Signs, Wonders, and Gifts : Divination in the Letters of Paul

Throughout his letters, the apostle Paul consistently references signs, wonders, visions, miracles, divine healings, prophecies, and speaking in tongues. This book examines Paul''s repertoire of divinatory and wonderworking practices and contextualizes them in their historical milieu. Furthermore, the book situates such practices within a framework of reciprocity that dominated human-divine relationships in antiquity. Insofar as Paul extends miraculous abilities to his gentile followers, these wondrous abilities come in proportion to their faithfulness.

In much of the scholarship on Paul, activities such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and miracle healings are either ignored or treated as singular occurrences. Typically, these practices are categorized in such a way that shields Paul and his followers from the influence of so-called paganism. In Signs, Wonders, and Gifts, Jennifer Eyl masterfully argues that Paul did, in fact, engage in range of divinatory and wonder-working practices that were widely recognized and accepted across the ancient Mediterranean. Eyl redescribes, reclassifies, and recontextualizes Paul''s repertoire vis-à-vis such widespread, similar practices. Situating these activities within the larger framework of reciprocity that dominated human-divine relationships in antiquity, she demonstrates that divine powers and divine communication were bestowed as benefactions toward Paul and his gentile followers in proportion to their faithfulness and loyalty.