The rhetorical strategy of 1 Corinthians 15

No doubt portions of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul's famous treatise on the resurrection, are read most frequently in the pastoral context of offering hope and sympathy to those who are grieving the death of a loved one. Church orders for funeral services regularly include quotations as part of the assigned ritual or as recommended lessons. In such cases the rhetorical strategy is to provide consolation, not unlike Greco-Roman epideictic letters and speeches of condolence.

Alternatively, 1 Corinthians 15 is read liturgically in the context of the church's celebration of the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Surprisingly, however, the Revised Common Lectionary's three-year cycle includes texts from this chapter only twice during Eastertide--on Easter Day itself in Years B and C. Elsewhere, also in Year C, pericopes from this chapter are appointed for the Fifth through Eighth Sundays after Epiphany and for a Sunday in late May. (1) In this case the rhetorical strategy is to promote acknowledgment of the reality of Christ's resurrection, not unlike ancient judicial or forensic speeches. Such attempts to prove the resurrection are largely misplaced, however, since this was not Paul's goal.

Rather, in the context of his correspondence with the Corinthians, Paul's resurrection treatise serves the purposes of neither consolation nor celebration. Rather, it is argumentative. (2) It is clearly intended to refute those who denied what is now known as the doctrine of the resurrection. Paul's tone is in turn controversial and polemical. He wonders out loud whether his work or the Corinthians' response are pitiful and wasted efforts (vv. 2, 14, 19), and he does not shy away from calling them "fools" (v. 36). In this contentious context, his rhetorical strategy is to persuade those who hold an erroneous opinion to change their minds and adopt his position. This is not unlike the purpose of ancient deliberative discourse.

The purpose of this study is to identify more clearly the rhetorical outline and strategy of 1 Corinthians 15 and to clarify more precisely its likely impact on Paul's auditors as well as its potential impact on modern readers. Good historical scholarship requires that we attempt to understand as clearly as possible how the ancient text would have been read and understood by its first-century recipients. But good biblical scholarship also requires that we attempt to understand how the text can continue to be appreciated and endorsed by twenty-first--century readers.

First, I introduce the components of an effective address, based on the guidelines of three representative ancient rhetoricians: Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. Next, I give a history of research and summarize the conclusions of a handful of scholars who have proposed similar rhetorical strategies during the past twenty years. Third, I offer my own proposal for modifying and sharpening our understanding of Paul's rhetorical strategy.

Ancient rhetorical strategies

The prospect of analyzing Paul's arguments according to the standards of ancient rhetorical practices hinges on several key assumptions. One is that 1 Corinthians 15 "is a self-contained treatise on the resurrection of the dead," (3) in other words, that it is a discrete, stand-alone item that can be considered independent of its immediate context in the epistle. This is less problematic than assuming that Paul deliberately kept this issue until the end of his letter "because of its vital importance" (4) and in order that it could form the climax and therefore the theological grounding of all the subjects treated in 1 Corinthians. If that were the case, one would have to consider not only the rhetorical impact of the chapter by itself but also its force as part of the overall rhetorical logic of Paul's entire epistle. (5)

However, it is not clear that 1 Corinthians 15 must carry this weight, simply because it is not certain that 1 Corinthians originated as a unified whole. One clue that 1 Corinthians may be a composite epistle, edited from two or more originally separate pieces of correspondence, is the way its various subjects are introduced. Of the ten or eleven problems treated in this letter, five are introduced with the phrase [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("now concerning"). This suggests that Paul learned of these issues from written correspondence he had received directly from the Corinthian congregation (cf. 1 Cor 7:1, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "now concerning the things you wrote about"). This letter most likely was sent and/or delivered by those identified as Chloe's people (1 Cor 1:11).

The issue of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the subjects that is not introduced by [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. One reconstruction of the Corinthian correspondence suggests that Paul learned of the other five or six controverted topics, including the issue about the resurrection, from the visit of Stephanus and his friends (1 Cor 1:16; 16:17-18) and that he responded to those concerns in a separate letter. In that case, we would have no way of knowing in what order Paul originally treated the various subjects. (6)