Paul, as we don't know him yet.
Like Erasmus earlier, Professor Vinzent attempts to return ad fontes, to peel away all the layers that have grown up around the man from Tarsus. If we cannot reconstruct the historical Paul, let us at least try to read the spiritual Paul in his original texts.
In addition to many written finds (papyri), two significant collections of Paul's letters existed in the 2nd century. The collection in our New Testament comprises fourteen letters. An earlier collection counts only ten, where the concordant letters are substantially expanded in the canonical collection.
Deuteropauline letters are those attributed to Paul, but according to many scholars, were not written directly by him; instead, they were written by disciples or followers who wrote in his name and spirit.
The subtitle of Prof. Vinzent's lecture set the tone :
New insights into the oldest collection of Paul's letters as the basis for a liberating Christianity in our time.
A liberating Christianity in our time drew a spectacular crowd into the St. Gallus church hall at Kirchzarten, despite the high temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The discussion that followed Prof. Vinzent's lecture was intensive and prolonged.
Where do the older ten letters of Paul come from? The collector was Markion, who lived from about 80 to 160. He was a wealthy entrepreneur from northern Turkey and began teaching others in Rome in the mid-second century, sharing his understanding of what Christianity was. Markion called his collection the "New Testament," which included a first compendium about Jesus and the ten letters of Paul."
What we today call the New Testament was not written until the end of the
second century and contains a most distant adaptation of Paul's letters,
because Markion's collection is 50 years older and closer to the literary
Paul. Logically, the four Gospels do not appear in Paul's "original" letters
that may have had precursors.
In this ten-letter collection, Paul
faces us as an ascetic with uncomfortable demands such as abstaining from wine
or even sex in marriage. His mission is one of a social spirituality that
leaves patriarchal, hierarchical, or colonial thinking behind.
Paul's
name carried weight, but his positions did not fit into later times. His ten
letters were greatly expanded, inflated, and embellished, and four new ones
were invented - the pseudopauline forgeries. More importantly, new accents
were set.
In the ten letters, women were in no way inferior to men.
They preached, prophesied, and held leadership positions. In the fourteen
canonical letters, things are exactly the opposite.*
*Corinthians 14: 34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is
not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under
obedience, as also saith the law. 35 And if they will learn anything, let
them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
In Markion's letters, Paul is never homophobic. Homosexuality in
Ancient Greece was common.
When Emperor Hadrian's young lover
Antinoos drowned in mysterious circumstances in the Nile, Hadrian elevated him
to godhood. Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, and Epiphanius considered not only the
official deification of Antinoos to be pagan heresy, but also the love affair
to be morally reprehensible. Tertullian publicly criticized Hadrian for
elevating a "meat pudding" to heaven. Thus, homosexuality found its way into
the fourteen letters as ethically repugnant.
There are no appeals
for donations in the ten letters, but in the canonical edition.
In
the ten letters, Paul does not travel, which seriously compromises his role as
spreader of the Good News. Later authors corrected this in the fourteen letters.
Markion
saw Christianity as a new movement, a parallel development to Judaism. He did
not oppose the Jewish faith, but for Christians, the Torah does not apply.
They have a new law. Christ redeems all people. Through his death, he has set
all people free; however, in the canonical letters, Jesus is placed in line
with the prophets and Moses.
After the Second Jewish War, the Roman
emperor banished all Jews from Jerusalem. They were scattered to the four
winds. The question arose: Who now owns the empty synagogues and abandoned
houses? The Christians came and said, 'The Bible, the art, the houses, the
fathers - all belong to us.' Continuing the tradition of Judaism, we are the
legal successors of Israel. So Paul's letters had to be amended accordingly,
and Markion, who made no claim to the inheritance of Israel, was increasingly
ostracized.
The original Paul knew no hierarchy in which one person
elevates himself above another. Although slavery was widespread in ancient
times, there were no Christians who were slave owners.
But at that
time, answers were needed on the subject. Prof. Vinzent said, "In our New
Testament, slave service is considered a form of worship. And finally, Paul's
concept of inheritance is also distorted, from spiritual to material
greatness, from the kingdom of heaven to land ownership."
Prof.
Vinzent concluded, "All those who refer to the letters of Paul will gain a much
better understanding of what these texts are and how they came into being. And
that the image [of Paul] we have is essentially a later construct. But that
does not mean that the Church and faith are at an end. "
When
Rudolf Bultmann
scrutinized the Gospels in 1921 of their original Jesus statements regarding
interpretations by the congregations as secondary, there was an outcry in the
Protestant Church, as Luther's faith is based on the Word.
Bultmann's view that Paul was not interested in Jesus as a human being, i.e., in his earthly life, but only in the Christ of faith, is consistent with the statements in Paul's ten-letter collection.
Will there be a similar outcry with the publication of Professor Vinzenz's book?
What remains?
*
