Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - Re: 2 corinthians

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: 2 corinthians
  • Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 09:03:24 -0300

Jim West wrote:
I have a theory about the composition of 2 corinthians which does away with
the fragmentary nature of many hypotheses.  here it is- please chop it to
little pieces....
I guess my initial reaction is to ask, only a bit puckishly, whether you are describing Paul as an apostle or whether Paul has become a member of a circus, swinging and doing gymnastics up in the air in a big tent for the entertainment of crowds!  It seems to me, quite honestly, that instead of chopping up Pauline letters you have chopped up Paul.  If the situation in Corinth (and his knowledge of it) changed so radically during the composition of 2 Corinthians, why would Paul -- who seems to do rhetoric so strongly and so well in 1 Thess and Gal and Romans -- keep all of this as one letter?  And what would Paul hope to accomplish rhetorically or in terms of mission strategy by sending this strange duke's mixture to Corinth, a congregation deeply troubled and highly confused?  If Paul has already written 1 Corinthians he knew that factionalism was the order of the day there.  Would it be to Paul's rhetorical advantage to write a letter destined to increase the confusion in an unstable congregation?

In the same letter you have got Paul writing a letter trying to cement a reconciliation (and how did this reconciliation take place, by the way?) and having sent the "letter of tears" and recounting the reaction to it, then you have Paul subtly defending himself, then you have Paul telling the Corinthians to "go apart and be separate" from the world, then you have more about reconciliation, then you have what still seem to be two fundraising letters in 2 Cor 8 and 9.  This is followed, in the same letter, by Paul writing a letter that is the polar opposite of reconciliation.

I think the problems that your theory will have are the same that plague all theories that keep 2 Cor 1-9 or 2 Cor 1-13 as a single letter.  In 2 Cor 1:17 Paul seems to mention the charge that he was vacillating in the past, based on changes in his travel plans.  If your theory were correct, it would be hard to imagine that Paul were doing anything but vacillating.  Here the vacillation, however, is not between letters but within the composition of the same letter.

Frank+

Frank W. Hughes
Codrington College
Barbados


  • 2 corinthians, Jim West, 06/23/1999
    • <Possible follow-up(s)>
    • Re: 2 corinthians, David Reist, 06/24/1999
    • Re: 2 corinthians, Frank W. Hughes, 06/24/1999

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page