. L. Crenshaw (London: SPCK, 1983), 57–87. 60. Exod. 20.5-6. See also, for example, Exod. 34.7; Lev. 26.39; Num. 14.18; Deut. 5.9; Pss. 103.17-18; 105.8; Jer. 32.18-19; Tob. 3.3-5. Cf. Deut. 7.9-10; 24.16; 2 Kgs 14.6; 2 Chron. 25.4; Jer. 31.29-30; Ezekiel 18; see further in section 2.3.2 point 1.  61. Pss. 50.4-23; 74.19-22; Amos 3.2. 62. Gen. 18.25. 63. Ps .7.9-12. 64. Ps. 58.11-12. See also, for example, Ps. 94.1-2; Isa. 63.1-6; Nah. 1.2-8. 65.  See Isaiah 40; Job 9.2-10; 37–41. The Old Testament texts put, however, more weight on the incomprehensibility of God’s governance of nature; see W. Eichrodt, ‘Faith in Providence and Theodicy in the Old Testament’, in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. J. L. Crenshaw (London: SPCK, 1983), 17–41, esp. 34–5. 66. Jer. 31.35-36; 33.20-22, 25-26; see even Hos. 2.16-23.

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3. The God of the Jews Moreover, the divine care of Yahweh was especially for the Jews. When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the Lord’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye . . . The Lord alone guided him; no foreign god was with him.67

The special relationship of the covenant between Yahweh and the Jews was based on his election of this single people from among all the nations of the world.68 The election, again, was based on Yahweh’s love.69 For this reason, Israel is a blessed, happy people.70 Yahweh is their God. The covenant formula ‘I am your God and you are my people’ and its variants display one typical expression which highlights the covenantal bond and appears in various contexts assuring God’s specific concern for the Israelites and their well-being.71 4. The God who reveals his will In a very special way, then, the Israelites were a fortunate people. As maintained by Jewish tradition, the only true God and keeper of justice was their God and they were his ‘only’ people. As most interesting with respect to the theme of providence and theodicy thinking, however, comes the contention that Israel alone was granted the knowledge of what pleases God. Quite generally with respect to understanding divine providence, the question of knowing the gods’ will was experienced as crucial.72 A known Akkadian text puts the problem as follows: I wish I knew that these things were pleasing to one’s God! What is proper to oneself is an offence to one’s god, what in one’s own heart seems despicable is proper to one’s god. Who knows the will of the gods in heaven? Who understands the plans of the underworld gods? Where have mortals learned the way of a god?73 67. Deut. 32.8-10, 12. See also, for example, Isa. 41.8-10; 43.1-7. 68. See, for example, D. Goodblatt, ‘Varieties of Identity in Late Second Temple Judah (200 B.C.E.–135 C.E.)’, in Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba, ed. B. Eckhardt (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 11–27, esp. 27. 69. See, for instance, Exod. 19.5; Deut. 7.6-7; 10.14-15; 14.2. Cf. Amos 9.7. 70. Pss. 33.12; 144.15; Isa. 44.1-3. 71.  See Rendtorff, Die ‘Bundesformel’. Cf., for instance, Genesis 17; Exodus 6; Deut. 26.17-19; 2 Sam. 7.24; Jer. 7.23; 31.33; Ezek. 11.19-20; 34.24; Zech. 8.8. Cf. Eph. 2.12. 72. This appears to have been a literary topos in the ancient world; Crenshaw, Defending God, 224. 73.  Ludlul bēl nēmeqi 2:33–38. The translation is from W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 41.

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The question could understandably beset a person who would perceive adversities as resulting from wrongdoings yet be unable to recognize what they were.74 How could one avoid punishment if one did not know what the deities wanted? In fact, the feeling arose that the gods had purposefully fooled people:  ‘[Gods Narru, Zulummar and Mami] gave perverse speech to the human race. With lies, and not truth, they endowed them for ever.’75 Whether commenting on these sentiments or not, the situation of the Israelites, completely different from that of all other nations, is stressed in the Jewish tradition. Israel could rejoice in that the true knowledge of God’s will had been granted to her. In an exclusive way, it was spelled out in the covenant law. Keep them and do them; for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children – how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children so’ . . . And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.76 What use is an idol once its maker has shaped it – a cast image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in what has been made, though the product is only an idol that cannot speak! Alas for you who say to the wood, ‘Wake up!’ to silent stone, ‘Rouse yourself!’ Can it teach? See, it is gold and silver plated, and there is no breath in it at all. But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!77 Many nations shall come and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.78 74.  See E. F. Sutcliffe, Providence and Suffering in the Old and New Testaments (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953), 23–4. 75.  The Babylonian Theodicy 279–80. Translation:  Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 89. 76. Deut. 4.6-10, 13. See also, for example, Ps. 147.19-20. 77. Hab. 2.18-20. 78. Mic. 4.2.

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She [sc. wisdom] is the book of the commandments of God, and the law that endures for ever. All who hold her fast will live, and those who forsake her will die. Turn, O Jacob, and take her; walk toward the shining of her light. Do not give your glory to another, or your advantages to an alien people. Happy are we, O Israel, for we know what is pleasing to God.79 Great are thy judgments and hard to describe; therefore uninstructed souls have gone astray. For when lawless men supposed that they held the holy nation in their power, they themselves lay as captives of darkness and prisoners of long night, shut in under their roofs, exiles from eternal providence.80

The juxtaposition present in many of these texts shows the significant advantage that the Israelites could claim to have in comparison with other people. They did not have to guess what God wanted of a human being. They were not in the dark about what was God’s will, so having to run the risk of drawing the divine vengeance upon themselves out of ignorance. On the contrary, they knew him since they had been granted divine ‘instruction’: the Torah, the covenant law. 5. The God of forgiveness God could, however, occasionally abstain from exacting recompense for misdeeds – and still not stand out as unjust. He could act in explicit contradiction to the central principle of action-consequence without it implying disorder in his being or impairing his righteousness. The acts I  am referring to are those understood as manifestations of God’s forgiveness and mercy. Forgiveness and mercy could at times overrun the central principle of action-consequence that the accomplishment and maintenance of God’s justice otherwise relied on. When forgiveness and mercy were involved, things that otherwise would have been deemed as instances of injustice, defaults of due punishment, could be regarded as reconcilable.81 Although Yahweh was self-evidently the absolute controller of the divine pardon (cf. Exod. 33.19), there were certain ‘triggering factors’. These included sacrifice, remorse and suffering.82 For Israel, the covenant enhanced the possibilities of 79. Bar. 4.1-4. 80. Wis. 17.1-2. Cf. Eph. 2.12. 81. Leviticus 4, 16; see also, e.g. Ps. 103.3; Isa. 43.24-25; Jer. 31.20. On the theme of forgiveness in general, see, for example, J. S. Kselman, ‘Forgiveness: Old Testament’, ABD 2 (1992): 831–3; J. H. Charlesworth, ‘Forgiveness: Early Judaism’, ABD 2 (1992): 833–5; C.-H. Sung, Vergebung der Sünden: Jesu Praxis der Sündenvergebung nach den Synoptikern und ihre Voraussetzungen im Alten Testament und frühen Judentum (Tübingen:  Mohr, 1993), 2–183. On the righteous and the sinners and the dynamics of forgiveness, see M. Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous: A Comparative Study of the Psalms of Solomon and Paul’s Letters (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995), 181–208. 82.  Isa. 40.2; 2 Macc. 6.12-17; Pss. Sol. 13.10; 18.4-6. See also, for example, E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE (London: SCM Press, 1994), 103–18, 251–7, 270–8.

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remission. Yahweh loved Israel, his people,83 and often felt compassion that (as if) compelled him to forgive her. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.84 You have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities. I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.85 Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he the child I delight in? As often as I speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore I am deeply moved for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord.86

It is difficult to escape the impression that the first text, in fact, tells about Yahweh’s co-suffering with his people.87 This compassion causes him to pity and redeem them.88 The two latter texts, again, give expression to a kind of conflict within Yahweh, his justice and love demanding different handlings of the people. In these texts, love has the last word and Yahweh forgives his people. Hence, as much as righteousness and the ability to execute justice on earth were indeed seen as characteristics of a true god,89 forgiveness based on love could set aside these characteristics without jeopardizing the true godhood of Yahweh.90 In fact, his divinity and holiness could even be given as the reason why forgiveness, at times, took priority over the action-consequence principle: How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I  make you like Admah? How can I  treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce 83. Cf. point 6.  84. Isa. 63.9. Alternative readings to v. 9a: ‘In all their affliction he did not afflict’ (K gives ‫ לא‬instead of Q:s ‫‘ ;)לו‬it was not messenger or angel but his presence that saved them’ (LXX translates MT ‫ צר‬with πρέσβυς ← ‫)ציר‬. The argumentation of Talstra, ‘Exile and Pain’, 173–5, for the interpretation quoted here, based on the context, is convincing. 85. Isa. 43.24-25. 86. Jer. 31.20. 87. See the discussion in Fiddes, The Creative Suffering, 19–25. 88. There are, however, some text critical questions that jeopardize this conclusion. See footnote 84 above. 89. See point 1.  90. For the problems of interpretation and theological implications, see Hoaas, ‘Passion and Compassion of God’; Fiddes, Creative Suffering, 19–25. Cf. also Krašovec, Reward, Punishment, and Forgiveness, 469: ‘victory of God’s love over the postulates of the law of retribution’.

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst.91

Often, however, problems emerged, the compassionate love of God not always sustained as the basis of the forgiveness, or then not accepted by the human sense of fairness.92 6. Appellations underlining God’s covenantal care The providential character of the covenant God was reflected in many attributes attached to his being. Such were, for example, ‫( צדקה‬righteousness), ‫אמונה‬ (fidelity), ‫( אהבה‬love) and ‫( חסד־ואמת‬kindness and faithfulness).93 In addition, there were some pithy appellations, one word metaphors, by which Yahweh was acknowledged as one who takes care, guides and preserves.94 ‘Judge.’ As maintained, Yahweh was seen as the only true and righteous God.95 As such he was also the only reliable judge of human affairs. One could trust that God’s judgements were deprived of all superficiality.96 He would not take a bribe, either.97 He would judge his covenant people with unwavering justice. ‘He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!” The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge.’98 Ultimately, it was Yahweh’s judgements that the earthly adjudicators were supposed to realize.99 He was the judge of all the earth,100 but not only so. Yahweh’s jurisdiction held sway over other ‘gods’ as well. God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: ‘How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah. Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.’101 91. Hos. 11.8-9. 92. See later in section 2.3.2, point 2.  93. Cf. Mt. 23.23/Lk. 11.42. 94.  In general, see, for example, M. E. Mills, Images of God in the Old Testament (London:  Cassel, 1998), 9–16; 71–82; metaphors of governance in W. Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 234–41, 259–61; M. D. Turner, The God We Seek: Portraits of God in the Old Testament (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2011). 95. Pss. 7.12; 9.5; Jer. 11.20. 96. 1 Sam. 16.7; 1 Chron. 28.9; Ps. 7.10; Jer. 17.10; 20.12. 97. Deut. 10.17; 2 Chron. 19.7; Sir. 35.12. 98. Ps. 50.4-6. 99. Deut. 1.17; 2 Chron. 19.6; Prov. 16.10-11; Isa. 1.26; see also Prov. 8.16. 100. Gen. 18.25; Ps. 94.2. 101. Ps. 82.1-4.

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In distinction from all other ‘gods’, Yahweh was truly providential (cf. point 1 above). Therefore, he could also appear as the only righteous judge among them, reprehending others’ reluctance to take care and help the weak and those oppressed by the wicked. ‘King.’ The attribute ‘king’ emphasizes Yahweh’s majesty and power.102 No one can resist his will, prevent him from accomplishing his aims, nor undo his work. In fact, king Yahweh is the sovereign of all creation. He is the king of all the earth and its nations; he reigns even over other ‘gods’.103 He is the eternal and awesome majesty who makes people and the earth tremble.104 As king, Yahweh sustains creation and rules with invariable righteousness and justice.105 He is the Holy One, whom sinners should be afraid of.106 He punishes the wicked and avenges the afflicted.107 Though being the master of the whole universe, Yahweh is in particular the eternal king of Israel, the one who helps her, her maker.108 His kingship for Israel is based on his past acts of salvation, including the covenant.109 The fact that Yahweh is the king of Israel and all the earth in effect means the victory of good over evil, the true God over idols,110 Israel over her enemies111 and the oppressed individual over his wrongdoers.112 ‘Shepherd.’ Balancing the judicatory emphasis of the previous epithets, the characterization of Yahweh as shepherd particularly brings out the protecting side of the divine care.113 Further, contrary to the universality of his judicial and regal roles, Yahweh’s pastoral activity is reflected only with respect to Israel. He is the shepherd of Israel, and they are his sheep.114 The weightiest salvation-historical arguments are evoked to assure this relationship: Yahweh’s freeing of the people from Egypt and his guidance during their wandering in the desert.115 Even individualistic motifs can be combined with the pastoral care of Yahweh.116 ‘Husband.’ One of the most intimate expressions of the special bond between Yahweh and the people is the picture of Israel as God’s spouse. Israel, often called the ‘daughter Zion’,117 is the bride of Yahweh, who is her 102. Ps. 24.7-10. 103. Pss. 47.3, 8-9; 95.3; Jer. 10.7-9. 104. 1 Chron. 16.30-31; Ps. 99.1. 105. Pss. 93.1; 97.1-2, 6. 106. Isa. 6.5; Mal. 1.14. 107. Pss. 5.5-7; 96.10; 99.4; Jer. 10.10. 108. Pss. 20; 44.5; 146.10; 149.2; Isa. 43.15. 109. Exod. 15.1-19; Ps. 44.2-9; T. Mos. 4.2-5. 110. Ps. 97.7; Jer. 10.10-11. 111. Pss. 29.10-11; 47.2-5. 112. Ps. 5.3-7. 113. See, for example, Psalm 23. 114. Gen. 49.24; Pss. 79.13; 80.2; 95.7; 100.3. 115. Pss. 77.21; 78.52. 116. See Gen. 48.15; Ps. 23.1. 117. See, for instance, 2 Kgs 9.21; Isa. 62.11; Zeph. 3.14; Zech. 9.9.

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‘husband’.118 Accordingly, Yahweh ‘loves’ the Israelites,119 and the covenantal ‘knowing the Lord’ (cf. point 4 above) reflects the marital ‘knowing’ between a man and a woman.120 You [Jerusalem] grew up and became tall and arrived at full womanhood; your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare. I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.121

Thus, the theme of Israel’s loyalty to Yahweh, her husband, readily applies to covenantal arguments.122 , On the other hand, the portrait of Yahweh as the faithful husband and lord, as in marriage covenants,123 stresses his taken-for-granted care and guidance. 2.3.2 The Problem and Its Solutions 1. Perplexity The covenant idea effectively barred the road to legitimate speculations about the disposition of the deity to human troubles. The only true, good and just God, the God of the Jews, had revealed his will to them in the covenant and had sworn to treat them according to how they kept this covenant, punishing wrongdoings, but rewarding loyalty, protecting and avenging those who sought his will, but making the wicked perish.124 Blessings  – archetypally pictured very concretely, such as the rains coming in time, a good harvest and yield of trees, the keeping of dangerous animals from the land, victory over the enemies and the increase 118. Isa. 54.5; 62.4-5; Hos. 2.18, 21-22. An early interpretation of the Song of Songs was that Israel is the bride while Yahweh is the bridegroom; see M. H. Pope, Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1977), 89. As H.-J. Klauck, Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnistexten (Münster: Aschendorff, 1978), 162, notes, the Israelite prophets retained the discrepancy to the hieros gamos idea by connecting the motif with covenant, creation and history. 119. Isa. 43.3-5; 62.4; Jer. 31.3-4; Hos. 14.5; Zeph. 3.17; Mal. 1.2; see even 1 Kgs 10.9. In fact, Yahweh’s love for Israel is given in Deuteronomy as the grounds for the election of the people; see Deut. 4.37; 7.7-8; 10.15. 120. Cf. ‫ ידע‬in, for example, Gen. 4.1 and, again, in Hos. 2.22 and Ezek. 16.62 (cf. the context Ezek. 16.8, 59-62). See even Jer. 31.34. 121. Ezek. 16.7-8. 122. Isa. 54.1-10; Hos. 2.18-25; Mal. 2.10-16. 123.  For marriage as a covenant, see Mal. 2.10-16; G. Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant:  A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Governing Marriage, Developed from the Perspective of Malachi (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 27–47. 124. Crenshaw, Defending God, 130.

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of population125 – would follow those who kept his commandments and statutes. Curses  – likewise typically illustrated with straightforward concreteness, such as illnesses, no rain, a loss of crops, enemies’ defeat of the Jews, wild animals bereaving children and causing a decrease in population, a fall into cannibalism and, finally, also the devastation of the sites of idolatry126 – would befall those who disregarded God’s will. Hence, because of the covenant belief, the idea of divine providence was sustained in a very pronounced way. All the more drastic was, therefore, the experience that Providence127 could act unprovidentially. Both blessings and curses would often attach to the wrong kinds of people. Why does the way of the wicked prosper?128 There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous.129

The dilemma generated by these experiences was the commonly human one in antiquity. The covenant belief, however, greatly aggravated the dilemma.130 The action-consequence connection, sanctified in the covenant, appeared as severed in the real life. Indeed, the more the providential qualities of the covenant God were accentuated, the more serious the challenge that was cast by the harsh experiences of life. This not only dimmed the fate of individuals and their apperception of Yahweh, but (as should be stressed) also jeopardized the status of the Jews as the people of the one God. Was Yahweh the true God? Was Israel the true people of this God? Did they indeed have the knowledge of God’s will in the covenant law?131 Did Yahweh really have both the power and the good will to enact the law on earth? The perplexity was voiced in many ways.132 For instance, God was accused of lagging when punishing evils and avenging the sufferings of the 125. Lev. 26.3-12. 126. Lev. 26.14-39. 127.  ‘Providence’ could be used almost synonymously of God; C. F.  D. Moule, ‘Providence’, IDB (1962): 940. See πρόvoια in, for example, Wis. 14.3; 17.2; 4 Macc. 9.24; 13.19; 17.22. 128. Jer. 12.1. 129. Eccl. 8.14. See also, for instance, Job 21.7; Ps. 73.3-14; Eccl. 7.15; Hab. 1.13. 130.  Bowker, Problems of Suffering, 7; J. L. Crenshaw, ‘Introduction:  The Shift from Theodicy to Anthropodicy’, in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. J. L. Crenshaw (London: SPCK, 1983), 1–16, esp. 5; Charlesworth, ‘Theodicy in Early Jewish Writings’, 505. 131. See Charlesworth, ‘Theodicy in Early Jewish Writings’, 507. 132. R. N. Whybray, ‘Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Just?’, in Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Right? Studies on the Nature of God in Tribute to James L. Crenshaw, ed. D. Penchansky and P. L. Reddit (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 1–20, esp. 12–4. In my view, the defiance voiced both did not let God off the hook (F. Klopper,

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ

righteous.133 He delayed his help, hiding his face, as if the righteous were his enemy.134 He was asleep, had forgotten the trouble of his people.135 Interestingly, the problem of delayed help aroused criticism of the terms of the covenant itself in that they could be seen as sanctioning the delay. You say, ‘God stores up his (‫ )]י[ו‬iniquity for his children.’ Let it be paid back to him, so that he may know it. Let his own eyes see his destruction, and let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty. For what does he care for his household after him, when the number of his months is cut off?136

Thus, when the experience suggested that there were halts in God’s providential activity, one reaction was simply to stress,137 even by recasting parts of the covenant tradition, that the opposite was the case. Hence, ‘[k]‌now therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own person [‫ ]אל־פניו‬those who reject him, by destroying them. He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him’.138 Perhaps to a more serious degree were the accusations that God did not know what happened down on earth, that he was not aware of the misdeeds of the wicked139 and that he could not take vengeance.140 And finally, as much as the Jews could take pride in that they had been given the knowledge of God’s will, there still arose suspicion of what God actually wanted. Ironically or sincerely, Yahweh could be pictured as with a perverse will. Malachi, among others, criticizes: You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ By saying, ‘All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God of justice?’141 ‘Lamenting the Loss of Lament, the Language for Our Times’, in Exile and Suffering, ed. B. Becking and D. Human [Leiden: Brill, 2009], 233–46, esp. 242–4) and sought to mobilize him to act according to what he was believed to be like (Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 318–24, 374–81). 133. Eccl. 8.11; Hab. 1.2-4. 134. Pss. 40.18; 44.25; 70.6; 88.15; Job 13.24; 33.10. 135. Pss. 13.2; 35.23; 42.10; 44.24. 136. Job 21.19-21. Clarity requires a change from the translation of the NRSV (‘they’) back to the original Hebrew third person, masculine, singular. 137. Cf. Ezek. 18.25-29, characterized as ‘a shouting match’ by J. L. Crenshaw, ‘Theodicy and Prophetic Literature’, in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 236–55, esp. 247. 138. Deut. 7.9-10; cf. Exod. 20.5-6 quoted above. See also Jer. 31.29-30; Ezek. 18.2-20. 139. Pss. 73.11; 94.7; Ezek. 8.13. 140. Ps. 10.4-14; Jer. 15.18; Isa. 40.27. 141. Mal. 2.17.

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Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is unfair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?142

The logic, an outrageous one, is readily perceivable. Since Yahweh seemed to keep rewarding wicked people, maybe it was wickedness that he wanted. Moreover, even the idea of God as having fooled the people could steal into the perplexed thoughts of Yahweh’s servants143:  ‘Moreover I  gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live144 puts Ezekiel forward as the word of God.’ 2. Explanations In trying to defeat the perplexity, attempts were made to explain the apparent deviations from the action-consequence principle. We can review the deviations and their explanations in two groups. Why did the righteous suffer? Explanations that sought to account for this deviation were many and mainly followed the style of those encountered in GrecoRoman literature. The suffering of the righteous could be interpreted as Yahweh’s testing, educating, instructing or purifying of his own.145 Righteous people could even benefit others by their suffering. On the other hand, Israel’s being the people of God could also be interpreted to mean that they were under God’s special scrutiny.146 More was required of them. Israel, specifically, should bring about praise and glory for God.147 Therefore she was perhaps in greater need of education. In general, God’s was the mysterious way and the inscrutable wisdom.148 According to these viewpoints, suffering could, in fact, act like a blessing.149 At least one difficult question emerged from such explanations:  How to distinguish between suffering and suffering? In other words, how to tell apart the suffering that was to be taken as God’s chastisement of the wicked from the suffering that was God’s education, and so on, of his own? Inasmuch as suffering and various states of deprivation (e.g., lack of posterity, poverty, hunger) were indeed regarded as clear signs of God’s disfavour, inherently resulting from wrongdoings, rather similar characteristics were also assigned as disclosing the true righteousness of the one who suffered.150 Hence, we have fatalistic statements like those of Ecclesiastes, 142. Ezek. 18.25. See also Ezek. 18.29; 33.17, 20. 143. Cf. the above quotation from Babylonian Theodicy. 144. Ezek. 20.25. 145. Cf. the views of Seneca reviewed in 2.2. 146. Amos 3.2; 2 Macc. 6.12-17; Pss Sol. 18.3-4. 147. Deut. 26.18-19; Jer. 13.11. 148. Job 11.7; Isa. 40.13; 45.15; Jer. 23.18; Jdt. 8.14; Wis. 17.1; cf. Rom. 11.33-34; 1 Cor. 2.16. Cf. also the related Greco-Roman thoughts presented in 2.2. 149. Whybray, ‘Shall Not the Judge’, 2–3, 15–17, presents an interesting list of scholarly explanations trying to account for the existence of Old Testament texts that evoke questions about God’s justice. 150. The godless naturally oppressed and took advantage of the good and pious people. Therefore the good were constantly distressed, poor and sorrowful.

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for example, ‘The same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked.’151 Deutero-Isaiah, again, presents the paradox of the ‘prospering’ servant of Yahweh who, because of his utmost suffering, was erroneously deemed as having been ‘struck down by God’.152 And Malachi hoped for the day of the Lord when ‘once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked’.153 Why then did the wicked prosper? This exception to the action-consequence principle was clearly more difficult to explain, at least if keeping to this-worldly ideas. The following teaching about God’s retribution illustrates the point: ‘But when I thought how to understand this [that the wicked prosper], it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I  went into the sanctuary of God; then I  perceived their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!’154 The idea here is clearly that obedience will yet prove its worth by the inevitable, terrifying fall of the godless that will abruptly terminate their good fortune. There was, in fact, only a delay in God’s action. However, life many times attested against this wisdom. The end of the wicked could be gracious and honourable, avoiding even the curses of the covenant through which God’s vengeance would meet the coming generations. In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evil-doing.155 Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes.156

Thus, not only was the covenant stipulation that God would punish children for the iniquity of their (fore)fathers sometimes experienced as unacceptable, as noted earlier,157 ultimately, it also did not seem to hold true. Only by the introduction of the afterworld was it possible to coin a satisfactory explanation to the enduring earthly happiness of the wicked. This was, at the same time, a good opportunity to assure that the righteous would also finally get their due reward. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who

151. Eccl. 9.2. 152. Isa. 52.13-53.4. 153. Mal. 3.18. Cf. the quotation of Cicero’s De Natura Deorum in 2:2. 154. Ps. 73.16-19. 155. Eccl. 7.15. 156. Job 21.7-8. 157. Cf. Deut. 7.9-10; Job 21.19-21 quoted above. See Exod. 20.5-6.

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are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.158

With the passing of time, the concepts of post-mortem reward and retribution both took firmer shapes and grew in importance. The apocalyptic ideas that also arose brought the visible actualization of the action-consequence principle close to naught. Clearly, for some people, this was the only way they could evade the apparent dysteleology of the perceivable world and sustain God as in control of everything. According to another model of explanation concerning the prosperity of the wicked, Yahweh did not immediately destroy them as a part of his wise, inscrutable plans. Either he was forbearing and wanted to offer them the opportunity to repent,159 or then the wicked could be given a time of prosperity as the vehicle of God’s judgement.160 Sometimes both of these strategies of Yahweh came to the rescue of Israel herself. She was punished for her sins but escaped an utter destruction, for despite everything, God still had mercy and hoped that she would turn back. A godless nation was then used to force her to return to Yahweh.161 In these two models, the final (post-mortem) retribution and the inscrutable plans of God, we see attempts to deal with the problem of the delay in God taking action. In any assessment, the delay remained a continuous concern. As to the first model, one had to accept the idea that the judgement of the wicked did not have to be immediate, that is, one had to trust that the wicked had not escaped divine justice despite their present prosperity. Often, however, a reason for the delay would also need to be provided, an answer to the question of why justice had to wait in the given case. The second model could then be employed, but this did not always sort out the problem. Above I mentioned the reason of God holding back punishment while waiting for the wrongdoer(s) to repent. Obviously, upon repentance the impending punishment would default. Hence, the delay of divine retribution could be ‘treacherous’. It could mean that due punishment would ultimately fail to come. The guarantee ‘truly you set them in slippery places’ of the psalmist could fall short.162 Here the forgiveness and mercy of Yahweh served as important but troublesome motifs. They could indeed explain why the wicked were exempted from punishment, but the exemption was often experienced as hard to bear. Thus Jonah, for example, did not want to bring the warning of the Lord to the Gentile Nineveh because he knew that Yahweh was ‘a gracious God and merciful, slow 158. Dan. 12.1-3. See also, for instance, 2 Bar. 21.11-25; 44.11-15; 1 Enoch 38–39; Sib. Or. 4.179-190; R. J. Faley, The Cup of Grief: Biblical Reflections on Sin, Suffering and Death (New York: Alba House, 1977), 77–88. 159. Isa. 30.18-19; Ezek. 33.11-16; Joel 2.12-14; Wis. 11.23-12.2. 160. Prov. 16.4; Isa. 47.5-15. 161. Zech. 1.15. 162. Ps. 73.18. See the quotation above.

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to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing’.163 Forty days’ respite could – as it did – result in God pardoning the evil people of the city. As for Israel, the situation was somewhat different but still problematic. Israel being in question, a delay of an ultimate punishment was especially prompted by God’s willingness to forgive his covenant partner. Since Yahweh’s forgiveness and mercy arose from his love, marital metaphors were frequent here. Israel’s deviation from the ways of the Lord was described as adultery, ‘[she] went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the Lord’.164 As for her return, again, it stands that ‘I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord’,165 thus from the realm of the marital concept reflecting the covenantal knowing of God. Since Yahweh loves Israel, he eagerly wants to forgive her no matter how drastic her adultery.166 In this way he shows his forbearance. Many times, however, even these situations could become a cause for complaints. For example, the prophets denounced the people’s idea that trust in the ‘temple of the Lord’ automatically guaranteed divine favour, namely, without paying attention to righteous behaviour.167 Clearly, there were differing opinions about the efficacy and appropriateness of sacrifice (temple) and remorse (Nineveh) as factors triggering divine forgiveness.168 Understandably, no one would have been eager to see wrongdoers exempt from the due outcome of their misdeeds. Therefore, the question of how to interpret and make use of the delay remained burning. Why is He silent? What should we do? What is going to happen when He takes action? Thus, arguments were keenly sought for the delays of the Jewish deity too,169 even all the more so because of the covenant relationship with Israel Yahweh had obliged himself to. In spite of some texts that could be seen to point in an opposite direction, Yahweh was often pictured as a God who acts quickly, who immediately comes to the rescue of his people. The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will be silent in his love170; he will exult over you with 163. Jon. 4.2. 164. Hos. 2.15. See also, for example, Jer. 3.13. 165. Hos. 2.22. See also, for instance, Ezek. 16.62. 166. See Ezekiel 16. 167. Jer. 7.9-15. 168. See point 5 in section 2.3.1. Cf. also, for instance, Prov. 21.27; Isa. 1.11, 13-15; Amos 5.21-24; 2 En. 45.3; Sir. 34.19. Indeed, many of the psalms (exceptions are, e.g., Psalms 51; 130), instead of pleading for forgiveness, simply pray for God’s help of deliverance from the given predicament; F. Lindström, ‘Theodicy in the Psalms’, in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 256–303, esp. 258, 263–8. 169. Cf. in 2.2 the corresponding Greco-Roman discussion. 170. MT: ‫יחרישׁ באהבתו‬. Similarly in the Dead Sea fragments; see M. Abegg Jr., P. Flint and E. Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: Translated and with Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 466. The Targumic ‘he will subdue your sins by his love’ interprets God’s

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loud singing as on a day of festival. ‘I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors.’171

The persisting problem of delay also called forth certain figures of speech, for example, the ‘cup of wrath’ which, having become full, the godless would have to drink. ‘Thus says your Lord, the Lord, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more; and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, ‘Bow down, that we may pass over.’ ” ’172 Likewise, the expectation of God’s balancing stroke of vengeance evolved into the idea of the day of judgement. On this Day of the Lord he would finally settle all accounts. Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?173

3. Origins of (the) evil The Old Testament itself does not put any great weight on the question of the origin of evil. The view, accentuated especially in the Deuteronomistic literature, that the source of suffering was ultimately to be seen in human sin was taken as axiomatic by all writers.174 The linguistic factor attests to the same perception. In Hebrew, as generally in Semitic languages, the many words that basically stand for sin also denote punishment.175 Sin, in other words, is its own punishment. Yet, a few ideas about the incipience of the sequence of human sin–suffering/ evil were indeed entertained. The famous third chapter of Genesis serves to illuminate the severance of the relationship between the creator and the created. The transgression against what God had commanded leads to punishments, a silence as a judgement withheld in order to leave room for forgiveness; see K. J. Cathcart and R. P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 173. Cf. the LXX: καινιεῖ σε ἐν τῇ ἀγαπήσει αὐτοῦ. 171. Zeph. 3.17-19. See also, for instance, Deut. 7.9-10; Sir. 5.7; 35.22-25. 172.  Isa. 51.22-23. See also Pss. 11.6; 60.5; 75.7-9; Isa. 51.17; Jer. 25.15; 49.12; Ezek. 23.31-35; Hab. 2.16; Pss. Sol. 8.13-14; 1QpHab 11.12-15; LAB 50.6. 173. Amos 5.18-19. See also, for example, Isa. 13.6-11; Jer. 30.7-11; Joel 2.1-2, 11; Zeph. 1.14-17. 174. This holds true (even with respect to Job) despite the criticism that human guilt is not always manifest. 175. Cf., for example, ‫עון‬ = sin, guilt, crime, punishment, suffering; ‫משׁפט‬ = ‘judgement’, ‘sentence’, ‘crime, guilt’.

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pattern which then revealed itself as perpetuating and causing the increase of sin on earth.176 Genesis 6.5 provides a culminating statement that paves the way for God’s decision to destroy all his creatures in the great flood:  The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

The emphatically voiced profundity of the wickedness of humankind, here marked with italics, has been recognized by commentators. We shall see that the emphasis had an effect on early Jewish thought too. Interestingly, the punishments for the sin of Adam and Eve take, among other things, the form of an enmity that enters between human beings and other parts of the creation. The earth is portrayed as reluctant to bear fruit, thus explaining the hardships of everyday life. We may passingly recall that the covenant blessings that would follow from right behaviour and loyalty to God’s will are often pictured as a kind of partial or temporal reversal of the outcome of the first sin: the land will yield good harvests and so on. Genesis 3 also introduces the figure of the serpent, which, perhaps unintentionally, is given a rather prominent place in the primeval history scene. The origin of the serpent is not reflected on, with the probable interpretation that it was part of God’s creation177 being important mainly in light of later early Jewish and Christian thought.178 Lumped together with the few accounts of ‘an adversary’ of God179 and some other passages of the Old Testament,180 the serpent became designated as Satan, a fallen angel of God, whom evils of the world could be ascribed to.181 Such an idea was sustained despite its clash with the covenant 176. Unnecessarily nonchalant towards this origin and development is Jensen, Divine Providence and Human Agency, 160: ‘Here we have a clear attempt to exculpate God; evil is not there as part of God’s good creation, but because of the corruption and violence which somehow crept into creation’ (emphasis added.) 177. ‫ מכל חית השׂדה‬in Gen. 3.1 allows translations ‘than all other wild animals’ and ‘than all wild animals’. 178.  Hence, unravelling the ‘original’ purport of the figures and the story is not attempted here. For some newer ideas about the authorial intent (or the approximation of that), see G. de Villiers, ‘Sin, Suffering, Sagacity: Genesis 2–3’, in, Exile and Suffering, ed. B. Becking and D. Human (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 3–17. De Villiers also states that ‘[o]‌ne may even say that the first three chapters in their canonical form deal with the theodicy question’ (13). 179. From ‫שׂטן‬, ‘be or act as adversary’, ‘an adversary’ or ‘Satan’, that is, superhuman adversary. The latter two meanings appear in Job 1–2; Zech. 3.1-2; and 1 Chron. 21.1. Cf. 2 Sam. 24.1. 180. Isa. 14.4-23; Ezek. 28.2-19. 181. See, for instance, LAE passim; 1 En. 53.3; Wis. 2.24; Pss. Sal. 4.9; Mk 1.13; Lk. 13.16; Jn 13.27; Acts 5.3; Rev. 12.9; Apoc. Elij. 1.2.

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declaration that there is no one alongside Yahweh.182 Indeed, the idea was sustained even in the presence of following assertions: I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.183 Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster befall a city, unless the Lord has done it?184 Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?185

The monotheism, or monism, advocated by these texts has been deemed as representing an alternative (and earlier) view compared with the conception that Yahweh is profoundly good and good alone.186 In a way, the situation could have been experienced as if being between Scylla and Charybdis. Whereas the positing of an adversary of Yahweh might call his oneness into question, the view that both good and bad originated in him would seem to have a ring of blasphemy in it. However, the thought found in the quoted texts above can also be interpreted as an expression of an outlook on life where the action-consequence principle represents something very profound and basic, something inescapable. The principle, also embraced by the terms of the covenant, dictates that suffering comes to human beings because of their misdeeds. Whether, then, Yahweh, who as a just and faithful covenant God acts according to the principle, can properly be held as the origin of suffering, or this role should rather be given to the human behaviour releasing the punishment is a question of semantics.187 From a certain point of view, it can be claimed that the reason for evils always lies in human sin. Therefore, if nothing else, the considerations of the origin of evil did not become integral in solving the problem of suffering, although they did incite imagination. In fact, the solution was always there: observe the covenant, pay heed to the will of God and blessings will flow. For some this was satisfactory wisdom,188 while others kept struggling between trust and perplexity.189 Perhaps the development of the idea of an adversary of God tells of a prevalence of the latter. 182. Deut. 6.4; cf. Isa. 48.12; see also, for example, Isa. 44.6; 45.5, 14. 183. Isa. 45.6-7. 184. Amos 3.6. 185. Lam. 3.37-38. 186. J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 174. See, further, Crenshaw, Defending God, 54–71. 187.  The latter formulation especially comes close to the action-consequence (Tat– Ergehen) idea as presented by Koch and Roloff, ‘Tat-Ergehen-Zusammenhang’, 493–5. See the discussion in footnote 59 above. 188. Cf., for example, Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch. 189. Cf., for instance, Job, Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah.

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4. A covenantal re-solution Besides causing extra trouble in wrestling with theodicean problems, the covenant also afforded a markedly original perspective to their solution. For Jeremiah, the Deuteronomistic view of obedience-reward and sinpunishment was axiomatic.190 While he could also approve of the explanations, reviewed above, as bringing some answers to theodicean questions, he deemed that the situation of the people would be hopeless in the long run.191 Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ Also I raised up sentinels for you: ‘Give heed to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not give heed.’192 Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.193

In other words, the prophet felt himself compelled to question whether there ever could be a brighter future for the people if everything remained as it was. As it seemed to him, the people of God was destined to fall perpetually – and hence, to suffer.194 In fact, this was the theodicean problem. Together with its solution, all perplexity caused by suffering would disappear. However, one could not think of changes being imposed on the action-consequence terms of the covenant. At bottom, this was a question of the being of God, his being just and righteous. And God was unchangeable. Therefore, the solution could only be a miraculous, Godeffected change on human beings. Even this act of Yahweh would take the form of covenant-making: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.195 190. In fact, this ‘idea is so prevalent that a thorough treatment would require an analysis of virtually all of the canon’; Crenshaw, Defending God, 130–1. 191. H. Weippert, ‘Das Wort vom neuen Bund in Jeremia XXI 31–34’, VT 29 (1979): 336– 51, esp. 340–6. 192. Jer. 6.16-17. 193. Jer. 13.23. 194. Isa. 1.5-6; Jer. 4.16-6.30; cf. 4 Ezra 9.31-37. 195. Jer. 31.31-34. See also, for example, Jer. 24.7.

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This time Israel’s knowing of her Lord would be intuitive, inbred, not dependent on learning and the continuous reciting of the words of the Torah.196 For the law would now be within them, written on their hearts. Other texts express the idea in a way that more clearly shows its effects on the main theodicean problem: I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me.197 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.198

‘One heart and one way’, ‘fear of me in their hearts’, replacing the heart of stone with one of flesh, and God’s spirit within, as well as the picture of putting the law within and writing it on hearts, mentioned earlier  – all tell of the change God imposes on human beings. These and some similar utterances are found in the context of announcing an eschatological covenant,199 which will result in Israel truly becoming able to keep the covenant.200 The guaranteed keeping of the covenant, again, has a remarkable consequence: ‘I will never draw back from doing good to them.’ This speaks directly to the dilemma of Jeremiah described above. There would be a time when Yahweh would not need to withdraw his blessings nor put into effect his curses, for the covenant would be unbreakable. Indeed, the prophecies about the eschatological covenant culminate in spelling out the firmness and abundance of the blessings that will follow: I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I  will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good fortune that I now promise them.201 Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleannesses, and 196. Cf. Deut. 6.6-9. 197. Jer. 32.39-40. 198. Ezek. 36.26-27. See even Isa. 59.21; Jer. 24.7; Ezek. 11.19-20; 37.24. 199. See, for instance, Isa. 59.21; Jer. 3.17; 24.6-7; 31.31-34; 32.37-40; Ezek. 11.16-20; 36.25-29; 37.21-27. Cf. the covenant formula in, for example, Jer. 24.7; 31.33; 32.38; Ezek. 11.20; 34.24; 36.28. 200. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise and T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52 (Dallas: Word Books, 1995), 160. 201. Jer. 32.41-42.

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field abundant, so that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.202

Hence, blessings now constitute a permanent state of affairs. In effect, thus, the eschatological covenant means the return of the times before the severance of the relationship between human beings and God as pictured in Genesis 3.203 It means a reversal of what happened in the fall, human beings again being able to ‘know’ God, and the relationship between humankind and other creatures being restored.204 The interpretation connecting the God-effected renewal of the human nature, put forward by the eschatological covenant texts, and the idea of a new creation and/or return of the primeval times, surfaces also in later Jewish literature.205 The previously reviewed appellations, among others, that underlined God’s covenantal care were also put into the service of conveying the picture of the profoundly changed situation of the people.206 Both Yahweh himself and the one anointed by him are given in turns the role of the shepherd and king who will lead the renewed Israel. The role of husband is, however, ascribed only to Yahweh himself. I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken. I will make with them a covenant of peace.207 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I  will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there forever; and my servant David shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them.208 202. Ezek. 36.28-30. See further Isaiah 1–9; Jer. 24.6; Ezek. 34.25-31; Hos. 2.20, 23-25. 203. Cf. point 3 in section 2.3.2. 204. See, for example, Hos. 2.20, 23-25; Isa. 11.1-9; 62.18-22; 65.17-25. 205. See section 2.3.3. 206. See point 6 in section 2.3.1. 207. Ezek. 34.23-25. 208. Ezek. 37.22-26.

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The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I  will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’209 And I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know (‫ )ידע‬the Lord.210

As Israel had ‘known’ Yahweh, her husband, in the covenant-making, she will now learn to ‘know’ him in such a way that will amazingly prevent her from deserting him again, that is, committing adultery with other gods.211 The blessings resulting from the new situation are spelled out, for instance, in Ezek. 34.25-31 and Hos. 2.20, 23-25. Here all terrors of the theodicean perplexity finally get dissolved: understandably, if God himself will cause people to live faithfully according to the covenant, all suffering, whatever its form, will cease. If God makes it so that no one will ever fail to fulfil his commands, there will be no need for the punishment of sins. Furthermore, there will be no need for testing, educating, instructing, purifying and so on through suffering either. For the never failing, God-powered obedience would not be lacking in endurance, education, insight or purity. Similarly, on the other side of the coin, the act of the forgiveness of sins that will co-effect in this covenant-making212 would remain the last one of its kind. It would also solve the problem of delay and end all questioning about the efficacy and appropriateness of the triggering factors of divine pardon. As presented by the prophets of the great restoration, this would be the ultimate, covenantal solution of the theodicy problem, a problem so highlighted in Judaism precisely because of the unique covenantal relationship pictured between the one God and the Jewish people. As such it would once again witness of the enduring, merciful will of God vis-à-vis his people, a will which had already taken expression in the many earlier instances of covenant-making related by the sacred literature of the people. However, this new saving act of Yahweh, if not altering the nature of his covenant care, at least casts it in a new light. By this act he will conclusively prove himself as the true God, as the faithful one, for now he will finally establish the land in justice and harmony. He will also make the people’s knowledge of his will ingrained and their intent in fulfilling it such that it cannot be averted. Further, he will unite the separated tribes of Israel and turn all the nations of the world to the service of Yahweh. 209. Jer. 23.5-6. 210. Hos. 2.21-22. See also, for example, Isa. 33.22; 40.11; Jer. 3.15-17; Mic. 4.1-7; Zeph. 3.14-17; Zech. 9.9; 14.9, 16. 211. Ezek. 16.7-8, 59-63; Jer. 32.40. 212. Jer. 31.34; 33; Ezek. 16.7-8, 59-63; 36.25; see Zech. 13.1.

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2.3.3 The Struggle Continued In spite of the grandeur of the prophecies, the people never experienced their fulfilment. There came about no better covenant or creation, and thus, no conclusive solution to the theodicy problem either.213 History showed a recurring humiliation of the people of the only true God under pagan oppressor. Consequently, the theodicy question was to be much on the surface.214 The action-consequence principle and the covenant belief, still upheld, left only two possibilities to interpreting suffering and distress: either God or the people were being unfaithful to the covenant.215 What was certain was that God could not be blamed.216 Quite simply, then, it was the people who had forsaken him. Just as was envisaged by Jeremiah, they had kept falling short of the covenant terms. Righteousness belongs to the Lord our God, but confusion of face to us and our fathers, as at this day. All those calamities with which the Lord threatened us have come upon us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord by turning away, each of us, from the thoughts of his wicked heart. And the Lord has kept the calamities ready, and the Lord has brought them upon us, for the Lord is righteous in all his works which he has commanded us to do. Yet we have not obeyed his voice, to walk in the statutes of the Lord which he set before us.217 You have executed true judgments in all you have brought upon us and upon Jerusalem, the holy city of our ancestors; by a true judgment you have brought all this upon us because of our sins. For we have sinned and broken your law in turning away from you; in all matters we have sinned grievously. We have not obeyed your commandments; we have not kept them or done what you have commanded us for our own good.218

As a consequence, perhaps more than ever before efforts were put into finding out how to keep faithful to the covenant.219 There emerged extensive discussing 213.  D. Hartman, A Living Covenant:  The Innovative Spirit in Traditional Judaism (New York: Free Press, 1985), 213–14. 214. See Charlesworth, ‘Theodicy’, 470–1; P. C. Beentjes, ‘Theodicy in Wisdom of Ben Sira’, in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 509–24, esp. 510, 524. 215.  T. Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination in Pauline Soteriology (Tübingen:  Mohr, 1998), 42. 216.  ‘[T]‌he belief that “God is just” is an absolute, undisputable tenet, one of the most fundamental aspects of God’s image.’ Japhet, ‘Theodicy in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles’, 429. 217. Bar. 2.6-10. 218. Pr. Az. 5–7. See also, for example, Dan. 9.5-14. 219. D. J. McCarthy, ‘Covenant in Narratives from Late OT Times’, in The Quest for the Kingdom of God: Studies in Honor of George E. Mendenhall, ed. H. B. Huffmon, F. A. Spina and A. R. W. Green (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 77–94, esp. 82–7, 92–3; J. J. Scott

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and contemplating that aimed at learning how to correctly keep the covenant.220 The conventional theodicean answers lived on but with an altered perspective to them, brought about by the passage of some extremely calamitous events in the history of the people. Disasters inexplicable to traditional wisdom enhanced the need for an eschatological solution. In general, the glorious prophecies of the past were now being viewed as concerning an age still in the future.221 God was still expected to fulfil his promises because there was no question that he was ‫צדיק‬. He could be trusted to keep his word. The post-biblical Jewish theology is clearly influenced by the hope that the restoration envisaged in the past would yet one day come true.222 As for the issue of theodicy, this meant that the definitive answer to the questions of suffering would be waiting in a future time determined by God. The present and still abiding distresses as well as the conventional means to cope with them were therefore seen as belonging to a transient phase; they were not meant to last. Unlike in the earlier times with no distinctive eschatological vantage point, the traditional explanations could now be viewed without needing or expecting them to provide a full understanding of suffering. Within the general framework of eschatology, then, many different routes to tackle the problem of theodicy were taken. The basic idea was that God would yet execute his justice, vindicating the good and destroying the wicked, whether they were Jewish apostates or pagan idolaters. For the pious, who were usually oppressed by the godless, this execution of justice would be tantamount to salvation. For others it would come as a judgement day, the Day of the Lord. The concrete enactment of divine justice could take place in the afterlife, be brought Jr., Customs and Controversies: Intertestamental Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 1995), 273, 276; Japhet, ‘Theodicy in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles’, 434–6, 445. Cf. Bar. 4.2, 27-29:  Turn, O Jacob, and take her [wisdom/law]; walk toward the shining of her light . . . ‘Take courage, my children, and cry to God, for you will be remembered by him who brought this upon you. For just as you purposed to go astray from God, return with tenfold zeal to seek him. For he who brought these calamities upon you will bring you everlasting joy with your salvation.’ 220. I have elsewhere termed this activity covenant path searching (Holmén, Jesus and Jewish Covenant Thinking, 39–50). See also T. Holmén, ‘Jesus, Judaism and the Covenant’, JSHJ 2 (2004): 3–27, esp. 6–9. 221. J. L. Crenshaw, ‘Theodicy’, ABD 6 (1992): 444–7, esp. 446. J. Le Roux, ‘Suffering and Hope during the Exile’, in Exile and Suffering, ed. B. Becking and D. Human (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 20–32, esp. 27–32, ably describes how the reliving of the past provided a means to create hope for a new future. 222.  G. W.  E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah:  A Historical and Literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 18; McCarthy, ‘Covenant in Narratives’, 93–4.

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on by the miraculous inbreaking of the heavens into this world, occupy thisworldly and, hence, mainly political scene and happen with or without the work of a (Messianic) agent. The youngest of the seven tortured and killed brothers who would not eat prohibited food states to Antiochus: We are suffering because of our own sins. And if our living Lord is angry for a little while, to rebuke and discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his own servants. But you, unholy wretch . . . You have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God. For our brothers after enduring a brief suffering have drunk of ever-flowing life, under God’s covenant; but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance.223

In the Testament of Moses, however, the suffering of the pious comes undeservedly. A  man called Taxo speaks to his seven sons:  ‘If you investigate, you will surely know that never did (our) fathers nor their ancestors tempt God by transgressing his commandments. Yea, you will surely know that this is our strength.’224 Despite this innocence of the forefathers and the unwavering resolve of Taxo and his sons not to transgress the commandments, they are to face death in the hands of the enemy. Thus, the action-consequence principle has ceased to be visibly in effect. However, Moses prophesies to Joshua son of Nun what will then follow: Then his kingdom will appear throughout his whole creation. Then the devil will have an end. Yea, sorrow will be led away with him . . . For the Heavenly One will arise from his kingly throne. Yea, he will go forth from his holy habitation with indignation and wrath on behalf of his sons . . . In full view will he come to work vengeance on the nations. Yea, all their idols will he destroy. Then will you be happy, O Israel!225

Finally, Tobit sees an earthly time of happiness, so also the writer of Psalms of Salomon, though specifically under the leadership of a royal Messiah: After this [i.e., ‘the times of fulfillment’] they all will return from their exile and will rebuild Jerusalem in splendor; and in it the temple of God will be rebuilt, just as the prophets of Israel have said concerning it. Then the nations on the whole world will all be converted and worship God in truth . . . All the Israelites who are saved in those days and are truly mindful of God will be gathered together; they will go to Jerusalem and live in safety forever in the land of Abraham, and it will be given to them. Those who sincerely love God 223. 2 Macc. 7.32-34, 35-36. See also 2 Macc. 7.1-23; T. Jud. 25.1-5; Pss. Sal. 3.11-15; Wis. 3.1-4. 224. T. Mos. 9.4-5. 225. T. Mos. 10.1, 3, 7-8.

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will rejoice, but those who commit sin and injustice will vanish from all the earth.226 See, Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, to rule over your servant Israel in the time known to you, O God. Undergird him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from gentiles who trample her to destruction; in wisdom and in righteousness to drive out the sinners from the inheritance; . . . He will gather a holy people whom he will lead in righteousness; . . . He will distribute them upon the land according to their tribes; the alien and the foreigner will no longer live near them.227

Thus, whatever the visible course and nature of events, God would yet manifest his dominion over all. Ultimately, the upright would rejoice in seeing the wicked suffer in receiving their due punishment.228 There was indeed law and order in the heavens. While texts for the general idea of divine retribution are abundant,229 the following ones can be presented as being most closely connected with the ‘covenantal re-solution’ found in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. These will be of particular interest because of the New Testament motifs of theodicy.230 And the Lord saw the earth, and behold it was corrupted and all flesh had corrupted its order and all who were on the earth had done every sort of evil in his sight. And he said, ‘I will wipe out man and all flesh which I have created from upon the surface of the earth.’ But Noah alone found favor in the sight of the Lord.231

This text from Jubilees 5 clearly paraphrases the earlier quoted statement from Gen. 6.5 (cf. the italicized words) which culminates the increase of sin in God’s decision to destroy all living creatures in the flood. Then, having accounted the destruction, Jubilees continues: ‘And he made for all his works a new and righteous nature so that they might not sin in all their nature forever, and so that they might be righteous, each in his kind, always.’232 The ‘new and righteous nature’ of this passage is clearly related to the Jeremian and Ezekielian idea of the new, Godeffected ability to abstain from sin forever.233 At the same time, the passage seems 226. Tob. 14.5-7. 227. Pss. Sal. 17.21-23, 26, 28. 228.  T. Mos. 10.10; see also, for instance, Pss. 54.9; 58.11; 59.11; 91.8; 92.12; 118.7; Isa. 66.24. 229. See Charlesworth, ‘Theodicy in Early Jewish Writings’, 506. 230. See Chapter 4. 231. Jub. 5.3-5. 232. Jub. 5.12. 233. Despite this correlation between ideas, the closest literary relation of Jub. 5.3 and Jub. 5.12 is to Gen. 6.4. Cf. Jubilees 1–6 with Genesis 1–9.

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to picture a shift back from the situation of Gen. 6.5 (and Jub. 5.3) to the primeval happiness of human beings, the profundity of the sinfulness of humankind being reverted to the profundity of their faithfulness.234 The following excerpt from 1QS is also connected with the primeval scenes of Genesis. Meanwhile, God will refine, with his truth, all man’s deeds, and will purify for himself the configuration of man, ripping out all spirit of deceit from the innermost part of his flesh, and cleansing him with the spirit of holiness from every irreverent deed. He will sprinkle over him the spirit of truth like lustral water (in order to cleanse him) from all the abhorrences of deceit and from the defilement of the unclean spirit . . . For these are those selected by God for an everlasting covenant and to them shall belong the glory of Adam. There will be no more injustice and all the deeds of trickery will be a dishonour.235

The language of purification as well as the account of an everlasting covenant connect this passage to the Ezekielian version of the idea of the God-created faithfulness.236 The ‘glory of Adam’ characterizes the new nature of human beings. For ‘until now the spirits of truth and of injustice feud in the heart of man . . . For God has sorted them into equal parts until the appointed end and the new creation’.237 Thus all injustice and evil will cease. 1 Enoch 5 contains an account of the ‘covenantal re-solution’ that more clearly shows its relevance to averting suffering: And then the wisdom shall be given to the elect. And they shall all live and not return again to sin, either by being wicked or through pride; but those who have wisdom shall be humble and not return again to sin. And they shall not be judged all the days of their lives; nor die through plague or wrath, but they shall complete the (designated) number of their life. And peace shall increase their lives and the years of their happiness shall be multiplied forever in gladness and peace all the days of their life.238

As seen from the context, even this vision is connected to the stories of the initial chapters of Genesis.239 234.  In general, Jubilees has been characterized as a writing where the Endzeit of restoration almost exactly mirrors the Urzeit; J. M. Scott, On Earth as in Heaven:  The Restoration of Sacred Time and Sacred Space in the Book of Jubilees (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 212. 235. 1QS 4:20-22, 23. 236. See especially Ezek. 36.25-27; 37.24-26. 237. 1QS 4:23, 25. See also 1QS 4:26. 238. 1 En. 5.8-10. 239. See 1 Enoch 6–7.

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Explicit about the restoration of the primeval circumstances is also Testament of Levi 18 which additionally relates that the event will be brought about by an agent of God. And then the Lord will raise up a new priest to whom all the words of the Lord will be revealed . . . And the knowledge of the Lord will be poured out on the earth like the water of the seas . . . In his priesthood sin shall cease and lawless men shall rest from their evil deeds, and righteous men shall find rest in him. And he shall open the gates of paradise; and he will grant to the saints to eat of the tree of life. The spirit of holiness shall be upon them. And Beliar shall be bound by him.240

Suitably for a priestly point of view, the text emphasizes the knowledge of the Lord that engenders the new sinless state and the return of the blessed times of paradise. Thus, this time it is mainly the Jeremian rendering of the idea of God-created faithfulness that is reflected. Finally, some passages from the already visited Psalms of Solomon, which contain only scattered remainders of the ‘covenantal re-solution’ but which interestingly show a linkage to Messianic sentiments: And he will be a righteous king over them, taught by God. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all shall be holy, and their king shall be the Lord Messiah . . . And he himself (will be) free from sin, (in order) to rule a great people.241 . . . Faithfully and righteously shepherding the Lord’s flock, he will not let any of them stumble in their pasture. He will lead them all in holiness and there will be no arrogance among them, that any should be oppressed . . . Blessed are those born in those days to see the good fortunes of Israel.242

Very fittingly, then, the institution of the new covenant was described by later rabbis as a Messianic act243 and the granting of the inwards knowledge of God’s will attributed to the ‘World to Come’: ‘All the Torah which you learn in this world is “vanity” in comparison with Torah [which will be learnt] in the World to Come; because in this world a man learns Torah and forgets it, but with reference to the World to Come what is written there? “I will put My law in their inward parts.” ’244 240. T. Lev. 18.2, 5, 9-12. 241. J. J. Collins (The Scepter and Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature [New  York:  Doubleday, 1995], 55) connects this to the eschatological covenant text of Ezek. 36.25. 242. Pss. Sal. 17.32, 36, 40-41, 44. 243. H. Lichtenberger and S. Schreiner, ‘Der neue Bund in jüdischer Überlieferung’, TQ 176 (1996): 272–90, esp. 281–2. 244. Eccl. Rab. 2.1.

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Hence, together with the other approaches to the problem of suffering, the ‘covenantal re-solution’ also persevered. It was especially connected to the primeval stories and characterized as a return to the situation before the fall.

2.4  Summary There is no need now to summarize all the diverse aspects of theodicy thinking that have come forth in the above reviews, although it will be worth recollecting them in more detail in the investigations of the subsequent chapters. Yet, while not compiling an exhaustive list, here are some highlights and central examples of the conceptual vocabulary used in the theodicean discussion of the New Testament world; we may also call it the contemporary theodicean language: ●●

●●

●●

●● ●●

the belief in providence (be it one based on covenantal love or one that is argued from the world order) the adjacent idea of teleology and the orderly structure of human life and society the similarly related belief that obedience and good deeds lead to reward and happiness while contravention and wrongdoings will result in doom and punishment (the action-consequence principle) the idea of eschatological and/or post-mortem reward and retribution the idea of divine education through suffering

As we can see, the above motifs or elements are common to both the GrecoRoman and Old Testament-Jewish theodicy thinking. We can also translate them to a common theodicean perception of god(s)/God. If we disregard the difference generated by the Jewish belief of being the chosen people of God on whom he would channel a special care, the following ideas can be listed: (1) god(s)/God being just, righteous, faithful and trustworthy; (2) god(s)/God being caring of people both in that he repays by rewarding goodness and punishing wickedness and in that he intervenes in their lives to guide them and to lead things in his preferred direction; repaying and intervening imply, respectively, beliefs in the validity of the actionconsequence principle and in there being an inherent purpose in what happens in people’s lives, that is, a teleological worldview; (3) god(s)/God being the ultimate (both hierarchically and temporally) judge with no partiality.245 The above ideas can easily be complemented to give expression to a specifically Jewish theodicy thinking. Above all, naturally, there is the covenant theme that adds to them a uniquely Jewish way of construing the problem of suffering. Other such terms, expressions, metaphors and concepts from explicitly Jewish theodicean language that can be employed to convey either similar or more or less 245. This statement needs to be interpreted slightly differently depending on whether one thinks of only one God (only one judge) or many gods (a colloquium of judges).

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distinct theodicean ideas are, for instance: certain appellations of God (e.g., judge, king, shepherd, husband); the assurance that God does not lie, that he is true to his words and promises and his covenantal love; the expressions cup of wrath and Day of the Lord; the cry ‘why, O Lord’; as well as both the Torah as knowledge of God’s will, and the new (future) God-given power and knowledge. These highlights, and of course more broadly the discussions in this chapter as a whole, should have located some of the most important theodicean ideas of the religious-cultural context of the New Testament. According to the task I have set out to accomplish in the present chapter,246 they should have provided a repertoire of terms, concepts, motifs, elements, themes and so on – in short, the language used to voice theodicy thinking – which can be of help in following the train of the theodicean thought of the New Testament writers.

246. See Chapter 1, section 1.4.

Chapter 3 H I S T O R IC A L C O N SI D E R AT IO N S :   T H E D E AT H O F J E SU S A S A T H E O D IC Y P R O B L E M 3.1  Introductory Remarks What kind of theodicy problem, if any, did Jesus’s ignominious death pose to his followers living in the aftermath of the cross? This is the main question explored in the present chapter. In order to answer the question, we need to pay some attention to the historical development of issues. Recognizing the choices made and the routes taken by the followers of Jesus in the face of his calamitous death, as well as recognizing the alternatives they did not agree to, will be of help in understanding the theodicean factors in play. The chapter serves an important purpose in revealing whether and how the New Testament interpretations of Jesus’s death can be seen to carry theodicean relevance. The usual scholarly formulation of the theodicy problem Jesus’s death is seen to have given rise to centres on the incongruity between the way Jesus lived and the way he died.1 In the view of his followers, Jesus was a righteous man who did good and preached the word of God.2 Accordingly, scholars reason, his ignominious death must have posed the followers a severe theodicy problem. The cross was, in their eyes, certainly not what Jesus had deserved. Taken together, thus, the life and the death of Jesus would have raised suspicions about divine providence. Quite naturally, then, resulting from this formulation of the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death, the resurrection belief emerges as the solution.3 Because of the resurrection of Jesus, his followers would have been able to sustain God’s justness. Moreover, they would have been able to sustain their view of Jesus as the righteous one sent by God. Yet, however reasonable this formulation would appear at first sight, in my view it is critically flawed. While I believe that the followers of Jesus did experience a theodicy problem upon Jesus’s death, the usual formulation seems to structure the

1. The remark is usually made quite in passing. See, for instance, Green, ‘Theodicy’, 436; Simundson, ‘Suffering’, 224; Heyer, Doctrine of the Atonement, 20, 32. 2. Lk. 23.41; Lk. 23.14, 47-48 par.; Jn 8.46; see also Mt. 3.14-15; Rom. 5.19; 2 Cor. 5.21; 1 Pet. 2.22; 1 Jn 3.5; Heb. 4.5. 3.  Heyer, Doctrine of the Atonement, 20–4; Charlesworth, ‘Theodicy in Early Jewish Writings’, 505.

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problem in a partly wrong way and also emphasize wrong parts of the problem. This is already suggested by the observation that the should-be corollaries of the formulation are next to completely lacking in the New Testament. Let us briefly survey this observation. We may first pay attention to the almost complete absence of a blaming ‘why’ being directed at God on the occasion of the just man’s ignominious death.4 The New Testament writers do not discuss excuses for God on account of Jesus’s unfortunate lot in life. They do not seek to defend God for allowing an innocent man to suffer and die shamefully. The single passage in the New Testament where we can find a burst of anguished ‘why’  – a theodicean feature quite common elsewhere in contemporary literature – is the report of Jesus’s cry to God on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’5 In my view, to see here in fact an apology of Jesus’s accepted standing before God, since the line reads ‘my God’,6 is an overinterpretation. In any event, notwithstanding this one passage, the New Testament does not present any accusation and, reasonably, no defence either, vis-à-vis God for the man with the good and pious life having been crucified. Why, we are bound to ask, if the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death was precisely composed of those kinds of suspicions? Second, with the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death resting upon the incongruity of Jesus having lived a righteous life but having died the death of a sinner, the resurrection would thus offer itself as the solution. It would serve the purpose of establishing a congruity of divine guardianship:  despite the terrible death, God did eventually vindicate the righteous person, as he should. Nevertheless, this scheme does not materialize in the New Testament. The New Testament writers do not assume the resurrection of Jesus to be the key that would decipher the theodicean incongruity between his life and death. On the contrary, sometimes it is Jesus’s life that seems to furnish an explanation for his resurrection. Because Jesus was righteous, he experienced resurrection; this is the basic point at least in Acts 2.22-28, Phil. 2.8-9 and Heb. 5.7 (in relation to our interests). Nowhere, however, can we find the argument that God is proven just because he resurrected the righteous man.7 Third, considering the survey of interpretations of Jesus’s death in the introductory Chapter 1, we cannot help noticing how little they contain elements from his life. Thus we are again bound to ask: If it was the theodicean incongruity between Jesus’s life and death that was experienced as difficult, why is this difficulty not clearly addressed in the abundant interpretations of Jesus’s death? In reality,

4. Klein, ‘Die Bewältigung der Not’, 273. 5. Mk 15.34. 6. See H. Frankemölle, Jüdische Wurzeln christlicher Theologie: Studien zum biblischen Kontext neutestamentlicher Texte (Bodenheim: Philo, 1998), 177–207. 7. Most usually in the New Testament, no particular dependence is pictured between the life vs. death incongruity and the resurrection of Jesus.

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the overall target of the interpretations does not at all seem to lie in this kind of theodicy problem but elsewhere.8 Hence, the New Testament fails to evince traces we would expect to find should the usual scholarly formulation of the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death be accurate. As a matter of fact, considered against the backdrop of the historical circumstances and the contemporary theodicean thinking to be examined in the following sections of the present chapter, the usual formulation will be disclosed as quite implausible. This becomes especially clear when we pay attention to a route available for the followers of Jesus but still (eventually) not taken by them in their attempt to understand Jesus’s death. At the same time, another way of structuring the theodicy problem will be suggested. In this line of argument, the first issue that needs to be scrutinized is the nature of Jesus’s death.

3.2  The Only Possible Route: Crucifixion Hermeneutics in Contemporary Judaism The obviously problematic feature in Jesus’s death was the way it happened: he was executed. He did not die peacefully, ‘old and full of days’.9 Nor did he die heroically in a battle or even by an accident or illness. He was put to death as a criminal, condemned by both Romans and the leading men of his own people.10 Further, the particular method of execution aggravated the issue. He was killed by means of the ‘most cruel and ignominious punishment’11 known by Mediterranean antiquity: crucifixion. In the Roman world, crucifixion was the supreme penalty, one that was reserved especially for rebellious criminals and slaves.12 Illustrative of the feelings evoked by the mere thought of this instrument of punishment is Cicero’s statement that the very word ‘cross’ should be ‘far removed from not only the bodies of Roman citizens but even from their thoughts, their eyes, and their ears’.13 In other words, no one should be crucified, according to Cicero. Still, Romans, too,14 frequently resorted to crucifixion: 

8. See below in the text; esp. section 3.4. 9. Cf. Gen. 25.8; 1 Chron. 29.28; Job 42.17. 10. I. Broer, ‘The Death of Jesus from a Historical Perspective’, in Jesus from Judaism to Christianity: Continuum Approaches to the Historical Jesus, ed. T. Holmén (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 145–68. 11. Cicero, In Verrem 2:5:165. See also, for example, War 7:203. 12. See Hengel, The Cross of the Son of God, 125–55. 13. Cicero, Pro Rabirio Perduellionis 5:16. 14. For the praxis of crucifixion in the Greco-Roman world in general, see, for instance, H.-W. Kuhn, ‘Die Kreuzesstrafe während der frühen Kaiserzeit:  Ihre Wirklichkeit und Wertung in der Umwelt des Urchristentums’, ANRW II:25:1 (1982): 648–793; J. G. Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (Tübingen: Mohr, 2014).

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ I see crosses [cruces] there, not just of one kind but made in many different ways; some have their victims with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others stretch out their arms on the gibbet.15

Thus begins Seneca in his well-known description. Execution on a cross clearly opened up a possibility in exercising a sadistic imagination. Tacitus’s account of the punishments inflicted on Christians by Nero upon the fire of Rome is also famous (cf. even the quotation of Josephus to follow shortly after this): ‘They were covered with wild beasts’ skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses and, when daylight faded, were burned to serve as lamps.’16 The Jews as well knew the evils of the cross. Josephus describes the besiegement of Jerusalem and the poor bastards who secretly left the city to find food but were caught: They were accordingly scourged and subjected to torture of every description, before being killed, and then crucified opposite the walls. Titus indeed commiserated their fate, five hundred or sometimes more being captured daily; on the other hand, he recognized the risk of dismissing prisoners of war, and that the custody of such numbers would amount to the imprisonment of their custodians; but his main reason for not stopping the crucifixions was the hope that the spectacle might perhaps induce the Jews to surrender . . . The soldiers out of rage and hatred amused themselves by nailing their prisoners in different postures; and so great was their number, that space could not be found for the crosses not crosses for their bodies.17

As for Jewish thinking, however, the cross would seem to have borne an even worse meaning than Cicero or Seneca, for instance, could conceive of. The question that persists in modern scholarly discussions about the import of the cross in the Judaism of Jesus’s time concerns its interpretation as God’s curse, namely, that God curses the one who is crucified. Through Paul’s theology (esp. Gal. 3.13), this interpretation has become the special property of Christianity; it is how Christianity, in particular, wants to understand the ancient Jewish meaning of crucifixion. In other words, in the eyes of the Jews of Jesus’s time, being hanged on a tree, that is, being crucified,18 would have meant falling under God’s curse, a 15. Seneca, De Consolatione ad Marciam 20:3. 16. Tacitus, Annals 15:44. 17. War 5:449–451. 18. See J. A. Fitzmyer, To Advance the Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 129–35. For the present purpose, it should be accurate and valid enough to take ‘crucifixion’ ‘to mean the executionary suspension of a person on a cross-shaped object (allowing for a certain flexibility in shapes)’. So D. Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 32. Cook, who also incorporates G. Samuelsson (Crucifixion in Antiquity [Tübingen: Mohr, 2011], for instance, p. 270; Samuelsson on his part is drawing from H.-W. Kuhn), would agree; see Cook, Mediterranean World, 2.

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decisive indication of God’s rejection. Thus, while Seneca concludes the passage quoted above by stating, but I see also Death; slavery is no hardship when, if a man wearies of the yoke, by a single step he may pass to freedom,19

this would not have applied to the Jews’ way of thinking. On the contrary, in their view, those crucified would have lost all hope of relief. For because of the cross they knew that God himself had definitively turned against them. The question we, obviously, must ask is: How accurate is this interpretation? Of course, the interpretation is justly called Christian and Pauline. On the other hand, merely being endorsed by Paul, thereby becoming a genuine part of Christian theology, does not make the origins of an interpretation inaccurately Jewish. Indeed, the words that connect crucifixion with God’s curse can be found in a commandment20 of the Law: If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.21

Included in the Law, the words connecting crucifixion with God’s curse should have been of significance to all religious Jews. And as I shall soon point out, ‘hanging on a tree’ did stand out from other forms of execution in the Judaism of our era. However, the central words in question, namely ‫( קללת אלהים‬lit. ‘curse of God’), lend themselves to alternative interpretations. Mainly, they can mean either that the crucified man is cursed by God or that he curses God. These meanings correspond to subjective genitive and objective genitive readings of ‘curse of God’ respectively.22 It would be important to know how the expression was actually understood. Paul included, there are four unequivocal witnesses to the early interpretation of ‫ קללת אלהים‬in Deut. 21.22-23: 11QT 64:7–13 adds a line that clarifies ‫כי מקוללי אלוהים ואנׁשים תלוי על העץ‬, ‘those hanged on the tree are accursed by God and men’ (v. 12), thus according to the ‘cursed by God’ reading of Deut. 21:22–23.23 19. Seneca, De Consolatione ad Marciam 20:3. 20.  See 11QT 64:8, 10-11; Philo, Spec. Leg. 3:151–152. Cf. also, for example, m.Sanh. 6:4: ‘A negative command’. 21. Deut. 21.22-23. 22. There is even a second objective genitive reading: ‘a curse to God’. For this and others, see further T. Holmén, ‘Crucifixion Hermeneutics in Judaism at the Time of Jesus’, JSHJ 14 (2017): 197–222, esp. 199–204. 23. Otherwise D. R. Schwartz, Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr, 1992), 81–8. See, however, Chapman, Perceptions of Crucifixion, 125–32;

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ The LXX ad Deut 21:22–23 has it so: κεκατηραμένος ὑπò θεοῦ πᾶς κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου, ‘cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree’, also according to the ‘cursed by God’ reading. For Paul in Gal 3:13, of course, only the ‘cursed by God’ reading will do: ἐπικατάρατος πᾶς ὁ κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου, ‘cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree’.24 The LXX text is quoted almost verbatim by Philo in his De Posteritate Caini 26: κεκατηραμένον ὑπò θεοῦ τòν κρεμάμενον ἐπὶ ξύλου φησίν, he ‘says . . . “he that hangeth on a tree is cursed of God”.’ Thus, for Philo, too, it is the ‘cursed by God’ rendering.

Additionally, there are two passages from Josephus that are sometimes discussed in this connection. Nevertheless, in my view they do not actually pertain to the crucial expression ‫ קללת אלהים‬in Deut. 21.22-23 but depend on other sayings of the Law.25 From then on, in later translations of the Old Testament (Latin, Aramaic, Syrian) and in the Mishnah, the appearances of the ‘cursed by God’ rendering decrease while its alternative, the objective genitive rendering, becomes more frequent. Yet, it is intriguing to observe that, strictly speaking, the ‘cursing God’ sense of ‫ קללת אלהים‬is actually non-existent. There is no witness to a reading of these Deut. 21.22-23 words that would explicitly state that the hanged man ‘curses’ God. Instead, we encounter several formulations consistent with the form of the objective genitive rendering but using verbs with differing purports: ‘blaspheming God’, ‘sinning against God’, ‘reviling God’ and even ‘blessing God’.26 Formulations like these clearly seek to circumvent the juxtaposition of ‘curse’ and ‘God’. We must, then, take seriously the possibility, maybe even probability, that their being according to the objective genitive rendering of ‫ קללת אלהים‬in Deut. 21.22-23 does not actually reflect a particular Cook, Mediterranean World, 319–21. See J. A. Fitzmyer, ‘Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament’, CBQ 40 (1978): 493–513, esp. 502–7 and further on p. 512: ‘A second nomen rectum has been introduced into the construct chain . . . It clearly precludes a misunderstanding of the Hebrew ‫ קללת אלהים‬as blasphemy or a “cursing of God”.’ 24. Although ‘by God’ is omitted here, it is clear that in Paul’s view, too, the curse is of divine origin. Cf. K. S. O’Brien, ‘The Curse of the Law (Galatians 3.13):  Crucifixion, Persecution, and Deuteronomy 21.22.23’, JSNT 29 (2006):  55–76, esp.  65. Besides the reluctance to combine ‘curse’ and ‘God’, another reason for this might be that Paul has just referred to and spoken of ‘the curse of (= by) the law’. See Gal. 3.10, 13a; cf. Deut. 27.26 LXX. 25.  Ant. 4:202 (‘blaspheming God’) would presuppose the ‘cursing God’ and Ant. 4:264–265 perhaps the ‘cursed by God’ rendering. Nevertheless, neither one actually bears relevance to the understanding of the Deut. 21.22–23 expression. See Holmén, ‘Crucifixion Hermeneutics’, 200–1. 26. Symmachus, Targum Onqelos, Peshiṭta and m.Sanh. 6:4, for instance, respectively.

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perception of this Hebrew expression but that this is simply something the aim to circumvent a juxtaposition of ‘curse’ and ‘God’ has led to. For it would have made no sense to say ‘a hanged man is blasphemed (or sinned against, reviled etc.) by God’. In other words, the substitutes for the word ‘curse’ have required understanding ‘God’ as object in the expression. In short, the earliest understanding of the Deut. 21.22-23 expression ‫קללת אלהים‬, ‘cursed by God’, clearly suggests that a negative hermeneutics of crucifixion prevailed at the time of Jesus. Indeed, it is a hermeneutics that sees the Law as putting the crucified people in a categorically hopeless position: God himself has renounced them in death. There is, however, an additional way to explore the issue. We can study descriptions of actual crucifixions, Jewish accounts of crucifixions of Jews. Some sixteen of them can be found in the relevant literature.27 If we look at these descriptions, then, we first observe that at least some facets of the Deut. 21.2223 commandment were followed through quite faithfully. For example, upon mentioning the mistreatment of the corpses of the chief priests Ananus and Jesus by Idumeans, namely, leaving them without burial, Josephus refers to a case he obviously considers an extreme one:  ‘Jews are so careful about funeral rites that even malefactors who have been sentenced to crucifixion are taken down and buried before sunset.’28 Hence, not even the worst instance  – malefactors crucified  – could make Jews neglect giving proper burials, that is, burying the corpses before sunset.29 A  passage from Philo contains a similar suggestion:  ‘I have known cases when on the eve of a holiday of this kind, people who have been crucified have been taken down and their bodies delivered to their kinsfolk, because it was thought well to give them burial and allow then the ordinary rites.’30 The ‘holiday of this kind’ may be the same as or similar to that mentioned in Jn 19.31, and its counterpart in the situation Philo reports about is the emperor’s (probably Gaius) birthday. Both of these accounts seem to presuppose the Deut. 21.22-23 commandment, though a certain tension can be observed between them. Philo appears to restrict the granting of a decent burial even to crucified people at times when a special day was to follow,31 while Josephus does not mention any such restriction. Josephus might just be generalizing in order to make the account of ‘Jewish burials’ suit better the situation he is facing, or Philo might be particularizing for similar reasons. All the same, together the two accounts testify that Deut. 21.22-23 was 27.  See Chapman’s thorough survey, Perceptions of Crucifixion. See also Holmén, ‘Crucifixion Hermeneutics’, 209–21. 28. War 4:317. 29.  The sharp contrast this creates to the two respected chief priests, who also were killed in a different manner (‘captured and slain’; ἁλόντες διεφθείροντο), underlines the Idumeans’ cruelty. 30. Philo, Flacc 83. 31. Is this the case with Jn 19.31, too?

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effectual, indeed, and had bestowed the Jews a very particular, even peculiar attitude towards crucified people. Clearly, Deut. 21.22-23 was not a neglected commandment. Yet, in the Jewish descriptions of crucifixions of Jews a certain facet seems to be lacking: we find no clear references to the Deut. 21.22-23 curse. The curse is not explicitly voiced in any of these texts, nor are there any circumventions of or allusions to it that could be seized on. Spurred by reflections on what can be considered fair and right, this state of affairs has led some modern commentators to suggest that crucifixion was not always interpreted as a curse at all. In fact, sometimes, they claim, the deaths of those crucified could even be explained for the better.32 In other words, crucifixion could have yielded to positive interpretations as well. Let it be said, I do subscribe to there being no clear references to the Deut. 21.2223 curse in the descriptions of crucifixions. Nevertheless, as for the conjecture put forward on that basis, namely, that crucifixions could also have been interpreted positively, I beg to differ. For exactly the opposite is the case: in Jewish accounts, crucifixions never obtain any positive interpretation.33 Certainly, it is true that the Jews of the time could turn around even the worst of calamities fallen upon people individually or collectively. Generally, it stands that the Jews had ‘many ways of snatching meaning out of the deaths of martyrs, of turning physical disaster into psychic (and perhaps ultimately physical) victory’.34 It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that no such turning around or ‘snatching’ of (sc. positive) meaning takes place on the point of crucified Jews! At this point, comparing descriptions of calamities exclusive of crucifixion on the one hand and inclusive of crucifixion on the other will prove instructive. I shall first review some examples of the former. ‘So in this way he died, leaving in his death an example of nobility and a memorial of courage, not only to the young but to the great body of his nation’35 – the words describe the pious Eleazar who was beaten, maimed, tortured and burnt to death for not eating food forbidden in the Jewish law. ‘The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory’36 – said about a mother who died along with her seven sons, being mutilated, fried, skinned and tortured until dead for not eating forbidden food. While still living, she uttered trustingly to her dying sons: ‘The Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back 32. With varying nuances, see, for example, O’Brien, ‘The Curse of the Law’; P. Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ (Yale:  Yale University Press, 2008), 145–8, 155, 167–8; Chapman, Perceptions of Crucifixion, 262 and passim. Earlier, for example, Friedrich, Verkündigung des Todes Jesu, 122–30; Heyer, Doctrine of the Atonement, 32. 33. Holmén, ‘Crucifixion Hermeneutics’, 209–21. 34.  T. Rajak, Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome:  Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 107. 35. 2 Macc. 6.31. 36. 2 Macc. 7.20.

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to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws’37. And the last one of her sons alive she encourages: ‘Do not fear this butcher [sc. Antiochus IV Epiphanes] but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers’38. The son who dies last is also commented on so: ‘So he died in his integrity, putting his whole trust in the Lord.’39 The Testament of Moses also describes many atrocities probably intended as referring to those inflicted by Antiochus. In the last chapters of the document, the sacrifice of the life of Taxo and his seven sons who undergo self-inflicted death is said to bear the following outcome: ‘Our blood will be avenged before the Lord. Then his kingdom will appear throughout his whole creation.’40 From Josephus’s writings, the following examples can be mentioned: The souls of those who came to such an end attained immortality and an eternally abiding sense of felicity.41 For by winning eternal fame and glory for themselves they would be praised by those now living and would leave the ever-memorable (example of their) lives to future generations.42 ‘Why so exultant, when you will shortly be put to death?’ ‘Because, after our death, we shall enjoy greater felicity.’43

These are comments on and by some Jews, burnt alive, who in their zeal for the law of the fathers removed a Roman golden eagle from over the great gate of the temple. ‘Smiling in their agonies and mildly deriding their tormentors, they cheerfully resigned their souls, confident that they would receive them back again’44  – the statement concludes a description of Essenes who stayed loyal to the law of forbidden foods despite being tortured by the Romans, their limbs twisted and broken and being burnt and shattered. ‘This our laws enjoin, this our wives and children implore of us. The need for this is of God’s sending’45 – so does Eleazar characterize the mass suicide of the Jews on Masada before the storm of the Roman troops. And Josephus can even commend the Sicarii for their resistance to acknowledge Caesar as lord: ‘So far did the strength of courage rise superior to the weakness of their frames.’46 37. 2 Macc. 7.23. 38. 2 Macc. 7.29. 39. 2 Macc. 7.40. 40. T. Mos. 9.7–10.1. See 2 Macc. 6.11. 41. War 1:650. The translation is according to H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL 203, 309. 42. Ant. 17:152. The translation is according to R. Marcus and A. Wikgren, LCL 410, 443. 43. War 1:653. LCL 203, 311. 44. War 2:153. LCL 203, 381. 45. War 7:387. The translation is according to H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL 210, 613. 46.  War 7:419. LCL 210, 623. These rebels, among whom were also children, were probably killed by burning.

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In these examples, we can see people who are honoured even after their violent deaths. At times, there is a short eulogy. Occasionally it is explained that there is a good side to all the pain and torment. Further, the victims’ comfort is life everlasting and/or their memory being cherished by the survivors. In other words, despite what is happening now, God is ultimately on their side. Indeed, the Jews of the time could conceive of God vindicating victims of many terrible punishments. This line of interpretation lived strong in the Jewish tradition. And, as the above examples also lay bare, the Jews were perfectly knowledgeable about that fact, too, that even their patriotic and religious heroes and other innocent people could meet a gruesome fate. Such was the harsh reality, there was no denying it. Considering these facts, then, the remarkable thing is that there is no material corresponding to the above examples that would apply to crucifixion.47 In all instances where we see Jewish reactions on crucifixions of Jews, we can find nothing that would come even close to the cases presented above speaking of the vindication of the violated, humiliated victims. Observe that many of the instances describe crucifixions of Jews that had piously stuck by the Law of the fathers. It is particularly telling, then, that not even their deaths are interpreted for the better! Not one word appears promising them good when in the process of being tortured and executed or honouring them after their deaths. Instead, there is but a blank silence.48 Here are some of the most conspicuous such descriptions: The worthiest people and those of noble soul disregarded him [the king] . . . and being on that account maltreated daily, and enduring bitter torments, they met their death. Indeed, they were whipped, their bodies were mutilated, and while still alive and breathing, they were crucified, while their wives and the sons whom they had circumcised in despite of the king’s wishes were strangled, the children being made to hang from the necks of their crucified parents.49

Thus, this was the fate of the ‘worthiest people’ and of ‘those of noble soul’ who did not forsake the laws of the Jewish tradition, especially circumcision, even though demanded by the oppressor king Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The situation and the story here are quite like those in the first passages above that did not involve crucifixion. However, a eulogy or merely a few words bringing some positive light to the calamity are now completely missing. The same applies to the next text, often also perceived to describe the same event:  ‘He stirs up against them a king of the kings of the earth who, having supreme authority, will crucify those who confess their circumcision. Even those who deny it, he will torture and hand them over to be led to prison in chains.’50 47. See Holmén, ‘Crucifixion Hermeneutics’, 209–21. 48. Hooker, Not Ashamed, 11. 49. Ant. 12:255–256. The translation is according to R. Marcus, LCL 365, 131, 133. 50. T. Mos. 8.1–2. OTP 1, 930–31.

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‘Those who confess’ corresponds to the characterizations ‘worthiest’ and ‘noble’ in the previous text. That is, it is those who remain loyal to the ancient law of the Jews that receive the worst punishment. The pattern is well known in Jewish literature describing times of oppression. Surely, a word of recognition about their heroic deaths would have been in order. Yet, anything resembling that is conspicuously missing here as well. Crucifixions reported in Philo’s In Flaccum tell about the hostilities towards Jews that arose in Alexandria. While those who did these things [i.e., torments and killing but not crucifixion] like actors in a farce assumed the part of the sufferers, the friends and kinsmen of the true sufferers, simply because they grieved over the misfortunes of their relations, were arrested, scourged, tortured and after all these outrages, which were all their bodies could make room for, the final punishment kept in reserve was the cross.51

It is interesting that crucifixion, ordered by Flaccus, was the lot of the friends and relatives of the first victims, who for their part had been harassed by the mob.52 None of the Jews here suffer for the cause of loyalty towards the Jewish tradition as if in lieu of attending to orders from Roman officials. Nevertheless, it is clear that for Philo those so treated were innocent, not deserving punishment for crime, and that those who received the worst kind of punishment, crucifixion, deserved it the least.53 Therefore, it does not seem unreasonable a thought that he could have expressed some words of recognition for their memory or at least pitied them, but anything like that is missing. Instead, when describing the cruelties of the mob, thus when crucifixion is out of sight, Philo does utter his compassion.54 Josephus, however, reports once of a certain reaction on behalf of crucified people. The following happened when the Roman procurator Florus ordered soldiers to occupy the agora in Jerusalem, known as the upper market: There ensued a stampede through the narrow alleys, massacre of all who were caught, every variety of pillage; many of the peaceable citizens were arrested and brought before Florus, who had them first scourged and then crucified. The total number of that day’s victims, including women and children, for even infancy received no quarter, amounted to about three thousand six hundred. The calamity was aggravated by the unprecedented character of the Romans’ cruelty. For Florus ventured that day to do what none had ever done before, 51. Flacc. 72. The translation is according to F. H. Colson, LCL 363, 341. 52. See Flacc. 71 and backwards. 53. Flacc. 81–2. In 78–80 Philo seems to speak of a different problem of injustice during Flaccus:  as with Jewish Alexandrians, punishments (deserved ones) were not properly adjusted according to the standing of the convicted people. 54. E.g. Flacc. 65 (‘poor wretches’), 68 (‘pitiable’, ‘miserable victims’).

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Theodicy and the Cross of Christ namely, to scourge before his tribunal and nail to the cross men of equestrian rank, men who, if Jews by birth, were at least invested with that Roman dignity.55

Again it is clear that at least part of the suffering populace is innocent, but not only so. They are also ‘peaceable’, ‘good citizens’ and ‘steady-going members of the congregation’.56 In War Josephus tries to argue for the Jews by showing how reluctant they in general were to act against the Romans. Characterizations like those, then, correspond well in this context to the labels ‘worthiest people’ and ‘those of noble soul’ Josephus employs when describing Jews under the Greek Antiochus.57 Now Florus, too, had threatened the holy traditions of the Jews,58 and so something similar is happening here. This time, there is also an added description which probably can be perceived as a communal response to the calamity consisting (even) of crucifixions: it is a lament of desperation and hate.59 However, no kind of positive evaluation of the deaths, if only a word of consolation, can be found. As a matter of fact, conforming to this blank silence, some accounts suggest that the Jews had a precarious ‘soft spot’ regarding crucifixion and that even their enemy knew about it.60 Josephus tells about a Jewish lad called Eleazar who had been courageous in the war against the Romans.61 He was captured, however, by a Roman commander who besieged Eleazar’s home town, and used him as a means to subject the town. Throughout many tortures Eleazar stayed adamant, but then the commander decided to deploy a ‘ruse’. Visibly to the town people, he threatened to crucify Eleazar. Upon this threat even the ironclad loyalty of the Jews towards their common cause began to fracture. Not only did Eleazar burst into laments begging his compatriots to save him, but the whole town decided to surrender. In a similar occasion of the Roman war, the once-to-become emperor Titus ordered a Jewish prisoner to be crucified before the walls of Jerusalem ‘in the hope that the spectacle might lead the rest to surrender in dismay’.62 And later during the siege of Jerusalem, Titus accepted mass crucifixions of the escaping Jews just outside the temple area. As Josephus soothingly reports, Titus would rather not 55. War 2:306–308. LCL 203, 443. 56. Cf. War 2:306, 302, 304, 290. 57. See Ant. 12:255–256 discussed above. 58. War 2:293–294. 59. See War 2:315. LCL 203, 445: ‘On the following day the multitude, overcome with distress, flocked to the upper agora, uttering terrific lamentations for the dead, but the shouts of imprecation upon Florus preponderated.’ According to Josephus, this was the behaviour of ‘the mob’ that the ‘leading men and the chief priests’ tried to silence. 60.  See M. T. Finney, ‘Servile Supplicium:  Shame and the Deuteronomic Curse  – Crucifixion in its Cultural Context’, BTB 43 (2013): 124–34, esp. 132. 61. See War 7:200–205. LCL 210, 563, 565. 62. War 5:289. LCL 210, 291.

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have allowed this to happen but he hoped crucifixions would be the deterrent that could make the Jews finally surrender.63 Although, according to Josephus, the two last cases did not eventually work out,64 a pattern emerges: Jews were particularly horrified by crucifixion and this was something the enemy could attempt to use for military purposes.65 Hence, all things considered, what can be said about the hermeneutics of the cross in the Judaism of Jesus’s time? Besides the Deut. 21.22-23 passage, we have reviewed some descriptions of actual crucifixions. As for them, Josephus’s and Philo’s notes on the burial of crucified people, the blank silence after crucifixions – even of patriots and pious Jews  – as well as certain war episodes (historical or not)66 do indicate that, in the Jewish perception, crucifixion was a very exceptional means of punishment. To acknowledge and to repeat: none of this, the reviewed descriptions or others like them,67 openly point at the Deut. 21.22-23 curse; nothing in them expressly reveals that the crucifixions were interpreted as incurring God’s curse. Nevertheless, this is of course not to say that the Deut. 21.22-23 curse could be denied of having exerted influence in the background. After all, the curse was included in a known and effectual commandment of the Law and also had a reception history of relevance. In particular, this is not at all to say that crucifixions were sometimes interpreted for the better. For, in fact, that was precisely not the case. No positive interpretations of crucifixion can be attested. In a context where all other kinds of terrible calamities could find hope-giving meanings attached to them, this can be considered remarkable indeed. Should we picture the Deut. 21.22-23 curse in the background, this could be considered understandable as well. Curse or not,68 the Jewish hermeneutics of the time clearly could not conceive of God vindicating crucified people.

3.3  The Route (Eventually) Taken: A New Hermeneutics of the Cross Arises The way Jesus died was thus, to put it mildly, ignominious to the contemporary Jewish eye. Hence, faced with the fact that such a calamity had befallen a man they 63. War 5:450. LCL 210, 341. 64. Cf. War 5:296–302 and 5:452–453. 65. As an apposite parallel phenomenon, the tactics that relied on the Jews’ reluctance to wage war on the Sabbath day can be mentioned. See, for example, War 1:146; LCL 203, 67, 69; see also Ant. 14:63; cf. 1 Macc. 2.40-41. See even Strabo, Geogr. 16:2:40. 66. Naturally, the reviewed stories, be it the war episodes or the others mentioned, do not have to be historical, although of course that is what they purport to be, but it is the world of ideas they betray, teach and pass on that counts. 67. See Holmén, ‘Crucifixion Hermeneutics’, 209–21. 68. I wish to be very cautious here, for the case has many times been dismissed by an untrue pairing of alternatives, namely, asking if crucifixion always inflicted God’s curse on

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thought was good and righteous, Jesus’s followers were driven to a struggle against suspicions about God’s justness, that is, they encountered a theodicy problem. In wrestling with this problem, the resurrection came to be featured as the foremost solution. Is it so? As much as this usual scholarly formulation of the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death69 would appear to be sound and clear, however, on closer scrutiny it runs into considerable difficulties. We have already seen how the should-be corollaries of the formulation are next to completely lacking in the New Testament.70 Based on that yield, in fact, we get the impression as if Jesus’s death had not received much attention as a theodicy problem at all from the part of the New Testament writers. Indeed, this is precisely what has been concluded in previous scholarship: there is no particular interest in theodicean questions in the New Testament.71 In my view, however, such a conclusion is mistaken, and the mistake results from the usual but erroneous formulation of the theodicy problem. Building on the incongruence of a righteous life and shameful death and the doubts this would have cast against God’s justness is perhaps how modern scholarship would find it convenient to frame the case. Apparently, however, the New Testament writers did not perceive Jesus’s death as constituting a theodicy problem of that kind. What kind, then? The present and following sections will show why, ultimately, the usual formulation must be considered implausible. At the same time, they will disclose where the theodicean problem of Jesus’s death, as experienced by his followers, really lies. A  consequence of rearranging the usual formulation of the problem, including the assignment of new key elements of it, will be the infusing of the New Testament interpretations of Jesus’s death with theodicean relevance. When Jesus was crucified, then, how did his followers react to the calamity? Considering the existing options, that is, the contemporary crucifixion hermeneutics, there should have been only one possible route for them to walk along away from the cross. However, they found even a second route, a hitherto untrodden one. For our purpose, it pays to take a closer look at both of these routes, the existing, given one, on which they probably even set their foot at first, and the one eventually taken that brought about a hermeneutic revolution. The followers’ first response to the calamity of the cross was probably quite in accordance with the contemporary Jewish understanding of the issue. The following well-known passage serves to illuminate this. the crucified ones OR if it could sometimes be interpreted as casting those so executed in some favourable light. 69. See section 3.1. 70. See section 3.1. 71. So, for instance, Charlesworth ‘Theodicy in Early Jewish Writings’, 504: ‘There was no preoccupation with theodicy in the sect of Early Judaism known as the Palestinian Jesus Movement.’ See, further, the remarks made already in Chapter 1, section 1.1.

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Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.’72

The text exhibits the disillusionment of the disciples when faced with the fact of the crucifixion of the one whom they had hoped to be the ‘redeemer of Israel’. Just like the ‘worthiest people’ and ‘those of noble soul’ in Ant. 12.255-256, Jesus is here pictured as having led a good life. He had been mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. But then he was crucified, and it became clear that the expectations of him were misplaced. G. Theissen and A. Merz put it well: ‘Together with Jesus’ death even their hopes had been crucified.’73 Whatever good thoughts they had cherished about this man, along with his death came their vitiation. Of course, the Lukan passage may not be historical as such. I will not go into that discussion. Irrespectively, the passage can be seen to accurately reflect the situation of the followers of Jesus right after his crucifixion. A strong scholarly tradition has it that there was, in the first instance, a basic sentiment of disappointment and even fear.74 This view is based on observations such as: the disciples fled (Mk 14.50), they stayed behind locked doors (Jn 20.19), the burial of Jesus was entrusted to an outsider (Mk 15.43-47), the first visitors at Jesus’s tomb were women (Mk 16.1-3; Jn 20.1), the crisis was ‘anticipated’ in words ascribed to Jesus (e.g., Jn 16.20) and so on. Considering the message of the cross, especially in Jewish perception, it is easy to concur with this view and attribute to the followers of Jesus an initial disillusionment. In other words, it does seem that at least one step was already taken on the existing, given route before anything else happened. However, that being said, I wish to point out that, in order to be able to pursue further considerations, we do not, as a matter of fact, have to cling to this scheme of a step already taken in one direction or, on the whole, ascertain the followers’ mood right after the crucifixion. For regardless of the historicity of the basic sentiment of disillusionment or of any specific passages reflecting it,75 this route was real and more than available for the followers of Jesus to take: They could have let Jesus go! 72. Lk. 24.18–21. 73. ‘Mit Jesu Tod waren auch ihre Hoffnungen gekreuzigt worden.’ G. Theissen and A. Merz, Der historische Jesus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 377. 74. See, for example, Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi, 7–17; G. E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 352; Theissen and Merz, Der historische Jesus, 377–8. 75. Among the voices doubting that we can know about the disillusionment are H. J. De Jonge, ‘Visionary Experience and the Historical Origins of Christianity’, in Resurrection in

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Indeed, even if they did not, so much as initially, they could have. They could have surrendered their hope in Jesus and let him go. In fact, considering the crucifixion hermeneutics of the time, this is a route they even should have taken. For it was the only possible route they knew of. There were no alternatives laid before them, not even remote ones that they would have had the opportunity to make a choice of. Moreover, it is important – because it is difficult (perhaps due to our post factum perspective) – to observe, in the first place, that there was no out-of-the-ordinary reason for them to seek to construe it otherwise, to insist on finding an alternative route so transgressing the limits of the existing hermeneutics, probably seen as transgressing the Law.76 After all, lots of pious men (maybe, for some people, more pious than Jesus) had been crucified before without a new type of hermeneutics, namely, a positive one, ensuing. A  provincial peasants’ hero, denounced by the leading men and many others, definitely should not have made an exception. Seen in its own right and in its genuine context, the death of Jesus certainly did not involve any exceptional incentive for revolutionary hermeneutic thinking. A case in point:  It was not yet, at that time, a matter of the heart that one should stick to Jesus no matter what and, above all, even despite the shame of the cross. Later, the cross would become the basic constituent of the New Testament message that all followers of Jesus simply had to adhere to. And Paul would admonish them not to be ashamed of ‘the gospel of the cross’.77 But at the time of Jesus’s death, naturally, all those reasons to resist what was obvious did not yet exist. Instead, then and there, in that situation, to let Jesus go would have been a tolerably honourable solution, challenged by nothing in the contemporary world, and, in addition, something promoting piety. Nobody, ‘nor height, nor depth’, would have blamed them for giving up hopes placed in a man who had been crucified. Going down this route, no theodicy problem would have arisen, either. For from a theodicean viewpoint, too, this was a tolerably satisfactory solution, a solution understandable in terms of the contemporary crucifixion hermeneutics. We can observe, for instance, how the quoted Lukan passage is void of any theodicean struggle. Within its confines the issue of theodicy is quickly and easily avoided: Faced with the reality of Jesus’s execution on the cross,78 what the followers had experienced about him while he was still alive would not have made any difference. As much as they would have wanted to perceive it otherwise, they had to surrender. They must have been wrong about him, for God is always right. They had to let God be good, let God be just – and let Jesus go. the New Testament, ed. R. Bieringer, V. Koperski and B. Lataire (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002), 35–53, esp. 51–2; and R. A. Horsley, Jesus and the Powers: Conflict, Covenant, and the Hope of the Poor (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 194–5. 76. Deut. 21.22–23. 77. For example, 1. Cor. 1.17-18; 15.1-5; Rom. 1.16. 78. Cf. the sample texts from ‘other Christianities’ reviewed shortly below.

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However, in reality, as known, things went quite differently from what was the established, expectable course and – if the theme of disillusionment is to be considered historical – from what was apparently the followers’ initial move, too. Despite the crucifixion, the followers became convinced that Jesus was vindicated by God after all, in fact, that he had experienced a remarkable and wondrous victory. Whatever the reason for this conviction was – the resurrection experiences, usually referred to by scholars, or something else the experiences were expressive of79 – does not matter here. The point here is the remarkable conviction itself, the ‘second route’, and the resulting emergence, for the first time ever in Judaism (and last time, too),80 of a positive hermeneutics of crucifixion! Indeed, the route (eventually) chosen tasked the followers of Jesus with a daunting interpretative exercise. Explaining the vindication of the crucified one required efforts of towering stature and novel, unprecedented hermeneutic solutions. Had Jesus died in any other manner, there would have been rather patent means to sustain his teaching, uphold him as righteous, perhaps even proclaim him as the Messiah.81 The fact that he was crucified, however, made acquiring an understanding of the issue on the one hand and devising sufficient, working explanations for it on the other hand a true quest of creativity and courage. Accordingly, as we have seen,82 interpretations that, fundamentally, plead for the vindication of the crucified one literally fill the pages of the New Testament. This, too, gives an idea of the rigour of the hermeneutic demands the route continued to place on its traversers. The extraordinary character, indeed, peculiarity of the ‘second route’ can be further highlighted by reviewing some such solutions that chose not to let Jesus go but that did not develop a new hermeneutics of crucifixion either. How they managed to pull that off is telling. These approaches, rejecting the solution of the New Testament writers, are mainly connected with Docetism or docetic ideas. 79. See, for instance, Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi, 17–22; E. P. Sanders’s list of ‘virtually certain facts’ in The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 10–1; see, further, 279–80; G. R. Habermas, The Risen Jesus & Future Hope (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 24; C. S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2009), 342–8. 80. I am not aware of any other positive interpretation of crucifixion having emerged at some point later in Judaism. In this respect, if considered reliable, a good example is Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, esp. 90. J. Marcus (‘Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation’, JBL 125 [2006]: 73–87, esp. 78–9) is right in claiming that ironic interpretations can sometimes be taken sincerely. Quite another thing, however, is how easily such a transition from ironic to sincere could take place – in general and particularly when it comes to crucifixion. At least for those interpreters represented by the New Testament tradition, snatching positive meaning out of crucifixion posed a rigorous challenge. The fact that this was, on the whole, the first and the last time a positive crucifixion hermeneutics emerged is also telling. 81. Hooker, Not Ashamed, 11–12. 82. Cf. the inventory in Chapter 1, section 1.3.

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Docetism, as such, is a complex of thoughts, and an ongoing discussion seeks to fix its limits.83 Docetic traits, however, can appear even where no Docetism proper can be determined. One central docetic trait is, to be sure, the denial of the reality of Jesus’s suffering. ‘And they brought two malefactors and crucified the Lord in the midst between them. But he held his peace, as if he felt no pain.’84 This passage from the Gospel of Peter, which is dated before 190 CE,85 belongs to a longer description of Jesus’s death on the cross. It has remained uncertain how much the text eventually seeks to downplay Jesus’s sufferings. Still, the above phrasing clearly differs from many related ones in the New Testament gospels which particularly accentuate the hardship of the execution as also being Jesus’s own experience.86 In any event, Eusebius tells about Serapion of Antioch who had come across the Gospel of Peter and, after a more careful examination, rejected it because of finding some additions to the ‘true doctrine’ of Jesus. Serapion, further, connects the Gospel with a group called ‘Docet’, ‘for most of their opinions are connected with the teaching of that school’.87 More radically, however, the offense of suffering and death is removed in the following, later texts: And so I saw him suffer, and did not wait by his suffering, but fled to the Mount of Olives and wept at what had come to pass. And when he was hung (upon) the Cross on the Friday at the sixth hour of the day, there came a darkness over the whole earth. And my Lord stood in the middle of the cave and giving light to me said: ‘John, for the people below in Jerusalem I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds and given vinegar and gall to drink. But to you I am speaking.’88 ‘What is this that I see, O Lord? Is it you alone whom they take, and do you lay hold of me? Or who is this who is glad beside the tree and laughs? And another they strike upon his feet and on his hands?’ The Saviour said to me: ‘He whom you see beside the tree glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshy (likeness), the “ransom”,

83.  N. Brox, ‘ “Doketismus”  – eine Problemanzeige’, ZKG 95 (1984):  301–14; J. L. Papandrea, The Earliest Christologies: Five Images of Christ in the Postapostolic Age (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2016), 45–51. 84. Gos. Pet. 10. Cf. also Gos. Pet. 19: ‘And the Lord called out and cried, “My power, O power, thou hast forsaken me!” And having said this he was taken up.’ 85. W. Schneemelcher, ‘The Gospel of Peter: Introduction’, in New Testament Apocrypha I:  Gospels and Related Writings, ed. W. Schneemelcher (translated by R. McL. Wilson; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1991), 216–22, esp. 221. 86. To be sure, keeping oneself calm and composed was considered admirable in the contemporary world, but the New Testament texts pointedly differentiate Jesus’s suffering from this ideal. 87. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 6:12:6. 88. Acts Jn 97. For the belief in resurrection, see Acts Jn 109.

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which (alone) they (are able to) put to shame. That came into being after his likeness. But look on him and on me!’89 I did not succumb to them as they had planned. But I was not afflicted at all. Those who were there punished me. And I did not die in reality but in appearance, lest I be put to shame by them because these are my kinsfolk. I removed the shame from me and I did not become fainthearted in the face of what happened to me at their hands. I was about to succumb to fear, and I  according to their sight and thought, in order that they may never find any word to speak about them. For my death, which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. For their Ennoias did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance.90

In these texts, the whole scene of crucifixion is transformed into an illusion or a mistake. The real Jesus did not suffer. He was not crucified, but another man got caught, or the viewers simply imagined it all, saw what they wished.91 Thus, it was the ‘ransom’ who suffered and died, a (more or less) dummy substitute, who was then taken for the real one by the blind minded but who was of no further importance. Hence, they will cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that (through this name) they will become pure, and will defile themselves the more . . . For there shall arise from among them and my forgiveness of their transgressions, into which they fell through the (activity of the) adversary, although I had taken upon me their redemption from the slavery in which they were, to give them freedom. For they will prepare a mere counterfeit (of the true forgiveness) in the name of a dead man.92

Thus, the true forgiveness could not be one based on the death of Jesus. The epithet ‘ransom’ in an above text only reveals the misled conceptions of those who took the suffering man of the cross seriously. Hence, here we have one quite successful way to tackle with the difficulties that the cross could be seen to cause, including theodicean questions. In these examples of alternative, ‘other Christianities’, the decision of clinging to Jesus 89. Apoc. Pet. 81. 90. Second Treatise [Logos] of the Great Seth 55:0–56:9. 91. See Acts Jn 99–101. 92. Apoc. Pet. 74, 78. See also Second Treatise of the Great Seth 60:22.

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instead of letting him go has resulted not in a new hermeneutics of crucifixion, but in a denial of the reality of Jesus’s sufferings and/or death on the cross. Obviously, the proponents of these kinds of views did not have to struggle with the shame and stumbling block of proclaiming to the world a message about a crucified man. And they did not need to labour in finding meaning to the cross. They also knew no problem of theodicy but within views like these, that problem, too, was readily avoided. Indeed, it is with a very suggestive ease that they manage to eliminate any such questions. This observation further helps us to recognize the peculiarity of the ‘second route’ and the New Testament solutions to the death of Jesus. The early interpreters of Jesus did not opt for the easy ways out from confronting the shameful death of Jesus. Instead, the route they chose to walk along, not agreeing to treat Jesus’s suffering and death as a mere illusion but not letting him go either, was certain to lead them into trouble. The trouble had a name: generating and promoting a positive hermeneutics of the cross.

3.4  Rethinking the Theodicy Problem and Its Solution In the previous sections of the present chapter, I  have wanted to underline the imperativeness of the then-existing Jewish hermeneutics of crucifixion and to rediscover its acceptability and feasibility even with respect to the early followers of Jesus in the aftermath of his crucifixion. Further, I have sought to depict how unnecessary and unlikely indeed it should have been for the followers to start conceiving of an alternative type of hermeneutics, a ‘second route’, unknown in their context and contradicting the known tradition, quite possibly even seen as contradicting the Law. I also reviewed some representatives of ‘other Christianities’ showing how they, finding it impossible to accept the shame of crucifixion, were, rather, prepared to surrender the reality of Jesus’s suffering to make sense of the story. All this emphasis has aimed to give prominence to the following conclusion about the post-crucifixion followers of Jesus:  The route they (eventually) chose walking away from the cross, the ‘second route’, was not conducive to solving problems. It was, in fact, that choice precisely that caused the problems. The ‘second route’ was by no means the gentler road to climb but precisely the one that led to toiling and sweating.93 We can, in particular, consider the interpretive struggles that resulted, being most perceptible and seen as still ongoing in the New Testament. The followers struggled with their own understanding of the issue. And they struggled when charged to explain the chosen route to others, certainly every time they entered in a missionary situation or the like. Indeed, arguing for the vindication of the crucified one posed a hermeneutic challenge next to which all alternative choices, real or imagined, paled in comparison. 93. Cf. Seneca’s famous question in De Providentia 1:6.

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The same applies to the theodicean dimensions of the issue. As devoid as the Jewish depictions of the crucifixions of Jews are of positive interpretations of the fate of these people, quite as quiet they are also about accusations directed against God or about any complaints that would somehow question the divine justice in the situation. This stands even though our modern sense of fairness would not yield to sympathize with such deference and submissiveness. Crucifixion did not prompt theodicean reasoning pertaining to the guilt of God on the part of the Jews of the time in general, and all that we know suggests it did not do so on the part of the followers of Jesus, either. The studied passage of Lk. 24.18-21, for instance, does not depict a theodicy problem of any kind. We can, further, recognize that seeing the Deut. 21.22-23 curse behind these reactions (or, rather, lack of reactions) would again make good sense. However, a completely different theodicean outlook opens when we change the route. The very choice of the followers of Jesus that led them to intricate interpretive struggles also introduced a critical theodicy problem. If God has been righteous in never vindicating crucified people, how was he not made unrighteous by claiming that he has now done just that, that is, vindicated a crucified person? In other words, the contemporary hermeneutics could not conceive of God vindicating crucified people, and, naturally, the assumption was that God in his wisdom had good grounds for his judgements, that is, that he was acting righteously. The claim of the followers of Jesus, therefore – that God would now have taken the side of a crucified person – was blatantly blasphemous. A theodicean problem was inescapable unless, of course, the dispensation of justice presupposed by the claim could be explained. However, the issue exactly was that such an explanation had not emerged so far, certainly for some material reason. And, judged by the intense and long-lasting struggles the followers were driven to, it was an exceptionally hard labour to give birth to one. All in all, the historical circumstances as well as the contemporary theodicean ideas considered, the usual formulation of the death of Jesus as a theodicy problem, focusing on the incompatibility of Jesus’s pious life and shameful death and perceiving the resurrection as the solution, must be regarded as inaccurate. It draws upon the anachronistic supposition that the followers of Jesus living in the aftermath of the cross never had any real choice other than to keep clinging to him. Furthermore, it misses the fact that a mismatch between the crucifixion of a person and the person’s former life, however grave (i.e., however pious or patriotic etc. the person had been), was simply not an issue that would have prompted the Jews of the time to question God’s justness. This is not to say that they, the followers of Jesus included, would not have found it terrible when a life lived in the service of piety, for example, ended ignominiously on a cross. The point is, however, that this, by all accounts, was not a dysteleological experience for them in a theodicean sense, at least not of such a magnitude that would have roused accusations against God.94 94. Again, a good question is Why? And again, the Deut. 21.22–23 curse would provide a good answer.

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Instead now, the ‘second route’, the conviction that God had vindicated Jesus after all, which the followers of Jesus headed to in lieu of the route beckoned by the contemporary crucifixion hermeneutics, did generate theodicean difficulties of the most tangible kind. Therefore, seeking to formulate the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death, the focus should be redirected from the discrepancy between a pious life and crucifixion to the discrepancy between the crucifixion and the claims of vindication and victory. It is here that a theodicean dysteleology presents itself, even though in quite a particular way. For a way to put this would be to say that it was not Jesus’s defeat that caused the problem but rather his victory, expressed especially in the resurrection experiences. All the same, the conviction of the followers of Jesus that God had vindicated a crucified man posed a true and unprecedented theodicean challenge, forcing them to develop a completely new type of hermeneutics of crucifixion, namely, a positive one. Here, then, we have the grounds for a new arrangement of the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death, the key and other elements of its new formulation. In the new arrangement, Jesus’s pious life remains a factor to be taken into consideration. Nonetheless, it no longer plays a key role.95 Instead, Jesus’s vindication is now quite remarkably seen as part of the problem, not of its solution, and a key part at that. For, of course, the other part of the problem is still formed by the crucifixion, yet, it is integral to realize that, as such, crucifixion (even of pious people) did not spawn any notable theodicy. Only the vindication of the crucified one, championed by the followers of Jesus, would pose a challenge necessitating pioneering theodicean reasoning. However, what is most remarkable about the new formulation is that the innovation work of the positive crucifixion hermeneutics now emerges as the solution of the problem! We can amplify this new formulation and arrangement of the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death by reconsidering the observations made at the beginning of this chapter, which led us to doubt the usual way of formulating the problem. First, the new formulation makes it readily understandable that the New Testament writers neither question nor defend the justice of God in his allowing an innocent man to suffer and die ignominiously.96 For their vantage point on the issue was not one of desperation but of triumph: God had vindicated Jesus. In other words, they did not set out to reverse a defeat but to try to understand and explain the victory. Thus the apology for God took the form of unravelling the ‘why’ of the vindication: How should we explain this wondrous thing? The ‘why’ (sc. ‘how’) that was addressed to God was not one of blame but of astonishment and even joy. Second, redirecting the focus of the theodicean problem from life and crucifixion to crucifixion and vindication, it becomes obvious why the vindication, discernible especially in the experiences of resurrection, is not featured in the 95. See shortly below in the text. 96.  Hence, we would have expected to find such questioning of God as one of the should-be corollaries of the usual formulation, that is, if the theodicy problem had indeed been caused by the discord between Jesus’s life and death.

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New Testament as a solution to the theodicy problem: it was, in fact, part of the problem. Jesus’s vindication was not an outcome of theodicean reasoning but its starting point. In this way, it also becomes understandable how Jesus’s life could at times serve in resolving the theodicean problem.97 It was, in its turn, not causing the problem and could therefore be viewed as possibly offering clues to a solution. Last but not least, if the theodicy problem is perceived as consisting of the incongruity between crucifixion and vindication, the various New Testament interpretations of Jesus’s crucifixion are all perceivable as attempts to deal with the problem. The victory of the crucified one created a conundrum, a dilemma that could not be solved easily or with few words but that, on the contrary, pushed to a laborious and in some respects even desperate enterprise of explaining. Thus, setting out from the new arrangement of the problem, the vast and variegated repertoire of interpretations of Jesus’s death in the New Testament can be highlighted as fundamentally addressing the question of theodicy. Hence, contrary to the former conclusion of scholarship, namely, that there is no particular interest in theodicean questions in the New Testament, based on the usual but inaccurate formulation of the theodicy problem, the new formulation leads us to recognize the New Testament as deeply engaged in the theodicean problem! In fact, it can even be claimed that what launched and nourished the intense interpretation activity were precisely the theodicean questions involved. The following scheme illustrates how the new formulation invests the New Testament interpretations with theodicean significance: Old formulation:     pious life ↔ death by crucifixion           ↓                  theodicy problem → solution: vindication (expressed esp. in the resurrection experiences) New formulation:             death by crucifixion ↔ vindication (expressed esp. in the                resurrection experiences)                  ↓           theodicy problem → solution: interpretations of Jesus’s  death Let us consider the alternatives available for the early followers of Jesus and the choices they made: Had they denied the reality of the cross, no theodicy problem would have emerged. On the other hand, accepting Jesus’s true suffering and death would not as such have caused a theodicy problem, either. It was first the conviction that despite crucifixion they should not let Jesus go, for God had vindicated him, that got the followers into deep trouble. How should they themselves understand 97. Cf. Acts 2.22-28, Phil. 2.8-9 and Heb. 5.7. Although, as stated, even these references occur very sparingly.

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the issue? How could they argue that God has acted righteously? How could they bear the shame inherent in proclaiming the crucified one? How could they explain this proclamation to others? Astonishingly, we ought to observe, the new hermeneutics that came about through the pursuits of seeking to meet these challenges quite ‘excelled’ in making Jesus’s death into a problem. The people of the New Testament tradition came up with a declaration that was, to say the least, very extraordinary: the crucified one was the Messiah himself. To put it succinctly, not only did they claim the vindication of the crucified one, but they also exalted him to the position of the Messiah and Son of God. And again, not only did they present this extraordinary claim as merely one track of their stories, but rather they made it into the main point of proclamation. For a specific reason, I have refrained from claiming that the theodicy problem the followers of Jesus encountered on their ‘second route’ was to justify a God who sided with and vindicated a man he had first cursed. While such a wording of the theodicy problem would naturally be sharper and direr, we also get quite nicely along with the more moderate, circumspect way of phrasing the issue that has been applied here, a way not hinging on the view that crucifixions were always seen as actualizing the Deut. 21.22-23 curse. That being said, however, I cannot but find it telling that what the followers of Jesus, at least in the New Testament tradition, in reality seem to have managed to do with their proclamation about Jesus is precisely this: to explain and argue for the vindication of the cursed one.

Chapter 4 T H E O L O G IC A L C O N SI D E R AT IO N S :   P AU L A N D O T H E R S O N U N D E R STA N D I N G S U F F E R I N G 4.1  Introductory Remarks I shall now move on from the fact that Jesus died on the cross to the various interpretations of the fact in the New Testament. I will collectively refer to these as ‘God’s saving act’ in Jesus. The main and general question asked in the present chapter is: What specific contribution can Jesus’ death interpreted, that is, God’s saving act in Jesus, be seen to make to understanding theodicy? Hence, the aim of this chapter is to study the variegated New Testament response to the death of Jesus as a route to an intellectual grasp of theodicean questions. Here, in particular, the contemporary theodicean language spelled out in Chapter 2 will be of help. The reader is hereby reminded of the terms, expressions, metaphors and concepts that surfaced in the discussions of that chapter,1 and reference to them will be made during the following survey. Separately, I  will now mention only the leitmotif of the Old Testament and Jewish theodicy thinking, the covenant belief, which underlines the many providential features of the Jewish God Yahweh and in a central way connects the diverse theodicean elements and themes together. The covenant will serve as a kind of centre of gravity in the following discussion as well. As we shall see, this theodicean legacy the New Testament writers tapped into has in the light of the cross of Christ culminated in some truly genuine views, be it understanding the justice of God and human beings, dealing with good and evil people, applying the action-consequence principle, or, in a word, construing the whole concept of theodicy. The discussions of the present chapter will not always make claims that would apply to the whole of the New Testament, to all of its writings. Sometimes such generalizations may be possible, but frequently claims will be made in reference to one or a few individual writings alone. Yet at times, the perspective can also be a collecting one, a synthesis combining different New Testament aspects together to form one coherent view. The section I shall begin with will provide an overview of the consequences that God’s saving act in Jesus could be seen to have on theodicy thinking. The section will also help to raise and delineate the more particular questions to be dealt with in this chapter.

1. See especially Chapter 2, section 2.4.

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4.2  Covenant as the Guarantee for God’s Care – Christ as the Guarantee As we have seen in Chapter  2, the Old Testament and early Jewish theodicy thinking was largely dominated by the notion of the covenant. The covenant was perceived as the guarantee for God’s favour and care vis-à-vis the Jewish people. The covenant both established God as providential and reserved divine care especially for the Jews. In the New Testament, this basic theodicean role of the covenant has been transferred to the person Jesus and God’s work in him. Quite simply, in the New Testament, Christ Jesus is the guarantee for God’s favour and care. If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn [κατακρινῶν]? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?2

The covenantal background of the above reasoning is widely recognized.3 God’s love towards Christians discloses that they are the elect ones. The theme is launched from Rom. 8.28 onwards and concludes with the argument of Rom. 8.35-39 which is, in essence, the same as in those earlier verses.4 In the middle, the quoted section presents the work of Christ Jesus as the basis of and guarantee for God’s favour. Because of the saving act in Christ Jesus, there is no objection against those who are with Christ. Paul’s text echoes Isa. 50.7-11, where God is trusted to vindicate the just one. The triad of covenant, Christ and divine providence also appears in Eph. 2.11-22:

2. Rom. 8.31.35. Verses 33–34 can be translated in different ways. Cf. v. 34 in, for instance, NRSV: ‘Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.’ RSV: ‘Who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?’ NIV: ‘Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.’ 3. See G. Schille, ‘Die Liebe Gottes in Christus: Beobachtungen zu Rm 8 31-39’, ZNW 59 (1968):  230–44, esp.  232; C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (London:  A. & C.  Black, 1991), 165; J. A. Fitzmyer, Romans:  A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 534, 536. See also in Chapter 5, section 5.2, point 3. 4.  Cf. P. Fiedler, ‘Röm 8 31–39 als Brennpunkt paulinischer Frohbotschaft’, ZNW 68 (1977): 23–34, esp. 29–30. The first line in Rom. 8.31 initiates the question for the rest part of the chapter, wherein Rom. 8.35-39 appears as a subsection; Schille, ‘Liebe Gottes’, 232–6; Fiedler, ‘Brennpunkt’, 23–4.

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Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God (ἄθεoι) in the world.5 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.6

Despite their pantheon of gods, the Gentiles were ἄθεoι, that is, they were in fact without the true God.7 In general, this would mean their being without the protection of the one might that stood above human and worldly injustice. Understandably, then, they had no hope.8 In Christ, however, they have now become ‘fellow-citizens with the saints’ and ‘members of the household of God’. The two expressions respectively show how their status now exceeds that of those to whom originally belonged the ‘commonwealth of Israel’ and ‘covenants’. The same point is insinuated by the remark on ‘the circumcision in flesh made by hands’ in Eph. 2.11 which recalls the spiritual circumcision of heart.9 Hence, Christ’s work is a yet better guarantee for God’s favour and care than what Israel was invested with through the covenant with God! Additionally, a most succinct expression in Heb. 13.20 manages to connect the ideas of Jesus’s death, divine care, and the covenant. ‘God of peace . . . brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant.’10 The text is a part of the summary of the letter.11 In this context, the ‘eternal covenant’ signifies the covenant established through Jesus’s blood on the cross.12 ‘Shepherd’ is one of the commonest pictures stressing God’s pastoral providential character.13 Jesus’s death is thus a covenant-based act of divine providence.14 The passage is also an example of Jesus taking on the providential 5. Eph. 2.12. 6. Eph. 2.19. 7. Cf. 1 Cor. 8.5-6; Gal. 4.8. 8. In a specifically Christian sense, ‘hope’ denotes the ultimate salvation provided by the true God through Christ Jesus; A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians (Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 138. 9. Rom. 2.25-29; Phil. 3.2-3; see also Col. 2.11. Cf. even the teaching about the spiritual temple in Eph. 2.20-22 with the alluded antithesis of a temple ‘made with hands’. 10. Heb. 13.20. 11. W. L. Lane, Hebrews 9–13 (Dallas: Word Books, 1991), 560. 12. H. W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 406–7. See, for instance, Heb. 7.22; 9.11-26; 10.29. For ‘blood of the covenant’, cf. Zech. 9.11; for ‘eternal covenant’, cf. Isa. 55.3; 61.8; Jer. 32.40; 50.5; Ezek. 16.60; 37.26. Cf. in this last passage also ‘covenant of peace’ with ‘God of peace’ in Heb. 13.10. Hence, C. R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 573, may be right in explaining that ‘ “peace” does not so much describe God’s character as it points to the outcome of his work’. 13. Cf. Chapter 2, section 2.3.1, point 6. 14. See E. Grässer, An die Hebräer: Teilbd 3. Hebr 10.1913.25 (Zürich: Benzinger, 1997), 402; V. C. Pfitzner, Hebrews (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 205. Commentators refer inter

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activity of God: he is the15 shepherd of the sheep.16 In other words, Jesus not only stands as assuring God’s guardianship, guaranteeing God’s favour, but is himself active in caring for people. Jesus’s role in accomplishing God’s favour and care is also conveyed through the portrayals of him as the husband,17 king and judge.18 As can be gathered from these examples, the transferal of the theodicean role of the covenant unto the character and work of Jesus does not mean displacement of the covenant idea. Rather, in the few passages where the idea is reflected, what took (and will yet take) place in Jesus is seen as being in continuum with God’s former covenantal deeds.19 Ultimately, the thought of Jesus as the guarantee for God’s providence is included in the soteriological interpretation of Jesus’s death. As much as God’s saving act in Jesus grants the believers divine favour, it also grants them divine care and guardianship. It is because of having a part in what Jesus accomplished through his death that Christians can now trust in God’s benevolence vis-à-vis themselves. Like belonging to the covenant before, sharing in Christ’s work now creates the ‘people of God’, that is, those whom he would always have pardon for, whom he would unwaveringly safeguard and eventually rescue from all evil. In fact, wherever Jesus is conceived as the basis of salvation, he is also implicitly seen as the basis for trusting in God’s providence in times of affliction.20 Therefore, the shifting of the theodicean role of the covenant to Jesus sets the frame within which all New Testament theodicy thinking must be viewed.21 alia to Isa. 63.11-13 LXX; Jer. 23.3, 7-8; and Ezek. 34.10-16, 23-24. Cf. also Zech. 9.11: ‘As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit’, which F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 388, among others, mentions with reference to the role of the shepherd in Zech. 11.4-7 and 13.7. 15. Cf. ‘great’. 16. See also, for instance, Jn 10.11-18. Cf. also 1 Pet. 2.25. See even Jn 15.13. For Old Testament and early Jewish messianic imagery, see, for example, Ezek. 34.23-24; 37.24; Pss. Sol. 17.40. 17. See, for instance, 2 Cor. 11.2; Eph. 5.25-32; Rev. 19.7. Cf. Hos. 2.18, 21-22. 18.  See, for instance, Mt. 13.41-43; 16.27-28; 19.28; 25.31-46; 28.18-20; Mk 10.42-45 par.; Lk. 22.29-30; Jn 1.49; 5.22-30; 18.33-36; Acts 10.42; 17.31; Rom. 2.16; 8.34; 2 Cor. 5.10; 2 Tim. 4.1; Rev. 11.15; 14.14-20; 22.12. See further the discussion in section 4.3: ascribed to Jesus and his work, these metaphors with their inherent covenantal connotations corroborate the present argument. 19.  Mostly, the covenant is not reflected at all, which, however, does not indicate an abandonment of the idea. In due course, we shall examine more closely exactly how the New Testament writers saw this continuum; see section 4.5. 20. Jas 1.2-8 is perhaps the single passage in the New Testament which speaks about distress without remarks made on Jesus’s suffering and death on the cross. Correspondingly, Jesus and his death play a uniquely small role in James compared with all other New Testament writings. 21. As can be noticed, this is consistent with the upshot of the discussions in Chapter 3.

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The subsequent sections in the present chapter, as well as the following Chapter  5 as a whole, can be considered an explication of the effects of this contextualization. For the moment, I shall point out some general observations from a comparison of the two theodicean outlooks that take shape when either the covenant or God’s act in Jesus is assumed as the guarantee for God’s care. I shall also include some viewpoints from the Greco-Roman discussion.22 The comparison will be executed by considering the responses of the two theodicean outlooks to situations where, alternatively, teleology or dysteleology will prevail. The outlooks will be drawn here in general outline only. This may momentarily compromise some of their nuances and, on the other hand, enhance their peculiarities. However, this should conveniently bring forth the questions to be dealt with in the following sections. We first ask:  How do the two theodicean outlooks, the covenant and God’s saving act in Jesus, perceive a teleology sustained, that is, when all goes as expected? (1) God’s favour and blessings as resulting from keeping his will. What would this proper outcome of good behaviour look like? As we have seen, in the earlier layers of the Old Testament the fulfilment of covenant promises was conceived in the forthright terms of mundane blessings. Even the eschatological covenant, with its vision of God-effected obedience to the divine will, largely kept to earthly things when describing the happiness that would follow from the obedience. Later on, the thought of posthumous/ otherworldly reward became increasingly important. The previous, concrete language could then be interpreted as metaphors of the supermundane. Except for rigid apocalyptic scenarios, however, the worldly boon was considered an important part of the expected work of divine providence. While Greco-Roman thought basically agrees with such emphases, the New Testament view of the proper outcome of keeping God’s will is differently focused. The weight is almost throughout placed on the future reward, substantiated by references to Jesus’s course of life. Like Christ had suffered while on earth but resides now in glory in heaven, so his followers will also have their due in the afterlife/world to come.23 Only sporadically are the blessings of Providence given the form of earthly matters.24 (2) Disfavour and punishment as resulting from not keeping God’s will. Much as in the previous point, covenant based theodicy pictured the proper fate of wrongdoers as deprivation of a good life. Later visions located the fundamental punishment in the afterlife without, however, losing sight of the true significance of the here and now.25 In the New Testament, the real punishment for misdeeds 22.  For observations concerning Greco-Roman as well as Old Testament and Jewish theodicy thinking in the following points (1)–(4), see sections 2.2 and 2.3 in Chapter 2. 23. See, for example, Rom. 8.16-17; 2 Tim. 2.11-12; 1 Pet. 5.10. 24. See Mk 10.29-30; Luke 29–30; cf. Mt. 19.28-29. 25. Apocalypticism seems again to form a main exception by presenting no compelling, mundane correspondence between misdeeds and punishment.

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is seen to not occur until this life or aeon is over.26 For this reason, save some extraordinary cases,27 current calamities such as a tower falling down on apparently random people could not serve as indicators of one’s stance before God.28 How this relates to the idea of Christ Jesus having taken on the role of the covenant as the guarantee of God’s care will gain clarity when we come to point (4) below. What then are the responses of the two theodicean outlooks to the main dysteleological situations? (3) In trouble regardless of keeping God’s will. What would happen when individuals or a community experienced that, despite their true righteousness, they had not escaped suffering?29 In other words, how did the theodicean reasoning of the different outlooks cope with a situation in which good behaviour had resulted in bad fortune? In a theodicy based on the idea of being in covenant with a providential God, such situation always led to some kind of intellectual crisis. Experiencing this crisis on an individual level resulted (inter alia) in the coining of the righteous sufferer, that is, those who because of their righteousness were hated and treated unjustly by evil people.30 Thinking of the fate of the Jews as a people, again, the dilemma amounted to an identity crisis, which was considerably harder to come to terms with. Why did God let this happen to his own people? Why was he silent, not acting according to his covenantal promises? In Greco-Roman thinking, too, the situation depicted above posed a serious dilemma. However, for the non-Jewish world, the providential nature of the deity was not established in a covenant, nor in any other way comparable to the Old Testament authority. For this reason, at least on a collective level, the dilemma did not aggravate into a comparable identity crisis. The New Testament transferal of the main theodicean role of the covenant to Christ Jesus, on the one hand, affirmed the indisputableness of God’s providential character:  God must be philanthropic and caring since he did not spare his only son but gave him up to die for the benefit of humankind.31 On the other hand, however, the transferal substantially altered the understanding of what is to be expected from divine care. On both individual and collective levels, God’s guardianship was not seen as inferential by what the people belonging to him 26. Mt. 13.24-30, 37-43, 47-49. 27. See, for example, Acts 5.1-10; 1 Cor. 11:30. 28. Lk. 13.1-5; Jn 9.1-3. 29. Of course, one common response to such a situation was to put the ‘true righteousness’ in doubt. This is, however, not at issue now. 30. See L. Ruppert, Der leidende Gerechte: Eine motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Alten Testament und zwischentestamentlichen Judentum (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1972), 15–28. The oxymoronic nature of the expression ‘righteous sufferer’ (see, for instance, Ps. 34.20; Wis. 5.1) does not attract rationalization of the suffering, by reference to divine discipline or the like. 31. Mk 10.45; Jn 3.16; Rom. 8.32; Tit. 2.11-14; 1 Jn 4.9-10; Rev. 1.4-5.

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through Christ Jesus would have to experience. Despite sufferings, Christians could believe in the goodness and care of God because, in fact, their very being Christians had made them liable to end up in trouble.32 As followers of Jesus, they were ‘called’ to suffer with him.33 Indeed, the situation assumed here (i.e., undeserved, innocent suffering) was the standard for Christians’ lives in the world.34 The believers were one in Christ, and since Christ, the head, had suffered innocently, the whole body would undergo the same.35 One could say that the idea of the righteous sufferer was thus transferred on a collective level.36 As a result, in the New Testament, suffering regardless of complying to God’s will does not pose an intellectual problem like it did in Judaism and the Greco-Roman world.37 Consequently, the identity crisis that threatened Judaism was also evaded. Under these circumstances, however, it is clear that the concept of providence, divine care and guardianship, undergoes a redefinition.38 (4) Good fortune regardless of not keeping God’s will. What to do when wrongdoers escape their due punishment and, instead, prosper? In other words, what was the theodicean reaction of the two outlooks upon a situation where wickedness had resulted in well-being? For Old Testament and early Jewish theodicy thinking, failing divine retribution presented an intellectual crisis comparable to that when experiencing undeserved suffering. The same estimation stands with respect to Greco-Roman discussion as well. As for the Jews, the continuous prosperity of idolatrous nations (especially over against the people of God) undermined their covenant-based identity. On both individual and collective levels, this led to evocations of God exercising his justice in a way expectable on the basis of the covenant. The many psalms, for example, that elicit God’s curse on the enemies and tormentors of the righteous are therefore not to be seen as motivated by thirst for revenge alone. They are also attempts to retain the integrity of the providential understanding of the covenant God. The New Testament established the endurance of the wicked as forming part of God’s plan. Although, at the end of time, the world would be judged in righteousness by Christ Jesus,39 presently the wicked will live alongside the good 32. Mt. 10.24-25; 24.9; Jn 15.20-21; 1 Jn 3.13. 33. Mk 8.34-35 par.; Jn 13.15-16; 1 Pet. 2.20-21. 34. The only innocent suffering dealt with in the New Testament is that of the Christians. An explanation for this is entertained in section 4.4.2. 35. Rom. 8.17; Phil. 3.10; 1 Cor. 12.26-27; Eph. 4.15-16. 36. Isaiah’s ‘servant’, who later on obtains the typical character of a righteous sufferer, is mentioned for the first time in Isa. 41.8 and identified as Israel. 37. Naturally, however, suffering as a practical problem, that is, evoking the question of how to endure, is not hereby precluded. See Chapter 5. 38. See the discussion in section 4.3. 39. Mt. 19.28; 25.31-46; Jn 5.22-30; Acts 17.31; Rom. 2.16; 2 Cor. 5.10; 2 Tim. 4.1.

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people.40 The divine providence warranted by the work of Christ tolerates the worst of malefactors in its refraining from vengeance in this world. As a matter of fact, God was even seen as seeking to exempt evildoers from ultimate punishment as well.41 Such a conviction could be based on the forbearance and mercy of God as revealed by and in Jesus. He had accepted sinners and unrighteous people and, eventually, died for the godless, for the enemies of God. Therefore God now justifies the ungodly.42 Understanding divine providence along these lines would effect changes on an individual level as well. In the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus (and conceived by the New Testament writers as being based on the forgiveness ensuing from Jesus’s death on the cross), people were not to live according to the principles of justice but those of mercy. One could not set out from the idea that one was entitled to claim oneself what is right, seeing the punishment of evildoers as a fair part of the play.43 Instead, Christians can and should love their enemies and pray for them.44 Consequently, the question of failing divine retribution did not amount to an intellectual problem. The emphatic question ‘why do the wicked prosper’, frequent in all contemporary literature, is conspicuously absent in the New Testament. Hence, briefly summarizing the cursory comparison of the two theodicean outlooks: In the New Testament, Jesus and God’s work in him has assumed the main theodicean function of the covenant. Like God had once guaranteed his providence in the covenant, he now guarantees it through his work in Christ. However, as seen in the above comparison, this substantially alters the general viewpoint on theodicean issues. In fact, this generates a new theodicean situation. There are specifically two notions that materialize in the Jesus event and that signalize the new situation:  God countenances innocent suffering; he tolerates evildoers. Featured now as rules rather than exceptions, these notions turn common theodicean convictions upside down and generate an understanding of God’s care that effectively resists all odds, an understanding that is virtually undoable. In this way, the main intellectual problems of Jewish as well as GrecoRoman theodicy thinking are dissolved. Thereby God’s saving act in Jesus provides an unfailing guarantee for divine providence. However, the New Testament attribution of the theodicean role of the covenant to the person of Jesus and God’s work in him also generates some new problems. Among the major new difficulties is surely how to really conceive of the providence informed by the cross of Christ (cf. section 4.3). True, as construed in the New 40. Cf. the references made in point (2) above. 41. God’s forgiveness and mercy was naturally known in Old Testament and early Jewish literature. These factors could, at times, deter the rightful punishment of wickedness. For Israel, the covenant enhanced the possibilities of remission. However, the saving act in Jesus now made an option into a rule. 42. Rom. 3.25-26; 4.5; 5.6-10. 43. Mt. 6.14-15; 7.3-5; 18.23-35; Mt. 7.1-2 par.; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3.13; Jas 2.13. 44. Mt. 5.38-48 par.; Rom. 12.14-21.

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Testament, this providence cannot fail, but in a way it risks leaving the impression of being a mere cheap trick. That is, its teleology looks very much like dysteleology which it seeks to overcome. It seems to admit the truth of the anguished cry of the Ecclesiastes, ‘all things come alike to all’,45 but then claim that, in the light of God’s saving act in Jesus, this makes sense and everything really is all right. Thus dysteleology is declared teleology.46 Much rests on the substantiating clause ‘in the light of God’s act in Jesus’. As will be seen, the New Testament writers found no easy and concise way to articulate this. Attendant questions that rise on account of the ascription of the theodicean role of the covenant to the saving act in Jesus are, further, what theodicean purpose, if any, was there left for keeping God’s will (cf. section 4.4), and how, considering the substantial change in the theodicean outlook effectuated, the New Testament writers could still see God’s act in Jesus as a continuance of (the theodicy of) his covenantal acts known of old (cf. section 4.5). Naturally, there is also the concrete question of how to endure when guarded by this re-construed providence. The dissolving of whatever intellectual difficulties did not, of course, remove the cruelty of suffering. However, the practical side of the problem will have to wait for a treatment in Chapter 5.47

4.3  The Nature of Covenantal Care – Care in Christ The change in outlook on divine providence, occasioned by Jesus’s taking the place of the covenant as the guarantee, is perhaps most concretely discernible in how the Old Testament appellations underlining God’s covenantal care are applied to Jesus.48 The one word metaphors, ‘judge’, ‘king’, ‘shepherd’ and ‘husband’, used in order to articulate the different sides of the providential nature of the Jewish deity, appear in the New Testament almost exclusively as designations of Jesus.49 A  critical scrutiny intriguingly reveals how the new theodicean situation has affected their purpose and application. At the same time, some keystones of the 45. Eccl. 9.2. 46. Thus, much like apocalyptic ideas, God’s saving act in Christ Jesus enables one to adapt to the apparent dysteleology of the world. Something similar can also be discovered in the Psalms of Solomon; see K. Atkinson, ‘Theodicy in the Psalms of Solomon’, in Theodicy in the World of the Bible, ed. A. Laato and J. C. de Moor (Leiden:  Brill, 2003), 546–75, esp. 546–7. 47. See here the distinctions made in Chapter 1, sections 1.1 and 1.4. 48. Cf. Chapter 2, section 2.3.1, point 6. 49. For ‘king’ and ‘judge’ as appellations of God, not Jesus, see 1 Tim. 1.17 and Heb. 12.23 respectively. ‘(Chief)Shepherd’ in 1 Pet. 2.25 and 5.4 probably denotes (see J. R. Michaels, 1 Peter [Waco: Word Books, 1988], 151, 286–7) Jesus. Likewise, ‘husband’ is used of Jesus alone. The appellation ‘father’, which especially in early Judaism was employed to accentuate God’s love and care, never appears in the New Testament as a designation of Jesus. Its most conspicuous usage is Jesus’s address of his God, Abba.

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nature of divine care, refashioned on the basis of the saving act in Christ Jesus, are disclosed. Besides the passage from Hebrews quoted above (Heb. 13.20), the idea of Jesus’s death having a pastoral function surfaces at least in the Gospel of John: ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’50 Accordingly, Jesus has died in order to protect those who are his.51 His death is a pastoral providential act and leads, in fact, to a realization of the promises of the eschatological covenant.52 Further, Jesus is pictured as a husband whose love becomes apparent in his death for the benefit of the bride. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.53

The picture of Jesus as the husband emphasizes his embodyment of the role of the covenant between Yahweh (the groom/husband) and Israel (the bride/ wife).54 Behind Eph. 5.25-27 stands the marital imagery of Ezek. 16.8-1455 with clear providential contents.56 What happened earlier because of the covenant, now happens because of the death of the ‘husband’, Christ Jesus,57 namely, the taking care of the bride, the church.58 Hence, the death of Jesus the husband has a providential purpose. 50. Jn 10.10-11. See also Mk 14.27 par.; Jn 10.11-18; 1 Pet. 2.25. Cf. even Jn 15.13. 51. Jn 10.17-18 reveals that the expression τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτoῦ τίθησιν in Jn 10.11 (and Jn 10.15) does not mean merely ‘risking’ one’s life; G. R. Beasley-Murray, John (Waco: Word Books, 1987), 170. 52. Cf. Jn 10.16c, ‘there will be one flock, one shepherd’, especially with Ezek. 34.23-25; 37.21-26. Indeed, Jn 10.16a, ‘I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold’, surpasses the Ezekielian promises (see also Jer. 31.31; 50.4) in the fashion of the universality of Isa. 42.17; 49.5-12; 56.8. Cf. even Rom. 5.12-21; 2 Cor. 5.14-21; and the above discussed Eph. 2.11-18. 53. Eph. 5.25-27. See also, for example, 2 Cor. 11.2; Eph. 5.25-32; Rev. 19.7. Cf. Hos. 2.18, 21-22. See even Mk 2.18-22; Mt. 22.1-14; 25.1-13. 54. Cf. Chapter 2, section 2.3, for the marital imagery as used in order to depict covenant loyalty, its impairment by Israel and Yahweh’s willingness to stay loyal to the covenant despite everything. 55. Lincoln, Ephesians, 363. 56. See also Ezek. 16.5-7. 57. παρέδωκεν ὑπέρ and equivalents form a common means to refer to Jesus’s vicarious death. See here especially Eph. 5.2 (Lincoln, Ephesians, 374–5) and Mk 10.45 par.; Tit. 2.14. See also Rom. 8.32. See even, for example, Mt. 27.26; Mk 15.15; Jn 19.16, 30; cf. Lk. 23.15. 58. See Ezek. 16.56-63.

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The pictures of shepherd and husband appear at first sight rather adjustable with respect to being attached to Jesus’s death. A shepherd was supposed to put himself in danger in order to protect the sheep. ‘Husband’, again, as an appellation of Yahweh in the Old Testament, serves to uphold his suffering love for Israel, the sins of whom he is prepared to forgive.59 Nonetheless, one could ask whether dying is the best way to protect the herd and, in particular, how a husband can prepare and cleanse his bride through his death. Obviously, these features have entered the pictures of shepherd and husband due to the need to include the notion of the death of Jesus in them. The cleansing, forgiveness of sins and the taking away of the judgements brought on by Yahweh’s betrothal to Israel60 are now seen as belongings the Church has received through Christ’s vicarious death.61 Similarly, the death of Jesus the shepherd can be seen as brought about by a battle where the beast that threatened the sheep was also killed.62 Through these reinterpretations, however, the pictures’ genuine intent, on the one hand, and the ideas that should be conveyed through them, on the other, are already drawing apart from each other. Even more contrived is, then, the notion that the husband can receive his bride after he has died. No doubt, the good shepherd is also thought to continue to tend the herd even after having given his life for it.63 The reason for these contrivances is again clear: ‘I lay down my life in order to take it up again.’64 In other words, the resurrection of the crucified one comes into view as an inseparable part of God’s saving act in Jesus. The pictures, however, whether in general regard or with regard to their Old Testament usage, do not lend their support to such an idea.65 To be sure, the appellations of shepherd and husband seek to label the death of Jesus as a manifestation of the care and guardianship of Yahweh known of old. Accordingly, the picture of a shepherd views the death in the light of the pastoral activity of God. The marital metaphor, again, emphasizes God’s covenantal love as being operative in the death. However, the pithy metaphors are not quite up to the service they have been put into. The pictures are stretched over their limits as well as over their usage in the Old Testament. To put it plainly, the traditional metaphors of ‘shepherd’ and ‘husband’, commonly utilized in articulating the divine providence, are more or less inapt in respect to articulating the providential in God’s act in Jesus. Turning to the appellation of king (and even judge), we can observe this inaptness being stated expressly. 59. Ezek. 16.7-8, 59-63; Hos. 2.21-22; 11.8-9; Zeph. 3.14-17. 60. Ezek. 16.9; 16.63; Zeph. 3.15. 61.  These become a reality to the Church in water baptism (Lincoln, Ephesians, 375) and/or baptism by the Spirit (J. D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit [London: SCM, 1970], 163). 62. Heb. 2.14; see even Jn 12.31-32; 1 Jn 3.8. 63. Heb. 13.20; 1 Pet. 2.25; 5.4. See also Jn 10.27-28. 64. Jn 10.17. See also Mk 14.27-28 par. 65. Hence, these pictures would not inherently have called forth the idea of resurrection.

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In many instances, depictions of Jesus’s kingship do not greatly deviate from the commonly held idea of kingship.66 A  number of passages, however, note a radical change. With explicit reference to Jesus’s death, his royal rule is cast in a considerably peculiar light: You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.67

Here there is an explicit stress on, on the one hand, the discrepancy between how a kingly rule is usually understood and, on the other, how it takes form in Jesus. We can observe that the former is seasoned with a slight pejorative savour in order to make the latter appear more agreeable despite all its curiosity. The theodicean relevance of the passage, again, is enforced through the Markan and Matthean context where the passage is preceded by the statement of drinking the ‘cup’.68 Together with the threefold repetition in Mk 14.35-41 and Mt. 26.39-45,69 ‘remove this cup from me’, this motif recalls the Old Testament and early Jewish image of a cup full of God’s wrath that has accumulated because of the unpaid sins of people.70 The role of the image was to underline that no sin of evildoers will go unpunished, to signalize that although God seems to not immediately get revenge, he has a ‘reserve’ for his wrath from which he will repay. Now, however, by giving 66. Mt. 16.27-28; 19.28; 25.31-46; 28.18-20; Lk. 22.29-30; Jn 1.49; Rev. 11.15. 67.  Mk 10.42-45; Mt. 20.25-28. See also Jn 18.33-36. Cf. however, the closest Lukan parallel to Mk 10.42-45 (i.e., Lk. 22.24-30) which reflects the sentential picture of Jesus’s kingship. 68. Mk 10.37-38; Mt. 20.21-22. Cf. Lk. 12.50. 69. See also Lk. 22.42; Jn. 12.27; 18.11. 70.  J. Gnilka, Das Evangelium nach Markus:  Mk 8,27-16,20 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999), 102, 260; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew:  Commentary on Matthew XIX–XXVIII (Edinburgh:  T&T Clark, 1997), 89–90. See Chapter 2, section 2.3.2, point 2. As stated by Jesus in Mk 10.39 and Mt. 20.23, James and John will also drink the cup. This does not mean that their drinking of the ‘cup’ would be vicarious in the manner of Jesus’ (against R. H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993], 584, 869, who, because of drawing this conclusion, dismisses the interpretation of the ‘cup’ as denoting God’s judgement). Mk 8.34-35 par. does not mean that the cross the disciples are admonished to take up in their following Jesus would bear the same consequences Jesus’s cross did. Similarly, in 1 Pet. 2.21, Christ’s suffering ‘for you’ is given as exemplary for the disciples without arguing that their suffering would have the same significance (i.e., ‘for’). The cup James and John will drink is to be understood along the lines of, for example, Mt. 10.24-25 and Jn 15.20. Correctly Gnilka, Markus, 102: ‘Becher und Taufe übernehmen die

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his life as ransom, Jesus empties the cup. The thought of the Messiah so consuming the reserve for unpaid sins corresponds well in awkwardness to the thought of a king becoming a servant. To be sure, both ideas seek to impart God’s great act of mercy71 that takes place in Jesus’s death. On the other hand, they can also be interpreted as indicating an alarming rupture in the due order of things: How can a servant king reign? How can a god of no revenge be just? Comparably, Jesus’s assuming of the providential activity of God as the judge (of the world) is often related in keeping with the conventional picture of what being a judge involves.72 Some texts, however, characterize Jesus the judge rather dubiously. 1 Jn 2.1 tells how Jesus works as an advocator, defending those who have sinned. In Jn 3.18 and 5.24, again, Jesus is said to refrain from judging those who believe in him.73 The texts actually hint to unrighteousness and partiality in Jesus’s jurisdiction. Likewise, passages which closely together refer to both the judgeship and the ignominious death of Jesus might have appeared questionable to the contemporary reader.74 How could a crucified man be suited to judge other people, indeed, on behalf of God? Thus, how does the role of a judge as pictured in these passages work in expressing the providential character of God? The idea of an unrighteous adjudicator was dreaded in the contemporary world.75 A  tinge of favouritism would equally distance the positive connotations of the role. Naturally, the basis for the extraordinary verdicts as well as the qualification of the crucified one for the duty of the great judge lies in his death being a salvific act of God, a fact which has been proven by the resurrection.76 Since he has thus atoned for sinners, he can now advocate them.77 However, all this demands a considerable reconsideration of the use of the appellation ‘judge’. The question is here perhaps not so much of a redefinition of the appellation as compared with ‘shepherd’, ‘husband’ and ‘king’ above. Rather, what is now required is that one is knowledgeable of the decisive judicial act that has taken place and that has radically – but legitimately – affected the judge’s work and verdicts. Hence, we have a shepherd who dies protecting the herd, a groom who dies for the preparing of the bride and a king who dies doing a service to his people, that is, the Messiah who was crucified. Yet, he continues to protect his sheep, marries Jünger, wenn sie bereit sind, in der Nachfolge Drangsal und Tod zu ertragen.’ See even Col. 1.24-25. 71. Cf. Zeph. 3.15; Zech. 9.9. 72. Mt. 16.27; 19.28; 25.31-46; Lk. 22.29-30; Jn 5.29-30; Rom. 2.16; 2 Cor. 5.10; 2 Tim. 4.1; Rev. 14.14-20; 22.12. 73. Jn 5.24: ‘believes him who sent me’. 74. Acts 10.39-42; Rom. 8.34. Cf. even Acts 17.31. 75. See, for instance, 2 Chron. 19.5-7: Job 34.29-30; Eccl. 3.16; Ps. 82; Livy, History of Rome, 22:3. Such persons, obviously, neither fear God nor regard people (Lk. 18.2, 4). 76. See Acts 10.40; 17.31; Rom. 8.34. 77. See 1 Jn 2.2; Jn 3.16-17.

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the bride and governs his kingdom, that is, the crucified Messiah who rose from the dead. And, finally, we have a governing supreme judge who has formerly been executed as a criminal. Viewed from such a perspective, these appellations underlining divine care appear rather oxymoronic, indeed, similar to the phrases ‘crucified Messiah’ and ‘the resurrection of the crucified one’.78 This is, however, not because Jesus’s death had only little to do with the idea of providence but because it casts providence in a significantly different light. In what kind of light? A combination of the above reviews can be seen to yield the following answers: (a) The passages reviewed above signalize a radical change in understanding divine providence. Much like the general assessment of the previous section (4.2), they tell of the need to rethink conventional theodicy. In distinction, however, these passages focus on the singular instance that has transformed all usual theodicy thinking: the death of Jesus. If anyone, it was Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God, who did not deserve to suffer and die ignominiously. This ‘injustice’ is, however, explainable as the uttermost expression of God’s self-suffering love known of old. While God thus remains the same, invariable covenant God, his sacrifice of his own son denotes the decisive momentum that changes the theodicean outlook over humankind and its relationship with the deity. The Messiah King having consumed the cup of God’s wrath, that is, having died vicariously for the sins of the people, the outlook is clear of revenge and punishment. God’s mercy and forgiveness can prevail without objections from the side of theodicean thinking that also demands justice. (b) In this context, divine providence, that is, God’s protection, care and guardianship, is elementally construed as the ultimate salvation from the divine wrath that would come to people because of their sins. As the agent of the change of the theodicean outlook, Jesus can act in God’s role implementing this divine providence. In other words, people are saved through him. Thus, even the grounds of the divine providence, that is, the covenant relationship, are now to be defined in relation to Jesus. The monopoly of mercy and forgiveness over revenge and punishment applies to those who have entered into an alliance with Jesus in faith. Through his own blood, the shepherd has taken his herd in the covenantal protection, that is, earned it the ultimate salvation. (c) All this then contains in embryo the recasting of teleology that we remarked in the previous section and that made the re-construed providence appear as if based on dysteleology. The theodicean upheaval that took place in Jesus’s death was not meant to alter God’s outlook alone. This is best discernible on the point of the royal appellation recast in Mk 10.37-45 par. The disciples of Jesus are called to serve like Jesus himself served in giving his life for 78.  Cf. the new formulation of the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death as presented in Chapter 3.

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the people. Those who have allied themselves with Jesus should likewise do service unto others and even be prepared to suffer for them (innocently and with no prospect of due retaliation). What happened to the teacher will happen to the disciples as well. They, too, are to drink from the cup.79 Hence, in outward appearance ‘all things come alike to all’. Even those who through Jesus have been rescued from God’s wrath and are thus guaranteed the ultimate protection, can fall into sufferings. Of course, these alignments involve the synchronization and analysis of texts that are neither intrinsically connected nor particularly analytical to their nature. Even separately, however, the texts display a number of motifs that will resurface later on in our investigations (and in materials that will better allow argumentation within a wider theodicean context): ●●

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the resolution to explain (against odds) the ‘theodicean revolution’ of the cross of Christ by reference to – and thus in some kind of continuity with – God’s saving acts known of old in the Jewish tradition; the central role of the soteriological interpretations of Jesus’s death in striving to an intellectual grasp of theodicean questions, and the attendant feature of the prominence of understanding providence as the ultimate salvation; the limitation of the providential care of God to a particular group of people, that is, to the followers and believers of Jesus; the anticipation of problems caused by outsiders’ inability to understand the new theodicean situation generated by the cross of Christ; and interpreting Christ’s innocent suffering for others’ wrongdoings as being exemplary to his followers.

We now turn to another question prompted by the ascription of the theodicean role of the covenant to the saving act in Jesus: What theodicean purpose, if any, is there left for keeping God’s will?80 Here our main New Testament source will be Paul and his letter to the Romans. As can be expected, the Pauline argumentation yields rather elaborate views into understanding the divine providence informed by the cross of Christ.

4.4  Keeping the Covenant – Living with Christ As seen in Chapter 2, one of the integral theodicean assets offered in the covenant was the knowledge of God’s will. This knowledge gave the Israelites an advantage over other people: they knew what pleases God. Revealed to them in the terms of 79. See footnote 70 above. 80. Cf. the question presented at the end of section 4.2.

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the covenant was what would be punishable in the view of the just and omnipotent deity Yahweh and what, again, would be rewarded by him. In theory, thus, the action-consequence principle, ratified by the covenant law, was theirs to master. By keeping God’s will, they would preclude themselves misfortune. Despite the harsh experiences that often seemed to attest contrary to this conviction, the trust in such an applicability of the covenant terms was, on a large scale, never surrendered. The general assessment in section 4.2 revealed that the transferal of the main theodicean function of the covenant unto Jesus and God’s work in him entails what would seem to be an in principle severance of the action-consequence principle: bad things can happen to good people and vice versa, while still being understood as an actualization of God’s just plans. Thus dysteleology is alleged to be teleology. At the background of such thinking lies God’s saving act in Jesus. Through the work of Christ Jesus, God had generated a new theodicean situation and brought on an upheaval of common theodicean reasoning. Whatever one might make of such an argument, however, a question that strongly suggests itself concerns the role of keeping God’s will (be it the law defined according to the terms of the covenant or otherwise). With the above kind of thinking, how could one argue that adhering to God’s will would carry any theodicean purpose anymore? If both good and bad behaviour can result in both good and bad fortunes, and moreover, if this can even be seen as sanctioned by God, the question inevitably emerges, why to do good and avoid doing evil anymore. The clearest reflections on this problem appear in Paul. Due to his doctrine of justification by faith, Paul also comes with a particular angle to the problem. I shall start the inquiry at the gravamen of contemporary theodicy thinking: doubts cast on God rewarding good actions and punishing wrongdoings. 4.4.1 The Validity of the Action-Consequence Principle In order to highlight the significance of the perspective of the death of Jesus to the question about the validity of the action-consequence principle, I shall first review what could be called the standard assertion. ‘For God is not unjust (ἄδικoς); he will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do.’81 This verse from Hebrews voices the gist of the theodicy discussion shared by the entire New Testament world. The justice and true providence of the deity was being questioned precisely because it often appeared as if he disregarded creditable work and credited undeserving actions. The writer of the Hebrews subscribes to the common contention that, in reality, such questioning is unwarranted. God will indeed recognize those who labour doing good. In other words, the actionconsequence principle is in force. The contention is, in fact, generally shared by 81. Heb. 6.10.

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New Testament writers.82 Paul can put it in this way: ‘There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.’83 Considering this and other abundant Pauline and New Testament statements that clearly support the action-consequence principle,84 it is actually surprising to encounter Paul defending himself against the following accusation that, according to him, had been levelled at Christians:  ‘And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), “Let us do evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation [κρίμα] is deserved!’85 In Romans 6 Paul returns to this accusation in order to refute it with more argumentation. There it also becomes evident what had given occasion to the charge: the free forgiveness of all sins and freedom from the law86 guaranteed to the believers through God’s grace in Jesus. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? . . . Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!87

Clearly, as can be gathered from many related passages, the consequences of the forgiveness and freedom were often misunderstood by the believers themselves which caused constant worry to their leaders.88 However, as seen from the above quotation, there were also those who purposely advanced this kind of interpretation and used it against Christians. These ‘slanderers’ are not necessarily restricted to Jews alone.89 Let us consider the issue from the viewpoint of the standard theodicean assertions common to both Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts. We recollect the words of Cotta:  ‘Destroy this, and everything collapses; . . . there is no such thing at all as the divine governance of the world if that governance 82. See, for example, Mt. 16.27; Jn 5.29; Col. 3.25; 1 Pet. 1.17; 3.10-12; Rev. 2.23; 20.12; 22.12; cf. also Mt. 12.36; 1 Pet. 4.5; see even Mk 10.29-30 par. Mt. 19.28-29/Lk. 18.29-30; Mt. 5.3-12 par. Lk. 6.20-26; Acts 5.1-11. For Pauline passages, see below. 83. Rom. 2.9-10. See also, for instance, 2 Cor. 5.10; 9.6; Gal. 6.7-8; Eph. 6.8; see even Rom. 14.12. The Pauline provenance of Ephesians is controversial. However, several scholars still accept its Pauline authorship (see L. T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament:  An Interpretation [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 357–80). When referring to Paul’s views, not to New Testament views generally, I shall use the letter sparingly. 84. See the previous notes. 85. Rom. 3.8. 86. Rom. 7.6; 8.2; Gal. 2.19. 87. Rom. 5.20–6.1, 15. See also Rom. 9.11-14; Gal. 2.17. 88. Gal. 5.13; 1 Pet. 2.16; 2 Pet. 2.18-21; Jude 4; cf. even, for instance, 1 Jn 3.6-10. 89. J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8 (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 137.

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makes no distinction between the good and the wicked.’90 Similarly, we recall the assurance of the covenant God that he punishes children for the iniquity of parents but shows steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who keep his commandments.91 Against this background, the fundamental Christian doctrine of forgiveness of all sins through the death of Christ and especially (but not exclusively)92 some Pauline expressions of it must have appeared as utterly suspicious and confusing.93 The claims, for instance, that God ‘justifies the ungodly’, that he does not count ‘their trespasses against them’94 and that Christ died for the unrighteous95 would easily have given occasion to think that Christians promote a non-providential deity, a god who does not care for what people do down here or,96 worse, who has a perverse will. Hence, ‘let us do evil so that good may come’, or as the people reprehended by Malachi had put it, ‘all who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them’.97 Thus, when inquiring about the effects of the death of Jesus on the question of keeping God’s will, we arrive at a theodicy problem. The forgiveness declared as free through Jesus’s death to all who believe had the potential of frustrating the basics of the theodicy thinking of the contemporaries of the New Testament writers. Where is justice?98 they would ask. How could this kind of doctrine be lived up to? Would it not incite social disorder if even hardened criminals could trust themselves to be forgiven in the blink of an eye, just like the robber executed on the cross together with Jesus?99 Jews, specifically, would have wondered whether keeping loyal to the covenant had any significance whatsoever. If the ungodly are saved so easily, what will become of the God-fearing people? 90. Cicero’s De Natura Deorum 3:85. See also, for instance, War 2:156–157. 91. Exod. 20.5-6. 92. 1 Pet. 3.18. See further footnote 103 below. 93.  C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (London:  Hodder and Stoughton, 1947), 46. 94. Rom. 4.5; 2 Cor. 5.19. See also, for example, Rom. 5.6, 8, 20; 9.11-14. 95. 1 Pet. 3.18. 96. Cf. Patrocleas’s warning in Plutarch’s De Sera Numinis Vindicta (2): ‘These and none other are the very thoughts with which the wicked are likely to encourage and incite one another when they set out to do wrong.’ 97. Mal. 2.17. 98.  Observe that this problem is analogous to the crucifixion-vindication theodicy problem experienced by the early followers of Jesus; cf. Chapter 3. 99. These considerations precisely form one of the key points of accusation put forward, for instance, by Celsus and Apocriticus. See J. G. Cook, The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (Tübingen: Mohr, 2000), 43–4, 218–20. Apocriticus argues so:  ‘These things have the power to set aside the training of the law, and cause righteousness itself to be of no avail against the unrighteous. They introduce into the world a form of society which is without law, and teach people to have no fear of ungodliness; when a person sets aside a pile of countless wrongdoings simply by being baptized’ (Apocr.

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No wonder that Paul and others were at pains to explain how the freedom in Christ should be rightly understood.100 The beginning verses of Romans 13, for example, ‘[tell] the reader that the Christian is willing to belong to the larger society, and that he/she is not out to subvert the social order’.101 According to Paul, those who oppose the governing authorities resist God himself. Therefore, Christians should devote themselves to good conduct, not bad. Thus, far from traversing the governing authority, Christians assent that it is rightfully the agent of punishment for the wrongdoer.102 This is also precisely what 1 Peter sees as the meaning of Christians being ‘free’. When freedom is taken, not deceptively as a cloak of evil but in the service of God, it means being subject to every human institution (emperor and other rulers). For these are sent by God ‘to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right’.103 Thus, these New Testament writers maintain that, when interpreted correctly (in their view), God’s saving act in Jesus and the free forgiveness he has thereby earned for us do not frustrate theodicean thinking and the belief in divine providence; that is, it does not render the action-consequence principle obsolete. Nonetheless, one is bound to ask whether the saving act still leaves everything unaffected. The aforementioned accusations, made on occasion of the free forgiveness in Jesus, seem indeed to have some substance. Their simple dismissal as misinterpretations does not yet disclose what would be the correct way of construing the relation between the free forgiveness and the theodicean role of keeping God’s will. Paul, specifically, appears to have cherished ideas that reach to farther theodicean sceneries than can be surmised on the basis of the plain assurance that the Christian doctrine, too, sees sin and misdeeds as disapproved and good actions as welcomed by God. In Romans 3 Paul explains this by employing many central concepts of the common theodicean language. I shall now review the chapter from the perspective of contemporary theodicy thinking. 4.4.2 Paul’s View of the Problem of Theodicy At the beginning of Romans 3, Paul affirms theodicy in different ways as if to ensure that his readers will understand what is at issue. He uses theodicean 4.19; cited by Macarius Magnes in his Answer-book to the Greeks, dated around 380 ce). While we do not have direct evidence exactly from Paul’s time, sentiments were hardly different then. See the following footnote. Cf. also Patrocleas’s statement in Plutarch’s Sera Numinis Vindicta 2, quoted in footnote 99 above. 100. Gal. 5.13; 1 Pet. 2.16; 2 Pet. 2.18-21; Jude 4; cf. even, for instance, 1 Jn 3.6-10. Cf. also, for example, Polycarp, Phil. 7.1. For the antinomian usage of these kinds of Pauline texts in second-century Gnosticism, see E. Pagels, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 66–7. 101. J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16 (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 759. 102. And Paul does not forget to mention the observance of taxes (Rom. 13.6-7). 103. 1 Pet. 2.13-16. See further also Tit. 3.1-8.

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language known, on the one hand, exclusively from Jewish theology and, on the other, from the common theodicean way of reasoning. First, Paul claims that God is not a liar but that he is truthful. Irrespective of the unfaithfulness of some people, it can be trusted that God will be justified in his words, that is, that he will remain faithful to what he has promised.104 In the light of specifically Jewish theodicean ideas, this can be read as being reminiscent of, for instance, the following Old Testament text: ‘If his children forsake my law . . . I will punish their transgression . . . but I will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness [‫ ;אמונה‬LXX: ἀλήθεια]. I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips.’105 Besides the more clearly alluded Psalms,106 Paul may or may not have had this text in his mind when writing the beginning verses of Romans 3. In all events, the text again demonstrates the close affinity of theodicean and covenantal motifs in Judaism. This is also how it is echoed in Romans 3. Since God will not fail from his covenantal faithfulness (Rom. 3.3-4a), he will prevail when he is judged (Rom. 3.4b).107 Second, what also comes up at the beginning of Romans 3 is Paul’s reasoning that God cannot be unjust (ἄδικoς) for then he could not judge the world. The thrust of this inverted syllogism is that evildoers will indeed be punished.108 In light of common theodicean thinking, this means that there will be final retribution which is enacted by a just judge. There is a divine providence which keeps track of the accounts. What then follows in Rom. 3.9-19, to put it cautiously, would not have been incomprehensible when read from theodicean point of view. Human malefactions were naturally a reason for divine wrath (Rom. 3.5). Nevertheless, the conclusions of the reasoning in these verses, drawn later on, would probably have caused confusion. The first clearly bewildering utterance appears in Rom. 3.21. God’s δικαιoσύvη, Paul asserts, has now been manifested apart from the law. Such a claim would, in general respect, have made poor theodicy. With respect to Jewish thinking in particular, the unique gift of the law the Jews had received from Yahweh precisely guaranteed that they knew what pleased God. Thus they could, inter alia, be sure not to draw divine vengeance down upon themselves out of ignorance. Hereafter in Romans 3, it becomes evident that all the central theodicy actualized so far somehow revolves around what God did and accomplished through the death of Jesus. Common theodicean ideas keep appearing. A  central passage in this respect is Rom. 3.25-26a: . . . ‘ὃν πρoέθετo ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριoν διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτoῦ αἵματι εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιoσύνης αὐτoῦ διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν 104. Rom. 3.3-4. For this reason, he will prevail when he is judged. 105. Ps. 89.31, 33, 34-35. 106. Pss. 51.6; 116.11. 107. For the covenantal background of Romans 3, see, for instance, Carroll and Green, The Death of Jesus, 121–2. 108. Rom. 3.5-8.

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τῶν πρoγεγoνότων ἁμαρτημάτων ἐν τῇ ἀνoχῇ τoῦ θεoῦ. . .’109 The passage is an excerpt from a longer explanation and contains many difficult expressions. From a theodicean perspective, it is observable that Paul conceives God’s δικαιoσύνη as being manifested in Jesus’s death.110 In a way, such a thought also represented generally understandable theodicy. The cross was obviously an expression, although a brutal one, of God’s justice. There the wicked were punished for their evil acts. Specifically, in Jewish thinking  – at least the way Paul interprets it  – crucifixion manifested the holiness and justice of God through the divine curse.111 Of course, the contention of Paul and all New Testament writers was that Jesus suffered innocently, that he, in fact, was God’s Christ. One could then ask how the cursing of an innocent man could have been an allotment of the divine justice and righteousness, but the point is not raised by Paul in the present discourse. Another conspicuously theodicean feature in the above passage is that Paul combines God’s δικαιoσύνη with the idea that God has passed over the sins previously committed. As we have seen, there was in antiquity a keen discussion going on regarding the theodicy problem of the ‘delay of the Deity’, that is, the fact that god(s) lagged with the punishment of wicked acts. As experience had shown, this allowed wrongdoers to think that there was no punishment to be expected, and so they grew bolder in doing evil. Various explanations had been entertained to account for the delay, and indeed, divine forbearance was one of them. Even in raising this theme, then (cf. ἐν τῇ ἀνoχῇ τoῦ θεoῦ above), Paul seems to carefully reflect common routes of contemporary theodicean reasoning. The theme was also known and timely in Jewish discussion because of the lasting servitude of the people of God under a pagan oppressor.112 It is difficult to believe that Paul is unintentionally touching these themes in Romans 3. After all, one of the central concepts of Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’s death, δικαιoσύνη, was as regards its basic meaning (‘justice’, ‘righteousness’) central in contemporary theodicy discussion as well. And although the theology Paul builds upon the concept is, in all its nuances, almost impenetrable, it clearly pertains to the question of justice in the relations between God and human beings. Rather, it seems obvious that Paul is purposely introducing his case by utilization of the viewpoint of theodicy.113 To be sure, his readers, whether Jews or Gentiles, would have been more familiar with theodicean expressions and the theodicean way of reasoning than with the idea of justification by faith in the cross of the Messiah. This stands even though they had already previously been introduced 109. The passage is often said to be based on tradition; J. Becker, Paulus: Der Apostel der Völker (Tübingen:  Mohr, 1998), 425; P. Stuhlmacher, Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001), 22. 110. Jesus’s death is not mentioned verbatim, but it is insinuated and clearly assumed. See Becker, Paulus, 425–6. 111. Gal. 3.13. 112. See Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 29–41. 113. This was a strategy even Josephus had adopted; see Chapter 2, section 2.2.

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to Pauline teaching.114 We have also noticed how Paul defends himself against accusations that arose from the collision of conventional theodicy thinking and the Christian message of free forgiveness of sins.115 Having now identified the main theodicean elements discernible in the discourse of Romans 3, we may try to sum up Paul’s argument and conceive the train of thought as a theodicy. Paul’s idea appears to be that since, in fact, all people in the world are evildoers, the proper realization and manifestation of the divine justice would have demanded annihilation of the whole human race. That God has not done so creates a theodicy problem, that is, calls in question the divine providence that should inflict a just punishment on those who deserve it.116 Or better, this would have created a theodicy problem, had not God realized and manifested his justice by shedding Jesus’s blood. With Christ Jesus punished, God’s justice is accomplished and at the same time those who believe in Jesus are justified.117 Thus, by the act in Jesus, God makes the theodicy problem disappear. Then the delay of the manifestation of the divine justice reveals itself as his merciful, saving plan. Hence, in Paul’s view, Jesus’s death on the cross is the solution to the theodicy problem.118 One should, however, observe that with the contention that everybody is a malefactor Paul has radically redefined the problem. The question that was universally experienced as the gist of the theodicy problem, namely, why bad things could happen to good people and good things to bad ones,119 is not, according to Paul, relevant anymore! In Paul’s view, all people should be considered ‘bad’ and should therefore, in principle, only reap misfortune. Paul would thus rephrase the question:  Why is God not visiting his doom on everybody. Judgement and revenge, tools of God’s righteousness, lie idle. This is what now, according to strict logic, threatens God’s justice and poses a theodicy problem.120 Paul’s solution to such a problem is thus the cross of Christ, but the presupposition for accepting that solution is that one adopts the view that all people deserve punishment and 114.  Cf. J. Zumstein, ‘Das Wort vom Kreuz als Mitte der paulinischen Theologie’, in Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament, ed. A. Dettwiler and J. Zumstein (Tübingen: Mohr, 2002), 27–41, esp. 31. 115. Cf., for example, Rom. 3.8; 6.1. Indeed, most commentators (see R. J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter [Waco: Word Books, 1983], 332) perceive the references of 2 Pet. 3.15-16 to God’s forbearance and wrongful twisting of Paul’s ‘hard to understand’ teachings as being connected with the antinomian interpretation of Pauline passages such as Rom. 4.15; 5.20 and others discussed somewhat earlier above. 116. This is again analogous to the crucifixion-vindication theodicy problem of Jesus’s death; cf. Chapter 3. 117.  Correctly Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 61:  ‘Yet grace does not take precedence over justice in justification.’ 118. Cf. Chapter 2, section 2.3.2, point 4. 119. The sentiment was universal; see Chapter 2, sections 2.2 and 2.3.2. 120. Cf. the crucifixion-vindication theodicy problem, Chapter 3.

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suffering alone. The Pauline theodicy solution is intended to solve the Pauline theodicy problem. Thus, Paul has been able to develop a theodicean way of reasoning that works well together with the doctrine of justification by faith. Of course, the doctrine is not fully expounded within Romans 3, but stretches throughout the letters of Paul. Similarly, the theodicy of Romans 3 gains depth and new aspects later on. Romans 5, for instance, advances theodicean reflections that deserve to be reviewed.121 The comparison of Adam and Christ in Rom. 5.12-19 is one clear case where theodicean arguments and motifs are attached to the theme of the death of Jesus. The common theodicean motif of the Fall serves conveniently as the reason for the culpability of all people of the world,122 thus backing up Paul’s thesis thereof in Rom. 3.9-19. Moreover, the disobedience of Adam/man (a wordplay with the Hebrew ‫)אדם‬, to which Paul ascribes universal and permanent consequences, serves well to highlight Jesus’s obedience123 as having a corresponding but opposite significance. Verses Rom. 5.16 and Rom. 5.18 are of special interest because of the concept κατάκριμα denoting a judicial sentence pronounced upon guilty persons.124 Jesus’s deed meant that in the place of the judicial condemnation of people, initiated by Adam’s trespass, there is now a justification for their lives.125 Hence, in the Adam-Christ comparison in Romans 5, the origin of sin, evil and suffering in the world is tied to God’s saving act in Jesus just as explained in the theodicy of Romans 3: people escape condemnation by the accomplishment of God’s justice through the death of Jesus. The theodicy is hereby augmented by the idea that Christ’s obedience brings about reversal of the primordial catastrophe. In this way too, Jesus’s death is the solution to the theodicy problem.126 It may be that elsewhere in the Pauline teaching these theodicean arguments and motifs127 cannot be pinpointed as easily as in the above passages.128 However, the basic message of God’s saving act in Jesus is always readily accommodated to the theodicy and is illustrative thereby. Consider the following examples: The innocence of Christ (e.g., 2 Cor. 5.21): Had Jesus not been without sin, he would have been culpable together with all humankind. Therefore, according to the 121.  The significant theodicean discourse in Romans 9–11 will be dealt with in section 4.5.1. 122. Correctly interpreted by U. Schnelle, The Human Condition: Anthropology in the Teachings of Jesus, Paul, and John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 64–5, as both fate and act. 123. That is, ultimately his enduring the pains of death; cf. Phil. 2.6-8. See Dunn, Romans 1–8, 284–5. 124.  See W. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 518. 125. Breytenbach, Grace, Reconciliation, Concord, 245–6. 126. Keeping in mind the Pauline redefinition of the problem. 127. Thus, as attaching to the theme of the death of Jesus. 128. For Romans 9–11, see section 4.5.1.

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logic of theodicy, it would have been of no use to punish Jesus.129 The voluntariness of Christ (e.g., Rom. 5.18-19; Gal. 1.4; 2.20; Eph. 5.2, 25; Phil. 2.5-11)130: God would have acted unjustly had not Jesus voluntarily taken the punishment for the iniquity of others.131 Accordingly, Paul also speaks of the love of Christ, not only that of God, when referring to the saving act in Jesus. Jesus as the ‘Yes’ of all promises of God (2 Cor. 1.20): Jesus embodies the proof for the fact that God cannot lie, that is, he is the manifestation of God’s justness and trustworthiness. The exemption from condemnation (e.g., Rom. 8.1, 31-34): The word κατάκριμα reappears (as last of the three appearances in the New Testament) in Rom. 8.1, a passage among many similar ones which, though not materially depending on theodicean thinking, is closely compatible with it  – by believing and being in Christ Jesus, people are saved from condemnation.132 Having reached this far, we must ask how this all relates to the accusation that the free forgiveness offered in Jesus frustrates the basic theodicean standards and the role of keeping God’s will. We do understand, in the light of Paul’s contention that everybody is a malefactor, that free forgiveness is actually the only hope humankind has. Longing for justice, people but summon doom. Forgiveness should therefore be welcomed with great gratitude, not complained about as a generator of theodicean anarchy. We also understand that free forgiveness does not, in fact, vitiate God’s justice since all evil has been repaid on the cross of Christ. Hence, the action-consequence principle prevails and is, in the end, kept in force in the best possible way with respect to the welfare of human beings. However, some questions persist. As we observed, Paul refutes the claim that Christians would urge one to ‘do evil so that good may come’. He does this by emphasizing Christians’ dedication to the view that evildoers will be punished and that those who seek good will attain their due reward. Christians too, or especially, are indebted to do good not evil. However, against the background of the Pauline theodicy scrutinized above one might suspect the worth of making such statements. First, what is the point of upholding the distinction between good and bad conduct if all people are ultimately ‘imprisoned in disobedience’ and can merit only doom? The argument that we have viewed in Romans 3 (and 5) makes the statements put forward in Rom. 2.9-10 and 13.3-4 sound like empty talk. With the Pauline redefinition of the theodicy problem, that is, all deserving but the divine punishment, are not such statements mere opportunistic pretence?133 Do they 129. The question of conception is also relevant here. Cf., for instance, Rom. 1.3-4. 130. Cf. also Rom. 4.25; 5.6-9; 8.32; Gal. 3.13; see even Tit. 2.14. 131. Cf. here the modern ‘divine child abuse’ idea referred to in Chapter 1, section 1.2. Naturally, too, ‘[i]‌f the doctrine of the Trinity is stoutly affirmed . . . then it is God who hangs on the Cross’ (J. G. Stackhouse, Can God Be Trusted? Faith and the Challenge of Evil [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998], 118). 132. Observe the cognate verb to κατάκριμα in Rom. 8.34. See even Acts 17.31. 133. This is exactly the criticism levelled by (the fictive) Apocriticus in Macarius Magnes’ Answer-Book to the Greeks; see Cook, New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism, 217.

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not, as a matter of fact, also undermine the proper understanding of the Pauline solution to the theodicy problem by calling forth the impression that one can really do good things?134 Second, and most impressively, there is also the question why. Why should good deeds be required of Christians (or anybody else at that)? Considering the free forgiveness in Jesus and the fact that God’s justice has been accomplished on the cross of Christ, what reason would there be for such a requirement? Even if people were able to do good and abstain from doing evil, why should they? Hence, be it that the action-consequence principle and the justness of God eventually remain intact in Pauline theology, the free forgiveness still seems to obscure theodicean reasoning. We are still left inquiring about the theodicean role of keeping God’s will. Paul does have an answer to the above questions. Namely, those who have been justified by faith have in reality become capable of doing genuinely good things. They are no more under the power of sin, confined to being evildoers.135 They, Paul explains, have been set free to serve righteousness.136 How is this possible? 4.4.3 Paul’s New Covenant-Obedience In short,137 Paul’s argument is that by being joined with Christ in baptism, Christians have died, that is, their old human being138 has been crucified together with Jesus.139 At the same time, through dying, they have been discharged from the law and set free.140 Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so have Christians been introduced to a new kind of life141 which is characterized by the Spirit of God that has been given to them.142 They now serve in the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter.143 This is the circumcision of the heart in Spirit and not in the letter.144 As a result, Christians possess a new obedience of heart and can 134.  The statements have also been disputed because they seem to contradict Paul’s teaching about justification by faith. See, for instance, T. R. Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of Law (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 179–204. The perspective of theodicy can illuminate this dispute as well. See below the concluding remark on the theodicean purpose of keeping God’s will. 135. Hence, the distinction between pious people and evildoers corresponds respectively to the distinction between those who believe in Jesus and those who do not. 136. Rom. 6.18, 20. 137. See here Schnelle, Human Condition, 74–5, 102; Becker, Paulus, 441–4. 138. ἄνθρωπoς. 139. Rom. 6.6. 140. Rom. 7.6. 141. Rom. 6.4. 142. Rom. 5.5. 143. Rom. 7.6. 144. Rom. 2.29.

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serve righteousness.145 Thus, attachment to Christ, to the powers of his death and resurrection, brings about a miraculous empowerment. Having been servants of sin, confined to committing evil, people now turn into servants of righteousness, that is, they become free and capable of doing good. This is the work of God. Paul’s reasoning echoes the terminology of the eschatological covenant prophecies. The most explicit connection to these themes appears in 2 Cor. 3.1-11 where Paul is concerned with the apostolic ministry. The new life of Christians, effected by the Spirit not the letter, takes form in the apostle so that he is made capable of the ministry. The explanation is delivered with explicit reference to the new covenant promise of Jeremiah. Nonetheless, a direct connection to the eschatological covenant theme can also be established in Romans. The assurance of the ultimate salvation of all Israel in Rom. 11.26-27, one of the climatic lines of the section Romans 9–11 (to be discussed in 4.5.1 below), makes mention of covenant by quoting the LXX Isa. 59.20-21 (and the LXX Isa. 27.9), perhaps referring even to Jer. 31.33-34. Hence, Paul utilizes an idea which in the Old Testament and intertestamental literature importantly served as a theodicean motif146: God himself will make it so that people fulfill his will and keep the covenant. Paul, however, applies the idea in an original way. First, in the Old Testament the theodicean point in question is that the Godeffected obedience would eliminate the cause for punishment and suffering. For Paul, instead, the theme is connected with his doctrine of justification by faith. The Old Testament prophecies of an eschatological covenant-obedience147 give Paul the means to argue that the imprisonment of all the people of the world in disobedience no longer applies to those who have become Christians. This substantiates the claim that the Christian doctrine does uphold the distinction between good and bad conduct and makes sense of the analogous admonition to Christians not to continue doing evil but to do good. Second, in the Old Testament the new covenant-obedience is viewed as completely removing the problem of disloyalty: no one will ever fail to fulfill the covenant obligations. It was clear to Paul, however, that Christians could also fall into sin and that they, moreover, could continue serving sin as if their old human being had not really died in the baptism. Therefore, Paul is careful not to claim that Christians, due to their new life in Spirit, would walk in perfect compliance to the will of God. On the contrary, Christians have been made capable of doing genuinely good things, but they can still sin too.148 Paul is not hesitant to expose 145.  Rom. 6.17-18. Thus, the status of Christians has changed radically, from being slaves of sin to being slaves of righteousness. 146. See Chapter 2, section 2.3.2, point 4, and section 2.3.3. 147. Note: I shall use the hyphenated expression ‘covenant-obedience’ in order not to mix it up with ‘new covenant obedience’, ‘eschatological covenant obedience’ and the like. 148. Schnelle, Human Condition, 75–7; F. J. Matera, New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus and Paul (Louisville: John Know, 1996), 190–1.

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this state of affairs by the repeated cautions not to live as if still serving in the oldness of the letter. On the other hand, Paul does not explicitly compromise the eschatological obedience either, since he has bound it to the uncompromising thoughts of being raised together with Jesus (Eph. 2.6), or as he also puts it, of being new creatures in Jesus (2 Cor. 5.17). In Paul’s view, the service in the newness of the Spirit is indeed full reality for a Christian. It is the dichotomy of the old and new human beings149 that helps Paul to articulate these contrasting issues. The teaching about the new obedience thus explains how, despite the imprisonment of all humankind in disobedience, some people can indeed be featured as being able to do good.150 In this way, the distinction between good and bad conduct – which Paul has emphasized in order to refute the accusation that Christians seek to continue in sin in order that grace may abound – can be regarded as applicable. Then there is the question why. Why, considering the free forgiveness, should people seek to live a righteous life doing good and avoiding evil things? If forgiveness is always guaranteed for free, people do not need to reckon with the consequences of their acts. Indeed, what ensures that even Christians with their ability to do good would feel such a need? As perceivable in the various letters of Paul, the teaching about the new obedience relates to this question as well. Paul claims that together with the capability of doing righteous deeds also comes the sheer will to lead such a way of life.151 On the other hand, the miraculous empowerment to do good is a purpose in itself. The new human being is created ‘in true righteousness and holiness’.152 In fact, he or she is a slave of righteousness.153 The new life of Christians is Christ living in them and they living in Christ.154 Therefore, living the new life simply means living righteously.155 In this way Paul can argue that the free forgiveness does not leave gates wide open for wickedness. Thus, in direct confrontation to the accusations of the free forgiveness leading to theodicean anarchy, Paul states in Romans 6: ‘How can we who died to sin go on living in it? . . . We have been buried with him [sc. Christ] by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.’156 In other words, the new human being has an innate orientation to keeping God’s will. This orientation is, however, not given Christians in order that they might avoid punishment.157 They are not following good in order to keep themselves 149. The new human being is only implied in Romans 6 but is discussed explicitly in 2 Cor. 5.17; Gal. 6.15; Eph. 4.22-24. 150. Matera, New Testament Ethics, 191. 151. Phil. 2.13. For the following, see Becker, Paulus, 445–7. 152. Eph. 4.24. 153. Rom. 6.18. 154. Gal. 2.20; 2 Cor. 5.21. 155. Matera, New Testament Ethics, 190. 156. Rom. 6.2, 4. 157. Cf. remarks in section 4.5.2.

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from hardships. For sins would not necessarily lead them to trouble and, again, good deeds would not necessarily save them from harm (cf. the teleology akin to dysteleology). Rather, the orientation to keeping God’s will is there simply because this is how they are now created anew. As can be explained on the basis of Pauline theology, then, for Christians, in reality, there is no theodicean reason for good actions! This is the freedom of Christians, freedom from the law and its doom, created in them by the Spirit of God.158 Interestingly, for Paul the freedom of Christians still does not mean that the new righteous life would come easily to them.159 On the contrary, Paul must continuously remind Christians about their new reality. The admonitions take forms such as follows: ‘Put away your former way of life, your old human being, corrupt and deluded by its lusts . . . and . . . clothe yourselves with the new human being, created according to the likeness of God.’160 Similarly, Christians need to be reminded not to abuse their freedom. ‘Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.’161 These expressions are somewhat reminiscent of the battle between good and bad spirits which in Qumran is pictured as being fought within all human beings.162 ‘He created man to rule the world and placed within him two spirits so that he would walk with them until the moment of his visitation: they are the spirits of truth and of deceit. . . . Until now the spirits of truth and of injustice feud in the heart of man.’163 For Paul, however, such a battle is true only with respect to Christians and is deprived of theodicean control. The Pauline answer to the question about the theodicean role of keeping God’s will, as seen in light of God’s saving act in Jesus, begins to take shape. Through the idea of the imprisonment of all humankind in disobedience, Paul has redefined the theodicy problem. If God were to act according to his justice, he would have to condemn all humankind. Instead now, God has condemned Christ by putting him on the cross. In this way God can save the fallen humankind without surrendering his justness. Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ despite their wrongdoings in the disobedience, but they are forgiven. Free forgiveness in Christ will not, however, urge people to be indifferent to their

158. Rom. 6.22; 7.6; 8.1-2; 8.15; 2 Cor. 3.17; Gal. 4.6-7; 5.1, 18. 159. See B. Lindars, ‘Paul and the Law in Romans 5–8: An Actantial Analysis’, in Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity, ed. B. Lindars (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 1988), 126–40, esp. 132, 136–9. 160. Eph. 4.22, 24. 161.  Gal. 5.13. See also further in Galatians 5; P. Rondez, ‘Ein Zentrum paulinischer Theologie? Eine pneumatologische Erschliessung des Zusammenhangs von Soteriologie und Christologie anhand von Gal 5,25’, in Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament, ed. A. Dettwiler and J. Zumstein (Tübingen: Mohr, 2002), 59–79. For non-Pauline remarks, see, for example, 1 Pet. 2.16; 2 Pet. 2.18-21; Jude 4; cf. even, for instance, 1 Jn 3.6-10. 162. Cf. also Deut. 30.11.20. 163. 1QS 3.17-19; 4.23.

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way of life. For in connection with their being in Christ, a new human being is raised to them that is innately oriented to keeping God’s will. It is according to the new human being’s nature (oppositely to the old one) to live righteously. This new reality of Christians, called freedom, in fact abolishes the theodicean control of human behaviour. Instead, one’s disposition to evil and good is determined by the struggle between the old and new human beings respectively. Paul argues for the death of the old human being on the cross of Christ and for the ultimate prevalence of the new one by the power of Christ’s resurrection. Thus, all in all, for Paul, keeping God’s will has no theodicean purpose. This inevitably issues from the death of Christ for the sins of the world. 4.4.4 1 John in Comparison Interestingly, Paul is here supported by 1 John which also seems to have been influenced by the eschatological covenant promises. 1 John’s way of reasoning takes, however, somewhat different paths. Some scrutiny is needed in order to perceive the basically common aim behind the disparities between Paul and 1 John. A number of statements in 1 John have long caused difficulties to interpreters. 1 Jn 2.20, 27 alleges that because of the anointing received by the believers they ‘all know’164 and need no one to teach them. As has often been noted, this is a surprising claim in the midst of a discourse which is highly didactic. Moreover, 1 Jn 3.4-10165 puts forward the idea that a true child of God166 cannot sin.167 The idea is unique within the New Testament and already remarkable as such. It is, however, further highlighted by the emphatic, at least seemingly contradictory statements in the same letter, for example, ‘if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’.168 The two reverse thoughts can even closely follow each other.169 The discrepancies have attracted much discussion and engendered a considerable variety of explanations.170 Irrespective of the solutions proposed, commentators have connected the thoughts of needing no teaching and committing no sin with the two integral elements of the Old Testament eschatological covenant theme: the God-given knowledge and the God-effected obedience.171 The elements belong 164. 1 Jn 2.20. For the textual variant, see footnote 174 below. 165. And elsewhere, last, in 1 Jn 5.18. 166. Believer, a child of God = a Christian. 167. oὐ δύναται ἁμαρτάνειν. 168. 1 Jn 1.8. ἁμαρτίαν oὐκ ἔχoμεν. 169. See 1 Jn 2.1-4; 5.16-18. 170. See shortly below in the text. 171.  A. E. Brooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine Epistles (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912), 57; E. Malatesta, Interiority and Covenant: A Study of εἶναι ἐν and μένειν ἐν in the First Letter of Saint John (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), 173, 248; S. S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John (Waco: Word Books, 1984), 173–4. 1 Jn 2.20 presents the

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closely together in 1 John too. Christians, from the least of them to the greatest, know the Father.172 This is something that can be ascertained by the fact that they keep his commandments.173 And conversely: no one who sins has known him.174 God himself has effected all this in them through their being ‘anointed by the Holy One’ and having ‘God’s seed’ in them.175 Hence, like Paul, 1 John also seems to have drawn from the eschatological covenant promises. How does his treatment of the issue relate to that of Paul and to the question of theodicy? It seems that 1 John applies the theme of a new God-effected obedience more strictly than Paul. As pointed out, as the sole New Testament writing, 1 John puts forward the thought that those with God’s seed ‘cannot sin because they have been born of God’.176 Hence, unlike Paul, John appears to have appropriated the eschatological idea of a new covenant-obedience without any reservations, without any compromising or altering of its intent. His words would indeed seem to presuppose a perfect obedience, as in the fashion of Jer. 32.40, Ezek. 11.19-20, 36.27 or 37.24. Is it at all possible to interpret the words otherwise? A quick look at the commentary literature reveals the disagreement and perplexity of scholarship in understanding the relationship between the statements of absolute sinlessness and indisputable sinfulness. Many varying interpretations of 1 Jn 3.6-9 have been advanced with the view of toning down the discrepancy, although some commentators also think one should retain it.177 The following are some examples:  The present tense of the verb ἁμαρτάνειν in 1 Jn 3.9 signals a continuous sense, meaning that Christians do not sin as a fixed habit.178 The verses expression oἴδατε πάντες. A textual variant has it ‘πάντα’, ‘you know all’. This is, however, not the likeliest alternative, since the lengthy discourse of 1 John 2–3 recurrently addresses little children (τεκνίoν; e.g., 1 Jn 2.12), children (παῖς; e.g., 1 Jn 2.14), young men (νεανίσκoς; e.g., 1 Jn 2.13) as well as fathers (πατήρ; e.g., 1 Jn 2.13), whose amount of knowledge would normally vary significantly. Instead, regardless of their age, they all have a certain kind of knowledge, the knowledge of the true God as revealed in Christ Jesus. In other words, they all know, oἴδατε πάντες. See, for instance, I. H. Marshall, The Epistle of John (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1978), 156. Intriguingly, this is exactly the point made in Jer. 31.34 (which stands out even more if seen against the background of Deut. 6.7): From the least to the greatest they shall know the Lord. 172. 1 Jn 2.12-14; cf. Jer. 31.34. 173. 1 Jn 2.3. 174. 1 Jn 3.6. 175. 1 Jn 2.20; 1 Jn 3.9. 176. 1 Jn 3.9. 177. After a long discussion of various explanations plus elaborating on one of his own, Smalley in an apparent perplexity concludes: ‘The writer does appear to be saying (uniquely) that the indwelling of God’s σπέρμα (“nature”) excludes sin entirely’ (Smalley, John, 175). 178. J. R. W. Stott, The Epistle of John: An Introduction and Commentary (Leicester: InterVarsity, 1964), 135–6. Cf. NIV: ‘keep on sinning’.

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1 Jn 3.6-9 denote a certain kind of sinning, namely, deliberate or conscious in comparison to involuntary or unconscious, or then a certain kind of sin, namely, the mortal sin of 1 Jn 5.16.179 They aim to describe a Christian ideal or potentiality of not sinning, or a particular perspective: when living in Christ.180 To be sure, without passages like those within 1 Jn 1.8–2.2 such interpretations would be deemed as artificial, and the question is whether the interpretations even despite the existence of these passages can be seen as anything but that. We should also observe that the idea of a perfect obedience to God’s will can be regarded as unique only when being limited to the New Testament. There is no major difference between 1 Jn 3.6-9 and, for example, 1 QS 4.20-25 other than that what in the latter passage is a future anticipation has in the former turned into complete reality. In Chapter 2, similar anticipation was verified in several instances of the reception of the eschatological covenant theme and located in different types of intertestamental literature.181 1 John, however, believes that the eschatological, new covenant-obedience has already become true with respect to Christians. Considered against this background, 1 John’s distance from Paul needs not to be as notable as it would seem at first. They both agree against 1 QS 4.20-25 and comparable literature by picturing the eschatological times as already being in effect. Further, while Paul employs the dichotomies of ‘dying-rising’ with Christ and ‘old human being-new life (/new human being)’, 1 John has no such conceptual arsenal. What would Paul’s argumentation look like without (inter alia) these dichotomies? We would probably come close to 1 John’s perplexing juxtaposition of the thoughts of the sinfulness and sinlessness of Christians. On the other hand, if we look at the ‘new human being’ alone, even Paul can be said to uphold the idea of a perfect compliance.182 Perhaps, then, in 1 John’s view, too, both these thoughts were indeed meant to be taken at their full value. Christians are at the same time both sinful and sinless,183 although 1 John cannot explain how.184 On the issue of theodicy, too, the Pauline and Johannine applications of the eschatological covenant-obedience display both similarities and differences. One serious candidate to explain the diametrical change of words between 1 Jn 1.5–2.2 179. Schnelle, Human Condition, 139–40. 180. Marshall, Epistle of John, 181–2; Brooke, Johannine Epistles, 86. 181. See in Chapter 2, section 2.3.2, point 4, and section 2.3.3. 182. However, such tearing apart of the dichotomies would probably not have worked for Paul. 183. Cf. simul justus et peccator as a description famously attached to Pauline theology by Luther. 184. Another dichotomy that would certainly have helped 1 John to articulate this matter is ‘already-not yet’, known, for instance, from Paul. In fact, Schnelle, Human Condition, 139, seeks to trace a comparable distinction in 1 Jn 3.2; 2.28. It may also be that 1 John has refrained from distinguishing in the human nature two antithetical natures or the like, since this could have argued into the hands of the opponents who were possibly gnostically inspired.

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(the sinfulness of Christians) and 1 Jn 3.6-9185 (their sinlessness) is 1 John’s need to discard a certain misinterpretation. As disclosed already by 1 Jn 3.4-5, which prefaces the statement of the sinlessness of Christians, 1 John is clearly troubled by the antinomian attitude found among the congregations. In this respect, the ideas presented in 1 Jn 1.5–2.2 could turn out to be treacherous, making sin seem commonplace and harmless. The free forgiveness proclaimed in 1 Jn 1.7, 9 and 2.1-2 could encourage people to be careless about their way of life. Hence, 1 John is seeking to avert a misconception resembling the one fought against by Paul in Romans, namely, that the forgiveness based on God’s saving act in Jesus (cf. 1 Jn 1.7) would invite people to believe that God does not mind about sin and wrongdoings.186 And, like Paul, 1 John too finds the solution outside theodicy thinking: although Christians, as granted by the free forgiveness in Jesus, do not need to reckon with the consequences of their deeds, they are not encouraged in sin. For precisely because of their being Christians, they cannot sin. Hence, even in 1 John the idea of a new God-effected covenant-obedience can be seen to serve the theodicean function we have become familiar with. It is the big question about the righteousness of a god who readily forgives all sins of people that lies behind 1 John’s as well as Paul’s clinging to this element of the eschatological covenant prophecies. Obviously, there are some differences between the respective usages of the element. The questions of theodicy are not as explicit in 1 John as in Romans. For instance, there are in 1 John no statements such as those in Rom. 3.8 and 6.1, 15 which refute the accusation that Christians have reversed the action-consequence principle and promote a non-providential or altogether twisted deity. While Paul also has to deal with the extra muros and overplayed slander that Christians urge to sin, 1 John’s problem are people from within the Christian community advancing a less radical misinterpretation. Still, a threat against the idea that God takes sin seriously was reality for 1 John too.187 The section 1 Jn 3.6-9 (together with the preceding verses) effectively works to avert such a threat: those who sin are of the devil; the true children of God do not sin. Further, for 1 John the theodicy purpose of utilizing the new obedience idea lies simply in demolishing the basis of the antinomian misinterpretation of the free forgiveness in Jesus:  contrary to what one might mistakenly think, God is against sin and his followers are indeed mindful thereof too, namely, they do not sin. For Paul, the new obedience idea is similarly directly connected to this misconception: as a new creation a Christian is innately against sin. Because of the notion of the imprisonment of all humankind in disobedience, however, Paul has an additional link to the idea. He needs it to explain how the Christian doctrine 185. See also 1 Jn 2.3-6; 5.18. 186. C. H. Dodd, The Johannine Epistles (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1946), 78–81; Marshall, Epistle of John, 176; Smalley, John, 154. 187. See footnotes 102 and 103 above for the prevalence of the antinomian interpretation of the Christian idea of freedom.

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can make a distinction between good and bad deeds:  while not for others, for Christians this is a true and valid alternative. All in all, Paul and 1 John seem to be sowing the same seed here. Being in Christ/anointed by God changes human beings and makes Christians both able and willing to attain something that would otherwise be out of their reach, namely, lead a genuinely righteous life. In lack of a theodicean motivation, then, a great weight devolves on this change. Despite the various routes of reasoning, there is a certain similarity in the views of Paul and 1 John on the change and on the difference between believers and nonbelievers that the change effects:

Paul

cannot do good

John

can sin (and also do good?)

radical change

NONBELIEVERS

BELIEVERS can do good but can also fall into sin cannot sin

Thus, for 1 John, the insistence on perfect compliance can be seen to serve a function of a diametrically opposite Pauline concept, namely, the imprisonment in disobedience of those outside Christ. By effecting a miraculous change in a human being’s life, the anointment and/or the seed or Spirit of God marks a great divider between people.188 Verses such as 1 Jn 3.6-9 ascribe crucial importance to the difference between the conduct of true Christians and that of other people. On the basis of the difference of their conduct they are divided into those who are from God and those who are from the devil.189 However, since, according to Paul, Christians can both fall into sin and do genuinely good deeds, for him it is the other people’s incapability to anything but sin that enables the highlighting of the crucial change that takes place when being in Christ. Paul thus takes the tack of positing the ‘perfect disobedience’ and a number of dichotomies as well as toning down the radicalness of the eschatological covenant. It again seems that the differences in 1 John’s reasoning are due to the use of a conceptual arsenal more meagre than that of Paul. Paul and 1 John thus end up with quite corresponding convictions as regards the theodicean role of keeping God’s will when seen in light of God’s saving act in Jesus. The saving act does not invalidate the action-consequence principle or impair God’s justness. Neither does it render keeping God’s will meaningless as such. However, the saving act does dispose of the theodicean significance of keeping 188. Schnelle, Human Condition, 138–40. 189. This is exactly what is put forward, for instance, in 1 En., Jub. and Pss. Sol. See Chapter 2, section 2.3.3. With respect to this idea, even a further theodicean use of the eschatological covenant obedience can be discerned in 1 John: The new, God-effected covenant-obedience has made it possible to ‘see the difference between the righteous and the wicked’, yearned after by Malachi (3.18). There is now, in other words, a tangible basis for the allotment of the divine justice. See even Atkinson, ‘Theodicy in the Psalms of Solomon’, 555–9.

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God’s will.190 In their own ways, Paul and 1 John were both struggling to construe how the free forgiveness does not under these circumstances lead to an antinomian, unjust picture of Christians themselves, of their proffered way of leading life and of their God. It is now time to turn to inspect how, considering the substantial change in the theodicean outlook, God’s new act in Jesus could still be seen as continuing the theodicy of his covenantal acts known of old.

4.5  Theodicy of the Covenant – Its Continuance in Christ 4.5.1 Paul and God’s Promises to Israel As remarked, the theodicean thoughts Paul puts forward in Romans 3 gain depth and new aspects even later on. One such section, which perhaps in other ways, too, is integrally connected with Romans 3, is Romans 9–11. These chapters contain many samples of the theodicean language of the time and exhibit similarities to the train of thought in Romans 3. In Romans 9–11 Paul is centrally concerned with the question of the situation of the Jews after God’s saving act on the cross of Christ.191 The themes of the section transfer the theodicy of Romans 3 to a particularly Jewish sphere of relevance. Therefore, the section is appropriately considered here. The question about the Jews’ situation was preliminarily introduced in Rom. 3.1-8 with apparent reflections on theodicy thinking many of which now resurface in Romans 9–11.192 We can mention the statement that God’s word cannot fail (Rom. 9.6; cf. Rom. 3.4; see even Rom. 11.1-2, 11, 29); the rhetorical questions ‘Is there injustice on God’s part?’ (Rom. 9.14; cf. Rom. 3.5) and ‘Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ (Rom. 9.19; cf. Rom. 3.4-5, 7); God’s forbearance in enduring the vessels of wrath to show his glory in the vessels of mercy (Rom. 9.22-23; cf. Rom. 3.25-26); God’s justice having become manifest apart from the law (Rom. 9.30-31; cf. Rom. 3.21) in Jesus and through faith in him (Rom. 9.30-31, 10.3, 5-7; Rom. 3.22, 24-26); the λέγω oὔν, μή . . . sentences which stress God’s steadfastness and care for his people (Rom. 11.1-2, 11; cf. Rom. 3.3); the assurance of the irrevocableness of God’s promises and calling (Rom. 11.29; cf. Rom. 3.2, 4); and the restated claim that all people are confined in disobedience (Rom. 11.32; cf. Rom. 3.9-19, 23). The concluding remark on the inscrutableness of God’s ways (Rom. 11.33-36),193

190. It should be observed, however, that here providence has been understood as the ultimate salvation. It may be that even the (Pauline and Johannine) Christian doctrine posits more temporary happiness vs. unhappiness as directly correlating with one’s doings. 191. Matera, New Testament Ethics, 191–2. 192.  For such continuity with Romans 3, see U. Wilckens, Der Brief and die Römer. Teilbd. 2. Röm 6–11 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1980), 201. 193. Cf. also Rom. 11.25.

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again, is a common theodicean manoeuvre utilized to tackle a situation difficult to explain.194 In the section Romans 9–11 Paul reopens the question he put in Rom. 3.1, ‘What advantage has the Jew?’, but which he could then answer with more words than substance: ‘Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.’195 Rom. 9.4-5 now advances a detailed list of what the Jews as the chosen people of God have gotten from him. ‘To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.’ The real problem is, however, Paul’s interpretation of the election of the Jews as an ‘election of grace’196 which now rests on the basis of God’s saving act in Jesus and pertains equally to Jews and Gentiles. What exactly was God’s purpose with the election of Israel and the giving of the many promises to her prior to what has now happened in Jesus? What was and now is the significance of Israel’s special status if all people are put in equal position through God’s act in Jesus?197 The questions were especially prompted by the fact, known to the apostle and his readers, that the majority of the Jews kept rejecting Jesus.198 With reason, one could wonder whether God’s promises had failed, whether, in fact, his word so had revealed to be untrustworthy. Like in Rom. 3.4, Paul categorically denies any such conclusion in Rom. 9.6.199 Now the denial is followed up by explanations. First, Paul points out that at any time only a remnant of Israel was to be saved. This had always been a part of the divine plan and is true even now, Paul himself exemplifying the few (remnants) who have been rescued.200 Who, then, would belong to this small number totally depends on God’s authoritarian decision, 194. Jensen, Divine Providence and Human Agency, 161. 195. Rom. 3.2. Cf. Dodd, Paul to the Romans, 43. 196. Rom. 11.5, 7. 197. According to Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 70, Rom. 9.1-5 presents Israel as having been and remaining distinct from the Gentiles because of its advantages as the chosen people. 198. Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 69. 199.  G. A. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil:  Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001), 364–6, is right in maintaining that this is Paul’s main concern in Romans 9–11. 200. Cf. Rom. 9.27; 11.1. See G. Theissen, ‘Röm 9–11 – Eine Auseinandersetzung des Paulus mit Israel und mit sich selbst:  Versuch einer psychologischen Auslegung’, in Fair Play:  Pluralism and Conflicts in Early Christianity:  Essays in Honour of Heikki Räisänen, ed. I. Dunderberg, C. Tuckett and K. Syreeni (Leiden:  Brill, 2001), 311–41, esp.  318–21, who intriguingly sees Paul as psychologically involved in the argumentation in Romans 9–11: ‘Wir hören nacheinander etwas von dem geborenen (9,1ff.) und dem ungläubigen “Saulus” (10,1ff.), dann von dem erwählten (11,1ff) und missionierenden “Paulus” (11,13)’ (Theissen, ‘Röm 9–11’, 320).

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which is also something Paul can establish in the Jewish tradition. Isaac and Jacob were chosen although they were not the elder sons and although nothing could be concluded about their deeds. This was to display the ‘purpose of God according to election’. According to Paul, it is precisely due to God’s election that the remnant now consists of those who believe in Jesus and who are thus justified by faith.201 In this way, Paul can maintain that there is a congruity principle in how God acts, namely, his free election not based on works but on the one who calls. The explanation manages to cast some light both on the refusal of the Jews to believe in Jesus and on Paul’s claim that faith is the criterion of salvation.202 However, it does not rebut the suspicions about the relevance of God’s previous dealings with the Jews. Although God’s current act of salvation in Jesus would be in line with his former covenantal providence, the purpose of the prior election of Israel and the promises given to her is not hereby illuminated. In addition, Paul’s argumentation prompts the question about God’s (in)justice. To say that people’s actions, whether good or bad ones, do not have any effect on gaining God’s favour is to claim that God does not respond righteously, that is, he is neither just nor providential. At first sight, the reference to God’s sovereignty, illustrated by the Isaian and Jeremian metaphor of God as a potter,203 does not seem to lead anywhere. It appears only to accentuate the helpless situation of a human being, ‘for who can resist his will?’ Nevertheless, if considered against the theodicy of Romans 3 (complemented in Romans 5 by the comparison between Adam and Christ), there emerges a thought which both upholds God as just and reserves hope for humankind. Since all the people of the world are truly evildoers, they are all like the vessels of wrath.204 It is only thanks to the divine forbearance that they have not yet been destroyed.205 God’s justice cannot therefore be questioned even if he does not have mercy on some part of people. They are doomed on sound grounds. On the other hand, irrespective of being Jews or Gentiles, all have been called to be vessels of glory. Although only some people are saved by God’s grace, who could blame God for having mercy on those of his free choosing?206 In view of the terms of the covenant, Israel, too, has well deserved herself to be treated as the vessels of 201. Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 153. 202. See Boyd, Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy, 359–63, for some pertinent remarks. 203. Isa. 45.9; 64.8; Jer. 18.6. 204. Eskola, Theodicy and Predestination, 156. 205. Romans 11. Cf. Rom. 3.26; Rom. 9.22. The theme appears throughout in crucial passages of the theodicean argument. The forbearance will ultimately come to the help of the Jews too. Thus, it is not the case that Paul’s Christian doctrine had rendered the teaching Exod. 20.5-6 and Deut. 5.9-10 about the action-consequence principle obsolete but that it has affirmed the principle in the fashion of Exod. 34.6-7. 206. The potter image precisely underlines that human beings cannot judge God; Jensen, Divine Providence and Human Agency, 154.

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wrath. Hence, even if only a remnant is saved, namely – according to the ‘election of grace’ – those who have put their faith in Jesus, God has acted righteously and mercifully. Second, some part of the theodicy is thus perhaps all right, but Paul still needs another type of explanation in order to substantiate the legacy of the Jews and thus uphold God as a just and faithful covenant partner. Therefore, he advances the ideas that the ‘stumbling’ of Israel is not meant to result in her fall forever207 and that the ‘stumbling’ has in fact brought mercy to the Gentiles. In a way, the conclusion that ‘all Israel’ will yet once be accepted into relationship with God208 is something Paul was pre-engaged to. For, as he states in Rom. 11.29, ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’. The verse frames the whole discussion in Romans 3, 9–11 as reflecting the question of God’s trustworthiness especially with respect to the covenant he has made with Israel and the promises he has thereby granted her. The theodicy of assuring the covenantal guarantee of God’s providence, his unfailing justice and sticking to his words in contrast to human beings, as prescribed, for instance, in Num. 23.19 and Ps. 89.31-35, has all the time been at the background of the discourse.209 However, the reasoning is complicated by the need to integrate God’s new and foremost intervention in Jesus into the picture. In order to fit all elements together Paul describes Israel’s deliverance as delayed to a specific time in the future and calls this a mystery. On the other hand, he invests the ‘stumbling’ that has caused the delay with further meaning by linking it with the salvation of Gentiles.210 This winding and inscrutable divine providence thus manifests God’s purpose211 with the election of Israel as preparing for his mercy to reach all the people of the world. Even here Paul sees a certain congruity and symmetry in God’s ways of action. ‘Just as you [sc. the Gentiles] were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their [sc. the Jews] disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.’212 When then the ‘full number of Gentiles has come in’, Paul explains, it will happen that all Israel will be delivered. She will then recognize Jesus as the Redeemer and 207. πταίω Rom. 11.11; πώρωσις Rom. 11:25. 208. Rom. 11.15 (πρόσλημψις; Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 883). 209. Cf. Rom. 3.3-4; 9.6; 11.29. 210.  D. Fraikin, ‘The Rhetorical Function of the Jews in Romans’, in Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, Volume 1:  Paul and the Gospels, ed. P. Richardson with D. Granskou (Calgary: Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 1986), 91–105, esp. 101, may be right in pointing out that Israel’s unbelief is an interpretation of the reluctance of some Jews to accept Jesus. It is a theological event. He even alleges: ‘If Romans, for instance, had not included ­chapters 9 to 11, all we would have is a discourse persuading Jews that the gospel makes sense. The Jew would remain a candidate for persuasion.’ In precise terms, Paul speaks of a hardening as having come upon a part of Israel. Cf. Rom. 11.25. 211. Cf. Rom. 9.11. 212. Rom. 11.30-31.

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become part of the eschatological covenant of taking away of all sins.213 So it will be disclosed that God is not a liar but will ultimately remain faithful to his election of Israel, and that all his promises are true in Jesus.214 Hence, as to the issue of theodicy, the chapters Romans 3, (5,) 9–11 pursue an intricate and ambitious program: to show (a) that God’s saving act in Jesus does not frustrate the idea of divine providence but that it rather upholds the idea and (b) that all this not only is compatible with God’s former dealings with the Jews but is actually the consummation of what he once initiated with them and resolves the problems that have persisted with experiencing his covenantal care.215 In short, God does not lie; all his promises are true in Jesus. 4.5.2 Reception of the Covenantal Re-solution in the New Testament In Chapter  2, I  summoned a variety of Old Testament prophecies that depict an eschatological covenant-making, and suggested that these can also be seen as presenting a radical, new theodicean approach. This I termed the ‘covenantal re-solution’ of the theodicy problem.216 An interesting question in trying to understand how God’s act in Jesus could be seen to continue the theodicy of his former covenantal acts is naturally whether this ‘re-solution’ can be located in the New Testament and how it appears in the light of the cross of Christ. Obviously, the New Testament writers have widely adopted the eschatological covenant theme. The idea that a new covenant is being initiated by Jesus and, most specifically, through his death is clearly, even if only passingly, noted in the Last Supper texts of all synoptic gospels. Paul, too, relates a version of the Last Supper tradition, but mentions or alludes to the new covenant even elsewhere. The letter to the Hebrews, again, elaborates the new covenant theme as an essential part of its theology. Finally, as we shall see, individual traces of the theme can be discovered in some further writings as well. It is all the more striking, therefore, to observe that despite the role of Jesus and his work in, on the one hand, New Testament theodicy thinking and, on the other, the passages dealing with the new covenant, the covenantal re-solution of the theodicy problem has, as such, not found its way into the New Testament. In the New Testament, there is no clear application of the basic theodicean solution offered by the eschatological covenant theme, although it can be found elsewhere in contemporary literature. Due to its focus on the new covenant theme, Hebrews can appropriately illuminate the point in question. The letter quotes the Jeremian new covenant passage twice. The first quotation in Hebrews 8 seeks to illuminate the excellency of the ministry of 213. Rom. 11.15. See footnote 211 above. 214. Breytenbach, Grace, Reconciliation, Concord, 227, 251–2. Cf. 2 Cor. 1.18-20. 215.  Cf. H. Räisänen, ‘Römer 9–11:  Analyse eines geistigen Ringens’, ANRW II:25:4 (1987): 2891–939, esp. 2933–4. 216. See Chapter 2, section 2.3.2, point 4, and section 2.3.3.

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Jesus as compared to that of the first covenant. The second, more abbreviated quotation in Hebrews 10, again, serves to testify of the supposed effects of Jesus’s ministry, namely, perfection and sanctification. Through his sacrifice, Jesus has initiated the new covenant which means that the will of God is impressed upon the centre of human volition and that God will no more remember sins and lawless deeds.217 These motifs, willing obedience to God and the forgiveness of sins, which the writer thus puts forward as the two cornerstones of the new covenant,218 both stem from Jesus’s sacrifice219 and at least partly define what is aimed at with the concepts of perfection and sanctification.220 Hence, the letter comes rather close to the view that with the new covenant being installed, sins and transgressing are precluded.221 What this brings about, according to the letter, is not, however, the cessation of suffering in the here and now. On the contrary, the letter sees the present situation of Christians as especially characterized by tribulations and suffering,222 something they are encouraged to put up with by means of the example of Jesus himself.223 In a manner already observed elsewhere,224 ultimate deliverance from suffering and evil is located in a future time. The consummation of the salvation brought about by Jesus still awaits Christians. Therefore, ‘you need endurance, so that you may do the will of God225 and receive what was promised.226 For yet “in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back” ’.227 Thus, according to the covenant theology of Hebrews, despite the new covenant already being in force, the theodicy problem of the suffering of God’s people is solved eschatologically, in terms of the ultimate salvation from God’s wrath.228 The letter’s theodicean usage of the eschatological covenant theme can therefore be characterized as clearly deviating from that of the relevant Old Testament prophecies. On the other hand, the usage needs not to be seen as completely incompatible either. 217. Cf. Heb. 10.15-17; Attridge, Hebrews, 281. 218. In the abbreviated quotation, the Jeremian new covenant is epitomized by these two notions. 219. Heb.10.9-10. 220. Attridge, Hebrews, 281. 221. Cf. also Heb. 13.20-21. 222. Heb. 10.32-34. 223. Heb. 12.1-11. 224. See section 4.3. 225. Lane, Hebrews 9–13, 278, would translate πoιήσαντες in Heb. 10.36 ‘temporally, i.e., “after”.’ Similarly NRSV. The text follows RSV. 226. Included here are also the ‘better promises’ of the new covenant; cf. Heb. 8.6. 227. Heb. 10.36-38. 228. This is in compliance with the texts studied, for instance, in section 4.3. For the motif of God’s wrath, see Heb. 10.26-31.

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Besides this, most of what can be established in the New Testament is the use of some (more or less isolated) elements of the eschatological covenant theme to unravel theodicean problems. Even so, their application often differs from the way they are employed within the framework of the covenantal re-solution. Some of these we have already encountered in earlier discussion. 1. New covenant-obedience The new, God-effected obedience to his will forms one central part of the eschatological covenant theme. In its Old Testament context, this obedience was envisaged to cause people to live faithfully according to the covenant, so making punishment for wrongdoings, and thus suffering too, needless. The intertestamental renderings of the eschatological covenant prophecies usually include the idea of the new obedience, often also investing it with a theodicean function similar to that of the Old Testament texts. However, the New Testament echoes of the new obedience display a rather different angle to theodicy thinking. Paul employs the idea when explaining that those in Christ have been released from the imprisonment to sin and made free, that is, able and willing to do righteous deeds. Thus, what, in Paul’s writings, has become of the Old Testament (and intertestamental) idea of the new, God-effected covenant-obedience? How, exactly, is Paul’s readaptation of the idea related to the issue of theodicy? We have already discussed the alterations to the new covenant-obedience theme that Paul introduces while using it. Now we will inquire deeper into the possible theodicean reasons for him to do so. There are some obvious reasons why Paul has not applied the idea of perfect compliance to God’s will according to its original usage in thwarting suffering. First, as already stated, despite their God-powered obedience, Christians could still also fall into sin. Second, even Christians underwent suffering although, in their view, not so much because of their wrongdoings but because of their avowal to Christ Jesus. In addition to these two, a third factor can be discerned accounting for Paul’s readaptation of the eschatological, perfect obedience theme. Like many New Testament authors, Paul sees the consummation of God’s saving act in Jesus as taking place in the eschaton.229 One should, therefore, acquiesce to that, although the life-giving powers of Jesus’s resurrection are already working among those joined in him, it is not until the end of days that all sin and suffering will cease.230 This reason is best seen as being in interaction with the two former ones.231 We might call these reality-based reasons, based on acknowledging and acquiescing to the things that God in his wisdom had ordained so. There is, however, yet a further, perhaps more elemental reason for Paul’s employment of the idea of the eschatological obedience in a way differing from its original usage. Besides the miraculous empowerment of those joined in Christ, the archetype of which can be seen in the promises of the eschatological covenant, 229. Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 60–1. 230. Matera, New Testament Ethics, 190. 231. That is, it contributes to explaining why sin and suffering continue to be a reality with respect to Christians as well.

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something else and additional has taken place:  God’s saving act in Jesus has generated a new theodicean situation.232 With God’s Messiah having taken upon himself the sins of the world, thus, having emptied the ‘cup of wrath’, the perfect compliance to God’s will envisaged in the eschatological covenant prophecies has been displaced from its role of being the key to the removal of suffering!233 Instead, it is the deed of the Messiah that is the key. Already now it removes sin and guilt and ultimately, in the eschaton, it will consummate in removing all suffering. There is no need, and no place, for any other means. As has been observed, stressing this message leads Paul to struggle how not to leave the impression that compliance to God is unimportant or that people are now allowed to live as they please. Irrespectively of such problems, however, the deed of the Messiah has substantially altered the theodicean situation in which the idea of eschatological obedience was originally introduced and within which it has since been viewed – until now. As a result, the original theodicean purpose of the idea has become irrelevant. Nonetheless, as I have stated earlier,234 the eschatological obedience does serve a theodicean function, too, in Paul’s reasoning. It cooperates with (a) the Pauline definition of the theodicy problem and with (b) the solution he suggests to the problem. (a)  The replacement of the question of the arbitrary distribution of fortune with the view that all people are sinners leaves the statement that God punishes wrongdoers and rewards righteous people as well as the admonition to do good, in need of substantiation. This need is now met with by the idea of the God-effected obedience. Hence, Paul utilizes the idea to retain the coherence of the reasoning that issues from his redefinition of the theodicy problem. Furthermore, (b) the solution to the problem, especially the free forgiveness in Christ, casts Paul in a struggle to explain why people would anymore need to feel inclined to good actions. Accordingly, he argues, together with the capability of doing righteous deeds also comes the sheer will to lead such a way of life. On the other hand, he also characterizes the miraculous empowerment to do good as a purpose in itself. We have also detected usage of the new, God-effected obedience theme in 1 John. In general, 1 John does not focus on theodicean questions.235 The letter’s impact in giving expression to elements of the covenantal re-solution should therefore not be given all too much weight. Nevertheless, 1 John employs the idea of the new covenant-obedience to encounter a problem similar to the one Paul struggled with: Contrary to what one might think, the Christian God who forgives all sins is still a God of justice, that is, he is still against sin. So even Christians

232. See sections 4.2 and 4.3. Cf. Stuhlmacher, Doctrine of Justification, 61: ‘Justification is an event of holy justice in which the fatal difference between sin and God’s holiness is not blurred but overcome’ (emphasis original). 233. Similarly, it has displaced any other means of salvation; Schnelle, Human Condition, 111–12. 234. For the following, see section 4.4. 235. 1 John was surveyed in section 4.4.4. above as giving support to Pauline ideas.

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themselves, although for them everything is forgiven, are mindful of their deeds, namely, they do not sin. Those who sin are not of God but of the devil. Thus, 1 John applies the new obedience theme in a way that closely approximates its usage in the Old Testament eschatological covenant accounts. The reality-based factors that, as we assumed above, had caused Paul to tone down the theme seem not to have induced 1 John to compromise. Still, the letter appears to be aware of them. 1 John explicitly declares that Christians have sinned and must have acknowledged that suffering was the lot of Christians as well in this world. Behind the apparent contradistinction of the sinless vs. sinful state of Christians, we pictured 1 John’s lack in more nuanced conceptual tools. Therefore, that 1 John, despite the straightforward adoption of the idea of the new and perfect obedience, does not reflect the original theodicean purpose of the idea may still have something to do with the recognition that sin and suffering belong to the life of Christians after all.236 2. Knowing God A close companion to the idea of God-effected obedience to his will is the idea of God-given knowledge about this will. Both are featured as integral elements of the Old Testament eschatological covenant theme and its re-solution of the theodicy problem. They also often appear together in the intertestamental reception of the theme. The reason for this lies in their common objective. The ideas represent slightly different approaches to the problem of the continually wavering covenant loyalty of the people. While some texts explicitly speak of a new way of knowing God (his will being engraved within human beings), others reach directly out to the index of the knowledge, obedience (God making it so that his people will follow his will and cease stumbling). The aim of interrupting the cycle of sin and suffering is shared in both types of texts. Hence, in a way, the twin ideas should not be regarded in isolation from each other. Nevertheless, in the reception of the eschatological covenant theme, such isolation happens from time to time. For instance, we discovered both ideas in 1 John. Still, the letter’s argumentation of theodicean relevance could be discussed without further reflection on the idea of the new and perfect knowledge given by God. The clearest example of a contrary emphasis is Hebrews. The letter does include some accounts of both of these ideas. However, while the idea of Godgiven new knowledge occupies a central place in the covenant theology of the letter,237 the idea of God-effected obedience is alluded to only vaguely.238 Knowing God was, of course, an important Old Testament and early Jewish motif even outside of the eschatological covenant framework. Accordingly, many of the New Testament accounts of the motif do not display the characteristics of the eschatological covenant theme. Many times in the Pauline literature, for 236. Further echoes of the idea of the new covenant-obedience appear only sporadically. Outside the Pauline and Johannine letters, one could name passages such as Heb. 13.21 and Jn 15.5. 237. See the discussion shortly above in the text. 238. Heb. 13.20-21.

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example, although it is also possible to single out some expressions reminiscent of the Johannine ones,239 the Christian knowledge of God does not possess the supreme quality it has in the eschatological covenant prophecies (and in many of their subsequent representations). On the contrary, according to 1 Cor. 13.912 our current knowledge of God240 is partial and will not become complete until the eschaton.241 Some other passages, too, imply the incompleteness of Christians’ knowledge and urge them to gain in it.242 Further, according to 1 Cor. 8.1, knowledge can make one proud. That is, albeit good in principle, it can even have unfavourable effects.243 In this latter passage, however, knowledge is reduced to knowing that there is no God but one.244 Hence, it is somewhat difficult to keep track of what Paul means with ‘knowledge’/‘knowing’.245 He also declares that knowledge is subordinate to agape.246 But in Eph. 3.19 it is ‘knowing (γνῶναι) the agape of Christ’ that ‘surpasses knowledge’ (γνώσεως).247 And yet, despite the foibles and limitations stated in 1 Cor. 13.2, 8–12 and so on, it appears that, for Paul, the knowledge of Christ makes a great difference. Whatever gain I  had, I  counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I  count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for the sake of whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and sharing of his sufferings.248

I think commentators who see here a connection to passages such as Rom. 6.411, 2 Cor. 5.14-17 and Gal. 2.19-20 are right.249 In Christ a Christian is a new creation. He or she has suffered death on the cross together with Christ but has 239. See, for example, ‘all of us possess knowledge’ (1 Cor. 8.1; cf. 1 Jn 2.20). 240. See 1 Cor. 13.12. 241. See also Rom. 11.33-34. Cf., however, 1 Cor. 2.6-16. 242. Eph. 4.13. 243. In this latter passage, knowledge means more specifically knowing that there is no God but one; cf. 1 Cor. 8.4. 244. See 1 Cor. 8.4. 245. The alteration of ἐπιγινώσκω/γινώσκω or ἐπίγνωσις/γνῶσις does not offer a key. Although 1 Cor. 13.12 creates a contrast by means of the alteration (ἄρτι γινώσκω ἐκ μέρoυς, τότε δὲ ἐπιγνώσoμαι), Eph. 3.19 does not; see immediately below in the text. Cf. also Rom. 11.33:   ̓ ̑Ω βάθoς πλoύτoυ καὶ σoφίας καὶ γνώσεως θεoῦ; see even Gal. 4.8-9. 246. 1 Cor. 13.2, 8-9. 247. In several other passages, again, knowledge is characterized as a charisma or fruit of the Spirit. See, for example, 1 Cor. 12.8; 13.2; 14.6; 2 Cor. 6.6; 8.7. 248. Phil. 3.7-10. The rendering is mine. 249. See G. F. Hawthorne, Philippians (Waco: Word Books, 1983), 144.

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also become united with him in his resurrection and introduced into a new life. All his or her former life, despite eventual ‘gains,’ has taken place in the imprisonment of disobedience. Therefore, it is the new life of the new human being in Christ that counts alone, while past victories appear as loss. According to this reading, becoming knowledgeable of Christ works in a way similar to what Paul has written about baptism. Besides the gift of baptism, therefore, the knowledge of Christ can also be regarded as a factor that makes people capable and willing to serve God in true righteousness. This is the foremost theodicean role that knowledge/knowing has in Paul’s theology. Hence, though the motif of knowing God does not, in Pauline usage, carry the outward characteristics of the eschatological covenant-knowledge, the motif shares its effects. It is this knowing, then, that even according to 2 Peter will have effects resembling those of the new God-given knowledge of the eschatological covenant: May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.250

3. The work of the Spirit The reflections of Paul and 1 John lead us to make some remarks on the overarching theme of the Spirit of God, bestowed on the followers of Jesus. The above reviews have disclosed the Spirit as being integrally connected with the idea of the new, Godgiven covenant-obedience. The Spirit plays an important role in Paul’s dealings with the idea, affording, among other things, the dichotomy ‘the letter-the Spirit’. In both Paul and 1 John, the Spirit also directly contributes to enabling Christians to do acts of righteousness.251 Both God-effected obedience and God-given knowledge can be regarded as gifts of the Spirit,252 and both, as well as the Spirit as such, feature as integral elements of the Old Testament eschatological covenant theme. In similarity, even elsewhere in the New Testament, the Spirit creates both knowledge about God’s will and the power to do the will. Besides the letters of Paul and 1 John, the Spirit’s power is manifest throughout Jesus’s activity in all the gospels. The power attributed to him, which is the result of his receiving the Spirit,253 takes expression in both words and deeds:  in teachings, controversies, healings, exorcisms and the like. It is also at times conferred on the disciples.254 250. 2 Pet. 1.2-4. 251. 1 Jn 3.6-7, 9, 24; 4.13. This work of the Spirit also lies behind some passages in the Gospel of John. See, for example, Jn 3; 6.63-65; 7.38-39. See also, for instance, W. D. Davies, Jewish and Pauline Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 109–11. 252. Cf. 1 Jn 2.20; 4.6; 5.6. 253. Cf. also, for instance, Mt. 12.28; Lk. 4.1, 14. 254. Mt. 10.1; Mk 6.7; Lk. 9.1.

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The Spirit is ‘unleashed’ by the departure of Jesus, that is, his death, resurrection and ascension. Further, Lk. 24.49 foretells about the ‘power from on high’. The prediction is repeated in Acts 1.8 with the explication that the power granted by the Spirit will, in particular, enable the followers of Jesus to be his witnesses. They are now also enabled to do all kinds of miracles. It is striking that the covenantal re-solution of the theodicy problem has not found its way into the New Testament in any more explicit or complete manner. Individual themes of the re-solution do appear in the New Testament but even they have often been clearly applied differently from the Old Testament and intertestamental literature. I can think of no better explanation for this somewhat surprising fact other than the one offered by the New Testament view that eschatological times are already here now (even though it also stands that they are ‘not yet’ present, that is, the final consummation still lies in the future). It is probably this ‘already’ aspect of eschatology that has excluded a more comprehensive application of the covenantal re-solution with its promise of a definitive cessation of all kinds of suffering, harm and trouble – for these had not ceased in the lives of Christians. On the contrary, in the light of the new theodicean situation created by God’s saving act in Jesus, suffering, harm and trouble had come to be seen as forming a proper part of divine guardianship and care.255

4.6  Conclusions In the New Testament, Jesus and God’s work in him has taken on the main theodicean function of the covenant. Just as God had once guaranteed his providence in the covenant making, he now guarantees guardianship through his work in Christ. Wherever Jesus is conceived as the basis of salvation, he is also implicitly seen as the basis for trusting in God’s providence in times of affliction. Therefore, the transferal of the theodicean role of the covenant to Jesus sets the frame for all New Testament theodicy thinking.256 God’s saving act in Jesus has in a significant way altered the general outlook on the theodicy problem. In fact, it has generated a new theodicean situation, which brings about a definitive change in how we are to assess providence. The interpretation of some common pictures of God’s care and guardianship illustrates this well. For instance, we have a shepherd who dies for his sheep, yet still continues to protect them. This idiosyncrasy stems from the problem of the crucified one whom God resurrected from the dead. In other words, the new theodicean situation clearly owes itself to the theodicean problem experienced by the followers of Jesus due to his vindication.257 255. On the other hand, I cannot offer an explanation as to why the ‘not yet’ part of the New Testament eschatology could not set aside this difficulty. 256. This corresponds exactly to the upshot of Chapter 3. 257.  See here, too, Chapter  3 and the new formulation of the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death.

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In this new theodicean situation, then, all hardships that would normally jeopardize God’s justness can effectively be resisted. This irrefutability, based on what God has accomplished through the cross of Christ, can, however, be seen to create some new problematic questions: Above all, there is the teleology that outwardly seems quite much like dysteleology. Interestingly, in this respect, the New Testament appears to sustain the kind of invisibility of the realization of the action-consequence principle that is familiar from Jewish apocalypticism, albeit not always itself resorting to apocalyptic thinking.258 A further problem concerns the nature of divine care as informed by the cross of Christ in the new theodicean situation. The Messiah having consumed God’s wrath, mercy and forgiveness can prevail without objections from the side of theodicy that also required judgement to accomplish justice. Hence, we observe, on the one hand, that the objection here is the same as that generated by the vindication of the crucified one,259 that is, judgement being overridden, and, on the other, that its counterclaim, namely, the Messiah has consumed God’s wrath on behalf of others, solves both cases. In the new theodicean situation, thus, God’s theodicean outlook has been decisively cleared from the revenge and punishment that otherwise would belong there as indispensable constituents. However, the new theodicean situation has not changed God’s outlook alone. Those who have become part of the saving act in Jesus are called to serve as he served, giving his life for all people. They should be prepared even to suffer for others, innocently and without asking for due retaliation. All this results in a remarkably altered view of the nature of divine providence. A result is also that hereby the emphasis is put on ultimate salvation beyond the horizon of present life.260 In answering the question about the theodicean role left for keeping God’s will in the new theodicean situation created by God’s work in Jesus, we substantially relied on one New Testament writer alone, Paul. Some comparison could be made to 1 John, however, disclosing that similar ideas had occupied the mind of this New Testament writer as well. Accordingly, that there, in fact, is no theodicean role left for keeping God’s will anymore could be established in Pauline theology, but traces of the same understanding were discernible also in 1 John. This particular view, resulting from the free forgiveness in Christ bestowed on all baptized believers,261 had led both writers to a considerable struggle. It may be suggestive of the prevalence of the view that similar struggles troubled the early Christian movement even more generally.262 258. See section 4.2. 259. Cf. the crucifixion-vindication theodicy problem of Jesus’s death, Chapter 3. 260. See section 4.3. 261. Further, it is intriguing to observe that the theodicy problem engendered by free forgiveness is analogous to that experienced by the followers of Jesus on account of his vindication. Cf. again the crucifixion-vindication theodicy problem discussed in Chapter 3. 262. See section 4.4.

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Likewise, our discussion about the continuance of the theodicy of God’s covenantal acts known of old in the new saving act in Jesus took place mainly on the basis of Paul’s views. Paul’s ambitious and probably therefore often convoluted argumentation sought to prove that God’s saving act in Jesus not only upholds God’s providential will, in continuity with his former dealings with the Jews, but also, in fact, brings about its consummation. Surprisingly, the ‘covenantal re-solution’, which in Chapter 2 was formulated on the basis of some eschatological covenant prophecies in the Old Testament, could not be found in the New Testament in a more comprehensive manner. This negative result was unanticipated, among other things, because of the wide, although not particularly accentuated, New Testament recognition of the new covenant as having been initiated by Jesus. As a reason that could explain the result, I present the proleptic eschatology discernible both in the teaching of Jesus and in the teaching about him: the time of the eschaton is already somehow present. Yet, that distress and suffering still formed part of the Christians’ reality created a situation where the covenantal re-solution with its promise of a definitive cessation of suffering would not have been applicable.263 Regardless of how one thinks Paul or other New Testament writers have succeeded in proving the continuance of the theodicy of the covenantal acts of God in his new salvific act in Jesus, the wish and attempt of the writers to subscribe to this continuance is clear.264 Hence, though we can accurately speak of the transferal of the basic theodicean role of the covenant to Jesus and God’s work in him, this transferal does not, according to the view that the New Testament writers wish to sustain, mean the displacement of the covenant idea. We can, however, muse over the thought that the transferal may have contributed to the fact that the covenant idea does not stand out that prominently, or at least explicitly, in the New Testament.265

263. See section 4.5. 264. See sections 4.5 as well as 4.2 and 4.3. 265.  Applying covenant theology should have been an asset when arguing about soteriology or claiming that Christians were the true Israel.

Chapter 5 P R AC T IC A L C O N SI D E R AT IO N S :  COPING WITH SUFFERING 5.1  Introductory Remarks The aim of this chapter is to probe the variegated New Testament responses to the death of Jesus for practical approaches to suffering, that is, approaches that seek to find out ways to cope with suffering. Here, specifically, I shall make good use of the arrangement of the interpretations of Jesus’s death laid out in Chapter 1, section 1.3. The probe of practical approaches will also enable us to reflect modern theodicean concerns in a more explicit manner, allowing the New Testament to speak to the agenda of the suffering of God theodicy, particularly its way of referring to the cross of Christ. For, as we have seen,1 the suffering of God theodicy exhibits primarily a practical approach to theodicy. Even here, the method of scrutiny will be an exegetical one but, in order to allow for modern concerns, I shall apply a fuller apparatus of analytical questions. Accordingly, it may appear that not all of the questions listed below will seem altogether germane with respect to the texts themselves. The following agenda is suggested: Question A: To what extent do the texts that deal with the death of Jesus address the problem of coping with suffering?2 Two obvious amplifications of the question are: How often does it occur that texts discussing the death of Jesus have also elicited discussion concerning how to cope with suffering?3 Do the texts that have elicited such discussion address the problem of coping with suffering as their main concern or only passingly? Question B: How do the texts seek to resolve the problem of coping with suffering? In principle, the problem can be approached in many different ways, for example, by trying to mitigate the suffering or by trying to equip the sufferers with means to put up with what is against them. 1. See Chapter 1, section 1.2. 2.  This question translates well to the modern theodicy discussion; cf. the modern understanding of the cross of Christ as a central source of theodicy thinking (Chapter 1). 3. This question cannot be answered until at the end of the present chapter.

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Question C: From what angle do the texts view the problem of coping with suffering? Are they fully oriented to the sufferers’ concrete and acute anguish or are they (also) concerned with the intellectual dilemma, that is, with the question of understanding suffering?4 Question D: Are the texts concerned with the suffering of some specific group or of people universally? Question E: What kind of suffering do the texts count in? A common disposition holds the alternatives of innocent vs. deserved suffering (with cause in moral or natural evil).5 But there are of course many ways suffering can take expression and materialize. An interesting question is also: Question F: Can a theodicean motif serviceable to the modern discussion about Jesus/God as a fellow-sufferer be located in the New Testament? So, how has the death of Jesus guided the New Testament writers to seek to come to terms with suffering in life? Did they find purpose in the suffering and death of Jesus enough to give purpose even to the suffering of others? I shall now inquire into the New Testament views of the cross of Christ from the practical theodicean point of view.

5.2  Individual Theodicean Motifs Applying the agenda of questions laid out above, I shall now survey six motifs that (i) grow from a recognized theological significance of the death of Jesus and (ii) expressly address the problem of suffering. As it happens, the motifs are embedded in texts which are charged with theological meaning and which have therefore richly stimulated scholarly contemplation. This rich interest notwithstanding, however, the texts have, in biblical scholarship, only seldom been studied from the perspective of theodicy. The individual surveys are introduced by a quoted passage central to the discussed theodicean motif.

4. Indeed, the whole chapter focuses on practical approaches to suffering. However, even understanding can be an important aid in enduring suffering. This holds especially with respect to modern theodicean models and the ‘theodicy of cross’ but can also be relevant to archaic and New Testament theodicy thinking. 5. This is a modern interest as well (i.e., the distinction between the causes of moral and natural evil is specifically modern; for the traditional distinction between the two kinds of evil, see, e.g., B. R. Reichenbach, Evil and a Good God [New York: Fordham University Press, 1982], xi–xii); J. A. Keller, Problems of Evil and the Power of God (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 7–12. Cf. here especially point 2 in section 5.2.

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1. ‘We suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him’ (Rom. 8.17) As can be seen from the inventory in Chapter 1, section 1.3, the idea of Christians’ participation in Jesus’s death features as one of the major interpretations of the cross of Christ in the New Testament.6 Though utilized for various purposes,7 the interpretation also serves to encounter the problem of suffering.8 Here it interestingly proves to be quite flexible (which on the other hand makes keeping the following discussion concise somewhat harder). In order to display the generality and the many nuances of this usage I shall quote it rather amply, although I intend to discuss the quotations only selectively. (a) We are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact (εἴπερ), we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom. 8.16-17) (b) I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. (Rom. 8.18) (c) We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom. 8.23) (d) For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ. (2 Cor. 1.5) (e) For this slight momentary affliction is producing for us (κατεργάζεται ἡμῖν)9 an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure. (2 Cor. 4.17) (f) I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Phil. 3.10-11) (g) I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. (Col. 1.24) (h) The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us. (2 Tim. 2.11-12) (i) But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. (1 Pet. 4.13) (j) And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen and establish you. (1 Pet. 5.10) 6. See label (ix) in Chapter 1, section 1.3. 7. For example, baptismal teaching (Romans 6); law and grace (Galatians 2); circumcision (Colossians 2). 8. O. Michel, Der Brief an die Römer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 262– 3; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 456. 9.  Or:  ‘is preparing for us’, so, for instance, RSV. NRSV translates for some reason ‘preparing us for’.

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The connection with the death/suffering of Jesus is explicit in quotations (a), (f), (h)  and (i). In (b), (c), (e)  and (j), the connection is revealed through the respective contexts: for (b) and (c) the theme of the suffering and death of Jesus is set in Rom. 8:17, that is, quotation (a)10; (e) argues within the discussion about carrying the ‘putting to death of Jesus’ (2 Cor. 4.10; cf. also 2 Cor. 4.8-9)11 and being raised with Jesus (2 Cor. 4.15); (j) relates to the argument, ranging virtually throughout 1 Peter, about Christians’ participation in the sufferings of Christ and regarding his suffering as exemplary for their lives.12 (d) is more problematic in that the expression τὰ παθήματα τoῦ Χριστoῦ, ‘the sufferings of Christ’, may not denote the death and sufferings experienced by Christ, but the time of affliction, that is, the sufferings that belong to the messianic age and precede the time of eternal joy.13 It therefore remains somewhat uncertain whether the quotation should be included here. With respect to (e), the suffering spoken of should probably be seen foremost as that of the apostle, bearing thus a special meaning.14 Nevertheless, Rom. 8.17-18 (quotations (a) and (b)) witness of the thought’s general applicability. The quotation (h), again, uses the verb ὑπoμένω, ‘to hold out, endure’. Of course, sufferings, too, are to be included here,15 but the weight of the expression lies on holding out in the midst of them. For this reason, ὑπoμένω lacks the prefix σύν, ‘with’, attached to the other three verbs of the four opening expressions of the saying.16 Still, because of the themes of dying and living with him17 as well as of reigning with him (i.e., entering the glory), the saying can be aligned with the other quotations above.18 There are indeed some divergences discernible in how these texts deal with suffering. Nonetheless, it is also possible to perceive a common type of consolation behind them. The texts label suffering as a temporary stage, as a phase that must be passed through but that will certainly end. For the course of life of Christians will adapt to that of Christ himself.19 Christ died but was risen; he suffered but was 10. Wilckens, Röm 6–11, 152. 11. See J. Lambrecht, ‘The Nekrōsis of Jesus: Ministry and Suffering in 2 Cor 4, 7–15’, in Studies on 2 Corinthians, ed. R. Bieringer and J. Lambrecht (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994), 309–33. 12. See point 4 below. 13.  R. P. Martin, 2 Corinthians (Waco:  Word Books, 1986), 9–10, prefers this interpretation because of the verb περισσέυω, ‘overflow’ (to us). 14. Cf. the discussion on pp. 153–155. 15. Cf. 2 Tim. 2.9. 16. Cf. H. Merkel, Die Pastoralbriefe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 65, who consistently describes the passage as speaking of suffering. 17. The reference of σύv can only be Christ, mentioned in 2 Tim. 2.10, who died and rose. 18. See A. T. Hanson, The Pastoral Epistles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 132. 19.  Hereby the texts are linked with the teachings that stress the community of fate between the Master and his followers. See, for example, Mk 8.34-38; Mt. 10.24-25; Jn 15.18-20.

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exalted. Thus, from the path of Jesus his followers should see that their anguish is not meant to last. Besides this common motif, then, at least two partially differing approaches to suffering can be detected. As laid out especially in quotations (b) and (e), suffering is mitigated by contrasting it with the everlasting, astounding glory that Jesus’s followers will once be part of.20 Compared with the future eternal bliss with him, the current agony will appear as insignificant, brief and slight. Here we notice an appeal to a theodicean motif which commonly appears outside the New Testament and which is not as such bound with the theme of the death of Jesus.21 It is therefore of greater interest to focus on the motif varyingly present in quotations (a) and (i) as well as in (f) and (h). Accordingly, suffering with Christ means that we shall also be glorified with him. Determining just how suffering means this demands a closer look at the texts. The main disagreement, pertaining to suffering, among scholars in interpreting passages like those in quotations (a), (f), (h) and (i) is formed by the question of whether suffering with Christ is to be taken as a precondition for once sharing his glory too, or should it rather be seen as a sign that attests and assures Christians of their having part in the future joy. Quotation (a)  will serve to demonstrate the point. Here the question focuses on the meaning of εἴπερ, ‘if ’ or ‘since’,22 and on what it implies with respect to the suffering spoken of. J.  D. G.  Dunn opposes understanding the word as introducing a statement of fact and argues for interpreting it as hortatory and conditional. Thus the message is that without suffering, future glory would not be attained.23 In a similar manner, J.  Murray thinks that suffering is the ‘condition upon which the attainment of the inheritance is contingent’.24 For the majority of commentators, however, suffering with Christ is here to be seen as an indication of Christians’ share in Christ, thus assuring them of having a share in Christ’s glory as well.25 Suffering with him shows that their kismet is indeed tied in with that of Christ who first suffered but then went

20. Cf. also quotation (i). 1 Pet. 4.13 urges Christians to be glad in the face of the current distress and reminds them of the even greater joy that will come. 21. Cf., for example, Isaiah 25; Dan. 12.1-3; Wis. 2.12–3.9; see Klein, ‘Die Bewältigung der Not’, 264–7; S.  R. Garrett, ‘The Patience of Job and the Patience of Jesus’, Int 53 (1999): 254–64, esp. 258. 22. See Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 279. 23. Dunn, Romans 1–8, 456. He argues for the same meaning of εἴπερ in Rom. 8.9 too. 24. J. Murray, The Epistle to the Romans: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 299. Additionally in favour of a reading like this of Rom. 8.17, see Fitzmyer, Romans, 503. 25.  See, for instance, H. W. Schmidt, Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer (Berlin:  Evangelische Verl. Anst., 1972), 143; Michel, Römer, 262; C. E.  B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh: Clark, 1982), 407–8; M. Black, Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 114–15; Barrett, Romans, 154.

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into glory. Therefore, they should not doubt that they will yet once also rejoice with him.26 I shall not try to decide between the above two interpretations any further.27 A conclusive solution would hardly be attainable here. Instead, it lies well within the interests of the present chapter to consider both interpretations as to what they imply with respect to suffering. We have thus two significantly different approaches to suffering to choose from. Speaking in rough terms, suffering with Christ either is (1) something required from us if we wish to enter glory or then it is (2) something that testifies of our share in glory. Solution (1) can hardly be characterized as a consolation. Rather, its approach to the issue is more like an exhortation to pull oneself together when in trouble. By positing suffering as something indispensable it aspires to arouse a strong motivation to put up with what is to be faced. Suffering is hereby taken as something given, not (only) because it is the lot of the followers of Jesus, but because it is a means to reach eternal joy.28 Therefore, rejoice in the midst of your anguish since suffering brings you glory.29 A modern reader/sufferer would then probably prefer considering solution (2), which carries a prominently different tone. Despite its unpleasantness, suffering should be taken favourably by us since it reveals that glory is ours. By this the solution tries to see over or through 26. This understanding would comply with the meaning of εἴπερ in Rom. 3.30; 8.9 and 2 Thess. 1.6. 1 Cor. 8.5 and 15.15, where the word also appears, cannot be compared with quotation (a). 27. Same interpretations apply mutatis mutandis to quotations (f), (h) and (i): as much as quotation (i) pertains here, the issue seems to culminate in the demand to rejoice in suffering in order to be able to be overwhelmingly glad when Christ’s glory is revealed (cf. J. L. de Villiers, ‘Joy in Suffering in 1 Peter’, Neot 9 [1975]: 64–86, esp. 80, who refrains from deciding whether or not suffering is presented here as prerequisite for sharing the glory); in quotation (f), the future joy appears as conditional or at least unsure, but this time there is no clear indication of what achieving it depends on (cf. W. Schrage, ‘Leid, Kreuz und Eschaton’, EvT 34 [1974]: 141–75, esp. 163, who takes the passages in quotations (a) and (f) together and advocates the conditional interpretation of them; but L. G. Bloomquist, The Function of Suffering in Philippians [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993], 178– 83, e.g., although thinking that resurrection and sufferings are integrally bound together here, expresses no clear conditional interpretation of the text; instead, according to Bloomquist, Paul seeks to present a view of suffering that will enable the congregation to see meaning in that suffering sub specie resurrectionis); quotation (h) emphasizes the necessity of endurance (cf. L. Oberlinner, Die Pastoralbriefe:  Folge 2.  Kommentar zum zweiten Timotheusbrief [Freiburg:  Herder, 1995], 86:  ‘Die Ausdauer wird belohnt durch das Geschenk der βασιλεία’; Merkel, Pastoralbriefe, 65, concurs but remarks with respect to 2 Tim. 2.13: ‘Auch wenn es menschliche Logik zerbricht, bleibt der Primat der Gnade gewahrt’). 28. A tinge of theodicean ideas known from elsewhere can be noticed in this attitude. 29. For ‘rejoicing’, see especially quotations (g) and (i). Cf. also Mt. 5.11-12 par. Lk. 6.2223; Jn 16.20-22; Phil. 4.4.

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the suffering to the promise of everlasting joy, the validity of which the suffering itself attests to. Therefore, rejoice in the midst of your anguish since suffering evidences that glory is yours. All in all, the texts thus put forward a many-sided solution to suffering. With respects to the other aspects of the theodicy problem of relevance here,30 however, they appear more homogenous. The texts try to come to terms with the sufferers’ difficult situation; their solution is for here and now where evil is resident. The intellectually demanding question about the existence of suffering remains, largely, unasked. Insomuch as it is addressed at all, we are referred to the mysteriously sounding participation in Christ’s suffering.31 Similarly, all the texts expressly and exclusively speak to or of Christians. This is only natural since the suffering they deal with is qualified as suffering ‘with him’ (sc. Christ) or as ‘sharing his sufferings’.32 Likewise, the cause of the suffering can be assumed to be Christians’ avowal to Christ Jesus.33 The question whether something along the lines of the modern understanding of the death of Jesus, posing him (and God) as a fellow-sufferer, can be located here must be answered negatively,34 but not merely so. On the contrary, it seems to be but fair and just, in the view of the writers, that Christians partake in the sufferings of Jesus, that is, that they are fellow-sufferers of Jesus. For, of course, ‘a disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master’.35 2. ‘For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together up till now’ (Rom. 8.22) The train of thought that continues from the remark of the participation of all Christians in both Christ’s suffering and glory (Rom. 8.18; cf. the above quotations (a)  and (b)) serves to elucidate the very remark and is therefore in many ways connected with it. In spite of this, the short section Rom. 8.19-22 deals with a topic of its own and conveys a theodicean motif both of interest and distinct from that of the preceding verses.36 30. Cf. the agenda of questions presented in section 5.1. 31. Cf. here point 6 below. 32.  σύν (Rom. 8.16-17; Phil. 3.10; 2 Tim. 2.11-12); κoινωνία, κoινωνέω (Phil. 3.10; resp. 1 Pet. 4.13). 33. Cranfield, Romans, 408. 34. This is also against ibid. 35. Mt. 10.24-25. Cf. Lk. 6.40; Jn 13.16; 15.20. Cf. also Mk 8.34-35: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’ See Mt. 16.24-25; Lk. 9.23-24. 36. Cf. Fiedler, ‘Röm 8 31–39’, 31, who speaks of a certain ‘incoincidence’ between Rom. 8.18 and the following verses.

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For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.37

The background here consists of Paul’s earlier deliberations concerning Christ as the new Adam (Rom. 5.12-21)38 as well as of the events described in Genesis 3.39 The verses use vivid language and contain some rather concise expressions. Consequently, a number of problems have persisted in scholarly discussion. With respect to present interests, the most important question is no doubt the more precise meaning of the word κτίσις, ‘creation’, appearing throughout the verses of the section. Depending on the exact denotation chosen for the word, the above text can be seen to address the problem of suffering in remarkably different ways. In order to get a good picture of this (so preparing for a point to be made), I shall leave the question open for a while and start by discussing other relevant issues of the text. The contrasting beginning of Rom. 8.23, ‘and not only [that = κτίσις], but we ourselves . . .’ (oὐ μόνoν δέ, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτoί . . .), shows the grounds for discussing Rom. 8.19-22 as suggesting a theodicean motif of its own. The verses do not predominantly speak about the followers of Jesus, the ‘children of the God’, but about κτίσις which is something that stands apart from them. This observation is of importance also because it reveals that the phrase πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις in Rom. 8.22 cannot be taken at its face value. The same contrast can be seen even in Rom. 8.19 which presents, on the one hand, κτίσις in expectation and, on the other, children of God as those whose revelation κτίσις is looking forward to. Accordingly, then, though κτίσις also suffers, its suffering bears characteristics distinct from the suffering of Christians. First, κτίσις seems not to have ‘earned’ its suffering. ‘For ἡ κτίσις was subjected to futility, oὐχ ἑκoῦσα, but by the one who subjected it.’ Commentators are right when they point out that the phrase oὐχ ἑκoῦσα, meaning ‘against/without own will’,40 moves the cause of the experiences of κτίσις from the realm of guilt to that of fate:  ‘nicht schuldhaft, sondern schicksalhaft’.41 Through the disobedience of Adam/man, in Paul’s view, all men have sinned. But κτίσις had no sin that would 37. Rom. 8.19-22. 38. Cf. label (viii) in Chapter 1, section 1.3. 39.  R. Pesch, Römerbrief (Würzburg, Echter, 1987), 72; P. Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an die Römer: Übersetzt und erklärt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 122; D. T. Tsumura, ‘An OT Background to Rom 8.22’, NTS 40 (1994): 620–1. 40. H. Schlier, Der Römerbrief: Kommentar (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1977), 261; or: ‘choice’. 41. Michel, Römer, 267. See also Wilckens, Römer, 154.

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have required it to become part of what it is now struggling with. κτίσις did not make the choice that Adam/man did but was subjected to futility by the autocratic decision of God.42 Therefore it, too, has to suffer, though it will also be relieved one day thanks to the obedience of Jesus the new Adam. In other words, κτίσις suffers innocently, human beings do not. Second, the idea of the suffering of κτίσις is conveyed through many different expressions, but not through πάσχω or πάθημα that are used to describe the suffering of Christians.43 It is said that κτίσις is ‘subjected to futility’ and that it will be set free from its ‘slavery to decay’.44 In addition, the suffering of κτίσις is called ‘groaning’ and ‘laboring in the pains of childbirth’.45 ‘To groan’ is also employed to describe the situation of Christians which is, however, somewhat different from that of κτίσις.46 For, third, the liberation of κτίσις and the ceasing of its groaning depend on the timetable that is set for the children of God. Therefore, its existence is impressed with ‘eager expectation’.47 κτίσις has to continue to suffer, since its freedom is bound up with the ‘revelation of the children of God’. This event, again, lingers since Christians’ lives mirror that of Jesus. They suffer with him, even though they will yet  also rejoice with him in the future. Through performing an act of obedience,48 that is, ultimately by enduring the pains of death,49 Jesus the new Adam has brought the hope of the ceasing of all suffering for those who believe in him. And when the children of God finally enter the glory, then κτίσις, too, will 42. Michel, Römer, 267; Wilckens, Römer, 154; Cranfield, Romans, 413–14; Black Romans, 116; Fitzmyer, Romans, 507–8. On grounds of the preceding reasoning, God remains the only possible agent behind the passive ὑπoτάσσω; cf. Schlier, Römerbrief, 261. This corresponds to Paul’s use of the verb in 1 Cor. 15.27. Further, as Cranfield, Romans, 414, notes, ‘no one else could naturally be said to have subjected the creation ἐφ‘ ἑλπίδι’. Indeed, according to Gen. 3.17, God cursed ‘the ground’ (‫ ;האדמה‬LXX: ἡ γῆ) for the sake of Adam’s deed. Scholars refer to Gaugler’s interpretation of Paul: ‘because of the judicial decision pronounced by God on account of Adam’s sin’. (Cranfield, Romans, 414; see also, for instance, Michel, Römer, 267; Wilckens, Römer, 154.) Similarly, B. D. Smith, Paul’s Seven Explanations of the Suffering of the Righteous (New York: Lang, 2002), 147. 43. For Christians’ suffering, see Rom. 8.17, 18; in Rom. 8.23 also στεvάζω, ‘to groan’. 44. Rom. 8.20: ματαιότης; Rom. 8.21: φθoρά. 45. Rom. 8.22: στενάζω and ὠδίνω. ὠδίνω is a common concept for the cataclysms that occur on the threshold of God’s intervention to the course of history; see Michel, Römer, 268–9. 46. σύv as attached to στενάζω and ὠδίνω in Rom. 8.22 accords πα σα ἡ κτίσις in the same verse. As remarked, Rom. 8.23 indicates that in the preceding verses Christians do not yet belong to the picture. Hence, the function of σύν in Rom 8.22 must not be mixed up with that in Rom. 8.17. Schlier, Römerbrief, 263; Barrett, Romans, 156. 47. Rom. 8.19: ἀποκαραδοκία. 48. Rom. 5.18-19. 49. Cf. Phil. 2.6-8. See Wilckens, Römer, 326; Dunn, Romans, 284–5.

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surrender its yoke of decay and futility. Hence, to put it blatantly, κτίσις has still to suffer since the followers of Jesus must suffer with Jesus.50 Thus, what does κτίσις signify here? Does it refer to the believing humankind, unbelieving humankind, generally to both believing and unbelieving humankind, one of these three exclusively or inclusive of angels, or then to non-human nature without angels and the like and/or humankind generally or selectively, or with the angels and the like and/or humankind generally or selectively?51 Lexically, all possibilities are left open.52 Similarly, Paul can use the word in several different senses:  Rom. 1.20  – the act of creating the world; Rom. 1.25  – created beings, especially animals; Rom. 8.39  – all that is created, people, powers, the universe and so on; 2 Cor. 5.17 and Gal. 6.15 – man as a creation.53 Therefore, the exact meaning of the word here has to be gathered from its immediate context. Some helpful observations can indeed be made. (1) The word cannot denote Christians, since as stated, Rom. 8.23 adds them as a further perspective to the discussion concerned with κτίσις in the directly preceding verses.54 (2)  It cannot mean humankind generally or exclusive of Christians either, since according to Paul, all people have collectively sinned in Adam,55 whereas Rom. 8.20 discharges κτίσις of that.56 (3) Due to the expression πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις in Rom. 8.22, it is still likely that the word alludes to ‘creation’ in a broad sense.57 All in all, for the above reasons, κτίσις in Rom. 8.19-22 most probably signifies the totality of non-human nature, both animate and inanimate.58 This creation was subjected to futility because of Adam’s sin, though the words ‘all have sinned’59 do 50. In a way, thus, πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις must participate in the sufferings of Jesus. 51. See the question list with references in Cranfield, Romans, 411. 52. Lexicons give an array of rather non-specific denotations. Cf., for instance, H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon:  Rev. and Augm. throughout by H.S. Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 1003; Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 572–3. 53. Cf. Col. 1.15: all that is created; Col. 1.23: all humankind. 54. Wilckens, Römer, 152–3; Cranfield, Romans, 411; Barrett, Romans, 156; Fitzmyer, Romans, 506. 55. See Rom. 5.12-14, 19. 56. See the first point advanced above in the text. 57. Michel, Römer, 266. 58. So, varyingly excluding and including angels and powers, the majority of scholars; see, for example, Michel, Römer, 266; Wilckens, Römer, 153; Cranfield, Romans, 411–12; Pesch, Römerbrief, 72; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 469–70; Fitzmyer, Romans, 506; see further references in Wilckens, Römer, 153. A number of commentators would include humankind (generally or exclusive of Christians) with or without the non-human nature, but they often refrain from commenting on oὐχ ἑκoῦσα in Rom. 8.20 (see, for instance, Stuhlmacher, Römer, 122–3); cf. the unhappy formulation of Barrett, Romans, 154: ‘. . . bondage which it [i.e. κτίσις] had brought upon itself  ’ (emphasis added). The personification of the nonhuman nature poses no problem. 59. Rom. 5.12.

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not apply to it but to humankind. The reversal of Adam’s disobedience through the obedience of Jesus that has brought ‘righteousness of life’ to all people,60 now requires that the fate of the creation should also be reversed by it being freed from its slavery of decay.61 Conveniently in line with this interpretation is the notice that Paul avoids employing the words ‘to suffer’ and ‘suffering’, otherwise in use, when talking about the experiences of κτίσις.62 According to this reading, then, the above passage’s contribution to the theodicy question can be summed up as follows: Rom. 8.19-22 does not deal with human suffering. It speaks about the mysterious ‘groaning’ of the non-human creation perceivable only to faith.63 With respect to suffering as an intellectual problem, the passage reflects the well-known Old Testament idea that suffering came into the world through Adam’s fall,64 and focuses on the undeserved subjugation of nature under the slavery of futility and decay for the sake of man. As a genuine solution to the problem it offers the death and resurrection of Jesus, through which both the non-human creation and Christians will eventually be released from their distress. For unbelieving humankind, however, there apparently is no release of suffering. Further, God is not presented as a fellow-sufferer here. Rather, the creation has to wait and suffer till the Christians’ community of fate with Jesus comes to the phase of their ‘revelation’, that is, their entering into glory. Having ascertained all this, there is still perhaps a point to be made. It is illuminating to see how the theodicean teaching of the passage would look with some other denotation of κτίσις. If, for example, the word would include all the humankind, we would result in a teaching that much more clearly speaks to our modern time. We would be dealing with innocent suffering, glancing at the great mysteries of the wickedness of the humankind and the unpredictable cruelty of the natural catastrophes.65 We would, further, be dealing with a theodicy which includes everyone and everything in a final total redemption by the removal of all suffering. 3. ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8.39) As we have seen in Chapter 1, section 1.3, a number of New Testament sayings promote the salvific death of Jesus as the foremost manifestation of God’s love 60. Rom. 5.18. 61. See Dunn, Romans, 469; Fitzmyer, Romans, 506–7. 62. See the second remark advanced above in the text. 63. Wilckens, Römer, 156. Cf. ‘oἴδαμεν γάρ . . .’ The archaic idea must not be translated to reflect the modern ecological thinking; cf. G.  O. Forde, ‘Romans 8:18–27’, Int 38 (1984): 281–5, esp. 285. Neither is it possible to apply here the modern theodicy category of natural evil. 64. See Green, ‘Theodicy’, 434–5. 65. The wider content of κτίσις extends the possibilities of speculating with the meaning of the ‘groaning’.

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towards the world66: ‘Nothing can separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus’; ‘for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son’; ‘God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us’; ‘the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’; ‘he loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood’; ‘in this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins’.67 The notion, as expressed in statements like these and in many of their contexts, also appears as addressing the problem of suffering. We once again turn to Romans 8, to its concluding section vv. 31–39. For instance, there stands: Who will separate (χωρίσει) us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 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 (χωρίσαι) us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.68

The discourse seems most feasible with respect to the modern theodicy discussion. It apparently  – namely, on the assumption that Christ died for everyone69 – offers a universal consolation, for all people to share; the tribulationlist appears to address concrete suffering of individuals, and this in a broad sense, not only as the outcome of human sinfulness but also as caused by natural phenomena; the notion even makes it possible to argue for a passionate God, a God who minds our distress and out of love has undertaken to suffer as though he were a human being, that is, has decided to become a fellow-sufferer.70 A closer look at the text, however, reveals features that substantially undo the above suggestions. The quoted section enlarges upon previous discussion in Romans 8. In particular, there is the teaching in Rom. 8.14-18 that should be considered. Having the Spirit (v. 15), belonging to God (v. 16)  and living in a community of fate with Christ (v. 17) are now at the end of the chapter viewed from another perspective. Stressing God’s love (‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’)71, Paul seeks to gain new insight into the experience of suffering which is one expression of the mentioned community of Christians with Christ. On grounds of this context, the group of those who are to be identified as ‘us’ in Rom. 8.31-39 is limited to believers alone.72 Further, the list of troubles in Rom. 66. See label (xii) in Chapter 1, section 1.3. 67. Rom. 8.39; Jn 3.16; Rom. 5.8; Gal. 2.20; Rev. 1.5; 1 Jn 4.10. 68. Rom. 8.35, 37-39. 69. See Friedrich, Verkündigung des Todes Jesu, 86. 70. See Steen, ‘Theme of the “Suffering” God’, 73. 71. Rom. 5.5. 72. Wilckens, Römer, 175.

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8.35,73 a seemingly general kind of description of concrete anguish of people, ought to be seen as depicting the eschatological distress of Christians that they are destined to go through as participants in the suffering of Jesus.74 In fact, the list spells out the sufferings that are spoken of in Rom. 8.1875 and that characterize ‘this present time’ in contradistinction to ‘the glory about to be revealed to us’. It also serves in concrete language the same purpose as the list in Rom. 8.38-39.76 But what exactly is the notion’s solution to the suffering of Christians? Looking into this question will also disclose whether the notion is promoting the view of God as a fellow-sufferer. Contrary to a common understanding,77 Rom. 8.31-39 does not seek to answer the question how it is possible to believe in a loving God. That God is love is not discussed in the passage; it is not assumed to be in dispute here, for Paul has already dealt with this issue earlier in the letter.78 Rather, the primary purpose of the passage is to assure that, the grim reality notwithstanding, God’s love still applies to ‘us’.79 In this respect, the important thing in the love of God in Christ/ Christ’s love80 is that it keeps a permanent hold on the believers. ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God.’ Key concepts here are χωρίζω, ‘to separate’, and ἀγάπη, ‘love’. As remarked, the teaching in Rom. 8.31-39 reaches back to Rom. 8.14-18. In particular, the recurrent χωρίζω in Rom. 8.35, 39 corresponds to the σύν -prefix appearing in Rom. 8.16-17.81 There the idea of Christians’ community with Christ leads to the remark that they cannot be set apart from him even when it comes to suffering; sharing the sufferings of Christ belongs to being a believer. Building on

73. For tribulation-lists in the letters of Paul, see further the discussion in point 6 below. 74. Schlier, Römerbrief, 279. But also because of their confession to Jesus: ἕνεκεν σoῦ (Rom. 8.36). Cf. Mk 8.35; 13.9; Mt. 5.112; 10.39; see A. Satake, ‘Das Leiden der Jünger “um meinetwillen”’, ZNW 67 (1976): 4–19; see even Pesch, Römerbrief, 74; Black, Romans, 121. 75. Fitzmyer, Romans, 534; see also Wilckens, Römer, 175. 76.  See Schille, ‘Liebe Gottes’, 237; Schrage, ‘Leid’, 173; Black, Romans, 121. Hence, famine and nakedness, too, contrary to be taken as examples of natural evil, feature as signalling the advent of the eschaton. 77. See, for instance, E. Lewis, ‘A Christian Theodicy: An Exposition of Romans 8:18– 39’, Int 11 (1957): 405–20, esp. 405; L. T. Tisdale, ‘Romans 8:31–39’, Int 42 (1988): 68–72, esp. 68, passim. 78. Cf. Romans 5. See below in the text. 79. One should not take the idea of a loving God and the idea that not all people at all times belong to the sphere of his love as contradictory. 80. That Jesus went to death for us of course also testifies his love. The love of God and that of Christ, for us, approximately correspond to each other in Paul’s thinking; Cranfield, Romans, 439–40. 81. Dunn, Romans, 504. Cf. also Rom. 8.32. In Rom. 8.22, however, σύν carries a different purpose; see footnote 46 above.

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the same idea, Rom. 8.35, 39 makes the point that suffering, on the other hand, cannot set Christians apart from God’s love in Christ. One is hereby reminded of Romans 5 and 6 which speak of suffering (Rom. 5.3-4), of the Spirit and love of God (Rom. 5.5-8), of being buried, united, crucified and died (Rom. 6.4-6, 8) with (σύν) Jesus by baptism and of believing once to live (Rom. 6.8) with (σύν) him.82 Hence, baptism has completely united Christians with Christ. Similarly, God’s love has been poured out into their hearts through the Holy Spirit whom they received in baptism. It is therefore actually no wonder that Paul in 8.35-39 declares that Christians cannot possibly be separated from the love of God/Christ. How, then, does this love encounter suffering? What, in concrete terms, does Paul’s declaration really mean? Commentators connect ‘love’ here with the idea of election.83 God’s love towards Christians discloses that they are the elect ones. This is the theme that is launched from Rom. 8.28 onwards and that ends up with the phrase ‘the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ in Rom. 8.39. The phrase succinctly states what Paul explained when he wrote about love the last time in the letter,84 namely, that God proved his love in that Christ died for us when we were sinners (Rom. 5.8).85 Therefore, God’s love is ‘in Christ’. God’s love is based on the salvific act of Jesus giving himself to death ‘for us’. At the same time, as laid out in Rom. 8.31-34, this is where the election of Christians is based on: God is ‘for us’86; he did not spare his only son; so (a rhetorical question:) who could bring any charge against the elect ones of God, who could condemn them? In essence and in effect, the argument of Rom. 8.35-39 is the same as in those earlier verses talking about God’s election.87 For the suffering of Christians (with Christ) might not always lead to regarding them as the elect ones but, rather, to a diametrically opposite conclusion: ‘Famine and sword and death shall be far from the righteous. But they shall pursue the sinners and overtake them.’88 82.  For such larger connection of Rom. 8.31-39 and the passage as the concluding paragraph of the section, see, for example, Fiedler, ‘Brennpunkt’; Tisdale, ‘Romans 8:31–39’, 69; R. Bieringer, ‘Aktive Hoffnung im Leiden: Gegenstand, Grund und Praxis der Hoffnung nach Röm 5,1–5’, TZ 51 (1995):  305–25, esp.  307–11; for more literature, see Dunn, Romans, 499. 83. Schille, ‘Liebe Gottes’, 232; Michel, Römer, 282, 286; Dunn, Romans, 508; Stuhlmacher, Römer, 129; Barrett, Romans, 165; Fitzmyer, Romans, 534, 536. 84. Earlier only in Rom. 1.7 which also connects God’s love and calling. 85. For the connection between Rom. 5.6-8 and Rom. 8.31-39, see Michel, Römer, 285– 7; Bieringer, ‘Aktive Hoffnung’, 311. 86.  Rom. 8.31. ‘For us’, concisely summarizing God’s salvation in Jesus (Schlier, Römerbrief, 276), recurs throughout the following verses. 87. Fiedler, ‘Brennpunkt’, 29–30. The first line in Rom. 8.31 initiates the question for the rest part of the chapter, where Rom. 8.35-39 appears as a subsection; Schille, ‘Liebe Gottes’, 232–6; Fiedler, ‘Brennpunkt’, 23–4. 88. Pss. Sol. 15:7, 8; see also, for example, Deut. 28.45, 48 (‘all these curses shall come upon you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God, by observing the commandments and the decrees that he

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Contrary to such thinking, contrary to any such feelings that hardship and distress understandably may arouse, Paul now assures the readers that the in-many-ways distressed and plagued people are indeed the loved ones and the elect ones of God.89 In fact, this had been folded already in the Rom. 5.5 statement about God’s love poured into hearts through the Holy Spirit, echoing passages such as Ezek. 11.19 and 36.26-27 and the new covenant of Jer. 31.31-34.90 Hence, the consolation offered by the teaching about God’s love in Romans 8 is, most concretely, the guarantee of belonging to God:  despite their distress, Christians are his; whatever the reality would seem to suggest, they will not be condemned since they are justified by God through the death of Jesus.91 They are simul iusti et tentanti.92 Thus, the love of God which nothing can separate ‘us’ from does not paint the picture of Jesus suffering and sympathizing with people in all their often so meaningless agony in the world, but assumes the suffering of Jesus because of people’s wrongdoings.93 commanded you . . . therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lack of everything. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you’); Ezek. 6.11-12 (‘thus says the Lord God: Clap your hands and stamp your foot, and say, Alas for all the vile abominations of the house of Israel! For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. Those far off shall die of pestilence; those nearby shall fall by the sword; and any who are left and are spared shall die of famine. Thus I will spend my fury upon them’); Bar. 2.24, 25 (‘but we did not obey your voice, to serve the king of Babylon; and you have carried out your threats, which you spoke by your servants the prophets . . . They perished in great misery, by famine and sword and pestilence’). Thus, besides the idea of being abused for the sake of God (cf. Ps. 44.23 quoted in Rom. 8.36), there was another widely known tradition of interpretation of tribulation and misfortune in the Jewish tradition. See further G. Münderlein, ‘Interpretation einer Tradition. Bemerkungen zu Röm. 8, 35f.’, KD 11 (1965): 136–42, esp. 138–40. 89. However, it is not quite as accurate to state that ‘persecution is in accordance with the love of God and is a manifestation of his will’; cf. Smith, Seven Explanations, 40. 90.  See Dunn, Romans, 252–3; see also, for instance, Fitzmyer, Romans, 530; Heckel, ‘Gottes Allmacht und Liebe’, 241. 91.  Cf. Michel, Römer, 282:  ‘Die ‘Liebe’ des Messias . . . ist bei Paulus ein zusammenfassender Ausdruck für das Heilshandeln Jesu.’ Cranfield, Romans, 442, points out that the use of aorist participle in Rom. 8.37 (διὰ τoῦ ἀγαπήσαντoς ἡμᾶς) indicates that reference is made to the historic act by which God proved his love, namely, to the saving act in Jesus (Rom. 5.6-8). 92. G. Eichholz, Die Theologie des Paulus im Umriss (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1972), 231. 93.  It should also be noticed that the New Testament writers, though largely knowledgeable of the notion about the love of God revealed in the cross of Christ, only exceptionally make use of it in addressing suffering; see the texts referred to on p. 140 above. Cf. G. Baudler, ‘El–Jahwe–Abba’, 250.

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4. ‘Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps’ (1 Pet. 2.21) A perspective to the problem of suffering entertained at length in the First Letter of Peter also observes suffering as something that inherently belongs to being a follower of Jesus. For this view, however, suffering not so much creates or is an expression of a bond between Christ and the Christians, but exhibits a virtue, something a good Christian actualizes in his or her life.94 For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.95 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even as a mischief maker. Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name.96

For an attitude like this, Christ himself has laid down an example to follow.97 He suffered innocently, and so should all who wish to be his followers.98 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten.99 94.  As seen in point 1 above, the idea of Christians’ participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus can also be found in 1 Peter; see 1 Pet. 2.24; 4.12-13. 95. 1 Pet. 2.19-20. This opening passage is directed to servants, but in the train of the argumentation of the letter the teaching applies to all Christians. See below in the text. 96. 1 Pet. 4.14-16. 97. See label (x) in Chapter 1, section 1.3: the death of Christ furnishes an example for Christians to follow. This idea is applied to many sides of life, but only 1 Peter employs it to suffering. Heb. 12.1-3 (see even Heb. 4.14-15) contains a similar teaching, but pertains rather to withstanding tests and temptations, which is a central theme in the Hebrews (see point 5 below). Heb. 12.5-11 talks about suffering using the common Old Testament motif of God chastening people like a father his children. Phil. 2.5-8 motivates, as far as can be specified, love and serving attitude among Christians; cf. Phil. 2.1-4. 98. As pointed out by scholars (E. Best, 1 Peter [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 119; Hooker, Not Ashamed, 127–9), despite the emphasis of the exemplary character of Jesus’s death, its soteriological significance is not lost for 1 Peter; see, for instance, 1 Pet. 2.22-25; 3.18, 21. 99. 1 Pet. 2.21-23.

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For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.100 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention.101

The theme ‘suffering of Christians  – suffering of Christ’ recurs thrice in the letter. Its first appearance, 1 Pet. 2.18-25, bears a number of characteristics that to some degree mark it off from the other two, 1 Pet. 3.17-18 and 1 Pet. 4.1. 1 Pet. 2.18-25 may, in fact, uphold Jesus as an example precisely of good endurance (to this end one might speculate with the exact referent of τoῦτo in 1 Pet. 2.21; cf. ὑπoμένω twice in 1 Pet. 2.20) in innocent suffering.102 The passage also addresses in particular house slaves. 1 Pet. 3.17-18 and 1 Pet. 4.1, on the other hand, do not use ὑπoμένω, but speak strictly about suffering.103 They also clearly apply the teaching to all Christians. Despite such divergences, however, 1 Pet. 2.18-25 is not to be seen to put forward a teaching quite different from the two other passages. The deed of Christ mentioned in 1 Pet. 2.21 is simply unsuited to work exclusively as a motivation for a specific group of Christians. Christ died not only for slaves but for all. Accordingly, the example he left concerns all alike.104 Further, while suffering is at least partially included in the referent of τoῦτo in 1 Pet. 2.21,105 the teaching about suffering in the other passages does not exclude but, of course, includes the idea of endurance as well. Hence, the writer may have first wanted to single out slaves whose position no doubt was particularly difficult and emphasize their endurance in suffering, but shows then that what he says to them applies without exception to the suffering of all Christians.106 Here for the first time we encounter a teaching which deals with the problem of suffering as its main concern. In doing so it seeks to respond to the hard experiences

100. 1 Pet. 3.18. 101. 1 Pet. 4.1. 102.  See T. P. Osborne, ‘Guide Lines for Christian Suffering:  A Source-Critical and Theological Study of 1 Peter 2,21–25’, Bib 64 (1983): 381–408, esp. 389–90. 103. See even 1 Pet. 4.12-13 where the suffering of Christians is juxtaposed with that of Christ. 104.  J. H. Elliott, 1 Peter:  A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 523. Osborne, ‘Guide Lines’, has put forward the idea that 1 Pet. 2.21-25 presents a step-by-step guideline for slaves who suffer unjustly. But the behavior of Jesus described in 1 Pet. 2.23 is echoed in 1 Pet. 3.9 which addresses all Christians. 105. Cf. πάσχω: 1 Pet. 2.19, 20, 21, 23; ὑπoμένω: 1 Pet. 2.20. See, for example, B. Olsson, Första Petrusbrevet (Stockholm:  EFS-förlaget, 1982), 100–1. Best, 1 Peter, 119, considers that the reference is simply to suffering. 106.  N. Brox, Der erste Petrusbrief (Zürich:  Benzinger, 1979), 132. Cf. also Grayston, Dying, We Live, 242; Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi, 102; 1 Pet. 5.9.

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of the recipients of the letter within their communities.107 The teaching displays a number of characteristics familiar from the motifs studied earlier. It is limited to Christians and their anguish. This naturally follows from the fact, equally known from earlier motifs, that it is not every kind of suffering that is relevant here but precisely what comes due to commitment to Christ Jesus108: the issue of suffering is mentioned for the first time with reference to the genuineness of the faith of the recipients109; several passages portray the characteristically Christian way of life of the recipients as the cause of their troubles110; in addition, there come phrases such as ‘for the name of Christ’ and ‘suffers as Christian’.111 Particular to 1 Peter is that it upholds such suffering as tantamount to suffering innocently.112 This leads to some interesting, new viewpoints with respect to theodicy. In the view of the letter, unjust suffering is the characteristically Christian type of suffering.113 Understandably in a way, there should not be any just cause to their suffering since this would prove them guilty of misdeeds. Considered from the perspective of theodicy thinking, however, the writer’s arguments seem to turn things upside down. What generally appears as the most incomprehensible and objectionable form of suffering114 is advocated by him as the only accountable and acceptable way. A closer look can reveal a cleverly considered strategy behind the argumentation. The toughest case is made palatable by virtue of denying the other cases all sense and justification. What credit is there in suffering for one’s own wrongdoings, the writer asks.115 None, of course, and therefore it is better to suffer doing good, if this is God’s will.116 At this point, however, the argumentation threatens to stall. Why is it God’s will in the first place that Christians should suffer? While it stands to reason both that one should not be a murderer, thief or an evildoer and that suffering that results from this kind of activity can relatively easily be regarded as accountable, it is still 107.  D. Hill, ‘On Suffering and Baptism in 1 Peter’, NT 18 (1976):  181–9, esp.  181; Osborne, ‘Guide Lines’, 382. 108. Villiers, ‘Joy in Suffering’, 80; Brox, Erste Petrusbrief, 133; Carroll and Green, The Death of Jesus, 140. 109. 1 Pet. 1.6-7. 110. 1 Pet. 2.12, 19; 3.14-16; 4.3-4. 111.  1 Pet. 4.14, 16. The writer avoids too exact expressions as to what exactly were the hardships his readers were experiencing. After all, the letter is addressed to various congregations (cf. 1 Pet. 1.1) and their situations can be expected to vary. For a short assessment of the discussion concerning the more exact nature of their suffering, see Villiers, ‘Joy in Suffering’, 66–8. 112. 1 Pet. 2.19-20; 3.14-17; 4.3-4; 4.15-16. 113. Wolter, ‘Leiden III’, 685. 114. See G. Gutiérrez, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1987), 93 (see even pp. 11–17). 115. 1 Pet. 2.20. 116. 1 Pet. 3.17.

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not equally clear how undeserved suffering can be perceived as χάρις.117 Here the particularities of the death of Christ himself offer a convenient way out118: Christ also suffered innocently,119 and this should be taken exemplarily by his followers.120 In fact, Christians are specifically called (ἐκλήθητε) to follow his example in unjust suffering. It appears unnecessary for the writer to go further than this. The writer finds no need to warrant the idea that Christ’s suffering should be imitated by the believers. Obviously for him, the idea quite effectively works in helping fellow Christians in distress, indeed even in the severest form of that, innocent suffering.121 Christians should be able to reconcile the existence of suffering in their lives by realizing that this follows the pattern set by Christ himself. Certainly, no one would question that disciples cannot expect a lot better than their Master.122 Hence, by elaborating the meaning of the death of Jesus, the teaching of the above passages from 1 Peter proposes to bring meaning to suffering and even make it appear in a beneficial light. In reality, the teaching takes the form not of a consolation but of paraenesis, something that would not immediately come to a modern mind when seeking to deal with a situation of genuine distress.123 Resulting from this double edge, the teaching readily applies to exhortations of various kinds,124 such as that slaves should be submissive to their masters,125 that everyone should refrain from retaliating to evil,126 that no one should any more live by human desires127 or that one should in the midst of suffering glorify God.128 117. χάρις (1 Pet. 2.19a, 20b; παρὰ θεῷ [1 Pet. 2.20b]) and κλέoς, ‘a credit’ (1 Pet. 2.20a). Cf. Lk. 6.33, 35. It is needless to go deeper into the question of the purpose of the concept χάρις in the context of these verses. For a discussion, see F. R. Howe, ‘God’s Grace in Peter’s Theology’, BSac 157 (2000): 432–8. 118.  See Brox, Erste Petrusbrief, 34; P. H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 106–10; Elliott, 1 Peter, 636. 119.  The letter’s use of ἔπαθεν ὑπέρ (2.21; 3.18) and παθόντoς (4.1), instead of the common ἀπέθανεν ὑπέρ (see, for instance, Rom. 5.6; 1 Cor. 15.3; 2 Cor. 5.14; cf. also Jn 11.51; 1 Thess. 5.10), underlines the argument. See ad loc. in 1 Peter some manuscripts change to ἀπoθνῄσκω. 120. Davids, First Peter, 109–10, stresses the pedant language in 1 Pet. 2.21. ὑπoγραμμός is a pattern of letter school children need to trace minutely in order to learn to write accurately. In addition, there is the metaphor of following Jesus’s footsteps. ‘Thus we are like a child placing foot after foot into the prints of his father in the snow.’ 121. See Villiers, ‘Joy in Suffering’, 84. 122. Cf. Mt. 10.24-25. 123. See Hill, ‘Suffering and Baptism’, 189; Wolter, ‘Leiden’, 685. 124.  The overall paraenetical character of 1 Peter has been widely recognized. See E. Lohse, ‘Paränese und Kerygma im 1. Petrusbrief ’, ZNW 45 (1954): 68–89. 125. 1 Pet. 2.18. 126. 1 Pet. 3.9; cf. 1 Pet. 2.23. 127. 1 Pet. 4.2. 128. 1 Pet. 4.16.

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To be sure, the writer does not intend to urge to seek suffering.129 Nevertheless, the teaching cannot accurately be pictured as leading to mitigation of suffering either. It is not likely to reduce the amount of problems in the lives of those who appropriate it. Rather, it aims to strengthen the readers so that they can prevail over the agonies they have run into.130 The talk about ‘arming oneself ’ with the attitude Christ had,131 for instance, presupposes active resolution on the part of his followers. In this way, the teaching escapes from painting a picture of passive subordination to suffering. 5. ‘Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are tested’ (Heb. 2.18) As its important contribution to interpreting the death of Jesus, the Letter to the Hebrews introduces the picture of Jesus the high priest who offers himself for our sins.132 In assuming the high priesthood, the letter argues, Jesus had to become like his brothers in every respect, even sharing flesh and blood.133 Even so he differs from us in that he is without sin, but has instead participated in something that still enables him to understand sinners134: Because he himself was tested by what he suffered (ἐν ᾧ γὰρ πέπoνθεν αὐτὸς πειρασθείς), he is able to help those who are being tested.135 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with (συμπαθῆσαι) our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.136 129. See Garrett, ‘The Patience of Job and the Patience of Jesus’, 263. 130. Villiers, ‘Joy in Suffering’, 69–70. 131. 1 Pet. 4.1. For the metaphor, see Best, 1 Peter, 150. 132. Cf. label (vii) in Chapter 1, section 1.3. 133. Heb. 2.10-18. 134.  Jesus’s sinlessness (see, for instance, Heb. 4.15) is in many ways important to the letter’s picture of Jesus as the heavenly, eternal high priest. With sin Jesus could not, for sure, be portrayed as having been made perfect (so even though τελειόω [Heb. 2.10; 5.9; 7.28] would not denote merely moral or cultic perfection; cf. D. Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection: An Examination of the Concept of Perfection in the ‘Epistle to the Hebrews’ [New  York:  Cambridge University Press, 1982], 66–73; see also Heb. 7.26-28, which connects features such as ‘holy’, ‘blameless’ and ‘undefiled’ with Jesus’s becoming perfect); not being a sinner he does not need to sacrifice for his own sins (Heb. 7.26-27); since he is sinless he can himself function as an offering to God, flawless as required (Heb. 9.14). Within the logic of the letter, the sinlessness of Jesus does not compromise his participation in the human condition; see Hooker, Not Ashamed, 113–14; cf. R. Williamson, ‘Hebrews 4:15 and the Sinlessness of Jesus’, ExpTim 86 (1974–75): 4–8, esp. 7. 135. Heb. 2.18. 136. Heb. 4.15.

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A number of questions must be considered before it can be decided whether or how this teaching in fact relates to the problem of suffering. The primary purpose of the above texts is to contribute to the picture of Jesus as the heavenly high priest.137 In enlarging upon his becoming like his brothers, the texts seek to qualify his exalted status by discharging possible suspicions of the aloofness of such a figure from the sorrowful realities of this world.138 They try to show that Jesus is knowledgeable (through his own experience) of what it is like to be a human being, of the ‘extenuating circumstances’ so to say.139 In this way, through a process of humiliation, God has made him ‘perfect’ (τελειόω) for the ministry of the eternal high priest.140 The issue of the texts appears to be not so much the suffering of, on the one hand, Jesus and, on the other, ‘us’, but his and our temptations or testing141 as well as his sympathy with142 our weaknesses. Suffering is explicitly mentioned in Heb. 2.18, but the verse’s expression πέπoνθεν αὐτὸς πειρασθείς is complicated. It can be understood to define suffering in terms of temptations, ‘he suffered by his temptations’.143 Another possibility is to translate ‘he himself has suffered (= died), having been tested’ so taking into account the expressions in Heb. 2.9 and 2.15144 and the close connection between suffering death and testing in Hebrews.145 Whatever then has been the experience of the Son of God, it is said to correspond, not to our sufferings, but to our weaknesses and testing.146 Hereby it is especially 137. See Wolter, ‘Leiden’, 685–6. 138. R. McL. Wilson, Hebrews (Basingstoke: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1987), 91; W. L. Lane, Hebrews 1–8 (Dallas: Word Books, 1991), 114. 139. At the same time, the texts conveniently account for the fate of Jesus which can be seen but as a humiliation poorly accommodated to his character as a heavenly being. There is no clear parallel in contemporary Jewish literature to the theme of the ‘moderation of feelings’ (cf. μετριoπαθεῖν) and weakness of the high priest in Heb. 5.2; see R. A. Stewart, ‘The Sinnless High-Priest’, NTS 14 (1967–68): 126–35, esp. 131–5. The theme corresponds (not being identical) to Jesus’s experiences described in Heb. 4.15. 140. Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi, 149; Carroll and Green, The Death of Jesus, 136. See Heb. 2.9-10; 5.6, 9-10. Cf. Psalm 8. For the meaning of τελειόω, see additionally footnote 134 above. 141. πειράζω in Heb. 2.18 may mean both; Koester, Hebrews, 233. For Heb. 4.15, Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon, 792–4, suggests πειράω, ‘to experience’. 142. Lane, Hebrews, 108, argues for the meaning ‘to share the experience of someone’ for the infinitive συμπαθῆσαι in Heb. 4.15. 143.  J. Moffat, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1924), 39. 144. ‘The suffering of death’ and ‘fear of death’ respectively. 145. Lane, Hebrews, 52; see also Koester, Hebrews, 233. See Heb. 5.7-9, which reflects the Pauline view of the death of Jesus as an act of obedience (cf. Rom. 5.12-21; Phil. 2.5-8). Similarly, Heb. 2.17 states the faithfulness of Jesus. Cf. even ὑπέμεινεν σταυρόν in Heb. 12.2. 146. M. Bachmann, ‘Hohepriesterliches Leiden: Beobachtungen zu Hebr 5 1–10’, ZNW 78 (1987): 244–66, esp. 257; Wolter, ‘Leiden’, 686.

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our proclivity to sin that lies on the letter’s horizon of interpretation.147 The idea in a natural way attaches to the function of Jesus as the high priest who expiates the sins of the people. In fact, except for Heb. 10.32, the letter never explicitly speaks about the suffering (πάθημα or πάσχω) of the believers or people in general. In reference to Jesus, again, suffering amounts to his death.148 Therefore, as much as the texts can be said to deal with suffering, they specifically concern suffering resulting from testing and temptations that we encounter in this world and from our weaknesses that make it difficult for us to abide by God’s will. Still, it would probably be wrong to claim that only the agonies of remorse are relevant here. For it is not only yielding to temptations that can result in suffering (i.e., in conscience), but also or in particular struggling against them.149 These specifics of the teaching of the above texts obviously affect its relevance to the theodicy question. To be sure, the teaching aims to console, but the consolation focuses on a very particular kind of suffering. Hereby the group of people that is addressed is also limited to those who can construe their anguish in terms of being weak and therefore in need of God’s mercy. The gist of the consolation, again, is the assurance of sympathy on the part of Jesus the heavenly high priest, which is something that as its ultimate purpose works for our salvation. Since he has experienced testing as severe as ours, he has learnt to sympathize with our weaknesses and help those who are being tempted. Thus God has made him the perfect ‘source of eternal salvation’ and ‘a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek’.150 And the consolation culminates in the encouraging 147. Attridge, Epistle to the Hebrews, 140; E. Grässer, An die Hebräer: Teilbd 1. Hebr 1-6 (Köln: Benzinger, 1990), 253–5. This is evident already on the basis of Heb. 4.15. Having stressed that Jesus has been tested in everything just like us, the writer hurries to point out that Jesus, nonetheless, managed through all that without sin. The underlying thought is that this is not the likely outcome with us. On the contrary, whatever the testing or temptations, due to our weakness they are likely to result in us falling into sin. But the great high priest of ours knows this, the writer assures, and can sympathize with us. Therefore we do not have to be afraid to boldly seek God’s forgiveness (Heb. 4.16). Cf. also ἐλεήμωv in Heb. 2.17. 148.  W. Michaelis, ‘πάσχω, κτλ’, TWNT 5 (1954):  903–39, esp.  916–18, 933–4. For πάσχω, this is clear in Heb. 5.7-8; 9.26; and 13.12. As to Heb. 2.18, see the discussion above in the text. For πάθημα, there is the expression τὸ πάθημα τoῦ θανάτoυ in Heb. 2.9, which together with ‘to taste death’ conditions even Heb. 2.10 (Grässer, Hebr 1-6, 122). Bachmann, ‘Hohepriesterliches Leiden’, 254–7, argues that the suffering of Jesus should also be seen as a process, that is, as denoting not only his death but his experiences in earthly life in a broader sense. In doing so, however, Bachmann must connect suffering with the testing of Jesus (thus furnishing a parallel to the testing of Christians), which would support the first of the alternative translations to πέπoνθεν αὐτὸς πειρασθείς in Heb. 2.18 (see above in the text). 149. See Heb. 5.7. 150. Heb. 5.9, 10.

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exhortation151:  ‘Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.’152 Likewise, only with significant qualifications is it possible to picture Jesus here as a fellow-sufferer. To say that the letter presents Jesus as participating in the sufferings of the world would be too sweeping a statement, as is apparent already in the light of the above remarks. One important observation should be added to these. The teaching of Hebrews specifically addresses people who are distressed because they are guilty of something or because they are in the danger of becoming guilty.153 Accordingly, the motif of Jesus ‘sharing our experiences’154 serves to assure the believers that they need not to be afraid to draw near the throne of grace and receive forgiveness.155 In the modern theodicy discussion, however, the idea of Jesus (and God) as a fellow-sufferer is used to excuse God for allowing suffering in the world.156 And, as what then mostly threatens reason, the discussion is especially fuelled by the dilemma of meaningless, innocent suffering. 6. ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Cor. 12.9) Within a larger section where Paul speaks ‘in foolishness’ and ‘being insane’157 about the many religious experiences and his great labor as an apostle,158 there finally appears a short excursion to suffering in his life.159 Materially, the excursion draws on quite the same examples as in the tribulation-lists that we have come across earlier.160 However, the means of dealing with such suffering that Paul here briefly introduces is significantly different. Paul has kept boasting about his abundant spiritual experiences and in order to give his readers a plausible reason to believe that he has still not fallen into conceit he tells about his troubles too. 151.  The discourse of Hebrews exhibits a keen interplay of theological reflection and paraenesis (A. Vanhoye, ‘Hebräerbrief ’, TRE 14 [1985]:  494–505, esp.  498). In this way, somewhat in the manner of 1 Peter, even teachings of consolation can swiftly run into a hortatory section. See also Heb. 2.17–3.1. 152. Heb. 4.16. 153. Thus it is understandable that the overall question about the existence of suffering is of no relevance to the texts under scrutiny. 154. See footnote 142 above. 155. See Grässer, Hebr 1–6, 257, 262. 156. Cf., for instance, Forsyth, The Justification of God, 125: ‘No reason of man can justify God in a world like this. He must justify Himself, and He did so on the Cross of His Son.’ 157. Cf. 2 Cor. 11.17, 23. 158. 2 Cor. 11.1–12.10. 159. See 2 Cor. 12.7-10. Within the larger section, suffering is also discussed in 2 Cor. 11.23-30. 160. For Rom. 8.35 and 2 Cor. 4.8-9, see points 3 and 1 above. Other catalogues appear in 1 Cor. 4.10-13; 2 Cor. 6.4-10; 11.23-29; and Phil. 4.12.

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Here he especially names the thorn in the flesh given by God161 to prevent him from being too elated. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I  am weak, then I am strong.162

Much effort has been put into determining the more exact import of the ‘thorn’ (together with the expressions τῇ σαρκί and ‘a messenger of Satan’) – in vain.163 No attempt to that end needs to be taken here, however, for 2 Cor. 12.9-10 clearly broadens the issue to concern suffering in more general respect.164 Namely, besides keeping Paul humble the thorn appears to have a further purpose. This is introduced in the quoted oracle of the Lord and amplified then through the subsequent verses.165 These reflect the ‘epistemology of the cross’ Paul has written about in 1 Cor. 1.18-31166: what this world considers foolish is wisdom to God, 161. Paul beseeches God in order that the thorn would leave him (2 Cor. 12.8). Likewise, it is God who he sees as having given the thorn (J. Zmijewski, Der Stil der paulinischen ‘Narrenrede’: Analyse der Sprachgestaltung in 2 Kor 11, 1–12, 10 als Beitrag zur Methodik von Stiluntersuchungen neutestamentlicher Texte [Köln: Hanstein, 1978], 368; V. P. Furnish, II Corinthians: Translated with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary [Garden City: Doubleday, 1984], 528; C. Wolff, Der zweite Brief des Paulus an die Korinther [Berlin:  Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989], 246), since the purpose of the thorn was precisely for Paul’s good (note the repeated ἵνα μὴ ὑπεραίρωμαι in 2 Cor. 12.7). 162. 2 Cor. 12.7-10. 163. See E. Güttgemanns, Der leidende Apostel und sein Herr: Studien zur paulinischen Christologie (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 162–4; P. E. Hughes, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 442–8. 164.  R. Bultmann, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 227. 165. F. Lang, Die Briefe an die Korinther (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 349; Martin, 2 Corinthians, 416. 166.  See label (xi) in Chapter  1, section 1.3. For some of the numerous studies on the 1 Corinthians passage, see U. Wilckens, Weisheit und Torheit:  Eine exegetischreligionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zu l. Kor. l und 2 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1959); R. S. Barbour, ‘Wisdom and the Cross in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2’, in Theologia Crucis–Signum Crucis, ed. C. Andresen and G. Klein (Tübingen: Mohr, 1979), 57–71; J. M. Reese, ‘Paul Proclaims the Wisdom of the Cross: Scandal and Foolishness’, BTB 9 (1979): 147–53; Merklein, Studien zu Jesus und Paulus, 285–302; H. H. D. Williams, The Wisdom of the Wise: The Presence

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what this world deems weak is the power of God. Both in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, the teaching about the new way of knowing helps Paul to clarify his work as an apostle167 and discloses the true way of boasting.168 In 1 Corinthians, in particular, it also accounts for the peculiar character of Christ’s congregation: Consider your own call, brothers and sisters:  not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.169

This is the lesson of the cross of Christ, and it forms the basis of the teaching here in 2 Corinthians about Paul’s attitude towards suffering too.170 For this reason, what Paul now tells about himself would seem to be intended as applying to others as well. There is a keen scholarly discussion going on concerning to what extent Paul perceives his personal experiences of suffering and their interpretation to be applicable to common believers.171 Even scholars who think that Paul does not elsewhere draw any clear line between the suffering of Christians and his own suffering172 would deny this with respect to 2 Corinthians 10–13 which deal with and Function of Scripture within 1 Cor. 1:18–3:23 (Leiden:  Brill, 2001). For the phrase ‘epistemology of the cross’, see C. B. Cousar, ‘Paul and the Death of Jesus’, Int 52 (1998): 38– 52, esp. 44–5. See also Rom. 1.16. 167. This forms the overall context of 2 Cor. 12.7-10. For 1 Cor. 1.18-31, cf. 1 Cor. 2.1-5. 168.  1 Cor. 1.28-31. In 2 Cor. 12.9 the choice of words, ‘boasting (καυχάoμαι) in weaknesses’ (see also 2 Cor. 11.30; 12.5), is aimed against the ‘boasting’ of the ‘false apostles’; cf. 2 Cor. 10.12 (συνίστημι); 11.12-13, 18. See Furnish, II Corinthians, 532–3, 539. Cf. Jer. 9.23-24 referred to both in 1 Cor. 1.31 and 2 Cor. 10.17. N. Willert, ‘The Catalogues of Hardships in the Pauline Correspondence: Background and Function’, in The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism, ed. P. Borgen and S. Giversen (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1995), 217–43, esp. 237–8, underlines this reference and the theme of boasting in seeing connection between the first chapters of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians 10–13. 169. 1 Cor. 1.26-28. 170. Furnish, II Corinthians, 550. See even B. Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 464. 171.  See Wolter, ‘Der Apostel und seine Gemeinden’. The thesis of a constitutive difference between the suffering of the apostle and that of the congregation has especially been advocated by Güttgemanns, Der leidende Apostel. 172. So, for example, in 2 Corinthians 4; see Schrage, ‘Leid, Kreuz und Eschaton’, 158– 60; Lambrecht, ‘The Nekrōsis of Jesus’, 331–2; J. Lambrecht, ‘Paul as Example: A Study of 1 Corinthians 4,6–21’, in Ekklesiologie des Neuen Testaments, ed. R. Kampling and T. Söding (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1996), 316–35, esp. 330–5; cf. even G. Hotze, ‘Gemeinde als

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the special case of Paul’s apostolic authority.173 If this is correct, the relevance of the reflections on suffering pursued below in the text must, as a matter of fact, be reduced to Paul alone, or maybe to other apostles like him. In other words, the teaching of 2 Cor. 12.7-10 would have very little to contribute to the theodicy question. However, as I  have shown above in the text, there is a possibility of interpreting the teaching as pertaining to a broader scope of people. In 1 Cor. 1.18-31 Paul applies the ‘epistemology of the cross’174 to all believers, and this although even there the character of Paul’s apostleship is at issue (see 1 Cor. 2.1-5; cf. 1 Cor. 2.6-16). The passage does not specifically mention suffering, but centres, inter alia, on ‘weakness’, which is also one of the key concepts in 2 Cor. 12.7-10.175 If this interpretation is correct, then, 2 Cor. 12.7-10 can be taken to instruct us to regard sufferings as God’s way of investing us with what is his, with his power, wisdom and so on. The passage thus teaches us to transform the experience of distress.176 And Paul describes how he himself has learnt to do this. He boasts of his weaknesses since these mean that Christ’s power will dwell in him. He ‘delights in’177 insults, anguish, persecutions and distress. But ‘human suffering in and of itself does not display divine power’.178 Therefore Paul adds the phrase ὑπὲρ Χριστoῦ. The idea here is not that his delight comes from finding the troubles as incomparable to what he has in Christ. This is not the import of the phrase, even though Paul elsewhere can cherish a similar thought.179 Instead, the phrase denotes the cause of the various sufferings; they are the result of his avowal to Jesus.180 Hence, the source of delight is indeed the troubles themselves since they mean actualization of God’s power abiding in Paul.181 They are real, no question about that,182 and yet, they still somehow mysteriously have a meaning completely different from what they would rank in natural estimation. Even Paul himself had Schicksalsgemeinschaft mit Christus (2 Kor 1,3–11)’, in Ekklesiologie des Neuen Testaments, ed. R. Kampling and T. Söding (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1996), 336–55, esp. 355. 173. See Willert, ‘Catalogues of Hardships’, 224. 174. Cf. the new theodicean situation. 175. See also, for instance, Martin, 2 Corinthians, 422, 423; Bultmann, Korinther, 230. Lang, Korinther, 350, reasons: ‘Die Begründung: “Wenn ich schwach bin, bin ich stark” (vgl. Phil 4, 13) weitet den Gedanken von V. 9a in einer paradoxen Sentenz auf alle Glaubenden aus.’ It should additionally be considered that in Rom. 5.3-4, 8.17-26, 31-39 (see here points 1–3 above) Paul makes no difference between his and the recipients’ sufferings. 176. Furnish, II Corinthians, 550–1. 177. Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 404. 178. Martin, 2 Corinthians, 423. 179. See point 2 above. 180. Hughes, Corinthians, 454; Wolff, Korinther, 250. See also Phil. 1.29. 181.  Hughes, Corinthians, 452; Lang, Korinther, 350; F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 249. 182. See Zmijewski, ‘Narrenrede’, 370–1.

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found it hard to grasp this: ‘Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me . . .’183 Though speaking about the concrete anguish of an individual sufferer, the teaching may, due to its certain characteristics, be seen to bear even on the more speculative question of the existence of suffering. In fact, two mysteries seem to come together here, the mystery of suffering and the ‘mystery of Christ’.184 They appear to require an identical way of thinking:  the ability to perceive foolishness as wisdom and weakness as power.185 In applying the ‘epistemology of the cross’, aimed to come to terms with the suffering of Christ, even to the suffering of the believers,186 Paul obviously sees the two sufferings as connected.187 The mystery of God’s choice to save the world through a crucified Christ is connected to the mystery of God allowing his own to suffer.188 How or why is clearly no more our business to know or inquire, but we are referred to the concept εὐδoκέω which is commonly used of divine determination not needing any justification.189 Accordingly, ‘it pleased (εὐδόκησεν) God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe’.190 Having learnt a further lesson in this thinking, Paul can say: ‘I delight (εὐδoκῶ) in weaknesses, in insults, in anguish . . .’191 Whatever the level that the teaching can be employed on, concrete tribulation of individuals or the mysterious existence of suffering, it understandably has meaning only to believers. Only those who can accept the scandal and foolishness of the cross and the new way of knowing that it implies can find any peace in the teaching. They should no doubt also be able to accommodate themselves to the idea, recurrent in so many of the motifs that have been studied, that the fate of the followers will necessarily take the form of that of their Master.192 Their lives, 183. The reference here may be to Jesus’s Gethsemane prayer ‘remove this cup from me’, repeated three times; see Mk 14.32-42; Wolff, Korinther, 248. 184. Eph. 3.4; see also Col. 1.27; 2.2; 4.3. 185. Cf. here as well, the new theodicean situation. 186.  Thus, this stands if  – as is assumed in the present treatment  – Paul regards the teaching as applicable, not only to himself, but to all Christians; see the discussion above. 187.  K. Y. Lim, ‘The Sufferings of Christ Are Abundant in Us’ (2 Corinthians 1.5):  A Narrative Dynamics Investigation of Paul’s Sufferings in 2 Corinthians (London: T&T Clark International, 2009), 174. 188. This Christological motivation is explicit in 2 Cor. 13.3-4 (see Wilckens, Weisheit und Torheit, 48; Wolter, ‘Der Apostel und seine Gemeinden’, 538) which, however, adopts a slightly different aspect to the dichotomy ‘weakness–power’. 189. For this usage of εὐδoκέω (especially in 1 Cor. 1.21), see G. Schrenk, ‘εὐδoκέω, κτλ’, TWNT 2 (1935): 736–48, esp. 739. 190. 1 Cor. 1.21. NRSV: ‘God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.’ 191. 2 Cor. 12.10. 192. Thus, the role of a fellow-sufferer devolves upon Christians, not Christ.

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too, will be seen as favoured, not afflicted, by God only when gauged from the perspective of the wisdom of the cross.

5.3  Conclusions To put it briefly, practical theodicean motifs were found, motifs seeing the suffering and death of Jesus as a possibility for developing means to cope with, mitigate or in some other way deal with the experience of suffering in life. In the view of the New Testament writers, there was indeed purpose in the suffering and death of Jesus enough to give purpose to the suffering of others. This overall statement requires, however, a number of qualifications to be properly taken and applied. The agenda of questions laid out in section 5.1 was precisely meant to serve such differentiation. An inventory of the questions made and answers obtained is now due.193 Question A: To what extent do the texts that deal with the death of Jesus meet the problem of coping with suffering? The review of texts of this chapter was not meant to be all-inclusive. Still, it is clearly ascertainable that the death of Jesus forms no obvious pathway to the practical problem of suffering, that is, to finding out means to cope with suffering. In the New Testament, the subject matter of the suffering and death of Jesus does not altogether readily lead to discussing the concrete and acute suffering of others. On the contrary, these instances appear as exceptional, especially when compared with the frequency of the theme of the death of Jesus in general.194 The cross of Christ can therefore not be characterized as something inherently prone to considerations about coping with suffering. The texts dealing with the death of Jesus that did address the practical problem of suffering, again, almost exclusively took the issue up as a link in the chain of the larger theological argument pursued.195 Only once was the problem of coping with suffering focused on for its own sake.196 This observation corroborates the point made above: the death of Jesus has, in the New Testament, no explicit practical theodicean function. 193. For the following, the reader is referred to the short amplifications of the questions in section 5.1. 194. As can be seen, soteriological interpretations of the death of Jesus (cf. Chapter 1, section 1.3 labels (i)–(iv)), so significant in the history of Christianity but also already in the New Testament (Barth, Der Tod Jesu Christi, 38), appear not to have been particularly relevant to accounting for the problem of coping with suffering. On the other hand, certain interpretations do lend themselves to deliberation of these questions (cf. labels (vii)–(xii)). A  number of them can be grouped on the grounds of having a markedly social function. 195. See points 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. 196. See point 4 above.

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Question B: How do the texts seek to resolve the problem of coping with suffering? The solutions to the problem of coping with suffering advanced by the texts neatly align according to different interpretations of the death of Jesus. With one exception, each one of the relevant interpretations has given occasion to one distinct approach to dealing with suffering.197 A synopsis of the different solutions seems as follows: #1: The path of Jesus shows that our suffering is not meant to last; in addition, suffering attests to our communion with Jesus and as such assures us of once also sharing his glory; or alternatively, suffering with Jesus is something required from us if we wish to share his glory too. #2: The slavery of decay and futility under which even the non-human creation ‘groans’ has already been reverted by the act of obedience of Jesus the new Adam and will eventually be completely undone when the children of God ‘reveal’ in glory. #3: Whatever odds can be against us we should know that we are not the condemned ones but the loved ones of God as is proven by the fact that he let his only son die for us. #4: We should regard innocent suffering as God’s grace and as our true calling, giving reason for rejoicing, since such is the example left by Christ himself for us to follow. #5: Since Jesus has experienced testing as severe as ours, he has learnt to sympathize with our weaknesses and help those who are being tempted. #6: The cross of Christ teaches us wisdom according to which weakness sufferings drive us to is the condition where God’s power is made perfect. The majority of the approaches are based on an eschatological solution. In ##1–3, suffering is basically something that will once finally leave us. The solution in #1 also invests the present suffering with some purpose, while the two others merely acquiesce to it having to be so (though not always without giving this a reason; cf. Adam’s fall as assumed in the solution in #2). Even in #5, the solution has an eschatological aspect (Jesus has learnt to be the perfect heavenly high priest through the work of whom people are saved). Still, there is a strong emphasis on mitigation of the kind of suffering that results from our weaknesses. In a somewhat opposite manner, the solution in #6 seeks to teach us means to deal with, not suffering as resulting from weaknesses, but weakness that is caused by sufferings. Finally, the solution in #4 provides us with means to tackle the most difficult case, innocent suffering, by boldly claiming it as our duty to suffer undeservedly. Hence, the end of suffering is foreseen, suffering is given purpose, the cause of its existence is reflected, it is being mitigated and the means to handle it are 197. The idea of Christians’ participation in Jesus’s death can be seen to have arisen more heterogeneous reflection. See point 1 above.

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developed. We may also note that in some solutions suffering was seen as an occasion for paraenesis.198 Counterbalancing the somewhat qualified remarks put forward with respect to Question A, thus, we now view quite a richness of approaches to the problem of coping with suffering. Question C: From what angle do the texts view the problem of coping with suffering? Clearly, in the texts that were reviewed suffering does not feature as an intellectual problem, as the problem of why on the whole there is evil in the world. The texts were overwhelmingly oriented to meet the concrete situation of the sufferers, to address suffering here and now. Only in #2 could we find some thought given to the more speculative question of the existence of suffering in general. Something of interest is surely the observation that the intellectual problem has featured more prominently as having been reshaped and reduced to a concern for the existence of suffering in the lives of the believers.199 Hereby we arrive at a topic reflected in the next two questions. Question D: Are the texts concerned with the suffering of some specific group or of people universally? The suffering addressed by the texts is, with the exception of #2 which deals with the suffering of non-human creation, that of Christians. Sufferings of those outside the group of Christians or of people in the general regard do not enter the discussion. Question E: What kind of suffering do the texts count in? As suggested already by the previous point, the suffering that is addressed is mostly seen as resulting from being a Christian. Quite generally in the theology of the New Testament, this would be tantamount to suffering innocently. However, only 1 Peter (see #4) explicitly characterizes the suffering as such. #5 diverges here by being concerned with the (potential) state of being guilty. #2 exhibits the archaic idea of the mysterious ‘groaning’ of non-human creation, perceivable to faith alone. The suffering of Christians, or more accurately, the distressing experiences of theirs that the writers seek to come to terms with, also have different faces. In #1 and #4 the suffering remains rather unspecified. We can mainly think of persecutions or some sort of discrimination Christians have run into ‘for the sake of Christ’. #5 holds quite an original definition of suffering, as much as it is possible to talk about suffering at all. In question are the testing and temptations that Christians are subject to in the world as well as the weakness of theirs that makes it likely that they will fall into sin. Of course, such things can be thought of as leading to experiencing suffering. In #3 and #6 the suffering is explicated through 198. Cf. points 4 and 5 above. 199. Cf. above point 4 (‘Christians should be able to reconcile the existence of suffering in their lives by realizing that this follows the pattern set by their Master’) and point 6 (‘the mystery of God’s choice to save the world through a crucified Christ is connected to the mystery of God allowing his owns to suffer’).

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tribulation-lists, though it is doubtful whether these are meant as point-for-point descriptions of the experiences of Christians. #6 also has a peculiar angle:  the sufferings produce weakness that is welcomed as a blessing. The limitation of the discussion about suffering to concern Christians and Christian suffering (i.e., suffering that results from avowal to Christ Jesus) alone is nothing unusual. Generally, in the New Testament world, suffering was considered the appropriate lot of ungodly people. It was seen as their due divine punishment, not in need of any explanation or ‘theodicy’. The point is worth consideration for modern theodicy enterprises that aspire to gain from New Testament views. A modern interest is also at issue in the last question posed to the texts. Question F: Can a theodicean motif serviceable to the modern discussion about Jesus/God as a fellow-sufferer be located in the New Testament? The answer derived from the present chapter’s survey of individual practical theodicean motifs is clearly negative. The New Testament does not present Jesus as our fellow-sufferer. Rather, those who follow him are ‘called’ to be his fellowsufferers. Further comments on this point will be presented in the concluding Chapter 6.

Chapter 6 G E N E R A L S UM M A RY O F C O N C LU SIO N S

The task of this study has been to examine the death of Jesus as a source of New Testament theodicy thinking. In order to carry out the task, I  have pursued investigation in four different chapters, each set with its own focus. Chapter  2 sought to put the New Testament theodicy thinking in context, namely, to survey the theodicean ideas of both Greco-Roman and Jewish religious-cultural milieus. Chapter 3 focused on the death of Jesus as having presented a theodicy problem to his early followers. Chapter 4 paid attention to how the interpretations of Jesus’s death have affected the New Testament understanding of theodicean questions. Last, Chapter 5 concentrated on the practical side of the issue, that is, on how the New Testament responses to the death of Jesus can be seen to help in coping with suffering. Here are the main results and conclusions of the discussions in the chapters.

6.1  Theodicy as an Issue of Consequence The course of research first brought us, in Chapter 2, to investigate theodicy thinking in the New Testament’s Greco-Roman and Old Testament-Jewish contexts. Here I established a repertoire of motifs, expressions and concepts that would serve in assessing theodicean ideas in the New Testament. It became obvious that many elements of this rich repertoire were common to both Greco-Roman and Jewish trains of thought. And as would be seen, they would prove to be common, at least on the surface, to the New Testament theodicean discourse, too. The specifically Jewish perspective to theodicean ideas is to be found in the belief that there was an exclusive, divinely originated covenant between the one God and his one people. In the covenant, God guaranteed his providentiality, both promised and threatened to act according to the action-consequence principle, claimed to be just, revealed himself as the God of the Jews and imparted the knowledge about his supreme will that would lead them to happiness and safety from evil. These characteristics of the covenant, inter alia, inevitably produced a very accentuated understanding of divine providence. By the same token, the covenant also resulted in aggravated theodicean difficulties, harsh experiences of life calling into question its many providential aspects. Nevertheless, covenant

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theology even produced an original solution to the difficulties thus created. In the form of an eschatological covenant, God would change human beings so that they would unwaveringly follow his will. This would assure a constant time of blessings and the cessation of all suffering and distress.

6.2  The Theodicy Problem of Jesus’s Death Reassembled Chapter 3 asked if and how the followers of Jesus living in the aftermath of the cross saw Jesus’s death as forming a theodicy problem. At first, a criticism of the usual scholarly formulation of the problem, building on the incongruence between Jesus’s life (pious) and death (ignominious) and perceiving vindication by resurrection as the solution, was in order:  Generally in Judaism, we do not find God’s justness questioned because of crucifixions, not even of just and pious people. The incongruence the usual formulation builds on was not an issue that would have sent the Jews of the time to theodicean throes. Furthermore, and related to the said thing, the contemporary Jewish hermeneutics did not know positive interpretations of crucifixion. The Jews of the time simply could not conceive of God vindicating crucified people and therefore, with regard to the followers of Jesus, no alternative such as seeking to turn the calamity of the cross into a victory existed. In particular, it is completely anachronistic to presuppose that the followers of Jesus had no other choice than to cling to Jesus, doing whatever they could to explain his ignominious death for the better. On the contrary, in the light of the contemporary crucifixion hermeneutics it would be much easier to think that they had no other choice than to let Jesus go. Hereby it becomes clear that the incongruence between Jesus’s life and death neither caused a theodicy problem nor urged the followers to seek for a solution which they would then have found in the form of the conviction that God had vindicated Jesus after all. Instead, it was this very conviction that caused the theodicy problem. The triumph of the crucified one, expressed in particular in the resurrection experiences, contradicted common theodicean logic and led the followers of Jesus into deep trouble. They struggled both with their own need to understand the situation and when explaining to others how – considering the extraordinary claim made about a crucified man  – they were not seeking to blur God’s justice. This struggle materialized in the abundant and variegated New Testament interpretations of the death of Jesus. It is, in other words, the issue of theodicy the New Testament writers wrestle with when seeking to give meaning to Jesus’s death. The historical circumstances as well as contemporary theodicean ideas thus suggest a makeup of the theodicy problem different from that exhibited by the usual scholarly formulation thereof. The new formulation of the problem focuses on the incongruence between Jesus’s crucifixion and his vindication. The New Testament interpretations of Jesus’s death, then, furnishing a novel hermeneutics of crucifixion, a positive one, emerge as the solution to the problem.

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6.3  The New Testament and the New Theodicean Situation The New Testament meaning(s) of the death of Jesus, then, formed the starting point of Chapter  4 dealing with the intellectual grasp of theodicean questions. How is theodicy to be understood in the light of God’s saving act in Jesus, that is, in the light of the cross of Christ? Here the theodicean background and language spelled out in Chapter 2 was put into use. Taking the Jewish theodicean leitmotif of the covenant as the centre of attention, a penetrating view into the New Testament understandings of the theodicy of the cross of Christ emerged. Generally, in the New Testament, the basic theodicean role of the covenant has been transferred to the person of Jesus and God’s work in him. This work, God’s saving act in Jesus, has also created a new theodicean situation. For in and by the cross of Christ, revenge and punishment have been removed from God’s theodicean outlook. It is worth observing that both the transferal of the theodicean role of the covenant to Christ Jesus and the new theodicean situation this has created correspond to the results of the investigations of Chapter  3. Ultimately, they also offer a solution to the theodicy problem of Jesus’s death, as formulated in that chapter. In the new theodicean situation, many common principles of theodicy thinking stand in need of radical reinterpretation. Here are some of those that were scrutinized in greater detail. First is the nature of God’s care as informed by the cross of Christ. At the risk of giving the impression of being dysteleology in disguise, the New Testament teaches that those whom God sides with are in fact bound to suffer innocently. Christ having done so, his followers cannot but have a similar path to walk. The second pertains to the question about the theodicean role left for keeping God’s will. Paul’s answer, although not put forward in an all too straight manner, is straightforward. After God’s saving act in Jesus, keeping God’s will serves a theodicean purpose no more. A  similar answer could be located in 1 John, although without an equally clear theodicean framework. All in all, and third, the New Testament writers still wish to uphold the continuance of the theodicy of God’s covenantal acts of old through his new act in Jesus. In order to argue to this end, Paul offers a lengthy discourse trying to show that the promises God formerly made to Israel are carried on by God’s new salvific act on the cross of Christ. In fact, according to Paul, this new act will eventually result in the consummation of the promises. Neither Paul nor any other New Testament writer utilizes what would seem to have been the most obvious way to urge that the theodicean purposes the covenant was invested with continue in the cross of Christ: the covenantal re-solution put forward in some Old Testament prophetic texts (with a reception history in the intertestamental literature). Admittedly, Paul and John, for example, do reflect on these texts and appear to use elements of the re-solution. However, we cannot speak of a proper or comprehensive reliance thereon.

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6.4   Paul’s Theodicy and Theology A greater part of Chapter 4 was reserved for an analysis of Pauline texts. For Paul, the actual novelty bringing about a transformation of God’s theodicean outlook is the saving act in Jesus. Nevertheless, Paul also comes with a novel definition of the theodicy problem itself: considering the sinful nature of all people, God’s justice simply equals judgement, thus leaving humanity in a hopeless situation.1 Together, then, these two tenets demarcate the new theodicean situation: Had God acted according to justice, no one would have been saved. Instead now, out of forbearance and love God has sent his Son and implemented justice, doom, in him. Therefore he can refrain from judging all humankind without engendering a theodicy problem, that is, being a god where there is no justice. In this new situation, the theodicean control of human behaviour, integral to the Mosaic covenant, is abolished for good. From now on, people will not heed God’s will in order to find the better road – clear from trouble and leading to blessings – to climb.2 They heed it simply because they want to do so and even because they now do so instinctively. This is the new reality or being of those who through baptism and faith have become part of God’s saving act in Christ. Nevertheless, Paul is also clearly aware that the new reality of the new theodicean situation is not without problems. For instance, it is not altogether easy to perceive why it will not open doors for a freely antinomian behaviour. Perceiving this is also made difficult by the fact that, as Paul acknowledges, the new reality only applies to the ‘new creation’ of the believers, not to their ‘old human being’. So, in contradiction to their new reality, Christians can also sin, failing to heed God’s will. Further, the absence of any theodicean motivation for keeping God’s will also means that the conventional signs of a good and blessed road become absent or at least blurred: Irrespective of and even contrary to hardships that meet believers, they can trust that God is with them.3 In fact, the followers of Christ are called to suffer,4 and their being blessed not necessarily takes the shape of happiness and gratification but can mean weakness and suffering.5 The new theodicean situation as good as undoes the difference between dysteleology and a teleological course of life. Hence, as Paul (too) sees it, a great deal rests on the saving act in Jesus. It deeply alters the theodicean outlooks of both God and human beings. It radically changes people, those who become Christians, in their relation to obedience, keeping God’s will. Finally, this theodicean revolution also casts new light on the election 1. In other words, all that humankind justly deserves is doom. 2. Thus, emulating again the famous sentence of Seneca, seeing ‘good men of whom the gods approve toiling and sweating, with a steep road to climb, and bad men, on the other hand, enjoying themselves, surrounded by pleasures’ (De Providentia 1:6). 3. Rom. 8.31-39. 4. Rom. 5.3; 8.17; Phil. 1.29. See also, for example, 1 Pet. 2.20-21. 5. See point 6 in Chapter 5.

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of Israel. Eventually, ‘all Israel’ will be saved, but her road to salvation conceals an almost inscrutable providence. Before God ultimately fulfils the promises he gave her, and so proves himself just, she will stumble. There will be but a remnant left, namely, those who accept to believe in Christ. For God’s justice does not exempt the Jews. Outside the saving act in Christ, it must mean judgement and doom. At this phase, however, the Gentiles will come in. So, the first disobedient will be included first while the last disobedient will be included last. Yet, all will be included on an equal basis, according to the election of grace. For Paul, the new covenant in Christ is substantially different from the old one for it takes place in a new theodicean situation. Accordingly, baptism and faith in Christ become a great divider between people, the relation to obedience lies on a completely new basis, dysteleology prevails at least outwardly, bad things can – or better – will happen even to those in God’s favour and the first will be last, Israel only after the Gentiles. Nonetheless, the covenant in Christ integrally continues God’s saving acts of old. God stays loyal to all his promises, both past and present ones alike. For this providence of mercy, he is justified by the virtue of the saving act in Christ.

6.5  The Modern Theodicy Discussion Owing to its purpose, namely, to probe individual practical theodicean motifs, it was Chapter 5 that yielded the most specific conclusions. I will not summarize and repeat them here. Instead, I will now try to carry out the promise that I made in Chapter 1, and that I repeated in Chapter 5, regarding comments on the modern theodicy discussion and the role the cross of Christ has been given there. This discussion is appropriately pursued at this point even for the reason that during the course of research it was Chapter  5 where I  mostly, though of course to a limited extent, was able to pay attention to the modern questions. Looking now at the whole of the present study, I can but continue the path I took in Chapter 5 and point out results that exhibit a great incompatibility with modern thinking. The New Testament views of the cross of Christ as a source of theodicy fly in the face of numerous modern theodicean conceptions, indeed, especially when it comes to practical approaches, that is, coping with suffering, which are perhaps also the more approachable ones by popular thinking. Accordingly, it is difficult for me to see how the modern theodicy discussion could have had any use of them. For instance, with respect to the question crucial for the modern understanding of the cross of Christ, that is, that of Christ being a fellow-sufferer, roles are cast reversely by the New Testament writers and modern theodicists. The New Testament underlines Jesus’s followers’ shared lot with their Master, namely, that they are destined to suffer together with him; whereas the modern idea that in Jesus God has undertaken to suffer together with the suffering world is not a notion for which support can be found in the New Testament. Instead, what the New Testament has to offer is the message – good news – that in Jesus God has undertaken to suffer

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because of the sins of the world. In other words, in the view of the New Testament writers, Christ died on the cross not because of the distressfulness but because of the sinfulness of humankind. A fundamental difference in seeing the relationship between God and human being is in play here.6 Further, the question that today is again experienced as the gist of the theodicy problem, namely, why bad things can happen to good people and good things to bad ones, is not relevant at all in the New Testament. In the new theodicean situation depicted by the New Testament, God’s providence can take on a dysteleological appearance and seemingly even invert the action-consequence principle. Specifically, Paul thinks that all people are sinners and would as such deserve but the eternal punishment. In addition, the cross of Christ does offer conciliation for the whole world. Christ has paid the ransom for the sins of us all and prepared salvation from under the wrath of God. However, its consolation the cross offers only for those who believe in the crucified. In my view, this is the clearest obstacle for a modern application of the New Testament theodicean motifs that ensue from the death of Jesus: their exclusivity, that is, their being restricted to concern Christians alone. Critical theodicists would probably also ask the question how all this works. They would probably point out that ‘no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children [of Auschwitz]’.7 The raison d’etre of this viewpoint would lie in the interest of preventing scholarly treatments of theodicy from remaining all too academic, callous and without respect for those truly suffering in our world. The aim of the present study has, of course, not been to put forward a theodicy; the aim has been purely descriptive. Still, one should also recognize that the first-century CE writers of the New Testament both cannot and need not be enlightened by the cruelties of the modern world. They experienced well competitive things in their own time and were, to be sure, more ‘in touch’ with suffering than most of us who today venture to say something about the issue. Even so, some have been bold enough to characterize God’s handing over of his Son as divine child abuse.8 Where is the respect for the archaic sufferer here? Finally, the New Testament writers look on the one who had been pierced and find God’s victory at the foreground. God was in Christ who suffered first but won then an unfathomable victory over all enemies. The modern theodicy thinkers, again, look upon the cross wishing to find a God who remains there crushed and bleeding. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example, opined, though not in Auschwitz but in Flossenbürg, that only the suffering God can help.9 Hence, here as well one 6. In other words, the Bible seeks not the justification of God before the suffering that appears in his world but the justification of man before the righteous God. See Geyer, ‘Zur Bewältigung des Dysteologischen’, 234–5. 7. Greenberg, ‘Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire’, 23. 8. Carlson Brown and Parker, ‘For God So Loved the World’, 26. 9. Bonhoeffer, Widerstand und Ergebung, 242.

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can discern a crucial difference of perspective between ancient and modern theodicists. Nonetheless, there is still perhaps some evidence available that the New Testament view of God as victorious in Jesus could work even as a modern theodicean solution to coping with suffering:  When the hosts of hell assail, and my strength begins to fail, Thou who never lost a battle, stand by me!

Charles Albert Tindley (1851–1933), who wrote this rhyme, never saw the Second World War, but he was a son of a slave and certainly knew his share of sufferings. After this rumination, by which I hope to have paid my debt to the modern theodicy discussion for having arrested my interest in the current subject matter, I still for a moment return to the exegetical task of the present study.

6.6  Theodicy of the Cross? Is there a New Testament theodicy of the cross? If the investigations pursued in the various phases of this study have basically hit their target, the following considerations can be put forward as an answer. The New Testament theodicy of the cross – admittedly sometimes discernible only through combining a number of discrete elements – struggles with the injustice God has become guilty of when vindicating a godforsaken man. Hence, at the bottom there is an experience of an explicit, irreconcilable conflict within God’s actions. Due to its nature, the conflict is approached from the point of view of victory. Yet, this viewpoint made it no less problematic. Consequently, the cross of Christ has definitely served as a source of theodicy thinking and as such has generated a rich assemblage of ideas that were deemed peculiar already at the time of their initiation:  teleology which looks like dysteleology, the view of suffering as leading to weakness which is to be welcomed, each Christian as having died on the cross together with God’s Son, the creation as suffering until Christians’ community of fate with Jesus comes to the phase of their entering into glory etc. Indeed, the theodicy of the cross comprises many ideas as unique as its core problem. However, it is also true that many more familiar theodicean motifs have made their way to it, for example, the suffering of the righteous, God judging the world according to his justice at the end of the time, that forgiveness is divine and so on. Some scholars have pointed out that the scandal of the cross needs recovering.10 Two thousand years of interpretation that has sought acceptance for the message about the crucified one has made modern minds accustomed to the cross and thereby unable to sense its truly disgraceful character. In my view, almost the same 10. Green and Baker, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross.

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can be said about the theodicy of the cross. Due to the long display of the New Testament interpretations of Jesus’s death, we have lost sight of the peculiarity of the core theodicean problem and the many theodicean motifs that issued from it. I would venture to say that some substantial part of recovering the scandal of the cross depends on rediscovering the theodicy of the cross.

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INDEX action-consequence principle 26, 26n.59, 43n.187, 104, 105 apparent deviations from 37 covenantal re-solution 44 covenant belief 35, 96, 161 divinity and holiness 31 explanations 37–41 forgiveness 30 monotheism 43 New Testament 81, 166 saving act 113 struggle 48 Testament of Moses 50 validity 54, 96–9 visible actualization 39 wicked prosper 38 Akkadian text 28 apocalypticism 85n.25, 126 Auschwitz 7, 166 baptism 91n.61, 105–7, 124, 142, 164, 165 Barth, G. 15 cause-effect principle 19–20 ‘children of the God’ 131, 135–9 Christ care in 89–95 continuance in 114–25 cross of (see cross of Christ) as guarantee 82–9 knowledge of 123, 124 living with 95–114 participation in death 14 sacrifice 13 Cicero 19 condemned to death 59, 71, 82n.2, 97, 103, 104, 108 contemporary Judaism 59–69 coping with suffering theodicean motifs 130–56 understanding and 1–4 ways for 129–30

co-suffering 3–11, 31 Cotta 19 Council of Chalcedon 6 covenant care 89–95 and Christ 82–9 as guarantee for God’s care 82–9 keeping 95–114 nature of 25–34 problem and solutions 34–47 providence and 17–55 struggle 48–54 and theodicy 23–34 theodicy of 114–25 covenantal re-solution 44–7, 51–4, 118– 25, 127, 163 covenant-making 44, 47, 118 covenant-obedience 105–9, 120–2 covenant theology 119, 122, 127n.265 cross in Judaism 60, 69 cross of Christ coping with suffering 1–4, 129–56 co-suffering 3–11, 31 Jesus death as theodicy problem 57–80 in modern theodicy 4–11 New Testament interpretations of Jesus death 11–16 Paul and theodicy 81–127 providence and covenant 17–55 crucified Messiah 5n.28, 9, 94 crucifixion hermeneutics 59–72, 78, 162 crucifixion-vindication theodicy problem 98n.98, 102n.116 cursed by God 61–3 death of Jesus condemned to death 59, 71, 82n.2, 97, 103, 104, 108 New Testament interpretations of 11–16 participation in 14 as theodicy problem 57–80 way of knowing 14

182

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delay of the Deity 21, 101 De Natura Deorum (Cicero) 19, 20n.16 De Sera Numinis Vindicta (Plutarch) 19n.14, 21 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume) 18n.5 Docetism 73, 74 dualism 19 Dunn, J. D. G. 133 dysteleology 39, 78, 85, 89, 94, 96, 126, 164, 167

God-effected obedience 85, 106, 109, 110, 120–2, 124 God’s love 139–48 God’s will 28–30, 35, 42, 85–9, 96, 111, 113, 120, 146, 164 good fortune 38, 87–9 Gospel of Peter 74 Greco-Roman antiquity 22 Greco-Roman thinking 27, 86 Greco-Roman world 17–23 groaning 135–9

“early interpretations of Jesus’ death” 61–2 Eleazar 64, 68 ‘election of grace’ 115, 117, 165 Epicurean 18, 21, 23, 24 Epicurus 18, 19, 21, 22 epistemology of the cross 14, 152, 154, 155 eschatological covenant 45–6, 85, 90, 106, 109–13, 113n.189, 118–24 eschatological obedience 107, 120, 121 eternal covenant 83 evil origins of 41–3 victory over dominion of 13

heavenly high priest 14, 149, 150, 157 Hellenism 17n.1 hermeneutics of Cross 69–76 crucifixion 59–72, 78, 162 historicity of Jesus’s death 15 Hooker, M. D. 15 Hume, D. 18n.5

Flaccus 67 forgiveness, God’s 30–2, 88n.41 formulation of theodicy problem 57, 59, 70, 79, 94n.78 Fraikin, D. 117n.210 God care 82–9 covenantal care 32–4 disfavour and punishment 85–6 favour and blessings 85 as fellow-sufferer 138, 141, 151, 159 forgiveness 30–2, 88n.41 of the Jews 28, 34, 161 and the problem of suffering 1–7, 11, 43, 54, 130, 136, 144, 156 promises to Israel 114–18 retribution 2 righteousness 86–7 saving act 81, 85, 88, 89, 99, 113–15, 121, 125–7, 164 trustworthiness 117

individual theodicean motifs 130–56 In Flaccum (Philo) 67 intellectual problem 1, 87, 88, 139, 158 interpretations based on identification 13–14 of Jesus’ death 11–16, 61–2 with social function 14 soteriological 13, 84, 95, 156 Israel/Jews and Jesus’ death 114–18 Israel/Jews and the covenant 118–25 Jeremiah 44, 45, 48, 51, 106 Jesus and the covenant 82–9 death and resurrection 57, 58, 70, 73, 77, 78 death and suffering 129–56 death and theodicy 57–80 and providence 82–3, 94, 117 sinlessness 148n.134 suffering and suffering of others 129–56 Jewish context, theodicy in 23–34 1 John 109–14 Josephus 22, 23, 62, 63, 65, 68, 69 Jubilees 5, 51, 52n.234 Judaism 17, 17n.1, 22–54, 59–69 jurisdiction 32, 93 juxtaposition 30, 62, 63, 111