Abstract:
This paper proposes to demonstrate the Helenistic influence in the life, work and theology of the apostle Paul, considered by many as the first Christian theologian and one of the founders of Christianity. Besides this it intends to discuss the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the bodies in the understanding of the apostle based on the theologian of French character Oscar Cullmann. The research is divided into three chapters which debate the above mentioned issues. In the first chapter we seek to highlight some biographical portraits of the apostle mainly based on his epistolar collection, those epistles which were proven to be written or dictated by him, and on the Lukan witness in the Acts of the Apostles, which we consider a secondary source. From these portraits we extracted the assertion that Paul lived between two worlds, the Helenistic and the Jewish, influenced by two great cities, Tarsus and Jerusalem. We sought to concentrate on that information which sustains this assertion showing the influences which guarantee him a cosmopolitan education. In the second chapter we open a discussion about the marks which Tarsus and Jerusalem imprinted on the apostle’s formation. We will seek to answer in this chapter the following question: which of these cities helped to sculpt the personality of the apostle and to establish the first bases of his theology? Besides this we will also seek, in this same chapter, to expose some of the Helenistic influences on the apostle exemplified by his literary style and we will present some points of his theology which have a strong Greek influence. Finally, in the third and last chapter of this paper we will seek to discuss, based on a Pauline perspective, the New Testament doctrine of life after death based on Oscar Cullmann’s perspective, especially based on two great works of the author, that is: La inmortalidad del alma o la resurrección de los cuerpos and Das origens do evangelho a formação da teologia cristã.
