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

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  • From: "Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Opponents in 1&2 Corinthians
  • Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1999 06:59:10 -0300

            . . .  .  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.
I don't see what the problem is, unless your own assumption is that the same opponents did the same things all the time, or that Paul must respond to the same opponents in the same way all the time.  This would indeed make for simpler reconstructions, but I doubt that in this case any of Paul's opponents would ever have said that "his letters are weighty and strong" (2 Cor 10:10).  Such a dogged consistency on Paul's part might make Paul a great philosopher or theologian in some circles, but it would be disastrous on the part of anybody trying to be persuasive.

Perhaps I have missed it, but do you have a chart or something where you give your entire reconstruction of events or at least the chronology of your Corinthian letters and fragments?  Unless you are putting 2 Cor 2 before 1 Cor, you cannot refer to 2 Cor 10-13 as "the tearful letter."  You can only identify 2 Cor 10-13 as the "letter of tears" if you think it is the letter Paul is talking about in 2 Cor 2 and 7.

Frank W. Hughes
Codrington College
Barbados
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/4756/



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