Corpus-Paul

["David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT compuserve.com>]

Stephen Finlan said:

>>I think you are on the right track, although we need to allow for
the likelihood that the biblically literate members of the audience
would be expected to explain the biblical allusions
to those less educated, or even illiterate.   The messenger of the
letter would be just one candidate for this job.  The task of
explaining the gospel was probably never-ending, the more mature
Christians explaining the mysteries of the faith to the younger ones.
This was not
just a task for the preacher or the letter-carrier.<<

It might also be a good idea to consider the circumstances which the
average hearer would have come into contact with the Jewish scriptures
of the day. How would they become familiar with the scriptures in the
first place? My guess would be that the scriptures were read aloud to
gentile hearers (say, by synagogue functionaries or literate Jews
friendly to gentiles), perhaps with commentary, once per week, say, on
the sabbath. I have also heard that some consider "house churches"
were commonplace even in the 1st century. They could also have had
some sort of organized reading program.

If this is correct, then they may hear the Jewish scriptures read
through at most a couple times per year. To become as familiar with
them as Paul suggests, they would likely have been associates for
several years. Even then the scriptures would have had to have been
discussed among each themselves, as they sought out interpretations
that held special meaning to them, in order to gain that level of
familiarity in even a couple of years. I suppose that less than 1 on
10 of them would have any reading literacy, and even then a proportion
of the literate population could afford to buy books or have them
copied, unless they pooled their resources.

Could the letters have initially been intended only for the leaders to
read, as advisories? Their use for exhortation may have come later, as
gentile Christianity drifted farther and farther from their Jewish
roots.

Regards,

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA