HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Corporate personality is a concept in Christian theology that was articulated by H. Wheeler Robinson. As originally formulated, it dealt with areas of the Old Testament where the relationships between individuals and the groups that they were part of were treated. For example, Achan's family was (at least in some interpretations of the text) collectively punished for a sin that is viewed as primarily Achan's alone. It has since fallen out of favour with theologians, who now favour other interpretations of the Old Testament. However, some theologians still use the idea, construed in a more narrow sense, to explain the use of "" for "in Christ" (amongst others) in the New Testament writings of
Paul the Apostle Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
. The notion of Old Testament corporate personality encompasses four things: :;identification:Individuals are never considered to be isolated from the groups that they belong to, and are often treated as representatives for, or even as wholly identified with, those groups. :;extension:The boundaries of the individual are extended to additionally encompass other people that belong to that individual. This extension can be both in space, from a king to a kingdom, and in time, from a parent to his descendants. Examples of extension include Achan (mentioned earlier),
Korah Korah ( he, ''Qōraḥ''; ar, قارون ''Qārūn''), son of Izhar, is an individual who appears in the Book of Numbers of the Hebrew Bible and four different verses in the Quran, known for leading a rebellion against Moses. Some older Engli ...
(
Izhar According to the Torah, Izhar () was the father of Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri, and was a son of Kohath and grandson of Levi, consequently being the brother of Amram and uncle of Aaron, Miriam, and Moses. No further details of his life are given by ...
's son), and David, where a leader is punished or rewarded by punishing or rewarding those whom he leads. :;realism:The relationship between the group and the individual is a real one. :;oscillation:There exists an oscillation back and forth between the group and the individual. In Pauline theology, the notion of corporate personality is largely restricted to its representational aspect. Paul's comparison between Jesus Christ and
Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as ...
is viewed, by those theologians that adhere to the notion, as an identification of Christ as the king and those people in the kingdom that he leads. Similarly, in his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul speaks of Gentiles being blessed both "in" Abraham and also "with" him—which these theologians hold to be another example of corporate personality in Paul's writings.


See also

*
Collective responsibility Collective responsibility, also known as collective guilt, refers to responsibilities of organizations, groups and societies. Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed insti ...


Footnotes

* "in thee" is the
KJV The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...
translation of the Greek. The
NIV Niv may refer to: * Niv, a personal name; for people with the name, see * Niv Art Movies, a film production company of India * Niv Art Centre, in New Delhi, India NIV may refer to: * The New International Version, a translation of the Bible into ...
uses the English translation "through you" for "", on the basis that Paul is directly quoting the promise to Abraham in
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
12:3, whose original Hebrew preposition "be" (which was translated to "" in the Septuagint) is more accurately translated in the instrumental sense of "by means of". Hence "through" rather than "in".


References


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Corporate Personality Christian theology of the Bible