Corinthians, << kuh RIHN thee uhnz, >> Epistles to the, are the seventh and eighth books of the New Testament. They are letters from the apostle Paul to members of the Christian church he had established in Corinth, Greece.
Paul wrote the first letter from Ephesus, in what is now Turkey, about A.D. 54. In the first half of the letter, he discussed problems that were reported to him orally, especially the problem of divisions within the church. In the rest of the letter, Paul discussed questions that the Corinthians raised in a letter they wrote to Paul.
Many scholars doubt that Paul wrote Second Corinthians in the form in which we know it. They think that it consists of several shorter letters from Paul to the Corinthians that a later editor combined. Whether or not this is so, Second Corinthians is mainly intended to repair the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians. Soon after Paul wrote his first letter, the Corinthians began to transfer loyalty to other apostles who had arrived in Corinth and seemed superior to Paul. The Corinthians questioned Paul’s authority and sincerity. He wrote Second Corinthians to persuade them to accept him as they had done in the past.
