2 Corinthians in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

I. TEXT, AUTHENTICITY AND DATE 1. Internal Evidence 2. External Evidence 3. Date II. RESUME OF EVENTS III. THE NEW SITUATION 1. The Offender 2. The False Teachers 3. The Painful Visit 4. The Severe Letter IV. HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION V. INTEGRITY OF THE EPISTLE 1. 2 Corintians 6:14 through 7:1 2. 2 Corintians 10:1 through 13:10 VI. CONTENTS OF THE EPISTLE 1. 2 Corintians 1 through 7 2. 2 Corintians 8 through 9 3. 2 Corintians 10 through 13 VII. VALUE OF THE EPISTLE LITERATURE I. Text, Authenticity and Date. 1. Internal Evidence: Compare what has already been said in the preceding article. In the two important 5th-century uncials, Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi (C), portions of the text are lacking. As to the genuineness internal evidence very vividly attests it. The distinctive elements of Pauline theology and eschatology, expressed in familiar Pauline terms, are manifest throughout. Yet the epistle is not doctrinal or didactic, but an intensely personal document. Its absorbing interest is in events which were profoundly agitating Paul and the Corinthians at the time, straining their relations to the point of rupture, and demanding strong action on Paul's part. Our imperfect knowledge of the circumstances necessarily hinders a complete comprehension, but the references to these events and to others in the personal history of the apostle are so natural, and so manifestly made in good faith, that no doubt rises in the reader's mind but that he is in the sphere of reality, and that the voice he hears is the voice of the man whose heart and nerves were being torn by the experiences through which he was passing. However scholars may differ as to the continuity and integrity of the text, there is no serious divergence among them in the opinion that all parts of the epistle are genuine writings of the apostle. 2. External Evidence: Externally, the testimony of the sub-apostolic age, though not so frequent or precise as in the case of 1 Corinthians, is still sufficiently clear to establish the existence and use of the epistle in the 2nd century Clement of Rome is silent when he might rather have been expected to use the epistle (compare Kennedy, Second and Third Corinthians, 142 ff); but it is quoted by Polycarp (Ad Phil., ii.4 and vi.1), and in the Epistle to Diognetus 5 12, while it is amply attested to by Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria...