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Document Details :

Title: What did Paul Mean?
Subtitle: The Debate on 1 Cor 7,1-7
Author(s): CARAGOUNIS, Chrys C.
Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Volume: 82    Issue: 1   Date: April 2006   
Pages: 187-197
DOI: 10.2143/ETL.82.1.2014926

Abstract :
The present article is a response to Gordon D. Fee’s study in the Margaret Thrall Festschrift, in which he tried to answer my criticism in the Corinthian Correspondence (ed. R. Bieringer, 1996) of his First Corinthians (7,1-7). In my earlier study I had argued that linguistic and philological evidence did not support Fee’s theory of a Virgins-club in Corinth, with whom Paul was corresponding. Fee tried to controvert the evidence I presented, with the result that his statements and claims opened him to an even more serious criticism. Thus, for example, his claim that ἅπτεσθαι γυναικός only means “sexual relations” but implies no marriage, flies in the face of the evidence; that διὰ δὲ τὰς πορνείας can only be understood of concrete cases of fornication but not of “lusts” that can lead to fornication, overlooks important evidence; and his insistence that ἐχέτω normally used of “tak[ing] a woman sexually” but not of taking a wife (i.e. marrying), show clearly that Fee is not at home with Greek usage in both pre-New Testament and post-New Testament literature.


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