This paper will address the lacuna in Pauline scholarship regarding precisely what sort of “deadness” Paul (or whomever) envisioned in Ephesians 2:1, 5 (cf. Col 2:13). I will argue that Paul is best understood as participating in contemporary Platonic discourse regarding moral psychological weakness, and thus that ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασιν καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν refers metaphorically to human incapacity to achieve self-mastery by overpowering inhibitive inclinations to consistently carry out good intentions.
The scholarly tradition displays either an inattentiveness to precisely what “dead in transgressions and sins” entails or a transposing of this phrase into foreign categories from later theological debates about the extent of human depravity. This paper aims to provide a more precise reading of this phrase in two ways: First, I will utilize the schema of metaphorical mapping to evaluate proposals (and uncritical implied readings) from past and present interpreters of Ephesians. More specifically, the notions of source and target domains, frequently associated with Conceptual Metaphor Theory but not tied to any strict methodological approach, provide a helpful framework for analyzing what Paul’s language could entail. In this passage Paul aims to illuminate the moral-spiritual condition of human persons (target) by means of the conceptual category of death (source); analysis of these domains facilitates precision regarding what aspects of the latter are being mapped onto the former. Conceptual theories of metaphor invite attentiveness to metaphorical dynamics without threatening the substantial purchase of Paul’s claims about reality or imposing an alien framework that predetermines interpretive possibilities. Second, having cleared ground and provided a basis for closer analysis, I will re-situate the text within its own historical and literary contexts and thus confirm which potential metaphorical correspondences are activated by the sentences in question. The recent work of Emma Wasserman has challenged popular “apocalyptic” readings of Paul’s language of death and sin in Romans 6-8 precisely by tending to metaphorical dynamics within a reading of Paul vis a vis philosophical voices in the Platonic tradition (e.g., Plato, Philo, Plutarch). The same insights have not yet been applied to related phrases in the disputed letters Ephesians and Colossians but promise to provide similarly fresh and challenging proposals.
(Although I think this proposal stands on its own as a helpful contribution to meaningful dialogue, I might also mention its relevance to our theme. While hamartiology is not a point of explicit focus within the Nicene Creed, every model of salvation relies on a prior conception of sin, and no assessment of sin in the New Testament is sufficient without close attention to the text(s) addressed in this paper. Therefore, in addition to its intrinsic value to all interested readers of Paul or Ephesians, this paper will benefit larger conversations regarding the church’s understanding and articulation of the saving significance of Jesus Christ.)