Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
A cogent rebuttal to much modern Pauline scholarship., 27 Dec 1996
By A Customer
Wenham disputes the consensus of many liberal Biblical scholars that the Apostle Paul is Christianity's true founder. Some scholars insist that Paul, influence by Greek mystery religions, invented much of Christian theology, and particularly the religion's view of Jesus as Son of God.
In painstaking detail, Wenham demonstrates that Paul actually knew and drew from much of the tradition captured in the Gospels, in contrast to the liberal scholarship view.
Wenham constructs a challenge to those critics who too lightly dismiss the connections between Jesus and Paul. There are some points, though, where he is forced to admit that the connections are tenuous.
It's a good study for someone seriously interested in the subject, but too detailed for a casual reader. Anyone who has been persuaded by more radical Pauline scholarship (such as Hyam Maccoby's "Mythmaker") should give Wenham a fair chance to present another perspective.
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Paul the faithful disciple of Messiah Jesus, 10 Oct 2007
New Testament specialist Professor David Wenham demonstrates conclusively that Jesus, not Paul, was the founder of "Christianity", as it is now called. Paul was, in fact, a faithful disciple of Jesus in every respect.
Paul's contributions to the development of Christian thinking and church life were undoubtedly massive. With God's direct inspiration, working through his own personality, Paul worked out an interpretation that was accepted by Jesus' other disciples as faithful both to Jesus Himself and to the social context in which he was working.
Therefore, despite the significance of his conclusions, Paul himself would have been horrified at the suggestion that was the founder of "Christianity". For him the fountain of all theology was none other than Jesus Himself. Therefore, although Paul's theological thought and teaching was of the highest importance, it was not original to himself, but in essence actually a transmission of Jesus' own thought and teaching. Wenham shows this by means of detailed comparisons between Jesus' teaching and that of Paul.
Paul was always aware that the Jesus whom he encountered on the Damascus road and the Jesus of Christian tradition were one and the same Person. Indeed, Paul saw himself as the "slave of Jesus Christ", not as the founder of "Christianity". And Wenham's book demonstrates in the clearest terms that Paul was accurate in seeing himself in that way.
This has the further implication for theologians that, instead of trying to read Paul's Letters in isolation from the Four Gospels, his Letters should actually be read in the light of these Gospels.
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