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Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?

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David Wenham answers the question posed in the title of his book by affirming that Paul was a follower of Jesus and not some sort of founder of a new religion. The opening chapter, entitled "Introducing the Question", was helpful in that the author was forthcoming about his methodologies and biases. No scholar is "completely un-biased", and Wenham deserves credit for sharing the path his argument will follow before blindly leading his reader down it.

A convincing argument is made that Paul was aware of far more details of Jesus' life than for which he is often credited. Wenham tries to avoid what he calls "parallelomania" which is the overzealousness of some scholars to find connections between Paul and Jesus in places where they don't actually exist. Some skeptics may find Wenham guilty of what he claims to avoid, but I believe the vast majority of his arguments are highly probable.

Wenham groups the connections between Paul and Jesus in degrees of probability. For example, the "highly probable" category includes Paul's knowledge of the Last Supper, resurrection appearances, Jesus' teaching on divorce and others. His next category is simply labelled "probable" and contains such things as Paul's awareness of the baptism of Jesus, the commissioning of Peter, and many more things. He then moves to connections which he considers to be merely "plausible", and believes Paul's awareness of the Sermon on the Mount, parables of the prodigal son and vineyard tenants, among several other items, fall into this category.

By using degrees of probability, I think Wenham safely avoids the charge of "parallelomania". He doesn't use statements such as "Paul must have known X". Instead, he uses terminology like "Paul probably knew X" or "It is very likely that Paul was aware of X". Taken as a cumulative argument, Wenham's case is highly persuasive. The one shortcoming I found with this book was that Wenham fails to adequately interact with those who would say that Paul was the founder of Christianity. Its apparent that Wenham is more than able to meet the task, so my assumption is that he wanted to focus on developing his case without constantly being sidetracked by the need to refute his opponents. If the book is ever revised, it would be great to see him address this issue. Doing so would make this an absolutely perfect book.

This is the most thorough discussion of Paul's relationship with the teachings and life of Jesus available for the layperson. Wenham has struck a masterful balance between scholarly discussion and accessibility. No one should be intimidated by this book, but they also need not fear that they are missing out on relevant issues.

A real strength of this book is the seriousness with which Wenham approaches the issues. Discovering what, if anything, Paul knew and carried on from Jesus is not a simple matter. One cannot just throw scriptures at a wall and hope that as much sticks as possible (he even includes a section on avoiding what he calls "parrallelomania").

To his credit, Wenham spends the first 30 pages + framing the issue. He candidly admits that Paul rarely refers explicitly to Jesus's teachings or ministry. He notes that the two usual explanations for this, that Paul either did not know much about Jesus or assumed that his audience knew much about Jesus, fail -- standing on their own -- to explain the situation satisfactorily. But as Wenham points out, there is an even larger issue. To what extent is Paul's message consistent with or the same as Jesus'? Given Paul's influence on Christianity and these questions, Wenham takes no offense about the question that entitled the book: Was Paul a Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?

To make his comparison, Wenham does not simply take Gospel verses and compare them to Pauline verses. Instead, he probes underneath to determine what Jesus' message, for example, regarding the Kingdom really was. Then he does the same with the Pauline letters. Only then does he make his comparison. Wenham finds many points of contacts, such as Jesus' use of Abba, the Last Supper narrative (notably determining that the Lukan version was most likely used in the Pauline churches), Jesus' teachings on divorce and paying ministers, and others. He concludes the book with a very helpful summary. Because he covers so much ground, the summary neatly provides the answer to the question raised by the title of the book: "Paul saw himself as the slave of Jesus Christ, not the founder of Christianity. He was right to see himself in that way."

This book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the relationship between Paul and Jesus. If you want answers instead of polemics or simplistic reassurances, then you will benefit from this book.

This book is a comprehensive presentation of the teachings of Paul and Jesus from the New Testament. I liked the way the various concepts were presented and analyzed. For a scholarly book, it is written in an easy to read fashion that contains enough detailed information for the theological scholar and is easily followed by the layperson. The book basically blows the doors off the theological theory that Paul was unaware of Jesus and created his own version of Christianity.

The book is outlined in such a way that many concepts which are presented by both Jesus and Paul such as the Kingdom of God, the Christian Community, and the essentials elements of who Jesus was and claimed to be, are compared, contrasted and dissected against each other. The result is that the author demonstrates that the absurd theories about Paul being unaware of Jesus life and teachings are unfounded.

It is clear after examining the evidence that Paul was presenting the message of the Gospel, and was in fact a follower of Jesus Christ and not the founder of a new Gnostic religion. If you have heard these theories and are curious, please read this book.

Wenham disputes the consensus of many liberal Biblical scholars that the Apostle Paul is Christianity's true founder. Some scholars insist that Paul, influence by Greek mystery religions, invented much of Christian theology, and particularly the religion's view of Jesus as Son of God. In painstaking detail, Wenham demonstrates that Paul actually knew and drew from much of the tradition captured in the Gospels, in contrast to the liberal scholarship view. Wenham constructs a challenge to those critics who too lightly dismiss the connections between Jesus and Paul. There are some points, though, where he is forced to admit that the connections are tenuous. It's a good study for someone seriously interested in the subject, but too detailed for a casual reader. Anyone who has been persuaded by more radical Pauline scholarship (such as Hyam Maccoby's "Mythmaker") should give Wenham a fair chance to present another perspective

David Wenham makes a tight case for Paul's dependence on the Jesus tradition. The author shows that Paul displays a thorough knowledge of the life and teachings of Jesus. This is shown by Wenham's pointing out verbal similarities between the Pauline corpus and the Gospels, as well as the tremendous overlap of thought-forms between the two. Wenham does not waste the reader's time examining some of the moot questions which would no doubt be interesting to some readers, but rather shows how his message of salvation by grace is solidly based upon the teachings and works of Jesus. One might have hoped that the author would have dealt more in-depth with Paul's expansion of Jesus' parabolic teachings, but nobody's perfect. Wenham provides a brief, interesting, if not altogether convincing, excursus on whether Paul was aware of the Virgin Birth teachings. His non-dogmatic conclusion is not watertight, but will give the open-minded some rich food for thought. In my opinion, Wenham has taken this oft-neglected, narrow topic to new and exciting heights. All who write on the relationship between Pauline thought and the Jesus tradition in the future will have to contend with the argumentation found in Wenham's stimulating book.

Paul has come under the verdict of not being a loyal follower of the Jesus of history but rather being a creative if not even a misleading founder of Christianity. This is the stuff of the Baigent/ Leigh and Eisenman kinds of books and permeats even some areas of the scholarly discussions. As this may be considered a not seeing the wood for the trees, it appears to be a helpful enterprise to examine the trees in order find out about the wood. This is what Wenham's book is about. No doubt where Wenham sees Paul located at the scale, that is as a loyal follower of Jesus. His book is mostly grounded on a convincing reasoning. He doesn't actually claim to be original in a sense, although his argument concerning the transfiguration may be called rather speculative for example. On the contrary his book takes a solid down to earth line, lacks an apologetic overtone and trusts in the power of sound reasoning. His style is highly readable, written not only for academic professional but also for the informed lay person. I recommend this book, because it gives those who already know about the wood serious information about the trees. And - so I hope - even those who may not see the wood for all the trees enough reason to rethink the matter again.

I found Wenham's argument more compelling than I had expected. The data he surveys on the connectin between Paul and the gospels is far more exaustive than the dozen+ other books I looked at on the general topic of Paul's Chritology combined and is generally well structured. My main critique is of his strategy of lumping evidence of widely varying likelyhood. This resulted in very thin allusions coinciding with strong cases. On the whole though, it is a well put together volume andworth the pages.

this book does a good job showing the theological/thematic connections between Jesus and the apostle Paul. Paul echoed many of the teachings and concerns of Jesus. this work aims to exposit these connections and it will go a long way towards discrediting the notion that Paul "invented" christianity. Also see the very helpful discussion of this subject in Craig Blomberg's little book, Making Sense of The New Testament.

New Testament specialist Professor David Wenham demonstrates conclusively that Jesus, not Paul, was the founder of "Christianity", as it is now called. Paul was, in fact, a faithful disciple of Jesus in every respect.

Paul's contributions to the development of Christian thinking and church life were undoubtedly massive. With God's direct inspiration, working through his own personality, Paul worked out an interpretation that was accepted by Jesus' other disciples as faithful both to Jesus Himself and to the social context in which he was working.

Therefore, despite the significance of his conclusions, Paul himself would have been horrified at the suggestion that he was the founder of "Christianity". For him the fountain of all theology was none other than Jesus Himself. Therefore, although Paul's theological thought and teaching was of the highest importance, it was not original to himself, but in essence actually a transmission of Jesus' own thought and teaching. Wenham shows this by means of detailed comparisons between Jesus' teaching and that of Paul.

Paul was always aware that the Jesus whom he encountered on the Damascus road and the Jesus of Christian tradition were one and the same Person. Indeed, Paul saw himself as the "slave of Jesus Christ", not as the founder of "Christianity". And Wenham's book demonstrates in the clearest terms that Paul was accurate in seeing himself in that way.

This has the further implication for theologians that, instead of trying to read Paul's Letters in isolation from the Four Gospels, his Letters should actually be read in the light of these Gospels.

It seems that theology is like science; ever changing, ever evolving because of the revelation or discoveries that come as Bible students and theologians pursue the deep things of God found in His written Word, we call the Holy Bible, as well as through archeology, nature, or other unbelievable means. Though it seems also that there are some theological things we are never sure of, it is imperative that we continue in the quest to understand the things of God as He Himself intends them for us to understand. In his book, author David Whenham is pursuing the perceived dilemma of Paul's exposition or presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in contrast to the way Jesus presented the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Jesus came with the message, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Jesus introduced the message of the Kingdom of God as a new rule or a new way of life, not as a physical Kingdom, though Paul later understood the Kingdom as something present and yet with the promise of a futuristic physical establishment of such Kingdom. Jesus' message was accompanied by works of miracle, healing, and spiritual restoration. He spoke in parables that many could not understand and left people in amazement in the way He taught and lived. Paul on the other hand, presented the Gospel in terms of preaching and teaching of this new life rather than through healings and miracle works, though God used Paul on both. For Paul, Jesus was the Old Testament Promised Messiah and King though Jesus never explicitly use those terms for Himself.

The book is filled with possibilities and probabilities whether Paul knew the Jesus' traditions. He is, as much as possible, trying to present and defend Paul as a true follower of Jesus Christ and not as the founder of Christianity. The issue whether Paul was a follower of Jesus or the founder of Christianity has as a foundation/origin on the fact that Paul did not refer much to the Jesus' traditions as most Christians knew them then and even today. What needs to be understood on the issue is that Jesus, in the Gospels, was inaugurating a new era before the crucifixion while Paul is writing post Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, which implies an understanding for Paul of Jesus as the Son of God. So Paul sees Jesus, not from a historical point of view but from an eschatological point of view.

When Paul's works are read, they must be read in light of the Gospel narratives and not as if he is coming with a new message apart from the Gospel of Jesus. Even many of Paul's contemporaries question Paul's apostleship in contrast with Peter and other apostles because the message Paul presented seemed to them as different from the one Jesus handed down. In his book, Mr. Wenham is trying to present evidence that Paul was in fact following in Jesus' steps though the evidence presented was not enough to bet the farm on it, except for the fact that Paul was a well educated individual who, in contrast with other people of his time, knew how to read and write. He was well educated in Judaism, so he knew the Scriptures very well though at pre-conversion he did not have the revelation of Jesus Christ. When Jesus encountered Paul on his way to Damascus, Paul was then in a great advantage over others by knowing the OT Scriptures and having that knowledge coupled with the revelation of Jesus Christ. What Paul is, at the end, is a follower of Jesus.

What he in essence did was to take the whole oracle of God though Christ Jesus and present it in relation to his present historical, social, and spiritual surroundings. For Paul, there was no necessity to retell the story of Jesus to his hearers because some of them, as implied by the author, knew the story well. Other hearers, while ignorant of the Jesus' traditions, were not in disadvantage because Paul knew the story of Jesus, whether handed down from Christ Himself or His disciples, and he shared the message in a manner that fit the circumstances while maintaining the message intact and complete in every teaching of Jesus on the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Paul was not trying to establish a new religion but present the Gospel of Christ as he understood it though he barely or rarely quoted Jesus or referred directly to Jesus' life or traditions.