Atonement Texture in 1 Corinthians 5.5
Abstract
Atonement Texture in 1 Corinthians 5.5 SAGE Publications, Inc.1999DOI: 10.1177/0142064X9902107102 V. George Shillington Concord College/University of Winnipeg 169 Riverton Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R2L 2E5, Canada The abundance of studies on I Cor. 5.5 bears ample testimony to the vexing problems associated with this Pauline text.' Not least among the problems is the severity of the language of ritual sentence meted out to the immoral member at Corinth. Is there a plausible horizon implied in the text that helps us read Paul's stem language of exclusion sympathetically ? This article will attempt to answer that question by positing a textual context for I Cor. 5.5 in the biblical-Jewish tradition of atonement, in which a sin-bearing sacrifice is 'handed over' to a desert-dwelling figure, Azazel, to cleanse Israel of its sin. It will be argued ( 1 ) that this textual context is indeed implied, and (2) that this setting best explains the 'dynamistic ceremony'2 represented in the texture of 1. The following sampling illustrates: J. Cambier, 'La chair et l'esprit en I Cor V.5', NTS 15 (1968-69), pp. 221-32; A.Y. Collins, 'The Function of Excom munication in Paul', HTR 73 (1980), pp. 251-63; Anthony C. Thiselton, 'The Meaning of