The Letters of St. Paul [Lecture Notes]

Dominican Scholar The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection Social Justice | Faculty Collections Spring 2017 The Letters of St. Paul [Lecture Notes] Scott Gambrill Sinclair Dominican University of California, [email protected] https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2017.sinclair.01 Survey: Let us know how this paper benefits you. Recommended Citation Sinclair, Scott Gambrill, "The Letters of St. Paul [Lecture Notes]" (2017). The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection. 5. https://doi.org/10.33015/dominican.edu/2017.sinclair.01 This Course Materials is brought to you for free and open access by the Social Justice | Faculty Collections at Dominican Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Scott Sinclair Lecture Notes Collection by an authorized administrator of Dominican Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Letters of St. Paul (3 units), spring 2017 Instructor: Dr. Scott G. Sinclair Course Description: A study of the major themes of Paul's thought through the letters he wrote as responses to problems in the early Christian church. Student Learning Outcomes for this course: A knowledge of 1) the literal contents of Paul’s Letters, 2) the cultural and historical situations to which the letters respond, and 3) the enduring theological perspectives that appear in these responses. Textbook: A modern translation of the Bible and the lecture notes below. Diversity: We will study how Paul could insist that all ethnic groups can be one in Christ without losing their distinctive identities. We will look at how the Pastoral Epistles attempt to accommodate Christianity to the larger Roman world and what this accommodation suggests about contemporary attempts (e.g., at Dominican) to bridge the gap between the Church and secular culture. In addition, we will consider in detail Paul’s comments on women and homosexuality and how we might respond to such comments today. 1 Lecture and Discussion Notes and Daily Assignments An Introduction to Paul's World and Life and Lasting Significance I. More than anyone else, Paul was responsible for making Christianity an international religion. A. Jesus did not initiate contacts with Gentiles, and all of his original followers seem to have been Jewish. B. After his death, Christian missionaries began to approach Gentiles, and Paul was apparently the most successful in making converts. C. Paul was the person who insisted that Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to belong to the Church. D. Therefore, Paul is primarily responsible for the international Church as we know it. II. In his letters Paul also laid the foundations for Christian thought. A. His letters are probably the oldest surviving Christian documents. B. They helped mold the young congregations to which they were written. C. Subsequently, the letters were collected and in the second century became part of the New Testament. D. As such, they have been a major influence on the Christian world ever since. III. Consequently, the question of what Paul's letters mean and whether they are true and relevant finally becomes the question of what Christianity means and whether it is true and relevant. IV. In this class I hope to give you two things: A. An informed, personal answer to the questions of what the letters mean and why they are true and relevant B. The tools to disagree with me and come up with your own informed answer to these questions. V. Survey: What are your present beliefs about Christianity and about Paul, and why did you decide to take this class? VI. A sketch of Paul's world. A. Paul lived in the Eastern Mediterranean during the first century C.E. He was probably born a little after the beginning of the Common Era and died in the early 60's. B. The world Paul knew was divided into Jews and Gentiles. C. Judaism in Paul's time. 1. There were Jewish communities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean (as well as elsewhere). Jews were the majority in Israel, their ancient homeland. Elsewhere they were a minority. 2. Politically they were subject to Roman rule (whether direct or indirect). 3. Culturally, they had to struggle to maintain their distinctive identity in the midst of Greco-Roman civilization. Because they had long been under first Greek and then Roman rule, Jews had already 2 adopted some aspects of Greco-Roman culture. 4. Despite the fact that there were different sects, all Jews would have held that God a. Through a series of historical acts had chosen the Jewish people for a special relationship with himself. b. Taught that he was the only God and demanded justice. c. Gave the Jews the Mosaic law (found in the first five books of the Bible). Note, especially, 1). This law included both ethics and taboo. Among other things, the law required dietary restrictions and male circumcision. 2). Keeping the law made Jews distinct and helped preserve national identity 3). Keeping the law did not earn “salvation.” 4). Nevertheless, to be in right relationship with God, a Jew had to accept the validity of the law and repent of serious violations (E. P. Sanders), and Jews believed that following the law would lead to blessings from God. D. Gentiles 1. The Romans governed the entire Mediterranean area but often permitted some local autonomy. 2. The dominant language, especially in the East, was Greek, and this is the language of Paul's letters. 3. To a large degree, there was a single culture which was an amalgam of traditions, particularly from Greece, Rome, and Egypt. 4. There were many religious cults, and most people were polytheists. However, some educated people (e.g., Stoics) were basically monotheists, but were willing to conform by worshiping the gods. VII. The sources for Paul's life and their value. A. There are two major sources. 1. Paul's own letters. A couple of introductory remarks about the letters: a. Paul did not write down his letters but dictated them to a scribe (e.g., Rom. 16:22, Gal. 6:11). b. The letters were not mailed, since there was no public post office. c. Instead, Paul had to get someone to deliver them. 2. Luke's Acts of the Apostles. B. On the whole these sources are good, and, consequently, we know more about Paul than about any other early Christian. C. Still there are problems. 1. It is sometimes hard to place information gleaned from the letters into an overall chronology of Paul's life. We do not know when and where some of the letters (e.g., Galatians) were written. 3 2. The material in Acts is not always historically reliable. a. Acts was written at least a generation after Paul's death. b. We do not know what sources of information were then available. Luke probably did not use Paul's letters, since he never mentions them, whereas he quotes from other letters. c. We also do not know how far Luke would go in using his imagination or literary conventions to fill in gaps. Luke has a flair for the dramatic and sometimes includes what were stock scenes (e.g., the miraculous escape from prison) in contemporary literature. d. Luke simplifies and schematizes and downplays the negative. e. Some details in Acts contradict what Paul records. f. Luke idealizes Paul. For example, in Acts Paul is a great preacher, whereas in his Corinthians letters, Paul freely admits that his peaching is not the best. g. Paul's sermons in Acts may be by Luke himself. Ancient historians often produced speeches for characters in their books. VII. One plausible sketch of Paul's life. A. Paul had a bi-cultural youth which helped prepare him to be a bridge between Judaism and Gentile Christianity. His double heritage is reflected in his double name of Saul Paul, since Saul was the first king of Israel and Paul was a common last name in Roman culture. 1. He had an impeccable Jewish background. a. He was "a Hebrew born of Hebrews" (Phil. 3:5). Perhaps this means that in addition to being Jewish, he grew up in a home where Hebrew or Aramaic was spoken. b. He apparently received his higher education at Jerusalem where he studied under Gamaliel I, a leading scholar of Jewish law (Acts 22:3). c. He joined the Pharisees (Phil. 3:5), a group which spelled out the details of keeping the Mosaic Law. 2. Yet, he also had a strong Gentile background. a. He came from Tarsus an important political, cultural, and commercial center in the Greco-Roman world (Acts 22:3). b. According to Acts, he was a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37-39, 22:28) as well as a citizen of Tarsus (21:39). c. Paul could write Greek well and, apparently, had some Greek education (through the synagogue?), especially in rhetoric. B. At some point he learned the trade of tent making/leather working (Acts 18:3) which he subsequently used to support his missionary work (cf., e.g., 1 Thes. 2:9). C. Throughout his life Paul also had some embarrassing medical problem (2 Cor. 12:7), but it did not prevent him from engaging in enormous 4 missionary labors. D. In his early adulthood, Paul persecuted the church, but we have few details. Probably, Paul 1. Feared that Christianity's casualness toward the Jewish law and insistence on loving one's enemies was undercutting Jewish resistance to Paganism (cf. N.T. Wright). 2. Resented Christianity "stealing" potential converts to Judaism and sympathizers by abolishing legal requirements (Crossan). 3. Found the claim that a crucified person was God’s Messiah offensive (cf.

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