This volume of collected essays presents an unfolding history of interpretation of the Corinthian epistles by means of an anthology of influential papers, each representative of a particular approach. The focus is not on Pauline theology, but expressly on reconstructing the nature of Christianity within the early Corinthian community.

Those familiar with Corinthian scholarship, and 1 Corinthians in particular, will immediately be able to anticipate from the list of scholars chosen which influential essays were selected: Baur, Munck, Schmithals, Barrett, Dahl, Theissen, Thiselton, Horsley, Murphy O'Connor, Welborn, Schüssler Fiorenza, MacDonald, Goulder, Barclay, Chow, Paige and Meggitt. This is a chronological history of scholarship presented by means of a series of brief snapshots spanning one hundred and fifty years. The anthology demonstrates how different approaches to and conclusions about the nature of Christianity in mid-first-century Corinth have either dominated or challenged for a season, and subsequently been supplanted in the continually changing climate of New Testament scholarship.

A number of the essays are abbreviated versions of the original publication and, as such, are not intended as substitutes for the serious researcher to consult the original text, but it does allow the editors in a manageable volume to include as many as eighteen historical contributions. However, the student who is embarking on Corinthian scholarship is not merely provided with a collection of essays which have been helpfully collated into a single volume. Rather, each contribution is set in historical and scholarly context by means of a brief introduction by the editors, including a comment on those elements that have proved to be of most significance or influence. This is supplemented by a brief list of relevant works by other scholars who have since engaged with the original publication, whether by means of challenge or reinforcement. This collection of essays, together with their editorial positioning comments, is in itself an enormously valuable contribution. However, there are a further four, lengthier chapters commissioned especially for this volume focusing explicitly on issues of methodology.

Justin Meggitt argues that a more appropriate, and almost entirely neglected, backdrop against which to read the Corinthian correspondence should include those ancient sources that reflect popular culture, rather than the more widely available perspectives of the elitist, literary classes. His correction is well taken, although his particular application is also roundly criticised elsewhere in the volume for what is perceived to be its somewhat implausible reading of first-century society. Bengt Holmberg offers a refreshingly self-critical look at the ongoing debates about social location and the relative merits and limitations of using sociological models. Margaret MacDonald reminds us that all interpreters of the Corinthian correspondence are ideologically interested, and as a consequence our interpretations are influenced by our particular ideology (not least the extent to which we side for or against Paul in the Corinthian context). MacDonald highlights particular shifts in the centre or essential focus of Corinthian scholarship; once Paul and, in particular, his theology were the governing concerns, but more recently it has variously been the early church, or Christian origins, then a focus on the social context of the Corinthian community, and most recently a particular interest in the role and influence of women within that community. In the final essay of the volume, James Dunn notes that interpretation of the text is based on reconstruction of the historical context, and that historical reconstruction is itself based on interpretation of the text. Rather than resulting in a necessarily futile circularity, this should demand that the exegete become involved in a process of constant refining. By means of his own brief history of phases in Corinthian scholarship, Dunn highlights how this hermeneutical process has unfolded since Baur. This history provides examples variously of hypotheses which have forced a ‘single-issue’ reading of the text, or where extravagant interpretations have been based on too little evidence, or where interpretations have propounded an implausible reconstruction.

The methodological essays of MacDonald and Dunn, in particular, additionally serve as helpful concluding reflections on the volume as a whole in that they each interact with all of the republished papers selected for the volume. They are balanced by the lengthiest contribution within the volume, namely the extensive and highly accessible introductory essay by the editors, Adams and Horrell. This opening chapter is presented as a critical survey of the scholarly quest for the Pauline community in Corinth, and is both thoughtful and measured in its findings.

There is no exhaustive bibliography of all works cited (which in itself would be of limited value given the span of time and focus represented by the contributors). Instead, there is a very brief bibliography of the more frequently cited works. If this volume as a whole, together with its selected bibliography, is representative in its treatment of the history of Corinthian scholarship, it is interesting to note how little influence is credited to commentaries on these two Pauline letters. Only Conzelmann and Fee are counted among the ‘frequently cited works’, and these deal with 1 Corinthians, rather than 2 Corinthians. Indeed, the bulk of this volume, again true to the history of scholarship, focuses on the first epistle. It is this letter, above all, that has been regarded by scholars as one of the clearest windows onto the life of the early Christians and has proved to be at the vanguard of new phases in research on the Pauline communities.

Adams and Horrell have provided in this one anthology an extremely valuable tool that can be confidently prescribed either as a textbook or as a key research resource. Volumes within the growing genre of collected essays have rarely been so well conceived or so coherently integrated as in this instance with its disciplined restriction to just two foci: the history and methodology of interpretation. It is a model of how a genuinely new contribution, rather than merely a convenient collation of existing products, can be produced by the creative and informed initiative of its editors.