New documentary: Nobody Liked Paul

The apostle Paul is among the most important figures in the history of Christianity. Yet we often approach Paul with an already overdetermined picture of who he was. Often this picture is based on the later Church’s narratives about Paul’s biography and its adaption of his radical, apocalyptic thinking to an institution which soon aspired to become the religious institution of the Empire. Yet a very different story appears if we approach Paul on his terms. Paul's ideas and methods created many followers but even more opponents. He was not always a popular figure in his own time, not even among other Christ-believers.

In this ‘road movie’ through the remains of Greco-Roman antiquity, Larsen engages in the fields of archaeology, material culture, and the social and cultural worlds to redescribe how the apostle Paul lived as a Jewish apocalyptic community organizer. Larsen points to the fact that several of Paul’s letters were written while incarcerated. But how to imagine life in the ancient prison? How did it influence Paul’s thinking? He shows how we can gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the life and work of the apostle if we are aware of the specific history of the cities that Paul visited and if we zoom in on the intimacy of everyday life in these cities. By walking through the streets, and studying the daily life, physical surroundings, and local community structures, we gain new knowledge that enriches our understanding of Paul's letters and theological thoughts.

Matthew D. Larsen is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen, where he leads the research project 'Materiality of Incarceration in Mediterranean Antiquity' funded by the Carlsberg Foundation.

On 22 May at 17:30, the documentary will be shown at the National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst). Read more about the screening.