The Gospel According to Paul

Paul: the fith evangelist. Paul is one of the most influential and mysterious figures of the early Christian Church. There exist so many portraits of Paul -- as the creator/founder of Christianity, as an anti-Semitic Jew, as the definitive source of Christian doctrine and morality, as a homophobe and misogynist, among others -- that it is difficult to determine who Paul really was and what he taught. Robin Griffith-Jones presents readers with a new image of Paul, set in the first dramatic decades after Jesus' death. Steeped in a visionary tradition, Paul had discovered in Jesus the dazzling manifestation of God. Paul was a true evangelist, a Billy Graham of the first century. The apostle's aim was to make Jesus known, by any and every means, to his listeners and readers. When Paul spoke and wrote, the power of Jesus was at work. His letters, he believed, could transform individuals and communities. They still can. - Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Spiritual. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.