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 6:14-7:1, Unequal yoke, Belial and the temple of God
Paul tells the Corinthians not to be yoked with unbelievers, for light has no fellowship with darkness nor Christ with Belial, and calls them the temple of the living God, who must come out and be separate.
2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul warns the Corinthians against close partnerships with unbelievers, asking what light and darkness, or Christ and Belial, could share. He tells them they are God's temple, and strings together promises from the prophets: God will live among them, they must separate from what is unclean, and he will be their Father. On the strength of those promises he urges them to purify themselves completely out of reverence for God.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-satan\/","n":"The satan, the tempter","s":"The accuser, tempter and deceiver of Jewish belief, seen as the power behind human and political evil. In the Gospels he tests Jesus and is the strong man Jesus binds, and John calls him the ruler of this world.","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":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/pagan-gods-and-idols\/","n":"Many gods and their images","s":"The Greek and Roman world was full of gods, each with temples, statues, priests and local stories. Jews and Christians called the images things made with hands, while holding that there were real powers behind them.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/unclean-by-touch\/","n":"Unclean by touch","s":"Under the law, skin disease, bleeding, corpses, tombs and certain animals made a person ritually unclean, and touch could pass it on.","r":""}
The yoke comes from Deuteronomy 22:10, two kinds of animals plowing under one yoke (Keener). Jewish sources set the righteous against the wicked and light against darkness, as in the War Scroll (the cultural backgrounds notes). Belial or Beliar was a Jewish name for Satan, pervasive in the Scrolls, from a Hebrew word meaning worthlessness (Keener and his notes; the ESV and CSB Study Bibles); Heiser calls him in Second Temple texts the one who "is the leader of the powers of darkness," and Arnold notes that this is the only evil spirit Paul names. Whether the passage belongs here is debated. Carson, Moo and Morris report that most scholars now call it an insertion, citing its rare words, its break in the flow from 6:13 to 7:2 and its Scroll-like contrasts, and some call it non-Pauline; they answer that Paul's outbursts often use rare words and that Beliar was too common in Jewish writing for Paul not to know it. Keener suggests earlier sermon material. Who the unbelievers are is also read differently: pagans and idol worship (Carson, Moo and Morris; Fee, through them), or the false apostles (the CSB Study Bible; Arnold).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Corinthians 6:14, 6:15 and 7:1
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 and 6:15
- ESV Study Bible, study note on 2 Corinthians 6:15
- CSB Study Bible, notes on 2 Corinthians 6:14 and 6:15
- Michael S. Heiser, Reversing Hermon, ch. 10, Second Temple Jewish Demonology
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 9, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Other Alleged Interpolations in 2 Corinthians
- Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness, ch. 6, What Paul Does Not Say, and ch. 9, Deceived by Servants of Satan (2 Cor 10-13)
