Slogans in 1 Corinthians

By Jay E. Smith

[Jay E. Smith is Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.]

In 1 Corinthians 6:18 Paul seems to have drawn a distinction between sexual immorality and all other sin: “Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the [sexually] immoral man sins against his own body.”[1] This verse has baffled interpreters for two millennia.[2] A theologian friend of the author has attempted to explain the alleged distinction in this verse in terms of the Trinitarian nature of God and the imago Dei. In short, he tries to explain how the imago Dei and the Trinitarian nature of God combine to isolate sexual immorality as a unique sin—that is, how sexual immorality is in a class by itself, set apart from all other sins or categories of sins.[3] His proposal is complicated and the logic difficult to follow. Nevertheless, his theory strikes one, at least initially, as very sophisticated, exhibiting profound insight into biblical anthropology.

A philosopher friend has pursued a different explanation along the lines of Augustine’s theory of evil as a privation of the good. This led Augustine to argue, “Corruption cannot consume the good without also consuming the thing [the being or person] itself.”[4] When applied to 1 Corinthians 6:18, this line of thought yields the idea that sexual immorality corrupts not just the body but consumes the whole person, that is, destroys a person’s mind, conscience, and active moral-discerning ability and thus destroys the capacity for knowing and loving God.[5] In simplest terms sexual immorality ignites a flame that eventually destroys one’s basis for knowing and loving God. This theory has great potential, especially since it attempts to think deeply and precisely about the nature of sin, the relationship of the body to the soul, and how sin affects the body and the soul.

However, both colleagues seem to be unaware that many New Testament interpreters see in 1 Corinthians 6:18 the presence of a Corinthian slogan—one of the Corinthians’ rallying cries or watchwords that Paul parroted back to them.[6] The presence of such a slogan locates the alleged distinction between sexual immorality and all other sins, not in Pauline anthropology or in the mysterious interplay between sin and the moral self but in a fundamental misunderstanding by the Corinthians. In other words Paul suggested no such distinction in verse 18. Instead, verse 18a states the aberrant view of the Corinthians, and verse 18b records Paul’s sharp rejection of it. Simply stated, the line “every sin that a man commits is outside the body” (v. 18a) is the Corinthians’ affirmation that all sin is unrelated to bodily activities per se, for it takes place on an entirely different level—that of the heart, mind, and intention. And the contrasting line, “the [sexually] immoral man sins against his own body” (v. 18b), is Paul’s rejection of this misguided affirmation.

This article does not argue the merits of these views. The point is much simpler. The recognition that 1 Corinthians contains a number of “Corinthian slogans,” which may stand squarely at odds with Paul, “offers interpreters a relatively unique challenge.”[7] Theological construction that aims to be in some sense biblical must separate the non-Pauline from the Pauline. It must identify these “noncanonical” slogans and assess Paul’s reaction to them or risk accepting Corinthian errors that Paul rejected.

Perhaps a second example will help sharpen the point. In 7:1 Paul wrote, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” Traditionally this statement has been interpreted in line with the NIV: “It is good for a man not to marry.” As such, it was understood as an expression of Paul’s advocacy for celibacy. In a remarkable twist of irony, the NIV, by enshrining this traditional view in its translation, actually sowed the seeds of its demise, for Fee challenged this interpretation and in turn championed a new position. He argued that the clause is not Pauline but is a Corinthian slogan that advocated celibacy within marriage.[8] Not only is 7:1 a Corinthian slogan but also it represented a position, as verses 2-5 suggest, that Paul was unwilling to accept.

Just when Thiselton was prepared to speak of a “consensus” with regard to Fee’s view of 1 Corinthians 7:1, Caragounis challenged Fee’s view in an attempt to rehabilitate a more traditional viewpoint.[9] Fitzmyer has now followed Caragounis’s lead, and all bets are off.[10] Meanwhile the controversial text of 14:34-35 (concerning women keeping silent in churches) has come to be frequently cited as a possible Corinthian slogan.[11] If it does represent the Corinthians’ position rather than Paul’s, the exegetical, theological, and pastoral landscape shifts significantly. The point in all this is rather simple: the slogans embedded in 1 Corinthians must be ferreted out, and Paul’s reaction to them must be ascertained. Otherwise one risks endorsing what Paul rejected (or perhaps rejecting what Paul endorsed). Such a mistake could have disastrous consequences for Christian theology, ethics, and witness.

Breaking The Methodological Circle

Assuming that 1 Corinthians contains numerous Corinthian slogans, how can these be identified and isolated? What criteria are available for detecting them, and can such criteria even be established? Before these questions can be answered, it should be recognized that they presuppose a fundamental observation that is often not made explicit, namely, that Paul routinely cited preexisting material—whether an Old Testament text, a saying of Jesus, a line from a Greek poet, an early creedal fragment or hymn, or presumably a Corinthian slogan—without giving explicit indication that he was doing so.[12] In short, if evaluated by modern standards, Paul was guilty of plagiarism.[13] The evidence for this is overwhelming. If restricted to 1 Corinthians, it can be summarized briefly in tabular form:

Citations without Acknowledgment:

Preexisting Material	Texts in 1 Corinthians
Old Testament quotations	2:16; 5:13; 10:26; 15:27, 32
Old Testament allusions	5:7-8; 10:1-13
Sayings of Jesus (allusions)[14]	4:8 (= Matt. 5:3, 6; Luke 6:20-21); 4:12 possible (= Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:28); 13:2 (= Matt. 17:20; 21:21; Mark 11:22-23)
Greek poet	15:33 (= Menander, Thais fragment 178).[15]
Creedal or hymnic fragments[16]	8:6;[17] 12:3[18]

That Paul did not always acknowledge his sources or consistently use some type of introductory formula means, of course, that one should not necessarily expect him to signal the presence of Corinthian slogans in his letter. Moreover, since Paul would almost certainly expect the Corinthians to recognize a given slogan as their own,[19] the likelihood seems even greater that Corinthian slogans are slipped into his letter with little or no warning. The result is that the process of identifying and isolating Corinthian slogans is greatly complicated. Criteria for detecting these embedded slogans, lying quietly buried in the text, must be developed and employed. At least three avenues of attack seem open.

First, one could examine verses in 1 Corinthians that are universally recognized as slogans for characteristics that could serve as criteria to identify other slogans.[20] Although employing a standard scientific method, the problem with this of course lies in the starting point. It assumes what needs to be proved on independent grounds, namely, that the sample from which findings could be extrapolated does in fact consist of Corinthian slogans.[21] Moreover, probably no verse in 1 Corinthians is universally recognized as a Corinthian slogan.[22]

Second, one could develop a list of criteria intuitively by using a little “common sense.” One might look for syntactical irregularities that suggest the insertion of a preexisting formula, or one might look for non-Pauline vocabulary, and so forth. This seems eminently sensible. Yet the subjectivity of this approach makes it problematic and ultimately unreliable. After all, on this reckoning what signals the presence of a Corinthian slogan is really what the interpreter thinks should signal a Corinthian slogan.

Third, one might turn to the larger world of Greco-Roman education and literature and especially their rhetorical handbooks.[23]

This seems to inject some objective criteria into the situation—what is explicitly identified and discussed by the rhetoricians. Yet it may not go very far, for it is like comparing apples with oranges because it fails to recognize the relatively unique nature of the Pauline documents.

Although there is no need to rehabilitate Deissmann’s distinction between letters and epistles, both the personal and the dialogical nature of the Pauline letters and especially 1 Corinthians should be emphasized.[24] First Corinthians was elicited by specific problems, questions, and concerns. In the words of Deissmann, it is a “fragment of life,”[25] “a conversation halved.”[26]

The Corinthians and Paul had a long history. It would be remarkable—perhaps inconceivable—if previous events and interchanges did not echo throughout the letter.[27] While obvious to Paul and his readers, these echoes stemming from shared experiences will by that very fact often be silent, hidden, inobtrusive.[28] In many cases they are personal and occasional, even idiosyncratic. One should not expect them to fall neatly into conventional patterns. As a result it seems unlikely that the cues for picking up these echoes are conveniently cataloged by the rhetorical handbooks of the Greco-Roman world. As analytical tools, the standards of Greco-Roman rhetoric are too blunt to do much of the kind of dissection that is necessary.

To summarize, it is a challenge to identify and isolate Corinthian slogans within the text of 1 Corinthians. Each of the three criteria just discussed has some merit. None is without problems. Therefore it is best to add two additional procedures: (a) a careful contextual reading of 1 Corinthians[29] and (b) an awareness of and an appreciation for the collective wisdom of the interpretive community.[30] In this way a system of checks and balances can be employed. The following five approaches should be integrated in a balanced and self-correcting fashion.

• Criteria developed from “universally” recognized slogans
• Criteria developed intuitively
• Criteria developed from Greco-Roman standards
• Contextual reading
• Collective wisdom of academia and the church

These approaches invite a broader hermeneutical question—the likelihood of 1 Corinthians containing embedded Corinthian slogans.

The Inherent Probability Of Embedded Corinthian Slogans

More than nineteen different comments in the text of 1 Corinthians have been identified as Corinthian slogans (see fig. 1, p. 87). At first glance this may seem excessive. But several observations give one pause. First, the relationship that Paul enjoyed with the Corinthians is unprecedented in the New Testament. This relationship, characterized as it was by a recurrent interchange of information, perhaps unlike that between Paul and any other church, makes Corinthian maxims in 1 Corinthians a definite probability. Such a long-standing relationship (slightly over four years), with its repeated and apparently free flow of communication or dialogue between the apostle and his church, supports this view.[31]

It is necessary, then, to draw attention to the points of contact that emerge from the text of 1 Corinthians and the Book of Acts.

1. Paul’s founding visit to Corinth, as recorded in Acts 18:11, 18 lasted in excess of one and a half years.
2. According to 1 Corinthians 5:9-11 Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians prior to the canonical 1 Corinthians.
3. There were numerous personal contacts, probably the source of numerous oral reports from or about Corinth to which Paul was privy. “For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you” (1:11). “I rejoice over the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have supplied what was lacking on your part” (16:17).[32]
4. Expatriates from Corinth were with Paul as he penned 1 Corinthians in Ephesus. “Aquila and Prisca greet you heartily in the Lord, with the church that is in their house” (16:19; cf. Acts 18:2-3). “Paul and . . . Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth” (1:1-2; cf. Acts 18:17: “Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue [in Corinth]”).
5. Then there are the numerous references to oral reports about Corinth—in whatever way they are related to Sosthenes, Chloe, Stephanas, and others. “For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people” (1:11). “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you” (5:1) “I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it” (11:18).
6. Apart from these explicit statements, 11:2 and 15:12 reflect knowledge of the situation at Corinth on the part of Paul that was possibly the result of some sort of oral report.33 “Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you” (11:2). “How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (15:12).
7. Then there is the explicit mention of a letter sent to Paul from the Corinthians. “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote” (7:1). “Now concerning” translates περὶ δέ, which recurs five times (7:25; 8:1; 12:1; 16:1, 12). Although the exact force of this expression is debated, it nevertheless seems to be some sort of indicator of the contents of the letter from Corinth.[34]
8. Related to this mention of the letter from the Corinthians is the rather cryptic reference to Apollos in 16:12:[35] “But concerning Apollos our brother, I encouraged him greatly to come to you with the brethren; and it was not at all his desire to come now.” Exactly who the “brethren” were and when and where this meeting took place is a matter of speculation. Nevertheless it seems to suggest another avenue of communication between Paul and the Corinthians.[36]

The point is that this dialogue between Paul and the Corinthians allows—even demands—subtle echoes within 1 Corinthians of previous events and prior interchanges. It would be surprising if one or more of the Corinthian watchwords did not find their way into 1 Corinthians.

Second, the occasional nature of Paul’s epistles predisposes one to see some sort of reflection of the Corinthian mindset in the letter. Given the theological sparring between Paul and the Corinthians, it seems to be virtually axiomatic that between the lines of Paul’s text lie Corinthian theology and practice.[37] From this point it is a small step to find Corinthian slogans embedded in the text. Moreover, this seems all the more likely in the case of the Corinthians, in which their many aberrant ethical and theological positions invited the development or adoption of maxims as a means to justify their views, often over against Paul’s views.[38] Thus the frequency of the interaction between Paul and the Corinthians suggests the likelihood of embedded slogans, and also the polemical nature of that interaction invites the same conclusion.

Third, the identification of Corinthian maxims in 1 Corinthians is not an entirely modern phenomenon.[39] Origen seems to suggest that 1 Corinthians 7:1 includes a slogan.[40] He offered what looks to be a strikingly modern reading of 7:1b (“It is good for a man not to touch a woman”) in suggesting that it represents the Corinthians’ advocacy of celibacy within marriage. “Are you bound to a wife? If so, then you are acting according to an excessive standard if you do not consider your wife but say, ‘I can practice continence and live in a purer way.’ . . . Something like this happened in Corinth.”[41] The presence of a slogan in 7:1 may also be hinted at by Chrysostom’s wording: “They had written to him, ‘Whether it was right to abstain from one’s wife.’ “[42]

A Review Of Previous Proposals

Before listing verses or parts of verses that have been regularly identified as slogans, a brief review of the literature is necessary to see how scholars have discussed this problem.

John C. Hurd

In 1965 John Hurd published his Yale University dissertation, in which he made the first serious attempt to summarize the discussion about Corinthian slogans. Although not using the term “slogan,” Hurd provided a list of eight passages thought to be “quotations from the letter of the Corinthians,” and he checked that list against twenty-four internationally known scholars, “who single out three or more of these passages as quotations from Corinth.”[43]

Jerome Murphy-O’connor

Beginning in 1977 and running through 2008, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor published a series of articles on 1 Corinthians in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Revue Biblique, and the Journal of Biblical Literature.[44] In them he distinguished himself as “one of this generation’s foremost scholars of 1 Corinthians” and teased out several likely slogans embedded within 1 Corinthians.[45]

Roger L. Omanson

In 1992 Roger Omanson published a rather unassuming article entitled “Acknowledging Paul’s Quotations.”[46] In it he searched for an “objective method [that] can be used to locate quotations in Paul’s letters” and he isolated “which verses and/or parts of verses have been regarded as quotations” in 1 Corinthians.[47] His list of nineteen potential slogans forms the backbone of the following presentation.

Paul C. Siebenmann

In 1997 Paul Siebenmann completed his doctoral dissertation, “The Question of Slogans in 1 Corinthians,” at Baylor University. In addition to critiquing and expanding existing methodology used to recognize and to isolate slogans, he evaluated seventeen potential slogans from 1 Corinthians and concluded that Corinthian slogans could be identified in eight verses.[48]

Commentators on 1 Corinthians and translators of the New Testament have picked up on the work of these pioneers and have developed and popularized it.[49] Their assessments, as well as those of Hurd, Murphy-O’Connor, Omanson, and Siebenmann, are summarized in Figure 1 (p. 87). And Figure 2 shows the slogans included in ten English Bible versions (p. 88).

A Working Definition And Criteria For Identifying Slogans

The widespread recognition that numerous slogans are embedded within the text of 1 Corinthians presupposes some sort of definition for the term. The following definition for the expression “Corinthian slogan” is suggested.[50] A Corinthian slogan is “a motto [or similar expression that captures the spirit, purpose, or guiding principles] of a particular group or point of view at Corinth, or at least a motto that Paul was using to represent their position or attitudes.”[51]

A full description that further unpacks this brief definition and that delimits more precisely the phenomena in view is possible. Corinthian slogans are various phrases, expressions, or statements embedded within 1 Corinthians that the Corinthians would have recognized as their own. Slogans then are essentially quotations from the Corinthians’ letter (7:1) or from other correspondence, either written or oral (1:11; 5:1; 11:18).[52] These quotations need not be verbatim and may represent the ipsissima vox, in contrast to the ipsissima verba, of the Corinthians.[53] Thus Paul was representing the Corinthians “if not in actual language at least in sentiment.”[54] Slogans then may be of Paul’s own making (wording) and thus do not necessarily have to be proverbial in nature or highly stylized in form. Regardless of their packaging, they capture and express the position or attitudes of some at Corinth and would have been recognized as such by his Corinthian readers.[55]

By the term “slogan” one should not necessarily think of a political rallying cry (“Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”; “I like Ike”), a popular aphorism (“Haste makes waste”; “A stitch in time saves nine”), or an advertising jingle (“Be all you can be”; “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands”). A more accurate and clearer concept of Paul’s slogans will be achieved if Paul is allowed to represent the Corinthians in something other than highly structured and memorable turns of phrase.

In summary the term “slogan” is a bit misleading, for the search is not simply for clever, rhetorical turns of phrase. Instead it is a search for Corinthian expressions in 1 Corinthians, regardless of their form. These Corinthian expressions may have been quoted directly by Paul or may be his own creation—a creation that is intended to summarize and express their position or point of view.

The following are some specific criteria for identifying and isolating Corinthian slogans in 1 Corinthians.[56]

• Explicit introductory formulae such as the recitative ὅτι (e.g., 8:1, 4; cf. 7:1).
• A brief, pithy, and often elliptical statement or generalization in the present tense, that is, a proverb, maxim, catchphrase, or motto (e.g. “all things are lawful,” 6:12).
• Rhetorical features and parallel structures that enhance memorability (e.g., the chiasm in 6:13: food-stomach-stomach-food).
• Repetition elsewhere in the letter that suggests common currency and/or a formulaic pattern (e.g., “all things are lawful” occurs four times, twice in 6:12 and twice in 10:23).[57]
• Diatribal features that suggest “imaginary” dialogue (e.g., 6:12-20).[58]
• Vocabulary, syntax, or ideas foreign to or inconsistent with Paul (or not normally used for certain concepts) (e.g., 7:1b expresses an asceticism foreign to Paul; cf. 9:19-22; 10:25-26, 29b–30; Eph. 5:22-33).
• Contextual or syntactical dislocation (a statement that is inserted abruptly or “point blank,” change of addressees, shifts in vocabulary) (e.g., change of addressee occurs from 8:7 to 8:8).
• A sharp counterattack (including a severe qualification or total rejection) or point-counterpoint argumentation (e.g., 6:13: “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food . . . Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body”).[59]
• Vocabulary or theology that other contexts suggest is exclusively or characteristically Corinthian (e.g., the presence of the Corinthian “buzz word” γνώσις, “knowledge,” in 8:1).[60]

Three additional tests are these:

• Contextual congruency: Does identifying and isolating a slogan make the best sense of the immediate context?
• Confirmation by others in the history of exegesis (the mature reflection and collective wisdom of “the interpretive community”).
• Convergence of multiple strands of evidence.

Conclusion

Writing in 1955, Max Thurian summed up this issue in his day: “[Paul] is constantly alluding to problems which the Corinthians have put to him and which, it seems he quotes in order to reply to them. As our usual text gives no sign of quotation or speech, we cannot be absolutely sure whether in certain places St Paul is quoting from the Corinthians’ letter or expressing his own opinion. So we are reduced to more or less probable conjectures.”[61] Over the last fifty or so years the landscape has changed because of the work of John Hurd, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Roger Omanson, and others. Perhaps expositors are today less prone to the conjectures to which Thurian refers. Yet as readers eavesdrop on the dialogue between Paul and the Corinthians, the stakes are as high as ever, for one may still run the risk of mistaking the Corinthians for Paul.

Notes

1. The italics used for the word “other” in the NASB reflect the fact that this word is not represented in the Greek text and that the translators of the NASB (and also the ESV, NIV, TNIV, and others) have supplied it in an attempt to clarify this particular understanding of the verse (that is, that Paul was drawing a distinction between sexual immorality and every other sin)—an understanding that recent scholarship finds less and less convincing.
2. E. B. Allo notes that between twenty and thirty explanations exist—evidence that interpreters have been mystified by Paul’s alleged distinction (Saint Paul: Première Épître aux Corinthiens, 2nd ed., Etudes bibliques [Paris: Gabalda, 1956], 148). Anthony C. Thiselton suggests that the variations are “almost limitless” (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Greek Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000], 472).
3. The problem is to explain how sexual immorality is “against the body” in a way that other sins are not (e.g., gluttony, drunkenness, self-mutilation, suicide) and to do this in keeping with the wording of the biblical text. (Legitimate distinctions are sometimes drawn, but they often seem to be creative impositions on Paul’s language.) In other words the moral uniqueness of sexual immorality—how it is that “no other sin is directed specifically toward one’s own body in the way that sexual immorality is”—demands explanation (for the quotation, see Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 262). Yet any explanation must reckon with the fact that every sin is in some sense unique, that is, not precisely the same as another sin. For example suicide is a unique sin because it is the only sin that involves directly taking one’s own life. Moreover, suicide by drug overdose is different from suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot. The two are distinct; each is unique in at least one respect. However, Paul does not seem to have been focused on such trivial distinctions. He seems to have been driving at a more profound and fundamental distinction between sexual immorality and all other sins. For the classic statement objecting to Paul’s distinction between sexual immorality and all other sins including gluttony, drunkenness, self-mutilation, and suicide, see Hans Lietzmann, An die Korinther 1/2, 5th ed.; rev. W. G. Kümmel (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1969), 28.
4. Augustine, Enchiridion de fide, spe, et caritate 4.12 (trans. Albert C. Outler, Library of Christian Classics). The translation by Louis A. Arand is similar: “Corruption cannot destroy the good without destroying the being itself” (Ancient Christian Writers).
5. Augustine believed that the human body possesses a “preciousness by participation” with the soul (De civitate Dei 1.13; 22:24; De cura pro mortuis gerenda 3.5; In Evangelium Johannis tractatus 27.5.1; 32.3.2; De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII 51.3; De Genesi ad litteram 6.12.22; 7.18.4). As a result of this “participation,” it can be argued that bodily sin (sexual immorality) has a direct causal effect on the moral self (soul). Sexual immorality, then, is a disease harming the soul, a sin that consumes and destroys the soul. This in turn is the reason sexual immorality is so devastating, even to the point of being uniquely harmful. For a helpful analysis of Augustine’s view of the body and its relationship to the soul see Ludger Hölscher, The Reality of the Mind: Augustine’s Philosophical Arguments for the Human Soul as a Spiritual Substance, Studies in Phenomenological and Classical Realism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 32-35. The expression “preciousness by participation” is Holscher’s, not Augustine’s.
6. Recent commentators on 1 Corinthians who see a slogan in 1 Corinthians 6:18 include Raymond Collins, Joseph Fitzmyer, Richard Hays, Richard Horsley, Alan F. Johnson, Hans-Josef Klauck, B. Ward Powers, J. Paul Sampley, Charles Talbert, Anthony Thiselton, and Verlyn Verbrugge. Most commentators refer to Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s pivotal essay, “Corinthian Slogans in 6:12-20,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 391-96, which is now updated in idem, Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 20-31; and idem, “The Fornicator Sins against His Own Body (1 Cor 6:18c),” Revue Biblique 115 (2008): 97-104. Noticeably absent from the list are Hans Conzelmann, David Garland, Andreas Lindemann, Wolfgang Schrage, Christophe Senft, and Christian Wolff. Somewhere between the two poles are C. K. Barrett, Gordon Fee, Craig Keener, and Marion Soards, who find the “slogan” proposal attractive but in the end remain unconvinced.
7. William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 436.
8. Gordon Fee, “1 Corinthians in the NIV,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 23 (1980): 307-14. So also Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, Sacra pagina (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1999), 258; David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 251, 254-55; and Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 498-501.
9. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 498; Chrys C. Caragounis, “‘Fornication’ and ‘Concession’? Interpreting 1 Cor 7:1-7,” in The Corinthian Correspondence, ed. Reimund Bieringer, Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniens-ium (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996), 543-59, esp. 543-47.
10. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 274, 278; cf. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1988), §34.70. Fee has responded to Caragounis in “1 Corinthians 7:1-7 Revisited,” in Paul and the Corinthians, ed. T. J. Burke and J. K. Elliott, Novum Testamentum Supplements (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 197-213.
11. See Collins, First Corinthians, 514-17, 520; and Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 530. In addition to the literature cited by Fitzmyer, see also Robert W. Allison, “Let Women Be Silent in the Churches (1 Cor 14:33b–36): What Did Paul Really Say, and What Did It Mean?” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 32 (1988): 44-53, esp. 47; Daniel C. Arichea Jr., “The Silence of Women in the Church: Theology and Translation in 1 Corinthians 14:33b–36,” The Bible Translator 46 (1995): 107-12; Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 76-77, 118-19; David W. Odell-Scott, A Post-Patriarchal Christology, American Academy of Religion Academy Series (Atlanta: Scholars, 1991), 183-95; and Joan M. Holmes, Text in a Whirlwind: A Critique of Four Exegetical Devices at 1 Tim 2:9-15, Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 229-38. Holmes offers the most comprehensive treatment of this subject.
12. Although perhaps overstated, Oscar Cullmann’s assessment is noteworthy. “The authors of the New Testament generally do not expressly say when they make a citation” (The Earliest Christian Confessions [London: Lutterworth, 1949], 20 n. 1). A similar view is held by Archibald M. Hunter, Paul and His Predecessors, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 24, 37, 45-47; and Ralph P. Martin, The Acts, The Letters, The Apocalypse, vol. 2 of New Testament Foundations: A Guide for Christian Students, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1978), 2:249. Of course quotation marks were not used in Paul’s time; thus the Greek New Testament does not have this powerful aid for identifying quoted material.
13. This is not unique to Paul. Ancient writers did not commonly cite their sources. See Rollin A. Ramsaran, Liberating Words: Paul’s Use of Rhetorical Maxims in 1 Corinthians 1-10 (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity International, 1996), 3, 22; and especially E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 94-95. Richards rightly points out, “We must not unfairly apply our modern concepts and standards back on Paul” (ibid., 94).
14. The references to the sayings of Jesus in 7:10; 9:14; 11:23-25 are identified as such by Paul. For possible allusions in 1 Corinthians to Jesus’ teachings see (a) the minimalist reading of F. Neirynck, “The Sayings of Jesus in 1 Corinthians,” in The Corinthian Correspondence, 141-76; (b) the maximalist readings of Seyoon Kim, “Jesus, Sayings of,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 480-82; David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), passim; and (c) the mediating positions of Dale C. Allison Jr., “The Pauline Epistles and the Synoptic Gospels: The Pattern of the Parallels,” New Testament Studies 28 (1982): 10-20; Peter Richardson and Peter Gooch, “Logia of Jesus in 1 Corinthians,” in The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels, ed. David Wenham, Gospel Perspectives (Sheffield: JSOT, 1985), 39-62, esp. 45-50, 57.
15. For the critical edition see Menander, Menandri quae supersunt, ed. Alfred Körte and Andreas Thierfelder, Teubner (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1955-1959), 2:74 (frg. 178). More accessible is Menander: The Principal Fragments, trans. Francis G. Allinson, Loeb Classical Library (rev. ed., London: Heinemann, 1930), 356-57 (frg. 218). Scholars have questioned whether the line originated in Menander’s play Thais (the name of a courtesan, the play’s heroine). Many take it as an allusion to a work of Euripides (ca. 480-407/6 B.C.) in Menander (344/3-292/1 B.C.). See further Ariana Traill, “Menander’s Thais and the Roman Poets,” Phoenix 53 (2001): 287 n. 11; and Robert M. Grant, “Early Christianity and Greek Comic Poetry,” Classical Philology 60 (1965): 160. For the text in Euripides see August Nauck and Bruno Snell, eds., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964), 686 (frg. 1024).
16. The pre-Pauline creedal formula in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 is identified as a traditional unit by Paul.
17. Murphy-O’Connor summarizes the state of the question. “The majority will admit . . . that 1 Cor 8:6 is a non-Pauline citation” (Keys to First Corinthians, 72). See also Collins, First Corinthians, 316; Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 144 n. 38; E. Earle Ellis, “Traditions in 1 Corinthians,” New Testament Studies 32 (1986): 494-95; Fitzmyer, 1 Corinthians, 336; Richard A. Horsley, “The Background of the Confessional Formula in 1 Kor 8.6,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 69 (1978): 130-35; idem, 1 Corinthians, 119-20; Rainer Kerst, “1 Kor 8:6 – ein vorpaulinisches Taufbekenntnis?” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 66 (1975): 130-39. Others see a Pauline adaptation of the wording of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4). See for example James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 179-81; Fee, 1 Corinthians, 374. Cf. Garland, 1 Corinthians, 377; Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Clark, 1998), 97, 161-62; Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 637; and N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1992), 128-30. In either case Paul did not explicitly signal the use of preexisting material. It is possible that 1 Corinthians 8:6 is a quotation from the Corinthians’ letter to Paul, possibly even a Corinthian slogan (John Fotopoulos, Food Offered to Idols in Roman Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Reconsideration of 1 Corinthians 8:1-11:1, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 191-207, esp. 191-92; cf. F. W. Grosheide, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953], 192-93; R. St. John Parry, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937], 131; and Wendell Lee Willis, Idol Meat in Corinth: The Pauline Argument in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series [Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985], 85-87).
18. Despite use of the verb λέγω, no clear introductory formula indicates the presence of the early confessional formula (Κύριος ᾿Ιησοῦς), which most interpreters see in 12:3 and usually regard as derived from the life and worship of the early church. See for example Collins, First Corinthians, 446; Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 459-60; and Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 924-27.
19. Fee, 1 Corinthians, 262 n. 60; and Murphy O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians, 26.
20. This is recommended by Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing, 97.
21. This is a classic case of petitio principii, that is, begging the question.
22. The line most commonly identified as a Corinthian slogan is perhaps “all things are lawful” in 6:12 and 10:23. However, its status as a slogan has been strongly challenged by Brian J. Dodd, “Paul’s Paradigmatic ‘I’ and 1 Cor 6:12,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 59 (1995): 39-58; and Garland, 1 Corinthians, 225-29.
23. For an especially helpful treatment see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 1-26, 74-77, esp. 22-26; and idem, “Paul and Maxims,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, ed. J. Paul Sampley (Harrisonburg, PA: Trinity International, 2003), 429-56. See also Stanley F. Bonner, Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1949), 54-55, 74-75, 165-66; idem, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), 172-76, 247-48; Paul C. Siebenmann, “The Question of Slogans in 1 Corinthians” (Ph.D. diss., Baylor University, 1997), 18-73; Michael S. Silk, “gnome,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 641; William S. Watt and Michael Winterbottom, “sententia,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1389; and Lewis A. Sussman, The Elder Seneca (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 35-38. See also the descriptions of maxims (Greek: γνώμαι; Latin: sententiae) in the rhetorical handbooks, most notably Aristotle, Rhetorica 2.21 (§§1394a–1395b); Anaximenes of Lampsacus, Rhetorica ad Alexandrum 11 (§1430b); Demetrius, De elocutione 106-11; Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.17; 4.42-44; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 8.5; 12.10.48; Seneca the Elder, Controversiae, passim (see Oxford Classical Dictionary, 95); and Suasoriae, passim. (These handbooks are listed here by approximate date ranging from the fourth century B.C. to the first century A.D. English translations are available in the Loeb Classical Library). See also Diodorus Siculus 9.9.10.1-6; and Diogenes Laertius 6.10-13. See also the progymnasmata (preliminary rhetorical exercises designed for the early stages of a student’s training) attributed to Aelius Theon of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 50-100); and Hermogenes of Tarsus (ca. A.D. 180); cf. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 1.9. For English translations of the progymnasmata see Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Progymnasmata, vol. 1 of The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, Greco-Roman Religion Series (Atlanta: Scholars, 1986); and George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, Writings from the Greco Roman World (Atlanta: SBL, 2003).
24. Adolf Deissmann maintained that “the letter is a piece of life, the epistle is a product of literary art” (Light from the Ancient East, 4th ed. [New York: George H. Doran, 1927], 230). As such, the letter was a private/personal, nonliterary document. In contrast the epistle was public/impersonal, a conscious work of literature and thus conventional and lacking spontaneity. For a critique of this view see William G. Doty, “The Classification of Epistolary Literature,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 31 (1969): 183-99; and Stanley K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 17-20. See also Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul the Letter-Writer: His World, His Options, His Skills (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1995), 42-45; and Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing, 125-27.
25. Adolf Deissmann, New Light on the New Testament: From the Records of the Graeco-Roman Period (Edinburgh: Clark, 1907), 54.
26. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 228.
27. This is only tangentially related to the theory of Biorn Fjärstedt, who advances the questionable thesis that Paul’s style in 1 Corinthians is so allusive of the Jesus tradition that the Corinthians would not have fully grasped his argument unless they knew the traditions to which he alluded (Synoptic Tradition in 1 Corinthians: Themes and Clusters of Theme Words in 1 Corinthians 1-4 and 9 [Uppsala: Teologiska Institutionen, 1974]).
28. Because of familiarity, nuances in communication are subtle, and little explicit detail is needed to evoke the intended message. In light of this economy of speech and its subtlety, one must read between the lines.
29. “Contextual reading” means utilizing all possible resources: argument of the passage or flow of thought, idiosyncratic vocabulary and syntax, historical-cultural backgrounds, and so forth.
30. “Interpretive community” refers to interpretations that to a significant extent have stood the test of time and are surviving the challenge of peer review. On this use of the history of interpretation see Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 31.
31. Murphy-O’Connor dates Paul’s arrival from Athens in early A.D. 50 and the letter itself in May of 54 (St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology, 159, 173).
32. M. Luther Stirewalt Jr. identifies Chloe’s people with Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (Paul: The Letter Writer [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003], 72-74). This is of course possible, but it seems more likely that Chloe was from Ephesus, for otherwise Paul, in revealing his informants, exposed them to retaliation from the Corinthians (so Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, 2nd ed. [Edinburgh: Clark, 1914], 10). See also Fee, 1 Corinthians, 54; and William M. Ramsay, Historical Commentary on First Corinthians, ed. Mark Wilson (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 31-32.
33. The source of this information is ultimately uncertain, and the data in 11:2, in particular, could have easily come from the Corinthians’ letter to Paul. See further, C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Harper’s New Testament Commentary (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 247-48; Fee, 1 Corinthians, 491-92, 713-14; Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 405; Garland, 1 Corinthians, 512-13; John C. Hurd, The Origin of 1 Corinthians, new ed. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), 90-94, 182-83; Ralph B. Terry, A Discourse Analysis of First Corinthians (Dallas: The Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington, 1995), 43.
34. Garland, 1 Corinthians, 248; Stirewalt, Paul: The Letter Writer, 66-72; Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 616-17; Margaret M. Mitchell, “Concerning περὶ δέ in 1 Corinthians,” Novum Testamentum 31 (1989): 229-56; and idem, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 190-92.
35. Regarding Timothy’s visit to Corinth (4:17), he was probably en route. It seems that Paul expected the letter to precede Timothy’s arrival, for in 16:10-11 Paul admonished the congregation about their reception of Timothy. Thus Timothy was probably not the bearer of the letter but had already been sent on his mission (cf. Acts 19:22) before Paul wrote 1 Corinthians (Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 223, 621-22; Garland, 1 Corinthians, 147, 758-59; and Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996], 279-80). Collins rightly notes, “[Paul] seems not to have any knowledge of Timothy’s having arrived” (1 Corinthians, 596).
36. Murphy-O’Connor suggests that news from Apollos on his return to Ephesus from Corinth prompted Paul to write the now-lost letter mentioned in 5:9-11 (St. Paul’s Corinth, 173).
37. “Within Paul’s letters there are many passages where Paul is clearly alluding to issues or topics which lay between Paul and his readers, above all the particular matters at dispute between Paul and some of his readers . . . [and] 1 Corinthians is a particularly good case in point” (James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 17).
38. See Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians, 26. Several possibilities may have been at work. The Corinthians may have developed their own slogans to justify their behavior and beliefs. Or they may have adopted preexisting slogans or maxims current in Corinth for the same purpose. Conversely their prior adoption or development of a given slogan may have itself led to aberrant conduct or theology. Still further, they may have developed or adopted slogans to gain the advantage in their own internal disputes and factions (1:10-12; 3:3-4, 21; 4:6). From a sociological perspective this last possibility is particularly suggestive in that factions and parties tend to foster sloganizing as a means of promoting self-identification and group solidarity. Through various rallying cries or mottos a group’s mission, views, and goals are developed and clarified. It is not difficult to imagine that such a dynamic was at work in the polemical context of Corinth’s competing factions.
39. John Calvin refers to πάντα [μοι] ἔξεστιν in 6:12a and 10:23a as a “kind of retort . . . by which the Corinthians were defending themselves” (The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, ed. D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance; trans. John W. Fraser [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960], 128, 220). Matthew Henry (1662-1714) refers to this clause in 6:12 as a “maxim” that the Corinthians were ready to abuse (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible [reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991], 6:430). Theodoret (ca. 393–ca. 460) seems to have understood 6:12a as an objection from a Corinthian opponent to which Paul responded. Although Theodoret fell short of identifying it as a Corinthian slogan, he did place it on the lips of the Corinthians. For an English translation of Theodoret see Judith L. Kovacs, 1 Corinthians: Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators, The Church’s Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 97; and Theodoret, Commentary on Letters of St. Paul, trans. Robert C. Hill (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox, 2001), 1:179-80.
40. Fee, 1 Corinthians, 273 n. 25; and Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 498. Caragounis disagrees and argues that Origen supplied only “the gist of the Corinthians’ letter” (“‘Fornication’ and ‘Concession,’ Interpreting 1 Cor 7:1-7,” 545 n. 7). Perhaps this is so, but might not this “gist” reflect or capture the essence of a Corinthian slogan?
41. For the text see Claude Jenkins, “Origen on 1 Corinthians,” Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1908): 500. The translation is by Kovacs, 1 Corinthians: Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators, 107 (italics added).
42. John Chrysostom, Homiliae in epistulam i ad Corinthios, homily 19, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff (reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 12:105.
43. Hurd, The Origin of 1 Corinthians, 67-68. The list includes Johannes Weiss, James Moffatt, Jean Héring, Joachim Jeremias, and Leon Morris, among others, and ranges from W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson in 1852 to Frederick Grant in 1962. For an early precursor to Hurd’s work, see James Moffatt, An Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: Clark, 1918), 112. Moffatt argues, “Paul takes up now and then phrases of theirs [the Corinthians] as a text or pivot for what he has to say.” Moffatt cites 6:12; 6:13; 8:1; 8:4; 10:23; and 15:12 as examples of this phenomenon.
44. These essays have been brought together and updated in one convenient volume. See chapters 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, and 16 of Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians. Although Murphy-O’Connor’s contribution to Revue Biblique in 2008 (see note 6 above) is not cited explicitly in this volume, the substance of the article is included in chapter 3 of his Keys to First Corinthians.
45. Craig L. Blomberg, 1 Corinthians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 32. Perhaps Blomberg’s comment should be amended to call Murphy-O’Connor “the foremost scholar of this generation on 1 Corinthians.”
46. Roger L. Omanson, “Acknowledging Paul’s Quotations,” The Bible Translator 43 (1992): 201-13.
47. Ibid., 201.
48. In evaluating proposed slogans Siebenmann covers the same ground as Omanson with the following exceptions: He reviews 12:31, which Omanson does not review, but he ignores 8:9-10 and 15:12, which Omanson includes in his discussion.
49. The development has not been in a clearcut, linear descent. It is more weblike, involving diverse interaction and cross-fertilization.
50. Lamenting the imprecision of the expression “Corinthian slogan,” Ramsaran notes, “By and large, I have not found the word ‘slogan’ defined carefully” (Liberating Words, 144 n. 12).
51. This is essentially a conflation of Siebenmann (“The Question of Slogans in 1 Corinthians,” 54) and Stanley K. Stowers, “A ‘Debate’ over Freedom: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20,” in Christian Teaching: Studies in Honor of LeMoine G. Lewis, ed. Everett Ferguson (Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Book Store, 1981), 70 n. 4. Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard describe slogans as Paul’s quotations of “views held by some at Corinth that he wishes to dispute” (Biblical Interpretation, 436).
52. Of course Paul may have become familiar with one or more of the slogans firsthand during his time at Corinth.
53. Murphy-O’Connor thinks otherwise. He suggests that “the slogans in 1 Cor are Corinthian in formulation” and not merely Corinthian in “substance,” for Paul would not give ammunition “to his opponents by publically attributing to them words to which they did not subscribe. He would not have wished to have his audience distracted by objections based on form alone” (Keys to First Corinthians, 25 [italics his]). Perhaps this is so. However, such a perspective tends toward a false dichotomy: Paul either quoted the Corinthians verbatim or is open to the charge of misrepresentation. Middle ground in which Paul’s wording expresses the Corinthian perspective to their satisfaction should not be excluded a priori. (Many people have had the experience of someone else articulating their own viewpoint better than they themselves could.) Moreover, the manner in which Paul quoted the Old Testament (through allusion, paraphrase, and the like) suggests his willingness to modify and adapt someone else’s wording. Also there is ample evidence that maxims were routinely subject to reformulation, thus providing precedent for rewording by Paul. See Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.42.54; Aristotle, Rhetorica 2.21.14; Collins, 1 Corinthians, 166; and Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 18-20, 23-24; cf. Conzelman, 1 Corinthians, 80.
54. Fee, 1 Corinthians, 276. Cf. Collins, 1 Corinthians, 312. In fact Paul may have been the one who actually distilled a Corinthian perspective into words.
55. Despite this, it is still possible that slogans might be proleptic or anticipatory. That is, they could be Pauline creations that reflect the trajectory of the Corinthians’ theology and practice or at least the direction that Paul fears they are headed.
56. These criteria have been developed following the suggestions outlined above. In addition the following studies have been especially insightful: Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 108-9, 140; Cullmann, Confessions, 20 n. 1; E. Earle Ellis, History and Interpretation in New Testament Perspective, Biblical Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 133-41; Anders Eriksson, Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians, Coniectanea biblica: New Testament Series (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1998), 81-86; Reginald H. Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology (New York: Scribner, 1965), 20-21; W. Hulitt Gloer, “Homologies and Hymns in the New Testament: Form, Content and Criteria for Identification,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 11 (1984): 115-32; Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, 29-32; Hunter, Paul and His Predecessors, passim; Richard N. Longenecker, New Wine into Fresh Wineskins: Contextualizing the Early Christian Confessions (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 7-21; Martin, The Acts, The Letters, The Apocalypse, 248-75; Winsome Munro, “Interpolations in the Epistles: Weighing Probability,” New Testament Studies 36 (1990): 431-43; Vernon H. Neufeld, The Earliest Christian Confessions, New Testament Tools and Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1963), 13-20, 42-51; Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 23-26; Ramsay, 1 Corinthians, 57; Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing, 94-121; Ethelbert Stauffer, New Testament Theology (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 338-39; William O. Walker, Jr., “Interpolations in the Pauline Letters,” in The Pauline Canon, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Pauline Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 189-228, esp. 219-28; and Mark M. Yarbrough, “Paul’s Utilization of Preformed Traditions in 1 Timothy to Combat Counter-Mission Doctrine” (Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008), 24-85, 297. The works by Hurd, Murphy-O’Connor, Omanson, and Siebenmann (esp. Siebenmann, 162) are also to be noted. Finally, it should be pointed out that Eduard Norden did much of the pioneering work in identifying traditional formulae and hymnic fragments buried within the New Testament (Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede [Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1913; reprint, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1956], 240-308, 380-87). In many ways, his work has been foundational for all succeeding scholars who have sought to identify preformed material in the Pauline epistles, including Corinthian slogans.
57. Repetition suggests a common or favorite expression, but not whose expression it was, Paul’s or the Corinthians.
58. Denny Burke, “Discerning Corinthian Slogans through Paul’s Use of the Diatribe in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 18 (2008): 99-121.
59. This is perhaps the most reliable criterion. Paul introduced a statement, only to reject it, when it held significance for the Corinthians.
60. Fee, 1 Corinthians, 39-40; cf. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 37; and Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 92.
61. Max Thurian, Marriage and Celibacy, trans. Norma Emerton (London: SCM, 1959), 67 (originally published in French as Mariage et Célibat [Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1955]).
62. Collins lists 6:12, 13; 7:1; 8:1, 4, 8; 10:23; 13:2 [sic 12:3?]; 15:12 (1 Corinthians, 253). However, Collins contradicts this list within his own commentary (e.g., 3:21; 6:18; 8:8; 15:12).
63. This survey includes major works in English (along with their date of publication). The list of passages is from Omanson, who provides a fairly comprehensive accounting in one convenient location (“Acknowledging Paul’s Quotations,” 201-13). Of course other texts have been identified as possible slogans, most notably 1:12, 17; 3:4, 21; 8:5-6; 12:31; 15:29. Among the so-called pioneers in the field, Hurd lists 6:12, 13, 18; 7:1, 26; 8:1, 4, 5-6, 8; 10:23; 11:2 as possible Corinthian slogans (The Origin of 1 Corinthians, 67). He himself accepts all these except 8:5-6, 8 (ibid., 120-23) and offers no judgment on 6:18. Murphy-O’Connor recognizes 6:12, 13, 18; 7:1; 8:1, 4, 8; 10:23; 11:2; 15:29 (Key to 1 Corinthians, 266 n. 41). Siebenmann acknowledges 6:12, 13, 18; 7:1; 8:1, 4, 8; 10:23 (“The Question of Slogans in 1 Corinthians,” 297).