1 Corinthians 2 — The proclamation of Christ and wisdom through the Spirit — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
1 Corinthians 2 — The proclamation of Christ and wisdom through the Spirit
The proclamation grounded in God's power
Verse 2:1
Greek–English Translation
And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Testimony renders the selected martyrion, not mystery. Superiority qualifies speech or wisdom; Paul's act of proclaiming is still explicit.
Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 2:1]: The apparatus assigns testimony to Treg, NIV and RP, and mystery to WH and NA28.
NA28: μυστήριον, "the mystery of God" (SBLGNT μαρτύριον); the rendering above follows SBLGNT; NA28 would read "the mystery of God".
Verse 2:2
Greek–English Translation
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 2:3
Greek–English Translation
And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 2:4
Greek–English Translation
My speech and my proclamation were not in wisdom's persuasion, but in a demonstration of Spirit and power,
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The selected expression is peithoi sophias, wisdom's persuasion. It has no explicit words or human adjective in this clause. Spirit and power are both retained.
Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 2:4]: The apparatus labels the selected peithoi sophias as Holmes; WH, Treg and NA28 have peithois sophias logois, while RP also adds human.
NA28: πειθοῖ[ς] σοφίας [λόγοις], "in persuasive words of wisdom" (SBLGNT πειθοῖ σοφίας, a Holmes reading); the rendering above follows SBLGNT; NA28 would read "in persuasive words of wisdom".
Verse 2:5
Greek–English Translation
so that your faith might rest in God's power rather than human wisdom.
Textual and Reception Notes
God's hidden wisdom revealed through the Spirit
Verse 2:6
Greek–English Translation
Yet we speak wisdom among the mature, a wisdom belonging neither to this age nor to the rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Mature renders teleioi in contrast with the infants of 3:1. The rulers' identity is not narrowed here to an exclusively human or spiritual class.
Verse 2:7
Greek–English Translation
Instead, we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom that God appointed beforehand, before the ages, for our glory.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 2:8
Greek–English Translation
None of the rulers of this age has known it; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 2:9
Greek–English Translation
But as it is written, “What an eye has not seen and an ear has not heard, and what has not arisen in a human heart—these are the things God prepared for those who love Him.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The eye, ear, and heart imagery and God's preparation are retained; the following verse explicitly speaks of revelation to us.
Verse 2:10
Greek–English Translation
For God revealed them to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: For is the selected connective. Through the Spirit has no added His in this phrase; the divine identity is clear from the context.
Variant [SBL-1COR-APP 2:10]: The apparatus assigns the opening for to WH, against but in Treg, NA28 and RP. RP also adds His to Spirit.
NA28: ἡμῖν δὲ ἀπεκάλυψεν, "But to us God revealed" (SBLGNT γάρ, with WH); the rendering above follows SBLGNT; NA28 would read "But God revealed them to us".
Verse 2:11
Greek–English Translation
For who among human beings knows a person's things except the person's spirit within? So also no one has known God's things except the Spirit of God.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The human spirit and the Spirit of God are distinguished by context and capitalization. The repeated things wording preserves the analogy without replacing it with an exhaustive list of thoughts or intentions.
Verse 2:12
Greek–English Translation
Now we received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 2:13
Greek–English Translation
We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Pneumatikois pneumatika synkrinontes is difficult: the dative can refer to spiritual people or spiritual things/words, and the verb can express interpreting or combining. The rendering takes spiritual people as the recipients of explanation; combining spiritual things with spiritual words is a possible alternative. The selected phrase names Spirit without an added Holy.
Discernment and the mind of Christ
Verse 2:14
Greek–English Translation
But a natural person does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to such a person, who cannot know them because they are discerned spiritually.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Psychikos is natural or belonging to ordinary animate life, contrasted with spiritual. It is not translated as a denial that the person possesses a soul.
Verse 2:15
Greek–English Translation
The spiritual person discerns all things, but is himself discerned by no one.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Anakrinetai repeats the discernment/examination verb; the scope of all things is read within this argument, not expanded into a claim of unlimited factual knowledge.
Verse 2:16
Greek–English Translation
For “Who has known the Lord's mind, so as to instruct Him?” But we have Christ's mind.
Textual and Reception Notes