Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians

by Margaret Mary Mitchell

What, overall, is the genre, function, and composition of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians? Margaret Mitchell thoroughly documents her argument that 1 Corinthians was a single letter persuading the Corinthian Christian community to become unified. She analyzes the letter as deliberative rhetoric that pleaded for a course of action in the future and uses rhetorical criticism within a historical context to find enlightening parallels for many of the successive parts of the letters.

380 pages, Hardcover

First published December 19, 1991

Reviews

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this monumental work on First Corinthians is quite clear as to the scope and purpose of her task. Anyone who begins the second sentence of a three hundred page work with the word "thesis" is doing the reader a good deal of service right away. The thousands of words that follow are all meant to support this thesis: Paul's letter to the Corinthians was intended to guide the community toward unity of action, thought, and feeling. Kierkegaard would call that an "edifying discourse." Any work in writing meant to encourage the reader, to support the reader, to guide the reader is "edifying" and not merely academic. The major problem of all academic writings is "so what?" Academic writing is often produced in order to secure a position; it also shows readers what someone else knows, but has little or no effect on the reader's own existential condition. Kierkegaard makes this claim at the beginning of his masterpiece, The Sickness Unto Death.

To return to Ms Mitchell's text for a moment, we find this sentence: "I urge you brothers and sisters through the name of Lord Jesus Christ...let there be no faction among you, be reconciled in mind and body and hold the same opinion." Factionalism, as we are often told by James Madison, fourth president of the United States, is the most serious issue in the political arena. He might just as easily quoted Paul on the very same issue. But how, other than by exhortation, are we to achieve unity?

The answer is simple and our author finds it immediately: deliberative rhetoric. Here is a case of applying specifically Greek analytical terms to a Jewish/Christian context. Paul was a man of the Law before his conversion, but he acts and reacts like a Greek rhetorician when it comes to the problems of organizing the followers of the Way of the Lord Jesus.

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good and important book if you are studying 1 Corinthians. This was originally Mitchell's dissertation at University of Chicago. It addresses the question of genre. Her central thesis is that 1 Corinthians is best understood as an epistle in which the body's argument follows closely ancient deliberative rhetoric.

Astounding in her citation of ancient parallels.
Outstanding for understanding Paul's arguments
Destroys partition theories, which argue the letter is actually a compilation of more than one letter.