Paul and First-Century Letter Writing

“Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1 NASB) Many Christians today see the Apostle Paul in a western context in which his “divinely inspired” writing magically comes to him, putting him far outside what any Christian could hope to reach. E. Randolph Richards strives to alter this train of thought in his book Paul and First-Century Letter Writing. Richards emphasizes the processes, customs, and mechanics involved with letter writing in the first-century, which transforms Paul into a person, that Christians can identify with, making imitating him a more tangible idea. “The more we can see a flesh-and-blood Paul scribbling notes under a shade tree during an afternoon rest stop or huddled with a colleague and a secretary in the living room of a third-story apartment on a cold, blustery winter’s day, the more we have a real person whose life we can emulate. A Paul who argued with colleagues over how something should be worded, who modified material from sermons to use in other presentations, who juggled writing with preaching and ministry, is a Paul that many Christians can identify with, and even follow.” One of the modern day ideas of Paul the Richards tries to alter is that he worked in solitude, only sharing his letters when they were sent off to their intended recipients. Paul was the leader of a team. While he was clearly the leader, he still had a team comprised of disciples, like Timothy and Titus, and peers, such as Barnabas and Luke. Paul openly reveals the existence of cosenders, leaving the question of whether or not they were also coauthors. Richards examines other letters from the time of Paul with mentioned cosenders and found that these examples, when not being sent from a husband and a wife, were most often sent in the name of a group. Furthermore, one should not envision the letters being written in one sitting