Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 165:657 (Jan 2008)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Jefferson P. Webster

BSac 165:657 (January-March 2008) p. 86

Periodical Reviews

By The Faculty and Library Staff of

Dallas Theological Seminary

Jefferson P. Webster

Editor

“The Structure and Argument of 1 Corinthians: A Biblical/ Jewish Approach,” Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, New Testament Studies 52 (2006): 205-18.

Before the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), two major views existed concerning the argument and structure of 1 Corinthians. The letter was either a composite document assembled from a number of smaller documents (e.g., J. Weiss, J. Héring, W. Schmithals, and R. Jewett) or the letter was organized around Paul’s response to various oral reports from Corinth (chaps. 1–6) as well as his reply to a letter from the Corinthians (chaps. 7–16). In this latter scenario Paul’s letter is a reply to a series of problems treated randomly or in the order in which Paul encountered them from these oral and written communications. (For the classic treatment of this position see John C. Hurd Jr., The Origin of 1 Corinthians [London: SPCK, 1965].)

Mitchell, however, argued that 1 Corinthians is an example of deliberative rhetoric in which Paul urged concord (i.e., a series of arguments designed to persuade the Corinthians to heed Paul’s appeal to unity in 1:10), not an ad hoc reply to various problems.

Ciampa and Rosner—professors at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia), respectively—argue instead that Paul did not adopt conventions from Greco-Roman rhetoric (i.e., deliberative rhetoric). Instead they say that 1 Corinthians follows patterns found in Paul’s other letters (Rom. 1:21–28; 15:5–16; 1 Thess. 1:9–10); is parallel to other Jewish literary sources and the Old Testament (e.g., Hag. 2:7; Mal. 1:11; the Decalogue); and follows structural clues within 1 Corinthians itself (e.g., 6:18 with 10:14; 6:20 with 7:23 and 10:31; 8:1 with chap. 13). Ciampa and Rosner consider Mitchell�...