First Corinthians -  

Choose one of the following questions to share information on in class:

1. Pick one of "Paul’s Problems with the assembly at Corinth" or "Paul’s answers to their questions". [Barr lists these on pp. 132-33]. Describe the issue from both Paul’s and the Corinthians’ points of view.  Be sure to refer to the text of 1 Corinthians.  If you were a Corinthian, how might you have responded to Paul's discussion of the problem or answer you have chosen?

2.  Barr notes differences between the first century Corinthians' views of the body and modern Americans views of the body.  He also notes differences in understandings of the relation of "body" and "spirit". Summarize Barr's discussion on pages 134-38.  Then explain how Corinthian views of body and spirit might help us to understand one of the following sections of I Corinthians:  incest (5:1-13),  marriage and sex within marriage (7: 1-11), and resurrection (15:1-58).  Do you find Barr's analysis of the "problem behind the problems" (137) convincing?

3.  Margaret Mitchell has suggested that Paul shapes 1 Corinthians with a "rhetoric of concord"  (Barr, p. 140).  Discuss two passages from chapters 1-4 and chapters 11-14 that indicate problems of factionalism and how Paul uses rhetoric such as a simile, metaphor, analogy, appeal to authority, or other form of persuasion to urge concord or unity.  Given your analysis, do you find Mitchell's idea that 1 Corinthians is shaped by a rhetoric of concord convincing?