Harry Y. Gamble’s chapter, “The Formulation of the Pauline Corpus,” grapples with the various theories that try to explain how Paul’s letters became canonized into a single collection in the Christian church. He looks at both the external and internal evidence available on the topic. External evidence includes ancient manuscripts that include the letters as well as early Christian texts that reference the Epistles. The internal evidence includes inferences that can be made about the formation of the Pauline corpus, based on the various ancient collections of Paul’s letters. Ultimately, Gamble states that there is no consensus that the Pauline corpus emerged from a singular source, but he acknowledges that this topic has been the source of many interesting theories. While Gamble is probably right that…show more content… Gamble explains that this does not support the idea that there was one original collection of Paul’s letters, but rather means there would have been many independent collections that might have formed between local churches. Gamble also explains how scholars have pushed back against the exchange theory, arguing that Paul’s letters would not have been particularly meaningful to churches to which a specific letter was not addressed, since Paul often addressed local issues in the communities to which he was writing (p. 346). A counter argument to this criticism might be that early Christians looked past the local details of each letter and derived deeper theological points from Paul’s letters, prompting them to share the letters with other communities; however, the chapter does not say anything about this. Many of the other theories discussed in this chapter are really interesting, but I partially agree with Gamble that many stretch too far with sufficient evidence. I really liked the theory Gamble discusses from
