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Was Paul a Bumpkin?

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I believe it was either Walter Kaufman or Joseph Campbell who described Paul as something of a "country bumpkin" who traveled from the backwaters of the Roman Empire to Greece and was left shocked and misunderstanding of the sophisticated culture and society he witnessed there.

For instance, the Athenians had an altar dedicated to "An Unknown God". The purpose of the altar was to provide a place of worship to people visiting Athens from foreign lands whose gods might not otherwise have temples in the city. But Paul, being a bit of a dullard, mistook the altar as something along the lines of a confession that the Athenians did not yet know of the one true god -- Paul's god.

So, do you think Paul might have been something of a country boy lost in the big city, so to speak? Did he really understand the society and culture he so harshly criticized? Or was he like so many people since who, arriving in a more sophisticated place than the one they were born to, profoundly misunderstand its culture?
 

Alt Thinker

Older than the hills
I believe it was either Walter Kaufman or Joseph Campbell who described Paul as something of a "country bumpkin" who traveled from the backwaters of the Roman Empire to Greece and was left shocked and misunderstanding of the sophisticated culture and society he witnessed there.

For instance, the Athenians had an altar dedicated to "An Unknown God". The purpose of the altar was to provide a place of worship to people visiting Athens from foreign lands whose gods might not otherwise have temples in the city. But Paul, being a bit of a dullard, mistook the altar as something along the lines of a confession that the Athenians did not yet know of the one true god -- Paul's god.

So, do you think Paul might have been something of a country boy lost in the big city, so to speak? Did he really understand the society and culture he so harshly criticized? Or was he like so many people since who, arriving in a more sophisticated place than the one they were born to, profoundly misunderstand its culture?

On the contrary, Paul was slick and a master of intentional misinterpretation. Getting people to believe that his mish-mosh of references to Jewish scriptures and customs was a coherent explanation of why Jesus died is a prime example.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
I get the impression that Paul had too much of a purpose to be an accidental misinterpreter.
 

rusra02

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
The apostle Paul was nothing of the sort. Paul was an educated Pharisee before his conversion to become a Christian. (Acts 22:3) By the time Paul arrived in Athens, he had already traveled extensively, preaching in a variety of cultures and countries. He was not intimidated by the so-called wisdom of the Athenians. He later wrote; "... the Greeks look for wisdom; but we preach Christ executed on the stake, to the Jews a cause for stumbling but to the nations foolishness. *However, to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. *Because a foolish thing of God is wiser than men, and a weak thing of God is stronger than men." (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)
 

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I believe it was either Walter Kaufman or Joseph Campbell who described Paul as something of a "country bumpkin" who traveled from the backwaters of the Roman Empire to Greece and was left shocked and misunderstanding of the sophisticated culture and society he witnessed there.

For instance, the Athenians had an altar dedicated to "An Unknown God". The purpose of the altar was to provide a place of worship to people visiting Athens from foreign lands whose gods might not otherwise have temples in the city. But Paul, being a bit of a dullard, mistook the altar as something along the lines of a confession that the Athenians did not yet know of the one true god -- Paul's god.

So, do you think Paul might have been something of a country boy lost in the big city, so to speak? Did he really understand the society and culture he so harshly criticized? Or was he like so many people since who, arriving in a more sophisticated place than the one they were born to, profoundly misunderstand its culture?

Jesus was more of a bumpkin. Paul probably dictated his letters, but was clearly literate. He knew Greek, and demonstrated at least some familiarity with "gentile" traditions. His "theology" was weak, but he also wrote letters, and thus any systematic treatment of such matters was secondary.

Was he a great theologian, philosopher, or even politician? No. He was good, or at least ok. But he was steeped in traditional Jewish culture (language, scripture, etc.,; he was likely a Pharisee) and yet fluent in Greek as well as familiar with Hellenistic customs (and was a Roman citizen). Compared to Jesus, he was a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural progressive. Compared to Philo, he was a country bumpkin.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
I get the impression that Paul had too much of a purpose to be an accidental misinterpreter.

I think much of that purpose was rhetorical prose.


He added very little to the overall picture of things.


He did grab a wave and ride it for what it was worth.


The opposite of a bumpkin, and agree with legion, Jesus was the bumpkin.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
Jesus was more of a bumpkin. Paul probably dictated his letters, but was clearly literate. He knew Greek, and demonstrated at least some familiarity with "gentile" traditions. His "theology" was weak, but he also wrote letters, and thus any systematic treatment of such matters was secondary.

Was he a great theologian, philosopher, or even politician? No. He was good, or at least ok. But he was steeped in traditional Jewish culture (language, scripture, etc.,; he was likely a Pharisee) and yet fluent in Greek as well as familiar with Hellenistic customs (and was a Roman citizen). Compared to Jesus, he was a cosmopolitan, multi-cultural progressive. Compared to Philo, he was a country bumpkin.

I like your arbitrary judgement of what defines 'bumpkin' from cosmopolitan, but better still, the ill-fitting social labeling of people far removed from your zeitgeist.
 

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I like your arbitrary judgement of what defines 'bumpkin'

See Evans, V. (2009). How Words Mean: Lexical Concepts, Cognitive Models, and Meaning Construction. (Oxford Linguistics). Oxford University Press.


but better still, the ill-fitting social labeling of people far removed from your zeitgeist.

I sought to compare concepts. If you would like to debate the semantic content of lexemes and grammatical constructions of Hellenistic Greek, Latin, Aramaic, or other relevant languages, please present any arguments you have. If, however, you can't even read German apart from lexical borrowings like the English "Zeitgeist", then why bother pretending you can relate anything I say to a culture you are far more removed from than I?
 

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Pretty sure they're quite subjective concepts your throwing about as well.

Yes, because I wrote the reference I cited :facepalm:. Better still, you still haven't indicated you are capable of understanding anything of Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc. such that you are in any sense able to do more than imitate whatever translations you have chosen to rely on for reasons that have no basis.

Please, show that I am wrong. Demonstrate you knowledge of literacy in the first century, the obvious indication by Paul himself that he didn't write his letters, and that you have any "objective" basis you can support by linguistic analysis of the actual languages of our primary sources.



Alternatively, you could admit that your analysis is not only subjective, but baseless.
 
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