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Fall 2001 Mini-Course

Rescuing Paul

Presented by
Janis L. Koch

In the history of Christianity and Christian scholarship, Paul of Tarsus has been the subject of no less interest than Jesus of Nazareth. For the past two thousand years, most Christians and many Jews have understood Paul to have been a Jew who, following a startling reve-lation of Jesus Christ, renounced his ancestral religion, attacked the validity of the Mosaic Law, insisted on justification through faith in Christ, and ultimately be-came the "founder" of Christianity. Paul's letters were incorporated into the New Testament, and the precepts found in them were woven into the fabric of Christian theology and dogma. Unfortunately, Christians also em-ployed "Pauline" theology in the service of slavery, second-class citizenship for women, and a theological anti-Judaism that helped to lay the foundations on which the Nazi death camps were built.

But is this understanding of Paul and his theology accurate? Is this fire-breathing convert to Christianity the real Paul? Is Paul the author of an ultimately tri-umphalistic theology or the victim of two thousand years of exegetical abuse? In the past several decades there have been exciting developments in Pauline studies. While many scholars have continued to repackage differ-ent versions of the pro-slavery, misogynous, and/or anti-Judaic Paul, the Paul now emerging in a number of studies is quite different from the Paul that dominates most of the Christian, and Jewish, tradition. A far more widespread understanding of this "new" Paul is vitally important, both for the health of Christianity and for the advancement of Jewish-Christian relations.

In the fall of 2001, the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies presented a mini-course called Rescuing Paul. This course, which was taught by Janis L. Koch, was de-signed to introduce the "new" Paul to Christians and Jews who may or may not have been familiar with the "old" Paul. Leader and participants together searched for the man behind the myth in the Pauline letters and in the Acts of the Apostles; redefined some central Pauline concepts -- gospel, law, faith, righteousness -- in the light of the discoveries of recent scholarship; applied those findings to a reading of the first three chapters of Paul's most important epistle, the Letter to the Romans; and examined some of the implications of the study for Christianity and Judaism.

Because of the positive reception of this mini-course, the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies is making plans to offer it again soon.

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