New Testament Texts and Manuscripts
Interpolations and Textual Variants in the New Testament
In my previous post I indicated that among the five letters that may have been cut and pasted together to make up 2 Corinthians is one that some scholars suspect Paul did not write. If not, how did it get in 2 Corinthians with fragments of letters he did write? To remind you: this is what I said about it there: The paragraph found in 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 seems odd in its context. The verse immediately preceding it (2 Corinthians 6:13) urges the Corinthians to be open to Paul, as does the verse immediately following it (7:2). But the paragraph itself is on an entirely different and unannounced topic: Christians should not associate with nonbelievers. Moreover, there are aspects of this passage that appear unlike anything Paul himself says anywhere else in his writings. Nowhere else, for example, does he call the Devil “Beliar” (v. 15). Has this passage come from some other piece of correspondence (possibly one that Paul didn’t write) and been inserted in the midst of Paul’s warm admonition to [...]