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On Reading Others' Letters
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
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“My mother taught me that reading others' letters isn't nice.” Those, or something like them, were the words of Krister Stendahl when he once tried to open the eyes of his audience to some of the hermeneutical problems which pertain to the fact that Christians read Paul's letters as if they were addressed to themselves rather than to their original recipients. The following reflections deal with these problems, and they are meant as a humble tribute to my first teacher in New Testament exegesis. I begin by recalling a few facts that are intriguing once one puts them together. This will lead me to the suggestion that, when he wrote his letters, Paul had a wider usage in mind than we usually assume. Against such a background I shall discuss, in a rather unsophisticated way, some conditions that may apply to a rereading of the Pauline letters and some possible consequences for so-called historical exegesis.
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References
1 Stendahl, KristerPaul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 6.Google Scholar
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11 N. A. Dahl, “Paul and the Church at Corinth according to 1 Corinthians 1:10–4:21,” in Christian History (see n. 8), 313–35.
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22 For these three aspects of a text see Morris, Charles W., “Foundations of the Theory of Signs,” in Writings on the General Theory of Signs (1938; reprinted The Hague: Mouton, 1971) 17–71.Google Scholar
23 Imponenda est igitur lex iustificandis, … non quod per legem iustitiam illam consequantur, hoc enim esset abuti … lege, sed ut pavefacti et humiliati lege confugiant ad Christum (WA 40. 1, 528).
24 This interpretation was rightly questioned by Krister Stendahl in his article, “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Paul Among Jews and Gentiles, 86–88.
25 Hübner, Hans, Das Gesetz bei Paulus (FRLANT 119; 2d ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980).Google Scholar
26 Leonard Goppelt, Christentum und Judentum im ersten und zweiten Jahrhundert (BFCTh 2.55; Gütersloh: Berthelsmann, 1954) 239.
27 In addition, Clement strengthens his reference with an argument a maiore ad minus: Paul attacked divisions based on following apostles of high reputation—now there are a couple of insignificant people who disturb the unity.
28 I leave aside the fact that the different Christian Bible interpretations are all colored by various traditions, whether the interpreters are conscious of them or not.
29 Gnilka, Joachim, Der Philemonbrief (HThKNT 10.4; Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder, 1982) 17Google Scholar; cf. Hengel, Martin, Die Evangelienüberschriften (Sitzungsbericht der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften 1984) 35.Google Scholar
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31 Conzelmann, Hans, I Corinthians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 23Google Scholar; Fascher, Erich, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (ThHKNT 7.1; Berlin: Evangelischer Verlagsanstalt, 1975) 1.Google Scholar 85: “ein Gemeinderbrief des Paulus gilt im Grunde allen Gemeinden.”
32 Other passages in the Pauline corpus which in different ways may indicate a wider audience are 2 Cor 1:1; 2 Thess 2:2; 3:17; and Col 4:16.
33 In an Uppsala dissertation to be published in 1986, Bruce C. Johanson deals with the literary, compositional, and rhetorical make-up of 1 Thessalonians. My statement is based on that study.
34 The attentive reader may hear an echo from Krister Stendahl's often cited article “Biblical Theology, Contemporary,” IDB 1 (1962) 419.Google Scholar
35 To express it in text-linguistic terms: we get a second pragmatic aspect which may modify the semantic one. My taking Ephesus as an example of a wider audience is of course inspired by the discussions concerning Romans 16. Does it contain fragments of an Ephesian letter? See Schenke and Fischer, Einleitung, 136–42; Kümmel, Introduction, 314–20.