Renewal Through Suffering

A Study of 2 Corinthians

A. E. HARVEY

T&T CLARK
EDINBURGH

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Copyright © T&T Clark Ltd, 1996

Scripture quotations from The Revised English Bible are copyright © 1989 Oxford and Cambridge University

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ISBN 0 567 08508 2

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Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Chapter 1 The Tribulations in Ephesus 2 Cor. 1:3–9

Chapter 2 The Aftermath 2 Cor. 1:10–4:6

Chapter 3 The Renewing Experience 2 Cor. 4:7–7:16

Chapter 4 The Commissioning 2 Cor. 8–9

Chapter 5 The Apologia 2 Cor. 10–13

Chapter 6 Renewal through Suffering

Bibliography

Index of References

Index of Modern Authors

General Index

Preface

I have thought for many years that some of the profound but difficult language in chapters 4 and 5 of 2 Corinthians might best be explained by reference to the traumatic event alluded to in chapter 1. The opportunity to devote some serious research to this idea arose in a short period of study leave which I was able to spend at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in 1991, and I am grateful to my hosts there for their warm hospitality and for free access to the splendid library facilities of the Graduate Theological Union. Discussion with colleagues in Oxford and London, for which I am also grateful, encouraged me to pursue the project, of which the main contours can be seen by reading the first and last chapters of this book. But to strengthen the thesis it seemed necessary to offer a complete reading of 2 Corinthians so as to reveal ways in which Paul’s frequently obscure language may be illuminated by being set in the context of the experience he seems to have undergone not long before writing this letter. Chapters 2 to 5 offer such a reading, in as much detail as is required to make an acceptable case, but without any pretension to supply a full commentary on every verse. By this means I hope I may have succeeded in suggesting a legitimate approach to one of the most endlessly fascinating writings in the New Testament, an approach which may stimulate further research among scholars and, for a wider circle of readers, throw some light on the obscurer parts of the text.

Unless otherwise stated, extended quotations from the Bible are taken from The Revised English Bible (1989).

November 1995

A.E.H.

Abbreviations

AG A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, by W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich (Cambridge and Chicago, 1957)

ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase (Berlin, 1972–)

AT Author’s translation

AV Authorized Version

BEThL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum ...