Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Noisy bronze and a dim mirror
Paul says that tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith and even martyrdom are nothing without love, describes what love is, and sets today's partial knowledge, like a dim reflection in a mirror, against seeing face to face.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13, in every translation this tool compares.
In the middle of his teaching on spiritual gifts, Paul says that tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith and even self-sacrifice count for nothing without love. He describes love by what it does and refuses to do: it is patient and kind, free of envy and pride, and does not keep score of wrongs. Gifts like prophecy and knowledge are partial and will end, like a dim reflection in a mirror, but faith, hope and love last, and love outranks them all.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/angels\/","n":"Angels","s":"God's messengers and his heavenly army. Jews of Jesus' day spoke of guardian angels, of the greatest angels standing before God's face, and of angels coming with God at the judgment.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/paidagogos\/","n":"The child's guardian","s":"A trusted household slave walked a boy to school and back, watched his manners and kept him out of trouble until he came of age. He was neither the teacher nor anything like the father.","r":""}
Orators sometimes praised a virtue at length in exalted prose, and Paul's praise of love answers the Corinthians' boasting point by point (Keener and his notes). Most Jews assumed angels understood human languages, since angels were set over the nations (Keener). Cymbals were used in pagan and Jewish worship, but Keener takes the point to be that, though loud, they communicate nothing; he adds that Corinth was famous for its bronze, and bronze vases were often used to amplify voices in outdoor theaters. Josephus describes a gate of Herod's temple "which was of Corinthian brass, and greatly excelled those that were only covered over with silver and gold." Moving mountains was a figure of speech for the impossible, and giving one's body to be burned probably recalls the Jewish martyrs (Keener). A Roman boy came of age at about sixteen, when he put off his childhood toga for the white toga of a man (the cultural backgrounds notes). Mirrors were usually bronze and gave a far less clear image than direct sight (Keener and his notes). Keener notes that love as the supreme virtue was unusual in antiquity.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, and on 13:1, 13:2-3, 13:8-13 and 16:14
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, 13:11 and 13:12
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 5.5.3, trans. William Whiston
