The metaphor which John uses here, likening the human body to a tent, is also used by Peter and by Paul. It is possible that it originated in reflections on the incarnation, such as John’s just quoted, but it is such a natural comparison to make that it may have been current long before. Paul, as we have already seen, uses the variant noun ‘skenos’, and Peter uses another variant, ‘skenoma’, both, perhaps, wanting to avoid confusion with ‘skene’, the Tabernacle. Paul’s two uses of ‘skenos’ occur in quick succession in 2 Corinthians 5. 1-4, where, as we saw earlier, he contrasts the ‘tent’ of a temporary human home with the heavenly home, not-made-by-human-hands, which is waiting for us when our tent is finally taken down. He then adds a second layer of metaphor, likening a tent to ‘clothing’ that is taken off at death, when we put on a new set of clothes, so that we are not naked in God’s presence. Perhaps there is an echo here of Adam and Eve’s guilty awareness of their nakedness before God in the garden of Eden after their disobedience. Not content with this metaphorical feast, Paul adds a third course, saying that “the mortal is swallowed up by life” (though Greek idiom, rather more logically, talks of ‘swallowing down’). For Paul the tent-maker this (first) metaphor of the body as a tent was a particularly natural one to use, and it is possible to trace it in two other places where the word ‘tent’ does not actually occur. In Philippians 1, after his resoundingly memorable testimony in verse 21, “for me to live is Christ, to die is gain”, he then describes how he is torn between these two impulses: to continue living, so that he can continue ministering to the Philippians, or “to die and be with Christ, which is much more better” (literally !). The word translated ‘die’ here is ‘analuo’. It is only used in one other place in the NT, but it is worth noting that it is related to ‘kataluo’, the verb used by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5.1 that I translated ‘take down’. The other use of ‘analuo’ is in Luke 12.36, where Jesus tells his disciples that they are like servants “waiting for their lord to return (‘analuo’) from a wedding”. The essential meaning of the simple verb ‘luo’ is to ‘undo’ or ‘untie’, and ‘analuo is used in Classical Greek to mean to ‘cast off’ a ship from the shore, and so to ‘set sail’ – and to ‘return’. It is possible that this is the image that Paul has in mind here: death is like casting off the moorings which bind us to this world, and setting sail to our heavenly harbour, with Jesus as our pilot. But Paul was a tent-maker, and his experience of long sea voyages was not altogether positive. Another meaning of ‘analuo’ in Classical Greek is to ‘take to pieces’, to ‘undo’, and is used most memorably in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ of Odysseus’ faithful wife Penelope, stealthily ‘unpicking’ at night the tapestry she had woven by day, since she had promised her hated suitors (who thought Odysseus was dead) to choose one of them once the tapestry was completed. Some, therefore, have thought that Paul is here (as in 2 Cor. 5) using the imagery of the bodily ‘tent’ being taken down and packed up (‘kata’ and ‘ana’ are the Greek for ‘down’ and ‘up’ respectively). ‘analuo’ gives us ‘analysis’, a ‘taking to pieces’, and Paul uses this noun in 2 Timothy 4.6 (its only occurrence in the NT), where he says that “the time of my ‘analusis’ is near”. Both AV and NIV translate this as ‘departure’, but perhaps here too Paul has a mental image of a tent being taken down and folded up. Peter is more specific when talking of the imminence of his own death. He uses ‘skenoma’ for ‘tent’, and, like Paul, uses it twice in quick succession, in 2 Peter 1.13-14: “I think it right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up to remember these things” (i.e. vv. 3-9); “for I know that the putting off of my tent will come soon, as the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me”. The word for ‘putting off’ here is an abstract noun similar to ‘analusis’, namely, ‘apothesis’. This is used only on one other occasion, also by Peter, in his first letter when talking about baptism (the ‘antitype’ of the flood), which he says is not “a putting off of dirt from the body”. For Peter, then, death was the ‘casting off’ of an obsolete and temporary covering, in the same way, perhaps, as a butterfly casts off its chrysalis.
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
SKENE 20: the tent of the body
The metaphor which John uses here, likening the human body to a tent, is also used by Peter and by Paul. It is possible that it originated in reflections on the incarnation, such as John’s just quoted, but it is such a natural comparison to make that it may have been current long before. Paul, as we have already seen, uses the variant noun ‘skenos’, and Peter uses another variant, ‘skenoma’, both, perhaps, wanting to avoid confusion with ‘skene’, the Tabernacle. Paul’s two uses of ‘skenos’ occur in quick succession in 2 Corinthians 5. 1-4, where, as we saw earlier, he contrasts the ‘tent’ of a temporary human home with the heavenly home, not-made-by-human-hands, which is waiting for us when our tent is finally taken down. He then adds a second layer of metaphor, likening a tent to ‘clothing’ that is taken off at death, when we put on a new set of clothes, so that we are not naked in God’s presence. Perhaps there is an echo here of Adam and Eve’s guilty awareness of their nakedness before God in the garden of Eden after their disobedience. Not content with this metaphorical feast, Paul adds a third course, saying that “the mortal is swallowed up by life” (though Greek idiom, rather more logically, talks of ‘swallowing down’). For Paul the tent-maker this (first) metaphor of the body as a tent was a particularly natural one to use, and it is possible to trace it in two other places where the word ‘tent’ does not actually occur. In Philippians 1, after his resoundingly memorable testimony in verse 21, “for me to live is Christ, to die is gain”, he then describes how he is torn between these two impulses: to continue living, so that he can continue ministering to the Philippians, or “to die and be with Christ, which is much more better” (literally !). The word translated ‘die’ here is ‘analuo’. It is only used in one other place in the NT, but it is worth noting that it is related to ‘kataluo’, the verb used by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5.1 that I translated ‘take down’. The other use of ‘analuo’ is in Luke 12.36, where Jesus tells his disciples that they are like servants “waiting for their lord to return (‘analuo’) from a wedding”. The essential meaning of the simple verb ‘luo’ is to ‘undo’ or ‘untie’, and ‘analuo is used in Classical Greek to mean to ‘cast off’ a ship from the shore, and so to ‘set sail’ – and to ‘return’. It is possible that this is the image that Paul has in mind here: death is like casting off the moorings which bind us to this world, and setting sail to our heavenly harbour, with Jesus as our pilot. But Paul was a tent-maker, and his experience of long sea voyages was not altogether positive. Another meaning of ‘analuo’ in Classical Greek is to ‘take to pieces’, to ‘undo’, and is used most memorably in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ of Odysseus’ faithful wife Penelope, stealthily ‘unpicking’ at night the tapestry she had woven by day, since she had promised her hated suitors (who thought Odysseus was dead) to choose one of them once the tapestry was completed. Some, therefore, have thought that Paul is here (as in 2 Cor. 5) using the imagery of the bodily ‘tent’ being taken down and packed up (‘kata’ and ‘ana’ are the Greek for ‘down’ and ‘up’ respectively). ‘analuo’ gives us ‘analysis’, a ‘taking to pieces’, and Paul uses this noun in 2 Timothy 4.6 (its only occurrence in the NT), where he says that “the time of my ‘analusis’ is near”. Both AV and NIV translate this as ‘departure’, but perhaps here too Paul has a mental image of a tent being taken down and folded up. Peter is more specific when talking of the imminence of his own death. He uses ‘skenoma’ for ‘tent’, and, like Paul, uses it twice in quick succession, in 2 Peter 1.13-14: “I think it right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up to remember these things” (i.e. vv. 3-9); “for I know that the putting off of my tent will come soon, as the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me”. The word for ‘putting off’ here is an abstract noun similar to ‘analusis’, namely, ‘apothesis’. This is used only on one other occasion, also by Peter, in his first letter when talking about baptism (the ‘antitype’ of the flood), which he says is not “a putting off of dirt from the body”. For Peter, then, death was the ‘casting off’ of an obsolete and temporary covering, in the same way, perhaps, as a butterfly casts off its chrysalis.
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