Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors x
Foreword: “Come Eat of My Bread . . . and Walk in the Ways of Wisdom”
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Editor’s Introduction to Wisdom Commentary: “She Is a Breath of the Power of God” (Wis 7:25)
Barbara E. Reid, OP
 
Author’s Introduction: “Who Is Adequate for These Things?” (2 Cor 2:16)
   A Feminist Commentary?
   One Letter or Many?
   Where Are the Women in 2 Corinthians?
   What Can 2 Corinthians Mean Today?
   Who Is Writing to Whom, When, and Where? l
 
2 Corinthians 1:1-11 Paul Greets Corinth and Blesses God
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Opening Greeting and Blessing
   The Broad View of All Bodies in Time and Space, Death and Life
   A Mid-Range Focus on the Political, Economic, and Social Context
   A Close-Up Focus on the Interaction of Paul and the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 1:12–2:11 Paul Explains His Long Absence
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Defense of His Past Actions
   A Broad Focus on All Bodies in Space and Time, Flesh and Spirit
   A Mid-Range Focus on Social, Political, and Geographical Aspects of Paul’s Defense
   A Sharp Focus on the Interaction of Paul and the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 2:12–3:3 Paul Begins His Defense
   A Feminist Lens at Three Different Ranges
   Paul’s Persuasion within an Ecosystem of Time and Space, Life and Death
   A Mid-Range Focus on the Social and Political World of Paul’s Persuasion
   A Close-Up View of Paul’s Persuasion as Shaped by and Shaping the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 3:4-18 Transformed in God’s Glory as Was Moses
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Being Transformed in God’s Glory
   An Ecosystem of Life and Death, Glory and Obscurity, Time and Space
   The More Specific Social, Political, and Religious Context
   Focusing on Paul’s Interchange with the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 4:1-15 A Light out of Darkness, a Treasure in Clay
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on a Treasure in Clay and a Light in Darkness
   A Broad Focus on All Bodies in the Tension between Light and Dark, Life and Death
   A Mid-Range Focus on the Social, Political, and Economic Setting
   A Sharp Focus on the Interaction between Paul and the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 4:16–5:10 At Home in the Body and/or at Home with the Lord
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Interpretation of Life and Death
   Broad Focus on the Ecosystem Presupposed in What Is Seen and Unseen, in Death and Life
   A Mid-Range Focus on the Political, Social, and Economic Setting
   Focusing in on the Interaction of Paul and the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 5:11-21 A New Creation in Christ That Is Reconciliation
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Reconciling with God as a New Creation
   A Broad View of All Bodies Caught between Death and Life, Old and New
   A Mid-Range Focus on the Social, Political, and Economic Setting of Paul’s Argument
   A Close-up of Paul’s Interaction with the Corinthians, Especially the Women
 
2 Corinthians 6:1–7:4 Paul’s All-Out Appeal: Open Wide Your Hearts
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s All-Out Appeal to the Corinthians
   The Ecosystem Paul Presupposes of Trust and Distrust, Wide and Narrow
   The More Specific Focus on Paul’s Social, Political, and Economic Setting
   The Focus Sharpened onto This Interaction between Paul and the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 7:5-16 Titus’s Report and Paul’s Joy
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Joy at Titus’s Report
   With a Broad Focus on All Reality in the Tension between Grief and Joy
   With Focus on the Social, Political, and Economic Context
   With Focus Narrowed to This Interaction of Paul and the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 8:1–9:15 A Culminating Appeal for the Jerusalem Poor
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Appeal for the Jerusalem Collection
   The Ecosystem Assumed in Paul’s Collection Appeal
   The Social, Political, and Economic Contexts of Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem
   The Interaction of Paul and the Corinthians as Seen in His Collection Appeal
 
2 Corinthians 10:1–11:21a Paul’s Rebuttal of His Rivals’ Charges
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Rebuttal to His Rivals’ Charges
   The Broad Ecosystem or Worldview Underlying Paul’s Rebuttal of Rivals
   The Social, Political, and Economic Context of Paul’s Rebuttal
   This Specific Interaction between Paul and the Corinthians
 
2 Corinthians 11:21b–12:13 Paul’s Defense of Himself as a Fool
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Speech as a Fool
   The Political, Economic and Social Setting of Paul’s Speaking as a Fool
   The Broad Ecosystem or Cosmology That Paul Assumes in Speaking as a Fool
   Focusing in on the Interchange of the Corinthians and Paul Speaking as a Fool
 
2 Corinthians 12:14–13:13 Paul’s Plan to Come to Corinth
   A Feminist Lens at Three Ranges on Paul’s Preparing Corinth for His Arrival
   With Broad Focus on the Ecosystem, Worldview, or Theology That Paul Assumes
   On the Midrange Political, Social, and Economic Context
   Focusing on the Interaction between Paul and the Corinthians
 
Afterword
Works Cited
Index of Scripture References and Other Ancient Writings
Index of Subjects

About the Author

Antoinette Clark Wire is Robert S. Dollar Professor Emerita of New Testament Studies at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union where she has taught since 1973. Dr. Wire is a graduate of Yale Divinity and Claremont Graduate School. Raised in China by missionary parents, she has lived her adult life largely in California.

Barbara E. Reid, general editor of the Wisdom Commentary series, is a Dominican Sister of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies, and president emerita of Catholic Theological Union (the first woman who held the position). She has been a member of the CTU faculty since 1988 and also served as vice president and academic dean from 2009 to 2018. She holds a PhD in biblical studies from The Catholic University of America and was president of the Catholic Biblical Association in 2014–2015. Her most recent publications are Luke 1–9 and Luke 10–24, co-authored with Shelly Matthews (WCS 43A, 43B; Liturgical Press, 2021); and At the Table of Holy Wisdom: Global Hungers and Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Paulist, 2023).

Mary Ann Beavis is professor emerita of religion and culture at St. Thomas More College (Saskatoon, Canada). She received MA degrees from the University of Manitoba and the University of Notre Dame; she holds a PhD from Cambridge University (UK). Her areas of interest and expertise include Christian origins, feminist biblical interpretation, Christianity and Goddess spirituality, and religion and popular culture. She is the author of several single-author and edited books as well as many peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews.

Reviews

"Wire offers a fresh interpretation of Second Corinthians from a historically informed and rhetorically sophisticated feminist perspective. In continuation of the brilliant and influential work she has done in her previous book on First Corinthians, The Corinthian Women Prophets, Wire provides here a careful analysis on Paul's use of rhetoric in Second Corinthians to see what the new epistolary exigency is like behind Second Corinthians, especially, concerning the women in the Corinthian church and to understand how Paul responds to it. The result is a coherent narrative of Paul's message in Second Corinthians that is properly situated against the immediate and particular epistolary situation in the Corinthian church as well as the larger sociocultural and political background of the gender dynamic in the first-century Roman imperial world."Eugene Eung-Chun Park, Dana and David Dornsife Professor of New Testament, San Francisco Theological Seminary

"In Wire's analysis, what most concerns Paul is whether the Corinthian assembly, where evidently he is marginal `among a swirl of leading voices,' `can recognize Paul's beleaguered work as valid if he recognizes `the spirit of the living God' in them.' Maybe Paul should have found this a simple challenge. He didn't, and this new work, from one of the most innovative interpreters of Paul in her generation, lays out the contexts—philosophical, political, social, scriptural, and personal—and interactions that explain Paul's involved, ambivalent defense. A work in active dialogue with many facets of scholarship, church, and women's experience, its concise reasoning invites a close reading that paradoxically impels the reader forward in excitement."Robert B. Coote, Senior Research Professor of Hebrew Exegesis and Old Testament, San Francisco Theological Seminary

"Wire, after reviewing the case for 2 Corinthians a s a fusion of several letters, reads it instead as a single letter of Paul. She demonstrates the capacity of a feminist approach to offer fresh insight into Paul's perspective."The Bible Today

“From its style and register, the commentary is well suited for an academic/homiletical audience, being able to hold its own against other commentaries of this sort, not least because it addresses itself to a particular set of standpoints and social outcomes. Wire is extremely competent. I will use this volume next time I teach on 2 Corinthians.”
Journal for the Study of the New Testament

"She captures well some of the tensions Paul experienced as someone who, on the one hand, benefited from imperial realities and who, on the other hand, proclaimed a gospel that contains anti-imperial implications."
Thomas D. Stegman, SJ, Boston College of Theology and Ministry

"Wire has written an important interpretation of 2 Corinthians. Her contribution to feminist biblical interpretation is illustrated in the attention she pays to women as subjects, in her keen sensitivity to the dynamics of power, and a willingness to interrogate and critique imbalances. This book is not only significant; it is also a pleasure to read."
Review of Biblical Literature

 

"As in all her work, Wire guides us in finding spiritual agency and authority among those members of Paul's communities who variously received, rejected, and tolerated his messages. To locate this letter in such a tense, precarious, and yet specific situation helps bring life to the women leaders of the first Christian generation. Any scholars, pastors, or lay readers who would like to be introduced to these leaders will appreciate Wire’s guidance."
Interpretation