The writings of the Apostle Paul are the dividing point between the pagan world and the modern world. I have met many saying the pagan world is more desirable than the modern western world. These same people claim to be about equality, anti-slavery, women’s freedom, and a whole host of other behaviors they hold dear.
None of those things existed in the pagan world. It was a brutal world of slavery, pedophilia, rape as acceptable behavior, no romantic love, no individual liberty for the common man, and women’s only purpose was sexual gratification and to have babies. The babies had to be healthy, and of the gender desired, or were left outside the city to die.
In a book by Sarah Ruden, Paul Among the People, The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time, Ruden uses the literature of the time to recreate the world that existed at the time he wrote. I had, like many Christians, some problems with some things he wrote, especially about homosexuality, women, and marriage. I came away with a much better understanding of the times and his writing.
Our view of history is usually tempocentric, looking back in time through our modern sensibilities.
When Paul was writing about homosexuality, he was writing about something quite different from the consensual sex we think of now. To the ancient mind, there really was no identification of homosexual persons, and what Paul was addressing was heterosexual persons engaging in homosexual sex. Most of the world’s population were slaves, and what Paul saw happening were men engaging in sex with little boys. Ruden, who reads and translates the ancient writers in their own language, writes that such behavior was perfectly acceptable, but not among the Jews. Masculinity was shown by sexually exploiting little boys. When Paul writes about homosexuality, this is what his concern was; the rape and exploitation, the de-humanizing of others.
Women were barely recognized as human; really there was no word at that time of the equivalent of ‘woman’. There were just terms for them according to class or status, such as ‘female slave’, ‘lady’, ‘matron’. Paul seems to adhere to this when he writes that women should be covered and not speak in the church. Women at the time were not to speak in public assemblies, and a truer translation of what Paul wrote, is from the Greek word “ekkleisa”, which is a male only public assembly. Paul also wrote that women prayed and prophesied in these gatherings. In the pagan world that simply wasn’t allowed; that it was allowed in the early church is revolutionary. He wrote too that women should be veiled, and this is seen as demeaning though our modern eyes. What it meant then was the distinction between a married or widowed woman (veiled) and a slave or prostitute (unveiled). Ruden points out Paul's wanting all Christian women to be covered made them all equal, regardless of their past or status.
Paul revolutionized romantic love and marriage. His writings broke the barrier down regarding arranged marriage; essentially sexual enslavement. Once again, like he did with homosexual pedophilia, this was about equality and breaking the bonds of slavery. He did the same with adultery. He uses the word “porneia” for sexual immorality. In marriage, he writes, sexual activity outside marriage, for both the man and the woman, is an act to be loathed. He was about relationships, that becoming one flesh, happiness could be achieved, and spiritual life could expand beyond anything conceived before. Love is selfless, something not even on the radar before Paul.
There is much in this rich book, and I highly recommend it if you’re at all interested in understanding ancient times and Paul’s epistles. (It’s in my Amazon widget of recommended books in the right hand column.) What did Paul mean when writing about submitting to government authorities, when at the same time was spending so much time in jail because of his so often rebelling against the State? Ruden addresses a lot of issues that are seemingly at odds with what we think of when we think of Christianity. This book increased my knowledge and my faith.
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