Loading...Now that I have covered the Gospels and Acts in this “Nutshell” series, it is time to move on to the writings of Paul. Rather than start with his first letter in the New Testament, Romans, I’ve decided to devote a couple of posts to Paul himself, one to his significance and surviving letters and one to a biographical sketch.
I start by giving a 50 word summary his writings, the “seven undisputed letters” in a nutshell:
Paul wrote seven of the letters attributed to him, addressing problems of churches he had established (five letters), of a church he planned to visit (Romans), and of an individual convert (Philemon), resolving their issues by explaining the implications of his law-free Gospel of Christ for faith and communal life.
I found this 50-worder especially difficult. See if you can do better! But for now I will provide a short introduction to Paul and his letters.
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By any metric you choose, Paul was the most important figure in the history of Christianity apart from Jesus himself. This can be seen from three perspectives:
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Could you please list the parts of the undisputed seven that are suspected of being alterations/additions made by later scribes?
Do you mean list all the textual variants? It would require a book. There are many hundreds. They aren’t suspected — there are differences in our manuscripts. (Unless you’re referring to something else.)
Including your own references to Bauer in your books. Most helpful as are your other posts in this series. What would also be helpful would be an explanation of why Walter Bauer is so important and a reference to book(s) explaining the signifiant of Bauer.
I discuss him and his significance in my opening chapter of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture and, probalby more accessibly, in Lost Christianities (pp. 172-79).
I’ve also posted on him a number of times, e.g., https://ehrman-original.test/the-revolutionary-understanding-of-orthodoxy-and-heresy-an-evaluation-of-bauers-views/
Thank you Dr Ehrman. This was extremely useful as I am doing some private study of Paul and his Theology, following your NINT conference last year, and this gives me an excellent overview. Much appreciated.
Do scholars recognize that Paul could be fudging the truth in his letters? For instance, in his dispute with Peter in Galatians, his description of Peter’s actions might represent a straw man version of what Peter actually did and thought. Since we only have Paul’s side of the argument, we might be misinterpreting the Paul/Peter dispute because Paul is leaving out crucial details that weaken his position.
Hey Bart! I’ve just joined the blog after listening to the podcast for a few months and being into this whole biblical research thing for about two years. Really appreciate your work – I haven’t gotten around to most of your books yet (not for lack of trying, they’re not at my local libraries/book stores), but I did get the chance to read The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture and found it very interesting/useful in my personal projects.
What’s the etiquette like regarding asking questions on the blog? I have *many* a burning question on subjects I haven’t seen much discussion/scholarly work on, but they don’t necessarily pertain to the most recent blog post. Would those be better suited to the forum?
For now, I’ll ask one that *is* relevant here: are there any reasonable arguments against the authenticity of Philemon? I have seen some on Early Writings or r/AcademicBiblical offer up the idea from time to time, but never a cohesive study on it. It seems that with the heavy debate on some of Paul’s epistles (e.g Colossians and 2 Thessalonians) that Philemon could potentially be pseudepigrapha, only it’s too bite-sized to be fully confident in that or see any dead giveaways.
Welcome! You can ask any question of relevance to what we do on the blog at any time based on any post whether or not it has any relevance to the quesiton.
I prefer you limit it to one at a time. More than two at a time and I usually stop answering at two.
I don’t know of any strong argument against Philemon since forgeries tend to be pushing for an agenda of some kind (such as Col and 2 Thess) whereas this is such a personal letter that it seems unlikely. Normally there’d be some kind of obvious, nore generalizeable point. A related questoin is why anyone wanted it in the canon in the first place!
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Thanks for your valuable knowledge!
Do you think we can glean any insights about the historical Paul through the pseudonymous letters or through the church fathers or later non-canonical books about him?
If Paul rebranded Jesus’ movement for Gentiles, making him the first megachurch pastor, does that mean billions have actually been ‘Paul-ians’ all along?
I’d say most have Paul’s theology today — or at least based their views on it — rthat than Jesus’s. As many have said, Christiannity is anbd always has been more the religion *about* Jesus than the religion *of* Jesus.
I wonder if you could comment on how god became omnipotent etc.
Dr.B, any thoughts on Albert Schweitzer’s ”The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle”?
It’s a classic. I haven’t looked at it in years (decades!) though.
I want to respectfully take issue with this statement in the “Nutshell” posting” Paul,”…in effect, started the worldwide mission that within three hundred years would make Christianity the largest religion…”
Some years elapsed between when Paul’s conversion via a “near-death experience” during which his spirit travelled to a different realm and was commissioned by the spirit of Jesus to be an apostle and when he. [I believe this event was triggered when his body was struck by lightening and severely burned while travelling on the road to Damascus. Note that his detailed account in Acts 22: 6-11 and 2nd Corinthians 12: 1-4 match closely with those given by thousands of individuals since then — see the two books by Dr. Raymond Moody or books by others.] In Romans, Paul is writing to an established group of Christians in Rome, so someone preceded Paul in getting converts. We also know that missionaries established large groups of early followers of Jesus in Alexandria.
I also respectfully urge you to read about the latest book by Dr. Jim Tucker that describes 65 years of research into reincarnation. More than a billion people believe reincarnation is real.
Bill Steigelmann
To rephrase the question, in ancient jewish thinking and/or the old testament was god always considered all powerful, all knowing etc. or did the idea develop over time? I believe there were other ancient gods who were not considered to have the omni attributes.
The anicents did not think of the “omni attributes” in the philosophical ways we do. There views of God were far less ontological. And of course asking what ancient Jews thought about something is a bit like asking what modern Americans to. Depends whom you ask! And also how they would understand the question. But much of the narrative of the OT seems to assum that God is not all powerful/all knowing/etc. (As in the making of the animals in Genesis ch. 2 and the Garden of Eden in Genesis ch. 3.)
In my reading, Paul did not promote a “Law-free” Gospel (though Protestants have said so for centuries). I would use the term, a “Torah-light” Gospel.
In my reading, Paul really only removed circumcision and a kosher diet from Judaism — and never questioned obedience to the Torah — which he now found updated in the Incarnate Messiah.
Paul did not teach that Gentiles were absolved from *all* of the ways of Judaism — he continually implied that Christianity was a sect of Judaism — now open to Gentiles by Jewish Apocalyptic prophecy due to the Advent of the Jewish Messiah.
The Realized Eschatology of Paul, like that of Jesus, was well-argued by C.H. Dodd (1950) and by Raymond Brown (1990), showing Paul’s abiding love for the Torah.
these blogs are phenomenal!
since you are an organization also, why not have these blog series accumulated into book form. I loved entire NT or OT accumulations for me to best clarify the NT or OT. & as I am very grateful to this organized approach to these releases!
I could see this book in my favorite [now shuttered Hong Kong Christian book store]. Where I discovered Wiersbe, Finney & many others!
Thanks.