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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
On A Lonely Island Without The Heretic Paul,
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This review is from: On a Lonely Island: Without the Heretic Paul (Paperback)
In the title Schofield gave to his book, the first part ("On A Lonely Island") conveys Schofield's view of himself, that he is alone in holding the non-conformist opinions that he writes about. Principle among these is that he regards Christianity as a religion "about Jesus," rather than what Schofield says he follows, i.e., "the religion of Jesus."
The second part of the title ("Without The Heretic Paul") is misleading. Although it may convey Schofield's view of his own religion, it does not fairly summarize what the book is about. Very little of the book is about Paul (Saul of Tarsus or St Paul). It is, rather, a sweeping history of religion, from Schofield's speculation about "primitive societies," through the early Hebrew faith and Judaism, to the life of Jesus and the early church, and up to the present day (regarding which he presents his opinions about crime, charity, and criminal justice in his community). If you are looking for a good book about "the heretic Paul," I recommend William Wrede's Paul, which lays out a solid argument that Paul's teachings were not needed to improve upon the teachings of Jesus, and that Paul fundamentally changed Christianity from what it had been during, and shortly after, the life of Jesus. Taking this book on its own terms (disregarding the title), it is a personal narrative about Schofield's understanding of the history of religion leading up to modern Christianity. Schofield obviously has read a great amount. However, his book is not scholarly; until p. 124 (of 173 pages of text) where his writing improves, he gives very few references about where he got his information. Citations are very important especially if one is proposing unconventional views or asserting controversial 'facts'. Beyond the lack of scholarly discipline in Schofield's writing, the book is filled with errors of content, grammar, orthography, and typographical layout. I have never seen such a high rate of mistakes except in student homework. It gives the impression that either Schofield is not well educated, or he just didn't care about making a finished product. Despite the notion that content is more important than form, at some point these errors (together with the paucity of citations and the author's offbeat opinions) begin to erode my willingness to accept his statements as true. He could have improved his book enormously if he had submitted it to a competent editor before publication. Summarizing Schofield's position, it is that Jesus was a great prophet but not the Son of God (a position, incidentally, that is shared by Islam). He says Jesus was "an intelligent young man well versed in the Scriptures" (p. 108). Schofield claims he is "agnostic" about Jesus' miracles that are told in the Gospels, but he directly denies the resurrection of Jesus as being physically "impossible." No matter what the reader's opinions are regarding the topics discussed by Schofield (he does present some thought-provoking theories), I cannot recommend the book due to its almost total lack of scholarly discipline. Without giving adequate evidence to support his assertions of 'fact', the book reduces to a long narration of his personal opinions and conjectures, formed from pursuing an interest in reading about religion.
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