Interview: Part 1
William O. Walker
“Some Surprises from the Apostle Paul”
Ron Way:
Hello everyone. Welcome to another edition of AuthorTalk and Rising Light Media where we interview some of the most fascinating religious and spiritual authors in the world. Today our guest is William O. Walker. Dr. Walker has a PhD from Duke University, is a Professor Emeritus of Religion at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas. He's the author of several books about the gospels, Jesus, and Christian origins, and coauthor and editor of the HarperCollins Bible dictionary, which is really a classic. Lastly, he's a member of Westar Institute, which I also belong to, and is where I originally met him and gained a great deal of respect and admiration for him. Welcome to AuthorTalk, Bill. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to talk about your book entitled, Some Surprises About the Apostle Paul.
Bill Walker:
You're certainly welcome. I'm delighted to do this.
Ron Way:
If you're a Christian, then your faith has been touched by the Apostle Paul. Some call him the Founder of Christianity and even if that goes a bit afar, he certainly is the most important figure in the formation of the faith. Fully 2/3 of the writings of the New Testament were written by or about this man. Most Christians know little about this fascinating character. Our author, Bill Walker, knows a lot about this character, and he's going to walk us through a few of the most surprising things we all should know about this Apostle, who incidentally wrote his letters some 10 to 20 years before any gospel was written, at least the ones we have recorded.
Although he lived during the time of Jesus' life, he never knew Jesus personally. That's a surprise to many people. First of all Bill, we seem to read the letters of Paul, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Philippines, Romans, etc., as if he wrote them for us, today's Christians, but they weren't. Why don't you tell us about these letters. Just give us a background, give us a primer about why they were written, to whom they were written, and when they were written, before we hear about the surprises contained within them.
Bill Walker:
The letters were written probably during the decade of the 50s, about 20 years or so after the time of Jesus. They were written to young Christian communities, some of which Paul had founded. One at least of which he had never even visited. They were written to deal with the specific issues, questions, concerns, problems, that these early churches were facing. They were not written for us. They were written for people a long time ago who spoke a different language, who had a different world view, and so only indirectly do they address people living in the 20th century.
Ron Way:
Well, that's ... We don't really understand that today. We have gospel readings and we read letters of Paul, but what you say is true. It was a different world when he was writing. Explain what that really means for a modern-day person who hasn't studied the historical Jesus.
Bill Walker:
For me, one of the most interesting and important differences between our world and their world was identified in the mid-20th century by Rudolf Bultmann, the greatest New Testament scholar of that century. He called for what he called demythologizing the New Testament. He drew a distinction between what he called a mythological worldview and our modern scientific worldview. The major difference was that in a mythological worldview, there was room for supernatural intervention. Things that happened in the world could be caused directly by God, by Satan, by angels, by supernatural powers. In our world, we think of everything as having a natural cause. For example, if we were to read in the headline tomorrow that God smites Mexico City because of its sin with an earthquake, this would surprise us.
Ron Way:
Of course. It brings to mind the story in the Bible of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Bill Walker:
It wouldn’t have surprised people in the first century. To me, that's the biggest most important difference between our worldview and theirs.
Ron Way:
How does that affect Paul specifically? Can you bring that backwards to him?
Bill Walker:
Well, Paul was a part of that ancient worldview. He held a mythological worldview and so he expected God to directly intervene, to cause things to happen. He simply looked at things differently from the way we look at them.
Ron Way:
The only thing that comes to mind when you say that, is when he talks about having ... He doesn't use this word “vision.” For instance, on the way to Damascus, but that seems to have been only one of many visions that he had, because over the next decade he keeps talking about what God told him, and it couldn't have all been during that first encounter. Are you lumping that in with what you're saying is mythological?
Bill Walker:
Absolutely, yes. There are some real issues about what you call, the Damascus road experience. That's described three times in the book of Acts, but Paul never describes it in the letters that we have. He simply makes very sort of enigmatic statements like, "I saw the Lord.” “Have I not seen the Lord when God revealed His son to me?" Things of that sort.
Ron Way:
Isn't that the same thing as ... I mean, how you would describe it. How else would you describe a vision?
Bill Walker:
I'm not sure. I've never had one, so I'm not sure how I would describe it. My point though is that in the book of Acts we have a lot of detail about that Damascus road experience. Whereas, in Paul's letters he just very briefly alludes to it without giving any of the details.
Ron Way:
That's right, but it is a…
Bill Walker:
That raises a very important point about the book of Acts, which was written in the second century I think, a long time after Paul, and can really not be taken as straight history. It's loaded with theological agenda, apologetic agenda. It's not straight history.
Ron Way:
Right, and kind of diminishes Paul in the pecking order and puts Peter over him, where Paul will always tell you he's the number one Apostle.
Bill Walker:
Yeah. Actually, the book of Acts puts both James and Peter above Paul and in a way puts James above Peter.
Ron Way:
Right.
Bill Walker:
You're quite right. Acts, for example, only once does Acts ever refer to Paul as an Apostle and that's only in passing, and he and Barnabas together are referred to as Apostles.
Ron Way:
If I'm not mistaken, he lists Barnabas first.
Bill Walker:
Yes. Well, there are actually two versions there, and in one of them Paul's first, and in one of them, Barnabas is first. Again, my point is that in the book of Acts Paul is not really one of the head honchos in the early church.
Ron Way:
Which is why he was always fighting a rear-guard action with the church fathers sending out their representatives to the churches that Paul was dealing with.
Bill Walker:
Yes. Particularly, James. People were coming out representing James and challenging what Paul was doing.
Ron Way:
I want to get back to your book, because it's entitled Some Surprises from the Apostle Paul. Now, because Paul was a contemporary, he lived at the same time as Jesus, we assume that his teachings might be filled with the teachings of the historical Jesus, but they aren't. That seems troubling to me. After all, he knew at least two of the original disciples (or rather one disciple, Peter, and Jesus' brother, James, who was or was not officially an Apostle). Why didn't he talk about the Messiah that walked through Galilee and Judea and he came to worship? Wouldn't you think that he would've been full of stories to tell about this amazing teacher? Wouldn't you think that at least in a couple of letters that he would use a story from Jesus to instruct his followers?
Bill Walker:
Yes, you would think so, and this is one of the surprises. In fact, it's the first one I discuss in the book, that Paul has so very, very little to say about the life and teaching of the historical Jesus.
Various answers have been suggested as to why this might be the case. The most common is, he didn't need to talk about this because his readers already knew all about it. I don't find that convincing. They also knew about the crucifixion and resurrection, but he talked about those.
Ron Way:
I agree with you. It would've come up in a conversation some place.
Bill Walker:
You would think so. My own view is that, number one, Paul may not actually have known very much about the life and teaching of Jesus. As you have said, he didn't know Jesus personally, he had very little contact with Jesus' original followers, so he may not actually have known very much about it. I think the real reason may be that Paul was afraid that the teaching of Jesus and the example of Jesus might be turned into a new law, like the Jewish Torah, and he was afraid that people might have the idea that by following the teaching of Jesus they could thereby earn what he calls, "Justification," a right relationship with God. For Paul, that simply cannot be, because according to Paul, "Justification cannot be earned by anything people do, or say, or believe. Justification is a gift." I think this may be the main reason why Paul says so little about the historical Jesus.
Ron Way:
Well, that just seems incongruous. If he says that he met Jesus in whatever we call it, a vision, or experiences of some kind, and he thinks he has a direct connection to him, the risen Jesus, you wouldn't expect that kind of a disconnect. I mean, here is the man that taught and then he becomes supernatural. Why wouldn't you proclaim that? I don't understand that rationale.
Bill Walker:
Well, I think the simple answer is we don't know why. We simply have the fact that he doesn't say hardly anything about the historical Jesus. I think he really was not interested in the historical Jesus, he was interested in the risen Christ.
Ron Way:
Well, I can understand that if he thinks he had this vision that was overwhelming. I mean, it had to be something powerful, because he left his whole life, and left it completely, to become a, what we later call, a Christian, a proclaimer of this master Jesus. It had to be a powerful experience.
Bill Walker:
Oh, absolutely. I think it was, but I don't think it necessarily included information about the teaching of the historical Jesus.
Ron Way:
Well, I'll have to let that go. You're going to have to read his whole explanation in the book folks, which is good.
Bill Walker:
Yeah and again, the bottom line is we don't really know why this is the case.
Ron Way:
Of course, of course. I understand that, Bill. Here's another thing… and folks, I'm walking you through this incredible book that William Walker wrote. It's written so easily for you and me. You don't have to be a scholar or anything. This is just fascinating historical work that Bill has done. If Paul was inspired, we would think that his message would be one and the same, now and forever, and he would stick to it. I mean, he would proclaim it as the truth, it's what he was told by God or Jesus and he said that he was more or less in constant touch through voices, or visions, or an awareness. Yet, he originally thought that Jesus was going to return within a few years—certainly within his lifetime. Then over a decade he changed and began to teach people that the resurrection was some time in the future, and he began to talk about himself having to be raised from the dead.
Bill Walker:
Yeah, yeah. I think Paul's thinking did develop. Inspiration is a slippery term. I'm not sure what we mean by it. Different people mean different things, but I think there's no question. Paul, like all of us, developed his thinking, perhaps changed his mind on some things, saw what he saw in a new light. And, on eschatology I think this is very clear that in his early letters he expected Jesus to return momentarily I would say. In his later letters, he is facing the fact that he himself may very well die before Jesus returns.
Ron Way:
Right.
Bill Walker:
In my chapter on eschatology, I discuss one possible theory as to what might have prompted this change in his thinking.
Ron Way:
Go ahead, tell us just briefly what do you think did.
Bill Walker:
Well, I think ... This is not original with me.
Ron Way:
Sure.
Bill Walker:
I think he had some kind of experience in Ephesus where he thought he was facing imminent death. He talks about fighting with beasts in Ephesus and there's been a lot of debate as to whether that's to be taken literally or figuratively. He also says that in Asia he despaired of life itself. I think there was something that happened in Ephesus that caused him to think he might be about to die and this made him rethink the relation between the return of Christ and his own death.
Ron Way:
He had been out collecting gold or money for the poor back in Jerusalem.
Bill Walker:
Right.
Ron Way:
This is before, right? I mean, his Ephesus example is before he came back to Jerusalem. Is that right?
Bill Walker:
If he did in fact come back to Jerusalem. According to the book of Acts, he did.
Ron Way:
Right.
Bill Walker:
In his letters we know he intended to. Now, whether he actually got back to Jerusalem, we can't be certain. This collection of money, this probably took place over a period of some time. Months perhaps, even a year or two. It's very difficult to get all the chronology straight on what happened before something else happened, but yeah, if he did get back to Jerusalem, this experience in Ephesus would've been prior to that.
Ron Way:
All right, but maybe I'm getting confused, because this mostly comes from Acts.
Bill Walker:
Right.
Ron Way:
That he was arrested in Jerusalem and then hauled back to Rome.
Bill Walker:
Right. According to Acts, yeah. We know in Paul's letter to Rome, he intended to go to Rome. Again, the author of Acts may have extrapolated from that and created the narrative about him going to Rome as a prisoner.
Ron Way:
Okay. Well, let me ask you another thing. Just kind of moving through some of these “Surprises” that we don't ... You can see that these lead me up-field, because I want to follow these loose strings everywhere.
Bill Walker:
Sure.
Ron Way:
It's not as black and white as you might think. If you just go to church and they say, "Okay. This is the word of God, and everything that you read is true, and everything that we see from the Apostle Paul in his letters are true." In fact, this is a good point. Tell us about those letters. Are they all Paul’s, really Paul's letters that are attributed to him?
Bill Walker:
No, I don't think so. I think only seven of them actually come from Paul. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, probably Ephesians, and Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians I think were all written by other people. They are what we call pseudonymous letters written under a false name.
Ron Way:
Forgeries.
Bill Walker:
Okay. Yeah, they're what we call pseudonymous letters. Then even within the seven that I think are from Paul, I think there are a number of what we call interpolations, later editions by people other than Paul. It's very difficult when we read the letters to know exactly what comes from Paul and what comes from other people.
Ron Way:
How do scholars try to discern which ones are originally Paul’s? I mean, doesn't Paul even mention forgeries? I apologize for not having this reference. I wasn't thinking about it ahead. Paul even mentions that there are fictitious letters and he says, "This is my real writing. You can see how big I write, so you know it's really from me." He even knows there's already fictitious letters out there.
Bill Walker:
Yeah, that's complicated though, because that's in 2 Thessalonians, which may in fact be one of the pseudonymous letters.
Ron Way:
Uh-oh.
Bill Walker:
It may be that the author of 2 Thessalonians is using this as a way of trying to put Paul's stamp on this letter.
Ron Way:
That's pretty subtle. That's very clever.
Bill Walker:
Yeah.
Ron Way:
Oh my gosh.
Bill Walker:
Yeah, but that's just a possibility. We can't be sure.
Ron Way:
Sure, sure.
Bill Walker:
Scholars debate this, which letters are and which are not authentic. The question of interpolations is very controversial. I published a book on this back in 2001 entitled Interpolations in the Pauline Letters, and I argued that there are a number of these, but there are very reputable scholars who simply don't agree with that. They're a couple of passages that almost everyone agrees are later editions. One is right at the end of Romans and the other is in 1 Corinthians 14, the infamous passage about women being silent in church.
Ron Way:
You know what, William? It is my job to watch the time and I told you that it was going to go really, really fast. We have run out of time and we have to end this session. Can I hold you over for just a few seconds? I'm going to record another session with you, because I've got more questions I have to ask you. Would that be all right?
Bill Walker:
Sure, sure.
Ron Way:
That's great. You just touched on one of those folks, about the women in the church, that they should be silent and ask their husbands if they need to know anything. Just ask your husband. I know, I've got five daughters and that doesn't sit well.
All right. Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately our time is up for this session. Here's the good news, William Walker has agreed to stay for another session, so next week, same time, same station, we're going to answer some more questions about the Apostle Paul. This is interesting stuff. I just can't let it go. Bill, so I'm going to say thank you so much for this first session. I appreciated you coming on to AuthorTalk and we're going to do another one for the next week's edition too, okay?
Bill Walker:
Thank you very much, I've enjoyed this.
Ron Way:
I want to tell our audience that if you click on the cover of the book on our website— you're on the website right now or you wouldn't be hearing me— or you could be on iTunes and downloading the podcast. Go to the website and when you get there you'll see a cover of William Walker's book. It's entitled, Some Surprises from the Apostle Paul. Simply just click on the cover of the book and you'll be taken to the publisher's page where you can order this book. It makes the history of our faith, and one of its most interesting figures that helped shape Christian faith to... It brings it to life Paul’s life when you read this book.
I want you to read it, because when you get into discussions in your church, you're going to sound so intelligent, because it's the historical truth. Our historians today are unlocking a whole new world of history so we can get closer to the original founding of our faith. Thank you so much William O. Walker for joining me today on AuthorTalk and Rising Light Media. Thank you for helping us become more fully informed about the character and the beginnings of Christianity. Thank you, William.
Bill Walker:
Thank you.
Ron Way:
All right folks, that's it for today. As usual, I'll be on next week same time, same place, and you can listen to part-two. Until then, I remain faithfully yours.
