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Self's Sufficiency or God's Sufficiency: 2 Corinthians 2:16
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
Paul's question in 2 Cor 2:16 (“Who is sufficient for these things?”) has long puzzled commentators. Many have noted the abruptness of the question in its context, but few have succeeded in relating the question specifically to the situation that Paul faced. More recently, in his monograph on the opponents of Paul in 2 Corinthians, Dieter Georgi has proposed that in this question Paul is adopting a catchword or slogan (“sufficient”/“sufficiency”) of his opponents and using it against them.
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References
1 See Plummer, Alfred, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (ICC; New York: Scribner's, 1915) 72Google Scholar; Allo, E.-B., Saint Paul: Second Épître aux Corinthiens (EtBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1956) 46–47Google Scholar; Héring, Jean, The Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (CNT; London: Epworth, 1967) 19Google Scholar; Lietzmann, Hans and Kümmel, Werner G., An die Korinther I-II (HNT 9; 5th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1969) 109, 199Google Scholar; Bultmann, Rudolf, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (MeyerK, Sonderbd.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976) 72Google Scholar; Wendland, Heinz-Dietrich, Die Briefe an die Korinther (NTD 7; 14th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978) 177.Google ScholarBarrett, C. K. (The Second Epistle to the Corinthians [HNTC; New York: Harper & Row, 1973] 102–3)Google Scholar accepts the view that Paul's opponents boasted of their selfsufficiency but denies their characterization as “divine men.”
2 Georgi, Dieter, Die Gegner des Paulus im 2. Korintherbrief: Studien zur religiösen Propaganda in der Spätantike (WMANT 11; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1964) 221.Google Scholar
3 “The History of the Origin of the So-Called Second Letter to the Corinthians,” in The Authorship and Integrity of the New Testament (Theological Collections 4; London: SPCK, 1965) 73–81.Google Scholar Bornkamm suggested that 2 Corinthians was actually a collection of Paul's letters made by a later editor. The major fragments of the letters in their proposed order of composition are as follows: a Letter of Defense (2 Cor 2:14–6:13; 7:2–4); a Letter of Tears (chaps. 10–13); a Letter of Reconciliation (1:1–2:13; 7:5–16); and two letters concerning the collection (chaps. 8 and 9).
4 Die Gegner, 218–44. Earlier views, which have been successfully answered by Georgi, suggested that Paul's opponents were either Palestinian Jewish Christians or gnostic. On Paul's opponents as Palestinian Jewish Christians, see Käsemann, Ernst, “Die Legitimität des Apostels,” ZNW 41 (1942) 33–71.Google Scholar On Paul's opponents as gnostics, see Bultmann, Rudolf, Exegetische Probleme des 2 Korintherbriefes (SyBU 9; Upsala: Wretman, 1947)Google Scholar; and more recently Güttgemanns, Erhardt, Der leidende Apostel und sein Herr (FRLANT 90; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966).Google Scholar
5 Georgi, Die Gegner, 83–186. For a study which understands the opponents as deriving from this same tradition but which analyzes the form and rhetoric of Paul's defense of himself in chaps. 10–13, see Betz, Hans Dieter, Der Aposiel Paulus und die sokratische Tradition: Eine exegetische Untersuchung zu seiner “Apologie” 2 Korinther 10–13 (BHTh 45; Tübingen: Mohr, 1972).Google Scholar
6 Die Gegner, 221. Collange, J.-F. has taken up Georgi's argument: see Enigmes de la deuxième Épître de Paul aux Corinthiens: Étude exégétique de 2 Cor 2:14–7:4 (SNTSMS 18; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1972) 36–37.Google Scholar
7 Rengstorff, Karl H., “ἱκανός,” TDNT 3 (1965) 293–96.Google Scholar See also LSJ, 825; BAG (2d ed.) 374.
8 Rengstorff, Karl H., ed., A Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 1975) 2. 379–80.Google Scholar References to Josephus are cited from Thackeray, Henry St. J., Marcus, Ralph, Wikgren, Allen, and Feldman, Louis H., eds., Josephus (9 vols.; LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1966–1969).Google Scholar
9 That Josephus is interested in the theme of the “divine man” is clear from the following references: Moses is considered a θείος ἄνηρ in Ant. 3.7.7 §180 and Apion 1.30.§279; David receives the divine spirit after Saul in Ant. 6.8.2 §166; Solomon appears to have divine understanding in Ant. 8.2.1 §34 and 8.7.4 §187; Daniel has the divine spirit in Ant. 10.11.3 §239 and the reputation of divinity in Ant. 10.11.7 §268. See also Georgi's discussion in Die Gegner, 83–167.
10 Cf. also Josiah in Ant. 10.4.1 §50.
11 Cf. also Ezra as one who is “sufficiently” experienced in the Laws of Moses (Ant. 11.5.1 §121).
12 Die Gegner, 221–23.
13 In the translation of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion the term appears frequently as a translation for shaddai. See Rengstorff, TDNT 3. 294. See also Philo, Leg. all. 1.44; De mut. nom. 27. 47.
14 V 11: ἔδωκεν στόμα νθρώπῳ and v 12: γὼ νοίξω τ στόμα σου κα συμβιβάσω σε ὃ μέλλεις λαλ⋯σαι Rahlfs, Alfred, ed., Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1971) 1. 91.Google Scholar
15 See Ant. 2.12.1 §270–71.
16 See above, n. 9.
17 “O children of Israel, there is for all mankind but one course of felicity—a gracious God: He alone has power (ἱκανός) to give these good things to those who merit them and to take them from those who sin against Him; will ye but show yourselves in His sight such as He would have you, aye and such as I, who know his mind right well, exhort you to be, then will ye never cease to be blessed and envied of all men” (Ant. 4.8.2 §180).
18 See Georgi, Die Gegner, 221–23.
19 Ibid., 223.
20 The roots of this notion are to be found in the wisdom tradition rather than in the apocalyptic or gnostic tradition, or both. See Georgi, Die Gegner, 224–25. On saving: Prov 10:25; 28:26; Wis 9:18; on perishing: Prov 5:23; Wis 4:19; Sir 44:9; 49:7. For a discussion of the view within the wisdom tradition that one's ultimate fate is already decided by one's manner of life and is manifested in one's earthly life, see George Nickelsburg, W. E. Jr, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (HTS 26; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1972) 88–89.Google Scholar