The media have heaped ridicule on Donald Trump for calling 2 Corinthians in his Liberty University address “Two” rather than “Second” Corinthians.  Is this evidence of biblical ignorance?  No, those who criticize this way of referring to Paul’s letter are showing biblical ignorance.

There’s nothing wrong with either way of referring to 2 Corinthians.  The author of the letter, Paul of Tarsus, never called his epistle “Second Corinthians” or “the Second Letter to the Corinthians,” nor would he have.  This title is the invention of Bible compilers and copyists – who had to call it something.  The reason Paul would never have called his letters to Corinth “First” and “Second” is because they weren’t.  They were in fact his second and fourth letters to Corinth.

Paul founded the church at Corinth, Greece, on his second missionary journey, between 51 and 53 AD.  On that first visit, he taught at Corinth for 18 months (Acts 18:11).  In 54 AD, Paul traveled back east to Ephesus.  He taught there for three years (Acts 20:31), during which he wrote 1 Corinthians, rebuking the Christians at Corinth for their licentious behavior.  In the letter we call 1 Corinthians, Paul referred to another letter he had written previously to Corinth, warning the church against association with sexually immoral people (1 Corinthians 5:9).  That letter has not survived.

After 57 AD, Paul traveled back west to Macedonia, where, in the city of Philippi, he wrote 2 Corinthians, to tell the Corinthian church that he was coming back to see them.  In the letter we call 2 Corinthians, Paul referred to another “severe letter of tears” that he had written after he wrote 1 Corinthians and before he wrote 2 Corinthians (2 Corinthians 2:3, 4 and 7:8).  This letter also has not survived.  (By the way, in Colossians 4:16, Paul mentioned yet another letter he wrote, to the church at Laodicea, which has not survived.  Paul thus wrote a total of 16 recorded letters, three more than the 13 preserved in our bibles today.)

First Corinthians, therefore, is really Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, and Second Corinthians is really Paul’s fourth letter to the Corinthians.

When the media, who know next to nothing about the Bible, deride others for their understanding of it, they model, as Jesus said, the blind leading the blind.