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    Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time
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    Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time
    Unavailable
    Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time
    Ebook228 pages3 hours

    Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time

    By Sarah Ruden

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    About this ebook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateFeb 16, 2010
    ISBN9780307379023
    Unavailable
    Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time

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    Reviews for Paul Among the People

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      A very interesting and somewhat incomplete but still helpful understanding of the culture that Paul was a part of and was writing to. The author makes some leaps, some logical and some more emotional. Some of the translations go on too long but one can skip them without losing the point.

      I recommend this book, but be ready for more than a couple of side-trips. Enough interesting stuff to actually make me wonder if the author will ever write her biography.

      Interestingly this would have been a 3-star review, except that in the last section the author actually addresses every concern I had while reading the book.
    • 4/5
      A very readable look at Paul's writings in the context of Roman society and literature.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book. Sarah Ruden brings a great amount of academic fervor to the study of Paul , speaking in a voice that is approachable but not condescending. I really appreciated her willingness to relate personal failings in the mission field to our understanding of Paul, his work and message. This is not something terribly new, she is relating scholarship that has been happening in more liberal theological schools for a while but she brings a fresh voice and personal touch to the subject that is really nice.
    • 5/5
      Originally reviewed on Amazon. Excellently done book. Not likely to sit well with conservative Christian reviewers. But the scholarship is solid when one considers that the research is done from a comparative literature perspective. Enlightening perspectives on homosexuality as considered from ancient literary sources.
    • 4/5
      The apostle Paul has been regarded by many today as prudish, a killjoy, and decidedly politically incorrect in his views and pronouncements. These views arise from the perspective of our considerably "more advanced", "liberated", and "enlightened" culture. C.S. Lewis, reflecting on the conceit of contemporary societies to those that preceded them, coined the term "chronological snobbery". Not only is contemporary society - and post-modern society in particular, with its denigration of history outside of nostalgia - guilty of this but compounding our chronological snobbery is ignorance of what common life was like at the time Paul wrote his epistles. One forgets that Latin and Greek used to be taught as regular subjects in the secondary school system in the first half of the last century. Students of those times (my parents among them) became familiar with the writings of Cicero, Plato, Homer, Ovid, etc. often encountering them as exercises in translation. Of course, the texts used were screened to remove any undesirable or offensive material. This, combined with the Hollywood depictions of the Roman empire, led to our current society developing a quite a different picture of life in that era than the actual literature portrays. It is common knowledge that life in the Roman empire was decadent, but the average person has not grasped the nature and full extent of that decadence, save for the brutality of gladiatorial combat and the excesses inherent in an orgy. It is worth noting that literature is the product of a culture that is literate beyond a rudimentary sense, hence what has come down to us from the first century are the writings of an educated class of people, rather than the oral legacy of the illiterate masses, save for those occasions where the literate recorded the speech/poetry/songs/stories of the illiterate. It may be argued that the written record is biased in favour of the educated, and therefore not to be taken as indicative of society as a whole, but it must also be remembered that the educated also exerted considerable influence in the way everyday life was conducted. Hence the literature of the time can be said to be reliable in its depiction of the society in which it originates - a crucial point for the scholarship behind this book. Sarah Ruden, with a solid background in translating classical Greco-Roman literature, brings her considerable knowledge to bear in providing a window into that era through quoting the literature of that era. Unfortunately, while a master in classical literature, Ruden appears to have only a basic knowledge of theology . At one point in the preface she asserts that "[t]he evidence is strong that the full Christian doctrine came not from Jesus' mouth but from Paul's pen." - without providing any reference as to the source of this "evidence". Encountering such a statement that early into the book might be, for some people, enough to put off reading it altogether, which would be a great loss to the reader. Rather than defend Paul's controversial remarks in the context of our present culture, Ruden places them in their original context - that of the Greco-Roman world of the first century - and reveals how radical and liberating the message of the Gospel was to the culture of its time. For example, her examination of the Greek words that were translated as "drunkenness" and "revelries" (or "carousings"), when set alongside quotations that reveal the true context of their usage, informs us that Paul's admonishments on these issues were grounded in genuine pastoral concern and not joyless piety. Similarly, one encounters Paul's pastoral words against sexual immorality in a culture where pedophilia is rife and what Plato described as a failed attempt by Thrasymachos to seduce Socrates turns out not to have been an rare anomaly of deviant behaviour but something encountered in everyday life. "O the times, O the morals" indeed!In a similar manner, Ruden examines Paul's views on pleasure, women, loyalty to the state, slavery, and the alternative he preaches as Christian community. One begins to appreciate - perhaps for the first time - what Paul's writings actually meant to the people they were addressed to at the time they were written. In examining Paul's writings in their original context, Ruden raises the pertinent question of whether Paul's writings have meaning for contemporary society. Paul's concern and respect for the dignity and well being of all - man, woman, Jew, Greek, Slave, free - stands out in sharp contrast to the exploitative, hierarchical, malevolent structure of Greco-Roman society - and that of our own. Her depiction of first century "civilized" life points out that we have some ways to go in some areas to equal or surpass the decadence of Roman society and it raises the vital question of whether we wish to continue in that direction or change course. It we opt for the former choice then we must consider that all previous societies that have continued in that direction have disintegrated or imploded and there is no reason to assume that our fate will be any different. If we decide to opt for the latter choice, then the alternative community of the early church and Paul's pastoral advice to it becomes very - and vitally - relevant to us - even if the rest of society deems it prudish or politically incorrect.A word of caution to prospective readers is necessary: some of the literature quoted is quite graphic in nature and and the language occasionally obscene. You might want to bear this in mind before beginning a small group study of this book.
    • 4/5
      I very much enjoyed this book. Sarah Ruden brings to the study of Paul a serious amount of academic skill, speaking in a voice that is approachable but not pandering. Of course, she sets this out early on as a goal. I particularly appreciate her willingness to become vulnerable by relating personal failings in the mission field to our understanding of Paul, his work and message.
    • 3/5
      An interesting re-imagining of the apostle Paul but it is a shame that Ruden ignores the scholarship of David Trobisch who has argued (convincingly) that the "first edition" of the New Testament drew heavily on the work of Paul or those close to him as a compilation of letters meant to tell a singular story. David J. Trobisch. Paul’s Collection of Letters: Exploring the Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994; reprint: Bolivar, Quiet Waters Publications, 2001). David J. Trobisch. The First Edition of the New Testament. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Paper, 2011).
    • 1/5
      Ruden, Sarah. Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time. New York: Image Books, 2010.What a horrible, confused mess of book. The author explains that she is a classicist and is using that background to interpret Paul from that point of view. She examines a number of issues within Paul’s letters, including the place of women in society, homosexuality, and slavery. In doing this she provides a novel approach that contradicts itself and ignores many historical and sociological studies in pursuit of an interpretation that turns Paul into a mirror image of herself rather than provide an authoritative or even helpful interpretation.While perhaps it can be seen as anecdotal, her confusion starts from the very chapter. She starts by saying that the classicists and the theology department never crossed paths. OK, so there may not be too many theologians who can translate classical texts, however that does mean that interpretation is incorrect. In addition to there being other fields that are important other than translating classical texts, including history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and political science for example. All fields which have contributed to a greater understanding to ancient times. In addition, just because she never came across theologians are her institution, which does not have a theology school, does not mean that Harvard should be considered the norm.However, her historical knowledge seems to be deficient. She gets a number of basic facts correct, especially in regards to homosexuality. It seems as if she has never heard of (or chose to ignore) Foucault, Boswell, Wilkin, and Meeks. This ignorance (or again her choice, but then that would negate any claims to being objective, which she states is part of her object) makes me wonder what else I can trust of her work. Because of these glaring errors and presumptions which are grounded in her experience at the exclusion of other experience, I cannot fully trust this book. Therefore, I cannot recommend this book for somebody who wishes to understand Paul’s writings.
    • 5/5
      In Sarah Ruden’s book ‘Paul Among The People’ Sarah explains what life was like during the tumultuous early years of Christianity and sheds new light on a very misunderstood man and his message. Her conversational tone makes ‘Paul Among The People’ easy to read and makes it easier to digest some very controversial opinions about Paul. Progressive Christian’s who have struggled with the traditional interpretations of Paul, with regards to women and homosexuality especially, will find Sarah Ruden’s well researched information an interesting new take on some very old problems. However, Conservative Christians may struggle with her frank and open discussion about the same subjects. Her explanation about what homosexuality meant to Paul and how different that is from today’s understanding is fascinating. As she describes it, homosexual intercourse was used to humiliate and dominate. It was Master proving superiority over a lesser human, usually a slave or a prostitute, or an enemy post war. There was no Gay Culture as we see today and there was no place for men to engage in relationships based on equality and partnership. It was this inequality and subjugation of humanity that Paul found fault with. I found this to be utterly absorbing. The book isn’t just about Paul and his message, it is also a detailed account of what everyday life was like in the Early Christian period and what his message would have meant to his contemporaries. This makes it a very intriguing read. Sarah Ruden translates some tricky passages in Paul and shows how mistranslation over the centuries has created some of the more controversial problems in the church today. She takes time to explain the meanings of certain words and how those meanings differed between the 1st Century and now, bringing new understanding to passages many modern readers find so troubling. For any one curious about Paul’s message and what it meant to his people this book is a must read. For those who have been challenged by Paul this book could and probably will change your mind.
    • 5/5
      This book is not for the timid. It is bold, lusty, and unabashedly frank. It tells it like it was as all good historians should want their works to be. For those of us who thought we knew the Apostle Paul, our knowledge was gleaned against the backdrop of Jewish theology as depicted from a Christian perspective; it was from the New Testament, mainly the Book of Acts and, obliquely, by reading between the lines of the Epistles rightfully or wrongly attributed to him. Ruden changes that. She presents Paul against the Pagan background in which he worked, a background that she obviously knows like the palm of her hand. She does not claim that Paul’s belief system was influenced by the sea in which he swam but that his presentation of Christian precepts can best be savored using the spices of that time and place. The author focuses on Paul’s views on pleasure (for pleasure’s sake), homosexuality, women’s role, authority, slavery, and love and how they contrasted with pagan society’s view as presented in Greek and Roman classical literary works. I stress the later because that is Ruden’s academic specialty. In her concluding remarks concerning her use of sources, she artfully defends possible criticism that the literature might not truly reflect the culture or vice versa.There is nothing simple about the book; it is complex at several levels. As the author wends her way through her selected topics, Paul’s involvement subtly changes. In the early chapters, his presence seems to be minimized but it begins to dominate the issue in later chapters, especially on the topic of love. This mirrors Paul’s status in the first century Christian community; after his dramatic conversion on the Damascus Road, he faded into the background, resurfaced as a lesser member of the delegation to Antioch and then rose to greater and greater prominence. Perhaps inadvertently, Paul’s evolvement is reflected in the book’s narration. In all probability, the book is not academically acceptable – it could not qualify as the first draft of a doctoral dissertation nor count in that tally of points leading to a full professorship. Thankfully, her style of writing precludes that; she writes in a personal, first person style that injects herself into the narrative. So effectively she does it that it becomes easy to identify Sarah Ruden with Paul – the two become connected at the hip. This leads to another layer of complexity: the author essentially becomes the subject; Paul becomes a surrogate Sarah. Maybe a better title would be “Sarah Among the People”. As I read through the book, I often felt a measure of unease as if I had inadvertently walked by her window and she had failed to draw her blinds or that I was reading her private journal. This point was forcefully driven home on page 144. She started a stream of consciousness with an “Oops” and proceeded to burst like a 250 pound fullback through a defensive line populated by parents, academic peers and, believe it or not, Nelson Mandela. This was a microcosm of her personal, academic, and early professional life. I loved it! Forget my earlier re-titling; it should be “The Portrait of an Artistic Scholar as a Young Woman.”And her faith? As an avowed Quaker, she foreswore the traditional ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ with ‘sons of b------‘at the end of chapter 6 where she ends a diatribe of hypocrisy in the full spirit of Jesus’s own words recorded in Matthew chapter 6. Her faith is self evident. You may read this book from whatever perspective you desire; as a treatise on Paul’s theology, his emergence as the spokesman of Christianity, Ruden’s interface with her academic field of interest, or her intellectual angst. From whatever perspective, the book is a must read. It would be an honor to discuss this review with her over a glass of wine or cup of tea – her choice.
    • 4/5
      Ruden uses ancient texts to give a context to those letters generally agreed upon as actually written by Paul, most particularly Galatians, Corinthians and Romans. By setting Paul's words against the culture of the times using Greco-Roman texts, she shows how she came to reevaluate Paul's contributions as a moderate and enlightened voice instead of a conservative and prejudicial bigot. It is amazing how these views into the culture of the times, as opposed to the connotations that certain words elicit in our modern mentality, do make a strong case for Paul. This is very readable--in fact, I read the book the same day I received it, but with extensive footnotes and bibliography to support it.
    • 5/5
      Okay, I admit, I haven't finished reading this book yet. But it is an EXCITING addition to Pauline studies. And it is a MUST read for anyone who has ever grumbled at this man--although I must admit, I left that class of people once I actually read his letters. Of course, non-scholars quibble over who wrote what and when....Sarah Ruden (a Quaker! Who knew?) brings a new dimension to understanding the times in which Paul wrote, which I find key in understanding any book by any author. Whether Biblical scholars will embrace her as I have...yet to be determined. I will be talking about this book for months to come. Now back to reading.... :-)
    • 3/5
      Sarah Ruden attempts to bring to light the life of The Apostle Paul within the social context of his day. Though interesting and in a couple of instances a bit of an eye opener I did not find it to have any real spiritual insight. Ruden uses literature from the time, mostly poetry, that do not consistently reveal anything all that new to any one who has done some research on the history of the time period or Biblical translation. The writing in spots was a bit rough and impersonal making it a bit tough to engage with what was being said. Overall the concept and thoughts brought forth in the book are good and worth delving deeper into.
    • 3/5
      A historical analysis, replete with primary source quotations, providing a more "Greco-Roman" perspective on many of the controversial issues surrounding Paul and his writings.The author focuses on select subjects-- the "works of the flesh" and the "fruit of the Spirit," homosexuality, the status and roles of women, relationship to government, matters of slavery, and 1 Corinthians 13 and agape love-- and tries to show how such views would be received and understood among the Greeks and Romans amongst whom Paul promoted the Gospel. She does well at showing how the view we often have of the Classical world is a bit romanticized-- she shows how brutal and nasty things really were, especially for those who did not grow up in privilege. Her analysis provides a good counterweight for the perspectives that almost exclusively focus on the Judaic heritage of Paul, and the profuse use of ancient quotations is very beneficial.On the other hand, the book does suffer from a complete lack of analysis or even consideration of that Judaic heritage, and therefore the exegesis of passages tends to come up short. The author advances the standard liberal theories about New Testament authorship, and while she does attempt, in some way, to "rehabilitate" Paul's image and to show that more is likely authentically his than is often credited, she still does not break out of twentieth and twenty-first century paradigms. The book provides a welcome perspective to help demonstrate the nature of the Classical Greco-Roman world into which Paul advanced the Gospel, but care should be given about embracing all of the interpretations of the Bible offered within it.
    • 5/5
      The Greco-Roman society painted by Sara Ruden is brutal and inhuman. Naked prostitutes paraded on busy streets by their pimps and the popularity of slaves dedicated to protecting citizens’ sons from random sodomy are just a few of the most striking images Ruden says were common in the first century Mediterranean world. Her picture of Greek and Roman mores would be dismissible, if not for her credentials and ample primary source quotes. As a Harvard-educated current Yale classicist, Ruden cross references the text of Paul most difficult to modern readers (women, sexuality, slavery, government, and love) with many polytheistic writers who were contemporaries with Paul. What arises out of this is a portrait of the apostle who was ruthlessly antagonistic, not towards Greco-Roman culture as a whole, but any aspect of that culture which dehumanized people. Through Ruden’s lens, Paul’s stances on women and gays, for example, are not pietistic stances held to retain Jewish tradition, but counter-cultural positions seeking to treat all people with dignity and respect.