My talk on the apostle Paul is based on the book Paul: The Mind of the Apostle by A.N. Wilson and In Search of Paul by John Dominick Crossan, as well as the New Testament book of Acts and the epistles of Paul to the churches he founded. These letters in fact are the earliest writings of the New Testament, the Gospels having been written many years later.
Paul's original interest in Christianity was in wiping it out. In fact, Wilson speculates that Paul may have been one of the Temple policemen who arrested Jesus and turned him over to the Romans for crucifixion. However, this scourge of Christians underwent a conversion experience while on the road to Damascus to root out members of this heretical sect and became, perhaps more than Jesus himself, the founder of Christianity.
Christianity, at the time of Paul's conversion was a minor Jewish sect that might well have died out. His energy, dedication, and daring transformed it into a movement that transcended its origins to become first an object of Roman persecution, and later the official religion of the Empire.
Generally Paul has always had a rather unfavorable reputation among religious liberals. Among other things, Paul has been accused of homophobia, misogyny, being an apologist for slavery and something of a toady to the oppressive Roman Empire. Although it seems clear to me that Paul was certainly nothing like a twenty-first century Unitarian Universalist, I think he has been given a bum rap.
It is true that Paul consistently condemned homosexual behavior, particularly in 1 Corinthians and Romans. Some of Paul's modern critics have speculated that he was himself a repressed homosexual. It's possible that he was, of course, but there's really no convincing evidence of that. Others have gone way around Robin Hood's barn trying to explain that Paul was really talking about some form of sexual exploitation or involvement in pagan religion.
I think the answer to Paul's objection to same-sex pairings is much simpler: Paul was a first century Jew, and as such had been taught from an early age that homosexual acts were, without exception, an abomination in the eyes of God. He had never been shown any reason to change his views, nor did he have any reason to believe that sexual orientation was anything but a matter of choice.
Paul was, however, and despite what you may have heard, surprisingly liberal in other areas, particularly in regard to the worth and dignity of women, especially considering that their status, among Romans and Jews alike was not much higher than that of domestic animals.
In 1906, high in the mountains of Turkey, above the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus, a small cave was discovered which had been cut into the rock and had been used as a place of worship sometime around the sixth century. On a wall of the cave is a Byzantine fresco of two figures--Paul and a woman named Thecla. They are about the same size, both facing the viewer and are both hold their right hands in a teaching gesture. The difference is that the figure of Paul is intact, but Thecla's eyes are scratched out and her hand is burned away. A photograph of this picture is shown in the preface of Crossan's book on page xiii.
Obviously, the painting is intended to represent not only the equality of Paul and Thecla, but that of men and women in general, as was believed by Christians at the time the painting was made. The defacement is obviously not an act of random vandalism, nor was it an attack on Christianity as such, for the figure of Paul is undamaged and Thecla is not destroyed, but only treated in such a way as to deprive her of power and authority.
The reason you've probably never heard of Thecla is fairly obvious--the place given to women in Christianity changed fairly early in is history. What may be a little harder to understand is why Paul would defy Jewish and Roman custom by declaring them equal to men in the first place.
This most likely because Jesus set the example by taking women seriously and refusing to consider them as less worthy than men. The account of his stopping the mob from stoning the woman taken in adultery by challenging whoever was without sin to cast the first stone is an example, implying that she was as deserving of forgiveness as any of the men, and therefore not to be valued any less. It's also likely that women played an important part in the ministry of Jesus, but that's another story. In any case, Paul's liberal attitude toward women served him well in his evangelical career. How this worked will take a little explaining.
Paul, in his missionary enterprise, would speak at the synagogues where and whenever he got a chance. The people in attendance included those who were born into Judaism, those who had converted to Judaism, and pagans who were attracted to Jewish monotheism but were unwilling to make the commitment to becoming full Jews. Their reluctance was not without good reason. The men, in order to be accepted, would have to undergo the pain of circumcision and deal with the risk of infection and possible death by blood poisoning. And all converts would have to get used to observing all the daily ritual of Judaism and would have to obey all the dietary laws of the Torah, which would be very difficult for anyone not born and raised Jewish. So, the circumcision requirement kept as lot of men and couples halfway between Judaism and paganism, and the fact that Judaism didn't esteem women any more than Roman culture kept it from seeming worth the effort of conversion to most single ladies.
Then there was the fact that the Pharisees, who dominated Jewish theology in the first century didn't offer much hope of an afterlife to the God-worshipers. Their view was that God might resurrect some Jews who were very observant of the Torah in all details, but surely none who were the least bit careless, and certainly no half-Jews.
Then came Paul.
The apostle offered these pagan-Jews full membership in the Kingdom of Heaven without the circumcision requirement or the daunting daily task of following the Torah. Paul's focus was on being of one mind in Christ through following the spirit, but not necessarily the letter of the law. Furthermore, Paul promised that Jesus would be returning soon to resurrect the Christian dead and transform the living into spiritual beings with imperishable bodies. In addition, and perhaps most importantly to his success, Paul declared that in Christ, there was no division between slave and free or male and female.
Paul practiced what he preached throughout his ministry, and although what he said about women, seemed dangerously radical to many Romans and Jews, it won him favor with some well-to-do women, Lydia of Philippi for example. She was a dealer in purple cloth who was so taken with Paul's teachings that she not only became his first European convert, but allowed her house to be used as a church, where she presided over meetings.
Paul probably had a similar arrangement with Priscilla of Corinth, and it's worth noting that in the section of the epistle to the Corinthians where Paul salutes important people in the church, he greets Priscilla and her husband, Aquilla, but mentions her name first.
And then there is Phoebe, who carried Paul's epistle to the Romans to that church. Here are Paul's words: "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon in our church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the name of the Lord as is fitting for saints and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many, and of myself as well."
Phoebe was obviously not just a messenger girl who was sent to Rome to drop off a letter. Since the great majority of Mediterranean people in the first century were illiterate, It seems quite likely that no one in the church could read or write. So it would have been her task to read the epistle to the congregation, explain it, and then to answer questions.
Now, we may ask whether this could possibly be the man who commanded women to be silent in church and forbade them to preach, teach, or have authority over men. The answer is fairly simple: No, it is not.
There are seven epistles that scholars agree are the authentic works of Paul: Romans, first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, first Thessalonians, and Philemon. Most Bible scholars ( at least those with no doctrinal axe to grind ) agree that the other six, Ephesians, Colossians, Second Thessalonians, first and second Timothy, and Titus, are pseudo Paul works written many years later.
The reason scholars have decided these works are not the real Paul has to do not only with historical inaccuracies and differences in style and diction. There is also the fact that Bible authors have long been known to anonymously edit and add to the works of other writers, (e.g. Genesis, Isaiah, Job) and because of some stark, staring contradictions between these works and the genuine epistles of Paul.
Their purpose appears to be not only to supplement what Paul had said, but also to correct him and bring him into line with acceptable Roman custom and belief. There was also the need to deal with the fact that since a great deal of time had passed and Jesus had not returned to Earth to judge the quick and the dead, Christianity would need to reorganize for the long haul if it was to survive.
The authentic letters are written in the expectancy that Christ would be returning soon and therefore there would be no reason for Christians to marry or to beget children. In fact, although Paul grudgingly allowed marriage as being allowable to prevent burning with passion, he made it clear that celibacy was a preferred state and said that virginity was the superior condition.
Obviously, celibacy would have to de-emphasized if Christianity was to last, and there would have to be some allowance for family values compatible with Roman standards. Also, the role of women in the Christian church would have to change, and Paul's stand on slavery would have to be softened.
In the light of Paul's expectation of Christ's imminent return, there would be no need for more than a loose sort of organizational structure in the churches. However, in the pseudo-Paul epistles of first and second Timothy and the epistle to Titus, it is carefully spelled out that deacons, elders, and bishops must be married men who manage their households well and have children which they teach to be submissive to authority - in other words, the very model of good Roman citizens.
In addition to that, Paul had previously made it clear that there was no division between slave and free in Christ,. In fact, he had written the epistle to Philemon solely to persuade the Christian master of a Christian slave to set him free. Yet Colossians addresses Christians by telling slaves to obey their masters and masters to be kind to their slaves, thus legitimizing Christian slavery accommodating the social structure of imperial Rome.
Despite the fact that Lydia of Philippi had contributed her house and presided over meetings, and Phoebe had read and explained the epistle to the Romans to that church, First Timothy contains instructions that women should be silent in church and should never teach have authority over men. Further, in direct contradiction to Paul's thoughts on the value of celibacy and his certainty of Christ's imminent return, verse 2:15 states that the way for women to achieve salvation is through childbearing.
Also there is an insertion into the fourteenth chapter of first Corinthians stating that women should be silent and submissive in church and ask their husbands at home if they wish to know anything. This statement is so different in style and so contradictory in content to the rest of the epistle that the translators of the NRSV have placed it in parenthesis.
The very fact that such statements are made seems to indicate that women were, indeed, participating in congregational leadership in the churches Paul had founded. After all there would be no need to prohibit things so unheard of in Roman society if they were not already being done.
A problem that even these revisionist writers couldn't deal with, however, was the matter of the conflict between Christian eschatology and Roman theo-politics. From the first century to the early fourth, the Roman emperor was officially a god and a savior - the very role that Christianity gave to Jesus.
In the Roman scheme of things, as well as in of Paul's Christianity, the goal to be attained was peace, which would be brought into reality by a savior. For the Romans, peace would come through victory, that is, when Rome finally achieved world domination and everyone obeyed the Emperor, peace would reign. Furthermore, crops would not fail, bears and lions would become gentle, goats would come to be milked voluntarily, and sheep would grow colored wool. In other words, it was a utopian view similar to that of the Psalms that had the lion lying down by the lamb and the bear eating grass.
In Paul's view, peace would come when Christ returned create a new world for the righteous. The difference was that the path to peace and the ideal world would be brought about not by victory, but by justice.
The justice spoken of would be more distributive than retributive. Christ would forgive, but Christians were required to forgive and love one another rather than demanding punishment for wrongdoers., and all Christians would treat one another as equals.
The Pauline insistence that Christ, not Caesar, was the savior, brought persecution for Christians up till the end of the era of God-Emperors, after which Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century following the council of Nicaea. At this time, theological and political difficulties were worked out and hierarchical structures and dogmas adopted. Christianity had now been transformed from an apocalyptic movement into a permanent institution.
However, there was quite a lot lost from Christianity as Paul had envisioned it. The idea that women were equal to men was gone, along with the establishment of Roman family values as Christian. Also, the belief in equality of believers regardless of origin had disappeared, and slavery was now just as acceptable among Christians as with other Romans.
And, of course, the idea that peace is something to be achieved through victory has prevailed long after the era of God-emperors. Even in modern times, almost every war fought has been undertaken in the hope of ending war. As our president has so eloquently expressed it, " The reason to fight a war is to win a war so there won't be any more war."
I don't have to point out that "victory, then peace " model has failed repeatedly, but continues to be accepted by western civilization, while the notion of peace through justice has never been seriously tried.
Perhaps it seems ironic that Unitarian-Universalists of the present era , in many ways have more in common with the apostle Paul than traditional Christians who appear to be more in tune with the Roman model.
In closing, I think it's worth mentioning that Paul was beaten, whipped, and imprisoned many times in his missionary career, but never dissuaded or discouraged. There are no reliable historical accounts of how his life ended. All that's known is that he was sent to Rome to face the God-emperor Nero by Paul's own request on unspecified charges and that he stayed there for at least two years.
Whether he was exonerated or executed by Nero, we should remember that today, people of Western civilization name their dogs Nero and their son Paul.