PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

indeed been along these lines – most notably that by Margaret M. Mitchell. 12 However it
also seems worthwhile to consider briefly the issue of historical plausibility.
Redaction Reconstructions and Historical Plausibility
Of the various redaction theories regarding 1 Corinthians, I find those of Walter
Schmithals and Robert Jewett to be most attentive to historical questions, and so it is with
their two reconstructions that I will engage at this point. 13
In short, Schmithals 14 argues that 1 Corinthians was redacted by the collator of an early
Pauline Corpus. This early Corpus formed the archetype for later copies of the Pauline
letters, which explains why no significantly dissenting versions of 1 Corinthians have been
attested. Jewett, as noted above, argues that 1 Corinthians was redacted by a conservative
Pauline party, which wanted to crowd out competing claims to carry the tradition of the
apostle. Both Schmithals and Jewett thus hold that the redaction was essentially an
aggressive move, designed to cement an authoritative Pauline tradition, at the cost of the
12 Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical
Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville, Ky.:
Westminster John Knox, 1991).
13 Although Sellin is aware of the relation of redaction theories to the issue of the
formation of a Pauline Corpus, his investigation of this issue is not as detailed as that of
either Schmithals or Jewett: “Doch kann dieser Vorrang [that is, the precedence of the
text-critical end-product over alleged text parts] keineswegs ein absoluter sein, da die
Möglichkeit, daß mehrere an denselben Adressaten gerichtete Paulus-Briefe im Zeitraum
zwischen ihrer Erstrezeption und der handschriftlichen Vervielfältigung im Rahmen eines
überregionalen Corpus Paulinum redaktionell zu einer Briefeinheit kombiniert wurden,
nicht generell von der Hand zu weisen ist, wie der immer noch bestehende große Konsens
in der gegenwärtigen Einschätzung des 2 Kor eindrücklich belegt”. Gerhard Sellin, “1
Korinther 5-6 und der ‘Vorbrief’ nach Korinth: Indizien für eine Mehrschichtigkeit von
Kommunikationsakten im ersten Korintherbrief,” NTS 37 (1991): 535-558; 535. Schrage,
likewise, shows an awareness of the difficulties associated with the formation of the
Pauline corpus in relation to redaction theories, but does not deal with such difficulties in
any detail. See Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1 Kor 1,1-6,11)
(EKKNT; Zürich: Neukirchener, 1991), 71. Hurd rightly objects to a simplistic appeal to
the case of 2 Corinthians: “[T]he redaction of 2 Corinthians at whatever level of
intelligence offers little support for theories of redaction in 1 Corinthians. The positing of
a redactor for 1 Corinthians is an independent step in the chain of argument, and appeal
cannot be made to creative redactional activity in 2 Corinthians”. John C. Hurd, “Good
News and the Integrity of 1 Corinthians” in Gospel in Paul: Studies in 1 Corinthians,
Galatians and Romans (ed. L. Ann Jervis and Peter Richardson; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1994), 38-62; 52.
14 Schmithals’ understanding of the work of the Corinthian redactor can be found in his
work Gnosticism in Corinth, and on pages 287-8 of his article “Die Korintherbriefe als
Briefsammlung,” ZNW 64 (1973): 263-88.
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