Ethnomedical Anthropology and Paul's “Thorn” (2 Corinthians 12:7)

Abstract

In 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, Paul confesses to being beset by “a thorn in the flesh” connected in some way with a prior ecstatic experience (vv 2–4), which he summons “the Lord” on three occasions to remove (v 8). The intersecting topoi of this passage—illness, pain, healing, altered states of consciousness ( Pilch 2004 ; Goodman 1990 ), strength and weakness, the role of non-human forces in human illness, explanations of/for illness, and the (non)efficacy of prayer for healing—raise a complex of questions that ought not be answered in isolation. In pursuit of answers to such questions regarding illness and healing in the “symbolic world” of Paul and the community he addressed, I employ here conceptual tools garnered from the field of ethnomedical anthropology. I offer fresh readings of the dynamics at work in Paul's “thorn” discourse—a key component of the rhetorical culmination of Paul's speech act designed to (re-)assert his credentials as God's apostle to the gathered people at Corinth ( Neufeld 2000 )—while making reference throughout to its immediate literary context, the so-called “letter of tears” (2 Cor. 10–13), as well as to its relationship to the structure of ideas on illness and healing in Paul's larger epistolary corpus (e.g. Galatians 4:13–15; 1 Corinthians 11:27–34; 12:8–10, 28, 29–30).