5. The authenticity of the Epistle
5. The authenticity of the Epistle
There seem no solid grounds for doubting the authenticity of 1 Corinthians. Robertson and Plummer can say, ‘Both the external and the internal evidence for the Pauline authorship are so strong that those who attempt to show that the Apostle was not the writer succeed chiefly in proving their own incompetence as critics.’33 There is accordingly no need to do more than indicate briefly where the strength of this evidence lies.
The external attestation is all that we could wish. It is cited in 1 Clement 47:1, a first-century letter; 1 Corinthians is the first New Testament document to be cited with the name of its author. It is freely quoted by Ignatius and Polycarp and from then on is often referred to, with no doubts expressed about its authorship. None of Paul’s other letters was quoted as widely and as early as this. In the Muratorian Fragment (a list of books accepted as canonical, probably at Rome, and dating from some time after the middle of the second century) and in some other lists it is the first of Paul’s letters. No satisfactory reason has been suggested for this, but at the least it shows that 1 Corinthians was regarded as very important.
Internal evidence likewise points to Paul. The style and language are those of the universally accepted Pauline writings. The letter fits in with what we know of the situation in Corinth. It reads naturally as Paul’s attempt to deal with a difficult situation. It contains forthright condemnations of the Corinthians and the very preservation of a letter like this when others of Paul’s letters have been lost is strong evidence of authenticity.34
There is little that need be said about the integrity of the Epistle. Some critics have suspected interpolations, but the reasons they put forward have not commended themselves. In earlier years J. Weiss held that a number of writings have been put together to form this letter and in recent years others (e.g. Héring and Hurd) have argued that the work is composite. But we must not expect the same orderly classification of topics in a letter as in a theological treatise. 1 Corinthians reads very much like an original letter. As Moffatt says, ‘if some editor really put together fragments from two or three letters, he has done his work so well that it is beyond our powers to recover their original shape and sequence.’35 It seems reasonably clear then that this is a genuine writing of Paul and that it is free from any substantial interpolation.36