April 20th

Posted on April 17, 2006

We'll be reading accounts by St. Paul (his letter to the Galatians) and accounts where Paul is the main character (in Acts of the Apostles). In read his writing, we'll will continue to consider early Christian notions of resurrection (and Paul's way is but one particular way of translating the notion of the "living Jesus" or the post-Easter Jesus as a dynamic presence into a specific concept). Although Paul was Jewish (a Pharisee), he became the great missionary to the gentiles, and this is the central focus of Luke's account in Acts.

So the first half of class will be on Paul's ideas (mainly)--we'll look at some texts that are not assigned reading, like Philippians chapter 2--to get a sense of the range of Paul's thought. (Paul was, among other things, the first theologian of Christianity.)

In the second half of class, we'll talk about the spread of the ideas and beliefs of the Jesus or kingdom movement, first to Jewish communities and then to Greco-Roman gentile communities. We'll consider some of the major topics addressed by Luke in Acts, but we'll also contrast Crossan's views to those of Paula Fredriksen (we'll be reading a piece--on electronic reserve--from her Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews).

One thing to pay special attention to. Luke addresses Paul's moment of conversion (his famous vision on the Road to Damascus) on three different occasions in Acts (chapters 9, 22, 26). Think about these in relation to Paul's own accounts (in Galatians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15). What sort of accounts are we getting here? What is literal and what is symbolic?

For a great image, see Caravaggio's famous painting: