Corpus-Paul

[Perry L Stepp <plstepp AT juno.com>]

Below is the second part of a question I asked the list last Saturday: bad timing, holiday weekend and all, plus my own thoughts on a couple of the points after reflection.  I invite your responses.

 

> Alright: suppose you were a Christian in a pauline church in Ephesus
> during the second Christian generation there--say, 80 CE.  How much
> would you have known about Paul?

> Would you have known ABOUT his letters?  Would you KNOW his letters
> (i.e., would the contents of Romans and Galatians and the various
> letters to the Corinthians be familiar to you?)  Assuming a date of
> 80: would the early pauline corpus be available and in use in a
> central Roman city (with a comparatively significant Christian
> presence)like Ephesus?  And what of the book of Acts, or many of the
> traditions contained therein--would they have been familiar?

This is much more problematic, isn't it?  I accept the basic outline of Murphy-O'Connor's reconstruction of the gathering of the letters, particularly the Corinthian group (group A).  But he does not give dates, and there's no particular reason to assume that--even if Corinth by 80 DID have an early collection of Paul's letters, including the canonical editions (or something approaching them) of 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans (written from Corinth) and Galatians (from a personal copy brought with Paul to Corinth), is there any reason to assume that this collection had made its way to Ephesus by the same date?

 

PLStepp