(15 votes, average: 4.87 out of 5)
Loading...In my previous post I tried to show why most critical scholars think that the letter of 2 Corinthians is actually two different letters that have been spliced together. When I was back in graduate school, I learned – to my surprise – that there were scholars who thought that in fact 2 Corinthians was made up of five different letters, all spliced together. At first that struck me as a bit crazy, but as I looked at the evidence I began to see that it made a good bit of sense.
I’m not completely committed to that idea, but I’m inclined toward it. My sense is that this is the view of a sizeable minority of critical scholars, but I have no data, only anecdotal evidence, to back that up.
In any case, what matters more is what you yourself might think of it. I won’t be giving the evidence in full, but here is how I lay it out for students to consider in my textbook on the New Testament for undergraduates. To see the force of the evidence, you would need actually to look carefully at the letter itself, in light of the considerations I suggest here.
If it is true, that what is now one letter is actually parts of five, and one wants to know “What is the Original” — what do you say? There are several good answers, and many readers might think one of them is “right” — but others will think another one is right!
(Incidentally: a reader has asked me whether any of the letters allegedly found in 2 Corinthians could have originally been written by someone other than Paul. You’ll see here that this is widely believed by scholars for one small chunk of the letter. On this particular question, there is a much larger critical agreement on the matter, though not complete consensus).
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Hi, Bart,
We see in the gospels that some religious groups in the time of Jesus were Sadducees and Pharisees with whom Jesus did not agree and blamed them for their misunderstandings of the word of God.
1) What religious group did Jesus belong to?
2) Do we know what group represented the majority in his time and what were their theological ideologies?
Thanks
1. none. These groups weren’t like Xn denominations that most all Xns belong to, but more like local civic clubs (Rotary,Elks, CofC) that few people did..
2. Pharisees were largest, but there were only 4000 of them, in a world of 4 million. You can read about them in my book the NT: A Historical Introductoion.
Are there any prominent examples of Christians formulating a “new” 10 Commandments to reflect the very different emphases of the NT? Of course, the two-part “Great Commandment,” the Beatitudes, and the “Corporal Works of Mercy” in Matthew’s Sheep and Goats parable meet that need quite well. Here’s my own attempt that tries to be a bit more comprehensive and systematic. I’d appreciate comments about glaring mistakes or omissions. (1) Love God above all (ie, trust and be loyal to God above all); (2) Believe in Jesus and that his death and resurrection bring forgiveness of sin and friendship with God; (3) Believe the good news that God’s kingdom is at hand; (4) Repent, ie, change your heart and life to enter God’s kingdom; (5) Love your neighbor as yourself; (6) Serve those who are suffering; (7) Love your enemies; (8) Forgive; (9) Accept your own suffering; (10) Spread the good news.
No, nothing like that in early Xty.
Have you ever discussed the writing process back then? It seems odd to me that a guy who makes tents for a living and preaches at work or in his free time has the means to be writing such lengthy letters. Hard to believe he had the money for professional writers. Maybe they contributed in kind? It’s not like Paul is banging a 1000 word essay out on a word processor with spell check and grammar check the night before it’s due in class. These had to take weeks to compose. And expensive. I think that alone would lend toward a letter read today being a compilation of several shorter letters written by Paul.
yes, I’ve discussed literacy at length in my writings, and on the blog. Short story: Paul dictated his letters and a literate follower wrote them, probably on relativly inexpensive papyrus, and they would take no longer to write than they would take to dictate; for some he may well have organized his thoughts ahead of time, possibly in writing, and for a letter like Romans that would have taken some time, though not so much for a letter like 1 Thessalonians.
This brings to mind an off-topic question: Are you familiar with Candida Moss’s recent book, God’s Ghostwriters? Rebecca Denova and I just had a long discussion about it. Moss claims that the scribes who took down Paul’s dictation (and that of the evangelists) were slaves who subtly influenced the text. (From the introduction: “Enslavement is one of the central framing devices for the relationship between human beings and God in the New Testament.”) Also that the slaves added “revenge fantasies” into the text as a jab at their masters, and that Jesus went to his death in a “servile” manner.
Moss is a respected scholar and I’ve used her work on persecution, but it seems to me in this instance she overreaches. She appears to writing with an agenda in mind.
Yes, I agree. I think a lot of her book is overreach. (Want’s to claim, e.g., that Mark was likely a slave; and suggests that Mary Jesus’ mother was a sex worker, and so on)
1. Paul does not shift to a new subject at 8:1. Chapter 7 is about how Titus has presented the Corinthians in a very positive light. The unstated implication is that the Corinthians can trust Titus to be their loyal emissary to carry their collection to Judea. In chapter 8 Paul says that Titus is returning to Corinth to be their emissary to carry their collection to Judea. Incidentally, we learn from Acts 20:4 that there were no Corinthians among the emissaries, but Titus=Timothy was indeed among them.
2. 2 Cor 9:1 does not introduce a new thought. The γὰρ (for) must refer to something just written. Paul says in 8:24 that he has been boasting about the Corinthians to the churches, and 9:1–2 develops the same thought, referring to the same boasting to the churches.
3. Michael Goulder (Nov Test 1994) argues correctly that the flow of thought in 2 Cor 5–7 matches that in 1 Cor 4–5, and that the ἀπίστοις in 6:14–7:1 are unfaithful Christians, not unbelievers. Goulder’s arguments are particularly strong if we equate Titus with Timothy. The two canonical letters then have the same historical background and harmonize beautifully.
Conclusion: partition theories are are unnecessary.
I apologize for this being off-topic. I’ve been meaning to write this for some time.
First, I want you to know I am eagerly awaiting your book on the origins of altruism. My wife and I pulled together all of your posts on it and presented a summary to our online community. It feels like such an important book.
Second, along these lines, I assume you’ve heard of Tom Holland’s book Dominion. I’m nearing the end of that now and keep wondering what you would make of his case, especially his choice to focus on the letters of Paul and the crucifixion, rather than Jesus’ teachings.
Third, this may be too far afield from your area of expertise, but have you ever thought of writing anything about the modern influence of the Sermon on the Mount as channeled through Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.? As you may know, there is both a chain of influence leading from one to the other and direct influence on all three by the Sermon on the Mount. It’s such a fascinating example of the impact of Jesus’ teachings on history, only here it’s in modern times and largely outside the Christian church.
1. Thanks! 2. Yes, I”ve read it. He’s an amazingly wide-ranging thinker; the breadth of his knowledge is impressive. My views differ in some key ways, but my view is that the triumph of Christianity is less about JEsus’ own teachings than those of his followers 3. Yeah, wish I could, but it’s outside my expertise, though it’s long been a source of fascination to me as well.
“In vain” refers to an effort or action that produces no desired result or outcome. When something is done in vain, it means that despite the effort, it did not achieve the intended purpose or was unsuccessful. The phrase often conveys a sense of frustration, disappointment, or futility.”
2 Corinthians 6:1
“As we work together with him, we entreat you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.”
“in vain” doesn’t seem to fit here. How can one accept the grace of God “in vain”?
Similarly in 1 Corinthians 15:2
“through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.”
From the Christian point of view how can one come to believe “in vain”?
Paul uses the phrase “in vain” in a number of other places in his letters where it appears to fit. What was he trying to say in these two passages?
If you believe and then botch it later by returning to sin, then you’r faith was in vain. The idea that you could never lose your standing with God after having faith is contrary to a number of claims in the NT.
If some person was skilful enough to ‘cut & paste’ up to five letters into one, why do you think they did not make a better job of it so that the ‘joins’ were seamless and the conveyed information did not jump from one thing to another so much?
Why do my highly trained PhD students write dissertations full of contradictions and non-sequeturs?
Hi Dr Ehrman was just wondering with the letters that are forged do scholars know if among the forged letters there are some letters which are written by the same forger or are the forged letters all each written by a separate person pretending to be someone they’re not?
It is often thought that the same author forged 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, e.g., But the other Pauline forgeries that survive do appear all to be written by separate authors.
Please forgive an extremely off-topic question which has nothing to do with the subject of the blog – rather it concerns English usage.
The other day I asked a question about whether ‘Paradise’ is another term for ‘Heaven’ or could it be considered a holding place for the dead. I wondered, within my query, if it might be similar to ‘Purgatory’. You kindly answered my question but in so doing pointed out that Purgatory was also not a holding place.
In your answer you said, “It (Heaven) is never a holding place, either was purgatory…”
The use of ‘either’ in that sentence seemed very strange to me. Since you were saying that purgatory was NOT a holding place (i.e. using a negative) I, as a Brit, would use the word ‘neither’. (Either/or, neither/nor).
Is your use of ‘either’ in the case quoted an Americanism? I have never encountered it before outside of your blog. Many thanks.
Dr Ehrman, are there any posts by you on the topic whether Mark knew any of Paul’s letters or at least comes from a community that was influenced by Paul’s theology? Would it not be likely given the passage of time and spread of Paul’s ideas? Or are there good reasons to think that Mark had no awareness of Paul’s views and any similarities come from yet older traditions?
Sorry not to reply sooner — I didn’t see your question! Yes, I’ve posted on it a bit. Mark certainly has very similar views to Paul’s views on the death of Jesus as an atoning sacrifice, and many scholars think he had access to Paul’s writings. I’m open to the idea, but I don’t think there’s any evidence one way or another. In a world where writings were not published en masse and circulated randomly, and where similar or the same Christian ideas were held and propounded by lots of different people, it’s hard to establish that one surviving author necessarily had direct access to the works of another.
Thank you for the reply! One more on this topic, do you think than it is a possibility that the words of Jesus from the last supper are originally coming from Paul? After all he needs to be outright lying otherwise as he claims that they were given to him in revelation from Jesus and not from apostles? It could be that later Mark put those words into his gospel on Jesus lips since Mark knew about it from Paul …
Paul says he got them from elsewhere, and since they are independently attested in the Gospels (a different version in Mark than in Paul; Luke’s version is more similar to Pauls) it seems unlikely Paul just made them up.
What do you mean by „from elsewhere”? I thought Paul claims he received it directly from Jesus in 1 Cor 11:23 ? Which I imagine means he received it in some kind of visionary experience. So either he is lying/mistaken about it and he got it from someone else eg Peter or he is not lying about it. It seems to me a bit out of character for Paul to lie about it because he doesn’t make such claims often. Alternative would be that Paul (visionary Jesus) is the original author of that scene and then Mark got it from him (slightly changing it) and then Matthew and Luke get it from Mark. We’ll never know for sure but I wonder whether it’s a viable option?
Jesus would be “elsewhere”: Paul is saying he didn’t make it up. But it doesn’t necessarily a visionary experience. I’ve heard many a person say to a preacher: “I heard God speaking through you this morning.”
Thank you Mr. Ehrman, I find it very interesting to read you.
I want to ask you a question: many people oppose the “participation theory” due to the fact that such a compilation would not be common in ancient times.
What did you say to them?
I”d say they need to read more ancient literature. 🙂 (We have numerous examples just within ealry Xn writings that are not much disputed, e.g., in the Didache, the Apostolic Constitutions, etc.)
Hello, professor Ehrman.
Recently I heard Dr.Dan McCellan say that a better translation of John 1 would be:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was “like a God” or “a divine being”, instead of and the Word was God.
He offered a grammatical explanation for that, but I have no idea of Greek (ancient or modern), so I could not evaluate the validity of the claim.
Would you agree with that interpretation?
Thanks
No, but it’s complicated. There is no indefinite article in Greek (a or an) only a definite (the). Normally “God” has the definite article. in the phrase in question it does not. So does it mean “(the) Word was (a) god”? That appears to be what Dan is claiming and you could push a case for it. BUT, normally if the subject of a sentence with “to be” in it has the article the predicate is definite as well, in which case it would be “the word was God” (not “a god”) And I think that’s much preferable both for grammatical and contextual reasons (in John).
I just ordered the book. Can’t wait!!!
Thank you so much for ALL of your answers.
Hi Bart! I love your scholarly work. What is the latest addition of your New Testament textbook?
8th edition, done with Hugo Mendez. Just came out!
What are your thoughts on comments I’ve read elsewhere on other blogs, that Paul was a lunatic and delusional?
I find it odd that he never met Jesus, and his writings seem to have a lot of discrepancies and contradictions.
Thanks
I don’t think there’s any way to engage in a psychological analysis of someone we can’t speak with. Nothing in his writings strikes me as lunacy in the least.
He wouldn’t have met Jesus because he was living in a different part of the world; I’m not sure there are a lot of internal contradictions in Paul’s lettes, but htere certainly are things hard to understand!
Hi Dr. Ehrman,
Don’t know if you look this far back for questions.
Did 2 Corinthians pre-exist the Pauline sub-canon or did the canonical editor put it together. By pre-exist I mean is there manuscript evidence of 2 Corinthians as a stand alone book?
I get all questions, even on old posts. 2 Corinthians certainly existed prior to it’s placement in the canon, and almost certainly was copied as a stand alone letter prior to being included in the canon, but we don’t have any of the manuscripts that gave us JUST 2 Corinthians; that is true of all the Pauline letters. We have them only as they were later collected. So the arguments for their separate independent existence have to be made on other grounds; but I don’t konw of any contrary arguments that seem plausible.
Hi, I’m from South Korea.
1
Do you accept that 2 Corinthians is a letter written by Paul himself?
2
In particular, 2 Corinthians 10-13 and 1-9 are different in tone and style.
Nevertheless, do you accept that chapters 10-13 were written by Paul?
3
What, if any, passages in 2 Corinthians do you think were not written by Paul himself, but were written by someone else at a later date, borrowing Paul’s name?
1. Yes. 2. Yes, but 10-13 probably come from a different letter to the Corinthians. 2 Corinthians is usually understood by scholars to be two letters written at different times that have been spliced together: the letter represented in chs. 10-13 was earlier; the one represented in chs. 1-9 is later. As I indicate in my post, I think that there may be as many as five letters (not just two) that have been spliced together. The only passage in 2 Corinthians that is usually thought not to have been written by Paul (in one letter or another) is 6:14-7:1.