Forthcoming Article . . . with Photos!

A few months ago, I finished up an article about the life of Paul after the close of the Book of Acts. It’s titled, “The Last Letters: Exploring the History Behind 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.”

I called it that because the three letters named in the subtitle have Paul referring to all sorts of travels and activities that simply don’t fit into his biography according to Acts. For what it’s worth, I take the classic position that Paul covered a lot of territory following what we know of his life from Acts, that he experienced a second Roman imprisonment in the year 64, and was sometime later executed.

Last week I got an email from Neil Anderson, the editor of the Gospel Advocate magazine. He said article is scheduled to appear in next month’s issue.

It’s always neat when your written work sees the light of printed day. But I’m especially looking forward to the appearance of this article mainly because of two photos I sent along with it.

I got one of the photos at the American Numismatic Society in Manhattan. It’s a picture of two Neronian coins. I sent it along with the article because, at it explains, Nero was the Emperor who, in the 60s, carried out an infamous persecution against Christians. And it’s likely that that would have been the occasion when Paul would have been arrested once again, brought back to Rome, and finally martyred.

I guess I’ll never forget the day I got the photo. Very few people I knew would have wanted to go to the American Numismatic Society; nor would they have gotten why I wanted to go. So it turned out to be a solo trip.

ANS is located on Broadway several miles north of the bustling section of town (up around 157th St.). It’s not one of the touristy sections of the city.

After I finally got there and was buzzed in, I looked around at the exhibits and spent some time in their library. I met one of the curators. As we talked, I told him about my interest in coins that might open a window on the biblical world (ala the influence of Dr. Richard Oster mentioned in a previous post).

There were very few people there that day. The man I was talking with wasn’t particularly busy. Eventually, he led me back to one of those places where I couldn’t have gone without him and pulled open a shallow metal drawer. It was completely full of nothing but Neronian coins, all of them heads up. It was one of those moments I’ll never forget. And I could only imagine what was in the dozen or so other drawers in the same cabinet.

“Could I get a photo of one or two of those?” I asked.

“Sure.” he said. “Which ones?”

Do you remember the scene when, as a kid, you went to the dentist and on the way out got to pick a goody from the treasure box? That was me.

I pointed to a couple of the coins, being careful not to touch them. He took them out, gently laid them on a felt pad and snapped the picture.

The other photo I sent along with the article is of a fragment known as Papyrus 32. Containing sections of Paul’s letter to Titus, P 32 dates to about the year 200 and represents the oldest witness to the text of that letter. It’s housed in the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester, England.

The acquisition of that photo also has a story that includes these beautifully-crafted letters from England, full of prim and mannered language. The international correspondence took months, mainly because I didn’t want to sound like a complete idiot, and wound up polishing every letter for a long time before I sent it.

The magazine editor also told me he’d be sending several extra copies of the magazine. The GA is a print-only journal. If you’re not a subscriber and would like to have a copy of the August issue, email me your physical address and I’ll be glad to send you one.