Paul the Apostle

You have to be very familiar with Paul’s Letters from the bible, the course examines some background material on the formation of biblical documents. This will help you, whether or not you have had an introductory course in New Testament in the past, to get on board with the assumptions behind many of the questions raised and conclusions drawn in the course of study. Second, we will then deal with the nature of the sources for Paul’s life and thought, and, third, glean from those sources what information we can about Paul and his life. The fourth component is really a number of in-depth studies of the letters that bear his name. That will make up the bulk of the course. In the process you will learn to see them as real correspondence from the very first decades of what became Christianity, reflecting the dynamics of life in the ancient Greco-Roman Mediterranean world. Paul’s ideas will be discussed within the context of his letters, rather than as a systematic body of thought or theology. It will become quite apparent why that is important. At the conclusion of the course, I will briefly address two of the most popularly contentious issues in relation to Paul, namely, his views on homosexuality and the status of women. In particular, the issue of the status and role of women will give you an excellent opportunity to test your learnings, to try out your skills as biblical scholars and interpreters.

The learning outcomes of this course are as follows:

• The first and most important objective of this course is, obviously, to learn about the important figure of antiquity who continues to have an enormous impact on our present time—Paul the Apostle.
• The second objective is to learn to read and analyze the relevant New Testament documents as historical sources of information both on Paul’s life and his thought.
• The third objective is to pay particular attention to what it meant for Paul as a Jew to have a mission to non-Jews, and what effect that had on his thought, his hopes, and also his troubled relationship with fellow Jews.
• The fourth objective is to keep in mind throughout what it meant for Paul to work, preach, teach, and form communities within the context of Roman imperial reality.
• The fifth objective is a bit fuzzy, since it is one you yourself will shape in a wide variety of ways, given that you as students have very different kinds of religious investment (or perhaps none at all) in this subject matter. I very much hope that this study will nudge you to “go deep” in wrestling with the implications of Paul’s thought—whatever that might mean for you personally.

Use this information to write the discussion post, the only resource you are allowed to use is the BIBLE and it has to be the NIV version.

You will recall that at the outset of this course you wrote and posted your responses to what you found on the web regarding images of Paul. You will recall that you also included in that some reflections on your own view of Paul, however well-formed or unformed your image might have been. This allowed you to bring to your own awareness the kinds of impressions and questions you would wish the course to test and answer.

In this final posting, I invite you to take stock of what you have discovered about Paul. You may wish to review your initial post to Discussion Posting #1 in order to see where you started.

What have been your most important new insights about Paul, or about the ancient world in this course? What are some questions the course has raised that have not been answered, questions that will require further thought and reading? Are there aspects of the course that you struggled with, either academically or in terms of world view? Why? What has been most helpful to your learning in the course? What has not been helpful?

Going back to your initial post on google images of Paul, how would you now portray Paul? Has your image of Paul changed, either in terms of physical features, or in terms of his role, personality, work, etc.? Stated differently, how would you describe Paul and his significance in a paragraph or two?

How would you assess Paul’s legacy? Is it positive? Negative? Mixed? In particular, do you see Paul and his legacy on questions related to slavery, women and homosexuality differently now than you did coming into the course? Explain.