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  • From: "Mesfin Atlaye" <mesfin AT idirect.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: (dis)unity in the Early Church
  • Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 13:47:11 -0400

Following my cry on the issue of methodology---that in all suggestions concerning St. Paul's biography to give primacy to the Pauline personal letters over Luke's creative and imaginative work (the Lukan Paul was blinded-he did not see Jesus-so, he can not be called an apostle-therefore he had to appeal to those who saw Jesus personally)---the discussion was naturally diverted into the unity/disunity issue within the early church (Jewish and Gentile Christians). For every comment I made some asked a verse reference from here or there which, in my view, will not take us anywhere. It has been a wishful and ambitious endeavour among many scholars and non scholars, for years, to reconcile the Lukan account of Paul with that of the epistles. The evidence of disunity is clear, and also Luke's struggle to paint a unified body. We only can agree to disagree. But I rest my case, momentarily on this issue, with a strong recommendation to all who are interested to (re)read Paul Achtemeir's The Quest for Unity in the New Testament Church (Fortress: 1987). Really, A must read book. 
 
Peace!
 
Mesfin Atlaye.


  • (dis)unity in the Early Church, Mesfin Atlaye, 04/02/2001

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