Paul

by Gerd Lüdemann

New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann continues his exploration of the life and teachings of Paul in this groundbreaking monograph, which synthesizes the research of his four previous books on Christianity's leading apostle. As the subtitle of the present work makes clear, Lüdemann comes to the conclusion that Paul should be considered not only Christianity's most influential proselytizer but in truth deserves the title of founder of the religion that ostensibly originated with Jesus of Nazareth. Though other scholars have previously made the point that Paul's interpretation of the Christian message actually obscured the original teachings of Jesus, Lüdemann goes further. His painstaking historical research shows that Paul created the major tenets of the Christianity we know today and that his theology - an original synthesis of Hebrew and Greek belief systems - differs significantly from what we now know the historical Jesus to have preached.

Genres: Religion, Christianity, History, Nonfiction

293 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Gerd Lüdemann is Professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, Germany, Director of the Institute of Early Christian Studies, and Founder and Director of the Archive Religionsgeschichtliche Schule at the University of Göttingen. He has also served as Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, and as co-chair of the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar on Jewish Christianity. He is a Fellow of the Westar Institute.

Reviews

[David Elkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well reasoned article that Paul creates Christianity using the Eastern rebirth myths to create a loving and forgiving God to embrace all of humanity. Another good read for the student of early Christian History

[C.J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easily one of the worst books on the NT I have read in my young career. While Ludemann starts off on the right track in attempting to seek the Historical Paul and remove from him the layers of later traditions, things go horribly awry. Ludemann turns this work into a sharp polemic against traditional Christian believes (specifically on the resurrection of Jesus), claiming that Paul himself was deceived by the "canard" of the early Christian faith. Overall, this book is more of a sensationalistic project than a serious scholarly endeavor. This is a pity since his earlier works (particularly "Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles") are first rate.

[Mu-tien Chiou · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book project fails at either being a critical history lesson about Paul the Apostle or a theological lesson about the historical beliefs about Paul the Apostle. The author misconceives Acts of the Apostles as a reliable historical witness (when it is demonstrated to be a non-fiction writing at best composed at some point in the early 2nd century), thus it has to worst of the combinations: arguing from bad historical foundations and bad theological foundations (e.g. treating Paul as a lunatically tricked person about things he preached).

[Tom Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The presentation was a little bit confusing at times but maybe this was an artefact of the material, as it was easy to lose sight of the chronology amid the detailed analysis of overlapping sources (Acts/The Letters).

The more essayistic, philosophical side of the book, and its invocation of Nietzsche won't be everyone's cup of tea, but the historical conclusions were broadly convincing to me.

[Calvin Berggren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author as confused as Paul

Scholarly dissection of the New Testament as regards the Apostle Paul. Ludemann seems to be brilliant and insightful, but he uses such long and complex sentences that this reader was nearly as baffled by this book as by the mysterious Apostle.

[Will Thorpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like this book has an unnecessarily low good reads rating. I’ve read quite a few popular books about the Bible and biblical characters and this one is pretty solid.

The idea that some have said in the ratings that this author is unfairly critical of Paul is absolutely absurd. Unless you’re an evangelical Christians who things the Bible is “god’s word” or “inerrant” you will find that this book is very moderate in its criticism of Paul and quite middle of the road in it’s critical analysis.

My personal opinion is that the author wasn’t critical enough of Paul and played it quite safe but this didn’t keep him from getting in a few critical but still fair critiques.

If you want a rather straightforward and relatively short but still detailed synopsis of Paul from a historical secular perspective then check it out. If you want a theological lesson on how wonderful Paul was then read a book by a theologian. This is a history book dealing with the man who created a theology and you will find things in here you will not learn (more than likely) in your churches.