This book is a meditation on Paul's letter to the church in Galatia with the purpose of reclaiming Paul for those of faith who have grown tired of thinking that Christians are the people who draw lines, make distinctions, and police religious borders. This book is an attempt to reclaim the vision of Paul that is beyond Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female: the new creation. Ultimately, the vision of Paul was not Paul's vision, but God's vision of the cosmos. As readers reclaim this vision of a new creation, they begin to reclaim God's new creation experienced in our lives and within the world around us. God, as the grand creator of the cosmos, is attempting to inject the same creative process into the cosmos through humans. Rather than simply seeing humans as the destroyers of the cosmos, Barrier invites us to consider this beautiful thought: "The earth could be renewed daily by . . . humanity.
Sometime in the second century, an early Christian text began to circulate called the Acts of Paul and Thecla . Since then, the tale of the apostle Paul, along with his strong heroine co-worker named Thecla, has received much attention as an independent source of information about earliest Christianity for what it might tell us about the role of women in ministry and the relationship women may have had to Paul in his missionary activities. In this volume, Jeremy W. Barrier provides a critical introduction and commentary on the Acts of Paul and Thecla, to serve as a user-friendly starting point for anyone interested in entering into the many discussions and academic writings surrounding the Acts of Paul and Thecla . Apart from a critical text with English translation, followed by textual notes and general comments, the author also offers an extensive introduction to the text.
Sometime in the second century, an early Christian text began to circulate called the Acts of Paul and Thecla . Since then, the tale of the apostle Paul, along with his strong heroine co-worker named Thecla, has received much attention as an independent source of information about earliest Christianity for what it might tell us about the role of women in ministry and the relationship women may have had to Paul in his missionary activities. In this volume, Jeremy W. Barrier provides a critical introduction and commentary on the Acts of Paul and Thecla, to serve as a user-friendly starting point for anyone interested in entering into the many discussions and academic writings surrounding the Acts of Paul and Thecla . Apart from a critical text with English translation, followed by textual notes and general comments, the author also offers an extensive introduction to the text.
This book is a meditation on Paul's letter to the church in Galatia with the purpose of reclaiming Paul for those of faith who have grown tired of thinking that Christians are the people who draw lines, make distinctions, and police religious borders. This book is an attempt to reclaim the vision of Paul that is beyond Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female: the new creation. Ultimately, the vision of Paul was not Paul's vision, but God's vision of the cosmos. As readers reclaim this vision of a new creation, they begin to reclaim God's new creation experienced in our lives and within the world around us. God, as the grand creator of the cosmos, is attempting to inject the same creative process into the cosmos through humans. Rather than simply seeing humans as the destroyers of the cosmos, Barrier invites us to consider this beautiful thought: "The earth could be renewed daily by . . . humanity.
Approximately 2,000 years ago, some Jewish communities of Galatia in central Asia Minor believed they had fallen under a curse, argues Jeremy Wade Barrier. A fellow Jew named Paul wrote the letter we call Galatians to help them escape its effects. In the letter, Barrier argues, Paul called for the Jews in Galatia to stop practicing circumcision. The rite had fallen into disuse within many Jewish communities in the Roman Empire, but Barrier argues the Galatian Jews believed it was a talisman that would protect them from harm. As a further precaution, they needed to deal with the person who had brought this evil to their community. A witch hunt was underway, and some had concluded that the witch was none other than Paul. Barrier provides a reconstruction of the original occasion of Paul’s letter to the Galatians and shows how Paul defended himself from accusations of witchcraft by countering that the ritual that would protect them from the “Evil Eye” was not circumcision, but rather baptism. Through the ritual of baptism, they could receive healing from a material, yet divine, “breath” of God. Barrier also reconstructs an earlier understanding of this pneuma that was lost to subsequent Christianity under the influence of Neoplatonism.
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