Paul and the Corinthians: Leadership, Ordeals, and the Politics of Displacement (The Library of New Testament Studies)

Paul and the Corinthians: Leadership, Ordeals, and the Politics of Displacement (The Library of New Testament Studies)

Jonathan B. Ensor revisits the scholarly consensus concerning Paul’s intermediate visit to the Corinthians between his first and second epistles. Ensor re-evaluates the textual evidence, interpreting the event through a socio-historical lens that focuses upon ancient trial by ordeal and exit in the context of communal conflict, shedding significant light upon the social behaviours involved in this event and its interpretation. Beginning with a review of relational and social-spacial dynamics and sources of conflict, Ensor then explores the politics of displacement in Graeco-Roman antiquity to analyse the relational contours of Paul’s intermediate visit to Corinth. From these insights, Ensor interprets Paul’s autobiographical narrations of apostolic ordeal and Paul’s announcement of imminent return to Corinth in 2 Corinthians. Ensor concludes that Paul, through the ordeal accounts, aimed both to reverse the judgments against him emerging from the intermediate visit, and to undermine the evaluative structure of his detractors who viewed him as impotent, illegitimate, and displaced. “Ensor's detailed analysis is valuable.” ― The Bible Today Jonathan B. Ensor is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Oklahoma Wesleyan University, USA. Chris Keith is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway. He is the author of The Pericope Adulterae , the Gospel of John and the Literacy of Jesus , a winner of the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and Jesus' Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee . He is also the co-editor of Jesus among Friends and Enemies: A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospels , and was recently named a 2012 Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar.