2 Corinthians

Roetzel’s 2 Corinthians is learned, readable, and often stimulating, but in my judgment it is seriously weakened by a partition-first approach to the letter. He repeatedly treats the very features that make 2 Corinthians so vivid — abrupt transitions, emotional shifts, repeated themes, severe warnings, and changes of tone — as evidence that the canonical letter is an editorial compilation of fragments, even though there is no manuscript evidence that 2 Corinthians ever circulated in such a divided or rearranged form. Against commentators such as Hughes, Guthrie, Harris, Barnett, Garland, Belleville, Lambrecht, and Hafemann, Roetzel’s reconstruction feels over-engineered: it multiplies lost openings and closings, hypothetical editorial activity, and speculative stages in Paul’s correspondence, while simpler explanations are available from the letter’s own pastoral and rhetorical logic. The long section on Paul’s ministry in 2:14–7:4 is better read not as an inserted essay but as the theological heart of the letter, explaining Paul’s apostolic integrity, suffering, boldness, and reconciliation ministry. Likewise, 6:14–7:1 is not best dismissed as a non-Pauline “lumpish” intrusion; its warning against idolatrous compromise fits Corinth’s setting and Paul’s appeal for holiness. Chapters 8–9 cohere as a careful, non-coercive appeal for voluntary generosity, not as two awkwardly juxtaposed offering letters. Chapters 10–13 are more plausibly the climactic warning before Paul’s third visit than the earlier “letter of tears.” Roetzel also tends to psychologize Paul too suspiciously, making pastoral grief, apostolic urgency, and theological argument sound like humiliation, anxiety, anger, or power-play. This sometimes leads to exegetical and theological imbalance: Paul’s reading of Moses’ veil in Exodus 34 is judged too much by modern historical-critical standards rather than understood as apostolic, christological rereading; reconciliation can sound overly political and horizontal rather than grounded in Christ’s atoning death; and language about God’s triumph or Paul’s ambassadorial appeal can risk making God appear coercive or imperial, even if Roetzel does not directly insult God. The commentary is therefore useful as an example of a sophisticated critical reconstruction, but it is far less satisfying as an exposition of 2 Corinthians as a unified, God-centred, cruciform letter in which Paul defends his ministry not for ego but because the truth of the gospel and the spiritual life of the Corinthians are at stake.

Nashville: Abingdon, 2007. Pp. 189. Paper. $21.00. ISBN 0687056772. Frank J. Matera The Catholic University of America Washington, District of Columbia Calvin J. Roetzel, the Arnold H. Lowe Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, is one of the most distinguished Pauline scholars in the United States, and his introductory volume on Paul, The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context, has been a staple in colleges and seminaries for several years. It is an honor, then, to have been asked to review his commentary on 2 Corinthians, even though he and I have come to different conclusions about the literary integrity of 2 Corinthians—a fact of which the readers of this review should be aware. Whereas I have argued for the literary integrity of 2 Corinthians, Professor Roetzel maintains that 2 Corinthians is a composite of five letters. Although I am not persuaded by his arguments, the case he makes has a new twist (placing 2 Cor 8 at the beginning of the sequence), is interesting, and deserves a fair hearing. Before proceeding further, however, it will be helpful to say something about the series to which his commentary belongs. Although the volumes of the Abingdon New Testament Commentaries series are geared to theological students, their audience also includes upper-level college students as well as pastors and church leaders. Thus the series has a rather broad audience in view, the kind of readership for which Roetzel has written so effectively in the past. His writing style, which is always crisp, clear, and engaging, does not fail him here. [Full Review]