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Loading...I have begun to talk about Paul’s church in Corinth and the correspondence he had with it. For a bit more background I want to explain how he actually started it. Corinth was apparently a city he had not visited before, yet he went there and managed to convert a large group of people to his Christian message. How did that happen?
Here is how I explain what we know in my textbook The New Testament (Oxford University Press).
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After leaving Thessalonica, Paul and his companions, Timothy and Silvanus, arrived in Corinth and began, again, to preach the gospel in an effort to win converts (2 Cor 1:19). Possibly they proceeded as they had in the capital of Macedonia, coming into town, renting out a shop in an insula, setting up a business, and using the workplace as a forum to speak to those who stopped by. In this instance, the book of Acts provides some corroborating evidence. Luke indicates that Paul did, in fact, work in a kind of leather goods shop in Corinth, having made contact with a Jewish couple named Aquila and Priscilla who shared his profession in both senses of the term; they had the same career and the same faith in Jesus.
In other respects, however, the narrative of Acts contrasts with what Paul himself says about his sojourn in Corinth. For one thing,
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How would have Paul explained the train of thought found in Mathew 5:17? Of course Mathew didn’t exist yet but surely Paul was aware this teaching or, am I wrong? Meaning, if I were a Pagan in Corinth and you came to town and told me we’re gonna keep Torah, I would have just dismissed your message as recycled Judaism. And as you’ve mentioned Corinth was a cosmopolitan city. Therefore Jews were already there. As a pagan I would have to myself, I can get that down the street. To me, the Holy Spirit was a natural trajectory. But Paul wasn’t there yet. He still at this point believed Jesus was returning in his lifetime, correct? Paul must have been a heck of salesman.
Paul may have either (a) disagreed whole-heartedly (b) said this teaching applies to the Jewish followers of Jesus to whom he was giving the Sermon, not to gentiles after his death adn resurrection or (c) claimed that keeping the “entire” law for gentiles meant those parts not given only to Jews (circumcision, kosher, and so on), as fulfilled by the command “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I”m not sure which option I prefer. It depends on the day of the week….
Judging by what Paul wrote in Romans 15:9-12; he would have completely agreed with the teaching of Matthew 5:17. – at least as he understood it.
” and again Isaiah says,”The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope.””
For Paul, the completion of the Law comes when Christ comes in glory, and the nations turn away from their idols to worship the God of Israel. Just as the prophets looked for; certainly Isaiah, Zephaniah, Zechariah and Tobit. The nations will not be converted into Jews, rather they will – as Gentiles and hence uncircumsised – be welcomed into Jerusalem to present offerings in the Temple.
For most Jews though; this would only happen in the Endtime; and in the meanwhile sypmathetic God-fearing Gentiles should continue to worship their own Gods; even while also attending Jewish synogogue services, or praying in the Court of the Gentiles in Jerusalem.
But not for Paul; as for Paul the Endtime is now. So, the completion of the Law requires the nations to turn away from their idols; and also requires the Jews to accept them in Jerusalem.
Yes, I would agree that for Paul the “Endtime is now.” Or at least it is starting now. On another front (Corinth) had had to fight with converts who thought it had fully happened. “Already-Not Yet” was a big deal for Paul….
Thank you Bart; for a very helpful explanation.
Paul divides salvation history into three stages
– the age of the Flesh (that is past, for those united with Christ)
– the age of the Spirit (that is present, for those united with Christ)
– the age of the Resurrection (that has started with Christ, but is to come for those united with him).
So, at the ‘Endtime which is now’ believers are already participating in Christ in the Spirit, but do *not yet* share in his resurrection.
Within the Corinthian congregation, this understanding appears to have been contested by those who see themselves as *already* ‘strong’ in the age to come. From what Paul says in chapter 8, it seems that these were all former pagans. Paul contrasts this group with those other former pagans, together with Jewish believers and Paul himself, who share Paul’s self designation as ‘the weaker brethren’.
For Paul, as in chapters 2 and 3, believers should not seek to be strong, as ‘Christ on the cross’ was not strong but supremely weak. Instead they should rely solely on the Spirit; whose gifts may appear as ‘folly’ but can bind together all brethren, ‘strong’ and ‘weak’.
Class and educational differences certainly seemed to be a factor in the tensions the Christian Community in Corinth were experiencing and Paul was addressing.
On a different note, “the left foot of fellowship” made me laugh out loud. 👍
I’m glad *someone* got it. My teacher Bruce Metzger used to say that….
Same here! 😉 Literally.
Something seems not quite kosher here. I see a ton of issues with this letter. Paul introduces several characters unknown to Acts – Chloe, Stephanas, Gaius, Fortunatus (could this be a freedman of Herod Agrippa lifted from Josephus’s Antiquities, 18.7?), Achaicus – and two others, Crispus and Sosthenes, both “chief ruler of the synagogue” in Acts, though Paul says nothing of this. The polemical response to so many “issues” is a tour de force but cuts the epistle free of any certain historicity. Could anyone really expect to heal several major fractional splits with such a rambling, composite letter? If Paul was so soon to visit the Corinthians would not commonsense dictate holding his counsel until he could judge the situation first hand? Is the epistle really addressed to the Corinthians or to “all that in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ”? (1.2). Is it Paul’s arrogance that leads him to write to the “whole world” – a Paul who cannot even maintain authority over his “own” churches – or is the hand of a later editor revealed?
Yup, I get your point! I’d say there are a lot of rambling writings from ealry Christianity that deal with a host of problems, causing one to stand back in wonder. Check out 1 Clement! (Also written to the church of Corinth, as it turns out.) But it seems to me that the issues Paul addresses are quite useful for historical assessment, and for understanding how Paul viewed his own authority and the broad implications of his Gospel. There is no real evidence of a later editor (e.g., writing style, vocabulary, theme , etc.) (Fortunatus, btw, was a common slave name; so probably not too much coule be read in it.
In Acts Peter converts the first Gentile family (Cornelius) and then Paul in his travels continues to reach out to the Jews. Do you think this portrayal is an invention intended to show the harmony of Peter and Paul and the Jewish and Gentile churches rather than representing factual history? Do you have an opinion about whether the story of Cornelius’s conversion is factual?
Do you have any sense about baptism for the dead if it was an upper class or lower class innovation? Was it happening in Corinth or elsewhere? Is it a Gentile innovation or do you think it had its roots from Jewish Christians?
I wish we knew more about it! There doesn’t seem to be anything tying it to economic or social class; we never hear of it anywhere else; and Paul simply assumes it happens without telling us what he means by it. It’s one of teh huge mysteries of Paul’s letters.
Dr. Ehrman,
Is 1 Corinthians all 1 letter? I don’t know why the Jesus Seminar gives it a B+ for Integrity instead of an A?
I don’t know either. It’s almost certainly one letter.
I find the anti-intellectualism of 1st Corinthians 1:18 – 25 one of the more infuriating things that Paul said. Was this kind of thinking prevalent in the ancient religions of Paul’s time?
No, it was one of the intriguing Christian inventions; an even more astounding statement of it comes in Tertullian “I believe *because* it is absurd.”
Can you please clarify your view: Was there a Christian Community in Corinth before Paul got there or did he actually “found” it?
He founded it. (That’s why I was talking about how he started it)
“You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak”
Being as how there was always room among pagans for one more god (a point Robin Lane Fox makes in Pagans and Christians), it baffles me how one could convince a pagan that there is only one god and that only he is to be worshiped. Do you suspect that Paul was using fear of the consequences of not believing in that God as part of his efforts to persuade?
I devote a good chunk of my book Triumph of Christianity to this question. Basic short story: Xns (like Paul) worked to show that their God was more powerful than any/all teh others. ANd since they (the Xns) were the only ones insisting that if you worshiped theirs you could not worship the others, the few converts they made also meant converts *lost* to paganism.
Get the book Triumph of Christianity.. Bart discovered that pagans were convinced the Christian God was more powerful than all the pagan gods….crazy discovery
But weren’t Pontus and Aquila already there and doing some work before Paul arrived? Wasn’t possibly also Apollos? I know Paul says he planted and Apollos watered, but I am slightly surprised that you are so 100% are all in on Paul being the founder. I mean you have studied this for decades and have made this your life’s work. You are steeped in deep in the nuance, the background and the languages, I am certainly not challenging you. Just “huh, my something new today”
Paul indicates he is the one who started the church. Where do you see Pontus, Aquila, and Apollos there making converts before him?
I kind of see it as Aquila and Priscilla were already there set up with a place to live and work, then Paul, who praises them as excellent evangelizers, arrives and joins them. It seemed slightly unlikely to a dope like me that they hadn’t done anything but work leather and chill until Paul showed up and kicked them into an evangelization fervor that never diminished again. You say “yep pretty much” so, OK you are a scholar and certainly know more than me. I am just a dope with a keyboard … just Huh. I am/was surprised you are so all in.
Apollos: I know the timeline is after Corinth they meet him in Ephesus and wean him from his Johannite ways. Still, Paul later says some Corinthians say they belong to Apollos, so I just wondered if he had wandered through Corinth first. Because why after meeting Paul and P&A would there be Xtans in Corinth who disputed Paul’s teachings if they were converted AFTER Apollos met the dynamic Trio? That was why I brought him up as “possibly”, but that seemed like a pretty weak reed.
Thanks for replying. Hope it didn’t seem hostile. Enlightening to me.
Paul seems pretty clear that Apollos “watered” what he himself “planted.” So he started the church and Apollos then came and built it up, nurtured it, taught it — and thus some become more devoted to him than others. Aquila and Priscilla are there in Acts 18 when Paul shows up, but Paul himself doesn’t portray it htat way…. (I didn’t think it seemed hostile at all!)