Ciampa, Roy and Brian Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians. Eerdmans, 2010.

Introduction

Ciampa and Rosner offer readers an encyclopedic introduction to the Letter covering the historical background of Corinth, the person of Paul, the structure and argument of 1 Corinthians, and the theology and key themes of the book. They also (oddly) spend a good bit of time describing the whole verbal aspect debate which has occupied grammarians for a good while now. To be sure, such information is very useful for persons familiar with Greek but then at the end of their description of aspect they announce As we have written this commentary, we have kept in mind readers who lack any significant knowledge of Greek and have kept any significant discussion of Greek to the footnotes (p. 44). Really? Then why has this sentence just been preceded by a very technical description of verbal aspect (a description which took 7 packed paragraphs including a chart and copious quotations from Con Campbells work)? Why not include the discussion in an appendix? Can they really assert that they are keeping the reader who lacks Greek in mind when they have just written These particular kinds of action (referred to as Aktionsart) are not expressed by the verbal tenses themselves but through a combination of verbal aspect (imperfective, perfective, or perhaps stative), lexical aspect (a particular verb is stative or punctiliar, telic or atelic, transitive or intransitive), and other contextual features (adverbs, prepositional or other modifiers, etc.)(p. 43). No, no one unfamiliar with just more than elementary Greek will have a clue and the authors do not in fact have in mind the non-specialist audience they assert they have. Not that the authors dont do a fine job of introducing readers to the significant issues involved in exegeting the text. They note, for example, The precise cause and nature of the problems in the church in Corinth have been matters of intense dispute in New Testament scholarship for half a century (p. 4). And Pauls aim in writing is to urge them to adopt a way of life more in accord with their true ownership (p. 6). And

[The four key themes of the letter are ] the Lordship of Christ, worldwide worship, the eschatological temple, and the glory of God (p. 33). And finally 1 Corinthians is Pauls attempt to tell the church of God in Corinth that they are part of the fulfillment of the Old Testament expectation of worldwide worship of the God of Israel, and as Gods eschatological temple they must act in a manner appropriate to their pure and holy status by becoming unified, shunning pagan vices, and glorifying God in obedience to the lordship of Jesus Christ (p. 52). To the commentary proper, then, we turn next, and there we shall see what sort of audience the commentarys authors are actually addressing.

Jim West Quartz Hill School of Theology