Below are extracts from The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon, Kindle Edition by Marcus J. Borg (Author), John Dominic Crossan (Author).
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Our second foundational concept is also shared in common with mainstream scholarship. It is the basis of all historical study of ancient texts, namely, the importance of setting texts within historical context. What was going on at the time? What were the circumstances that the author addressed? What did the author’s words and allusions mean in their ancient historical and literary setting? Without context, one can imagine that a text means almost anything.
The context of Paul’s letters involves a set of concentric circles.
- The center circle is the context of the communities to which he wrote. This is set within and surrounded by
- the context of the early Jesus movement, which is set within
- the context of Judaism, which is set within
- the context of the Roman Empire.
His letters were written to people he knew, and for the most part they addressed questions or problems that had arisen in these communities in his absence. They are “conversations in context,” to use a phrase from the contemporary Paul scholar Calvin Roetzel, conversations in the context of Paul’s relationship to these communities. To understand them requires setting them in the context of this conversation.
The second concentric context is the early Jesus movement, a phrase commonly used by scholars to name the followers of Jesus in the first decades after his death. The use of this phrase recognizes that calling them “Christians,” as if they had become members of a new religion distinct from Judaism, is anachronistic. According to Acts 9:2, they were known as followers of “the Way,” the way of Jesus.
The third concentric contextual circle is first-century Judaism. Like Jesus, Paul was passionately Jewish. Jewish scripture (for Christians, the Old Testament) and Jewish practice shaped his life and thought, both before and after he became a follower of Jesus. Indeed, to the end of his life, Paul thought of himself as Jewish, not as having converted to a new religion. Without an understanding of Paul’s Jewish context, much in his letters is opaque.
The fourth concentric contextual circle is the Roman Empire. Though it is not more important than the other circles, it is the largest and most comprehensive context. Paul and all of his communities lived under Roman rule. This matters not simply as information about Paul’s time and place. Rather, it matters because Roman rule was legitimated by an imperial theology that proclaimed that the emperor was the Son of God, Lord, Savior of the World, and the one who had brought peace on earth. It also proclaimed, as we will see especially in Chapter 4, that peace and justice came through military victory and imperial order.
For now, we simply note that Paul’s proclamation of Jesus as Son of God, Lord, and Savior directly countered Roman imperial theology. For Paul as a follower of Jesus, God as known in Jesus was Lord, and the emperor was not. In this context, Paul’s most concise affirmation about Jesus—“Jesus is Lord”—was high treason. It is not surprising that Paul, like Jesus, was eventually executed by Rome.
Borg, Marcus J.; Crossan, John Dominic. The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon (pp. 16-19). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
