Anchor Bible: 2 Corinthians – Introduction

One of my more esoteric goals in life is to complete a study of every book of the Bible form the original languages working with a commentary that takes critical issues into account. I have read the Bible through in its original languages. This is a different type of study. I will generally read other sources, but I choose one critical commentary that I think should be pretty solid, and I study the book with that on.

In the case of 2 Corinthians, I chose the Anchor Bible Commentary by Victor Paul Furnish. It’s a 620 page (without front matter) volume that does interact intensively with some of the major critical theories, and also looks carefully at the theology of the book. I have used the Anchor Bible commentary in a number of my studies, and generally have found them to be fine volumes.

This time I’m going to blog a bit about the experience as I study through. Using my own study methods, I’ve been reading the book through daily for the last couple of weeks, using different translations and getting an overview. Today I read the introduction, which occupies 57 pages. Most of it is fairly straightforward, dealing with dating the book and looking at where it fits with what we know of the life of Paul. Of those pages 18 deal with the history and the culture of Roman Corinth. Following that we get a substantial history of Christianity in Corinth as it is known from other sources.

The entire introduction is good, and is expected of an Anchor Bible volume. But the section on the literary integrity of the book is exceptional, working through the logic that has been applied, and should be applied to various theories of authorship. One important point is made on page 38: “Any proponent of a partition hypothesis is under an obligation to offer some plausible explanation(s) of how originally independent units could have come to be combined into a literary whole.” That’s an often disregarded point.

Dr. Furnish does accept one partitioning of 2 Corinthians. He believes chapters 1-9 represent one letter, and 10-13 a follow-up letter. His hypothesis for the combination of the two elements is that the two were put together as a collection, and joined by the simple expedient of dropping the ending salutations of one and the opening salutation of the other. He even provides examples of such collection practices in the ancient world. In doing so, however, he rejects a large number of very complex hypotheses.

I’ll be reading the comments on the relevant passages with some interest to see how strongly he bolsters his case.

For those interested, the introduction is followed by about 35 pages labeled “Select Bibliography.” All I can say is that I would hate to imagine what would have happened had the author not been selective!