Bestselling authors of The Last Week and The First Christmas, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan join once again to present a new understanding of early Christianity—this time to reveal a radical Paul who has been suppressed by the church. Paul is second only to Jesus as the most important person in the birth of Christianity, and yet he continues to be controversial, even among Christians. How could the letters of Paul be used both to inspire radical grace and to endorse systems of oppression—condoning slavery, subordinating women, condemning homosexual behavior? Borg and Crossan use the best of biblical and historical scholarship to explain the reasons for Paul's mixed reputation and reveal to us what scholars have known for decades: that the later letters of Paul were created by the early church to dilute Paul's egalitarian message and transform him into something more "acceptable." They argue there are actually "Three Pauls" in the New Testament: "The Radical Paul" (of the seven genuine letters), "The Conservative Paul" (of the three disputed epistles), and "The Reactionary Paul" (of the three inauthentic letters). By closely examining this progression of Paul's letters—from the authentic to the inauthentic—the authors show how the apostle was slowly but steadily "deradicalized" to fit Roman social norms in regards to slavery, patriarchy, and patronage. In truth, Paul was an appealing apostle of Jesus whose vision of life "in Christ"—one of his favored phrases—is remarkably faithful to the message of Jesus himself.

Meeks analyzes the letters of Paul to see what kind of people joined the Christian groups in the urban centers and what it was like to be a Christian then.

JOHN W. MAUCK provides an exciting new way of understanding the Book of Acts. With great skill and powerful arguments, the author contends that Acts was written primarily to defend Paul for his forthcoming trial in Rome. After reading Mauck's volume, the read we will not only gain a fuller understanding of Acts, but also obtain rock-solid arguments for defending Christianity and understanding its Jewish roots. What's Inside: A fresh study of Acts as a legal "brief" Insights gained from understanding of Roman law Numerous Charts that outline Luke's "argument" Recorded speeches viewed as "witness testimony" A section-by-section review of all of Acts A powerful apologetic defending the claims of Christianity Endorsements: "The book is a terrific addition to any lawyer's library. It makes the Book of Acts come alive with new and useful insights." -- Samuel B. Casey, Executive Director, Christian Legal Society "It makes a constructive, fresh, and fascinating contribution to the understanding of Acts." -- Dr. Donald Hagner, Author of Matthew in WBC, Fuller Theological Seminary

A thoughtful, highly acclaimed biography of Giovanni Battista Montini, Paul VI, which sheds light on and powerfully underscores the personal and ecclesial sides of a man who brought modernity to the church.

Flavius Josephus, the priest from Jerusalem who was affiliated with the Pharisees, is our most important source for Jewish life in the first century. His notice about the death of James the brother of Jesus suggests that Josephus knew about the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and in Judaea. In Rome, where he lived for the remainder of his life after the Jewish War, a group of Christians appear to have flourished, if 1 Clement is any indication. Josephus, however, says extremely little about the Christians in Judaea and nothing about those in Rome. He also does not reference Paul the apostle, a former Pharisee, who was a contemporary of Josephus’s father in Jerusalem, even though, according to Acts, Paul and his activities were known to two successive Roman governors (procurators) of Judaea, Marcus Antonius Felix and Porcius Festus, and to King Herod Agrippa II and his sisters Berenice and Drusilla. The knowledge of the Herodians, in particular, puts Josephus’s silence about Paul in an interesting light, suggesting that it may have been deliberate. In addition, Josephus’s writings bear very little witness to other contemporaries in Rome, so much so that if we were dependent on Josephus alone we might conclude that many of those historical characters either did not exist or had little or no impact in the first century. Asiedu comments on the state of life in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian and how both Josephus and the Christians who produced 1 Clement coped with the regime as other contemporaries, among whom he considers Martial, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and others, did. He argues that most of Josephus’s contemporaries practiced different kinds of silences in bearing witness to the world around them. Consequently, the absence of references to Jews or Christians in Roman writers of the last three decades of the first century, including Josephus, should not be taken as proof of their non-existence in Flavian Rome.

12-year-old Christopher entreats his grandfather to tell him about Peter, Paul, and the very first Christians.

What happened to Paul after Paul? This book examines the relationships between Paul's undisputed writings, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Pauline legacy adopted and adapted by the early church. Book jacket.

This book concentrates on major Pauline themes and on I Thessalonians in its cultural and religious context, as well as exploring other major issues, especially with reference to chronology and Judaism. The question of Paul's Jewishness is therefore raised with a new urgency. What kind of a Jew was Paul? Why do we find so many coherences between his language and thought with that of the Community of the Renewed Covenant (i.e. the Essenes)? One of the essays, 'Paul and Qumran', suggests that the Dead Sea Scrolls offer valuable clues to understanding Pauline language and thought. If, in fact, there was contact between Paul and the Essenes, where would it have taken place? If such meetings were held, possibly, in the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem, is there a connection between that area and the location of the earliest Christians in Jerusalem? And what kind of Christians were they and how did they impact on the Apostle's missionary activity? In connection with this discussion of Paul and Judaism, a number of challenges are offered to the so-called 'New Perspective on Paul', especially in the work of E.P. Sanders and James D. G. Dunn, to suggest that a closer study of the Dead Sea Scrolls raises serious questions about the appropriateness of their interpretation of both Judaism and Paul, as well as opening new perspectives that will necessitate not only the rethinking of second temple Judaism, but also the origins of earliest Christianity and the relationship between them.

A groundbreaking new portrait of the apostle Paul, from one of today’s leading historians of antiquity Often seen as the author of timeless Christian theology, Paul himself heatedly maintained that he lived and worked in history’s closing hours. His letters propel his readers into two ancient worlds, one Jewish, one pagan. The first was incandescent with apocalyptic hopes, expecting God through his messiah to fulfill his ancient promises of redemption to Israel. The second teemed with ancient actors, not only human but also divine: angry superhuman forces, jealous demons, and hostile cosmic gods. Both worlds are Paul’s, and his convictions about the first shaped his actions in the second. Only by situating Paul within this charged social context of gods and humans, pagans and Jews, cities, synagogues, and competing Christ-following assemblies can we begin to understand his mission and message. This original and provocative book offers a dramatically new perspective on one of history’s seminal figures.

John Dominic Crossan, the eminent historical Jesus scholar, and Jonathan L. Reed, an expert in biblical archaeology, reveal through archaeology and textual scholarship that Paul, like Jesus, focused on championing the Kingdom of God––a realm of justice and equality––against the dominant, worldly powers of the Roman empire. Many theories exist about who Paul was, what he believed, and what role he played in the origins of Christianity. Using archaeological and textual evidence, and taking advantage of recent major discoveries in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Syria, Crossan and Reed show that Paul was a fallible but dedicated successor to Jesus, carrying on Jesus's mission of inaugurating the Kingdom of God on earth in opposition to the reign of Rome. Against the concrete backdrop of first–century Grego–Roman and Jewish life, In Search of Paul reveals the work of Paul as never before, showing how and why the liberating messages and practices of equality, caring for the poor, and a just society under God's rules, not Rome's, were so appealing. Readers interested in Paul as a historical figure and his place in the development of Christianity •Readers interested in archaeology and anthropology