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The First Letter to the Corinthians

Roy E. Ciampa , Brian S. Rosner
Jan 3, 2011
Series : Volume 14 - 2011

Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Le*er to the Corinthians. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; No=n
Apollos, 2010. $65. 00. 922 pp. ISBN 9780802837325

First Corinthians has been parOcularly blessed by excellent, recent, Englishlanguage commentaries. In the last decade alone, Anthony Thise
has wriSen an enormous NIGTC volume and a midrange abridgment, David Garland has produced a very thorough yet very accessible work
BECNT, and now Ciampa, from GordonConwell Seminary, and Rosner, from Moore College in Sydney, have collaborated on this important
conOnue the outstanding quality of the Pillar series.

The typical background informaOon concerning 1 Corinthians is liSle disputed, but Ciampa and Rosner assemble a lengthy introducOon
nevertheless. DisOncOve are their brief surveys of Pauls life and thought, of the recurring paSern of descripOonsof pagan sin, GenOle conve
and hope in the resurrecOon accounOng for the sequence of thought in chapters 815, recent sociological and rhetorical approaches, and
outline that takes 4:187:40 and 8:114:40 as main subsecOons of the leSer body rather than seeing the main break between chapters
In the commentary proper, the most disOncOve feature is their thorough coverage of potenOal Old Testament and Jewish background to
thought, not to replace but to complement the more wellknown GrecoRoman background. An excellent example appears at 5:11, where
shown that the parOcular vices idenOed closely parallel those in Deuteronomy which were to lead to the expulsion from the community
pracOOoners, just as Paul has commanded the expulsion of the incestuous oender earlier in this chapter. Overall, Ciampa and Rosner are
date and comprehensive in their coverage of the most relevant secondary literature , both in the commentary proper and in the footnotes

In the vast majority of instances, Ciampa and Rosner agree with interpretaOons shared by Thiselton and Garland, along with the assumpOon
the insOtuOon of patronage and the richpoor divide lie behind many of the problems precipitaOng this epistle (as esp. for Winter, Clarke
. Against Thiselton, however, they do not see overly realized eschatology as the key to the false teaching at Corinth and therefore are not
to see incipient GnosOcismbehind the Corinthian proponents of asceOcism, if in fact there were any. This has parOcular ramicaOons for
interpretaOon of chapter 7. Rather than countering an explicitly procelibacy facOon in Corinth (already persuasivelysketched out in Fee
NICNT oering on this leSer ), they think people have just taken Pauls personal predilecOon for singlenessand run too far with it. Here
place where our two authors cut against the grain of most all recent commentators.

Another such disOncOve appears in their analysis of 2:616. Instead of seeing the spiritual (pneuma2koi ) in this chapter as all believers
against unbelievers (psychikoi), they read the meaning of chapter 3 back into chapter 2 to see them as a parOcular group of mature ChrisOan
though nowhere else in this chapter does Paul even menOon any Chris2ans who could be thought of as immature but always contrasts the
pneuma2koi with the psychikoi. Ciampa and Rosner have more precedent for arguing that the judgment described in 3:1015 is only for
leaders, though I remain unconvinced because they dont really interact with the view that sees these as all believers or the arguments
support. I am delighted, however, that they recognize that no doctrine of degrees of reward in heaven can be extracted from this passage
that whatever the precise nature of the reward described here, the essence is praise from God (4:5), similar to the praise of the master
faithful servants in Jesus parables of the talents and the pounds.

Ciampa has already publisheda journal arOcle defending the posiOonthat the touching of a woman in 7:1 is not a reference to all sexual
intercourse but to a more limited range of sex acts. Unfortunately, it is not clear exactly what that limitaOon is, because our authors sugges
three dierent deniOonssex with the wrong kinds of people, sex for mere pleasure with no hope for procreaOon, and sex that is a unilate
act on the part of a man (pp. 27576). In many of the extra biblical parallels cited for one or more of these views, however, it would appea
referents have been confused with sense.

In dealing with food sacriced to idols (chaps. 810), our authors rightly defend a context of three dierent scenarios of potenOal
private homes with meat bought from the marketplace (ne unless someone specicallyhas a problem with it), in pagan worship services
forbidden), and, what is not always noted, in the temple precincts for civic meals with a veneer of religiosity. In this last instance, the legiOm
the pracOce varies from context to context depending on the presence or absence of a weaker brother or sister. Chapter 9:1923 explains
moOvaOon throughoutto win as many outsiders to the faith as possibleand ensure the perseverance of those already inside the faith.

Denver Seminary > Articles > The First Letter to the Corinthians
impropriety they send. Here I am in full agreement . Where I demur is in the gratuitous addiOon of sign of before authority in verse
the other uses of exousia + echein + epi in the New Testament normally mean to exercise control over.

The treatment of Pauls discussionof spiritual gils in chapters 1214 is outstanding, delicately walking the Oghtrope between cessaOo
and Pentecostalism. The catalogue of deniOons of the various gils on page 574, unpacked and defended in the subsequent discussion,
unparalleled in quality. ParOcularly with respect to prophecy, our authors observe that it can range from longer, prepared discourses with
insight into audiences needs to shorter, spontaneous announcementsof what it is believed the Lord is saying to a group or individual on
topic. What Ciampa and Rosner do not highlight is the resulOng importance of encouraging giled women to preach, even if with delegated
authority from male leadership. With respect to 14:3338, our authors observe that women inquiring of other husbands than their own
would have been too dishonoring to their own husbands in GrecoRoman culture. Whether or not our authors can separate this very limited
context of speaking from that of the more general evaluaOon of prophecy possiblyreserved for the highest levels of (allmale) leadership
appear to want to do, they do raise the tooliSle noted point that the very segment that some would relegate to a postPauline interpolaOo
(because of manuscripts that place it at the end of the chapter) is not verses 33b35 but 3435. Thus, if the interpolaOon theory fails due
actual manuscripts which lack these two verses (contra many egalitarians), it at least suggests that verse 33b belongs with what precedes
with what follows (contra most complementarians).

The nal signicantly disOncOve perspecOve appears in Ciampas and Rosners treatment of 15:29. Thinking that no evidence for
bapOsm from earlier than the second century means it couldnt have been around in the rst century, they propose a paraphrase that reads
if there is no resurrecOon, what will be accomplished by those who get bapOzed because of what they have heard about how our dead
raised? (pp. 78485). But bapOsm for the resurrecOon would more naturally communicate this than bapOsm for the dead!

I have barely scratched the surface of this magnicent commentary, focusing disproporOonately on disOncOves and disagreements. Overall
commentary belongs with Fee and with Thiseltons shorter commentary as the cream of the crop which comment on the English text in
opposed to formal commentaries on the Greek text per se, or much shorter works altogether on either the English or the Greek). Much
Ciampa and Rosner insert insighpul and incisive paragraphs of contemporary applicaOon at the end of each secOon. Because of the sheer
thoroughness and length of the work, few will probably read it covertocover, using it more as a reference work and resource for preaching
teaching. But those who do persevere from start to nish will have taken a valuable seminarylevel course, even without a live instructor
key Pauline leSer .
Craig Blomberg, Ph.D.
DisOnguished Professor of New Testament
Denver Seminary
December 2010

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