Paul: The Man and the Myth 9780567661159, 9780567086983

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Introduction

Whenever we look at a painting, read a novel, hear a story, experience a poem, or evaluate a news account we must use our imagination, experience, or knowledge to fill the yawning gaps. We may fill these gaps by drawing on our own human experience or our knowledge of the context, or even with musings on a world only imagined. Although we know more about the eastern Mediterranean world of the first century than ever before, that time is still very foreign to us and there is much we do not know. We are left to reconstruct a portrait of Paul with only scraps of what was once a large and imposing canvas-a small collection of letters and a historical narrative written a generation after his death. This reconstruction focuses on important parts of the image that usually fall in the shadows, parts dealing with Paul's sexual asceticism, his preoccupation with holiness-holy Spirit, holy community, and holy ethos-the evolution of his theology, and his emergence as a legendary figure. Although I have tried to follow the strict rules of historical investigation, of necessity much guesswork is involved in any exploration of Paul's life. In 2 Cor. 12:4, for example, Paul spoke of hearing "unutterable words which a human is not able to speak." What Paul could not tell us, others have dared to speak.' Paul prayed repeatedly for the removal of a "thorn in [his] flesh." Paul left this metaphor unexplained, but others, many others, have offered inspired guesses that the "thorn" was anything from epilepsy to migraine headaches. Whereas Paul nowhere names a single miracle that he performed, other writers, such as Luke in Acts, have dared to describe these in vivid detail. All of these efforts are attempts to deal with the gaps in the text, understood in the broadest sense to include not just Paul's written words but also the culture, social world, and political realities surrounding them. All such reconstructions are acts of historical imagination, and the reader will have to decide if the reconstruction presented here is credible. Why should we or anyone else be interested in filling the gaps? Why not simply take the story as it is? Why run the risk of falsification through an appeal to historical imagination? First, we do so because there is no alternative. Because no text is self-interpreting we simply cannot take the story just

CHAPTER ONE

The Early Paul

The complex and conflicted personality of Paul has led to speculation about his character-his thoughts, beliefs, acts, doubts, convictions, and even his appearance. Throughout history a kaleidoscope of images of the apostle Paul has continually offered fresh combinations. The Deutero-Paulines speak of Paul as chief among the apostles, as first among the saints, and as the church's great pastor and theological warrior. A second century document gives us our earliest description of Paul's physical appearance. Having heard of the imminent visit of Paul to Iconium, Onesiphorus gathers his wife, Lectra, and their two children, Simmias and Zeno, to camp by the royal road to Lystra to catch a glimpse of the traveling apostle. Armed with Titus's description, they wait, scanning the faces of all passing by, hoping that Paul, when he comes, will accept an invitation to their house. Finally, excitement ripples through their small circle. Then Onesiphorus "saw Paul coming, a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel."' In contrast to this second century literary sketch stands Rembrandt's seventeenth century painting of Paul as a wiry, deeply reflective, introspective, Caucasian intellectual, fully at home in the piety and spirit of the Enlightenment and with a quill in his hand. And equally sympathetic is the Reformation sketch of Paul as a guilt-ridden victim of a burdensome law who found in salvation by grace a fitting substitute for redemption through works of the law. Burdened by his own failure to fulfill God's requirements, Martin Luther was angered that even the gospel exacted justice, and he was discomfited by Paul's statement in Rom. 1:18: "the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness." (Unless otherwise noted I cite from the New Revised Standard Version.) Despairing of ever fulfilling God's just demand, his eyes lit on Rom. 1:17, and he was astonished at what he saw: "the just shall live by faith" (KJV). This exciting discovery unlocked the