What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? [Paperback]

With regard to that idea, Wright states that 'His [Paul's] fate in this century has been not unlike his fate in his own day. Nobody who wants to think about Christianity can ignore him; but they can, and do, abuse him, misunderstand him, impose their own categories on him, come to him with the wrong questions and wonder why he doesn't give a clear answer, and shamelessly borrow material from him to fit into other schemes of which he would not have approved.' Wright highlights the riot in Ephesus of showing that, with regard to Paul, there is often a lot of sound and fury, but we're not always sure what it signifies. Wright traces the different ways in which major thinkers of the twentieth century have portrayed Paul - Schweitzer, Bultmann, Davies, Kasemann, and Sanders primarily. He also develops the framework of the key questions to be asked - these deal with history, theology, exegesis and practical application.

Saul/Paul considered himself a Pharisee, but even this group wasn't the monolithic community as it is often portrayed (any more than saying someone is a Protestant Christian can give you much more than the broadest of categorial information). Wright argues that Paul is a messianic believer who sees in Jesus a four-fold 'gospel', not one that is salvific in the modern Christian of 'how one gets saved' as an individual task, but rather as communal call that recognises Jesus (particularly his death on the cross and resurrection) is the long-awaited Messiah of Israel and the true king of the world. Paul's identification of Jesus with God was, for Paul, good news for Jews and Gentiles both.

For Paul, according to Wright, 'the "gospel" creates the church; "justification" defines it.' By justification, Wright says this is 'the doctrine which declares that whoever believes that gospel, and wherever or whenever they believe it, those people are truly members of his family, no matter where they came from, what colour their skin may be, whatever else might distinguish them from each other.' Paul takes the idea of covenant seriously, bringing about community, which is the locus of the church, and the arena for justification. However, this is not the final end - Wright quotes Richard Hooker here, who stated, 'One is not justified by faith by believing in justification by faith.'

Wright then returns to the claim against Wilson that Paul was not the 'founder' of Christianity - 'Jesus believed it was his vocation to bring Israel's history to its climax. Paul believed that Jesus had succeeded in that aim.' Jesus was the first and focal point, and Paul was acting in accordance with what that experience and revelation had to say, according to Wright.

Wright is a careful scholar, skilled in the tools of modern scholarship but distrustful of certain enterprises such as some of the Jesus Seminar applications, and certainly not in the post-modern camp of deconstruction of all metanarratives and paradigms for meaning and understanding. Indeed, Wright argues that what Paul has to offer is a counter to this kind of deconstructionist nihilism.

This is a worthy text in the ongoing development of biblical scholarship.