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.
2 Corinthians 1:1-11, The God of all comfort and the sentence of death
Paul opens by blessing the God of all comfort and tells the Corinthians that in Asia he was so crushed that he felt he had received the sentence of death, so that he learned to rely on the God who raises the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:1-11, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul and Timothy write to the believers in Corinth and across Achaia, opening with praise to God, who comforts Paul in every trouble so that he can comfort others. He tells them of a crisis in Asia so severe that he expected to die, which taught him to trust the God who brings the dead back to life. He asks for their prayers, so that many will thank God when he is rescued.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/patrons-and-benefactors\/","n":"Patrons, clients and benefactors","s":"Favors in the Roman world came with strings. A patron gave help and protection, the client paid it back in loyalty and public honor, and rulers who gave gifts to the public were hailed as benefactors.","r":""}
Paul wrote from Macedonia after Titus brought news from Corinth, between a painful second visit and a promised third (the CSB Study Bible; Wright and Bird). Carson, Moo and Morris date it within a year or so of 1 Corinthians, which they put early in 55, and allow every date to move a year earlier; the CSB Study Bible says about AD 56. Corinth was a Roman colony refounded in 44 BC, settled mostly by freedmen (the cultural backgrounds article Corinth). Whether the letter is one or several joined together is debated. Keener puts the burden of proof on those who divide it, and Wright and Bird answer a five-letter theory from the manuscripts. Carson, Moo and Morris weigh four views of chapters 10-13: the severe letter, part of one letter written at one time, a later fifth letter (the commonest view today), or news that reached Paul before he finished; they find the last "marginally stronger than the third". Asia was the province whose capital was Ephesus; Keener thinks of chronic opposition climaxing in the riot of Acts 19, while the ESV Study Bible and Carson, Moo and Morris say the details are unknown.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 2 Corinthians, Authorship and Unity, and on 2 Corinthians 1:3 and 1:8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on 2 Corinthians 1:3, and article Corinth
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 2 Corinthians 1:8
- CSB Study Bible, Introduction to 2 Corinthians, Circumstances of Writing
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 21, 1 and 2 Corinthians, The integrity of 2 Corinthians
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 9, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Occasion (Historical Reconstruction; The Integrity of 1 and 2 Corinthians) and Date
