Apocalyptic scholars often repudiate “salvation history,” which is that part of any theological system that tells the story of God’s involvement with Israel up to the arrival of Jesus. If you reject salvation history it is then a small step, at least rhetorically, to the claim that prior history, and God’s involvement in prior history by way of his people, Israel, are being rejected too, and we now seem to be just one further small step away from Marcion, if we are not right alongside him. In this way, the apparent rejection of salvation history by some apocalyptic readers of Paul makes them vulnerable to a charge of Marcionism, and if it isn’t full-blown Marcionism it might at least be marcionism with a small “m.”
So we can probably see by now why accusing apocalyptic readers of Paul of being Marcionites is such a serious charge. If this is true, then all right-thinking students of Paul should reject their interpretations. They should just be thrown under the bus straightaway. But there are some problems with this whole critique. First, it isn’t really accurate or fair. It tends to rest on exaggeration and misrepresentation, and this is never a good thing. But, second, and perhaps even more importantly, it obscures what apocalyptic readers are getting at when they do express concerns about “salvation history.” They—we—might overstate things here at times, making us vulnerable to a hostile characterization and ensuing critique. But we are trying to get at something very very important, and it is worth pausing and listening to these concerns to try to hear what is being said.
So, first: are apocalyptic readers of Paul Marcionites? Is there an utter disjunction between the old age and the new, with prior creation and history and the nation of Israel effectively breaking off and floating away into irrelevance?
The American father of modern apocalyptic readers of Paul, J. L. (Lou) Martyn, of blessed memory, did, admittedly, make some strong claims about the degree of discontinuity he saw in Paul between the past and the coming new age inaugurated through Jesus. But to emphasize a degree of discontinuity is fair. The new age is, well, new. If it is not to be exactly the same as the old one, something is different. Those differences will then be discontinuities. Moreover, we need some discontinuities. We need the new age to deal with sin and with death. Hence we all know that the new age will be radically discontinuous with the old one in these terms, and I’m looking forward to those. No more sin and no more death. Bring on these discontinuities! The sequence of death, burial, and resurrection, basically does contain a massive discontinuity that we tend to overlook as we tell a continuous story about. The story is continuous. The events themselves were sharply interrupted. There is nothing more discontinuous then dying, and its immediate aftermath. We cease to exist.
But, somewhat sadly, we need to observe now how easy it will be to misrepresent this position. If someone comes along and lifts various statements about the discontinuities present here out of context and then claims that this is all that apocalyptic readers say, it will make them sound like Marcionites, and this isn’t really fair. Everyone knows that there are key discontinuities between our present broken age and the glorious age to come. Everyone affirms them. We could make anyone sound like a Marcionite if we really wanted to. So we need to be fairer to apocalyptic readers of Paul than is often the case, and actually read what they say, rather than what other people say, often in a little sound-bite, about them. (Recall that scholarship done by tweets is generally done by twits.)
But a little more than mere misrepresentation is going on here. Martyn wants to be firmer at times in his repudiation of continuities between the past and the present, especially when those are freighted in terms of salvation history, and it is important to understand why.
Martyn states famously that there are no through trains from salvation history to the apocalyptic dawning of the new age. These two ages are not connected in this way in his view, whether in Paul or in reality. This has upset readers of Paul because there is some continuity here that Martyn seems to be denying. Is there no connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament (or between what I call the Tanakh and the Apostolic Writings)? Is he denying any connections here at all?
I don’t think so. He is denying something, but it isn’t everything. Martyn quotes scores of scriptural passages as he expounds Paul in his famous Galatians commentary, so clearly he doesn’t think that there are no connections at all. The OT is still very important for Martyn, and for his reading of Paul, and has things to contribute to our understanding of the apostle, he says. So does Israel in fact. So what is Martyn getting at with this inflammatory statement?
More coming soon..
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