Did Paul Write 3 Corinthians?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Did Paul write 3 Corinthians? Wait a minute—3 Corinthians? Does such a letter even exist? Most readers of the New Testament naturally assume that we have only two surviving letters from Paul to the Christian community in Corinth: 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. 

And, of course, that is true if we are talking about the New Testament canon. But the early Christian world produced far more literature than the 27 books that eventually became the New Testament.

Ancient Christians wrote gospels, acts, apocalypses, sermons, letters, dialogues, and theological treatises, many of which circulated for generations without ever becoming part of the Bible. One of these writings is a text known as 3 Corinthians.

The very existence of such a letter raises fascinating historical questions. Where did it come from? Who preserved it? What does it say? Why did some Christians read it, copy it, and transmit it, while most churches ultimately did not include it among Paul’s authoritative letters? 

And, most importantly for this article, did Paul himself actually write it? To answer those questions, we need to look first at the evidence for the text and its contents, then at the issue of authorship, and finally at the larger question of why 3 Corinthians remained outside the New Testament.

What Evidence Do We Have? Manuscripts and Contents

Before we can answer the question “did Paul write 3 Corinthians?,” we first have to look at some of the basic evidence for the text itself. What manuscripts preserve it? In what languages did it circulate? And what kind of letter does it claim to be? 

These questions matter because 3 Corinthians didn’t come down to us in one simple, uniform form. Like many early Christian writings, it had a complicated history of copying, translation, expansion, and transmission.

The letter was probably composed originally in Greek, but our evidence for it is multilingual. It survives, in different forms, in Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Coptic traditions. 

The Latin evidence is especially interesting because it shows that the text continued to circulate in the medieval West. Steve Johnston identifies five Latin witnesses: the manuscripts of Berlin, Laon, Milan, Paris, and Zurich. 

Some of these are biblical manuscripts, which means that 3 Corinthians was not always copied merely as an isolated apocryphal curiosity. In some settings, it appeared close to biblical or quasi-biblical material. Johnston also shows that the Latin tradition isn’t uniform. 

Some witnesses preserve only the two letters (the Corinthians’ letter to Paul and Paul’s response), while others also preserve a narrative interlude explaining how Paul received the Corinthians’ message while imprisoned.

This is one of the reasons the textual tradition of 3 Corinthians is so fascinating. In some manuscripts, the correspondence appears as part of the broader Acts of Paul, an apocryphal narrative about the apostle. 

In others, it circulates more independently as an exchange of letters. Johnston therefore distinguishes between shorter and longer forms of the text. 

The shorter form seems to preserve an earlier version of the correspondence, while the longer form contains expansions and additional narrative material. The important point for our purposes is that 3 Corinthians wasn’t simply written and then forgotten. It was copied, translated, adapted, and preserved across different Christian communities.

The most important Greek witness is P. Bodmer X, also known as P. Bodmer 10, usually dated to the 3rd or 4th century. As Thomas Wayment notes:

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So, what does the letter actually say? 

In P. Bodmer X, the correspondence begins with a letter from the Corinthians to Paul: Κορίνθιοι πρὸς Παῦλον, “The Corinthians to Paul.” 

The senders include Stephanas and other elders, and they inform Paul that two men, Simon and Cleobius, have come to Corinth and are disturbing the faith of some believers. Their teaching is presented as deeply dangerous. 

They allegedly deny that the prophets should be used, that God is παντοκράτωρ, “Almighty,” that there is an ἀνάστασις σαρκὸς, a “resurrection of the flesh,” and that the created human being is the work of God. 

They also deny that Christ came “in flesh” (“εἰς σάρκα”) and that he was born from Mary. Finally, they claim that the world isn’t God’s creation but the work of angels.

Paul’s reply is framed as a direct response to these teachings. 

It’s even introduced in P. Bodmer X as “Παῦλος Κορινθίοις περὶ σαρκός” (“Paul to the Corinthians concerning the flesh”).

The emphasis isn’t accidental. The whole response defends the goodness of creation, the authority of the prophets, the real incarnation of Christ, and the future resurrection of the body. 

Christ is said to have been born from Mary, from the seed of David, and to have liberated “all flesh” through his own flesh.

Paul also uses familiar images to defend bodily resurrection: seeds placed into the earth, Jonah preserved in the fish, and the bones of Elisha associated with the restoration of life. The result is a compact but forceful theological argument. 

So, 3 Corinthians presents Paul as the defender of creation, incarnation, and resurrection against teachers who deny all three.

That summary already gives us a sense of why this text mattered to some early Christians. It speaks in Paul’s name, addresses a church Paul really knew, and defends doctrines that later Christians regarded as central to the faith. 

But that also raises the decisive historical question. Is this really the voice of the apostle Paul, or is it the voice of a later Christian author using Paul’s authority to address later controversies? To this issue, we now turn!

Did Paul Write 3 Corinthians?

Up until now, we have been referring to the author of 3 Corinthians as “Paul.” That is understandable since the text itself presents Paul as the speaker. 

But at this point we need to step back and ask the central question of this article: Did Paul write 3 Corinthians?

The answer given by the vast majority of scholars is clear. In his book Forgery and Counterforgery, Bart D. Ehrman concludes: “No one thinks that either letter is authentic.” But why is that? How can scholars be so confident that the apostle Paul didn’t write this letter?

One reason is that 3 Corinthians doesn’t look like Paul’s genuine letters in style, structure, or argumentative method. 

Vahan Hovhanessian, in his book Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul for Christian Orthodoxy, explains that the style of 3 Corinthians differs significantly from the undisputed Pauline letters. 

Paul’s authentic letters are often rhetorically energetic, argumentative, and dialogical. He argues with opponents, asks rhetorical questions, interrupts himself, returns to earlier points, and develops sustained lines of reasoning. 

3 Corinthians, by contrast, reads more like a compact doctrinal refutation. Hovhanessian notes that it lacks the vigorous debates and rhetorical questions so characteristic of Paul’s letters. Its sentences are often long and loosely constructed, and the reply attributed to Paul is organized as a series of refutations rather than as a genuinely Pauline argument.

The structure of the letter also raises problems. Paul’s letters normally contain recognizable epistolary elements: an opening greeting, often a thanksgiving or blessing, a main body that develops the argument, practical or ethical instruction, and closing remarks or greetings to particular persons. 

3 Corinthians doesn’t follow that pattern very closely. 

The greeting is unusually brief. There is no thanksgiving prayer. There are no personal greetings at the end. Nor does the letter move from theological argument to practical instruction in the way many Pauline letters do. 

Instead, the text is shaped almost entirely by the doctrinal errors listed in the Corinthians’ letter. The Corinthians report certain teachings; “Paul” answers those teachings one by one. 

That makes good sense as a literary construction, but it doesn’t sound like the complex pastoral and argumentative voice we meet in Paul’s undisputed letters.

At the same time, 3 Corinthians clearly tries to sound Pauline. This is one of the most important points. The author isn’t ignorant of Paul. On the contrary, he knows Pauline language and uses it deliberately. 

Ehrman observes that the text contains many Pauline themes and echoes: Paul as a prisoner of Christ, the language of receiving and handing on tradition, Christ as descended from David, adoption, the “marks” of Paul, the hope of resurrection, and especially the comparison between resurrection and seeds sown in the ground. 

Hovhanessian makes the same point in detail: the author uses names, settings, and phrases associated with Paul and Corinth to create a believable Pauline atmosphere. Stephanas, for example, connects the text to 1 Corinthians; Corinth itself was already famous as a church troubled by disputes; and Paul’s imprisonment evokes known traditions about Paul writing from prison. 

But these details do not prove authenticity. They show precisely how the author constructs authenticity.

The theological profile of 3 Corinthians also points to a later setting. The text is overwhelmingly concerned with the flesh: Christ’s coming in the flesh, his birth from Mary, the goodness of creation, the authority of the prophets, and the resurrection of the flesh. 

These were major issues in 2nd-century Christian debates, especially in controversies with Christians who denied or minimized the value of the material body, the created world, or the fleshly reality of Christ. 

Ehrman’s interpretation is particularly helpful here. He argues that 3 Corinthians should be understood as a kind of “counterforgery”: a writing produced in Paul’s name to oppose other Christians who were also appealing to Paul. 

In other words, 3 Corinthians gives us a “Paul” fighting against other “Pauls.” To put it more bluntly, the author is trying to reclaim Paul for a form of Christianity that defended creation, incarnation, and bodily resurrection against rival interpretations.

This later setting is confirmed by the usual scholarly dating of the text. 

Steve Johnston, in an essay focused primarily on the manuscript tradition rather than authorship, nevertheless makes the point clearly in his reconstruction of the text’s transmission:

If that dating is correct, then 3 Corinthians was written more than a century after Paul’s lifetime. 

The conclusion is therefore not that 3 Corinthians is historically unimportant. Quite the opposite. It’s important precisely because it shows how powerful Paul’s authority had become by the 2nd century. 

Later Christians didn’t merely quote Paul; they sometimes wrote in Paul’s name to claim him for their side. 

That raises the next question: if 3 Corinthians was not written by Paul, why did some Christians preserve it, while others ultimately left it outside the New Testament?

Why Is 3 Corinthians Not in the Bible?

The story of 3 Corinthians becomes even more interesting when we ask why it did not finally become part of the New Testament. It’s tempting to assume that the answer is simple: Christians rejected it because they knew Paul had not written it. But the historical reality is more complicated. 

Vahan Hovhanessian notes:

Wait, seriously? Yes—at least in some parts of the Christian world, 3 Corinthians was treated as Scripture. That doesn’t mean that all Christians accepted it, or that it had the same status everywhere. 

But it does mean that the question “Why is 3 Corinthians not in the Bible?” has to be asked carefully. 

In some communities, especially in Syriac and Armenian Christianity, it apparently did make it into collections of authoritative Christian writings, at least for a time. 

Aphrahat (a 4th-century Syriac Christian author known as “the Persian Sage”) quoted it as a saying of the blessed apostle; Ephrem (a 4th-century Syriac theologian and exegete) treated it seriously in his commentary on Paul’s letters; and some Armenian traditions placed it between 2 Corinthians and Galatians. 

The issue, then, isn’t why no one accepted 3 Corinthians. The issue is why its acceptance remained regionally limited and why, over time, it failed to survive in the dominant New Testament canon.

The process by which writings became part of the New Testament was gradual, uneven, and not identical in every region of Christianity. 

There was no single moment in the 2nd or 3rd centuries when “the Church” simply voted on the 27 books. 

Rather, different communities used different collections, and the boundaries of the New Testament became clearer over time. Still, three broad criteria were especially important. 

First, a writing needed apostolic authority: it had to be believed to come from an apostle or someone closely connected to one. 

Second, it needed wide and continuous use among churches, not merely local or regional circulation. 

Third, it needed to conform to what many church leaders regarded as the rule of faith, that is, the basic theological framework they understood as apostolic Christianity.

At first glance, 3 Corinthians might seem to meet some of these criteria. It claims Paul’s name, addresses a church associated with Paul, and defends positions that later proto-orthodox Christians strongly affirmed: creation by God, Christ’s real incarnation, the authority of the prophets, and the resurrection of the flesh.

In that sense, its theology wasn’t the main obstacle. Its problem was deeper. 

The claim to Pauline authorship didn’t become persuasive across the wider Greek and Latin churches. The text wasn’t securely embedded in the broad transregional use enjoyed by Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and the other Pauline letters. 

It also had a complicated literary identity: sometimes it circulated independently, sometimes in relation to the Acts of Paul, and sometimes with narrative material attached to it. That kind of unstable transmission made it harder for the text to achieve the same status as the widely recognized Pauline corpus.

The eventual fate of 3 Corinthians also reflects the standardization of regional canons. In Syriac Christianity, the decisive moment seems to have come with the formation of the Peshitta, which brought the Syriac New Testament closer to the Greek canon while still retaining some distinctive features. 

Bruce Metzger, in his classic study The Canon of the New Testament, explains:

Something similar happened, though over a longer period, in Armenian Christianity. 

Hovhanessian notes that 3 Corinthians was known and used in Armenian tradition, and in some contexts was treated as genuinely Pauline. But he also observes that by the 7th century, it had already disappeared from at least some Armenian New Testament canons, even if it continued to enjoy a kind of secondary or deutero-canonical status in certain Armenian settings. 

The final answer, then, isn’t that 3 Corinthians was rejected because it was useless or theologically unacceptable. It was rejected because its claim to apostolic authorship didn’t win broad recognition, its use remained too regionally uneven, and the developing Pauline corpus stabilized without it. 

That makes 3 Corinthians a fascinating case: a writing that some Christians read as Paul’s voice, but that most Christian traditions eventually left outside the boundaries of Scripture.

Conclusion

So, did Paul write 3 Corinthians? Almost certainly not. The letter is best understood as a later Christian attempt to speak in Paul’s voice at a time when Paul’s authority had become enormously valuable and deeply contested. 

Its author knew the Pauline tradition well enough to imitate its language, connect the text to Corinth, and defend doctrines that many Christians regarded as essential: creation, incarnation, prophecy, and the resurrection of the flesh. 

Yet precisely for that reason, 3 Corinthians is historically fascinating. It shows us not only how later Christians interpreted Paul, but how they fought over him: how different communities claimed him, quoted him, reshaped him, and sometimes even wrote in his name.

Although 3 Corinthians didn’t ultimately become part of the New Testament canon for most Christian traditions, its survival reminds us that the boundaries of Scripture were not always obvious, fixed, or universally agreed upon from the beginning. 

It’s not another authentic letter from Paul, but it’s an important witness to the world of early Christianity in which Paul’s voice continued to matter long after his death.