Abstract:
Biblical cartography has elaborated a master narrative of Paul’s missionary activity.
This master narrative, which clearly distinguishes between three different journeys, is
omnipresent and can easily be found in Bibles and atlases. Nevertheless, Paul’s letters and
the book of Acts do not support such a clear distinction. The present study contends that the
distinction between three missionary journeys is a modern construct and that this way of
representing Paul’s missionary activity has a significant impact on how we understand it.
By representing Paul’s missionary activity as an orderly sequence of three travels, the maps
not only minimise the novelty of his independent mission but also minimise Paul’s
confrontation with the Jerusalem church. In this representation, he is no longer the marginal
leader of a minority movement within the nascent church, but ‘the’ missionary. The portrayal
of the missionary activity of Paul in biblical maps is an example of the uncritical transfer of
exegetical traditions, and of the role of these traditions in the creation of a master narrative
of Christian origins.
Description:
This research is part
of the research project
‘Hermeneutics and Exegesis’
directed by Prof. Dr Ernest
van Eck, Department of
New Testament and Related
Literature, Faculty of Theology
and Religion, University of
Pretoria, South Africa.
