Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the Pauline Church.

Christianity at Corinth: The Quest for the Pauline Church. Edited by Edward Adams & David G. Horrell. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. Pp. xx + 332. Paper, $39.95.

This book is a most interesting, and to my knowledge unique, anthology. It amounts to a source book of secondary sources, on the analogy of the more typical primary-source anthologies of texts. Adams and Horrell trace the broadest lines in the history of scholarship on the background of Pauline Corinth. What sets this book apart is that rather than presenting the foundational articles in full, Adams and Horrell include only excerpts of each article or chapter. This obviously has some benefits, as well as costs. Doing so allows the editors to include more examples of scholarship: there is a lengthy introductory essay (a 'state of the field', as it were), 18 excerpts from essays or chapters published between 1845-1997, followed by four newly published essays on methodological questions. The amount of scholarship would probably have take two to three times the space had the essays been printed in full. Each excerpt is preceded by a brief introduction summarizing the value and point of the contribution and a short supplementary bibliography.

There is much to be said for this approach; however, there are also some limitations. Ordinarily, an anthology is useful because it collects in one volume articles and essays published over a long period of time and in a variety of locations. The benefit is convenience--collection of the articles together means one does not have to go to the original. But in this instance, because only excerpts are offered, one would still need to track down the original (full length) articles. Also, in many instances, reading the excerpt seems unnecessary when the excerpt offers little more than what was already expressed in the fine analyses of the excerpts (in combination with the lengthy introductory essay).

The excerpts in the book are drawn from the following original sources and authors: "The Two Epistles to the Corinthians" by Ferdinand Christian Baur (1845); "The Church without Factions: Studies in 1 Corinthians 1-4" by Johannes Munck (1952); "The Corinthian Christology" by Walter Schmithals (1956); "Christianity at Corinth" by C. K. Barrett (1964); "Paul and the Church at Corinth" by Nils A. Dahl (1967); "Social Stratification in the Corinthian Community: A Contribution to the Sociology of Early Hellenistic Christianity" by Gerd Theissen (1974); "Realized Eschatology at Corinth" by Anthony C. Thiselton (1978); "Gnosis at Corinth: 1 Corinthians 8.1-8" by Richard A. Horsley (1981); "House-Churches and the Eucharist" by Jerome Murphy-O'Connor (1983); "Discord in Corinth: First Corinthians 1-4 and Ancient Politics" by Laurence L. Welborn (1987); "Rhetorical Situation and the Historical Reconstruction in 1 Corinthians" by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (1987); "Women Holy in Body and Spirit: The Social Setting of 1 Corinthians" by Margaret Y. MacDonald (1990); "Sofia in 1 Corinthians" by Michael D. Goulder 0991); "Thessalonica and Corinth: Social Contrasts in Pauline Christianity" by John M. G. Barlcay (1992); "The Rich Patron" by John K. Chow (1992); "Stoicism, Eleutheria and Community at Corinth" by Terence Paige (1992); "The Social Status of Erastus (Rom. 16:23)" by Justin J. Meggitt (1996); and "1 Corinthians: A Case Study of Paul's Assembly as an Alternative Society" by Richard A. Horsley (1997).

There are four "methodological reflections" that were written specially for this volume. Justin J. Meggitt writes on "Sources: Use, Abuse, Neglect. The Importance of Ancient Popular Culture." Meggitt argues that among new methodological approaches to biblical texts, scholars should make use of the attention paid to "popular culture" as a way of overcoming our dearth of ancient sources from non-elites. Bengt Holmberg writes on "The Methods of Historical Reconstruction in the Scholarly Recovery of Corinthian Christianity." Holmberg contends that a social-scientific model can never take the place of a responsible handling of the historical evidence, but that neither can the interpretation of the evidence occur independently of methodological self-awareness. Margaret Y. MacDonald, writing on "The Shifting Centre: Ideology and the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians," addresses the manner in which ideology influences scholarly reconstructions of Christian Corinth. The influencing ideologies she traces include a latent anti-Judaism in Baur's work, the assumption of a fully formed "Christianity" in Corinth in the work of the 1960s and 70s, even the desire to place "women" or "society" at the centre of scholarship in recent work. And closing out the volume, James D. G. Dunn writes on "Reconstructions of Corinthian Christianity and the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians." Dunn observes that while some approaches to the context of the Corinthian letters might be longer-lasting than others, one should never think that one approach alone will reveal all there is to know about the setting of the letters. This is, of course, shown by the history of scholarship on the letters, illustrated so nicely in this volume of excerpted essays.

Zeba A. Crook

Carleton University 

Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1S 4Y7