Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 Corinthians 15:12-34, If the dead are not raised
Against some who say there is no resurrection of the dead, Paul argues that then Christ was not raised either, calls Christ the firstfruits, and asks why anyone is baptized for the dead or why he fights wild beasts if the dead are not raised.
1 Corinthians 15:12-34, in every translation this tool compares.
Some in Corinth deny that the dead will rise, and Paul shows what follows: Christ was not raised either, their faith is empty and they remain in their sins. But Christ has been raised as the firstfruits of a coming harvest, undoing the death that came through Adam, and he will reign until every hostile power and finally death itself is defeated. Paul points to the puzzling practice of baptism for the dead and to his own daily risks as pointless if the dead stay dead, and warns them against bad company.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/resurrection-of-the-dead\/","n":"The resurrection of the dead","s":"Most Jews, with the Pharisees, expected God to raise the dead to bodily life at the end of the age. The Sadducees denied it. Nobody expected one man to rise ahead of everyone else.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/adam-in-jewish-tradition\/","n":"Adam in Jewish tradition","s":"The Old Testament says little about Adam outside Genesis, but by Paul's day Jewish writers spoke often of his lost glory and of the sin and death he brought into the world. Each person, they added, became his own Adam.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/powers-over-the-nations\/","n":"Rulers and powers over the nations","s":"Many Jews believed each nation had a spiritual ruler set over it, often hostile to God's people. Paul's rulers, authorities, powers and thrones belong to that picture.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/burial-and-mourning\/","n":"Burial and mourning","s":"Mourners came at once, the dead were buried the same day, wrapped in linen in rock tombs, and family carried the duty of burial. Pagan mourning, with little hope beyond a shadowy underworld, could be bleak.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-triumph\/","n":"The triumph and the arena","s":"Rome celebrated a great victory with a triumph, a parade of the general, his army and the spoils, with chained captives at the end who were killed or sold. Cities also staged shows in which condemned criminals fought or were thrown to beasts.","r":""}
Resurrection meant that the dead would be given new bodies, a hope most Judeans held (Daniel 12:2), while Greeks thought at most the soul survived (Keener; the cultural backgrounds article Resurrection). What the Corinthian deniers believed is read two ways. Wright, Keener and the article set them against a pagan world that denied bodily resurrection; Carson, Moo and Morris think they denied neither a future resurrection nor Jesus' rising, but believed "they have already been raised" in spirit and would end as they were, minus the body. Firstfruits, gathered at the start of harvest, guaranteed the rest (Keener and his notes). Arnold reads every rule, authority and power of verse 24 as hostile spirits, to be stripped of power rather than annihilated, with death the last enemy. Being baptized for the dead is a puzzle with many guesses: the Zondervan dictionary and the CSB Study Bible find a believer baptized for someone who died unbaptized the most natural, the dictionary adding that the Marcionites later did this; others suggest washing the dead. The ESV Study Bible calls it uncertain, and Keener and his notes say it is not clear that Paul approved; the dictionary doubts it.
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, comment on 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 1 Corinthians 15:12-17, 15:20, 15:29 and 15:33-34
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Corinthians 15:20, 15:29 and 15:33, and article Resurrection
- CSB Study Bible, note on 1 Corinthians 15:29
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 1 Corinthians 15:29
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 9, 1 and 2 Corinthians, The Character of Paul's Opponents in 1 and 2 Corinthians
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 12, Christ's Final Defeat of the Powers, Christ's Final Subjection of the Powers
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry baptism for the dead
