From Paul to Saul

The eye-catching title is not provocative, but programmatic. I took it from Professor Markus Vinzent's new book*. For his lecture, he had chosen the more didactic title:
Paul, as we don't know him yet. 

*to be published on July 14 

  

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. 

Pseudopauline letters are written by authors other than Paul.

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?

Prof. Vinzent comments, "Today, AI is of immense value in data mining, i.e., the automatic evaluation of large amounts of text. My team and I have millions of texts and text fragments available on our computer, including Christian literature, as well as Greek, Latin, Syrian, and other languages. This enables detailed analysis of when, where, and how something was written and edited. We are in for some exciting times! Even the book about Paul will cause quite a stir in academia."

What remains? 

Red Baron thinks that old laws and regulations belong on the scrap heap of religions. The central message of the Gospel must be reformulated with each generation. This is the task of an enlightened Church in the 21st century.
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