The literary status of 1 Cor 5–7 is diversely considered in scholarly literature. Sometimes these chapters are seen as a stand-alone part of the letter, sometimes they are divided in separate blocks, chapters 5–6 on the one hand and chapter 7 on the other. However, an original approach that pays close attention to the structure of the text makes it possible to show the neat architecture of this larger textual unit. The concentric structure of the three chapters (A–B–A’) highlights their literary unity and stresses the significance of the central chapter, which correspondingly possesses the greatest theological density of the whole section.

Three questions have remained central to the Erastus debate (Ἔραστος ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλɛως, Rom 16.23): the date of IKorinthKent 232, the nature of the office of οἰκονόμος (τῆς πόλɛως), and the frequency of the name ‘Erastus’ in antiquity. The present article focuses on the third issue. Moving beyond Meggitt's earlier research (1996, 1999), the author here furnishes a comprehensive catalog of literary, papyrological, and epigraphical occurrences of the name (in Greek and in Latin) in antiquity. The chief payoff of the catalog is two-fold: (1) it provides, for the first time, comprehensive quantitative evidence that the name was in fact rare; and (2) it reveals a significant dearth of attestations from first-century Greece.

Paul's language in 1 Cor 11.19 suggests that the Corinthians elected rotating officers to serve as administrative leaders with control over food distribution at the Lord's Supper. Interpreters overlook this verse's technical terminology despite the fact that doing so results in unusual and confusing translations. In addition to making sense out of the otherwise obscure sentence of v. 19, the existence of a ‘flat hierarchy’ of temporary and rotating officers in the Corinthian group helps to explain several aspects involved in the Corinthians' banquet problems.