It’s really striking how themes suggest themselves, then pop up everywhere I look. Since at least the turn of this new year, the theme I can’t shake is that of truth.
Of course, grounding the entire concept of truth is Jesus’ statement, “I am . . . the truth[.]” Jn. 14:6. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has an extensive section on the topic of truth — ¶ 2464 and following, “Living In the Truth”. To find and to know the truth is not optional. A disciple of Christ “consents to live in the truth,” and must “abid[e] in his truth.” ¶ 2470.
The modern assault on truth has been well-rehearsed elsewhere. In this and posts to follow, I would like to highlight some books and other materials that have shed a fresh light on reality for me, that upend some of our culturally received “wisdom,” and that have expanded my understanding.
One book that did that for me, in spades, is Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time, by Sarah Ruden (Image Books 2010). Ruden is a classicist who comes out of the Quaker tradition. In Paul Among the People, she has translated ancient texts, and she juxtaposes their descriptions of the society in which St. Paul lived and wrote against his epistles. She thus sheds new light on — and explodes myths about — his writings.
Here’s just one example: In 1 Cor. 11 Paul says women should pray with their heads veiled and men with theirs uncovered. This sounds horrible and sexist to the modern ear. BUT, Ruden points out that this might just be Paul exhorting the Corinthians to radical equality. How can that be? Here’s the answer she offers:
"Acts and the epistles strongly suggest that unattached women were among the early churches' most active and respected members; and would Paul or his deputies have thrown out a known prostitute from a gathering, as long as she was not there on business? . . . At the very least, there must have been among the Christians women with pasts. . . . It was against custom and perhaps even against the law for them to be veiled. . . . [But] all Christian women were to cover their heads in church, without distinction of beauty, wealth, [or] respectability[.]" And so, contrary to common misconception (“Paul hated women” — haven’t we all heard it?), we have Paul treating all Christian women as one, “without distinction” as to social status. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free [and many prostitutes were slaves], there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Gal. 3:28 (NRSV).
How about them apples?