NT2213 The Pauline Tradition: 1 & 2 Corinthians
 Mary E. Hinkle
Associate Professor of New Testament
Luther Seminary
Fall 2004

Week 4 | Sept. 27-Oct. 1

Week 4 To Do List

  1. Read this web page.
  2. Read Cousar textbook (The Letters of Paul), pages 63-74 and 134-144.
  3. Read Finger textbook (Paul and the Roman House Churches), 44-62.
  4. Complete the Hunt for Paul's Audience (print-friendly here).
  5. Weblog.
  6. Review Module One study guide in preparation for exam (coming Tuesday).

Reading Someone Else's Mail

This topic emphasizes the "someone else's" part of the title phrase. We are describing as much as we can about Paul's audience.

The Letters of Paul

Charles Cousar, The Letters of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996). Chapters 4 ("Paul's Churches") and 9 ("The New Community").

Charles Cousar (pronounced "Cow-ser") is a professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur Georgia. Cousar's text includes two chapters on Paul's churches. The first is a review of recent sociological research into the types of people Paul preached and wrote to. The second is more of a survey of how Paul's convictions about how God's work in Christ gave shape to his view of the church (a.k.a. his ecclesiology).

Diversity Characterizes the Group

Important for our understanding of Paul's churches is this summary sentence from Cousar: "Though the evidence is fragmentary, the emerging picture is of a community of several social levels, missing only the extreme top and the extreme bottom—no landed aristocrats and senators and no hired menials and agricultural slaves" (67).

High Status Inconsistency Characterizes the Individuals

The first Christians seem often to have been simultaneously high in some class or social categories and low in others. Cousar uses Prisca and Aquila as examples, saying that they "may have been fairly wealthy since they traveled widely and established households in three cities, yet their profession as tentmakers ranks relatively low on the scale of occupational prestige" (67).

The Vanguard of the New Age

Paul thought of the church as those "upon whom the ends of the ages have met" (1 Cor. 10:15). His audience were groups of people living "ahead of time," as it were. Cousar's section on the topic (140-142) is a straightforward and simple statement of how Paul's view of the end (his eschatology) influenced his view of the church (his ecclesiology).

Paul and the Roman House Churches

Rita Halteman Finger, Paul and the Roman House Churches. Chapters 4 ("Standing on the Bottom Rung: Hierarchy in Roman Society") and 5 ("Isis, Mithris or Stoicism: Religions and Philosophies in Rome").

This book is written for a lay Sunday School audience so Halteman Finger explains every word she thinks her readers might not understand. It is a simple but good summary of a lot of information about the religious, political and economic milieu of the first century Greco Roman world.

Why a Book on Romans?

You may want to know why we are reading a book that is focused on Romans when this is a class on 1 & 2 Corinthians. The answer is that the world of the first century Roman Christians described by this book is largely transferable to other places and people to whom Paul addressed his letters. You will get a sense of Paul's audience by reading a few chapters here, even though the book's focus is Romans.

No Simulations for Us

You may also want to know why we are reading a book that sets up simulations when we are not going to do any simulations as a class. I thought about building simulation games with texts from 1 or 2 Corinthians. Finally, it seemed to me that too much about the time period and the people mentioned in, for example, 1 Cor. 16 was unknown for us to do a very good job of creating characters for the simulations. However, the book remains a simple and straightforward condensed version of recent scholarship into the social situation of Paul's audience, and it is an intriguing way to imagine studying Paul's letters in a Sunday school setting. I thought you might like knowing about it as a resource.

The First Urban Christians

Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1983). Chapters 1 ("The Urban Environment of Pauline Christianity") and 2 ("The Social Level of Pauline Christians").

This book is suggested reading rather than required reading only because I do not want to short change the time you have for reading the actual text of Paul's letters and there is not time for everything useful. However, if you are interested in the social history of the New Testament, this is a great book for you. Cousar and Halteman Finger are at many points summarizing the work that Meeks first published in this text. Meeks taught at Yale University for many years, and together with Abraham Malherbe there, pioneered the use of social history in the study of Paul's letters. Among his students are Luther Seminary's own Sarah Henrich and David Fredrickson.