A great deal of work needs to be done on the history of research into 2 Corinthians. The site of long-standing debates about the identity of Paul's opponents at Corinth, the chronology of his interactions with the community, not to mention the hot discussions about the integrity of the text of 2 Corinthians itself, the letter remains arguably the least explored text among the Hauptbriefe.

As my own contribution to this needed work, and as an attempt to spark the interest of others in the same task, I hope to publish here some original English translations of many of the seminal contributions to these debates. For many scholars, access to these documents is limited, either by the difficulty of the dated German in which they were written or by the limited availability of the texts themselves. The first piece I hope to post, Adolf Hausrath's monumental pamphlet "The Four Chapter Letter of Paul to the Corinthians" (Der Vier-Capitel-Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, Heidelberg: 1870) is according to WORLDCAT only found in book format at some 11 libraries worldwide, and at around 33 if one includes less-than-user-friendly microform copies. A search of the Princeton University library catalog, for example, returns no matching records. Given that Hausrath was the first scholar to identify 2 Corinthians 10-13 with the "Letter of Tears" Paul discusses earlier in canonical 2 Corinthians (now a widely held theory that now bears his name: the Hausrath-Kennedy hypothesis), the text needs to be read and re-read by scholars of Paul; yet, the rarity of the text means that few Pauline scholars have likely ever seen it much less waded through its antiquated German. Tellingly, Francis Watson, in the most influential contemporary articulation of this hypothesis, apologizes in a footnote for his inability to procure a copy of Hausrath's book. Such is the space I hope my contributions will fill. Others more proficient in nineteenth-century German are welcome to comment on my translation at any point; I seek to learn along with others.

SOME PUBLIC DOMAIN TEXTS IMPORTANT FOR STUDY OF PAUL 2 CORINTHIANS:

Bleek, F. "Erorterungen in Beziehung auf die Briefe Pauli an die Korinther," TSK 3 (1830): 614-32. Full PDF | English trans.
Hausrath, Adolf. Der Vier-Capitel-Brief des Paulus an die Korinther. Heidelberg: Fr. Bassermann, 1870. Full PDF | English trans.
Kennedy, J. H. The Second and Third Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians. London: Methuen, 1900. Full PDF

Please note a few of these links might be under development.