Paul's letters to the church at Corinth permit us an interesting look behind the scenes in what may have been going on in that church(es?). We don't really know for sure if the "church in Corinth" was a single congregation or a federation of house churches. It is easy to read Paul's letters as to one congregation, but the scope his intended recipients may not be so limited as just being to one house-church, since he addresses his letters to all the Christian believers in a particular city.
We know that what we call 1 Corinthians is not Paul first letter to this church, because he writes in 1 Corinthians 5:9, "I wrote you in my letter." Therefore 1 Corinthians is probably Paul's second letter to the church at Corinth.
Many historical critical scholars believe that 1 Corinthians especially gives us a glimpse of what may have been going on (or going wrong) in the Corinthian church as Paul deals with specific issues that have been brought to his attention. It would seem that Paul's sources of information are two. The first is "Chloe's people" (1 Cor. 1:11) who bring a report about different factions in the church engaged in jostling for positions of influence. The second source is the letter brought by Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus (1 Cor. 16:15), who also will bring Paul's reply back to Corinth. The following statements are examples of why scholars believe Paul is responding to the verbal and written information he has received about problems among the Christians in Corinth. "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you" (1 Cor. 5:1); Now concerning matters about which you wrote (1 Cor 7:1). "Now concerning food offered to idols" (1 Cor. 8:1). You get the idea. So what we have in 1 Corinthians is one side of a conversation and scholars love to speculate about what the other half of this conversation might have been, and what did these erroneous Corinthians actually believe?
Ehrman mentions most of the conclusions about the situation in Corinth referred to in 1 Corinthians, for which there is a broad consensus among historical critical scholars. The rule of thumb is this: if Paul says "don't do that" he probably believes there are people in that church doing what he condemns. Now that might be a weak foundation for a historical reconstruction of the situation in Corinth, since we have only one side of it, but that is all we have to go on, and modern scholars won't let that slow them down. The most used verse for this process is 1 Cor. 1:26. "Not many of you were wise by human standards," translated: a few were well educated, but most had no formal education. "Not many were powerful," a few were influential in the city, but most not at all. "Not many were of noble birth," translated, a few belonged to the upper class, but most were of the working or servant class.
Using this type of reasoning many scholars speculate that the problems with the Lord's Supper (mentioned in 1 Cor. 11:17-22) might have a sociological dimension to it - in that the wealthy upper class are coming early hogging the food and drink (which they provide out of their abundance) but fail to leave enough food for the servant class Christians to eat who can't come until their work is done. This is just an example of the ways that scholars try to reconstruct what was going wrong in the Corinthian church and make sense of why does Paul say what he says? Ehrman goes into more detail on this on page 218.
I believe that Ehrman gets to the crux of the problem in Corinth on pages 219 to 220 (bottom to top). That problem is the sense of personal exaltation on the part of the Corinthian believers, supposing they share in the glories of Christ's resurrection in this life. I suspect this feeling was energized by ecstatic experiences of the Holy Spirit, since Paul speaks in similar terms about the proper role of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, since some of the Corinthian believers seem to think that speaking in tongues makes them better Christians than those who don't speak in tongues (1 Cor 14:13-19).
This mindset among the Corinthian believers is also evident in the discussions about "power" and "wisdom" in that Paul seems to think these people are focusing on worldly power and wisdom and not spiritual power and wisdom, or if they do, they have completely misunderstood power and wisdom from a Christian perspective, as if the Corinthians see it as an endowment that commends them highly, whereas Paul sees power and wisdom as what God has done in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world, that makes no logical sense by worldly standards (see Ehrman, page 223, bot.)
Of course the answer that Paul gives to this situation is that these people need a healthy dose of humility and recognition that in this life - Christians should aspire to imitate the suffering Christ, so that in the next life they can enjoy the blessings of the glorious Christ. This is evident in the number of times that Paul refers to the importance of knowing "Christ crucified" (1 Cor. 1:18, 1:23, 2:2).
Overall I would say that Ehrman's take on 1 Corinthians is mainstream historical critical scholarship. He seems to emphasize the apocalyptic dimension of Paul's religious thinking more than most scholars. But that only stands to reason since Ehrman is of the opinion that apocalyptic expectations were the driving force in much of early Christianity, and especially so with Paul and Jesus.
Concerning 2 Corinthians, we face a whole new set of issues and problems. One major issue is whether this letter is all one letter or two or more letters jammed together (see especially Box 14.3 on page 229). Most conservative scholars believe the letter is all part of the same piece, but that Paul stopped dictating and then picked it up again later, thereby creating a sense of lost continuity. What seems most obvious is a distinct break between chapters 9 and 10. Chapters 10-13 go off in a very different direction than Chapters 1-9, and the tone in chapters 10-13 is markedly strained by comparison with the more collegial tone of chapters 1-6 especially. As Ehrman says on pages 228-229, it makes most sense to place 2 Cor. 10-13 as the "tearful" or "painful" letter that followed the painful visit mentioned in 2 Cor. 2:1-4. Therefore, 2 Cor 1-7 was written after 2 Cor 10-13 by this reconstruction of events. I notice that Ehrman places "Paul's second visit," the "painful" visit, before the arrival of the super-apostles. Whereas other scholars would locate the second visit (the painful visit) and after the arrival of the super apostles in the chronology of events.
The main problem addressed in 2 Corinthians is the emphasis of these super-apostles (see 2 Cor. 12:11) on worldly standards of oratorical skills. Paul as a preacher does not measure up by comparison (2 Cor. 10:10). But these super-apostles come bearing great qualifications (so they believe, see 2 Cor. 11:21-23). But Paul see qualifications for ministry as being what one is willing to suffer and endure for promoting the cause of Christ, and pulpit prima donas are not seeking to glorify Christ but only bring glory to themselves. One of the principles implicit in Paul's reasoning in 2 Cor 10-13 is that God can only use people effectively who have little confidence in their own abilities, but boundless confidence in the power of God to work through them.
Following this line of reconstruction, we find in 2 Cor 1-7 that the Corinthian Christians are properly humbled and reaffirm their confidence in Paul as their primary teacher in all things Christian. But problems do not disappear in the Corinthian church, less than 40 years later the bishop of Rome, Clement, is writing to the church in Corinth reminding them of all the truths that Paul had written to them previously.
A NOTE on 2 Cor. 8-9. This may be two separate pieces of instruction about a collection for the poor Christians in Jerusalem. Apparently, Paul was eager to take up a substantial monetary collection for the poor Christians in Jerusalem and then personally accompany this money to Jerusalem as an act of Christian solidarity, hopefully cementing a bond between the Jerusalem church (of whom the majority were converts from Judaism) and the churches that Paul had established (of whom the majority were converts from paganism). Paul even uses reference to the generosity of the poor Christians in Macedonia (Thessalonica and Philippi) to spur on the Corinthians to be generous in their contributions (2 Cor 8:2). And then using the ploy of saying to the Corinthians that he had been bragging to the Macedonians about the Corinthians' generosity to spur them to give more so they don't embarrass themselves (2 Cor. 9:2). We know that the destination of this collection is Jerusalem from what Paul says about the collection in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4.
It would seem that the story in Acts about Paul's arrest in Jerusalem would have taken place on the visit to Jerusalem intended to deliver this offering to the Christians there. Acts does not mention the offering, but it does find mention several times in Paul's letters.
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