A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF CORINTH
By Ben Witherington III
IVP. 159 pages. £10.23
ISBN 978 0 830 839 629
When I am teaching hermeneutics, I teach my students that before they try and apply any passage of Scripture, they have to ‘go to Corinth’ first. It’s a shorthand way (that I learned from someone else) of saying that they have to determine what the original application was to the original readers of the passage before they can determine the contemporary application. In that sense, Corinth is representative of the original readers/hearers of any biblical text.
Ben Witherington has done us a great service in writing this fictional account of life in Corinth, incorporating into his story such biblical characters as Paul, Priscilla and Aquila and Erastus, and weaving a strong, gripping storyline around a week in their lives. There’s intrigue, skullduggery and even a hint of romance, all set in a very convincing portrayal of everyday life in this important Roman colony city.
