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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lively, well-read and stimulating, 13 May 2001
This is a sort of companion book to Wilson's "Jesus" but is actually the better of the two. As a biographer, Wilson has great gifts, but as a Biblical exegesist he's just an enthusiastic amateur. This book, then, plays to Wilson's strengths, which are a profound ability to empathise with spiritual and psychological conflicts and a great imaginative grasp of the period. Wilson certainly brings the 1st century Mediterranean world to life and the book is full of interesting asides, anecdotes and literary allusion. Wilson also seems to _like_ Paul (something few Christians could boast of) and is content to explore and tease out the many contradictions in his personality and history without imposing some theological agenda on the matter. As with "Jesus" this is not a book for Bible-based Christians, who will dislike having the omissions, evasions or outright fabrications of Scripture pointed out to them, but it's a book terrifically sympathetic to Christianity, though refusing to be sentimental about its origins. Terrific.
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10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent, elegantly written historical polemic, 22 Nov 1998
By A Customer
Wilson has written an intelligent, lively and (to me at least) revelatory book about the crucial role Paul had in "inventing" Christianity. It is a fascinating biography of the man who dominates the New Testament and who can with very little exaggeration be said to be one of the most influential men who ever lived.
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8 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Secular Examination Of The Sacred, 10 Aug 2006
"Paul: The Mind Of The Apostle" is A. N. Wilson's attempt to delve into the mind of one of the most influential people world history. The theme of the book is that Paul, even more than Jesus, is the founder of Christianity. Wilson's method is to compare the writings of Paul and St. Luke with what is known about Paul's world and attempt to pick the truth from among any apparent inconsistencies. He succeeds in providing the reader with an insight into the world of the emerging Church.
The one thing which this book lacks is faith. Wilson subjects the first century to a totally secular analysis. He ascribes secular motivations to the writings contained in the New Testament. He concludes, for example, that part of the Acts of The Apostles is in the nature of a legal brief prepared for Paul's defense, not a theological narrative of the early Church. He seems to be couching the whole New Testament into a form of propaganda with the intent of convincing the Romans of the loyalty of the Christians, by shifting blame to the Jews. He claims that any Jew who was crucified by the Romans would have been a hero among the Jews, ignoring the accounts that Jesus was offered as a sacrifice to divert Roman punishment from the Jewish leadership.
Wilson makes several assertions which in direct contradiction to events recorded in Scripture and Tradition. He states, for example, that the concept that a first century Jew would invite his friends to drink my blood is "unthinkable." In other words, the Last Supper did not happen as reported in the Synoptic Gospels and by St. Paul. He points out that Paul claims that he did not get his information from the other Apostles, but directly from the Lord. Wilson characterizes Jesus as a simple, rural, Jewish preacher who desired nothing more than to encourage a greater fervor among his fellow Jews. He claims that the concepts that Jesus was God and intended to establish a Church are, among other things, concoctions originating in the unbalanced mind of Paul. He expresses amusement at those who pour over Paul's writings as if they were Scripture, which, to a person of faith, they are. He repeatedly asserts that St. Luke is a poor historian. He asserts that, because there is no solid evidence that St. Peter actually got to Rome, he did not. He expresses bewilderment at the failure of Acts to explain Paul's end. He chooses to believe, with no evidence as to what happened to Paul, that he left Rome and went to Spain, apparently to live out his helter-skelter life sans the crown of martyrdom.
The conclusion which the author seems to be suggesting is that Christianity is not a divinely established religion but merely an elaborate charade constructed by man. To the totally secular investigator, Wilson's theme may be attractive. To the person of faith, he is missing the whole point. It is true that Jesus did not lay it all out and that the discernment of His message took some time, just as the Resurrection sunk in slowly and it took Peter years to "really understand" that Gentiles were heirs along with the Jews. To Wilson, this all may be a case of the hijacking of the teachings of a long dead preacher. To the person of faith, the gradual discernment occurred under the guidance of the Holy Ghost throughout the Apostolic Age during which Sacred Truths continued to be revealed. A person of faith who reads carefully can get some insight into the Apostolic world from this book. Perhaps the best greatest benefit from a reading of this book is an appreciation of how different the story looks through the eyes of faith.
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