'Why did Paul write so much about his own sufferings, including what may have been medical afflictions, such as the enigmatic thorn in his flesh?' Photo: Book cover of Being Real: The apostle Paul’s hardship narratives and the stories we tell today, by Philip Plyming
Being Real: The apostle Paul’s hardship narratives and the stories we tell today, by Philip Plyming
Author: Philip Plyming. Review by Simon Webb
Philip Plyming is the new cathedral dean up here in Durham. He is also new to publishing books: the last thing he brought out was a 2001 pamphlet called ‘Harry Potter and the Meaning of Life’. Now he is in charge of the cathedral where scenes in the boy-wizard film were shot.
The focus of the book is Paul’s ‘hardship narratives’. The author tells us that German scholars call these Paul’s peristasenkatalogen, and suggests that readers might sound impressive if they casually drop the word into a conversation. Why did Paul write so much about his own sufferings, including what may have been medical afflictions, such as the enigmatic thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12)? Why did the Corinthians in particular get to hear so much about his hard times?
Having given us an ‘open-top bus tour’ of ancient Corinth, Plyming draws on archaeological evidence to show how the culture of Paul’s correspondents may have been a little too worldly to allow some of those Corinthians to really ‘get’ the message the man from Tarsus was trying to convey. They were leaning towards something like the ‘prosperity gospel’ described by, among others, Mathew Guest in his book Neoliberal Religion, a study that includes disturbing revelations about the outlook of certain types of modern churches (see review, 29 June 2023). Those ancient Corinthians valued looks, youth, physical fitness, wealth, political power and rhetorical skill. In the last category, they had grown particularly fond of flashy public speakers with fine voices and impressive looks, who made a virtue out of speaking well about nothing terribly important.
At one time, the Corinthians had listened to Paul, this unimpressive-looking preacher who could show off no rhetorical flourishes. Now they were running after the ‘super-apostles’, shallow teachers who were all front. Plyming shows how this backsliding on the Corinthians’ part was not the short-lived embrace of something alluringly new; they were reverting to type. The Corinthians were just like that. But they didn’t have to be, any more than we have to show off the triumphant results of our best baking efforts on Facebook.
The dean’s book describes a culture-clash, similar to the one detailed in Robin Lane Fox’s book Pagans and Christians. There we meet Cyprian, the third-century bishop of Carthage who gave up wealth and power to become a celibate warrior for the faith. Paul’s Corinthians were moving in the opposite direction.
Plyming’s book is not, however, just a marriage of New Testament exegesis and ancient history. The author applies his findings to modern issues, including social media and his personal doubts and challenges, about which he is startlingly frank. He implies this question: if modern congregations (and I would include Quaker Meetings here) are hooked on worldly success, aren’t they excluding those who don’t have such luck and, worse, misunderstanding how the Christian God operates?
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