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  • From: Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Was Romans written from Ephesus?
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:54:41 -0800

Stephen Carlson wrote:
> It's not clear to me from 1 Cor. 16:10 that Timothy is already on-route,
> only that Paul was intending to have Timothy depart Ephesus and arrive
> in Corinth before him. In my scenario, Timothy does not return to Paul
> in Ephesus, but that Romans is written around the time of Timothy's
> departure from Ephesus.

Here are three pieces of evidence that indicate that Timothy departed from
Ephesus before 1 Corinthians was written, and not after it.

1. 1 Cor 4:17 says "for this reason I sent you Timothy". The verb is aorist
and indicates either past or present action.

2. If Timothy had been with Paul when 1 Cor was written he would have been
given as a co-sender. At the very least he would have sent greatings. He was
the co-sender of 2 Corinthians, and all of Paul's letters that were written
to churches that he had helped to found. Why is he not a co-sender of 1
Corinthains?

3. 1 Cor 16:10 seems to suggest that Timothy would be anxious upon his
arrival in Corinth, but Paul seems quite confident about the Corinthians at
the time of writing. This suggests that Timothy had departed from Ephesus at
a time when the situation in Corinth seemed worse. The best explanation is
that Timothy had left Ephesus before the arrival there of reassuring news
from Stephanas (1 Cor 16:17-18). Christopher Hudson has shown that it is
unlikely that Timothy was timid.

> >5. If Romans was written from Ephesus we would expect Paul to send
greetings
> >from Sosthenes, who was there and was prominent enough to be the
co-sender
> >of 1 Corinthians.
>
> I couldn't find *any* co-sender of the Pauline letters sending greetings.

We have misunderstood each other, I think. I am saying that Sosthenes was in
Ephesus when 1 Cor was written. If Romans was written at about that time,
why do we not read the name of Sosthenes in Rom 16? Why didn't Sosthenes
send greatings to the Romans, along with Timothy, Lucius, Erastus, etc.?

> My observations on Rom. 15:26-28 permit Romans to be written earlier than
> commonly throught. The evidence for that is logically independent of
whether
> an earlier Romans was written back in Ephesus or a little bit earlier in
> Cenchreae, if we had reason to believe that Paul stayed in Cenchreae
> before arriving in Corinth.

Cenchreae and Corinth were just 11km apart. This is half a day's journey.
Since there were believers in both cities Paul would certainly have visited
both communities. I suspect that he travelled between the two cities more
than once during his winter in Achaia.

> See above. Somewhat tangential but in connection with Cenchreae, Acts
> tells us that Paul cut his hair in Cenchreae when he left Corinth earlier
> because he was under a vow (18:18). This is usually understood as a
> Nazirite vow, and Num. 6 indicates that the hair is cut due to contact
> with a corpse, so who died?

Interesting.

Richard.






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