2 Corinthians: An Emerging Thesis

This week I sent off an essay on 2 Corinthians 3 which will hopefully appear in due course. Next week I have to put the finishing touches to another essay on 2 Corinthians 5, again for an edited volume. My work on 2 Corinthians thus far is pushing me towards the development of an initial thesis about the letter that future work will, I hope, explore at greater depth.

The consensus view of 2 Corinthians (whether 1-9 or the whole letter ) is that, in the words of Frances Young: 'its genre is apology ... the work is a 'defence' speech in letter form ... The Epistle is to be treated as Paul's account of what apostleship means to him.' (Frances M. Young, 'Understanding Romans in the Lightof 2 Corinthians', SJT 43, p.433). This view tends now to overshadow the view that 2 Corinthians 1-9 (10-13 is a different story) are fundamentally polemical in intent (cf. Georgi).

What I find myself wanting to argue time and time again is that I don't think that Paul ever uses a letter to churches purely as a means of self-defence. At the heart of the Pauline epistolary strategy is the formation of those congregations to greater degrees of Christlikeness, and Paul's account of his own ministry (and that of his co-workers) always serves these wider theological and parenetic aims. To put it another way, I think there are strong arguments to suggest that 2 Corinthians is to be treated as Paul's account of what his apostleship means for them (i.e. the Corinthians). This thesis affects, for example, one's interpretation of the key exhortations in the letter, as well as requiring a re-examination of the use of the 1st person plural (a thorny thicket of an exegetical problem if ever there were).

More details later.

Comments

[Sean Winter]

Re: [Sean the Baptist (in the UCA)] Richard Fellows submitted a comment to 2 Corinthians: An Emerging Thesis

Hi Richard

Thanks for your comments. A long time ago I think I downloaded a copy of your PhD, so I should return to take a good look at it and the argument mounted there that you are clearly developing in your blog posts. Whether the problem of Pauls use of the 1st person plural can be solved quote so easily will have to wait for a future post, I suspect. Thanks for pointing me to your work though.

Sean

[Richard Fellows]

Sean, I have been thinking along similar lines and I really look forward to any future posts that you may make on the issue of Paul's self-defense. We have to be very careful when reading Paul, don't we, because, by his own admission, his words can appear to be self-defense when really they are intended to build up the church (2 Cor 12:19-21). I have just finished a related blog post. I argue that Paul countered the Corinthians' ethics by calling on them to follow his lifestyle, but some Corinthians undermined his efforts by launching criticisms of him. Paul defended himself against the criticisms for the benefit of the Corinthians.

You mentioned the question of the first person plural in Paul's letters. I think I may have solved the problem. See my blog post of May 29th.

[Siu Fung]

Sounds very good.

[Michael Westmoreland-White]

I like where you're going with that!