Corpus-Paul

[David Garland <David_Garland AT baylor.edu>]

That 2 Corinthians is a compilation of letters has almost become orthodoxy, 
though I think it wrong.  Nevertheless, Occam's razor should lead us to 
choose the simplest solution.  John Hurd's explanation fits that criterion.  
The letters to the Corinthians were arranged in order of descending length: 1 
Cor; 2 Cor 1-9; 2 Cor 10-13.  
(Did a compiler of the Pauline corpus who arranged the letters according to 
length want Romans and Corinthians to be first and second and then feel the 
need to combine 2 Cor 10-13 with 1-9 so that 10-13 would not discombobulate 
the ordering pattern by coming before Galatians?)

But the letters were not simply attached to one another.  The missing 
conclusion to chapters 1-9, and the missing salutation and thanksgiving 
section of chapters 10-13 requires a deliberate editing by someone who 
cropped off the original opening formulas and closing benedictions.  The 
greetings and thanksgiving section in Paul's letters, however, were never 
perfunctory but an essential lead-in to the themes discussed in the body of 
the letter, and a redactor must have ignored that  function to make a 
composite letter.  The questions who did this and why are frequently ignored 
or given only perfunctory explanations that, in my opinion, strain credulity 
more than trying to makes sense of the twists and turns in Paul's thought.

David.E. Garland
George W. Truett Theological Seminary
Baylor University