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 6:12-20, The body and the prostitute
Answering slogans such as everything is permissible and food is for the stomach, Paul argues that the body belongs to the Lord, will be raised, and must not be joined to a prostitute, for believers were bought at a price.
1 Corinthians 6:12-20, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul quotes slogans some Corinthians were using, such as the claim that everything is allowed and that food and the stomach are made for each other. He answers that freedom must not become a new master and that the body belongs to the Lord, who will raise it as he raised Jesus. Since their bodies are united to Christ and are a temple of the Spirit, they must run from sexual sin, for God bought them at a high price.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sexual-morality-in-greek-cities\/","n":"Sex, wine and Greek city ways","s":"Greek and Roman men were expected to have sex outside marriage, with slaves or prostitutes, and the law allowed it. Jews and Christians called all of it porneia, sexual immorality; drunkenness at banquets and in taverns went with it, and the port of Corinth had an old name for it.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/resurrection-of-the-dead\/","n":"The resurrection of the dead","s":"Most Jews, with the Pharisees, expected God to raise the dead to bodily life at the end of the age. The Sadducees denied it. Nobody expected one man to rise ahead of everyone else.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/slavery\/","n":"Slavery and slave managers","s":"Slaves were everywhere in the Roman world, from field hands to stewards who ran whole estates and handled their master's money. A master away and slaves left in charge was a familiar story.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
Food for the stomach was a Greek way of arguing that the body was made for sex, and since Greeks thought one was done with the body at death, what one did with it seemed not to matter (Keener and his notes); Carson, Moo and Morris trace that low view of the body to neoplatonism. The cultural backgrounds article Prostitution and Sexual Immorality notes that a few philosophers allowed prostitutes so long as one was not ruled by the habit, while many said intercourse was only for having children; that Greek men often married around thirty; and that most prostitutes were slaves, many raised from abandoned babies, often working as tavern barmaids. Corinth's reputation is disputed. The cultural backgrounds notes speak of a long reputation, and Wright says prostitution was often linked to temples "but was much wider as well, especially in a port city like Corinth." Carson, Moo and Morris warn against reading the old city's notoriety into the Roman colony, though a great port was unlikely to be known for virtue. Bought refers to redemption from slavery; Keener suggests a play on the price of freeing a slave prostitute.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, and on 6:12, 6:13-14 and 6:20
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Corinthians 6:12, 6:13 and 6:15-17, and article Prostitution and Sexual Immorality
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 1 Corinthians 6:12-13
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians, comment on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 9, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Destination, and The Character of Paul's Opponents in 1 and 2 Corinthians
