An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 222: It’s All About Paul (2 Corinthians 11-13)

2 Corinthians 11-13
It’s All About Paul.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

2 Corinthians 11
“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

Paul expounds at length about all the trials and tribulations he has been through – shipwrecks, beatings, humiliation and so on because of his belief. This, he feels, makes him adequate to teaching the Corinthians the right way to Christ, lest they listen to others and follow “another Jesus, whom we have not preached”. He seems to be very good at making it all about himself all the time.

There’s an interesting little peek at Judaeo-Christian mythology when Paul says “for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light”. This, I thought, was considered to be the other way around, with Satan once being Lucifer Morningstar (even though the original context for this in … Jeremiah? … was that Lucifer Morningstar referred to a Babylonian king). So Satan has become an angel of light through the worship of false Christs, according to Paul. Fascinating.

2 Corinthians 12
“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

This is still about Paul, and he seems to me to be spinning excuses for not visiting the Corinthians, dressed up in some oxymorons about weakness being strength. Paul tries to make himself humble, whilst at the same time admonishing the Corinthians for their behaviour, possibly also in them not asking for him to come to them sooner – “I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing” – or for asking for him to come to them in place of Titus and his other deputies. I can’t really tell.

Is there any Christian philosophy buried in this chapter? Suffering is a good thing, make your weakness your strength etc. because it means that God loves you more. Or something.

2 Corinthians 13
“Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.”

It’s better for us both, says Paul, that I write to you rather than visit in person, because I might say something that I shouldn’t and that would upset you and be bad for my soul. There’s more here about weakness being strength – “For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.” This seems to me to be a bit of sophistry and doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s not exactly spiritual aikido.

Ah well. The chapter ends with a sign-off, saying that this epistle was written by Titus and Lucas. As with the previous epistles, I wonder if that means that they transcribed what Paul dictated, if they added their own bits to Paul’s original, or if the whole thing was written by them in Paul’s name. It makes it a bit difficult to work out whose ideas this epistle contains.

And that’s it for 2 Corinthians. There wasn’t as much theology or philosophy in that one as in the previous two – most of it seemed to be Paul excusing himself for not coming to Corinth and for trying to turn his absence into a good thing, all the while boasting (even using that word) whilst trying to make himself out as humble. It’s an odd piece of writing, on the whole.

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