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corpus-paul - Re: Opponents in 1&2 Corinthians

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  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT intergate.bc.ca>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Opponents in 1&2 Corinthians
  • Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 22:16:40 -0700


Frank,

There is nothing IMPOSIBLE about the reconstruction that you have offered.
It is not impossible that Paul had incomplete or misleading information
when he wrote 1 Cor. Nor is it impossible that 1 Cor failed and that Paul
subsequently received more accurate information to which he responded in
another two letters. Nor is there any strong reason why Paul should not
employ different tactics in each of these letters, even thought the
opposition that he faced was the same. And while it would be strange for 1
Cor to fail but 2 Cor 10-13 to succeed (if the opposition is the same), it
is not inconceivable. My problem with your reconstruction is not that any
element of it is impossible, but that you require such a large multiplicity
of assumptions. Any hypothesis becomes progressively less likely with
every additional assumption that it requires.

My point is a simple one: placing 2 Cor 10-13 before 1 Corinthians allows
us to explain the data with fewer assumptions than are required when it is
placed after 1 Cor.

>> Why make things complicated when they can be simple?

>Given the fact that by the time of 1 Cor or Corinthian letter C Paul is
dealing with
>multiple reports which he now fully believes, and given that there can be
people
>coming and going to Corinth whom Paul doesn't mention (perhaps he wants to
protect his
>sources from letter D onwards), and the fact that the factions didn't
disappear,
>simplicity is not at the essence of the Corinthian situation!

You have missed the point. I am not saying that there is any inherent
reason why a missionary's interactions with any particular church should be
simple. The point is that hypotheses should be judged according to the
combined weight of the assumptions that they require to explain the data.
If the data in 1 & 2 Corinthians can be explained by a simple, compact
sequence of events, then that sequence is far more likely to be correct
than any one complex reconstruction, because fewer assumptions are
required. If the events that lie behind the letters were in fact highly
complex, it is indeed a remarkable fluke that the evidence that happened to
come down to us allows a much simpler reconstruction.

Richard Fellows
Vancouver
rfellows AT intergate.bc.ca





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