PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

In letter B, the style is authoritative, making use of traditional, Hellenistic Jewish,
and scriptural material, with hardly any dialogue with the audience. In Letter C,
however, the dialogical rhetoric is obviously visible in both chapter 8 and the end
of chapter 10. Paul uses creedal and scriptural material, but he also interacts
substantively with the audience’s material. In each rhetoric the content
corresponds to the style. In the earlier piece, the apologetic rhetoric admonishes,
charges, and warns the Gnostics to flee from idolatry. In the later piece, the
rhetoric of knowledge and love opens up a forum for the Gnostics, the “weak,”
and Paul to interact with one another. 10
Thus an alleged issue in first century Christianity (the development of Gnosticism, and its
opposition on the grounds of institutional apostolic orthodoxy) is suggested as a realistic
redactional situation that makes good sense of the diversity of material that is found in 1
Corinthians. An authoritarian Pauline school manipulated the potentially pro-Gnostic
Pauline letter, to make it fit into a redacted product that was, overall, anti-Gnostic in
stance: canonical 1 Corinthians. Arguments for incipient Gnosticism in the first century
have diminished in credibility in the last several decades; however it may still be
appropriate to envisage early disputes between different models of leadership and
authority. 11
These, then, are two fundamental objections to the unity of 1 Corinthians: lack of literary
coherence, and arguable evidence of an editor – complete with a conceivable editorial
situation.
Because these arguments are largely about literary flow and coherence, they require a
largely literary response. Most recent arguments for the unity of 1 Corinthians have
10 Yeo, Rhetorical Interaction, 210.
11 1 Clement, for example, would hint that this was the case in Corinth in the late first
century. On dating, see the discussion in footnote 19.
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