The Origins of the Corinthian Christ Group: Paul’s Chord of Gods

The Origins of the Christ Movement in Corinth: Paul’s Chord of Gods argues that Paul’s language about his god (father, lord Jesus Christ and pneuma)would have been familiar to Corinthian gentiles as a small group of gods - a chord of gods. Worship of Paul’s chord of gods matches the common religious practice (in Theodore Schatzki’s sense) around the ancient Mediterranean and in Corinth and would have been familiar to the Corinthians. This religious practice could have formed the basis of attraction for the Corinthians to join Paul’s Christ group, served as a social engine for its growth among gentiles in Corinth and been a source of conflict with Paul that he tries to address in his letters to the Corinthians.

Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll is the Sundet Family Chair in New Testament and Christian Studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN USA. He is the editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford University Press, 2023), author of the commentary on Mark in The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022); coeditor with Paul A. Holloway and James A. Kelhoffer, of Women and Gender in Ancient Religion (Mohr Siebeck, 2010); and author of The Psalms of Lament in Mark’s Gospel (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He has written on the role of memory in Asklepios sanctuaries and widely on the Gospel of Mark.