Two Articles for Publication

Time flies - next week marks the final week of class for the seminary. In terms of my personal research,I managed to squeeze in some time over the past few weeks to get two articles ready for publication . I am glad that the articles are now out of my way, and I can move on to other research project.

The first article is on "Paul's Use of Temple Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence: The Creation of Christian Identity" that will form a compendium of essays to be published by T&T Clark, hopefully in time for SBL Annual Meeting in November. In this article, I argue that Paul creatively draws on the symbolic universe of the Christ-community by employing the temple imagery in the Corinthian correspondence. By doing so, Paul uses the temple imagery powerfully in his appeal to realign the community to the ethos of the gospel of Christ in the formation of a distinct Christian identity. What emerges then from a the use of the temple imagery is a vivid and extraordinary image that holds together a number of different notions such as community identity, the building up of community, and the appearance of the community to the outsiders.

The other is a short article on "οἵτινες καταγγέλλουσιν ἡμῖν ὁδὸν σωτηρίας (Acts 16:17): Is Paul Proclaiming The Way or A Way of Salvation?" This article argues that the absence of the article before the phrase ὁδὸν σωτηρίας should be taken seriously. Such construction can be taken to indicate either a definite or an indefinites nuance, as suggested by the Apollonius' Canon. A close examination of how the word ὁδός and σωτηρίας are used in Acts demonstrates that the phrase ὁδὸν σωτηρίας should rightly be translated as "a way of salvation" and not "the way of salvation" (as translated in the many English translations such as the ESV, KJV, NASB, NET, NIV, NKJV, and RSV, amongst others). Seen from this perspective, I argue that the slave girl was in fact proclaiming in her shouts that Paul was merely preaching a way of salvation, and NOT the way of salvation. This would have been confusing and misleading, to say the least, to the hearers. It is tantamount to a complete distortion of the content of Paul's message. As such, Paul has no choice but to perform exorcism on her. As such, Paul was not merely deeply troubled by the source of the proclamation which is from Satan, as understood by most commentators. Rather, Paul was deeply troubled over the content of the message of the slave girl that directly challenged the gospel and thereby caused confusion among the hearers.