# A Timeline for Acts (and Paul's first letter to the Corinthians)?



## Eoghan (Feb 5, 2014)

I have yet to find a commentary that includes a decent timeline. I am particularly interested to know when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. Did he anticipate the riot in Ephesus when he wrote to the Corinthians? Some say the event had already happened yet did he not _*write*_ from Ephesus?


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## Eoghan (Feb 5, 2014)

I Corinthians 15:32 cannot refer to the Ephesus riot because Paul was still at Ephesus at the time of writing. When he left, it was never to return to Ephesus, so writing Corinthians from Ephesus Paul might have sensed the mood but the event had not happened! So any commentator suggesting that he references this riot from Acts 19 is wrong?

Am I wrong?


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 5, 2014)

My study-bible has the approx. date for 1Cor. (within a gap of a mere two yrs spent in Eph.) about A.D. 55 (that is, more toward the end of his time there). It is less likely that the Act.19 riot had already happened, than that it had not. Possibly, 2Cor.1:8 then refers to the life-threatening events near the end of his stay.

Here's a portion of the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown comment on 15:32


> Punctuate thus: “If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me? If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink,” etc. [Bengel]. If “merely as a man” (with the mere human hope of the present life; not with the Christian’s hope of the resurrection; answering to “If the dead rise not,” the parallel clause in the next sentence), I have fought with men resembling savage beasts.
> 
> *Heraclitus, of Ephesus, had termed his countrymen “wild beasts” four hundred years before.* So Epimenides called the Cretians (Tit.1:12). Paul was still at Ephesus (1Cor.16:8), and there his life was daily in danger (1Cor.4:9; compare 2Cor.1:8). Though the tumult (Act.19:29-30) had not yet taken place (for after it he set out immediately for Macedonia), this Epistle was written evidently just before it, when the storm was gathering; “many adversaries” (1Cor.16:9) were already menacing him.


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## A.Gizzarelli (Feb 6, 2014)

During my class on Acts and Paul's letters, I developed a what I believe to be accurate timeline of Paul's ministry and writings:
View attachment Chronology of Paul.pdf

Let me know if you can access the attachment -- I hope it helps!


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## Phil D. (Feb 6, 2014)

A.Gizzarelli said:


> I developed a what I believe to be accurate timeline of Paul's ministry and writings:



May I ask the reason for supposing Paul wrote 2 Corinthians in two installments? 

Also, where would you place Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus (assuming you accept their Pauline authorship)?


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## A.Gizzarelli (Feb 6, 2014)

I do accept Eph, Col, 1 & 2 Tim and Titus as written by Paul, but the professor that taught my class did not, so I didn't include them in the chart. I would have to do more studying to provide an accurate date for those letters. The reason I suppose Paul wrote 2 Corinthians in two installments is that it is likely that 2 Corinthians was originally two letters. Scholars that I have read on this issue disagree on various points, and it is largely speculation. Some think that 2 Corinthians was in fact 3 letters, some 2, and some 1. I think that chapters 1-9 of 2 Corinthians is one letter, and chapters 10-13 of 2 Corinthians is a later letter. Why? The first nine chapters of 2 Corinthians carries a tone that is drastically different than 10-13. It seems most likely that Paul received new information (possibly from Titus, who delivered chapters 1-9) and he came to realize or learn of new ways that rival teachers have invaded the congregation. I have been largely influenced to this view by Walter F. Taylor Jr.'s _Paul, Apostle to the Nations: An Introduction._


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