'Of his flesh and of his bones'.

Gamma Gamaliel

Perhaps I'm dim but however many times I've read Ephesians 5:25:30 - 'For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of his bones' - I've never really noticed the bones reference until it was in the lectionary reading yesterday (23rd October).

Why do we think the Apostle Paul (or whoever wrote Ephesians 🤔) highlighted bones as well as flesh?

Is it to further emphasise the corporeal trope? Contra the Gnostics Perhaps?

It's interesting that it comes up in the context of the marriage analogy - 'concerning Christ and the church.'

What are we to make of thiscad how do we apply it?

Nick Tamen

Gamma Gamaliel wrote: »

It's interesting that it comes up in the context of the marriage analogy - 'concerning Christ and the church.'

I think you’ve hit on it. It’s a call-back to the second chapter of Genesis:

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

I strongly suspect Paul expected those reading/hearing the letter to make the connection.

It also seems possible that it’s an idiom, in much the same way that English speakers use “flesh and blood.”

Lamb Chopped

There seems to be some variation in the manuscripts that include the reference to bones (or don’t). Do you know anything about that? The versions I’ve used don’t include it.

Nick Tamen

If you’re asking me, no, I don’t know anything about it, other than the Bibles I have (which likewise don’t include it) have a footnote to that effect.

But the next verses have Paul saying “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and the church.” So the use of the Genesis language does fit.

Lamb Chopped

Oh, certainly. In fact they fit so well that I'm wondering why the choice was made to omit "and bones" from the translations I know best. I suppose I need to go look up the apparatus... Ugh.

Lamb Chopped

I found this: http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-case-for-longer-reading-at-ephesians.html

Gamma Gamaliel

Perhaps I've only noticed it now because I'm using an Orthodox Bible. It wouldn't have been in the Protestant versions I'm more accustomed to.

I'd not made the connection with Genesis 2 - which makes me feel a bit daft - so I'm very grateful to @Nick Tamen for pointing that out. It certainly fits. It might be a bit of a stretch but it also made me think of, 'not one of his bones shall be broken,' in terms of the crucifixion.

As bones provide structure, there could be some glosses on that for our understanding of how the Body of Christ functions ... but I don't want to stretch analogies too far.

Thanks also to @Lamb Chopped for looking up links on the textual aspects.

Lamb Chopped

If we're looking for stretchy things, I confess I immediately thought of the resurrection... "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Luke 24:39

The_Riv

Gamma Gamaliel wrote: »

As bones provide structure, there could be some glosses on that for our understanding of how the Body of Christ functions ... but I don't want to stretch analogies too far.

Bones provide structure. Flesh provides movement, and in one way of thinking, nourishment. Maybe those are obvious, but they're there.

Hedgehog

Lamb Chopped wrote: »

There seems to be some variation in the manuscripts that include the reference to bones (or don’t). Do you know anything about that? The versions I’ve used don’t include it.

The NET Bible has a footnote that discusses the history of it. I gather that it depends what manuscript you use as your source document. NET just goes with "members of His body" and then notes:

Most Western witnesses, as well as the majority of Byzantine mss and a few others (א2 D F G Ψ 0278 0285vid Ï lat), add the following words to the end of the verse: ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (ek th" sarko" autou kai ek twn ostewn autou, “of his body and of his bones”). This is a (slightly modified) quotation from Gen 2:23a (LXX). The Alexandrian text is solidly behind the shorter reading (Ì46 א* A B 048 33 81 1739* 1881 pc). Although it is possible that an early scribe’s eye skipped over the final αὐτοῦ, there is a much greater likelihood that a scribe added the Genesis quotation in order to fill out and make explicit the author’s incomplete reference to Gen 2:23. Further, on intrinsic grounds, it seems unlikely that the author would refer to the physical nature of creation when speaking of the “body of Christ” which is spiritual or mystical. Hence, as is often the case with OT quotations, the scribal clarification missed the point the author was making; the shorter reading stands as original.

YMMV.

Lamb Chopped

Against that, there’s Paul’s emphasis on the physical resurrection, which we are also of course connected to…

Nick Tamen

FWIW, I found this page on bones and flesh in the Hebrew Scriptures and the NT. It does say that reference to “flesh and bone” was a Hebrew idiom (similar to “flesh and blood” in English) and it notes numerous places it’s used in the OT. It also references Ezekiel and the valley of the dry bones, the requirement that no bones of the Passover lamb be broken, and the crucifixion. And it refers to this passage in Ephesians.

How much confidence should be placed in the conclusions laid out, I can’t say, but references to other usages of the phrase seems helpful.

Gamma Gamaliel

Indeed. I don't find any of that too stretchy though. Perhaps I'm more elastic than I thought... 😉

@The_Riv yes, indeed and I'm very conscious of those aspects.

What I didn't want to do was take things further by asserting than the bones represent particular ecclesial structures such as bishops and heirarchs and particular synods and councils and so on which would get a bit stretchy ... 😉

mousethief

Nick Tamen wrote: »

FWIW, I found this page on bones and flesh in the Hebrew Scriptures and the NT. It does say that reference to “flesh and bone” was a Hebrew idiom (similar to “flesh and blood” in English) and it notes numerous places it’s used in the OT. It also references Ezekiel and the valley of the dry bones, the requirement that no bones of the Passover lamb be broken, and the crucifixion. And it refers to this passage in Ephesians.

How much confidence should be placed in the conclusions laid out, I can’t say, but references to other usages of the phrase seems helpful.

I immediatly thought of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones.