The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship
Overview
Ronald Hock focuses on the apostle Paul and his work within the social and intellectual context of the Greek East of the early Roman Empire. He discusses the New Testament evidence concerning tentmaking in relation to Paul's life as an apostle of Christ. Relevant literary and nonliterary texts from outside the New Testament add detail to a picture of ancient society and open new areas for study. The author describes the typical experiences that arose from such a way of life–traveling, the tentmaking trade, the missionary use of the workshop, attitudes toward work, and Paul's own reflections on the significance of his tentmaking for the apostolic self-understanding.
- Bibliographical references
- Indexes
Top Highlights
“Therefore, Paul’s missionary instructions—namely, to stand aloof from public life and to work at a suitable occupation—should be regarded, not as expressing a Jewish regard for the value of toil, or as arising from ecclesiological problems due to eschatology or even as representing ‘workshop morality,’197 but as reflecting Paul’s clear familiarity with the moral traditions of the Greco-Roman philosophers.” (Page 47)
“For Deissmann, Paul is simply a traveling tentmaker whose movements went unnoticed by the intellectuals of the day (pp. 74, 224) but whose message, expressed in metaphors taken from daily life, found a ready audience among the simple classes of the urban poor (pp. 166–76).” (Page 14)
“Nevertheless, Plutarch’s statements allow us to assume that in Paul’s day the workshop was one conventional social setting for intellectual activity.” (Page 39)
“The first aim is critical, that is, to discuss and assess what has been said regarding Paul’s tentmaking: whether Paul’s trade involved weaving or leatherworking, whether Paul’s having a trade was due to his following a rabbinic practice, and whether Paul’s views on work were similar to Jewish views and divergent from Greco-Roman ones. The second and more important aim is constructive, that is, to identify and discuss as many aspects of Paul’s trade as possible: his experiences as an apprentice, his skills as a leatherworker, his daily life as a traveling artisan-missionary, to name just a few.” (Page 16)
“In 19:12, the third passage, Christians are found in Paul’s Ephesian workshop, though only to carry away his aprons and handkerchiefs for their healing properties.164 In any case, these passages, even if they do not explicitly assign Paul’s missionary activity to the workshop, at least allow for such a use of the workshop and so make plausible the claim that Paul, like some Cynic philosophers, made the workshop a social setting for his missionary efforts.” (Page 42)
This book is adequately researched and documented for its scope…. If the argument presented here is essentially correct, it provides socioeconomic anchorholds for many of the puzzling attitudes expressed by Paul about himself, his work, and his relationship to the communities of his mission.
—The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Paul's choice of tentmaking was, Hock argues, not simply a response to the rabbinic ideal of study of Torah combined with labor; it was a conscious act to guard against any possible implication that he was an apostle for gain…. This book adds a needed dimension to our understanding of Paul.
—The Christian Century
Scholars and lay readers alike will find valuable information and insights in this ground-breaking investigation of Paul's tentmaking.
—Journal of Biblical Literature
- Title: The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship
- Author: Ronald F. Hock
- Publisher: Fortress Press
- Publication Date: 2007
- Pages: 114