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The Origin of Paul's Religion
This is a comprehensive and classical response to the history of religions interpretation of Paul that argues the Paul's religion is based on the resurrected Christ.
Paperback
First published February 1, 2002
About the author
J. Gresham Machen
86 books144 followersJohn Gresham Machen was an influential American Presbyterian theologian in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1915 and 1929, and led a conservative revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Seminary as a more orthodox alternative. This split was irreconcilable, and Machen led others to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
November 6, 2024
Despite its technical nature and age (over a century old!), this book possesses a vitality that resonated profoundly with me. Machen delivers a clear and powerful defense of the claim that Paul's message springs directly from the risen Christ himself. Machen's arguments, woven through detailed analysis and historical insight, tackle the notion that Paul's teachings stem from contemporary Judaism, Hellenism, or pagan influences. Machen draws us to understand Paul's Damascus Road experience not as a vague spiritual revelation but as a profound and personal meeting with Jesus in Heaven, which reshaped him from within. "The religion of Paul was rooted in an event ... It was an account of something that had happened." Jesus loved us and gave himself for us, and "there lies the basis of the religion of Paul ... of all of Christianity."
August 3, 2020
Not a popular level work, so he assumes a fair bit of the reader, and some of it surely went over my head. I'll need to revisit it. In saying that, the overall argument was clear and really solid. Definitely stretched me, and I'm glad I went through it. A fair bit to think about that I hadn't in detail before. Partly a celebration of the Apostle Paul's life and theological contribution to Christianity, partly a defence of the historic Christian understanding of Paul and his writings: The explanation for them is ultimately an encounter with the resurrected Christ, rather than Jewish messianic perspectives, Greek philosophy, or pagan religions, all of which have massive inconsistencies in their explanatory power.
March 9, 2023
This was a solid apologetic on the authenticity of Paul’s Epistles. It deals effectively with many of the same issues discussed today, though it’s almost 100 years old. It does however get quite technical at times, dealing with specific positions of long dead authors.
August 9, 2014
This book was reviewed in AletheiaBaptistMinistries.org
I have always loved reading Machen so I couldn’t resist reading this lesser known book. Machen was assistant professor of New Testament literature and exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary. These lectures were delivered in 1921 at Union Theological Seminary. I must confess that it is the most difficult book that I have read from Machen. That is because, no doubt, he was defending the New Testament record of Paul and his writings in the center of modernism and rationalistic thought. It is an amazing thing to see those early “fundamental” men defending the integrity of God’s Word at a level far beyond the average Christian today. It is a rewarding reading if one has time to put his reading lever in first gear and walk through Machen’s thoughts slowly and thoughtfully.
I have always loved reading Machen so I couldn’t resist reading this lesser known book. Machen was assistant professor of New Testament literature and exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary. These lectures were delivered in 1921 at Union Theological Seminary. I must confess that it is the most difficult book that I have read from Machen. That is because, no doubt, he was defending the New Testament record of Paul and his writings in the center of modernism and rationalistic thought. It is an amazing thing to see those early “fundamental” men defending the integrity of God’s Word at a level far beyond the average Christian today. It is a rewarding reading if one has time to put his reading lever in first gear and walk through Machen’s thoughts slowly and thoughtfully.
April 4, 2007
This is the classic work of apologetics which responds to the higher criticism and unbelief in Pauline scholarship at the turn of the 20th century. Machen interacts with and decimates the claims of those who see in Paul a different religion than that of Jesus Christ, and shows the foolishness of those who claim that Paul's religion finds its genesis in the mystery cults of the ancient near east. If you've been told that Paul's Christianity was really just adapted from the cult of Mithras, you'll be shocked when you see that that claim was taken apart almost a hundred years ago in this scholarly work.
March 21, 2013
Machen is quite helpful in addressing the critical claim that Paul did not know much about Jesus' life and teaching as proved by the limited material in Paul's letters. Shows the continuity between Jesus and Paul. Also, Machen argues that the center of Paul's religion is the redemptive acts of Christ. Classic Machen. Solid.
May 4, 2021
Machen's handling of the scholarship regarding the Scriptures is superb. The totality of issues he addresses cover arguments modernist critiques of Scripture attempt to make even 100 years later. Nigh-prophetic, it is a must-read for every Christian seeking to be involved in culture.
June 10, 2021
This should still be required reading in NT classes.
June 21, 2017
Like a war memorial to a battle beyond living memory, this book is a monument to theological battles of the early twentieth century. Paul had stated that his gospel was "not according to man" and that he had received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:11-12, NASB). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars under the influence of naturalistic presuppositions rejected this claim. Their anti-supernaturalism would not permit them to believe in supernatural revelation of doctrine. It was absolutely not possible! Of course, this left them with some tough questions to answer:
- In the absence of divine intervention, what would motivate a rabid persecutor of Christians to convert to Christianity?
- How did Paul come to see a crucified rabbi as divine?
- How did Paul develop the coherent gospel that he proclaimed? What were his sources of ideas?
In this book Professor Machen takes aim at the anti-supernatural explanation as a champion of orthodox Christianity. The naturalistic explanations he confronted ranged from quadriplegic-level lame to intriguing, and some had to walk the line between Scylla and Charybdis. Consider the second question. How could someone familiar with a normal human being come to the conclusion that he was divine? Doesn't familiarity breed contempt? Even the gospels acknowledged that Jesus' own brothers questioned His divinity before the crucifixion. There would have to be some spatial and temporal distance for this to happen, but this distance was non-existent. Paul was a contemporary of Jesus who received rabbinical training in Jerusalem during Jesus' ministry. At the same time, the warm and personal portrayals of Christ in Paul's epistles are inconsistent with that distance. Machen concluded that these conflicts are too great to overcome, and I am inclined to agree.
With regards to the third question, the naturalistic scholars looked to pagan religion, mystery religions, Gnosticism, apocalyptic Judaism, etc. as sources for Paul's teachings. One interesting point that Machen noted was that these scholars used second, third and fourth century sources as representative of early first century religious thought. Really!!? Imagine using a Billy Graham crusade as representative of Elizabethan era Christianity. The idea is patently absurd. In some cases, these scholars noted legitimate parallels between pagan thought and terminology and Christian thought terminology, and Professor Machen conceded these parallels. At the same time, he didn’t concede the point because there were other more credible explanations, such as Paul, a former Pharisee, drawing inspiration from the Old Testament, instead. Imagine that!
A few years ago, I read Ronald Nash’s book The Gospel and the Greeks, published 1992, in which he summarized the theories that Christianity was derived from Greek paganism, mystery religions and/or Gnosticism. That these theories had been debunked years earlier was common knowledge in university Classics departments but were still being promulgated, and Professor Nash was trying to set the record straight. Having read that book, it was thrilling to stumble on a book written in the heat of battle. It brought the issues to life. At one level, the issues are a moot point, but following Professor Machen’s line of argumentation proved very instructive.
- In the absence of divine intervention, what would motivate a rabid persecutor of Christians to convert to Christianity?
- How did Paul come to see a crucified rabbi as divine?
- How did Paul develop the coherent gospel that he proclaimed? What were his sources of ideas?
In this book Professor Machen takes aim at the anti-supernatural explanation as a champion of orthodox Christianity. The naturalistic explanations he confronted ranged from quadriplegic-level lame to intriguing, and some had to walk the line between Scylla and Charybdis. Consider the second question. How could someone familiar with a normal human being come to the conclusion that he was divine? Doesn't familiarity breed contempt? Even the gospels acknowledged that Jesus' own brothers questioned His divinity before the crucifixion. There would have to be some spatial and temporal distance for this to happen, but this distance was non-existent. Paul was a contemporary of Jesus who received rabbinical training in Jerusalem during Jesus' ministry. At the same time, the warm and personal portrayals of Christ in Paul's epistles are inconsistent with that distance. Machen concluded that these conflicts are too great to overcome, and I am inclined to agree.
With regards to the third question, the naturalistic scholars looked to pagan religion, mystery religions, Gnosticism, apocalyptic Judaism, etc. as sources for Paul's teachings. One interesting point that Machen noted was that these scholars used second, third and fourth century sources as representative of early first century religious thought. Really!!? Imagine using a Billy Graham crusade as representative of Elizabethan era Christianity. The idea is patently absurd. In some cases, these scholars noted legitimate parallels between pagan thought and terminology and Christian thought terminology, and Professor Machen conceded these parallels. At the same time, he didn’t concede the point because there were other more credible explanations, such as Paul, a former Pharisee, drawing inspiration from the Old Testament, instead. Imagine that!
A few years ago, I read Ronald Nash’s book The Gospel and the Greeks, published 1992, in which he summarized the theories that Christianity was derived from Greek paganism, mystery religions and/or Gnosticism. That these theories had been debunked years earlier was common knowledge in university Classics departments but were still being promulgated, and Professor Nash was trying to set the record straight. Having read that book, it was thrilling to stumble on a book written in the heat of battle. It brought the issues to life. At one level, the issues are a moot point, but following Professor Machen’s line of argumentation proved very instructive.
June 15, 2023
Content- 5 Stars
Format of the book by Pantianos Classics- 1 Star
Getting the bad news out of the way first, this book was attractive to me because it has Valentin de Boulogne’s painting of Paul on the cover. According to Amazon the book was only 130 pages. I thought this would be a quick read...After nearly 6 months I finished it. Here’s why it took that long.
1. The book is 130 pages because the book is 8.5” by 11”, with as many words to fit on the page as possible. I thought that was a little ridiculous, but I disregarded that and started reading.
2. I think in chapter 1 or 2 I stopped counting after 20 typos. Some words and sentences I still don’t know what they are saying and it makes reading and enjoying Machen’s book very difficult. Every now and then you’ll have a word that is simply misspelled, and then you’ll have a word or an entire phrase where midway through it looks like someone punched the keyboard and then finished the thought. It’s a real mess. It gets better about halfway through, but still a mess. Do not buy Pantianos Classics print of this book. I took many breaks from this book. Probably got a low grade form of depression from it. Anyways, onto the content.
Where did Paul get His Christian Religion from?
Here are some questions that JGM answers for you.
Was Paul’s life influenced by paganism growing up in Tarsus?
Was His Judaism influenced?
Can Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus be explained without a supernatural view?
Is the Acts account of Paul’s conversion in contradiction with the Galatians account?
Are those two books reliable sources?
How did Paul connect Jesus of Nazareth, who he likely never met before His encounter on the road to the awaited Messiah?
Does the Christianity of Paul harmonize with the Christianity of the apostles in Jerusalem?
Does Paul’s explanation of Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s divinity, the atonement by His blood and others originate in Hellenic,Hellenistic,Syrian,Roman, and Eastern religions? Is Christianity a blended and borrowed religion?
Is Paul actually responsible for Christianity spreading to the world outside of Palestine?
Did Paul actually claim Jesus as God? Is Jesus the object of faith or merely an example of it?
Did Paul get his gospel message from Christ or from Peter and the apostles? Or both?
There are many more to answer. This is a pretty exhaustive book on the subject of the origin of Paul’s religion. I loved the content. It made me go on a lot of research hunts which is another reason it took so long. This book opens up a lot of information and a lot of rabbit holes. I jumped in as many as I could. Very happy I finished it.
Format of the book by Pantianos Classics- 1 Star
Getting the bad news out of the way first, this book was attractive to me because it has Valentin de Boulogne’s painting of Paul on the cover. According to Amazon the book was only 130 pages. I thought this would be a quick read...After nearly 6 months I finished it. Here’s why it took that long.
1. The book is 130 pages because the book is 8.5” by 11”, with as many words to fit on the page as possible. I thought that was a little ridiculous, but I disregarded that and started reading.
2. I think in chapter 1 or 2 I stopped counting after 20 typos. Some words and sentences I still don’t know what they are saying and it makes reading and enjoying Machen’s book very difficult. Every now and then you’ll have a word that is simply misspelled, and then you’ll have a word or an entire phrase where midway through it looks like someone punched the keyboard and then finished the thought. It’s a real mess. It gets better about halfway through, but still a mess. Do not buy Pantianos Classics print of this book. I took many breaks from this book. Probably got a low grade form of depression from it. Anyways, onto the content.
Where did Paul get His Christian Religion from?
Here are some questions that JGM answers for you.
Was Paul’s life influenced by paganism growing up in Tarsus?
Was His Judaism influenced?
Can Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus be explained without a supernatural view?
Is the Acts account of Paul’s conversion in contradiction with the Galatians account?
Are those two books reliable sources?
How did Paul connect Jesus of Nazareth, who he likely never met before His encounter on the road to the awaited Messiah?
Does the Christianity of Paul harmonize with the Christianity of the apostles in Jerusalem?
Does Paul’s explanation of Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s divinity, the atonement by His blood and others originate in Hellenic,Hellenistic,Syrian,Roman, and Eastern religions? Is Christianity a blended and borrowed religion?
Is Paul actually responsible for Christianity spreading to the world outside of Palestine?
Did Paul actually claim Jesus as God? Is Jesus the object of faith or merely an example of it?
Did Paul get his gospel message from Christ or from Peter and the apostles? Or both?
There are many more to answer. This is a pretty exhaustive book on the subject of the origin of Paul’s religion. I loved the content. It made me go on a lot of research hunts which is another reason it took so long. This book opens up a lot of information and a lot of rabbit holes. I jumped in as many as I could. Very happy I finished it.
February 25, 2023
After recently reading a biography on Machen, I knew I wanted to read some of his books. I think I actually ordered this one while I was in the middle of the biography - when I read about this book, immediately went and found a copy! And I'm glad I did. This book was quite dense but well worth the read. I have to confess I don't often read more scholarly Christian books so this one took me a bit to get through but I am very grateful I took the time to read it. My faith has been strengthened, my appreciation for real, deep intellectual grappling with the claims of Christianity has been heightened and my soul has been ever so encouraged over the course of these past few weeks as I've read Machen's analysis of the source of Paul's religious doctrines. This book is composed of a number of lectures that Machen gave. These lectures were subsequently turned into this book. Machen in this book is wrestling with some of the various scholarly positions at the time as to the nature and origin of Paul's religion.
It is well known by most that the vast bulk of the New Testament (and thus the main pillars of the Christian faith) was written by Paul. There have been many over the years who have attempted to show that Paul's gospel was not Jesus' gospel. Or even, Paul's gospel was not the gospel of the early church, until his teachings started to spread and slowly choked out the early perspectives and beliefs about Christ. This is premised on the fact that Paul's teachings are quite different from what Jesus and the early church taught and practiced. Machen does not shy away from the liberal arguments on Christ and Paul and he addresses head-on the questions and theories raised by the top minds of the day. In one way, it made this a difficult read, as Machen is constantly referencing and addressing various scholars (mostly German!) and the arguments made at times went a bit over my head. But Machen's writing is quite clear in and of itself and I usually managed to eventually grasp the flow of his argument! This is not a book for the faint of heart and there will be a few points here and there where you wonder why Machen is making such a big deal out of a somewhat minor point in one of the New Testament books (whether it be Acts, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, etc..). But I am approaching this as someone who has a faith in Christ and is fairly orthodox in my views, whereas this work of Machen's is somewhat polemical as he is confronting the liberal scholars of his modern day, scholars who had radical ideas that threatened to shake the very foundation of the Christian faith. This is a useful book because it does not hide the various arguments against orthodox Christianity but boldly drags them into the light and interrogates them in the light of textual-criticism, historical analysis, and simple plain reason. This book had such a fascinating blend of the logical and the faith-based.
Those of us who are Christians believe in something that is quite incredible - a God who came to this earth, preached a message of repentance and belief in Him, and then died. And somehow, it is testified that this Man rose again and now offers everlasting life to all who would come to Him for salvation. But as fantastical as this religion may seem, it is also a supremely logical religion, based on historical events and historical people. Jesus actually lived as a man on this earth. And Paul believed that this man Jesus was actually God and must be worshiped and believed in as such. And those who did were supernaturally changed, becoming new creations. This is the thrust of Machen's argument. He spends chapters addressing various counters - those who postulated that Paul's relationship to the early church was almost non-existent and that he did not share the same gospel as them, those who said that Paul gained his unique perspective on Christ from Jewish apocalyptic and/or eschatological teachings, those who proclaimed that Paul's preaching of Christ as resurrected Savior/Redeemer came from the mystery cults and pagan beliefs of the past. Machen skillfully looks at the historical record and weighs the evidence and issues a verdict. Paul's religion is not his own cleverly devised system. Paul's religion is derived from Christ Himself, based on Paul's belief in Jesus as one who lived, died and was resurrected - the man who is God. Paul's religion is derived from his supernatural salvation and work that the Spirit did in His life. Paul's religion was no different than that which the rest of the disciples of Christ both practiced and preached. There are many who would like to find alternate sources of the Christian faith and claim that Christianity was just based on older pagan myths or Jewish teachings. But the evidence does not allow those claims to stand.
This book was a balm and encouragement to my soul, as well as a most enlightening study on Paul and his relation to the early church, past traditions, and Christ Himself. This review is already over-long, but let me close with a few words of Machen himself. "The heart of the problem is found in the Pauline relation to Christ. That relation cannot be described by mere enumeration of details; it cannot be reduced to lower terms; it is an absolutely simple and indivisible thing. The relation of Paul to Christ is a relation of love; and love exists only between persons. It is not a group of ideas that is to be explained, if Paulinism is to be accounted for, but the love of Paul for his Saviour. And that love is rooted, not in what Christ had said, but in what Christ had done. He 'loved me and gave Himself for me.' There lies the basis of the religion of Paul; there lies the basis of all of Christianity. That basis is confirmed by the account of Jesus which is given in the Gospels, and given, indeed, in all the sources. It is opposed only by modern reconstructions. And those reconstructions are all breaking down. The religion of Paul was not founded upon a complex of ideas derived from Judaism or paganism. It was founded upon the historical Jesus."
It is well known by most that the vast bulk of the New Testament (and thus the main pillars of the Christian faith) was written by Paul. There have been many over the years who have attempted to show that Paul's gospel was not Jesus' gospel. Or even, Paul's gospel was not the gospel of the early church, until his teachings started to spread and slowly choked out the early perspectives and beliefs about Christ. This is premised on the fact that Paul's teachings are quite different from what Jesus and the early church taught and practiced. Machen does not shy away from the liberal arguments on Christ and Paul and he addresses head-on the questions and theories raised by the top minds of the day. In one way, it made this a difficult read, as Machen is constantly referencing and addressing various scholars (mostly German!) and the arguments made at times went a bit over my head. But Machen's writing is quite clear in and of itself and I usually managed to eventually grasp the flow of his argument! This is not a book for the faint of heart and there will be a few points here and there where you wonder why Machen is making such a big deal out of a somewhat minor point in one of the New Testament books (whether it be Acts, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, etc..). But I am approaching this as someone who has a faith in Christ and is fairly orthodox in my views, whereas this work of Machen's is somewhat polemical as he is confronting the liberal scholars of his modern day, scholars who had radical ideas that threatened to shake the very foundation of the Christian faith. This is a useful book because it does not hide the various arguments against orthodox Christianity but boldly drags them into the light and interrogates them in the light of textual-criticism, historical analysis, and simple plain reason. This book had such a fascinating blend of the logical and the faith-based.
Those of us who are Christians believe in something that is quite incredible - a God who came to this earth, preached a message of repentance and belief in Him, and then died. And somehow, it is testified that this Man rose again and now offers everlasting life to all who would come to Him for salvation. But as fantastical as this religion may seem, it is also a supremely logical religion, based on historical events and historical people. Jesus actually lived as a man on this earth. And Paul believed that this man Jesus was actually God and must be worshiped and believed in as such. And those who did were supernaturally changed, becoming new creations. This is the thrust of Machen's argument. He spends chapters addressing various counters - those who postulated that Paul's relationship to the early church was almost non-existent and that he did not share the same gospel as them, those who said that Paul gained his unique perspective on Christ from Jewish apocalyptic and/or eschatological teachings, those who proclaimed that Paul's preaching of Christ as resurrected Savior/Redeemer came from the mystery cults and pagan beliefs of the past. Machen skillfully looks at the historical record and weighs the evidence and issues a verdict. Paul's religion is not his own cleverly devised system. Paul's religion is derived from Christ Himself, based on Paul's belief in Jesus as one who lived, died and was resurrected - the man who is God. Paul's religion is derived from his supernatural salvation and work that the Spirit did in His life. Paul's religion was no different than that which the rest of the disciples of Christ both practiced and preached. There are many who would like to find alternate sources of the Christian faith and claim that Christianity was just based on older pagan myths or Jewish teachings. But the evidence does not allow those claims to stand.
This book was a balm and encouragement to my soul, as well as a most enlightening study on Paul and his relation to the early church, past traditions, and Christ Himself. This review is already over-long, but let me close with a few words of Machen himself. "The heart of the problem is found in the Pauline relation to Christ. That relation cannot be described by mere enumeration of details; it cannot be reduced to lower terms; it is an absolutely simple and indivisible thing. The relation of Paul to Christ is a relation of love; and love exists only between persons. It is not a group of ideas that is to be explained, if Paulinism is to be accounted for, but the love of Paul for his Saviour. And that love is rooted, not in what Christ had said, but in what Christ had done. He 'loved me and gave Himself for me.' There lies the basis of the religion of Paul; there lies the basis of all of Christianity. That basis is confirmed by the account of Jesus which is given in the Gospels, and given, indeed, in all the sources. It is opposed only by modern reconstructions. And those reconstructions are all breaking down. The religion of Paul was not founded upon a complex of ideas derived from Judaism or paganism. It was founded upon the historical Jesus."
January 18, 2008
I have never seen a secondary source reference to this, but years ago I read an English translation of Bultmann's German review of this Machen book. Bultmann generally ignored works written in English, especially by Americans, and he despised the theology that people like Machen stood for. And yet he gave a long review where he acknowledged this to be the best book of its kind to appear thus far.
Extremely insightful and thorough. And the balanced and fair tone will surprise those unfamiliar with Machen's more scholarly writings.
A real classi c still well worth reading.
Extremely insightful and thorough. And the balanced and fair tone will surprise those unfamiliar with Machen's more scholarly writings.
A real classi c still well worth reading.
December 28, 2016
John defends the originality of Paul's religion in coherence with the disciples' belief in Jesus Christ and the Gospel message. I learned a lot and have a better understanding what modernism sought to change and what liberal Christianity tried to alter within the basic Christian doctrines of faith. He picks all the new modern scholarly works and disproves them one by one, allowing the reader to understand what the opposition was trying to prove or disprove.
October 27, 2020
This is a dry tome. Originally delivered as lectures prior to the Great War, Machen surveys attitudes to Paul in modern theology with the aim of demonstrating this theology was the same as Jesus'.
He is succesful in that task but the academic tone of the day was formal. No doubt there are more recent and more engaging works that cover the same ground.
He is succesful in that task but the academic tone of the day was formal. No doubt there are more recent and more engaging works that cover the same ground.
February 3, 2019
Very good but a bit technical sometimes.
February 27, 2022
If you want to hear what controversy was being had 100 years ago... here you go. Dated but good.
December 22, 2024
Machen tangles eloquently with liberal and skeptical scholars about where Paul got his theology (from mystery religions? Judaism?) and what the content of it was.
September 21, 2019
Pauline Christianity
Paul, Peter & Jesus Christ. All three agree. Jesus is the God-man,the Creator & Redeemer of the human race. He, Jesus always existed with The Father & the Spirit, One God in essence. Christ became man to express God's nature. He died to redeem the human race especially those who believe. It is they, who receive the blessing of eternal life while the non-believers will receive what the human race deserves. The eternal wrath & separation from the mercy, good will & peace that God freely gives through the person & work of Christ.
Paul, Peter & Jesus Christ. All three agree. Jesus is the God-man,the Creator & Redeemer of the human race. He, Jesus always existed with The Father & the Spirit, One God in essence. Christ became man to express God's nature. He died to redeem the human race especially those who believe. It is they, who receive the blessing of eternal life while the non-believers will receive what the human race deserves. The eternal wrath & separation from the mercy, good will & peace that God freely gives through the person & work of Christ.
February 8, 2015
Apparently this originated as a series of lectures. The material Machen is contending against (liberal German theologians and historians who try to find out what pagan cults influenced Paul) is less relevant today than it was during the period it was written. Yet it is still quite refreshing to see someone facing the attacks of liberals straight on, without fear, examining their case and finding their conclusions lacking. It is astonishing that any of these theories as to where Paul got his religion (because it being divine is apparently out of the question) survived to be published, let alone taken seriously by anyone!
August 29, 2011
This Rocks!!! One of the best books in attacking the assumptions of the critics.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews