Paul and the Corinthian Correspondence: Part I

1 and 2 Corinthians are included among the seven undisputed Pauline epistles, along with Romans, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. This means that, generally speaking, virtually all scholars acknowledge Paul’s authorship of these texts. The texts were written to various Christ assemblies located in Corinth and David G. Horrell offers an overview of what we know about the city during Paul’s lifetime at the Bible Odyssey website. According to Acts 18:2, Paul had stayed 18 months in Corinth during his second major missionary journey and he was put on trial before Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia around 51-52 CE (cf. Acts 18:12). On his third major missionary journey, Paul spent two to three years in Ephesus (Acts 19:10; 20:31) between 53-55 CE, where he both wrote a lost letter to the Corinthians (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13) and also received some written and verbal correspondence from the Corinthians (cf. 1:11; 7:1; 16:18). Paul had heard some troublesome news about the domestic congregations in Corinth from Chloe, including their factionalism and their problematic doctrinal, ritual and ethical positions, and wrote the letter of 1 Corinthians from Ephesus (cf. 16:8) to address these matters.