Healing In The Pauline Epistles: Why The Silence? -- By: Eliezer Gonzalez

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 56:3 (Sep 2013)
Article: Healing In The Pauline Epistles: Why The Silence?
Author: Eliezer Gonzalez


Healing In The Pauline Epistles: Why The Silence?

Eliezer Gonzalez*

* Eliezer Gonzalez is affiliated with Macquarie University, Sydney and can be contacted at P.O. Box 457, Helensvale QLD 4212.

I. Introduction

It is significant that in Frederick Gaiser’s Healing in the Bible, healing in the Pauline churches receives only the briefest of mentions.1 Given Paul’s own relative silence on this matter, this is perhaps understandable. However, according to Luke’s representation of earliest Christianity in the Acts of the Apostles, after the person of Jesus Christ, Paul of Tarsus was the most prominent healer and miracle-worker in the NT.2 This apparent discrepancy has been highlighted by many scholars as one of the key indicators of the distance in both historical time and reliability between Paul and the author of Acts.3

Although the general question of how Paul is depicted in Acts, as opposed to in his own epistles, has been the subject of extensive scholarly debate, this essay will more specifically examine Paul’s healings in both sources. This will be done within the contexts of Paul’s literary purposes, his pneumatology and ecclesiology, and his own self-understanding as an apostle. Paul’s relative silence regarding his own healings may thereby be understood without having to assume a second-century date for Acts, or impugning Luke’s credentials as a historian.

II. A Schizophrenic Paul? The Paul Of Acts And The Paul Of The Epistles

Gasque observes that “there is no general agreement among scholars on even the most basic issues of Lucan research.”4 The very reliability of Acts as a historical document has been a contentious issue since the work of F. C. Baur and the Tübingen School in the nineteenth century.5 Vielhauer represents the author of Acts as being post-Pauline, and having a connection with Paul consisting principally in veneration of the legend. Acts is characterised by its “obvious material distance … temporal distance … [and a] distinctive theological viewpoint.”6 Haenchen, espousing a similar view, writes: “[w]e need have no qualms about letting this truth be the last word.”7

However, contrary to this, the view that Acts can be read as reliable history, and that its portrait of Paul is essen...

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