This work casts new light on the genre, function, and composition of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Margaret Mitchell thoroughly documents her argument that First Corinthians was a single letter, not a combination of fragments, whose aim was to persuade the Corinthian Christian community to become unified.

In Beyond Rhetoric, the late Samuel Hines and Curtiss DeYoung place reconciliation at the very center of God's agenda for humankind. In so doing, they provide both inspiration and guidance for faithful Christian living that embraces a passionate pursuit of reconciliation.

"Ivar Vegge argues that Paul, in line with ancient moral philosophers, letter-writers, and rhetoricians, used idealized praise in 2 Cor 1-9, and particularly in 2 Cor 7:5-16, and blame or threats, especially in 2 Cor 10-13, to promote reconciliation between the Corinthians and Paul as apostle."--BOOK JACKET.

Paul and Rhetoric contains essays presented in a seminar called "Paul and Rhetoric" in the annual meetings of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the leading international forum for New Testament and Christian Origin scholars. Translated into English, these essays, by leaders in the field and in the topic, engage and represent modern scholarship on Paul and rhetorical studies. The foundational essays are listed under the heading "State of the Discussion", attempting to take the major rhetorical categories of the time contemporary with Paul (types of rhetoric, invention and arrangement, and figures and tropes) and, first, lays out where the discussion is now. They then note the problems and highlight where continued discussion and deliberation would be helpful. The "Broad Questions" section asks what can be learned about reading Paul's letters to congregations in light of ancient epistolography, how theology and rhetoric are related (because the two are often treated as if they are alien to one another), and how ancient rhetoric and ancient psychology are associated with one another. This volume illustrates, examines and assesses where we are now in the study of rhetorical traditions in Pauline scholarship, and suggests the direction of future studies.

Martin isolates a single theme of Paul's theology, reconciliation, and suggests that this one term is sufficiently broad as an ÒumbrellaÓ idea to accommodate the leading aspects of Paul's main thinking.