Tag Archives: Apostle Paul

More blog attention for A Wretched Man

Another review appeared recently on a book blog, and last week I was interviewed on blog talk radio. Stephanie, at Curling up by the Fire, wrote the following:

Mr. Holmen was able to show Paul’s struggles with his own spiritual self as well as with the political world in this novel, to the point where I felt I was right there along with the people involved. I felt a connection with the people (I can’t use the word characters as these people were actually alive and existed) and a great empathy for their belief and what they were trying to accomplish, putting themselves in great danger.

The world in Mr. Holmen’s book is also brought vividly to life and I enjoyed reading about the daily life of the people involved in the New Testament. Even simple things like what they ate for breakfast and descriptions of the homes, boats, clothing, jobs, and traditions were very enjoyable. I loved learning about things like where and how they slept, what they used to transport materials, what was used for currency in different parts of the Roman world; it was all so fascinating. It added a rich element to Paul’s life that made it so much easier to understand and made the characters so much more real.

And here’s a link to the half hour radio interview conducted by Cyrus Webb on Conversations Live!

Flattering reviews

Two new reviews of my novel, A Wretched Man, came in over the weekend. Both offered 5 star ratings. Here are snippets and links.

Leola Harris, aka “Tea”, offered this from “I Love to Read”:

a stupendous novel about Paul, The Apostle …The book is beautifully written full of descriptions of the Holy Land’s landscape and Agriculture … made me read further, stop reading, begin reading and so on throughout the book. My mind was being cleared for new knowledge vs. old knowledge …I questioned and examined myself … I questioned, I discovered, I began to see with a better lighting … birthed in me a desire to know more.

Jess, a student in New York, writes at Spine Creases. After first posting a teaser comment on Goodreads, calling the book “A phenomenal novel”, Jess wrote the following:

It is well-researched; Holmen clearly has a solid background in early Christianity and religious history. It is also well-written … I felt that I had a more personalized understanding of who Paul was … [Holmen] presents Paul as human. Paul is as subject to human desires, human complexities, and human experiences as the rest of us. The best kind of book, in my opinion, is one that prompts you to think more, to pursue more knowledge. This book definitely incited that curiosity in me. (emphasis added)

I found this book to actually be quite a good accompaniment to my studies of Jesus as a social revolutionary, upsetting the status quo. I felt like I gleaned a new understanding of the early Judeo-Christian world, which is pretty astounding after having taken four years of academic religion classes.

Thanks to the reviewers for their generous comments.

We get letters, we get stacks and stacks of letters

Is it a mixed metaphor to apply Perry Como’s jingle from the fifties to emails? Who is Perry Como you ask? Whatever.

My novel, A Wretched Man, has been out for four months, and I’m beginning to accumulate reader’s comments. One reader even called my cell phone one morning to suggest he had just finished the book at his lake cabin, and he wanted me to know how much he enjoyed it.

Here’s a sampling of email comments:

Anna said,

I am truly enjoying the novel! I think you did an outstanding job telling an interesting story. I am not done, but will keep you posted.

Bob said,

If this story is close to true, Paul surely was a crazy man! You did an excellent job of introducing the characters slowly, and repeated their relationships. I am a history/geography minor so appreciate the references to place names and historical characters. The maps are OK but a scale would have been helpful, especially to novice types. I am enjoying the plot development very much. Thank you for using Aramaic and Greek names interchangeably. It is helpful to me to solidify them in my wee brain.

Mary said,

My husband read your book in three days–he just couldn’t put it down–and enjoyed every minute of it … [a few weeks later she added] At this rate, I don’t know if I am ever going to get to finish reading your book. My husband was talking to his brother last week about the book and his brother said he would like to read it. So this past weekend he gave it to him to read… so now I am either going to have to buy my own copy or wait until my husband gets it back from his brother.

Donna said,

I have just finished the book and found it fascinating. Like many of your other readers, I have decided I need to get back to Paul’s writings in the New Testament. Your book has given me a deeper understanding of how the early Christian church grew – Paul’s role in it and the fierce conflict between Jew and Gentile during this time.
I will recommend this to friends. Thank you, I love historical novels and this was one worth reading.

Mike said,

I can only imagine the amount of time you had to have spent to gather the data not only on the historical, anthropological and archeological levels but on the climate and seasons and the types of farming, food, plants, insects, butterflies and birds at the various locations. Maybe being a farm boy, and more attuned to the weather, drew me into the realness of the story line and paralleling Acts which I have always felt is one of the more compelling books of the new testament made the story of Paul more honest at least to me. I had always thought of Paul as different from the norms of society and if Paul was gay or not doesn’t really change the bible and the good news from my point of view anyway. I found a great peace settle on me as I read and concluded the reading of this novel.

Nancy said,

I’ve finished reading your book and really enjoyed it! I’m going to suggest our weekly Pauline Epistles Bible study read this during the rest of the summer. It provides an interesting “review” of events, particularly the founding of the early churches, plus fills in the blanks with interesting possibilities! I really got a much deeper and clearer sense of the actual tensions within the early Church between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

Sylvia said,

I started reading the novel and love the short chapters. It reads so well. I put this book on our church book club for next year.

Yvonne said,

The premise that Paul was gay was extremely interesting, especially with what the church has been dealing in recent time. The story was extraordinarily well written and entertaining. Your development of the characters was remarkable. I loved your book. Thanks for writing it. I’m anxious to pass your book on to friends and get their opinions.

Add your comments here or send me an email obie (dot) holmen (at) gmail (dot) com.

What did Paul the Apostle look like? UPDATED

Last year an ancient watercolor of Paul was discovered in Rome, and last week it was announced that laser cleaning of the same 4th century catacomb revealed ancient icons of other disciples. On the left is the watercolor of Paul and on the right is the icon of Peter.

These discoveries raise the question, what did the apostle Paul look like? The answer, of course, is that we don’t know. Neither his own writings nor the Acts of the Apostles, the two canonical sources of information about the apostle to the Gentiles, contain any physical description. The first known description comes from a work of popular fiction dated to the end of the 2nd century entitled The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Although this work is obviously fictional and the description purely speculative, its influence persists. This is how Paul is described by the unknown author:

he was a man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were projecting, and he had large eyes and his eyebrows met, and his nose was somewhat long, and he was full of grace and mercy; at one time he seemed like a man, and at another time he seemed like an angel.

Walt Wangerin in his work Paul, a novel picks up on this ancient description:

Here was a small man sitting cross legged … his head a monument for hugeness … eyebrows thick and dark and joined in the middle; his nose both narrow and hooked; his eyes red-rimmed in that tremendous skull; a swift mouth, moist red lips … an orange worm of a scar at the hairline.

For my part in A Wretched Man, I deliberately shied away from the traditional image of the bow legged tiny man. Instead, I made him tall and gangly but the pointy nose remained, all the better to tug on for inspiration. With legs too long and a beak nose, his young friends teased him with the nickname “Stork” at the outset of the novel.

When it came time for the publisher to design the cover for A Wretched Man, we quickly narrowed our focus to a pair of Renaissance portraits. I liked Rembrandt’s Apostle Paul because it seemed to capture the angst of the man, and it fit the novel’s title. But, since the novel had already been written, and the long nose oft described, there was something about the man’s impudent, elongated nose—prying and eager to poke into matters that were not his concern (from the point of view of Paul’s nemesis, Ya’akov), we chose instead the portrait of Paul by another artist of the Renaissance, the Spaniard who went by the name of “The Greek”—El Greco.

The artist in each portrait painted pages or notes to signify Paul the writer of letters—an anachronism since Paul would have written his letters on papyrus scrolls rather than individual pages, but the Renaissance artists failed to note that historical detail. Obtaining the rights to use El Greco’s portrait of Paul was quite simple and not expensive. Turns out there is a New York brokerage that handles such issues simply and online.

UPDATE: July 5, 2011

Another ancient Fresco of Paul has been discovered in Naples, dating to the sixth century.

A photograph released by the Vatican shows the apostle … with a long neck, a slightly pink complexion, thinning hair, a beard and big eyes that give his face a “spiritual air.”

Paul the apostle: a view from down under

I happened upon a Catholic forum from Australia (Catholica—a global conversation) that appears to have pretty heady theological discussions. The post I found was written by Ian Elmer, and I note a lengthy list of contributions by this Pauline scholar.

The lengthy article summarized Paul’s personal history with a view toward understanding the source of his insight, especially since he was not an original follower of Jesus and only became so after the crucifixion. To what extent did Paul learn from conversations with or instruction from the first disciples? Paul denied any such influence, but was his denial colored by his later dispute with the Jerusalem leadership? What was revealed to Paul on the road to Damascus? In continuing revelation? From his theological reflections in the decades following the crucifixion but before he wrote his letters? Was Paul’s experience different in kind from other disciple’s Christophanies? Theophanies in general? Epiphanies? Meditations? Contemplation? General life experiences?

[Paul’s Galatians letter] is leaving out some very important aspects of his former life that have clearly shaped his understanding of his initial experience on the road to Damascus. Still, this does highlight the whole process of revelation and inspiration. Whatever the nature of Paul’s revelatory experience, he took a considerably long time for him to fully comprehend the import of the message for his new-found Christian faith, as well as its impact on his life.

To pursue this thought further, Paul’s later understanding of his Damascus Road experience came only as a result of a series of conflicts at Jerusalem, Antioch and then in Galatia. By the time of writing Galatians Paul had been both marginalised from the mainstream “church” and forced to embark on an independent mission — for which he was being criticised by the Galatian opponents.

Paul’s only recourse was to attribute both his gospel and his commission to his initial revelatory experience on the road to Damascus. This was not strictly a “lie”, but there is certainly a degree of expedient selectivity in the telling. Was it justified? Or is this simply an excellent example of God’s inspiration at work in the everyday experiences of one’s workaday life? How often do we find God amidst conflict and debate? Is it not in the midst of such debates that our understanding of God’s “call” can be clarified?

I commend the whole article which highlights the controversies between Paul and the Jerusalem establishment, which is also the conflict that drives the plotline of my novel, A Wretched Man.

Saint and sinner: Paul as human being

Paul is the protagonist of my novel, which is to say, he is the main character. He is neither hero nor villain but thoroughly human with flaws and foibles like the rest of us. He fights externally with James and the Jerusalem establishment and internally with his own perceived sinfulness. He can rise to the heroic in his defense of the outsider as a child of God, but he also descends to the despotic in cursing those who disagree with “his gospel”.

In the past couple of days, I have come across a pair of blog posts that touch upon themes raised in the novel. Gavin at Otagosh blog writes the following:

The Paul of Galatians famously comes across as an egotistical ranter. He simply doesn’t handle theological diversity well! It’s his way or the highway, no matter that senior figures in the early Christian movement (Peter, James) have quite a different take on things than he does.

Is Paul defending the “gospel of Christ”? We’ve got to concede that if he was, his opponents (fellow Christians) thought they were doing that too. No, he’s defending the gospel of Paul: “the gospel that was proclaimed by me.” Go through just chapter one of Galatians and notice all the ‘me’ and ‘I’ statements. It’s an eye-opening exercise.

Galatians is about a territorial dispute, and Paul is marking his territory. So does he mean to lay down a curse or not? It seems a no-brainer. It doesn’t much matter whether you want to understand accursed as hell-bound or excommunicated, it amounts to the same thing.

Here is a list of derogatory names used by Paul in his writings to label his enemies: “peddlers of God’s word”, “false apostles”, “deceitful workers”, “false brothers”, “dogs”, and “evil workers”. The victims of Pauline name-calling were not pagans, emperor worshipers, or mystery cultists; they were fellow followers of the man from Nazareth whose sin was disagreement with Paul’s interpretation of the Christ.

The second blog post was entitled, Who was Yeshua bar Maryam? The blogger, who goes by the name of Mothermary44, raises the question of the historical Jesus and wonders whether Pauline speculation set the Christian course away from the historical Jesus toward a mythical, divine “God in a man-suit”.

Paul knew virtually nothing about Yeshua bar Maryam, the real-life wandering teacher, healer, and sage, when he began proclaiming the gospel. The real, historical man simply wasn’t important to Paul — not compared to the divine being whose glory had stricken him blind. (Acts 9)

All my life, I wondered why the pre-resurrection Jesus — humble, loving, forgiving, funny, “a glutton and a drunkard” (Luke 7:34) — was so different from the humorless and judgmental post-resurrection Jesus Christ, Only-Begotten Son of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, God in a man-suit. Finally, it came to me: the difference was Paul of Tarsus. Who knew nothing about the real Yeshua bar Maryam when he began proclaiming the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God.

The novel is not quite so “in your face”, but portrays the ongoing struggle between James and Paul on several levels including James’ charge,

Who do you think you are, coming here with your Greek tongue, claiming to be a Pharisee, claiming to be a follower of my brother? You weren’t there!

You never heard him speak, you never mingled with the crowds, and you didn’t witness the stinking Romans murder him on the cross.

You’re like an uninvited stranger at a burial boasting that you knew the dead man well. How dare you share my grief! How dare you!

My novel tracks my own wonderings about Paul’s Damascus road experience and about the boundary-breaking apostle to the Gentiles who graced us with stirring words of inclusion—“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”—but whose pride also resulted in hyperbole and condemnation of his fellows.

For good and ill, Paul’s legacy continues in the church of the 21st century.

Latest Review of “A Wretched Man” published

The Historical Novel Society is highly respected in the field of historical fiction. They offer an online presence and also publish two prestigious print magazines, The Historical Novels Review (quarterly), and Solander (twice yearly). Thus, I am delighted to report that they have offered a very favorable review of my work, A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the Apostle.

Here is their review, verbatim:

In A Wretched Man, Holmen remains faithful to the historical origins of Christianity in the first century C.E. while weaving an intriguing tale of discord between James and Paul—a discord paralleled by Paul’s own internal conflict with his “unclean” inclinations. The suggestion of homosexuality as the thorn in Paul’s flesh is skillfully incorporated into the tale without being overwhelming.

James, the younger brother of Jesus, has assumed the burdens of his brother, first while he is away teaching and then when he is crucified. He must care for their mother Mary and younger brothers as well as provide leadership to Jesus’ followers. When Paul approaches James with his account of conversion while on the road to Damascus, James is furious. How can Paul claim to know what Jesus wants when Paul never knew Jesus, never walked with him, and certainly was not there when he died!

As a devout Jewish Christian, James insists on the keeping of Torah and the circumcision of Gentile converts. He and the Nazarenes await the return of Jesus and the kingdom of God on earth. Paul, on the other hand, ministers to the Gentiles and travels spreading the good news to all who will listen. He preaches that all Jews and Gentiles are welcome apart from Torah. He comes to believe that the kingdom of God is spiritual not physical. These are two very different interpretations and neither is willing to yield.

The author notes are very helpful for those unfamiliar with early Christian history as are the maps of the Holy Land. A well-written historical fiction novel. Recommended. — Debra Spidal

Paul and Romans, chapter one

I often refer to Paul as enigma when I explain why I was drawn to write a novel about him. His writings about a gracious God and Christian egalitarianism–no longer Jew or Greek … slave or free … male and female—have informed and inspired theologian and laity alike over the centuries. But, charges of anti-Semitism, apologist for slavery, misogynist, and gay-bashing homophobe are also levied against his writings. The simple explanation, of course, is that Pauline views were shaped by the cultural context of his ancient world, the 1st century mix of Greco-Roman Hellenism and Hebrew religion.

A recent post on Christian Century blogs (my other blog, Spirit of a Liberal, is also part of the CC blog network) digs much deeper into the cultural influences at play in the oft cited clobber passages at the end of the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Professor James F McGrath of the religion department at Butler University offers a succinct but salient commentary into the Romans verses in which “Paul talks about homosexuality not as a sin, but as a divine punishment for sin.”

In Paul’s time, the thinking about nature, gender and intercourse was that men are by nature active and women by nature passive. What would seemed [sic] shameful in this ancient honor-shame cultural context was the transgressing of such gender roles, with men demeaning themselves by taking the passive female role, and conversely women taking on the active role which is by nature male.

Note the link between a misogynist understanding of gender and 1st century homophobia—a relationship that remains present today. Fear of the feminine characterizes both misogynists and homophobes.

Another cultural influence, perhaps Stoic (Tarsus was home to a major Greek university of the Stoic school of philosophy), suggested that same gender sexual behavior was due to an excess of passion. Consistent with the Stoic ideal of all things in moderation, self control was preferred to impassioned emotionalism, and homosexual behavior was understood to be an unrestrained progression of passion beyond heterosexual promiscuity and well beyond cool and dispassionate Stoicism.

Of course, Paul the Pharisee would also have been well-educated in the abominations of Leviticus so his various cultural influences would have coalesced into the untested assumption that same gender sexual behavior was unnatural. The concepts of sexual orientation and mutually affirming and loving same-gender relationships would have been entirely alien to his now 2000-year-old cultural preconceptions.

It is appropriate to repeat the oft-stated assertion that it is unfair to ask 21st century questions of a 1st century man.

Why Paul?

Next week, I will speak at the Northfield bookstore, Monkey See, Monkey Read with more public appearances to follow. I will read an early chapter from the novel, but first I will offer a few comments about my journey of writing, which I publish here.

The most frequent question I hear is “Why Paul? Why did you choose to write about Paul?”

Why bother with a man nearly 2000 years dead with a reputation as an anti-Semite, apologist for slavery, misogynist, and a gay-bashing homophobe? Paul was not one of Jesus’ disciples; in fact, he never met the man from Nazareth. The early followers of Jesus, including his own family, probably regarded the man from Tarsus as an outsider, a usurper, a pretend Pharisee, a “Hellenist”–Hebrew by blood but Greek by language and culture: a man on the margins. For awhile, the working title of the novel was The Jewish Gentile.

But wait, was this not also the man who wrote of Christian egalitarianism, of boundary breaking inclusivity, and whose good news of a gracious God inspired Augustine in the fourth century, Luther in the sixteenth, Barth a mere century ago, and whose message of love unconditional continues to stir our hearts? “Why Paul?” Because he is a puzzling enigma, that’s part of my answer.

Jesus himself authored no writings. Nor did any of those who followed him in the Galilee or during his fateful pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It fell to Paul the outsider, who first opposed the movement, to become its reporter, memorialist, essayist, interpreter, and promoter. At one time, over half the books of the New Testament were attributed to his hand, and this is also part of my answer: “Why Paul?”–because he is the most important man, outside of Jesus of Nazareth, in Christian history. For good or ill, even the secularist must acknowledge his profound influence on western civilization’s Judeo-Christian heritage.

An enigma who shaped history. Most fiction authors must create colorful characters. This novel’s protagonist comes ready-made with knotty complications and buffeted by conflict from all sides. It has been my task to allow the complex, critical, controversial man from Tarsus to bloom before the reader’s eyes.

But, there’s more to it. There are more personal reasons for choosing Paul.

I have heard accomplished authors explain, “I write because I read.” If one relishes the imagining that is essential to entering the dream world of the novelist, it is a natural development to create one’s own captivating characters, alluring scenes and settings, an alternate reality that speaks to one’s inner truths–fictive and mythical though they may be. Thus, for many writers, the statement, “I write because I read” is an appropriate and accurate answer.

But, it is not my answer.

Mid-twentieth century American novelist Thomas Wolfe said, “The artist is religious man.” I write because I wonder. That’s my answer. I wonder about the “higher power” of the twelfth step group, and I wonder why I have spent more than half my three score years, and counting, as a clean and sober man. “There but for the grace of God, go I,” it is said, and I wonder. I wonder about the mysterious God revealed to Job in the whirlwind, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” With William James, I wonder about the nature of religious experience; what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus? I wonder about the God revealed in the words of Holy Writ. What truths are unveiled there, but also what untruths? As citizens of the twenty-first century, how are we to interpret of the writings of Paul, a man with keen insight into a gracious God, but who also condoned slavery and counseled women to be silent in church? And then there is our issue, a twenty-first century issue that roils our pews and our politics, the issue of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters. How can we make sense of the harsh “clobber passages” penned by Paul?

As with all novelists, I have created a fictive world of the imagination to which I invite my readers. Trudge the dusty alleyways of Jerusalem as James, Jesus’ own brother and the leader of the Jewish Jesus movement, escorts Paul, the young upstart who claimed a vision on the road to Damascus. Pick sides a dozen years later when Paul and James debate circumcision and the traditional requirements of Torah before the assembly of apostles. Wander the ancient Roman highways with the lonely but defiant apostle to the Gentiles, looking ahead toward Rome and back over a nervous shoulder toward suspicious Jerusalem. The novel will introduce you to many whose names you know, lifted from the pages of Scripture. Sail across the Great Sea as the apostle returns after completing his missionary journeys for a final confrontation with James, his nemesis. Will the now-aged leaders, and their Jewish and Gentile followers, finally reconcile?

Because I wonder, I write. And so, as I invite you to imagine yourself into Paul’s journey, I am also inviting all to tag along on my journey too. Come, wonder with me.

Welcome to my new blog

Some of you may be followers of my other blog, Spirit of a Liberal, a blog of progressive, religious themes. That blog will continue, and this new blog will not relate to the often political discussions that take place over there; instead, this blog will focus on A Wretched Man novel, writing and publishing issues, and other literary themes. To those regular followers, welcome. To new folks here for the first time, welcome to you also. All prior posts appearing here appeared first on Spirit of a Liberal.

Last week, I did some “shoe leather” marketing for the novel. That is, I hit the streets, visiting a couple of the private liberal arts colleges of Minnesota. I visited with a few professors of New Testament, and I am encouraged that my novel may become part of their assigned reading list for their fall term classes. The novel is also stocked and available through their campus bookstores.

I also spent nearly an hour on the phone with my publicist. Even though the novel was released early in March, the publicist is just gearing up for intensive marketing efforts. One of the items discussed was our frustration that Amazon.com can’t keep the book in stock because of their policy of ordering limited quantities at the outset. In the first month, Amazon’s website has said “out of stock, more on the way” most of the time. I think they have ordered and reordered nearly half a dozen times. While it’s nice to know there’s a demand out there, it would be better if Amazon would start ordering the book in greater quantities.

By the way, for those of you who have already purchased the book, I would greatly appreciate a few kind words and a rating on Amazon.com and/or Barnes and Noble. Tagging the book is also very helpful, especially when your tags are the same as others such as “christianity”, “apostle paul”, “biblical fiction”, “christian biographies-memoirs”, “christian fiction”, “historical biography”, “historical fiction”, “paul the apostle”, and “religion”. Sorry for the blatant self-promotion.