THE PREACHER IN ECCLESIASTES considers “wisdom and madness and folly” and then seems to accept his fate as he bemoans, “What can the man do who comes after the king? Only what he has already done.”1
With the indescribable richness of many recent major commentaries on 1 Corinthians stretching for over a hundred years from Robertson/Plummer2 to Thiselton,3 what else can possibly be said about 1 Corinthians that has not been said?
This study will make no systematic attempt to review or interact with all the magisterial work currently available. Rather, with deep gratitude for what has already been accomplished, this book will attempt a fresh look at what can be called “Paul’s most contemporary letter” and see if there is a layer of meaning that remains to be uncovered.
The lenses I intend to use for this purpose are the rhetorical styles of 1 Corinthians that can be traced to the writing prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the culture of the eastern Mediterranean world as it can be recovered. The rhetorical styles I refer to are not directly related to the classical Greek rhetoric so ably described by Aristotle4 and reviewed in its relationship to 1 Corinthians by Thiselton5 who comments, “The literature on this subject has now become breathtakingly immense.”6 More exactly, as noted, my own decades of study of the epistle have led me to an extensive use by St. Paul of rhetorical patterns traceable to the writing prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. These patterns are formed from the well-known parallelisms of the Hebrew Bible where ideas are set out in pairs. In this type of writing the author presents an idea and then adds a second line that may repeat the first line, or present the opposite of the first line. It may illustrate the first line or simply complete it.7 The Psalms, and almost all of the writings of the Prophets, are composed of these Hebrew parallelisms and modern translations format the text accordingly. Our concern here is to see how Paul has arranged collections of Hebrew parallelisms into larger patterns that are important to identify for a deeper understanding of his intent. In the following chapter I will set forth the three basic types of these collections of parallelisms with a few examples from the prophets. This raises the question: Does Paul always write this way?
First Corinthians exhibits this style of writing throughout its chapters with a few exceptions, which will be noted. These exceptions are either “asides” or connectives between two rhetorical homilies. But the carefully balanced rhetorical homilies that we will examine in this study are not Paul’s “default” style. There are examples in 2 Corinthians of this classical Hebrew style, but most of it appears to be straightforward prose.8 First Corinthians is different. Why so?
Every interpreter of 1 Corinthians is obliged to make a watershed decision as he/she examines the first three verses of the first chapter. In Romans Paul writes, “To all God’s beloved in Rome” (1:7). In Galatians 1:2 he says, “To the churches of Galatia.” Philippians opens with, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi” (1:2).9 Second Corinthians is addressed to “the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia” (1:1). In this last instance, the readers of 2 Corinthians are not a single church in one urban center. Rather, the letter is written for the church at Corinth and for all believers in the surrounding district. The intended readership of 1 Corinthians is, however, broader.
Paul addressed 1 Corinthians to the Corinthian Christians “together with all those in every place on whom is called the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1:2, my translation). Paul states openly and boldly that this letter is addressed to the entire church. Is he serious?
Ambrosiaster (fourth century), writing in Latin, affirmed, “Paul writes to the church as a whole.”10 A few years later John Chrysostom, writing in Greek, made the same identification in his first homily on 1 Corinthians.11 In the ninth century, Bishr ibn al-Sari completed his own translation of the letters of Paul into Arabic with thoughtful notes.12 Writing in A.D. 867, Bishr comments on 1:2 and explains Paul to be saying, “That is, we are writing this letter not only to you, Oh assembly at Corinth, but also to all the people of every country who profess the name of Jesus Christ, those who love him.”13 John Calvin of Geneva, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, concurs.14 There is, therefore, a strong witness across the centuries that sees 1 Corinthians as a letter to the Corinthians and to the whole church. But in the modern period this view is often set aside.
Many interpreters have argued that of all Paul’s letters, 1 Corinthians is the most “occasional.”15 That is, unlike other letters, in 1 Corinthians Paul mentions names and particular incidents, some scandalous. In addition to discussing special problems like getting drunk at Holy Communion and a man sleeping with his father’s wife, 1 Corinthians appears to be disjointed as though it were written in a great hurry. Conzelmann writes of its “loose construction” and of “breaks and joins.”16 Héring and Schmithals feel that these “breaks and joins” demonstrate that various letters compiled at various times have been brought together by an editor.17 Barrett, Conzelmann and Orr/Walther cautiously affirm unity for the entire book as it now stands.18 Orr/Walther mention the traditional outline, which is:
A. Subjects raised with Paul orally by messengers from Corinth, 1–6.
B. Subjects about which the Corinthians have written, 7–16.
Orr/Walther then observe a series of inserts placed into the topics of the letter and note:
One has to decide whether these inserts are to be connected with the topics from the letters Paul is answering or are to be interpreted as independent items—and this in turn bears upon the editorial unity of the epistle.19
Barrett discusses the same problem, follows the same twofold division suggested above, and notes that Paul was a busy man with little time for writing. Barrett states,
This means that the writing of the letter will have been spread over some time; it may well have been laid aside from time to time, and taken up again after an interval. A letter written in such circumstances may be expected to show occasional inconsistencies and passages in which the same topic is looked at from different points of view. Fresh news may reach the writer; plans may change with changing needs and opportunities.20
Coupled with the above rationale for the supposed disjointedness of 1 Corinthians, the comment is often made that the book is a practical letter, not a theological treatise. Thus naturally, no careful, ordered presentation of material is expected. Again Barrett writes,
I Corinthians is anything but a work of systematic theology. It is a practical letter addressed to a single, though complex situation, aimed at telling its readers not so much what they ought to think as what they ought to do—or ought not to do.21
At the same time Barrett also observes, “The practical advice, however, is consciously grounded in theological principles which can usually be detected.” Yet, in spite of this latter admission, the conclusion that Barrett and many others come to is that the book is, as it were, “written on the run,” and that its outline is dictated by the list of questions that came first orally (1–6) and then in writing (7–16) from Corinth. It is practical, not theological, we are told; occasional, not universal in outlook. Commenting on 11:2-16, Richard Hays represents many when he writes,
His [Paul’s] reasoning is notoriously obscure,… because the line of argument is—by any standard—labored and convoluted.22
I am not sure that even Paul’s opponents in Corinth would have agreed. He records them saying about him, “His letters are weighty and strong” (2 Cor 10:10). With deep respect for the above mentioned modern position, I would offer an alternative. The view presented in this study is that the entire book has a carefully designed inner coherence that exhibits amazing precision in composition and admirable grandeur in overall theological concept. This study will argue that the outline of 1 Corinthians is as precise as any of Paul’s letters and that it falls into five carefully constructed essays, which themselves showcase a discernible theological method, both internally as individual essays and together as a collection.23 The overall outline of the five essays, reduced to their simplest form and to their dominant themes, is as follows:
The Cross and Christian Unity 1:5–4:16 | |
II. | Men and Women in the Human Family 4:17–7:40 |
III. | Food Offered to Idols (Christian and pagan) 8:1–11:1 |
IV. | Men and Women in Worship 11:2–14:40 |
V. | The Resurrection 15 |
Figure Int.1. Summary of 1 Corinthians
When the complementary pairs of essays are placed together it is evident that Paul has three principle ideas on his mind. These are:
The cross and the resurrection (I, V)
Men and women in the human family and in worship (II, IV)
Christians living among pagans: To identify or not to identify (III)
Some of the Corinthians’ questions (oral and written) are worked into Paul ’s outline, instead of the other way around. He sets the agenda, not the Corinthians. Rather than 7:1 being a critical shift from oral reports to a written report, 11:34 looms large. At the end of that verse Paul says, “About the other things I will give directions when I come.” This important aside makes it clear that there are problems in Corinth relating only to the Corinthians. Ergo, the rest of the book relates to the Corinthians and to others. This in turn leads us to conclude that Paul is deadly serious when he affirms that his intended readers are the Corinthians and all Christians everywhere.
What then is the meaning of the “hinge” in 7:1 where Paul appears to turn from problems he has heard about orally to problems that came to him in writing? We note that this verse appears in the middle of Paul’s essay on acceptable and unacceptable patterns of human sexual practice (4:17– 7:40). Paul opens this topic with a discussion of the sordid incident where a man was sleeping with his father’s wife and some of the Corinthians were proud of this behavior (chapters 5–6). In chapter 6, he also discusses sleeping with prostitutes and like matters. It is clear that the Corinthians did not write to Paul about these incidents. They most likely hoped that he would never find out about them. Their attempt to hide this behavior failed; Paul found out anyway. They did however write to him asking for his advice on the topics that appear in chapter 7. They wrote about divorce, remarriage after the death of the spouse, marriage to unbelievers and the like. While they presented their “polite” problems to Paul in writing, at the same time they concealed the unpleasant cases that had erupted in their midst. This understanding of 7:1 harmonizes with the “other matters” mentioned in 11:34 and with the clear affirmation in 1:2 that this letter is for the whole church. The message of 1 Corinthians cries out to all Christians.
Are we to imagine that questions such as
Christian divisions and the need for unity
How to understand the cross
Standards for Christian sexual practice
How to live the Christian life in the midst of a pagan world
How to understand and celebrate the Eucharist
The place of women and men in worship leadership
Understanding and using the spiritual gifts
The centrality of costly love and how it is to be defined
How to understand the resurrection
were unique to Corinth? Granted we are here making an assumption. But surely at least most of this list of problems was of deep concern across the church. We can hope that there were no other cases of incest in the churches, but were the Corinthians alone in their struggle over meat offered to idols? Did all the churches already have a deep theological foundation for sexual ethics? These are critical issues debated around most of the Christian world in our time. How, in Paul’s day, could they have been problems that erupted only in Corinth?
Building on the above, it appears that Paul looked at the specific problems that surfaced in Corinth and selected some of them. The topics he chose were those that the new Christian communities were debating in many places. He then composed 1 Corinthians and sent a copy to Corinth and to churches everywhere. He did address the Corinthians and at the same time, he invited the rest of the Church to “listen in” on his “phone conversation” hoping to serve the entire church.
If this is the case, would we not expect Paul to have composed this letter with great care? The evidence indicates that he did so. Using his own Jewish literary tradition, he built on the rhetoric of the classical writing prophets and composed a series of masterpieces on the topics selected. As we will see, each essay is composed of a series of shorter homilies each of which has its own interior structure. Paul’s basic methodology for constructing each of the five essays is largely the same. That methodology appears below in figure Int.2.
Figure Int.2. Paul’s outline for the essays in 1 Corinthians
In short Paul does not say:
Here is the problem!
Here is what you must do!
Instead he writes:
You have received the tradition from me.
Here is the problem.
Consider the following theological foundation
on which a solution can be built.
Look at the problem again in the light of this theology.
Imitate me/I think I have the Spirit of the Lord.
When the five essays (noted above) are observed and the above methodology discerned24 the apparent “confusion” disappears. Yes, there is repetition. The discussion “Paul, Apollos and Cephas” occurs in chapter 1 and again in chapter 4, but this is a deliberately constructed order that fits into the outline of the essay. The same is true for the double discussion of food offered to idols seen in chapter 8 and again in chapter 10. Chapters 12 and 14 discuss the spiritual gifts. All of this is deliberate. But there is a remaining question.
Written before 1 Corinthians, the letter to the Galatians opens with three chapters on theology which are followed by three chapters on ethics. In his letter to the Romans Paul opens with eight chapters on theology. This is followed by three chapters in which Paul discusses Christians and Jews. The epistle concludes with four densely packed chapters on how we should live in the light of the theology set out in the opening chapters. With this first-theology-then-ethics pattern in use before and after the writing of 1 Corinthians, why does Paul compose a letter using the finely balanced construct of ethics and theology that appears in 1 Corinthians and then not use it again?
I do not know, but a conjecture is possible. Perhaps Paul, writing his first “general letter,” tried this clear, yet sophisticated way to “do theology and ethics” and some readers were confused by it.
This possibility is in harmony with Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 1:13-14 where he says, “For we write you nothing but what you can read and understand; I hope you will understand fully, as you have understood in part.” Most likely Paul is referring to the reception 1 Corinthians received in Corinth. Thus we are obliged to ask: Why does Paul feel the need to make such a statement? Clearly, some of his readers had complained that they were not able to follow what he wrote to them. Paul is perhaps replying:
Do not say you cannot understand. You can! I engaged a brother with good handwriting to make sure the copy I sent to you was easy to read, and I was careful not to use words you do not know. I included many metaphors and parables (from your world) and I repeated most of the major topics to assist comprehension. You can indeed read my long letter—and you can understand it. It is actually very clear. You have already understood part of it. Keep trying and you will be able to understand all of it!
A further concern is the presence of the often noted “asides” in 1 Corinthians. Why in the middle of a discussion of patterns of sexual practice (in harmony with the gospel) does Paul suddenly open a discussion of “the circumcised and the uncircumcised” and add to it a discussion of “slavery and freedom”? At times these “asides” interrupt a very carefully structured “apostolic homily.” Sometimes they are more like a parenthesis between homilies. Some are serious statements of some length. Others appear to be “marginal notes.” Each of these is a special case and each in turn will be discussed when it appears in the text.
In regard to the epistle as a whole, it is quite possible that some of the “set pieces” that make up an essay may have been composed by Paul at an earlier stage and were, so to speak, “in the file.” The author of 2 Timothy instructs Timothy to bring “the books and above all the parchments” (2 Tim 4:13). It is hard to imagine that a scholar like Paul did not have some prepared material that, with a bit of adaptation, he could incorporate into a larger document. Paul was lecturing in the Hall of Tyrannus every day for two years (Acts 19:9). The Western text of Acts adds, “from the fifth hour to the tenth.” Metzger suggests that this latter reading “may represent an accurate piece of information.”25 The time reference is from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For most of the year, those hours would have been “siesta” time. Few would have wanted to rent the hall in the heat of the early afternoon, and the cost of doing so would have been much lower. Did Paul have no notes, or carefully prepared material for any of those classes?
By way of summary, it appears that when a long list of problems surfaced in Corinth, Paul selected those of general concern and addressed both the Corinthians and the church at large in a single letter. For this extraordinarily well-constructed, important document Paul reached back into his own Jewish past and co-opted rhetorical styles sanctified by the classical writing prophets.26 Occasionally his mind moved sideways to bring in related topics, and once in a while he added a few “notes” to a homily readily available in his mind or among his papers. The result was one of Paul’s finest efforts and it can indeed be called “Paul’s most contemporary epistle.”
Throughout this study Paul’s use of metaphor and parable will be noted. It is easy to see these metaphors as “illustrations” brought in to elucidate a point. But to make this assumption in studying a biblical text is to miss much of what the Middle Eastern author is trying to say. Middle Easterners create meaning through the use of simile, metaphor, parable and dramatic action. They do not simply illustrate concepts. Jesus used metaphors, parables and dramatic actions in this way. Paul’s parables and metaphors can also be seen as primary theological statements.
Some of Paul’s metaphorical language is buried in our traditional translations. Thiselton has written, “Most English translations, especially NRSV and often NIV, simply abstract the conceptual content of the metaphor from its forceful emotive imagery.”27 Thomas Friedman has astutely observed that when you “opt for a big metaphor… you trade a certain degree of academic precision for a much larger degree of explanatory power.”28 Often this is what Paul has done. But to recover the impact of that “explanatory power” we must penetrate as deeply as possible into his metaphorical and cultural world. How can that best be accomplished?
In this study my goal is to allow Paul’s metaphors and parables to exert their full strength as they appear in the text. Ancient and modern Middle Eastern sources, as available, will be utilized in attempting to achieve this goal. John Chrysostom left us a full commentary on 1 Corinthians. As noted in the preface, a translation of 1 Corinthians from Syriac into Arabic (with commentary) was completed by Bishr Ibn al-Sari of Damascus in A.D. 867. That fine work is now also available in English. Matta al-Miskin (d. 2008) has left us a weighty tome of 783 pages titled St. Paul the Apostle: His Life, His Theology and His Ministry.29 There are many references in this study to 1 Corinthians, but the book does not focus on any particular letter.
Beyond these few sources are the many translations of 1 Corinthians into Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew that stretch from the fourth through fifth centuries up to the present. Over a lifetime, I have managed to acquire twenty-three such translations and have consulted them throughout the writing of this book.30 Translation is always interpretation and these versions open an important window into how Middle Eastern Christians across the last 1,600 years have understood 1 Corinthians. Many of them add short interpretive phrases to the text by way of interpretation. Such phrases intensify the character of these versions as mini-commentaries. Translated out of Greek, Syriac or Coptic, these versions are important for this search.
The New Testament can be likened to a vast ocean. There are two well-known ways to sail upon it. One is to set the sails to the prevailing winds and currents and to use great caution in any deviation from them. The other is to move through uncharted waters, explore neglected islands and inlets and then return and attempt a faithful report on the journey. I have chosen the second.
It is important now to turn aside to take a brieflook at a few cases of the kinds of “prophetic homilies” that were available to Paul as models for his first letter to the Corinthians. After a careful examination of the Hebrew writing prophets, two decades ago I chose Isaiah as a rich mine for a study of biblical rhetorical styles.31 To a small part of that great prophetic witness we now turn.