Dangerous Food: 1 Corinthians 8-10 in Its Context

7. What is Paul's proposed solution to the problem of idol-food?

7 What is Paul's proposed solution to the problem of idol-food? The occasion of Paul's instructions The Corinthian solution to idol-food was to eat it without worry: "We all have knowledge" that "there is no idol in the world, and no God but one; food won't affect our status with God, and whether we eat idol-food or not makes no difference. All things are permissible" (8:1,4,8). The Corinthian appeal to knowledge (gnosis) makes it likely that the Corinthians would expect to educate any of their group who thought such food harmful.1 Given this Corinthian position it is curious that they would raise the issue of food explicitly (peri de ton eidolothyton, 8:1), and this curiousness is heightened when it is recalled that the reconstructed occasion of the Corinthian letter to Paul—and, as will be argued, Paul's response—focusses not on food but on the dangers of idolatry. The explicit focus on food might have arisen either because Paul's previous letter itself raised the issue of food,2 or because Paul's forbidding of any association with idolatry made the Corinthians see some food as problematic and led them to raise the matter with Paul. In either case, food has been focussed on because food offered to idols and the social consumption of it might be seen to be specific instances of idolatry. 1 The possible ironic allusion to he syneidesis autou . . . oikodomethesetai (8:10) also supports this conclusion. 2 Some argue that the previous letter raised the issues of idolatry in general and idol-food in particular (Weiss, Schmithals, and especially Hurd in Origin, p. 225-26), or criticized the Corinthians' practice (see, for example, Willis, Idol Meat, p. 97-99, 258). Alternatively, it is possible that the previous letter might have raised the issue of food indirectly with allusions akin to 1 Cor 10:7 ("The people sat down to eat and drink"). 73 74 Dangerous Food It is useful in this connection to compare 1 Corinthians 8-10 with 1 Corinthians 7.3 The discussion of sexual immorality (porneia) there covers several specific contexts and persons, and the structure of the chapter suggests that Paul is responding to specific issues raised by the Corinthians. The clearest evidence of this is 7:25-26, where the discussion of unmarried women is introduced by "Now concerning (peri de) unmarried women I have no command of the Lord." The peri de formula is understood elsewhere in 1 Corinthians to refer to topics raised in the Corinthian letter, and its presence here is reason to suspect that the Corinthians have asked a specific question concerning unmarried women. If this is the case, then it seems more likely that other abrupt introductions of different classes of persons (7:8,10,12) may also reflect the content of the Corinthian letter. The Corinthians may have pressed Paul concerning just what was sexual immorality: Were they to have no sexual intercourse? What of those married? Should they separate ? Is sleeping with a non-believing spouse associating with a sexually immoral person? Should young persons not marry at all? These may have been the Corinthian concerns, and it is likely that Paul's response addresses these concerns in turn.4 Because chapters 8 and 10 address a series of concerns in a similar way, probably the Corinthians raised in their letter not only the issue of idol-food in general but also asked specifically about food sold in the market and invitations to table from non-believers. Paul's transition to these topics is abrupt, and follows immediately on another quotation from the Corinthian letter (10:23), making it likely that these specific concerns were found in the Corinthian letter.5 Because the Corinthians seem not to object to eating idol-food, the "questions" in chapter 10 concerning food sold in the market or served 3 A similar sequence lies behind all the peri de sections (1 Cor 7:1-40; 8:1-11:1; 12:1-14:40; 16:1-4, and 16:12). Paul has given an exhortation in his previous letter that in turn raises potential consequences that the Corinthians find unacceptable , provoking a letter from the Corinthians expressing those concerns, to which much of 1 Cor is a response. 4 See Richardson's differing position in "'I Say, Not the Lord': Personal Opinion, Apostolic Authority and the Development of Early Christian Halakah," Tyndale Bulletin, 31 (1980): 65-86...