"Because of the Angels": Unveiling Paul's Anthropology in 1 Corinthians 11‪.‬

1 Corinthians 11:2-16 has been called "one of the most obscure passages in the Pauline letters," (1) and "a linguistic labyrinth rivaling Daedalus's and befuddling a host of would-be Theseuses," (2) and has produced a plethora of imaginative interpretations. With some reluctance, I find myself wading into the turbulent and congested debate with a novel solution to Paul's mysterious reference to angels that I believe also helps to clarify Paul's thinking in the passage as a whole. (3) My proposal, like those of many who have grappled with these words before me, looks to Paul's cultural and religious context to flesh out the possibilities of his allusions. Like them, I trace the threads of Paul's phrases to the Genesis creation accounts, as well as to the more general anthropology of the Mediterranean world. The only distinction I can claim for my interpretation is that it holds these threads together and does not leave the angels dangling by one of them. The mainstream Christian tradition has produced a compelling reading of Paul, especially with respect to the central tenets of his theology and soteriology. A significant source of the debate regarding 1 Cor 11:2-16 is that we are on less familiar ground, involving none of these relatively secure central tenets of the faith. Instead, we are in the traditionally more hazy domain of Pauline anthropology, and the even more obscure territory of that awkward term anthropogony. In such areas, it is a bit more challenging to determine what exactly orthodoxy would be; it is a subject few of the notoriously contentious Christians have thought to debate. Nevertheless, in his anthropogony, Paul is outside what would become the Christian mainstream. The Paul that speaks in 1 Cor 11:2-16 retains his stature as a major source of the Christian tradition, but of the whole tradition, both within and without the later mainstream. For, as it turns out in the end, Paul's heterodox anthropogony is completely consistent with his very rich (and orthodox) concept of salvation in Christ.