Details
Synopsis
All through history, Christians have debated Paul's influence on the church. Though revered, Paul has also been a stone on which many stumble. Unlike the Gospel writers, who carefully shaped their narratives many decades after Jesus' life, Paul wrote in the heat of the moment, managing controversy, and sometimes contradicting himself, but at the same time offering the best reflection of those early times. This interpretation of Paul's writing examines his tremendous influence on the first explosion of Christian belief and chronicles the controversy surrounding Paul through the centuries.--From publisher description., Garry Wills follows up his bestselling WHAT JESUS MEANT with this short but insightful treatise on the church father and New Testament writer, Paul. Wills draws on his lifelong interest in church, and his familiarity with scholarship, and in doing so debunks many ideas about the early Church, while providing illuminating historical context, such as that Paul never knew the living Jesus. Nevertheless, says Wills, "His letters stand closer to Jesus than any other words in the New Testament."
Wills brings out Paul's unique qualities of thought and expression, placing him at the forefront of early writers of the church, and credits him with spreading the good news far and wide through his travels. He discusses controversies over Paul's views on women and on Jews, and provides a chapter on how and why Paul has been misread through the ages. The result is a intriguing portrait of a man who was close to Jesus, and an accessible history of the early "gatherings," as Wills terms them, that eventually became the Christian Church.
| Size | | Length: | 208 pages | | Height: | 8.8 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 11.2 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "The most important event of Paul's life, that which determined everything else, was his encounter with the risen Jesus."
Industry Reviews
"With this bracing book, Wills, who continues to call himself a Catholic, further cements his reputation as one of the most intellectually interesting and doctrinally heterodox Christians writing today."
(12/31/2006)
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
All rights reserved.
