Unger's Bible Dictionary: First Corinthians

CORINTHIANS, FIRST EPISTLE TO THE

CORINTHIANS, FIRST EPISTLE.

Authorship. The Pauline authorship of 1 Corinthians is abundantly attested to from the first century onward. Clement of Rome, the Didache, Ignatius, Polycarp, Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Athenagoros all lend their voice in support of the genuineness of the epistle. Irenaeus contains more than 60 quotations from 1 Corinthians; Clement of Alexandria quotes it more than 130 times; Tertullian quotes some 400 times. First Corinthians stands at the head of the Pauline epistles in the Muratorian canon. Internal evidence is also abundant (cf. 1 Cor 1:1; 3:4; 9:1; 16:21). The way the book dovetails with the history in Acts also confirms it.

Occasion and Date. The occasion of the epistle was a letter of inquiry from Corinth concerning marriage and the eating of meats offered to idols (1 Cor 7:1; 8). This led the apostle to write concerning the deepening divisions, increasing contentions, and unjudged sin in the church (1:10-12; 5:1). The factions were due not to open heresies, but to the carnality of the Corinthians and to their being carried away by admiration for Gk. wisdom and eloquence. The moral pollution of their city, which was notorious, was a continual temptation to them. Minor disorders took the form of abuse of spiritual gifts, particularly tongues and the sign gifts (14:1-28). False ideas concerning the resurrection were also corrected (chap. 15). The date of the epistle varies with critical opinion. We know it was written from Ephesus (16:8). It was seemingly written in the latter half of Paul's three-year ministry in that city (Acts 20:31; cf. 19:8-22). The spring of A.D. 54 AD or 55 is perhaps correct, although some would date it as late as A.D. 59 AD.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Robertson and A. Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, International Critical Commentary (1914); J. Moffat, Commentary on I Corinthians (1938); C. Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1965); C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1968); H. Conzelman, I Corinthians, Hermenia (1975); F. L. Godet, Commentary on First Corinthians (1977); F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians (1980); T. C. Edwards, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (1980); J. F. MacArthur, Jr., First Corinthians, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (1984); H. Olshausen, A Commentary on Paul's First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (1984).

(from The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright (c) 1988.)

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