Abstract – There is a clear contrast in the New Testament between the treatment of the countryside in Paul (for whom rural concerns emerge only as the source for occasional metaphors) and the Synoptic gospels (in which agrarian life is portrayed unselfconsciously but in sympathetic detail). This article explores rural imagery and the depiction of the countryside in the Synoptics. This article also seeks to explain the process by which the countryside became invisible to Paul by observing the shift from the mainly rural context of Jesus' first followers to the urban context of Paul's mission. It notes the significance of Luke's transition from a Synoptic to a Pauline perspective between the gospel and Acts. It reflects on issues of urban power and rural powerlessness in the first and twenty-first centuries.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers (2 Corinthians 11:24-26, ESV).