Session 12: May 6, 2021

The Session Assignment [link]

The Lead-in:

As I mentioned, I'd expected that we'd do a lot of heavy lifting trying to get our heads around Paul's letter to the Romans. But when I reflected on the take-aways (mostly, "why is Paul so difficult to understand?") I decided that we should just have fun. The six chapters of Galatians should give you a representative sample of Paul's writing.

In thinking about how to provide background on Paul, it occurred to me to take E.P. Sanders' 135 page "A Very Short Introduction: Paul" (part of Yale University Press's series; almost all terrific because the authors are well chosen) and try to summarize it. Looking at the result, I'm not sure it's particularly useful but it is accurate and logically speaking better-than-nothing.