1 Corinthians 15:29-34

1 Corinthians 15:29. Many interpretations have been offered. The most probable remains that given above. A view which deserves mention is that Paul is referring to those who are baptized for the sake of Christian friends who had died. In order to satisfy the hope for reunion some who had been non-Christians submitted to baptism.

1 Corinthians 15:32. That Paul actually fought with wild beasts is highly improbable; it was illegal to expose Roman citizens to this; the Asiarchs (Acts 19:31) were friendly to Paul; and no reference is made in 2 Corinthians 11 to such a trial, from which indeed we should hardly expect that he would have emerged alive. A figurative interpretation is also very improbable. The best view seems to be that of J. Weiss, that it is hypothetical. He supposes that in a popular movement against Paul (probably the riot instigated by Demetrius, Acts 19:23) he really was in the peril mentioned. This, he recognises, is exposed to the difficulty that Paul left Ephesus immediately after (Acts 20:1), but our verse, he argues, can hardly have been written in Ephesus, since Paul looks back on his experience there as past. But 1 Corinthians 16:8 was written in Ephesus. Accordingly, unless we are to suppose that 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Corinthians 16:8 belong to different epistles, it is better to infer that it was some earlier unrecorded peril.

1 Corinthians 15:32 b. Paul is not necessarily stating his own inference, but that which will be commonly drawn.