This and the following episode look at legacies and interpretations of Paul after his death. In particular, I use several letters written in the name of Paul (the Pastoral epistles) and a novelistic story about Paul and a woman named Thecla (Acts of Paul and Thecla) as a window into debates about leadership of women in groups of Jesus-followers in the second century. These diverging portraits of Paul can be better understood against the background of Greek and Roman criticisms of certain early Christian family or "anti-family" values.
This episode is part of series one ("Paul and his Communities") of the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast, which is connected with the blog of the same name at
