Paul: The Mind of the Apostle

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A.N. Wilson, who has written revisionist biographies of Jesus, Tolstoy, and C.S. Lewis, trains his critical eye on the first self-identified Christian writer in Paul: The Mind of the Apostle. Wilson's book may purport to be a biography of Paul, but it is really an argument about the origin and nature of Christianity. His premise is that "Jesus was a devoted Jew who did not seek to found a new religion, but to call his followers to a stricter observance of Judaism." It was Paul, not Jesus, who exemplified the central tensions of Christianity. ("Jewish or non-Jewish? Roman or anti-Roman? Apocalyptic or practical?") And according to Wilson, it was Paul who first claimed Jesus' divinity and called Jesus the messiah. Wilson's argument, though heterodox, is no hatchet-job. Paul may be "widely regarded as someone who distorted the original message of Christianity, by adding 'theology' to the supposedly simple message of love Jesus preached," but Wilson sees Paul as "a prophet of liberty, whose visionary sense of the importance of the inner life anticipates the Romantic poets more than the rule-books of the Inquisition." Wilson concludes that Christianity is "an institutionalised distortion of Paul's thought, the inevitable consequence of the world having lasted ... more than nineteen hundred years longer than he predicted." Wilson's prose is just this lively and provocative throughout, and his observations are always skeptical and forgiving: "Paul did not imagine that there would be such a thing as Christianity, or Christian civilization, any more than Jesus did." --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description

It begins on the road to Damascus, in a moment graven on the consciousness of Western civilization. "Saul, Saul," asks the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, "why persecutest thou me?" From this experience, and from the response of the Jewish merchant later known as Paul, springs the Christian Church as we know it today. For as A. N. Wilson makes clear in this astonishing and gripping narrative, Christianity without Paul is quite literally nothing. Jesus, with the layers of scholarship and ceremony stripped away, is a fastidious and fervent Jew who will lead his followers into a stricter, purer observance of Judaism; it is Paul who will claim divinity for him, who will transform him into the Messiah, center of an entirely new religion. In Wilson's astute narrative, we see Paul negotiating the dangerous political currents of the Roman Empire, making converts, and writing the great epistles that define our understanding of Christ and of the sublime paradoxes of his teaching. What drove Paul? What would he think of what his church has become? The answers lie in Wilson's extraordinary biography, which lays bare the psychological journey of Christianity's true inventor.

Customer Reviews:

An eye-opening journey into ancient history.......2007-07-27

Full disclosure up-front: I am not a Christian though I was raised in a semi-Christian household by a Catholic mother and Lutheran father. I knew the stories but they were never forced on me. I was never asked to believe anything, religious or otherwise, without testing it out first for myself.

It is probably for this reason that "Paul: The Mind of the Apostle" appeals to me so strongly. Wilson admits right up front that there are no extant non-biblical references to Paul which makes his task as biographer extremely difficult. Nevertheless, there is a fair amount of non-biblical historical data of the era and a great amount of literary scholarship of the past 1900 years that he utilizes to paint an incredibly detailed picture of the eastern Mediterranean of the first century. Within that framework, he creates as definite a portrait of the wandering tent-maker as he can without grossly overstepping the boundaries of speculation (or at least qualifying those few occasions as speculative).

Other reviews on this page cite him for picking and choosing his sources, agreeing with parts of Acts and discounting others, crediting certain sources above others, etc. This is true. However it is accompanied by an explanation of why he is doing this that is always well researched and well justified. Numerous times he pulls out the original Greek of the text he is critiquing and demonstrates how the original word has been corrupted by translation and what the original actually means. His critique of Acts is specifically along the lines of comparing the fiery temperament of Paul in his Epistles to the Rome-appeaser portrayed by Luke in his pseudo-history.

In the end, it is a compelling and entertaining read that walks a road considered dangerous - even blasphemous by one reviewer - by those who blindly accept traditional biblical history. For those who are interested in the process of searching for the actual story - and even some suggestions as to what "The Way" might have been had orthodox doctrine not taken it over - I have yet to find a better read.

A.N. Wilson: The Limited Mind of the Author .......2007-03-22

The first tip that we are in the realm of the skeptic is the blurb by Karen Armstrong on the back of the hardcover. Then as we read the first chapter we find the author's aside that although first century Christians probably did not deliberately start the fires in Rome that Nero used as a pretext to slaughter them, maybe there might be some truth to the mad Emperor's claim as the fire may have accidentally started in a Christian's home. Then a few pages later we read that although Nero's immolation of Christians and feeding them to wild animals was cruel, certainly later Christian Church endorsed acts such as the persecution of the Albigensians were more terrible in scope and nature. Hmm, if one were reading a book that touched incidentally on the Cambodian genocide or the Holocaust and one read sentences like "Perhaps the Cambodian victims inadvertently brought their persecution upon them by their dedicated adherence to a foreign culture..." or "Although the Holocaust was terrible, later acts of oppression and apartheid by the Israeli state were far worse..." one would think one was reading the work of a kook with an axe to grind. That is about the scope of what we are looking at in A.N. Wilson's book. He has a marked distaste for Christianity as an irrational peasant religion (Gibbon is quoted frequently and admiringly) and feels Jesus was an ordinary preacher whose death created a synergy with the messianic and apocalyptic mood of the times to offer a ready-made myth that was developed and expounded into a more universal religion by Paul and others.

No matter what one makes of Wilson's premise, the tools of his analysis are clumsy and ill-wielded. The only evidence we have of the preaching of Jesus and Paul's life and career come from Scripture. Wilson postulates the entire New Testament is inaccurate propaganda written long after the event that occurred and is mostly fictional, intended to justify certain ideological conclusions that the actual events did not necessarily ratify. The problem then is that if every piece of evidence offered is tainted and flawed, how can you use it to argue any position let alone a contrarian one? That is Wilson's dilemma, and he cannot fulfill this impossible mission. He selectively cuts and pastes texts, opposes Gospel to Acts, Acts to Epistles, Epistles to Gospels and sometimes finds one source convincing and other times the other source, based on, you guessed it, whether or not that particular source agrees with his thesis. So some parts of Acts are good, others bad, some parts of the Gospels useful, others unreliable, etc. He also completely ignores the Gospel of John, saying it is entirely propaganda and not at all truthful, which is necessary for Wilson's premise as some elements in John (Jesus' claims of divinity and ministry to Gentiles) completely sink Wilson's main ideas.

The extreme arbitrariness of Wilson's judgment and overt manipulation of relevant texts suggests to the reader that his argument is not to be taken seriously. Basically Wilson says don't listen to the Christian interpretation of the Bible, listen to his instead. I see no reason why we ought to do that, as his jumbled argument and cavalier attitude towards his main sources would be unacceptable in a college freshman's research paper. The Biblical story as presented and interpreted by mainstream Christian thought is far more persuasive, compelling, and logical than anything Wilson offers in opposition.

Strengths of the book? Wilson appears to like Paul more than he thought he might. As a result, he does a bit to clear Paul of the slanders made against him by post-Enlightenment secular culture. Paul's attitudes to women, homosexuality, and oppressive political authority are justified in Wilson's view because of the eschatological mindset of the apostle and the intellectual and cultural background he was raised in. (It is a sad sign of the state of scholarship in our times where an author recognizing such obvious points is unusual, but I will give praise where it is due.) Besides this relative and limited open-mindedness, Wilson has done much research into the ancient world, and his knowledge of the history and culture of ancient Rome is impressive, although again very selectively presented and interpreted so as to buttress his conclusions. He is a witty writer, and very entertaining at times, and his willingness to speculate wildly can occasionally produce some interesting insight, like in his chapter on Paul in Arabia. Overall though, much of Wilson's narrative is utter speculation and not in the least well-grounded in any objective historical evidence.

I am hard pressed to define an audience for this book. Devout Christians will find Wilson's condescension, anti-Christian bias, and utter skepticism to be off-putting, if not actually blasphemous. Open-minded believers willing to at least listen to secular interpretations of the Biblical world will be disappointed as the wild-eyed manufacture of radical theory and overt heavy-handed arrangement of history and Scripture into a tortured knot that supports the radical premises is paradigmatic of bad scholarship, an exercise in futility that makes "The Da Vinci Code" seem realistic and nuanced in comparison. Atheists who could care less about Christianity won't want to waste time on this odd little diatribe when they could be reading that new book by Dawkins instead, and anti-Christians will be annoyed by Wilson finding anything good to say about that "nasty paternalistic homophobe", Paul.

In conclusion, this book's overly partisan mindset and flawed historical and text analysis methodologies leave much to be desired. Wilson wants to twist the evidence to suit his idea of what Christianity is and how it started, and unless you agree with his every premise and will turn a blind eye to his dishonest and biased mishandling of the historical record, you will find this book to be a dead end. Occasional moments of wit and generally good writing cannot justify a wrong-headed intellectual premise and inept literary execution.

Poorly Researched Tripe.......2007-01-12

Wow!!!!Unbelievable garbage...I guess the author never read the Didache...I can't believe the 5 star reviews praising his scholarship...Notice they are by people with an ax to grind against Christians.......One even suggested the movie" The Last Temptation Of Christ." as a companion to this worthless garbage....

No research.Just the author's own suppositions..A great read for those with narrow minds and limited I.Q.'S...

Read this book!.......2006-09-07

The first impression about a book such as this is that is going to be a little difficult and somewhat boring to read it. But the truth is the total opposite: Mr Wilson have made a very interesting book, trying not to be bias in his presentation and with a delightful background of history. If you want to know more about the history of the bible, the foundations of Christianity and the biography of Paul, read this book and Make your own opinion!

A Secular Examination Of The Sacred.......2006-08-10

"Paul: The Mind Of The Apostle" is A. N. Wilson's attempt to delve into the mind of one of the most influential people world history. The theme of the book is that Paul, even more than Jesus, is the founder of Christianity. Wilson's method is to compare the writings of Paul and St. Luke with what is known about Paul's world and attempt to pick the truth from among any apparent inconsistencies. He succeeds in providing the reader with an insight into the world of the emerging Church.

The one thing which this book lacks is faith. Wilson subjects the first century to a totally secular analysis. He ascribes secular motivations to the writings contained in the New Testament. He concludes, for example, that part of the Acts of The Apostles is in the nature of a legal brief prepared for Paul's defense, not a theological narrative of the early Church. He seems to be couching the whole New Testament into a form of propaganda with the intent of convincing the Romans of the loyalty of the Christians, by shifting blame to the Jews. He claims that any Jew who was crucified by the Romans would have been a hero among the Jews, ignoring the accounts that Jesus was offered as a sacrifice to divert Roman punishment from the Jewish leadership.

Wilson makes several assertions which in direct contradiction to events recorded in Scripture and Tradition. He states, for example, that the concept that a first century Jew would invite his friends to drink my blood is "unthinkable." In other words, the Last Supper did not happen as reported in the Synoptic Gospels and by St. Paul. He points out that Paul claims that he did not get his information from the other Apostles, but directly from the Lord. Wilson characterizes Jesus as a simple, rural, Jewish preacher who desired nothing more than to encourage a greater fervor among his fellow Jews. He claims that the concepts that Jesus was God and intended to establish a Church are, among other things, concoctions originating in the unbalanced mind of Paul. He expresses amusement at those who pour over Paul's writings as if they were Scripture, which, to a person of faith, they are. He repeatedly asserts that St. Luke is a poor historian. He asserts that, because there is no solid evidence that St. Peter actually got to Rome, he did not. He expresses bewilderment at the failure of Acts to explain Paul's end. He chooses to believe, with no evidence as to what happened to Paul, that he left Rome and went to Spain, apparently to live out his helter-skelter life sans the crown of martyrdom.

The conclusion which the author seems to be suggesting is that Christianity is not a divinely established religion but merely an elaborate charade constructed by man. To the totally secular investigator, Wilson's theme may be attractive. To the person of faith, he is missing the whole point. It is true that Jesus did not lay it all out and that the discernment of His message took some time, just as the Resurrection sunk in slowly and it took Peter years to "really understand" that Gentiles were heirs along with the Jews. To Wilson, this all may be a case of the hijacking of the teachings of a long dead preacher. To the person of faith, the gradual discernment occurred under the guidance of the Holy Ghost throughout the Apostolic Age during which Sacred Truths continued to be revealed. A person of faith who reads carefully can get some insight into the Apostolic world from this book. Perhaps the best greatest benefit from a reading of this book is an appreciation of how different the story looks through the eyes of faith.

The Messengers: A True Story of Angelic Presence and the Return to the Age of Miracles

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"Source" Has a Message for EveryONE of US - Are you afraid to listen?
The Messengers
The Messengers
The Messengers
absolutly inspiring

The Messengers: A True Story of Angelic Presence and the Return to the Age of Miracles
Julia Ingram , and G. W. Hardin
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: B00009ZKWW

Book Description

Nick Bunick was confronted by angels, and it will change your life forever....

Nick Bunick gives back to us angels messages spoken 2,000 years ago when Jesus walked the earth. THese messages are as true today as they were then: Within every one of us is a part of GOd. It is that which gives us life and it is that which is everlasting. If we but look within, our own love will fashion a new and compassionate world.

These messages are the gateway into our next millennium.

Customer Reviews:

"Source" Has a Message for EveryONE of US - Are you afraid to listen?.......2007-06-02

Angels really do exist, but I probably never would have read this book had it not been for the fact that I too began to "notice" some oddly recurring numerical sequences about a year ago and then experienced various Angelic "occurrences" which are continuing to this very day!

Then, some of my friends began to report some very "interesting" things. Being a professional reporter and editor for many years - Hearst, CBS and NBC affiliates, numerous other papers - and a College-Bowl (like "Jeopardy") All-Star player, and having some truly remarkable friends around the world, it did not take me long through research and personal contacts to find out that Angels were involved; and that's what led me to "The Messengers" which is the true story of a multi-millionaire Jewish businessman in Portland, Oregon named Nick Bunick who not only begins to "notice" the "Divine Numbers" but also has high-level business associates who also "notice" them and soon begin to encounter Angels.

Yea, it was just like my deal, except Bunick and associates experienced a few things that, so far, have been even wilder than my own experiences. Wow!

Among other things, Bunick, it turns out, also has been told by several psychics over the years, friends of friends, that he "walked with the Master Jesus" in a previous life. Well, old Nick, a tough but open-minded man, finally is "prompted" to visit another friend's past-life therapist just to see what happens. Remember, Bunick is a real-life, top-notch businessman who also is Jewish. He doesn't need money, he really doesn't want the publicity, and why would a modern-day Jewish entrepreneur want to stick his neck out for Jesus? What he does want are some answers to some very nagging questions. Something money can't always buy, so why not give hypnosis a try?

Enter Julia Ingram who, over many sessions, finds that Nick Bunick not only walked with Jesus but was none other than Saul of Tarsus who later became known as "The Apostle Paul."

Interestingly enough, I also have read "Sleeping Prophet" Edgar Cayce's "Story of Jesus" which was written long before "The Messengers," and information about Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Paul, and the Apostle Lucius provided by Cayce fully supports information about the same that is found in "The Messengers." The latter book, however, sheds a lot more positive light on Saul "Paul" and provides additional details about Jeshua "Jesus" and his ministry, contemporaries, and followers.

I believe Nick Bunick deserves a lot of credit for having the curiosity, persistence, and courage to see this book through to completion; and I also applaud Julia Ingram, G. W. Hardin, and all the others who were part of the amazing story and/or contributed to the volume's success.

To appreciate this book, one only must have some faith and an open mind, but it helps to be knowledgeable about Christianity and metaphysics (or at least the concept of reincarnation); and it really, really helps if the Angels start "prompting" you. Smile.

The Messengers.......2007-05-13

I admire the author of this book as I have been in her presence
at a Women's retreat and am inspired by her and her book.

The Messengers.......2007-03-12

This is a book that I have owned for many years and I found that all the information written about remains a wonderful research book in understanding why we are all here.

The Messengers.......2007-03-09

Makes you aware of what's going on around you. There really are angels near to help and guide us - we only need to stop and listen.

absolutly inspiring.......2006-11-04

a true revelation. g.w.hardin can certainly be classified as one of our chosen light workers on earth. this book certainly renews our faith in the angels. it was so captivating i couldn't put it down. thanks for the messages.

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The Mind of Saint Paul
William Barclay
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hilarion the Healer: The Apostle Paul Reborn (Meet the Master) (Meet the Master)

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Hilarion the Healer: The Apostle Paul Reborn (Meet the Master) (Meet the Master)
Mark L. Prophet , and Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Manufacturer: Summit University Press
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ASIN: 0922729808

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The missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul changed the course of history. But what history does not record is that Paul returned for one more life as the great mystic and miracle-worker Saint Hilarion.

Walking in the footsteps of Jesus, Hilarion also cast out devils, healed the sick, raised the dead-and finally had to flee to the wilderness to escape the crowds that thronged around him.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, published by Institute on Religion and Public Life on February 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1553 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Paul: The Mind of the Apostle. (book reviews)
Author: Luke Timothy Johnson
Publication: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 1998
Publisher: Institute on Religion and Public Life
Issue: n80 Page: p58(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Paul The Mind of An Apostle

Manufacturer: Ramboro Books PLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 7216008995

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PAUL. The Mind of the Apostle.
A.N.: Wilson
Manufacturer: Prentice-Hall,
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Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NWZQR2

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A unique new approach to treating eating disorders

Eight million women in the United States suffer from anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia. For these women, the road to recovery is a rocky one. Many succumb to their eating disorders. Life Without Ed offers hope to all those who suffer from these often deadly disorders. For years, author Jennifer Schaefer lived with both anorexia and bulimia. She credits her successful recovery to the technique she learned from her psychologist, Thom Rutledge.

This groundbreaking book illustrates Rutledge's technique. As in the author's case, readers are encouraged to think of an eating disorder as if it were a distinct being with a personality of its own. Further, they are encouraged to treat the disorder as a relationship rather than as a condition. Schaefer named her eating disorder Ed; her recovery involved "breaking up" with Ed

Shares the points of view of both patient and therapist in this approach to treatment
Helps people see the disease as a relationship from which they can distance themselves
Techniques to defeat negative thoughts that plague eating disorder patients

Prescriptive, supportive, and inspirational, Life Without Ed shows readers how they too can overcome their eating disorders.

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A unique new approach to treating eating disorders Eight million women in the United States suffer from anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia. For these women, the road to recovery is a rocky one. Many succumb to their eating disorders. Life Without Ed offers hope to all those who suffer from these often deadly disorders. For years, author Jennifer Schaefer lived with both anorexia and bulimia. She credits her successful recovery to the technique she learned from her psychologist, Thom Rutledge. This groundbreaking book illustrates Rutledge's technique. As in the author's case, readers are encouraged to think of an eating disorder as if it were a distinct being with a personality of its own. Further, they are encouraged to treat the disorder as a relationship rather than as a condition. Schaefer named her eating disorder Ed; her recovery involved ""breaking up"" with Ed Shares the points of view of both patient and therapist in this approach to treatment Helps people see the disease as a relationship from which they can distance themselves Techniques to defeat negative thoughts that plague eating disorder patients Prescriptive, supportive, and inspirational, Life Without Ed shows readers how they too can overcome their eating disorders.

Customer Reviews:

Thank you Jenni!!!.......2007-08-31

I really loved this book...I have been in therapy for 6 months for my eating disorder with a wonderful therapist, but ever since I finished the book, my recovery has been jumpstarted. Jenni introduces new ideas that helped her battle her Eating Disorder, and I find them VERY helpful.

ready to recover...its worth the read.......2007-08-23

I have been suffering with Anorexia for 15 years, and was in recovery once for less than a year. This last hospitalization (2/07) was the most dangerous of all. After I was released, I kept contemplating my feelings on recovery. Was I really ready? Do I really want to give up my eating disorder, my security blanket? I never came to a definitive answer, but I heard about the book on Dr Phil and it caught my attention. I bought it and I am not sorry that I did. I will admit that I had a hard time understanding her concepts at first, but I worked through the book along with my therapist to understand better...specifically "How to identify ED as a separate entity from myself," so I could "divorce him". I cannot follow the idea completely, I am still working on it, but I did seem to be able to pick out and use many things that Jenni did...they sort of just stuck with me.

Some of the techniques that Jenni Schaefer used or suggests may seem a little immature or difficult to conceptualize, but READ IT ANYWAY! Read and highlight the way I did. I was not sure I was ready to try for recovery, but this book and working with my medical/psychological support team worked almost like osmosis, it slipped into my thought process without my even trying. I am not saying it is a cure-all by any means, but this book is most definitely a really great beginning, if not a middle and an end.

Plain language for understanding complex issue.......2007-07-09

It helps you understand what is going on in the person you care about in plain language. It can help shape your understanding of thsi complex condition. There is no one answer, but with understanding on both sides, tools can be learned to control ED

Great Book.......2007-03-10

This book is terrific and must have. She shows there is hope for those who battle ED. the fight can be WON!

another excellent read is " it's not about weight" by dr. susie mendelsohn

Goodbye Ed, Hello Self.......2007-02-05

Written by a woman who has overcome her own struggles with her eating disorder ("Ed"), Life Without Ed is a first-hand account illustrating how dealing with an eating disorder is in many ways similar to being in an abusive relationship. Jenni shares how she was able to painfully separate herself from Ed by learning how to discern her own voice, goals, rules, values, and beliefs from his. She shares the work that she has done during her recovery process, while encouraging the reader to design and discover their own unique path to recovery. She demonstrates how recovery involves more than separating from Ed---it also involves reconnecting with your self to finally satisfy your hunger for life.

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