Paul is traditionally seen as one of the founders of Christian sexual asceticism. As early as the second century C.E. church leaders looked to him as a model for their lives of abstinence. But is this a correct reading of Paul? What exactly did Paul teach on the subjects of marriage and celibacy? Will Deming here answers these questions - often in provocative new ways. He shows that the conceptual world in which Paul lived and wrote had substantially vanished by 100 C.E., and terms like 'sin,' 'body,' 'sex,' and 'holiness' began to acquire moral implications quite unlike those Paul knew.
