Against my better judgment, I have foolishly chosen to explore the possibility of doing a paper on the Philippians hymn (that’s Phil 2:5-11 for those who are unfamiliar). The paper is for the class The Cross in the New Testament, taught by Marianne Meye Thompson, and it primarily focuses on the death of Jesus and related atonement theories (it fulfills the New Testament Theology [NTT] requirement for the Fuller Seminary MDiv program–it’s my third NTT class). This is not simply another class paper, I should have you know. This is also intended to be the basis for my writing sample that will be sent off to doctoral programs. On top of that, I am considering submitting it as a paper for the regional religion conference in 2008 (which is conveniently meeting at Fuller Seminary). All things considered, I need to rev up all available engines on this project. Perhaps it is not wise to give my potential competition a glance at the topic of my research and my strategy, but things are at their beginning stages for this paper, so I’m not too worried about it. I don’t even know if I’m going to stick with the Philippians hymn.

Speaking of which, one who is not on the “inside” of biblical studies may wonder what the big deal is about this passage. The big deal is that there is a massive amount of scholarly literature about this small section in Paul’s epistle to the Philippians. It is believed to be one of the earliest hymns of the Christian church and, furthermore, one of the earliest compact statements of a clear christological outlook. The hymn contains the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the subsequent exaltation of Jesus by God. It is packed with theology. From my cursory understanding (as I said, I’ve only begun the research process), a large deal of the scholarly literature is focused on individual elements of this hymn; the “emptying” of Christ, for example. I am possibly narrowing my focus on one element as well, and that is the role that the death of Jesus plays in the hymn and the importance of obedience, even obedience that should be modeled by the followers of Jesus. I’m not sure how much scholarly literature focuses on this aspect of the hymn.

Another huge topic in the study of this passage is its literary form. A great deal of ink has been spilled analyzing how the form fits together and from where it comes. I have a different interest. I am particularly interested in how it might have functioned and what it might have meant to early communities of Christians, as far as we can know or guess these things. There has been a great deal written on the function of hymns generally in early Christianity, and that will be one place I will have to spend time. I am also interested in sociological studies related to communal or social memory. I believe these studies may provide a window into how the theme of Jesus’ obedient death as a model for imitation might have functioned among early believers. You may have noticed my earlier post when I declared I would be working on the memory of Jesus in the early church for this paper. This is the “angle” I’m now considering for that paper.

April DeConick has recently blogged a series of posts regarding the tendencies of communal memory. These are the tendencies she has posted about thus far:

1. Communal memory depends upon shared frames of references within a culture as it thrives on remaking the past into a history with contemporaneous meaning. [more here]
2. These remembrances do not represent the sum total of what actually happened, but are fragments of the past that have been rearranged and reconnected into a new interpretative framework. [more here]
3. [T]he process of recreating the past is ongoing for the group since it is constantly under pressure to adjust and respond to societal, political, cultural, and religious pressures that the group experiences. [more here]

She has also pointed to a collection of articles to which she has contributed. Interestingly, I actually found the book the day before noticing that she had mentioned it on her blog. It is entitled Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity and is edited by Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher. You can also find it on Amazon, where it is a “Search Inside” book, and is 30% off (at least, it is at the moment).

Again, I am not as interested in “getting at” the history behind the text regarding the historical Jesus, the historical Paul, or even this historical hymn, though there are certainly implications regarding these in my project. Nevertheless, I do think the concepts of communal memory may be helpful in exploring how the early church remembered Jesus.

All of this to say, I may just be insane. As I look back at what I have just now wrote, I am thoroughly daunted and may indeed take on a different topic. I will explore the possibility, though, and see what happens.