Customer Reviews

Paul: The Founder of Christianity

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This is my third book by Ludemann and he has yet to disappoint. He is a solid early Christian scholar and a readable one.

Gerd Luddeman sees Paul as responsible for what has become Christianity, far overshadowing Yeshua bar-Yosef if not completely burying his original teachings and goal. True enough. Paul certainly is responsible for the creation of the demon, Christianity, and its endless struggle to destroy God's People in order to inhabit its corpse.

There are many books over the years writing of Paul and his evil, including the first I read, The First Christian, by Davies, (ages ago after finding it as a little paperback ready to fall apart). It was helpful in my escape from the church. But there are other better exposes of Paul. And so my reading of this rather pedestrian work by Luddeman was disappointing.

If you have not read much criticism of Paul of Tarsus, then you might benefit from the book and not find it too earth-shattering. Try The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by the late Hyam Maccoby.