In Search of Paul

[katie]

In his latest thread, Rick mentioned the book In Search of Paul: How Jesus' Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom, by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed. Has anyone read this book? Do you have recommendations for other books about Paul?

[Jeff]

My favorite book on Paul is The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context. It is old now, but still good.

www.powells.com/biblio/17-0664257828-0

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0664257828/qid=1121812741/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-3969082-1838542?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[katie]

Thanks, Jeff. I think I'll get this book and add it to my "To Read" pile. That pile just seems to get bigger and bigger instead of smaller and smaller.

Do you think this book would be good for a "nonspecialist" like myself? My main reservation about getting the Crossan/Reed book is that I find it hard to keep up with Crossan for very long. I have three of his other books and haven't finished any of them.

[Jeff]

I would say that Roetzel's book is written for an intelligent undergraduate with no specialized knowledge of theology or hermeneutics. I read it as a Jr. and had no problems at all with it. I think you would really enjoy it!

Hey, I have an idea...

[amanda]

*waits patiently for Jeff's idea*

[katie]

ditto for me!

[Jeff]

From The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context pp1-5

Introduction: Contrary Impressions

FEW WHO KNOW HIM are neutral about Paul. Some love him; others hate him. And so it has always been. Within his own churches he was worshiped by some and maligned by others, called courageous and scoffed at as a coward, viewed as true and dismissed as an impostor. In some quarters he was unwanted; in others warmly welcomed. In the second century, Polycarp revered him as “blessed and glorious”; a Jewish-Christian sect rebuffed him as the Devil incarnate. And so to this day Paul continues to provoke and excite, to challenge and antagonize.

A college coed, for example, feels insulted by Paul’s view of woman. She is offended by the popular legend which calls Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” a woman, and she is disgusted by the command in 1 Timothy 2:12 that no woman is “to teach or to have authority over men.” Rather, as it says there, they are to be silent and submissive, earning their salvation by bearing children (2:11—15). How revolting, she says, that Paul should advise male believers, “It is well for a man not to touch a woman” (1 Cor. 7:1), or that he should think it shameful for women to speak in church gatherings (1 Cor. 14:35). Instead, he advised them to bring their queries to their husbands in private (14:35). Why, she asks, should girls grow up thinking there is something dirty or inferior about being female? Why doesn’t Paul command the women not to touch a man? Why must he assume that subordination of women to men is an essential part of the divine order (1 Cor. 11:3)? In order to realize her full humanity, must a woman feel she is defying the creator himself? Are full humanity for the woman and Christianity mutually exclusive?

Another student of Paul, however, argues that Paul was no male chauvinist, but a women’s liberationist. Paul, in his view, has suffered the double misfortune of being misunderstood and having a bad press. At the risk of sounding defensive, he asks, “What has I Timothy to do with the view of Paul?” On this issue scholars are in near total agreement—Paul did not write 1 Timothy (or 2 Timothy or Titus). In the popular mind, however, the viewpoint expressed in 1 Timothy continues to color the interpretation of the genuine letters. Such a passage as 1 Corinthians 14:33b—36 is not, it has correctly been noted, Paul’s work. It was added later by another hand to make Paul’s view conform to that expressed in 1 Timothy. Scholars point out the verses clearly interrupt Paul’s discussion of prophecy. Moreover, imposition of silence on women in church in this passage flatly contradicts 1 Corinthians 11:5ff. There Paul takes for granted the active, verbal participation of women in the service. Even 1 Corinthians 7:1 (“It is well for a man not to touch a woman”) has its positive side. Paul prefers celibacy not because women are “dirty” or because sex is evil but because he feels that the special urgency of the times requires emergency measures. With the end sight, he feels Christians should brace themselves for traumatic suffering. In the face of the impending distress (7:26), normal domestic concerns must be suspended.

However, what is overlooked in this chapter is the evenhanded way Paul addresses men and women. Concerning marriage Paul says “each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” (7:2) Concerning sexual intercourse Paul says, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.” (7:3) Concerning sexual abstinence Paul addresses the husband and wife together. Concerning divorce Paul says, “the wife should not separate from the husband . . . and husband should not divorce his wife.” (7:11) Concerning mixed marriages Paul says, “if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.” (7:12ff) So, throughout the passage, Paul argues for mutual responsibility and the equality of man and woman.

The same impartial treatment is given in 1 Corinthians 11. First Corinthians 11:3 is usually translated “the head of a woman is her husband.’ It should read, however, “the source of a woman is her husband.” Paul is obviously recalling Genesis 2 where woman is made from a rib taken from man’s side. Later, God makes woman the source of man (through giving birth) and thus underscores the interdependence of man and woman.

It is Galatians 3:28, however, that best expresses Paul’s view: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Paul felt that “in Christ” believers already shared in God’s new community of the end time. In this new age all barriers which divided the human family were removed, and all obstacles to fulfillment were torn down. Although Paul nowhere attacks prevailing customs which assigned women inferior roles in society, he obviously believed they were full partners “in Christ.” When one treats women as full and equal citizens in the kingdom of God, it is difficult to hold disparaging views of them.

In response to this, the coed may still harbor doubts. Can she be sure that 1 Corinthians 14:33b—36 was inserted later? Does it really help to say men and women are equal “in Christ” if old patterns of discrimination persist? And in spite of the short exercise in Biblical interpretation she doesn’t like the tone of 1 Corinthians 11:7 where Paul says man is the glory of God but woman is the glory of man. Finally, even if 1 Timothy is not Pauline, it is in the New Testament and she finds the view of woman expressed in that book unacceptable.

Even in these days of renewed interest in religious studies, many students have a cordial dislike for Paul. In their view, where the teachings of Jesus are clear, simple, and basic, Paul’s writings are abstract, abstruse, and complex. Where Jesus speaks of a childlike trust in the father God, Paul constructs a complicated system of belief. The death of a sparrow brings a groan from the God of Jesus; the God Paul knows cares nothing for animals (1 Cor. 9:9—10). Jesus is warm where Paul is harsh; Jesus is patient where Paul is impatient. Jesus is an unassuming, unpretentious—even unlettered— Galilean peasant with a gift of prophetic insight and empathy for the poor and social misfits. Paul, the learned rabbi, on the other hand, is seen as a kind of bully, forcing his dogma on others and merciless in his attacks on opponents. In the view of Paul’s critics, this apostle to the gentiles deflected Christianity away from the path, style of life, and teachings of its founder.

Where some see Paul as a corrupter of the religion of Jesus, others see him as the greatest theologian of all time. They point to his brilliant and incisive interpretation of the gospel for the Hellenistic world. It was Paul who took a message that was Hebraic in concept and idiom and adapted it to a non-Jewish setting without dilution or compromise. It was Paul who faced the hard questions—about the gospel vs Jewish Law, the church vs society, Christians vs this world—which had to be answered if the Christian gospel were to remain intact.

Moreover, Paul was a daring and imaginative apostle. As the great pioneer of the gentile mission, he crisscrossed Asia Minor and plunged into Europe. Tireless in his mission and undeterred by hardship or persecution, Paul pressed on and on and on. And he died with his boots on, still longing to go to Spain, the western horizon of the known world.

Where some portray him as a dogmatic grouch, others point to the strains of tenderness in his letters. He tried to be as gentle as a nurse with the Thessalonians. He seemed overwhelmed that a brother in Christ, Epaphroditus, would risk his life to serve him; he thought of his converts as his children, and he rejoiced at the restoration of a disciplined member of the congregation. His pastoral concerns surface time and again. Unquestionably, his gentle admonition can give way to harsh polemic. But was this because Paul was dogmatic and inflexible, or because he felt the essential character of the gospel was being compromised?

Some accuse Paul of male chauvinism, and some think he diverted Christianity from its pure source in the simple religion of Jesus. But many Jews see Paul as the father of anti-Semitism in the West. It was he, they claim, who uprooted the Hebraic heritage from Palestine and turned it into a rival of the synagogue. It was he who lashed out in frustration and anger when the Jews resisted his gospel. It was he who warned that acceptance of circumcision meant damnation. And it was he who as an apostate from Judaism misrepresented the Hebrew religion. Jews find it difficult to understand why Paul the rabbi would call observance of the Law dark and joyless. Had he never read Psalm 19 which speaks of the Law “reviving the soul” and “rejoicing the heart”? Was he ignorant, they ask, of the traditions of the rabbis which speak of the “joy of the commandments”? In their view the acceptance of Paul means the rejection of Judaism. And all too often it has been but a short step from the repudiation of Judaism to the persecution of Jews.

Some Protestants would wince at the suggestion that their theology is anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, many, perhaps most, would feel that Christianity according to Paul is the exact opposite of Judaism. They would question whether all Jews find delight in the Law. At least the story of Richard Rubenstein would seem to suggest otherwise.

Rubenstein grew up as a secular Jew and started keeping the Law in his late teens. He tells of wanting a “cosmic Lawgiver” who would provide order through discipline. But later Rubenstein came to despise this Lawgiver. His hatred of this exacting judge ran so deep he wanted to murder him. Then while mourning the death of his son he suddenly realized that the Law could never give him what he desperately wanted, a triumph over mortality. Finally, while going through psychoanalysis he discovered a kindred spirit in Paul. The release from the Law that Paul found in Christ, Rubenstein found through his psychoanalytical experience. Paul’s unshacklement from a troubled conscience in bondage to the Law perfectly described, Rubenstein felt, his own release from deep personal anguish. Thus he came to know Paul as a “spiritual brother.”

According to the usual Protestant view, Paul, like Rubenstein, found the Law oppressive. Through Christ Paul learned that salvation has an “in spite of” quality. That is, God loves the individual not because of anything he does but in spite of his inability to make himself worthy of love. God simply accepts man as he is. It was Paul’s emphasis on this “grace” that was distinctive.

Others get the impression that though Paul differs with Judaism he does not break with it. They note that frequently the traditional juxtapositions of Paul and Judaism have been weak. They observe that Judaism also speaks of salvation by grace. They note that the neat dichotomy between faith and works is not really a judgment against Judaism, for Jewish religion did not make that distinction. Last, and most significant, they find no evidence that Paul ever felt oppressed by the Law. Instead, Paul is viewed as a faithful Jew who came to believe the messiah had come. This belief did not separate him from Judaism but confirmed his place in it. In fine, they feel Paul did not reject his Jewish heritage, but reinterpreted it in light of his experience of Christ.

So which was Paul—a Semite turned anti-Semitic, a Christian who rejected his Judaism, or a Jewish Christian who saw his life in Christ as a fulfillment, not a rejection, of Judaism?

The impressions registered here are only a small sample of the opinions about Paul one could assemble. Most readers will bring some notion about Paul to their reading of the letters. Even seasoned Biblical critics hardly come to the Epistles with a blank tablet. But the honest critic is always testing preliminary impressions against the evidence, and correcting them if necessary. The aim of this study is to help the novice read the letters in light of their social and cultural background. Through such a reading perhaps new data will be brought to light which may require the alteration or even surrender of our first impressions. Hopefully, such a change will bring our views of Paul into closer conformity with the reality of the man himself.

[amanda]

See, Katie, now you've already gotten the first 5 pages out of the way!

Looks like an interesting book.

[katie]

Thanks, Jeff. I really enjoyed the introduction. I will be buying this book soon--only $7.76 at Amazon for a used copy!

[Jeff]

You are going to have the 4th edition of the text. Mine is the 2nd. That means that your text will have a discussion of the so called "Sanders Revolution" in recent NT hermenutics. It is an interesting idea. Here is some info if you are interested:

thepaulpage.com/

www.rts.edu/kidd/EP_Sanders_(CalClark).ppt

[amanda]

Our copy of The Letters of Paul came in the mail today.

[katie]

Our copy arrived yesterday. We read the introduction last night and will start the first chapter tonight.

[amanda mcbride]

Dang. Guess we better start the book. I've still been admiring the pretty cover. First chapter this week, then?

[katie]

The first chapter is about 50 or 60 pages, I think--which is probably a little too much for us in a week. Rick's next mountain climb is less than a month away, so he needs to start training pretty heavily. We can probably manage 20 or 30 pages this week.

[mandy]

That will work. Justin has a class every week that he sits in on, plus he's gotten into game mode, so 20 - 30 pages would probably be best for us, too. Sorry... I hadn't checked to see how long the first chapter was.

[Jeff]

I am reading with you guys. I am through the first chapter, so I will try to post some comments later this week.

Don't forget there is already a board set up for any interpretative issues in Paul, the Pauline Epistles board.