PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

they come out of thin air, so that they are bound to their bodies as to a prison, drawn
in by a certain natural enticement; but being released from their fleshly bonds, as set
free from a long slavery, they then rejoice and rise upwards. And this is similar to the
opinions of the Greeks who hold that good souls have a dwelling beyond the ocean.
164
[The Pharisees say that] every soul is immortal, but that only those of good people are
removed into another body; while those of the simple are subjected to everlasting
punishment.
The Psalms of Solomon, arguably representative of Pharisaic thought, only once refer to
resurrection, and there the reference is not unambiguously to a bodily experience:
Psalms of Solomon 3:11-12
The destruction of the sinner is forever
And such a person will not be remembered when God visits the righteous.
This is the fate of sinners forever;
But those who fear the Lord will be raised to eternal life.
And their life will be in the light of the Lord, and it will not go out.
It is worth considering which views of the plight of the dead may have been influential for
those in the first century who had yearnings for Roman respectability, a yearning generally
present in Corinth, 80 and specifically notable in the church. 81 One obvious resource is
80 Sophia B. Zoumbaki demonstrates that in this period, Corinth represented a centre of elite
Greek desire for Roman respectability: “Connections of the upper Peloponnesian class with the
most prominent colonists, especially of Corinth, could be equally useful both for economic and
political benefit. It is not a mere coinsidence [sic] that wealthy and ambitious Peloponnesians,
who obtained Roman citizenship as a first step necessary for the fulfilment of their dreams of
pursuing a Roman career, were in closer contact with the colony of Corinth, where they indeed
held colonial offices”. Sophia B. Zoumbaki, “The Composition of the Peloponnesian Elites in
the Roman period and the Evolution of their Resistance and Approach to the Roman Rulers,”
Tek 9 (2008): 25-52; 45.
295