The Apostle Who Was Not There
The Other Gospel: The Lost Jerusalem Files — Part II Paul changed Christianity more than any other figure after Jesus. That fact alone should make him one of the most carefully examined men in religious history. And yet, in most churches, Paul is not examined first as a historical problem. He is received as an unquestioned apostle. His letters are read as doctrine. His arguments become the framework through which Jesus is interpreted.
What this resource contributes
The Other Gospel: The Lost Jerusalem Files — Part II Paul changed Christianity more than any other figure after Jesus. That fact alone should make him one of the most carefully examined men in religious history. And yet, in most churches, Paul is not examined first as a historical problem. He is received as an unquestioned apostle. His letters are read as doctrine. His arguments become the framework through which Jesus is interpreted. His gospel becomes so dominant that many Christians know Paul’s explanation of Jesus better than they know Jesus’s own teachings. But before Paul became the architect of Christian theology, he was something far more complicated. He was the apostle who was not there. He did not walk with Jesus in Galilee. He did not hear the Sermon on the Mount from Jesus’s mouth. He did not sit among the disciples during the ministry.