A Disabled Apostle : Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul

With society's growing focus on disability, this book is a first--examining Paul the Apostle as a disabled person. Readers will learn about contemporary perspectives on disability and encounter a rich variety of ancient sources related to three of Paul's disabilities: circumcision, demonization, and short stature (possibly dwarfism).

Speculation around the health of Paul the Apostle has been present since soon after his death. Recently scholars have understood Paul to be disabled but have been wary of isolating precisely what his disabilities may have been or whether they are important for understanding his writings. This book is the first full-length study of Paul the Apostle and disability. Using insights from contemporary disability studies, Isaac Soon analyses features of Paul''s body in his ancient Mediterranean context to understand the ways in which his body was disabled. Focusing on three such ancient disabilities--demonization, circumcision, and short stature--this book draws on a rich variety of ancient evidence, from textual sources and epigraphy, to ancient visual culture, to analyze ancient bodily ideals and the negative cultural effects such ''deviant'' persons generated. The book also examines Paul''s use of his own disabilities in his letters and shows how disability is not subsidiary to his thought but a central aspect of it. This book also provides scholars with a new method for uncovering previously unrecognized disabilities in the ancient world. Last of all, it critiques the latent ableism in much New Testament scholarship, which assumes that the figures of the early Jesus movement were able-bodied.