Content area
Full Text
THE PAULINE authorship of 1 Cor 12:31b-13:13 has been assumed or asserted by the majority of past and present commentators.1 Recently, however, it has been questioned by William O. Walker in an article in this journal in 1998 and in a monograph published in 2001, developing an earlier suggestion of Eric L. Titus.2 Since not all of Walker's arguments have received critical scrutiny,3 the present article offers a detailed consideration of the question: Did Paul write 1 Cor 12:31b-13:13, or is it, as Walker asserts, a non-Pauline interpolation?4
Walker admits that the strongest evidence for interpolation would be the passage's absence from significant early Pauline manuscripts, but no such evidence exists, since the chapter occurs in P^sup 46^ (ca. A.D. 200) as well as in all the major uncials.5 Hence, his argument is based on considerations such as vocabulary, content (ideas), appropriateness of location, and form and style. Walker, however, virtually ignores three important aspects, namely, possible allusions to the Septuagint, potential influences from the developing Jesus tradition, and the impact of the cultural context of Paul's writing. Close examination of all factors not only suggests the probability of Pauline authorship of 1 Cor 12:31b-13:13 but also sheds light on Paul's theology.
The method of this article will be straightforward: to examine first the chapter's genre, then its vocabulary, next its ideas, thereafter its stylistic features, and finally allusions to it in Christian texts prior to A.D. 150.
I. Genre
Walker observes that the literary genre of 1 Corinthians 13 is far removed from that of chaps. 12 and 14 of the epistle.6 If, as Margaret M. Mitchell has shown, First Corinthians is basically a work of deliberative rhetoric, in which Paul appeals for unity in the Corinthian community, then this chapter differs from what surrounds it by being, as noted by J. Smit, a piece of epideictic rhetoric.7 However, Walker too quickly rejects the widespread view that 1 Corinthians 13 is a Pauline digression within chaps. 12-14.8 He believes that the chapter's soaring poetic quality marks it out as non- Pauline.9 However, if it is intentionally a case of epideictic rhetoric, such a quality is surely to be expected. Some other highly rhetorical passages occur elsewhere in Paul (e.g., Rom 8:31-39; 1 Cor 3:21-23;...