Inaugurated Resurrection as a pre-Xxxxxxx View which Xxxx Rejects. Since Xxxxxx’x study appeared, almost no scholars have traced Xxxx’s own view of present resurrection to the mystery cults. Instead, another view emerged as ‘an accepted axiom of New Testament studies.’60 Scholars began to argue that inaugurated resurrection was a pre-Xxxxxxx, Hellenistic-Christian belief. However, whereas Romans 6.1–14 was previously read as a defence of inaugurated resurrection, it was now commonly read as a rebuttal of an enthusiastic and earlier Hellenistic-Christian view. Furthermore, it was often claimed that this earlier view was preserved and revived in Colossians and Ephesians (considered deutero-Xxxxxxx). According to this view, some of Xxxx’s followers (the authors of Colossians and Ephesians) revived a belief which Xxxx himself had explicitly denied in Romans 6. Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx sits on the edge of this modification thesis. For Xxxxxxxx, the ‘historical presupposition for Xxxx’s theology is not the kerygma of the oldest Church [i.e. the Jerusalem Church] but that of the Hellenistic Church; it was the latter that mediated the former to Xxxx.’61 This Hellenistic church understood baptism as similar to the initiation rites of the mysteries. Xxxxxxxx (unlike others after him) is keen to stress that Xxxx does not counter this view. Indeed, he assumes it in Romans 6.1–14. However, Xxxx does adapt this view by adding that the guarantee of future resurrection is ‘an already present resurrection which realizes itself in ethical conduct.’62 So Xxxxxxxx sees a strong ethical aspect to Xxxx’s modification. For Xxxxxxxx, though, this is still not Xxxx’s own view on the matter. According to him, Xxxx’s own view is based more on Gnostic thought: the idea of the body of Xxxxxx.63 Also, for Xxxx it is not baptism qua baptism which makes Xxxxxx’x death and resurrection available to the believer, but the proclamation of the word. Xxxx attempted to partly (though not completely) strip baptism of its association with the mystery religions and saw it as the 60 Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection, 1. 61 Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx, Theology of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1965), 1:63. 62 Ibid., 1:140. 63 Ibid., 1:141. Introduction foundation for ethical life: he did not see baptism as guaranteeing salvation (e.g. 1 Cor 10.1–12), and he saw it as subordinate to the word (1 Cor 1.17).64 Xxxxxxxx then sees the school of Xxxx continuing this thought, as seen in Colossians and Ephesians.65 So for Xxxxxxxx, Xxxx sought to partly disassociate the idea of dying and r...
