Other Alleged Interpolations in 2 Corinthians
Other Alleged Interpolations in 2 Corinthians
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that "the literary and historical hypotheses stand or fall together.” 10 In other words, those who find interpolations (a literary phenomenon) in 2 Corinthians usually provide a reconstructed history to account for the alleged interpolations—the more so if these interpolations include references to Paul’s movements. The principal theories of interpolation focus on three passages.
2 Corinthians 2:14-7:4. Some scholars argue that these chapters (usually without 6:14-7:1; see below) constitute the whole or a part of a separate letter. They note that excellent flow is achieved by reading 7:5 immediately after 2:13: the subject of Titus’s itinerary and Paul’s trip to Macedonia is continued. Some think that 2:14-7:4 once belonged with chapters 10-13 to constitute the severe letter (= Corinthians C); 11 others suggest that this is part of yet another letter, written before the severe letter, before the Corinthians had been taken over by Paul’s opponents. 12
But although 2 Cor. 7:5 follows 2:13 rather nicely from a thematic point of view, other literary indications suggest there is a break. For instance, the words that begin 7:5 ("For when we came into Macedonia...”), although they pick up the theme of 2:13 ("So I said good-by to them and went on to Macedonia”), would be unduly repetitive if they followed on immediately. They sound much more as if Paul is resuming a theme, knowing he has digressed. Morever, several linking words tie 7:4 with 7:5-7 (παρακλησις (paraklesis, "comfort”, G4155); χαρά / χαρηναι (chara /charenai, "joy” / "to be joyful”, from χαρά + χαίρω, G5915 + G5897), θλιψις / θλιβόμενοι (thlipsis / thlibomenoi, "troubles”/"being harassed”, from θλιψις + θλιβω, G2568 / G2567). There are also thematic ties: for example, "I have great confidence in you” (7:4) and "I am glad I can have complete confidence in you” (7:16). Moreover, any view that ties 2:14-7:4 to chapters 10-13 confronts all the problems discussed earlier that are associated with the entirely different pastoral stances reflected in the two sections.
To argue that 2 Cor. 2:14-7:4 is an integral part of chapters 1-9 still leaves one with the responsibility of explaining why the line of thought from 2:13 to 7:5 is in some measure broken up. Many suggestions have been put forward. Some of them are convincing; most are not mutually exclusive but rather mutually supportive. Many have suggested that the mere mention of Titus’s name (2:13) prompts Paul to make a conscious digression to express gratitude to God for the relief he felt when Titus did show up, 13 or to leap forward to a happy, theological articulation of the basis on which his restored relationship with the Corinthians must now rest. It has been argued that, just as 1:8-11 draws a contrast between human weakness and the power of God, so the same theme is repeated when Paul moves from the admission of his own weakness in 2:12-13 to the triumphant note of 2:14-17. 14 Others propose that Paul is concerned not to make the Corinthians feel guilty for the anxiety they caused him. Therefore, after so frankly admitting his anxiety (2:12-13), he quickly turns to emphasizing the victorious progress of the gospel everywhere (including Troas) and thus signals that he himself suffered no disastrous personal defeat for which they should feel responsible. 15 One writer thinks that the length of the interposing passage, 2:14-7:4, is occasioned by the fact that 2:14-16 is a second "traditional thanksgiving period” (all but one of the canonical Pauline Epistles contain at least one, normally right after the salutation; see 1:3-7). Typically, these thanksgiving periods anticipate the direction of Paul’s argument, and in this way, 2:14-16 foreshadows the content of the following chapters. 16 Above all, one of the major themes of 2 Corinthians 1-9 is the assurance of God’s comfort in our affliction, an idea found not only before and after this alleged interpolation (1:3-11; 7:57, 12-13) but throughout it (e.g., 4:7-5:8; 6:1-10; 7:4). 17 In short, there do not appear to be adequate reasons for taking 2:14-7:4 as an interpolation, while there are sufficient reasons to explain the superficial hiatus.
2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1. Within the larger section 2:14-7:4, these six verses are often taken to be a further interpolation, 18 and possibly non-Pauline. 19 The reasons most commonly advanced are as follows: (1) the passage constitutes a self-contained unit without any unambiguous references to the situation in Corinth; (2) it contains six hapax legomena (i.e. words or expressions that occur only here in the New Testament); 20 (3) the combination of body (σαρξ [sarx, G4922], "flesh,” and spirit (7:1) in this context is said to be un-Pauline, since he normally opposes the two; (4) the passage seems to interrupt the flow from 6:13 to 7:2, which make excellent sense if they are simply joined; (5) some hold that it betrays an exclusivism more characteristic of Pharisaism than of the apostle of liberty; and (6) some also hold that the apocalyptic dualism— righteousness/iniquity, Christ/Belial, light/darkness—is more typical of Qumran than of Paul.
The arguments that take the passage to be non-Pauline are not so strong as they first seem. It has often been noted that "Pauline outbursts containing a high percentage of hapax legomena are not uncommon (1 Cor. 4:7-13 has six hapaxes and 2 Cor. 6:3-10 [the verses preceding the passage under consideration] has four.” 21 Hughes observes that there are about fifty hapax legomena in 2 Corinthians alone. 22 Moreover, if (as Fee suggests) we query the significance of those unique words where elsewhere Paul uses a cognate term, only one remains, namely, "Beliar,” which is so common in Jewish writings that it is impossible to think Paul did not know the term. 23 Although Betz finds the exclusivism of this passage so remarkable 24 he judges it to be an anti -Pauline fragment (surely a strange judgment when one recalls such passages as Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 6:12-20; 10:14-22; Gal. 1:8-9). Qumran offers somewhat parallel formal dualism to the fourth gospel, but almost no one today suggests that John is made up of Qumran fragments: there is simply insufficient evidence to support Fitzmyer’s view 25 that this passage is an Essene composition reworked by some unknown Christian. 26 Moreover, although it is true that Paul regularly places "flesh” (σαρξ [sarx] over against "spirit” where the spirit refers to the Holy Spirit (e.g., Gal. 6:16-25), here the entire expression "body and spirit” refers to the whole person. In short, the arguments in favor of the view that this is a non-Pauline fragment do not seem very convincing.
Still, the distinctiveness of the passage demands some explanation, and it is not entirely surprising that some have suggested that this is a Pauline excerpt from another letter, perhaps from the "previous” letter (= Corinthians A, referred to in 1 Cor. 5:9). 27 Quite apart from the difficulty of imagining why anyone (Paul or a later redactor) would interpolate such a passage here, there is another obvious hurdle: the "previous” letter forbade the believers from enjoying fellowship with believers who were behaving immorally; by contrast, this passage forbids believers from enjoying close fellowship with unbelievers, especially in the matter of idolatrous worship (see 1 Cor. 10:14-22).
A strong contingent of scholars insist on the authenticity and integrity of the passage, 28 though their explanations of the abruptness of its beginning and ending vary (most of which are not mutually exclusive). It has often been observed that 2 Cor. 7:2 sounds more like a resumption of 6:13 than a mere continuation of it, which suggests that 6:147:1 is not an accidental digression. Some envisage a pause in dictation at 6:13; 29 Barrett suggests that Paul, aware of false apostles lurking in the background, opens his heart to urge restored relationships between the Corinthians and himself but warns them that this will entail a break with the world. 30 Dahl’s view is similar (though he thinks the passage originated in a Qumran community and was reworked by Paul). 31 Hughes suggests that, having rearticulated the nature of his spiritual authority in the previous chapters, Paul now uses it to warn against the ever-pressing threat of paganism, but in a spirit entirely free of censoriousness, as the surrounding verses attest. Fee notes the many parallels with 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 and reconstructs a development to argue that this passage is still dealing with the question of food offered to idols. 33 In short, to accept the basic integrity of 2 Corinthians at this point seems considerably less problematic than the alternatives. 34
2 Corinthians 8-9. Several scholars have argued that chapter 8 is an interpolation, or that chapter 9 is, 36 or that each is a separate letter and that both have been interpolated into 2 Corinthians. 37The issues are extraordinarily complex, and we review here the principal turning points.
1. It is argued that 2 Cor. 9 introduces the subject of the collection as if no mention has been made of it already. Chapter 9 must therefore follow chapter 7, and chapter 8 is an independent document with its conclusion lost (Weiss). This demands that Weiss reconstruct just when chapter 8 was written. He thinks chapter 8 commended Titus and two unnamed believers much earlier, before the arrival of Timothy with the bad news, indeed before those from Chloe’s house had arrived (1:11). It was the spontaneous enthusiasm of believers in Macedonia that "prompted [Paul] to press the matter with renewed zeal in Corinth.... [The Corinthians] had already a year ago, earlier than the Macedonians, made a beginning not only to ‘will’, but also to ‘do’ (viii.10). They should now carry out their program to completion (viii.11).” 38 But this is unlikely. Barrett has observed that 2 Corinthians 8:10 does not say that the Corinthians made a beginning not only to will but also to do, but the reverse: they made a beginning not only to do but also to will, reflecting the spontaneity of their initial response and the subsequent resolution that grew out of it. 39 Moreover, it is unlikely that there was any trip by Titus encouraging a collection before 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, not only because Titus is not mentioned there, but also because these verses presuppose that Paul’s plans for the collection are still in the beginning stages.
2. The opening words of 2 Cor. 9, περι μέν γαρ (peri men gar, “so now concerning,” or the like), are often taken to be an introductory formula used to introduce new subjects, and therefore constitute evidence that chapter 8 (and perhaps chapter 9) is an interpolation. Certainly Paul elsewhere uses a similar, though not identical, formula to introduce new subjects (1 Cor. 7:1; 8:1; 12:1; 16:1, namely, περι δέ [peri de], “now concerning”).
This argument, however, fails to take into account several important considerations. First, the two constructions are quite different, as Betz himself recognizes, 40 and the latter is in any case specifically introductory only because we are told that the apostle is taking up one topic after another seriatim, in response to the agenda established by a letter from the Corinthians (1 Cor. 7:1). Second, to label περι μεν γαρ (peri men gar) an "introductory formula ” already begs the issue, for it prompts the reader to take the expression as a whole (because it is a "formula”), rather than to consider the semantic contribution of each word. There is no evidence that this string of words constitutes a formula, introductory or otherwise, that would have been recognized as such in the first century. Third, this observation becomes important when Betz, 41 for instance, argues that γαρ (gar, "for”, G1142), which almost always connects its clause with something preceding, insists that that need not be the case here, since it is linked with the particle μέν (men, G3525), which points forward to the δέ (de, G1254) in 2 Cor. 9:3 (overtranslating, this becomes "on the one hand...on the other hand”—i.e., "On the one hand, I know you need no reminder... but just the same I am sending...”). That simply does not follow. The μέν...δέ construction makes its own semantic contribution; the preposition πέρι (peri, “concerning”) brings up the subject (i.e., "this service to the saints”); and γάρ (gar, "for”) connects this clause with what precedes, either so as to say "I can make confident boasts about you, for...” 42 or, perhaps, so as to say "I have been speaking about the collectors, for it is unnecessary to speak about the collection itself.”
In other words, there is no compelling evidence that πέρι μέν γάρ should be taken as an introductory formula. The expression reads much better as a resumptive, following the travel arrangements that take up 8:16-24, a resumptive that also, because of the μέν...δέ construction, prepares for the next step in the argument.
3. It is sometimes argued that Paul’s appeal in 2 Cor. 8:1-5 to the Macedonians to stir up the Corinthians and his appeal in 9:1-2 to the Corinthians to stir up the Macedonians are in conflict unless the respective chapters were once separate documents. This is ingenuous because it fails to recognize the various markers of sequence. In chapter 8, Paul tells of a completed work by the Macedonians, hoping to stir up the Corinthians to complete what they had already set out to do; in chapter 9, Paul tells how he had appealed to this earlier readiness of the Corinthians to stimulate the Macedonians to undertake the action they had now completed.
4. Some find that the different purposes for sending the envoys, articulated in the two chapters, constitute evidence that they were written at different times. In 2 Cor. 8, Paul says he is sending well-accredited envoys so as to avoid any suspicion of impropriety in the matter of the collection; in chapter 9 he says he is sending them to ensure that everything will be ready by the time he himself arrives. It is simpler to assume that Paul had complementary reasons for sending the envoys.
5. In support of the unity of 2 Cor. 8-9, it can be argued that the way "the brothers” are referred to in 9:3 rather presupposes that their credentials have already been introduced—which introduction is provided in chapter 8. Moreover, many commentators have sought to demonstrate that there is a logical progression of thought through these chapters as they now stand in 2 Corinthians.
In short, despite the various leaps in Paul’s thought from time to time, a phenomenon for which he is noted, the evidence supports the basic integrity of 2 Corinthians 1-9.