And he saw Paul coming, a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel.15
We have no reason to believe this account is based on any historical recollection since The Acts of Paul and Thecla as a whole shows no trace of earlier sources or historical reference points. The somewhat unflattering portrait most likely stemmed from allusions in Paul’s letters to his “bodily presence” being unimpressive and the subject of scorn, whereas his followers received him as an angel (2 Corinthians 10:10; Galatians 4:13–14).
It might come as a surprise, but outside our New Testament records we have very little additional historical information about Paul other than the valuable tradition that Jerome preserves for us that he was born in Galilee. The early Christian writers of the second century (usually referred to as the “Apostolic Fathers”) mention his name fewer than a dozen times, holding him up as an example of heroic faith, but they relate nothing of historical interest. For example, Ignatius, the early-second-century bishop of Antioch, writes: “For neither I nor anyone like me can keep pace with the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who, when he was among you in the presence of the men of that time, accurately and reliably taught the word concerning the truth.”16 Some of the second- and third-century Christian writers know the tradition that both Peter and Paul ended up in Rome and were martyred during the reign of the emperor Nero—Paul was beheaded and Peter was crucified.17 The apocryphal Acts of Peter, an extravagantly legendary account dating to the third or fourth century A.D., explains that Peter insisted on being crucified upside down so as to show his unworthiness to die in the same manner as Jesus.18
Ironically, it seems that we moderns, using our tools of critical historical research, are in a better position than the Christians of the second and third centuries to recover a more authentic Paul.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My work on Paul and his pivotal role in the development of Christianity has now spanned more than four decades, leaving me indebted to countless teachers, students, and colleagues. I want to acknowledge my first teacher of Paul, the incomparable Abraham J. Malherbe, now a retired professor at Yale University, whom I first encountered at Abilene Christian College when I was a freshman in 1963. Malherbe, freshly come to us from Harvard, taught an entire course on the letter of 1 Thessalonians, and his impeccable guidance was my first taste of the academic study of Paul. A decade later, at the University of Chicago, I came under the spell of the young Jonathan Z. Smith, who opened for me the wider world of Hellenistic religions in the ancient Mediterranean world. I was a student of Christian origins but Smith showed me I had missed the forest for the trees in focusing almost entirely on the New Testament writings. My world was transformed as I began to understand the wider context in which Christianity grew and developed. I was honored as well as sobered to have Smith agree to guide me in my Ph.D. dissertation on Paul’s mystical experiences. Working with this master teacher and scholar was a privilege but also a daunting challenge. The many hours he spent with me, patiently going through my early drafts of the dissertation chapters, are among the most treasured memories of my life. As I worked on the dissertation over the span of another decade I came to know Morton Smith of Columbia University, who graciously helped me with every aspect of my research on Paul. I will never forget the day he mailed me back an early draft of the dissertation with his annotations on every page, warning me with a phone call to be “sitting down” when I opened the package. His input was sharp and critical, but our dialogue over the course of two or three years contributed to my work in ways I could not have imagined.
My fellow students at Chicago, now lifelong colleagues, Eugene Gallagher, Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, Arthur Droge, and Naomi Janowitz encouraged my work on Paul all these years and were a major factor in urging me to write this book for a wider audience. Beyond these I must thank my thousands of students at three universities over the course of my thirty years of teaching. The courses I have regularly taught on John the Baptizer, Jesus, James, and Paul have continued to shape my perspectives and never cease to fascinate my students as we “tinker with the foundations of Western civilization,” always asking—how did we get here from there?
I thank my wife, Lori, who professes to know little of Paul but loves to listen to my passionate discourses as I pace about the house. It seems the only way I can really talk of Paul is when I am walking back and forth, spouting out some new insight. Finally I give my sincere gratitude to my ever-patient children, Eve and Seth, who have spent the past two years watching me struggle with “the Paul book,” tolerating my hours away from the family far too many nights of a week.
Charlotte, North Carolina
November 29, 2010
© BRIAN D. JONES
JAMES D. TABOR is chair of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies from the University of Chicago and is an expert on Christian origins. He is the author of The Jesus Dynasty and author or co-author of several other books, among them The Jesus Discovery. In addition to his work as a historian, he has conducted field work in archeology at a number of sites in Israel and Jordan.
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