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This biography of the Apostle Paul provides some really useful background material on the times in which Paul lived. I learned much about some of the happenings in the Roman and Jewish worlds in the first century of the common era. Of particular note here is Schonfield's own Jewish background, which helps as he provides some interesting side points to various things that Paul says (many, for example, seem to be echoes of Jewish prayers). Schonfield makes a strong case for Paul's teachings being so controversial among the Jews because of his work being mistaken for that of Zealots. The Zealots were Jews who, like todays Islamic Jihad movement, used militaristic and terroristic means to achieve their ends. Paul (as were all early Christians), Schonfield contends, was mistaken for such because of his tie to Messianic beliefs, which the Zealots shared. But whereas the Zealots were trying to bring about the coming of the Messiah, the Christians largely only looked for the (second) coming of Messiah. The distinction to outsiders was not necessarily apparent. Mainstream Jews looking to keep peace with Rome had no desire to have such Zealots making trouble for them.
But while Schonfield's points are well taken in this regard--if not at times a bit of a stretch, but one that is arguable--he seems to throw in some other claims that go far beyond what the primary sources say. Paul, Schonfield proclaims, thought he himself was the Messiah, and that was his reason for persecuting Christians. The claim seems utterly ridiculous, and the only real evidence seems to be Schonfield's psychoanalysis of Paul. At times also, Schonfield makes dubious claims that exactly contradict the dubious claims made in another biography of Paul that I read, again without resource to the primary documents. Having read several books now make claims that go way beyond what evidence is presented, I'm left wondering if academic biblical scholarship can be trusted at all.
This short text essentially gives geographic background to Paul's travels. It's quite good though perhaps too concise. Pope provides information on how the towns--and most especially the roads--would have appeared in Paul's day, a bit of history regarding each place, and often information on how the area appears today. Clearly, much has changed, but the landscape itself in some cases is probably similar, even if structures, indeed whole towns, have long since disappeared. The disadvantage of the contemporary descriptions: the book was written in 1939. I'm certain that much has changed even since then. But it was nice to read of Paul's journeys in a landscape context and from an author who took his primary sources seriously.
This "intellectual biography" attempts to place Paul in the context of the thinking of his day and of the education that Paul would have received. Unlike Paul between Damascus and Antioch, this one is written squarely for a mass audience. The writing is clear and easy, quite beautiful really. The author relies heavily on Pauline scholarship and on dominant Protestant views of the theology, and in that is, for me, the book's downfall. Where Chilton sees Paul as at virtual war with Peter and James over preaching to Gentiles, I see no such thing. Where Chilton sees Paul as a virtual antinomionist, ridding the world of the law, putting faith in Jesus alone at Christianity's core, I see Paul as very much a lawkeeper and one who admonishes others to keep the law (Paul's claim was not that Christ replaced the law but that he replaced the punishment one earns for disobedience to the law).
What's more, in taking the typical scholarly line of dismissing large chunks of Paul's writing as being by others and Acts as being an often inaccurate listing of the events that occurred in the early church, the author has little to draw on in terms of creating a narrative beyond his own conjecture. Giving reasons why such primary writings aren't realiable and providing reasonable conjecture as to what really occurred, however, might be acceptable if the author actually posed his writing as conjecture--that is, used the conditional mood (Paul may have done). Instead, his own conjecture is stated as fact. A particularly interesting passage, in this regard, involves Acts' claim that Paul returned after a missionary journey through Asia Minor to go through Asia Minor again. The author dismisses this as impossible and says that Paul was really in Tarsus at this time and that only Barnabus went on the return journey. Neither Paul nor Acts speaks of this trip to Tarsus, the author states, which leaves me wondering how--if no primary source recounts this trip--the author can proclaim so assuredly what Paul was actually doing. Ferreting out what is the author's own conjecture is enough if one knows the primary materials, but it makes one question what is really fact and what is conjecture where one doesn't know the primary materials. Thus the book becomes a dangerously untrustworthy text. Fine reading, but much of it may be fiction--it's just hard to tell where.
This book attempts to identify the Apostle Paul's actions during a period largely undicussed in scripture--from his conversion to his first missionary trip. As such, it provides some key insights into places where Paul was--Arabia, Tarsus, Antioch--through its discussion of historical and geographical context. I'd have wished for more of such. Unfortunately, the authors spend much of the book conjecturing on what exactly what Paul was doing. Some conjecture is, I suppose, unavoidable, given the scant records, but the text seems full of it. I also think the authors read too much into Galatians 2, claiming a clear break between Paul and Peter for something that could also be seen as merely a corrective (if a break were the case, I highly doubt Peter would have even considered Paul's letters worthy reading and thus would have warned against them rather than state that they contained things hard to understand). The book is also quite clearly not for general readers like me but for a scholarly audience. Almost half of it is notes, and phrases in Greek without translation are common. The general thrust of the argument, that it was during the unknown period that Paul came to the understanding he shares in his letter that follow, however, is one that the authors do a good job of proving.
Young's book serves as a useful corrective to readers of Paul the Apostle's epistles of the New Testament. Young's basic premise is that Paul called himself a Pharisee, so readers should take Paul at his word. Paul was a devout Jew, writing for a largely Gentile audience. As a devout Jew he would never have dismissed the Torah as so much flotsam (as many christians assume); rather, he would have honored it. Young shows how Paul does so, tracing many of his concepts to other Jewish writers near the same time of Paul's writing. Eternal punishment, Young claims, is discussed more in Paul's work than in the Old Testament, showing that Paul did not introduce a God more kindly than the one in Jewish teaching; Young also shows how ideas about grace and God's mercy run throughout Jewish teaching, and how Judaism is not, at its core, a salvation-by-works religion. Early Christianity--and Paul's teachings by extension--rest within that Jewish foundation, something that Christians are apt to forget, influenced as they have been by early antisemitic writers like Marcion.
Young's points are well taken. My one quibble with the book would be that at times I think Young makes his point too stridently. Yes, Paul was a Pharisee, and there were other Pharisees who were followers of Christ. But Young seems to make it appear as if all persecution of early Christians arose from other sects like Sadducees or from proselytes to the Jewish religion, when scripture is clear that Pharisees were numbered among those who persecuted the new sect. After all, Paul the Pharisee was one of the greatest persecutors of the church before he became one of its strongest proponents. But this is a minor quibble, one perhaps caused more by my impression of the overall thrust of the book than by Young's actual words, when taken in the context of Young's overall thesis.
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