09 — Historical Questions and Reception
An honest inventory of the critical questions that gather around Paul, and the long history of his reception. The first file collects the major historical and scholarly disputes — chronology, the authenticity of the letters, the “New Perspective,” Paul and the historical Jesus, the charge that Paul was the “second founder” of Christianity — and states the state of the evidence on each. The second traces the reception of Paul from Marcion and the Fathers through the medieval and Reformation reorientations to the modern recovery.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)
Paul is at once the best-documented and the most contested of the apostles, and intellectual honesty requires that the disputes be gathered and named rather than smoothed over. This section does two things. It assembles the critical questions — many treated in detail in earlier sections (chronology in §03, authenticity in §04, the New Perspective in §05) — into a single honest overview, adding those not treated elsewhere, such as the relation of Paul to the historical Jesus and the recurring charge that Paul corrupted or re-founded the original gospel. And it traces the reception of Paul: the early struggle over his legacy (Marcion’s appropriation and the Church’s response), the patristic recovery, the towering influence on Augustine and the Latin West, the Reformation’s re-centering of Paul, and the modern scholarly and Orthodox renewals. The aim throughout is fidelity to the Church’s confession of Paul as apostle and saint, combined with full honesty about the questions.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Critical Questions | The major historical and scholarly disputes gathered: chronology (Acts vs the letters), the authenticity of the disputed epistles, the “New Perspective,” Paul and the historical Jesus, the “second founder” charge, and Paul and Judaism — with the state of the evidence on each. |
| Reception and Legacy | The reception of Paul from the first century to the present: Marcion and the early contest over his legacy, the patristic recovery, Augustine and the Latin West, the Reformation, the modern scholarly turn, and the Orthodox reading throughout. |
See Also
- Acts and Pauline Chronology — the chronological disputes in detail
- The Disputed Letters and the Corpus — the authenticity questions in detail
- Grace and Righteousness — the New Perspective and the doctrine of justification
- The Church Fathers — the patristic reception of Paul
References
- Sanders, E. P. Paul and Palestinian Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.
- Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
- Wiles, Maurice F. The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St Paul’s Epistles in the Early Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.