Paul and Asklepios - (Library of New Testament Studies) by Christopher D Stanley

About the Book

Scholars, libraries, postgraduates and upper-level undergraduates with an interest in ancient medicine and Pauline writings

Book Synopsis

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? Such questions have been broadly neglected in studies of Paul and his churches, but Christopher D. Stanley shows how vital they truly become once we recognize how thoroughly "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, Stanley 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. He begins by exploring 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. He then examines how Judeans and Christians in the centuries before and after Paul viewed and engaged with these systems. Finally, he speculates on what kinds of treatments Paul might have approved or rejected and whether he might have used promises of healing to attract people to his movement. The result is a thorough and nuanced analysis of a vital dimension of Greco-Roman social life and Paul's place within it.

Review Quotes

This book offers an impressive survey of the different practices and practitioners that were deemed effective in healing sickness and injuries in the Roman empire, in order to situate Paul's relative disinterest in such issues in a wider context. In so doing, it sheds much light on ancient understandings of health and illness, and on the "magical," "religious," and "medical" healers who competed with each other in the world in which Paul preached, and to which he offered his own vision of a life in Christ.

Gideon Bohak, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

Christopher D. Stanley's new book, Paul and Asklepios: The Greco-Roman Quest for Healing and the Apostolic Mission, is broad, thoroughly researched, and engagingly written. It compares many different notions of disease and kinds of healing practices from ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, and other sources, finally concentrating on what we can say, and what we cannot say, about disease and healing in early Christian communities. The study concentrates most on Paul and Pauline Christianity, seeking to explain why we hear so little from Paul and his own or healing practices among his churches. But the study goes much further afield also, including much of what we know from ancient Christian groups and writing otherwise. This study is excellent. It should become a classic of early Christian studies.
Dale B. Martin, Professor Emeritus, Yale University, USA

This wide-ranging and informative book places the ideas and practices of healing in the New Testament firmly in the context of the many recent discoveries about healing in the Greco-Roman and the Middle Eastern worlds.
Vivian Nutton, FBA, emeritus professor of the history of medicine, University College London, UK

About the Author

Christopher D. Stanley is Emeritus Professor of Theology at St Bonaventure University, USA. He has written or edited seven academic books and numerous articles on the social, literary, and rhetorical context of Paul's letters.