I’ve been doing a little work on the history of “apocalyptic” in Pauline scholarship, and I’ve got this phrase stuck in my head that I thought I read in J. Louis Martyn somewhere but can’t find it. It goes something like “There was no salvation history before the cross”. There are surely several places that it could be from–essays in his Theological Issues or in his Galatians commentary. I didn’t find it there in my quick skim through key sections. There are a few phrases close in meaning though not in wording in his ‘Events in Galatia: Modified Covenantal Nomism versus God’s Invasion of the Cosmos in the Singular Gospel: A response to J. D. G. Dunn and B. R. Gaventa’ in J. M. Bassler (ed.), Pauline Theology volume 1: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991), pp. 160-179, esp 171-76. Anyone have an idea where this is, or if I’ve just created it in my head, or if someone else said it (possibly Käsemann)?
Also, as a side note, there is no wikipedia page for Martyn. Seems like a hole that someone who knows some of his history should fill in.
Saturday, 19 May 2012 at 7:06 am
Don’t put such an item in Wikipedia; it will only be vandalised by a troll who will delete material out of pure spite. Put it on a blog post that is archived by Archive.org, where it will remain as it was written.
Friday, 1 June 2012 at 1:05 am
Hello, Ben,
Here are three proposed conceptual matches from J. Louis Martyn’s major writings. The second and third ones may be what you are seeking.
“. . . [I]n writing to the Galatians Paul addresses the issue of time in terms clearly apocalyptic. What time is it? It is the time after the apocalypse of the faith of Christ, the time, therefore, of God’s making things right by Christ’s faith, the time of the presence of the Spirit of Christ, and thus the time in which the invading Spirit has decisively commenced the war of liberation from the powers of the present evil age” (*Galatians*, p. 104).
“(5) It follows that when Christians live as though the effective opposite of the flesh were the Law, they abandon life in the creation that has now been made what it is by the advent of Christ and of his Spirit. It is they who are not living in the real world. For the true war of liberation has been initiated not at Sinai, but rather in God’s apocalypse of the crucified one” (*Galatians*, p. 573).
“(5) It follows that when the Galatians follow the Teachers, beginning to live as though the effective opposite of the Flesh were the Law, they show that they have abandoned life in the creation that has now been made what it is by the advent of Christ and his Spirit. It is they who are not living in the real world. For the true war of liberation has been initiated not at Sinai, but rather in the apocalypse of the crucified one and in the coming of his Spirit” (*Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul*, p. 121).
If these are not what you need, please let me know.
–John