It is certain that he wrote
a letter to the Corinthians that preceded our 1 Corinthians, because he refers
to it in 1 Corinthians 5:9 (“I wrote to you in my letters, NRSV), in order to
clarify what he had meant over against their apparent misunderstanding of the
earlier instruction. Likewise, it is almost certain that he had written at
least one letter between 1 and 2 Corinthians, the so-called tearful
letter, which, according to 2 Corinthians 2:1-4, he dispatched in lieu of
another “painful visit” (NRSV). Given Paul’s description of the letter and its
purpose, it seems unlikely that this letter is what we call 1 Corinthians, and
although it is slightly more possible that it is what we now call 2 Corinthians
10-13, subsequently appended to an originally briefer letter, this too seems
unlikely. This “tearful letter” is therefore, probably at least the third
correspondence from Paul to the Corinthians, followed by 2 Corinthians, or at
least some part of it, including at least 1 Corinthians 1-7. (Garwood P. Anderson,
Paul’s New Perspective: Charting a Soteriological Journey [Downers
Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2016], 174-75)
To Support this Blog:
Email for Amazon Gift card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com
Email for Logos.com Gift Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com
