Corpus-Paul

["Martin Eldred" <joyluthn AT mtaonline.net>]

Dear Members:

 

This is my first post on our discussion group.  I would like to "pick your collective brains" if I might.

 

The main area of my Pauline research has centered around the Corinthian corpus and more specifically, II Corinthians.

 

One issue that I have been tracking, on and off for the past few years revolves around the hypothesis that this letter is actually a compellation of letters.  I am generally convinced by Bornkamm's "partition argument" (cf. "The History of the So-Called Second Letter to the Corinthians", NTS, vol VIII).  Furnish, in his AB commentary, supplies a different, but compelling version of the partition therory.

 

The arguments have been there for a long while and don't need repeating here.  I assume that anyone doing serious Corinthian study has at least had to consider them.  My main question is, if we accept these theories, and divide the letter into a seeming hodge-podge, then how do we explain how they can to be in the order they are in our canonical II Corinthians?  Who was the redactor and why did he/she arrange them this way?  I can find no literature that really deals with this in depth.  Bornkamm touches it, but to my thinking, leaves the issue unresolved.

 

Is any one else here familiar with articles or larger works that take this issue to task, or are their personal theories that would enhance my own?   This will help my own research greatly.

 

Thank you.

Rev. Martin W. Eldred

Joy Lutheran Church

Eagle River, Alaska