"Description: First Corinthians 15:56, ""The sting of death is sin, and
the power of sin is the law,"" is both puzzling and neglected. It is
puzzling since there appears to be no precursor in 1 Corinthians to the
law-critical statement found there. It is neglected because of its size.
Nevertheless, the short verse offers the opportunity to analyze in a
rudimentary state Paul's law-sin notion that appears full-blown in
Romans, and the absence of a polemical setting allows scholars to
examine a law-critical statement issued during a polemical lull. In The
Law and Knowledge of Good and Evil, Vlachos weighs attempts to explain
the presence of 1 Cor 15:56 in 1 Corinthians and argues that the Genesis
Fall narrative, where the tempter plied his seductions by way of the
commandment, provides the theological substructure to Paul's
understanding of the law's provocation of sin. In doing so, Vlachos
contends that Paul reaches the historical high water mark of his polemic
against the salvific efficacy of the law by locating a law-sin nexus in
Eden, and, contrary to some recent perspectives on Paul, he argues that
the edenically informed axiom in 1 Cor 15:56 suggests that Paul's
fundamental concern with the law was rooted in primordial rather than
ethnic soil. While studies of Paul and the law have tended to bypass
Eden, The Law and Knowledge of Good and Evil breaks ground by moving the
argument beyond Second Temple Judaism to the Genesis Fall account, where
the prohibition against partaking of the knowledge of good and evil led
to the knowledge of sin. About the Contributor(s): Chris A. Vlachos is
Ph.D. Program Administrator and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Ancient
Languages and New Testament at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. He is
a co-author with Marvin R. Wilson of 'A Workbook for New Testament
Greek: Grammar and Exegesis in First John' (1998)."
