Paul the Ancient Letter Writer

An Introduction to Epistolary Analysis

Jeffrey A. D. Weima

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780801097515
• eBook ISBN:
  9781493405794
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This clear and user-friendly introduction to the interpretive method called "epistolary analysis" shows how focusing on the form and function of Paul's letters yields valuable insights into the apostle's purpose and meaning. The author helps readers interpret Paul's letters properly by paying close attention to the apostle's use of ancient letter-writing conventions. Paul is an extremely skilled letter writer who deliberately adapts or expands traditional epistolary forms so that his persuasive purposes are enhanced. This is an ideal supplemental textbook for courses on Paul or the New Testament. It contains numerous analyses of key Pauline texts, including a final chapter analyzing the apostle's Letter to Philemon as a "test case" to demonstrate the benefits of this interpretive approach.

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Introduction

An Illustration

Eagerly yet nervously, Jack held in his hand a letter from his girlfriend, Jill. The two of them had been dating all through their junior and senior years of high school. Sadly, however, they had been accepted at different colleges and so now found themselves separated from each other for the first time. Yet they nevertheless kept their love relationship alive through the writing of handwritten letters. Yes, it was a bit old-fashioned to communicate this way instead of through email or texting, which they did in addition to writing letters. But it also seemed to both of them quite romantic and a good way to demonstrate the depth of their love for each other.

After two months of being separated and of writing letters to each other, Jack hopped on a Greyhound bus and made a quick visit to Jill at her college some hours away. The visit, however, did not go so well. There was no obvious problem or fight, just a sense of unease and tension at being unable to recapture the way things had been before they headed off to different schools. Jack was thus understandably eager yet nervous to read this first letter from Jill after that not-so-happy visit.

The letter began: “Dear Jack.” That letter opening would not sound very significant to anyone else reading the letter, but to Jack’s ears it had an ominous tone. This is because all of Jill’s previous letters began differently: instead of using the adjective “Dear Jack,” she had previously always used the superlative “Dearest Jack.”

This only increased Jack’s nervousness about what might come next. The body of the letter began: “I am so busy here! The professors give us tons of readings and assignments—way more than we ever had in high school. I have hardly any free time to spend with my new friends. But I went out anyway last night with my dorm-mate to a coffee shop just to get away from the whole school scene for a while.” Again, these observations by Jill about her recent activities would not sound very significant to anyone else reading the letter, but they were to Jack. This is because all of her previous letters began differently: she would first talk about how much she missed him, saying things like, “It is so sad that we are at separate schools! I hate being so far away from you! I can’t wait to see you again!” Only after these “lovey-dovey,” reconnecting statements would Jill then tell him the more factual things about events happening in her life.

Jack is now really getting nervous about his relationship with Jill, and so his eyes jump down to the end of the letter, which reads: “Love, Jill.” Again, that letter closing would not seem very important to anyone else reading the letter, but it was significant, even disturbing, to Jack. This is because Jill always ended her letters to him with “Love, Jillie.” No one else but Jack called her “Jillie”—only him. It was his pet name for her, and she always used it to end her letters to him. And so when Jack saw that his girlfriend closed her letter instead with “Love, Jill,” his heart sank because he knew that his relationship with her was in trouble.

Epistolary Analysis: A Method for Interpreting Paul’s Letters

This illustration shows how variations in habitual or expected ways of writing letters can communicate information in and of themselves, and that such changes are therefore important for a correct understanding of what the letter writer was intending to say. The modifications that Jill made in the form of her letter were subtle—so subtle that the naïve reader not familiar with her writing practices would not even notice these changes and consequently be blind to their potential significance. To a careful reader like Jack, however, these subtle changes were important clues to interpreting her letter properly. He rightly perceived that such deviations in the form of her letter were not accidental and insignificant but instead were deliberate and reflected the changed nature of their relationship.

In a similar fashion, the apostle Paul in his letters typically follows a relatively set pattern. This fixed fourfold structure of opening, thanksgiving, body, and closing, as well as the letter-writing conventions that typically make up each of these sections, can be discovered quite easily by looking at the apostle’s letters side by side. When Paul deviates from his fixed pattern or expected structure in mostly subtle but sometimes in not-so-subtle ways, the majority of modern readers fail to even notice these changes and consequently miss the important clues that they contain for a proper interpretation of his letters. In this book I will demonstrate that the apostle is an extremely skilled letter writer who carefully adapts and improvises his expected letter-writing practices in ways that powerfully and persuasively express what he, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, intends to communicate. Paul’s changes in the epistolary form of what he writes, therefore, are never innocent or accidental but instead are conscious and deliberate and therefore provide an important interpretive key to determine his meaning and purpose.

The method that I recommend we follow in interpreting Paul’s letters can be classified both broadly and narrowly. The broad classification of my proposed method is that it involves a type of literary criticism. It is broad because literary criticism comprises principles of interpretation that ought to be applied to any text in the Bible, not just narrowly to letters. It is difficult to define precisely what is meant by the term “literary criticism.” The problem lies in that there is no single literary-critical method of interpretation; instead, a wide variety of interpretative methods have been proposed. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a set of convictions that are widely held to distinguish a literary reading of the Bible from the historical and theological readings that have traditionally been employed (see Weima 2001).

First, literary criticism involves an appreciation for the sophisticated artistry and aesthetic quality of the text. It recognizes that the diverse books in the Bible are all the result of conscious composition, careful patterning, and the strategic use of literary conventions prevalent in their day. When this first conviction of literary criticism is applied to the letters of Paul, it assumes that the apostle, despite the hectic and challenging demands of his travels and ministry, did not write his correspondence in a haphazard and unreflective manner. Rather, the writing process for Paul involved a very deliberative and conscious process in which he not only carefully selected but also skillfully adapted the letter-writing conventions of his era.

Therefore the influential, early twentieth-century NT scholar Adolf Deissmann, in his desire to distinguish a “letter” from an “epistle,” was only half right. He correctly stressed that Paul wrote genuine, real “letters” that addressed the particular issues of specific churches rather than “epistles”—artificial, literary creations intended for wider dissemination. Deissmann wrongly stressed, however, that Paul “was not a literary man,” that he “wrote with complete absolute abandon,” and that his thoughts in the letters “were dashed down under the influence of a hundred various impressions, and were never calculated for systematic presentation” (1910: 240–41). On the contrary, Paul’s letters provide overwhelming evidence of the foresight, care, and precision with which they were written.

Second, literary criticism exhibits a preoccupation with the form of the text. Literary criticism focuses not only on the content of the text (what is said) but also on the form of the text (how it is said). As Leland Ryken (1993: 367) notes: “We cannot fully comprehend the ‘what’ of New Testament writers (their religious content) without first paying attention to the ‘how’ (the literary modes in which the content is embodied).” This preoccupation with form manifests itself in the attempt of modern literary critics to identify the various literary conventions used by a given biblical author and understand the function that these conventions have in the text. This concern with form also shows itself in the great attention given to the diverse types of writing found in the Bible (the technical term is “genre”) and how an awareness of genre impacts interpretation.

When this second principle of literary criticism is applied to the letters of Paul, it involves the identification of not just various formulas or fixed expressions in his correspondence, many of which he borrows from letter-writing practices of the ancient world, but also the function these formulas have. One brief example here will be explained more fully in chapter 4: several times in his letters, Paul makes use of a “confidence formula,” an expression of confidence that he himself has in his readers. The apostle, for instance, tells his Galatian readers: “I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine” (Gal. 5:10). This formula expressing confidence should not be seen as a naïve or innocent remark about how optimistic Paul is that the Galatians will agree with him and his gospel as he has defended it thus far in the letter. In fact, there is much in this letter that indicates the opposite conclusion: Paul is extremely concerned that the Galatian readers will not agree with him but instead side with his opponents. Paul’s use of the confidence formula here, therefore, should instead be recognized as part of his persuasive strategy: such a statement places pressure on the Galatian readers to live up to the confidence that the apostle has in them. People typically want to earn the commendation that others give them, and so Paul skillfully uses the confidence formula to create a sense of obligation among his Galatian readers so that they will justify his affirming statement about them.

Third, literary criticism is committed to treat texts as finished wholes. Before the rise of literary criticism in the mid to late twentieth century, liberal scholars did not deal with various books of the Bible in their present form but instead tried to discover the various sources used by the biblical authors and how they edited and arranged these sources. Conservative scholars, on the basis of their belief in the verbal inspiration of Scripture, concentrated on individual words in the text to discover their rich, Spirit-inspired meaning; they also highlighted individual verses that could serve as prooftexts for certain theological positions. Both procedures ended up dividing the biblical text into fragments, as evident in the verse-by-verse commentary that has become a staple of biblical scholarship and the verse-by-verse exposition of the text that characterizes many sermons. A literary approach, by contrast, accepts the biblical text in its final canonical form and is committed to a holistic reading of a particular passage or book.

But the method of interpreting Paul’s letters that I am proposing can be classified not only broadly as a type of literary criticism but also more narrowly as epistolary analysis. This terminology is a convenient, shorthand way of referring to the three convictions of literary criticism summarized above, yet with the added idea that these convictions ought to be employed in the analysis of letters.1 Other alternative terms for my proposed method include a “letter-structure approach” and “form criticism of letters.” Both alternatives reflect certain aspects of a literary approach noted above, namely, the concern with the structure and form of the biblical text, in this case, letters. But the name “letter-structure approach” is inadequate because there is much more to my proposed method than just observations about the structure of Paul’s letters. And the name “form criticism of letters” suffers from potential confusion, because form criticism is already a well-established discipline in analyzing the Synoptic Gospels, and it involves many issues that are not relevant to the study of letters.

The term “epistolary analysis” is known and used but not yet universally employed in academic circles. Nevertheless, many scholars recognize how important this method is for a proper interpretation of Paul’s letters. For example, already some years ago Robert Funk (1970: 8) claimed: “The first order of business [in the interpretation of Paul’s letters] is to learn to read the letter as a letter. This means above all to learn to read its structure.” Richard Longenecker (1990: ci), in his commentary on Galatians, similarly recognizes that the interpretation of any Pauline letter must take as its starting point an analysis of the letter’s epistolary structure:

Since form and content are inseparable in the study of any writing, it is necessary to give attention not only to what is said but also to how it is said—that is, to the forms used to convey meaning and to the function served by each particular form. Therefore, prior to considering the specific content of Galatians (i.e., prior to exegesis proper), it is essential that we analyze the epistolary and rhetorical structures of the letter, with those analyses then being taken into account at each stage in the interpretation.

Ann Jervis (1991: 35), without explicitly using the term “epistolary analysis,” nevertheless asserts that this method helpfully reveals Paul’s purposes in his various letters and, as such, can help solve the perennial debate over the reason for Romans: “It is my conviction that by a comparative investigation of certain formal features of the letters of Paul, the function of any particular Pauline letter can be distinguished.”

The quote that best captures the kind of issues involved in the method of epistolary analysis that will be introduced in his book comes from Calvin Roetzel (1975: 30): “Once the letter-writing conventions which Paul used are understood, the alert reader will also find clues to Paul’s intent in his creative use of those conventions as well.” Several phrases in this concise statement can be unpacked in greater detail in order to explain the method of epistolary analysis more fully:

• “letter-writing conventions”: This refers to fixed expressions or stereotyped phrases found in ancient Greco-Roman letters and also in Paul’s letters. Letter-writing conventions of our day include the opening phrase, “Dear so-and-so,” and the closing phrase, “Sincerely . . .” These are fixed expressions or epistolary formulas that we do not create each time we write a letter but simply take over from the writing practices of our modern time. Similarly, when Paul writes a letter, he is not creating a new genre of writing or new letter-formulas but instead utilizes the epistolary conventions of his day.
• “are understood”: The contemporary reader can “understand” the letter-writing conventions that Paul used by comparing his letters with the thousands of other letters that have been discovered from the ancient Greco-Roman world. Yet one needs to “understand” not merely the presence of letter-writing conventions in Paul’s correspondence but, more important, the function that these fixed expressions or stereotyped phrases have. By understanding the function of these letter-writing conventions, we can see how the apostle is using them to achieve his purposes, and we can discern the direction of his argument with greater clarity.
• “the alert reader”: The typical reader of Paul’s letters today is largely unaware of both the presence and the function of his various letter-writing conventions. They also miss the potential significance that an understanding of these things can have for a proper interpretation of the apostle’s correspondence. But the alert reader—the reader equipped with the tools of epistolary analysis—anticipates the exegetical insights that will be gleaned from discovering the skilled way in which Paul shapes and adapts his inherited letter-writing conventions.
• “clues to Paul’s intent”: The ultimate goal of exegesis is to uncover “intent”—to understand what the biblical authors were trying to say and accomplish with what they wrote. The great potential benefit of the method of epistolary analysis is that it provides “clues to Paul’s intent” in any given letter. Many of these clues are quite obvious not only to the apostle’s original readers, who were naturally familiar with the epistolary conventions of their day, but also to those modern readers who are trained in the method of epistolary analysis. Some of these clues, however, are so subtle that they may well have been missed by Paul’s original audience, who had little or no knowledge of his other letters. Consequently, modern readers who have access to all of Paul’s extant letters are, at times, in a better position to discern these calculated changes in form and so better grasp the intention behind the apostle’s skillful adaptation of contemporary epistolary conventions. The meaning of any given passage in Paul’s letters is determined not solely by how his original hearers would have understood his words but instead by what the apostle, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, was intending to say.2
• “creative use of those conventions”: Paul is not merely a scribe who simply copies or blindly borrows the letter-writing conventions of his day in their traditional form. Rather, the apostle is a gifted writer who has both the freedom and the creative ability to shape and adapt those conventions so that they more effectively strengthen his persuasive purposes at work in the letter.

Competing Methods: Thematic Approach and Rhetorical Criticism

How does the method of epistolary analysis advocated in this book compare with other methods used to interpret Paul’s letters? A helpful way to answer this question is to revisit the distinction presented above in defining literary criticism, namely, the distinction between the “what” of the text (the content of what the biblical author writes) and the “how” of the text...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Endorsements
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Opening
• 3. The Thanksgiving
• 4. The Body
• 5. The Closing
• 6. Epistolary Analysis in Practice: The Test Case of Philemon
• Works Cited
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources
• Index of Subjects
• Back Cover