The Rhetorical Role Of Scripture In 1 Corinthians

In The Interpersonal Metafunction in 1 Cor 1-4, James D. Dvorak analyzes the interpersonal meanings encoded in the text and the social function they fulfill in realigning the readers to the values that Paul expects all Jesus-followers to live by.

Rhetorical Interaction in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 is a formal analysis of Paul's rhetorical interaction with the Corinthians over the issues of participation in the cultic meal (1 Cor. 10:1-22) and the eating of idol food (1 Cor. 8:1-13, 10:23-11:1). The thesis is that Paul's theology and rhetoric are predicated on knowledge and love. Major portions of the book employ rhetorical, sociological, archaeological, and historical-critical approaches to examine the triangular interaction between Paul, the Corinthians, and the biblical texts, paying particular attention to the complex configuration of the Corinthian congregation, including the influence of proto-Gnosticism, as well as the ways Paul responded to the shifting situation and different issues. The two chapters on rhetorical-hermeneutical theory and criticism are especially creative as the author suggests a Chinese hermeneutic for cross-cultural dialogues, the issue of ancestor worship being a specific example.

This volume presents, in published form, the detailed commentary work of E. Earle Ellis on Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. At the time of his death Ellis had been working for many years on a volume for the International Critical Commentary on the epistle. Because Ellis was unable to complete the volume before his passing and had left instructions that it should not be completed, Terry Wilder instead presents Ellis' profound exegetical insights in the form of his completed commentary sections on 1 Corinthians, with minimal editorial intervention. In addition to collating Ellis' detailed critical commentary on 1 Corinthians chapters 1-13, with edited notes on chapter 14, Wilder has also completed an original editorial essay that provides a synthesis of Ellis' notes and thinking on chapters 15 and 16. Closely assessing the letter's address, salutation and thanksgiving and Paul's words on true and false wisdom, sexual relationships, liberty's boundaries and the regulation of church services, Ellis' final work is a crucial resource for a core New Testament text.

A signature volume in the NIV-based New American Commentary series, New Testament professor Mark Taylor offers his exposition of the popular book of 1 Corinthians to give readers a deeper understanding of its content and context.

Felipe Legarreta gives careful attention to patterns of exegesis in Second-Temple Judaism and identifies, for the first time, a number of motifs by which Jews drew ethical implications from the story of Adam and his expulsion from Eden. He then demonstrates that throughout the “Christological” passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians, Paul is taking part in a wider Jewish exegetical and ethical discussion regarding life in the new creation.

This book investigates 1 Corinthians 1-4 from a rhetorical and social perspective and explores that a divisive culture of rhetorical and paternal elitism lies behind the schisms and problems identified in the letter. This culture appears to have been shaped to some extent by the legacy of Cicero. Paul's references to "boasting" and "imitation" indicate both his subversive use, and his critique, of this Greco-Roman wisdom. In the final chapter, this analysis of wisdom traditions and their social consequences among first-century Corinthians leads to a critical reflection on similar dynamics among Korean Christians in twenty-first-century Korean-Confucian culture. In particular, Korean Protestants are encouraged to take a more positive stance towards Confucian wisdom traditions (as exemplified by T'oegye's legacy), and some insights are suggested into the ethics of imperial worship, ancestral veneration, and ethnic exclusivity.

I argue that 1 Corinthians is a unified composition that exhibits kerygmatic rhetoric. That is, Jewish and Greco-Roman resources are brought into the service of an overall arrangement that is creatively suggested by Paul's kerygma of the Messiah who died, rose, and awaits cosmic manifestation. In particular, I demonstrate that the Jewish motif of dual reversal, whereby boastful rulers are destined for destruction while righteous sufferers are destined for vindication, serves as an influential conceptual motif in the formulation of Christian kerygma, and as such may be seen as an interpretative framework and rhetorical resource available to Paul. In 1 Corinthians 1-4 Paul evaluates struggles over leadership in the Corinthian congregation as an implicit expression of human autonomy, and responds by summoning the Corinthians to identify with Christ, by forgoing the role of the boastful ruler and adopting the role of the cruciform sufferer. This identification with the cruciform Christ consequently gives shape to Paul's ethical instruction in 1 Corinthians 5-14, a section that draws on Jewish and Greco-Roman resources, while exhibiting a pattern of Pauline ethical argumentation expressive of Paul's kerygma of identification with the embodied Christ. In the final chapter of the main body of the letter (1 Corinthians 15), Paul utilises the Corinthian denial of "the resurrection of the dead" as the ultimate paradigm of their refusal to adopt a cruciform orientation, and urges that the dead in Christ will be raised to immortal glory, while present powers will be brought to nothing. I suggest that this attention to the creative influence of Paul's kerygma on the form of his argumentation represents an important addition to the tools of the Pauline rhetorical analyst. Such an approach results in an historically attentive and exegetically persuasive account of the letter's arrangement that also finds great harmony with the perspective of the fourth century preacher John Chrysostom.