2 Corinthians by R. P Martin (review)

In conjunction with associates—especially in the sections on rhetorical criticism, composition of the epistle, the resurrection, its social setting, and the collection for the Jerusalem church—this revision of the 1986 commentary also adds additional up-to-date notes, a new bibliography with comments, and several excurses. The text of the earlier commentary has been worked over to correct a few slips, without meddling with the text, with its introduction (with the new excurses), bibliographies (updated) at the beginning of each section, notes on the writer’s translation, the form/structure/setting of each pericope, followed by a comment on each verse and an explanation of the section.

This edition of “one of the most difficult writings in the New Testament,” that the octogenarian Ralph Martin completed shortly before his death in 2013 is dedicated to Bruce Manning Metzger (1914–2007).

Carl Toney argues for the probability that the difference in tone between chapters 1–9 and 10–14 is the result of two different kinds of opposition against Paul and his gospel in Corinth. While the first chapters (1–9) answered to allegations that Paul was an interloper with no home base or letters of recommendation, the final chapters (10–14) were his reaction against the success of rival apostles with a rival Jewish-Christian gospel that denied Paul’s right to be an apostle. After a reconstruction of the history of Paul’s life as the setting for 2 Corinthians, Toney presents the main insights into Paul’s conception of his life, his ministry, and his message. He was humiliated by the opposition, but the changed lives of those converted under his ministry accredited him as a true servant of God. The call of the gospel is “come and die” with Christ (4:10–12) in expectation of God’s future. Only when you experience death as dying with Christ, you can experience the risen life of Christ (Dunn). Paul as servant is closely associated with his Lord, Christ Jesus. So, a decision for Paul is also a decision for the gospel, which is for Christ. Toney’s excursus supports Martin’s hypothesis that chapters 10–13 were a separate letter written after chapters 1–9 (p. 48).

Toney’s overview of rhetorical studies of 2 Corinthians shows that the theological value of rhetorical analysis boils down to the same result. The ruling theme of Paul’s suffering rhetoric or incarnational rhetoric in 2 Corinthians illumines his understanding of his apostleship and of Christian existence in the light of the incarnation (8:9) and the weakness of Christ’s cross, that is mirrored in Paul’s own sufferings (2 Cor 1:5–6; 4:10–11; 13:1–3).

Mark W. Linder introduces the role of the social setting in the understanding of 2 Corinthians. It includes the Graeco-Roman stratification of society, honour and shame, patronage and reciprocity, benefactors and brokers, kinship and friendship. It is applied to judgments about the composition of 2 Corinthians, shifting the different sections in the letter around, showing how the social system governed the way Paul and his readers communicated and the meanings implied in the texts. While social-scientific criticism and its conclusions inform, refine and strengthen the historical, literary and rhetorical-critical understanding of this letter, the theological meaning of the letter is in a sense replaced by the social understanding of Paul and his ministry. Martin (pp. 124–125) points to Paul’s refusal of the Graeco-Roman status system and its patron-client system of reciprocity, in favour of a new reconstruction of social values with his theology of the cross as the essence of the church.

Toney discusses the resurrection in 2 Corinthians. Paul emphasises a somatic resurrection according to the Jewish hope that it is not good for a person to be without a body, that is, “naked,” thereby rejecting the Graeco-Roman notion of death. On the question when the believer will possess the resurrection body, Toney discerns three views...