PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

Of course, these varying characterisations of a unified set of problems in Corinth need not
be seen as utterly incompatible with one another. Indeed it may be observed that there is a
degree of agreement that the problems in Corinth involved community conflict in
combination with deficient, exclusivistic religiosity. Such characterisations of
entextualised situational coherence may indeed prove fruitful in alleviating literary
incongruities, and so ought to be attended to in the consideration of exegetical tensions
within 1 Corinthians.
Theological Unity
Certain scholars maintain that, in connection with his conception of the problems in
Corinth, Paul exhibits a unifying theological thesis that directs his creative pastoral
strategy, and which helps explain apparent literary incongruities. Such scholars do not
generally deny that social and religious factors fruitfully illuminate the Corinthian
situation to which Paul responds, but they see in Paul’s response a unified theological
theme. Thus both the framing of the Corinthian problems and the organisation of Paul’s
response are to be understood as evidencing a theologically driven rhetoric. This is not to
say that those in Corinth consciously held theological views divergent from the apostle;
rather, the apostle perceives that the Corinthians’ religious and social manifestations
betray a deep theological problem, and so he responds with a letter that is organised in
such a way as to present a primarily theological correction.
Although Karl Barth assumes some sort of Gnostic influence, he characterises the core
problem as “unrestrained human vitality”, a theological issue that expresses itself in
different ways throughout the letter until it is climactically answered in chapter 15. 73
Humans should place their confidence in the God who raises the dead – and this should be
73 A. Katherine Grieb comments: “Barth’s ‘theological exegesis’ enabled him to hear the
theologian Paul and protected him against the historicizing tendencies of the NT scholars
of his day”. A. Katherine Grieb, “Last Things First: Karl Barth’s Theological Exegesis of
1 Corinthians in The Resurrection of the Dead,” SJT 56/1 (2003): 49-64; 49.
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