“Paul’s coherent center must be viewed as a symbolic structure in which a primordial experience (Paul’s call) is brought into language in a particular way. The symbolic structure comprises the language in which Paul expresses the Christ-event. That language is for Paul the apocalyptic language of Judaism, in which he lived and thought. The symbolic structure then is the result of the translation of Paul’s primordial experience into his basal language and constitutes for him the necessary interpretation of the Christ-event. The primordial experience of the Christ-event then nourishes, intensifies, and modifies Paul’s traditional apocalyptic language. It is in this sense that I speak about the coherent center of Paul’s gospel as a symbolic structure: it is a Christian apocalyptic structure of thought—derived from a constitutive primordial experience and delineating the Christ-event in its meaning for the apocalyptic consummation of history, that is, in its meaning for the triumph of God.”
J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980 pp. 15-16
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