A new temple for Corinth

by John R. Lanci

A New Temple for Corinth examines the role that St. Paul's image of the community as a temple plays in his overall rhetorical argument in 1 Corinthians. It challenges traditional notions that Paul is inviting his correspondents to understand themselves as a new temple replacing the one in Jerusalem. Rather, Paul uses a cultic metaphor that both Gentile and Jew could understand to introduce his central motif of community upbuilding for the sake of the common good. This examination of first-century Corinthian archaeology suggests methods to correct and complement previous literary and historical critical analyses of the Pauline corpus.