What role did offers of physical healing (or the hope of receiving it) play in the missionary program of the apostle Paul? What did he do to treat the many illnesses and injuries that he endured while pursuing his mission? What did he advise his followers to do regarding their health problems? Questions like these have been broadly neglected in studies of Paul and his churches, but they become pressing once we recognize how fully “pagan” religion was implicated in all aspects of Greco-Roman health care. What did Paul approve and what did he reject?Given Paul’s silence on these subjects, this book relies on a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach to develop informed judgments about what Paul might have thought, said, and done with regard to his own and his followers’ health care. The first six chapters explore the nature and extent of sickness in the Roman world and the four overlapping health care systems that were available to Paul and his followers: home remedies, “magical” treatments, religious healing, and medical care. The next two chapters examine how Judeans and Christians in the centuries before and after Paul viewed and engaged with these systems. The last two chapters use this information to speculate on what kinds of treatments Paul might have approved or rejected and whether he used healing to attract people to his movement. The result is a thorough and nuanced analysis of a key dimension of Greco-Roman social life and Paul’s place within it.

Paul and Asklepios: The Greco-Roman Quest for Healing and the Apostolic Mission PDF

The list of books you might like