It is a common--and fundamental--misconception that Paul told
people how to live. Apart from forbidding certain abusive
practices, he never gives any precise instructions for living. It
would have violated his two main social principles: human freedom
and dignity, and the need for people to love one another.
Paul was a Hellenistic Jew, originally named Saul, from the tribe
of Benjamin, who made a living from tent making or leatherworking.
He called himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles" and was the most
important of the early Christian evangelists.
Paul is not easy to understand. The Greeks and Romans themselves
probably misunderstood him or skimmed the surface of his arguments
when he used terms such as "law" (referring to the complex system
of Jewish religious law in which he himself was trained). But they
did share a language--Greek--and a cosmopolitan urban culture, that
of the Roman Empire. Paul considered evangelizing the Greeks and
Romans to be his special mission.
"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not
use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through
love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up
in a single commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.'"
The idea of love as the only rule was current among Jewish thinkers
of his time, but the idea of freedom being available to anyone was
revolutionary.
Paul, regarded by Christians as the greatest interpreter of Jesus'
mission, was the first person to explain how Christ's life and
death fit into the larger scheme of salvation, from the creation of
Adam to the end of time. Preaching spiritual equality and God's
infinite love, he crusaded for the Jewish Messiah to be accepted as
the friend and deliverer of all humankind.
In "Paul Among the People, " Sarah Ruden explores the meanings of
his words and shows how they might have affected readers in his own
time and culture. She describes as well how his writings
represented the new church as an alternative to old ways of
thinking, feeling, and living.
Ruden translates passages from ancient Greek and Roman literature,
from Aristophanes to Seneca, setting them beside famous and
controversial passages of Paul and their key modern
interpretations. She writes about Augustine; about George Bernard
Shaw's misguided notion of Paul as "the eternal enemy of Women";
and about the misuse of Paul in the English Puritan Richard
Baxter's strictures against "flesh-pleasing." Ruden makes clear
that Paul's ethics, in contrast to later distortions, were humane,
open, and responsible.
"Paul Among the People" is a remarkable work of scholarship,
synthesis, and understanding; a revelation of the founder of
Christianity.
"From the Hardcover edition."
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