JETS 56/3 (2013) 557–75 HEALING IN THE PAULINE EPISTLES: WHY THE SILENCE? ELIEZER GONZALEZ * I. INTRODUCTION It is significant that in Frederick Gaiser’s Healing in the Bible, healing in the Pauline churches receives only the briefest of mentions. 1 Given Paul’s own relative silence on this matter, this is perhaps understandable. However, according to Luke’s representation of earliest Christianity in the Acts of the Apostles, after the person of Jesus Christ, Paul of Tarsus was the most prominent healer and miracle- worker in the NT. 2 This apparent discrepancy has been highlighted by many schol- ars as one of the key indicators of the distance in both historical time and reliability between Paul and the author of Acts. 3 Although the general question of how Paul is depicted in Acts, as opposed to in his own epistles, has been the subject of extensive scholarly debate, this essay will more specifically examine Paul’s healings in both sources. This will be done within the contexts of Paul’s literary purposes, his pneumatology and ecclesiology, and his own self-understanding as an apostle. Paul’s relative silence regarding his own healings may thereby be understood without having to assume a second- century date for Acts, or impugning Luke’s credentials as a historian. * Eliezer Gonzalez is affiliated with Macquarie University, Sydney and can be contacted at P.O. Box 457, Helensvale QLD 4212. 1 Frederick J. Gaiser, Healing in the Bible: Theological Insight for Christian Ministry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010). 2 David Basinger observes that “[i]n religious contexts … the term ‘miracle’ … is normally applied to unusual, remarkable events that it is assumed would not have occurred in the context in question if not for the intentional activity of a supernatural being.” While this definition serves our purpose, Basinger also goes on to assert that “[t]here is no one standard religious way of understanding the concept of miracle” (“What is a Miracle?” in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles [ed. Graham H. Twelftree; Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 2011] 19, 32). 3 Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. B. Noble et al.; Philadelphia: West- minster, 1971) 112–16; Philipp Vielhauer, “On the ‘Paulinism’ of Acts,” in Studies in Luke-Acts: Essays Presented in Honor of Paul Schubert (ed. Leander E. Keck and J. Louis Martyn; Nashville: Abingdon, 1966) 33–50; Thomas E. Phillips, Paul, His Letters, and Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010) 197; J. Christiaan Beker, “Luke’s Paul as the Legacy of Paul,” SBLSP 32 (ed. Eugene H. Lovering Jr.; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1993) 511–19.