A folio ofPapyrus 46 (written ca. AD 200), containing 2 Corinthians 11:33–12:9. This manuscript contains almost complete parts of the wholePauline epistles.
In verse 13, Paul writes of "false apostles" (Greek:ψευδαποστολοι,pseudapostoloi). In verse 5 he has compared himself with the "super-apostles"[3] or the "apostles-extraordinary"[4] (Greek:των υπερλιαν αποστολων,tōn hyperlian apostolōn). Meyer asks "Whom does he mean by τῶν ὑπερλίαν ἀποστόλων?". He notes that "according toChrysostom,Theodoret,Grotius,Bengel, and most of the older commentators, also Emmerling, Flatt, Schrader, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Holsten, Holtzmann [among nineteenth century commentators], [he means] the actualsummos apostolos, namelyPeter,James, andJohn" but Meyer argues that "Paul is not contending against these, but against the false apostles" and recommends the translation "the over-great apostles". Meyer lists biblical commentatorsRichard Simon, Alethius, Heumann, Semler, Michaelis, Schulz, Stolz, Rosenmüller, Fritzsche, Billroth, Rückert, Olshausen, de Wette, Ewald, Osiander, Neander, Hofmann, Weiss, Beyschlag and others as having followed Beza's suggestion, according to which the pseudo-apostles were understood to beJudaistic anti-Pauline teachers.[5]
From the Jews five times I received fortystripes minus one.[11]
"Forty stripes minus one" (KJV: "Forty stripes save one"): The number of stripes Paul received at each time agrees with the traditions and customs of the Jews, based onDeuteronomy 25:2–3: "forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed". In fulfilling that law, runs the tradition "with forty save one"[12] and this is the general sense of their interpreters,[13] as a settled rule[14] "that scourging according to the law is with forty stripes save one" asMaimonides observes.[15] According to the manner of scourging, a scourge of three cords could be use, that every stroke went for three stripes, so that by thirteen strokes, thirty nine stripes were given, and if a fourteenth had been added, there would have been forty two stripes and so have exceeded what the law allows. Thus Paul received the most severe scourging permitted from the Jews (cf.Matthew 10:17).[16][17]
