1 Corinthians: A Community in Dissent

This study guide to 1 Corinthians aims at providing historical, literary, and theoretical introductory materials to graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Ekaputra Tupamahu focuses first on the historical introduction into the city of Corinth (as both a Hellenistic polis and Roman colony) and Paul's relationship with the Corinthians. Tupamahu then examines the issues of surrounding literary analysis, such as literary structure and rhetorical strategy. Finally, he highlights several theoretical frameworks in the process of reading the conflict in the Corinthian church. The theoretical discussions in this book (i.e., postcolonial, race-ethnic, and gender) are based primarily on Homi Bhabha's insistence that colonial discourse will work through the production of both racial and sexual difference, with the overall goal of providing sufficient introductory materials to students to wrestle with the worlds behind, in, and in front of the text - while at the same time fully aware that these divisions are not completely separate from one another. Consequently, students are stimulated to explore further the many different ways of understanding the relationship between Paul, his letter and the Corinthians.