Abstract
Opening with a vignette describing Paul’s initial visit to Philippi in the year 43 CE (Common Era), Garroway introduces the main argument of the book—to wit that Paul coined the word euangelion, or “gospel,” to describe his unique announcement about salvation for Gentiles outside the Jewish Law and that he presented this message for the first time in Philippi. Garroway acknowledges that this claim runs up against two prevailing views: first, that the word “gospel” emerged in the Jesus movement earlier than Paul, possibly with Jesus himself, and second, that Paul believed in salvation for Gentiles outside the Law during his entire career as an apostle, beginning in the mid-30s CE. After providing brief rebuttals to these entrenched positions, Garroway outlines the course of the book.
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Notes
- 1.
A fuller treatment of the Greek word will be provided in Chap. 2. The English word “gospel” comes from the Old English gōdspel, a combination of gōd, good, and spel, news. This compound word corresponds to the components of the Greek original, eu-, good, and -angelion, message.
- 2.
In 1 Thessalonians 2:2, Paul tells his charges in Thessaloniki that “we suffered previously and were mistreated in Philippi.”
- 3.
On the role of itinerants, the “freelance experts” in religion who trekked around the Roman Empire, see Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), especially the treatment of Paul in 146–90.
- 4.
The study of Christian origins has been beset of late by debates over which English terms best represent phenomena of the first century. Historians increasingly view “Christian/Christianity” and “church” as too problematic to merit further usage. See, for example, Anders Runesson, “The Question of Terminology: The Architecture of Contemporary Discussions on Paul,” in Paul Within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed. Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2015), 53–77; Jennifer Eyl, “Semantic Voids, New Testament Translation, and Anachronism: The Case of Paul’s Use of Ekklēsia,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 26, no. 4/5 (2014): 315–39. Both terms are laden with meanings determined over the past nineteen centuries and therefore can prove anachronistic when used to describe people, events, or ideas in the first century. Accordingly, this book will refrain from using either term when describing Paul or his era. I deploy the term “Christian” when discussing subsequent generations, however.
- 5.
I use “disciples” and “apostles” interchangeably in this book to refer to the original 12 followers of Jesus. Usage of these terms in the synoptic gospels is inconsistent. In Mark and most of Matthew, “disciples” refer to the inner circle of 12 while “apostles” refer to a broader group of followers. In Luke, it is reversed.
- 6.
Cf. Psalms of Solomon 11:1–2.
- 7.
The expression “Law-free” can be misleading. As Paula Fredriksen (“Why Should a ‘Law-Free’ Mission Mean a ‘Law-Free’ Apostle?” JBL 134, no. 3 [2015]: 637–50; “Judaizing the Nations: The Ritual Demands of Paul’s Gospel,” NTS 56, no. 2 [2010]: 232–52) suggests, the expression implies that Paul dismissed the Torah, when in fact much of the moral and theological tenor of his preaching was drawn from the Torah, specifically the Ten Commandments. I agree. That said, Paul’s message was indeed Law-free in the sense that it offered salvation for Gentiles apart from the Law—that is, salvation without requiring the ceremonial commandments of the Torah, in particular the ceremony by which a male Gentile yoked himself to the Law, circumcision. In this study, therefore, I use terms like “Law-free,” “circumcision-free,” or “outside the Law” to describe Paul’s mission to Gentiles.
- 8.
Martin Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul: Studies in the Earliest History of Christianity (London: SCM, 1983), 1–29.
- 9.
Translations of ancient texts are my own, unless otherwise indicated. Quotations from New Testament passages are drawn from Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 27th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1999).
- 10.
The most prominent opponent of Hengel’s reconstruction has been Craig C. Hill, Hellenists and Hebrews: Reappraising Division with the Earliest Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992).
- 11.
James D.G. Dunn, Beginning From Jerusalem: Christianity in the Making, Vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 260–72.
- 12.
Dunn, Beginning From Jerusalem, 361.
- 13.
Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 154–58.
- 14.
Steve Mason, Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009), 283–85.
- 15.
Mason, Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins, 284.
- 16.
Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity International, 1990), 6.
- 17.
The lone instance is Plutarch, Demetrius, 17.6, in LCL 101 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920), 38.
- 18.
Among the many studies, see Julius Schniewind, Euangelion. Ursprung und erste Gestalt des Begriffs Evangelium (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1927); Peter Stuhlmacher, Das paulinische Evangelium: I. Vorgeschichte, FRLANT 95 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968); Helmut Merklein, Studien zu Jesus und Paulus, WUNT 43 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 279ff.; Hubert Frankemölle, Evangelium. Begriff und Gattung: ein Forschungsbericht, Stuttgarter Biblische Beiträge 15 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988); Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 1–14; Andrew J. Spallek, “The Origin and Meaning of Εὐαγγέλιον in the Pauline Corpus,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 57, no. 3 (1993): 177–90; Graham N. Stanton, Jesus and Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 9–62; John P. Dickson, “Gospel as News: εὐαγγελ- from Aristophanes to the Apostle Paul,” NTS 51, no. 2 (2005): 212–30; Petr Pekorný, From the Gospel to the Gospels: History, Theology and Impact of the Biblical Term “Euangelion”, BZNW 195 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013); James D.G. Dunn, “The Gospel and the Gospels,” Evangelical Quarterly 85, no. 4 (2013): 291–308; Michael F. Bird, The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 1–20.
- 19.
Adolf von Harnack, The Constitution and Law of the Church in the First Two Centuries, trans. F.L. Pogson (New York, 1910), 275–331.
- 20.
Among others, see Millar Burrows, “The Origin of the Term ‘Gospel,’” JBL 44, no. 1/2 (1925): 21–33; Stuhlmacher, Das paulinische Evangelium; Bird, The Gospel of the Lord, 11. On the alleged usage of “good news” vocabulary in Judea, both in Greek and Aramaic, see William Horbury, “‘Gospel’ in Herodian Judea,” in The Written Gospel, ed. Marcus Bockmuehl and Donald A. Hagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 7–30.
- 21.
Stanton, Jesus and Gospel, 20–35; Georg Strecker, “Das Evangelium Jesu Christi,” in Jesus Christus in Historie und Theologie, ed. Georg Strecker (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1975), 503–48; or, more recently, Georg Strecker, Theology of the New Testament, trans. M. Eugene Boring (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000), 337–38. See also G. Friedrich, “Euangelion,” TDNT 2.724–25.
- 22.
Wilhelmus Dittenberger, ed. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1903–1905), 2: 48–60.
- 23.
For examples of proclamations regarding Caesar, see Bird, The Gospel of the Lord, 5–7.
- 24.
Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 6–8. See the similar concession by Stanton (Jesus and Gospel, 35), who writes, “I do not think we can be certain about the origin of Christian use of the ‘gospel’ word group.”
- 25.
Mason , Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins, 284. More recently, Dunn (“The Gospel and the Gospels,” 293) has concluded that “it is Paul who introduces the noun ‘gospel’ into Christian vocabulary,” though his argumentation is not developed as thoroughly as is Mason’s.
- 26.
In this book, the capitalized term “Gospel” will be used when referring to the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament.
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Garroway, J.D. (2018). Introduction. In: The Beginning of the Gospel. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89996-1_1
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