APOSTLE PAUL, RE-IMAGINED

Everyone has a strong reaction to the Apostle Paul.


My triple great grandfather Joshua Flood (1772-1850) admired him. Grandfather Joshua also admired Andrew Jackson. Josh Flood, who worked slaves and would be counted by anyone as among the truest and simplest backwoods Baptists, believed everything came down to this: each wretch must come to Jesus.

How does Saint Paul fit into Joshua Flood’s view of this world, a world that included the embrace of human slavery, the rejection of indoor cooking, and the categorical refusal to allow mules on his farm in Shelby County, Kentucky in the first five decades of the nineteenth century?

It would not be difficult to conclude, at the present moment, that Joshua Flood simply misread his favorite Apostle. But I doubt if you could get away with that in a conversation with old Joshua, or with his Huguenot wife Mary (Marie) Bondurant (1782-1863). I doubt if you could set the parameters of that conversation in a way that would require old Joshua to see what you see, in Paul.

Context makes a difference, no?

Who is the Apostle Paul?  Well, that depends. Are we talking about yesterday or today? And which yesterday and which today do we have in mind?

Brigitte Kahl, professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary, New York, has published her take on the Apostle, in a book entitled Galatians Re-Imagined: Reading with the Eyes of the Vanquished (Fortress 2010).

What follows here (and in subsequent posts) is going to be my take on Kahl’s take on Paul’s letter, found in the New testament and there entitled, Galatians.

I have not read Kahl’s book. I am reading it. I will post my reactions and comments as I work through her book.

Comments are welcome.