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What role did offers of physical healing (or the hope of receiving
it) play in the missionary program of the apostle Paul? What did he
do to treat the many illnesses and injuries that he endured while
pursuing his mission? What did he advise his followers to do
regarding their health problems? Such questions have been broadly
neglected in studies of Paul and his churches, but Christopher D.
Stanley shows how vital they truly become once we recognize how
thoroughly "pagan" religion was implicated in all aspects of
Greco-Roman health care. What did Paul approve, and what did he
reject? Given Paul's silence on these subjects, Stanley relies on a
cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach to develop informed
judgments about what Paul might have thought, said, and done with
regard to his own and his followers' health care. He begins by
exploring the nature and extent of sickness in the Roman world and
the four overlapping health care systems that were available to
Paul and his followers: home remedies, "magical" treatments,
religious healing, and medical care. He then examines how Judeans
and Christians in the centuries before and after Paul viewed and
engaged with these systems. Finally, he speculates on what kinds of
treatments Paul might have approved or rejected and whether he
might have used promises of healing to attract people to his
movement. The result is a thorough and nuanced analysis of a vital
dimension of Greco-Roman social life and Paul's place within it.
Explicit quotations from the Jewish Scriptures play a vital role in
several of the apostle Paul's letters to struggling Christian
congregations. In most cases the wording of these quotations
differs markedly from all known versions of the biblical text.
Studies of Paul's use of scripture routinely note the problem and
suggest possible solutions, but none to date has made this
phenomenon the primary object of investigation. The present study
aims to remedy this deficiency with a careful examination of the
way Paul and other ancient authors handled the wording of their
explicit quotations. In drawing general conclusions, Dr Stanley
examines the broader social environment that made 'interpretive
renderings' a normal and accepted part of the literary landscape of
antiquity.
What role did offers of physical healing (or the hope of receiving
it) play in the missionary program of the apostle Paul? What did he
do to treat the many illnesses and injuries that he endured while
pursuing his mission? What did he advise his followers to do
regarding their health problems? Such questions have been broadly
neglected in studies of Paul and his churches, but Christopher D.
Stanley shows how vital they truly become once we recognize how
thoroughly “pagan” religion was implicated in all aspects of
Greco-Roman health care. What did Paul approve, and what did he
reject? Given Paul’s silence on these subjects, Stanley relies on
a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach to develop informed
judgments about what Paul might have thought, said, and done with
regard to his own and his followers’ health care. He begins by
exploring the nature and extent of sickness in the Roman world and
the four overlapping health care systems that were available to
Paul and his followers: home remedies, “magical” treatments,
religious healing, and medical care. He then examines how Judeans
and Christians in the centuries before and after Paul viewed and
engaged with these systems. Finally, he speculates on what kinds of
treatments Paul might have approved or rejected and whether he
might have used promises of healing to attract people to his
movement. The result is a thorough and nuanced analysis of a vital
dimension of Greco-Roman social life and Paul’s place within it.
Drawing on recent discussions of quotations in the fields of
rhetorics, linguistics, and literary studies, Stanley argues that
Paul's explicit appeals to Jewish Scriptures must be analyzed as
rhetorical devices that seek to influence the thoughts, feelings,
and actions of a first-century audience, an approach that requires
a different set of questions and methods than scholars have
typically used in their studies of Paul's quotations. Key questions
include why Paul quoted words of Scripture to support some of his
arguments and not others; how quotations help to advance the
developing arguments of Paul's letters; and how a mostly illiterate
first-century audience from a variety of backgrounds might have
viewed these sudden intrusions of material from a Jewish religious
text. Answering these questions requires paying careful attention
to the affective and poetic dimensions as well as the intellectual
aspects of the original audience's encounter with the Holy
Scriptures of Israel. Christopher Stanley is Professor of Theology
at St. Bonaventure University. He is the author of Paul and the
Language of Scripture as well as numerous articles on the social,
literary, and rhetorical context of Paul's letters.
All scholars recognize that Scripture plays a vital role in the
theology and rhetoric of the apostle Paul. They disagree, however,
about how best to make sense of the many marked and unmarked
references to Scripture that permeate his letters. This book aims
to move the discussion forward by examining the reasons behind
these scholarly differences. The essays are united by a concern to
show how scholarly opinions concerning Paul's use of Scripture have
been influenced by the application of divergent methods and
conflicting presuppositions regarding Paul, his audiences, and the
role of biblical references in his letters.The book also seeks to
extend the boundaries of the discussion by applying the insights of
deconstruction, postcolonial theory, and feminist criticism to the
study of Paul's use of Scripture. Together these essays show what
can be accomplished when scholars take the time to discuss their
differences and try out new approaches to old problems. Paperback
edition to this title is available from the Society of Biblical
Literature.
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