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In the Steps of Saint Paul
As one of the most prolific writers of the Bible and a major leader in the formation of the early church, Saint Paul is often considered the greatest influencer after Jesus in the history of Christianity. He also remains one of the more controversial figures--celebrated by some for his work in spreading the Christian message and criticized by others for promoting what they consider to be a lofty, complex version of it. What we do know, however, is that Paul played an unarguably significant role in the growth of the church, bringing Jesus's message far beyond previous reach. In this companion title to its well-established forerunner In the Steps of Jesus, Peter Walker uses his expertise in biblical studies and his extensive experience leading tours around the Mediterranean to bring the world of Saint Paul vividly to life. Following Luke's account in the Book of Acts as well as evidence from Paul's own letters, Walker reconstructs the apostle's wide-ranging travels and describes the many places Paul visited as readers would encounter them today. In doing so, he brings to light the issues that Paul confronted in the growing church and helps readers understand the motivation that drove Paul to continue his mission. Enriched with maps, street plans, timelines, and boxed features highlighting special topics of interest, In the Steps of Saint Paul is an ideal introduction to Paul and his travels for scholars and history enthusiasts at all levels of study.
280 pages, Paperback
First published March 14, 2008
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Peter Walker
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 8, 2026
Ed Stevens's fine book The Final Decade has a long section dating the composition of the New Testament corpus, including Paul's letters. I found the section on dating Paul's letters difficult to follow because Stevens uses Paul's missionary journeys as recounted in Acts to help date these books. Since I am not especially familiar with Paul's missionary journeys, I felt I should read a book or books to help me out. I found an inexpensive book on Amazon entitled The Missionary Journeys of Paul, by Dr. Dan S. Bailey. As it turned out, Bailey's book was not especially helpful for my purposes, since it focused more on Paul's missionary activities than the geography or dating of Paul's journeys.
I found In the Steps of Paul to be much more helpful for my purposes. There is a chart on p. 13 which dates the letters of Paul and gives the place of writing as well as the reference in Acts where Walker believes refers to when Paul wrote his letters. Walker mentions that some people believe some of Paul's letters to be pseudepigraphic, but Walker himself believes them to be all genuine. This chart is so helpful that I considered writing all the information into my notes, but as this would be cumbersome I decided just to go ahead and buy this book so that I would always have this chart available.
The book is physically very attractive. It is laid out like a textbook, with many charts, pictures, and sidebars. Unlike Bailey's book, it has a section for Further Reading, which functions as a bibliography. The pictures include artists renditions of ancient cities, as well as modern pictures of the biblical cities that are mentioned in Acts.
The only thing that didn’t have me jumping up and down about this book was that after Paul's first missionary journey, the terminuses of the second and third missionary journeys were not clearly defined. In this one respect, Bailey's book was superior.
Walker is clearly a conservative who takes a conservative view of scripture. He says that despite Paul's lack of citation of details of Jesus's life and teachings in his letters, Paul's letters suppose Jesus's teachings and assume that Paul's students have been well catechized. I cannot agree with this statement. First of all, I think all of the gospels were written after Paul's letters, and if there is any correspondence between the letters of Paul and the gospels, it is because of the gospels' dependence on Paul, not the other way around. Secondly, I just don’t think there is much correspondence between the gospels and Paul's letters. I actually agree with those scholars who detect in the gospel of Matthew passages that seem to be a reaction *against* Paul.
Walker also claims that it is bizarre to think that Paul's sea voyage as recounted in Acts chapter 27 is fiction. I guess we’re just supposed to accept at face value that the captain of the ship handed over control of his ship to one of the prisoners? Not to mention that Paul got bitten by a poisonous snake and suffered no ill effects. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it is more bizarre to think that Acts 27 is *not* fiction.
Another conservative view that Walker holds is an early dating of Acts. Walker suggests that Acts may have been completed *before* Paul's death, and Luke died shortly afterwards, which explains why Acts stops short of recounting Paul's death. Ed Stevens, relying on earlier conservative scholarship, dates the composition of Acts to 61-62 A.D., several years before the traditional date of Paul’s death in 67.
This book made me aware of several Christian traditions with which I was not familiar. For example, the bishop of Salamis, Anthemius had a dream where Barnabas told him where his corpse was buried. The corpse was found, clutching a copy of Matthew's gospel in Hebrew. This sounds legendary to me, not a true story, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Another factoid I found interesting was that in the 19th century a German Catholic nun saw a house in a dream that was supposed to be the house of Mary. People looked where the house was supposed to be, and found it there as described. While Walker claims that the house was rebuilt in the Middle Ages, Google AI claims it was built in the 4th century, and Wikipedia claims it was built in apostolic times. So, who knows? It exists as a shrine today and many of the faithful still visit it to this day.
There’s a popular skeptic's meme that says the body of a biblical character has never been found. Walker claims that with a high degree of certainty, Paul's tomb in the basilica of St. Paul, with script dated to the time of Constantine, contains Paul's remains. I don’t know how certain it is, but it is interesting that according to Wikipedia a bone sample from the tomb was carbon dated to the 1st or 2nd century.
A final claim that I just had to research was that Felix's wife Drusilla was under twenty when she met Paul in Caesarea. If Acts 24.24 is dated to 57-59 and Drusilla was born in 38, she could have been under 20 when she is mentioned in Acts.
In short, this is a very fine book, one that I am looking forward to adding to my collection. I would rate it five stars except for the fact that it did not clearly mark the terminuses of Paul's second and third missionary journeys. For that one small flaw, I am deducting one star.
I found In the Steps of Paul to be much more helpful for my purposes. There is a chart on p. 13 which dates the letters of Paul and gives the place of writing as well as the reference in Acts where Walker believes refers to when Paul wrote his letters. Walker mentions that some people believe some of Paul's letters to be pseudepigraphic, but Walker himself believes them to be all genuine. This chart is so helpful that I considered writing all the information into my notes, but as this would be cumbersome I decided just to go ahead and buy this book so that I would always have this chart available.
The book is physically very attractive. It is laid out like a textbook, with many charts, pictures, and sidebars. Unlike Bailey's book, it has a section for Further Reading, which functions as a bibliography. The pictures include artists renditions of ancient cities, as well as modern pictures of the biblical cities that are mentioned in Acts.
The only thing that didn’t have me jumping up and down about this book was that after Paul's first missionary journey, the terminuses of the second and third missionary journeys were not clearly defined. In this one respect, Bailey's book was superior.
Walker is clearly a conservative who takes a conservative view of scripture. He says that despite Paul's lack of citation of details of Jesus's life and teachings in his letters, Paul's letters suppose Jesus's teachings and assume that Paul's students have been well catechized. I cannot agree with this statement. First of all, I think all of the gospels were written after Paul's letters, and if there is any correspondence between the letters of Paul and the gospels, it is because of the gospels' dependence on Paul, not the other way around. Secondly, I just don’t think there is much correspondence between the gospels and Paul's letters. I actually agree with those scholars who detect in the gospel of Matthew passages that seem to be a reaction *against* Paul.
Walker also claims that it is bizarre to think that Paul's sea voyage as recounted in Acts chapter 27 is fiction. I guess we’re just supposed to accept at face value that the captain of the ship handed over control of his ship to one of the prisoners? Not to mention that Paul got bitten by a poisonous snake and suffered no ill effects. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it is more bizarre to think that Acts 27 is *not* fiction.
Another conservative view that Walker holds is an early dating of Acts. Walker suggests that Acts may have been completed *before* Paul's death, and Luke died shortly afterwards, which explains why Acts stops short of recounting Paul's death. Ed Stevens, relying on earlier conservative scholarship, dates the composition of Acts to 61-62 A.D., several years before the traditional date of Paul’s death in 67.
This book made me aware of several Christian traditions with which I was not familiar. For example, the bishop of Salamis, Anthemius had a dream where Barnabas told him where his corpse was buried. The corpse was found, clutching a copy of Matthew's gospel in Hebrew. This sounds legendary to me, not a true story, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Another factoid I found interesting was that in the 19th century a German Catholic nun saw a house in a dream that was supposed to be the house of Mary. People looked where the house was supposed to be, and found it there as described. While Walker claims that the house was rebuilt in the Middle Ages, Google AI claims it was built in the 4th century, and Wikipedia claims it was built in apostolic times. So, who knows? It exists as a shrine today and many of the faithful still visit it to this day.
There’s a popular skeptic's meme that says the body of a biblical character has never been found. Walker claims that with a high degree of certainty, Paul's tomb in the basilica of St. Paul, with script dated to the time of Constantine, contains Paul's remains. I don’t know how certain it is, but it is interesting that according to Wikipedia a bone sample from the tomb was carbon dated to the 1st or 2nd century.
A final claim that I just had to research was that Felix's wife Drusilla was under twenty when she met Paul in Caesarea. If Acts 24.24 is dated to 57-59 and Drusilla was born in 38, she could have been under 20 when she is mentioned in Acts.
In short, this is a very fine book, one that I am looking forward to adding to my collection. I would rate it five stars except for the fact that it did not clearly mark the terminuses of Paul's second and third missionary journeys. For that one small flaw, I am deducting one star.
May 23, 2024
I bought this book before a trip to Greece with a church group - the tour was "The Steps of Paul". I took it with me and read about the places we would be going - it was great! We had knowledgeable tour guides, but having the background knowledge as well as the history before seeing these amazing sites made the trip so much better.
Would have liked a few more maps, but this was well worth the money.
Would have liked a few more maps, but this was well worth the money.
July 25, 2021
Loved this spiritual and travel guide! This guide immersed me deeper into the Acts of the Apostles and Saint Paul's letters, giving me the perspective and the context to them, about the times and the places in which he travelled with his companions, Luke being the most crucial, considering he wrote the Acts. Highly recommended!
February 6, 2020
This book is a carefully researched and well presented account of the missionary journeys of Paul. I very much appreciated the combination of passages from Acts along with analysis, historical timeline and current day description of the various locations. I highly recommend.
June 23, 2024
Excellent overview of the life, work, and travels of the Apostle Paul.
April 29, 2013
Good book! A lot of information I love the pictures and the parts about what the areas that Paul visited are like today. This would be a great book to read before traveling to Greece following Paul's journey.
February 18, 2016
Helps to get an overview of Paul's life.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews