Paul, the Corinthians, and the birth of Christian hermeneutics
By: Margaret M. Mitchell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 178
ISBN-13: 9780521197953
Subjects: Criticism, interpretation; Bible; Hermeneutics
Description: "In a series of exchanges with the Corinthians in the mid-50s AD, Paul continually sought to define the meaning of his message, his body and his letters, at times insisting upon a literal understanding, at others urging the reader to move beyond the words to a deeper sense within. Proposing a fresh approach to early Christian exegesis, Margaret M. Mitchell shows how in the Corinthian letters Paul was fashioning the very principles that later authors would use to interpret all scripture. Originally delivered as The Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies at Oxford University, this volume recreates the dynamism of the Pauline letters in their immediate historical context and beyond it in their later use by patristic exegetes. An engagingly written, insightful demonstration of the hermeneutical impact of Paul's Corinthian correspondence on early Christian exegetes, it also illustrates a new way to think about the history of reception of biblical texts"--

"In a series of exchanges with the Corinthians in the mid-50s ad, Paul continually sought to define the meaning of his message, his body and his letters, at times insisting upon a literal understanding, at others urging the reader to move beyond the words to a deeper sense within. Proposing a fresh approach to early Christian exegesis, Margaret M. Mitchell shows how in the Corinthian letters Paul was fashioning the very principles that later authors would use to interpret all scripture. Originally delivered as the Speaker's Lectures in Biblical Studies at Oxford University, this volume re-creates the dynamism of the Pauline letters in their immediate historical context and beyond it in their later use by patristic exegetes. An engagingly written, insightful demonstration of the hermeneutical impact of Paul's Corinthian correspondence on early Christian exegetes, it also illustrates a new way to think about the history of reception of biblical texts"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-168) and indexes.
Table of contents: title: The Corinthian diolkos: passageway to early Christian biblical interpretation; title: The agôn of Pauline interpretation; title: Anthropological hermeneutics between rhetoric and philosophy; title: The mirror and the veil: hermeneutics of occlusion; title: Visible signs, multiple witnesses: interpretative criteria in the agonistic paradigm; title: Hermeneutical exhaustion and the end(s) of interpretation.