Paul: The Mind of the Apostle (Paperback)

by A. N. Wilson (Author) "ON 19 JULY in the year AD 64, a fire broke out among the squalid, timber-built little shops which clustered around the Circus Maximus, the..." (more)
Key Phrases: divine emperor, surviving writings, New Testament, Acts of the Apostles, Asia Minor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
A.N. Wilson, who has written revisionist biographies of Jesus, Tolstoy, and C.S. Lewis, trains his critical eye on the first self-identified Christian writer in Paul: The Mind of the Apostle. Wilson's book may purport to be a biography of Paul, but it is really an argument about the origin and nature of Christianity. His premise is that "Jesus was a devoted Jew who did not seek to found a new religion, but to call his followers to a stricter observance of Judaism." It was Paul, not Jesus, who exemplified the central tensions of Christianity. ("Jewish or non-Jewish? Roman or anti-Roman? Apocalyptic or practical?") And according to Wilson, it was Paul who first claimed Jesus' divinity and called Jesus the messiah. Wilson's argument, though heterodox, is no hatchet-job. Paul may be "widely regarded as someone who distorted the original message of Christianity, by adding 'theology' to the supposedly simple message of love Jesus preached," but Wilson sees Paul as "a prophet of liberty, whose visionary sense of the importance of the inner life anticipates the Romantic poets more than the rule-books of the Inquisition." Wilson concludes that Christianity is "an institutionalised distortion of Paul's thought, the inevitable consequence of the world having lasted ... more than nineteen hundred years longer than he predicted." Wilson's prose is just this lively and provocative throughout, and his observations are always skeptical and forgiving: "Paul did not imagine that there would be such a thing as Christianity, or Christian civilization, any more than Jesus did." --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Having produced a biography of Jesus (Jesus, LJ 9/1/92), Wilson now gives us a biography of Paul, who took Jesus's movement into the wider world. Paul's missionary activity spread Christianity to many places in the Roman Empire, and his writings occupy a significant portion of the New Testament. Wilson argues, as do many others, that without Paul there would be no Christianity. He reminds us that some of the greatest Christian thinkers?e.g., Augustine, Luther, Calvin?were especially dependent on Paul's theology. Wilson's book finds its place among the many on Paul because it effectively puts Paul in historical and social context and because of its probe of the psychological and social forces affecting Paul. Though scholarly, Wilson's book can easily be read by the informed. Highly recommended.?John Moryl, Yeshiva Univ. Libs., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (April 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393317609
• ISBN-13: 978-0393317602
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #197,627 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Study of the Early Christian World, July 29, 2000

By A Customer

This is a fascinating study of the early Christian world, a period of time in which "Christianity" emerged from the struggles within the early Jewish Jesus-movement. Wilson's writing is effortless and his depiction of Roman and Jewish culture is insightful. Those who believe that Christianity is the religion Jesus founded will not agree with much of what Wilson has to say (or modern scholarship for that matter!), but for those seeking an understanding of how various strands of religious thinking took form following the death of Jesus, this is a book well worth reading.

I would say that the subtitle is a little out of place because the book is not really about "the mind of the apostle." This is something that we can never hope to grasp, and Wilson acknowledges as much in his book. But a coherent picture of who Paul was and what he was all about does emerge from its pages. The book clearly sets him in opposition to James and Peter and the Jerusalem Jesus-movement and clearly details Paul's unique (although unintended) contribution to the birth of Christianity. It is hard to put the book down.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Controversial but insightful, March 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Paul: The Mind of the Apostle (Paperback)

Not surprisingly, this book fails to satisfy both rigid historians and fundamentalist Christians. It is neither a rigorous biography nor a parrot of convoluted and contrived Pauline theology. In my opinion, A.N. Wilson's great contribution here is his examination of the Book of Acts and of Paul's New Testament letters through the eyes of someone primarily schooled in literature and not history. Those of us who hunger to know what REALLY happened back in the First Century are bound to be disappointed as no reliable "histories" (at least by modern standards) exist. The best we can do is some inspired detective work and make some educated guesses. Wilson does just that and while I don't necessarily agree with all his conclusions-and I would agree with a previous reviewer that some of his passages read like brainstorming-I think his book gets us tantalizingly (sometimes frustratingly) closer to the REAL Saul of Tarsus than anything else I've read (and I do not at all agree with the assertion that the portrait is "derogatory."). Wilson's insights on the division between Paul and the Jesus community in Jerusalem are particularly enlightening as is his rooting of early "Christianity" in the Jewish tradition. I would recommend it both to religious skeptics and to those who are not so insecure in their faith in God and Jesus as to feel threatened by anything that challenges conventional belief.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stranded in Malta, June 15, 2003

By	Wallace V. French III (Boston MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read this book years ago, but recently dusted it off and gave it another go. I'm going to Malta for my summer vacation this year and one of the main reasons I want to go there is to see what is on the island to commemorate Paul's visit there on his way to Rome. Wilson has a chapter on Paul's voyage from Caesarea in Jerusalem to Rome on his way to certain death. The whole voyage was marked with one disaster after another along the way. The ship went down near Malta and Paul instructed everyone to jump ship and they ended up making it to Malta. A dramatic tale to say the least. Paul was on Malta for three months before going to Syracusa in Sicily then sailing to Puteoli (modern day Pozzuoli) then making the final journey by foot to Rome. That is a long walk. Pozzuoli to Rome today is a three hour drive on one of the fastest stretches of the Italian Autostrada. Wilson doesn't explain how long it took for him and the other prisoners to walk, but it was probably a couple weeks. Anyway, during Paul's stay on Malta a couple miracles took place and to this day the people of Malta still make it a point to commemorate his stay and that is why I am going there. This is a great book on Paul. Paul is one of the most important figures in Christianity. Without the word of Paul, Jesus would have diminished in history as a fervent Jew. Strong words I know, but until you grasp that idea you can't appreciate Christianity for everything it is. Paul was the key to the development of early Christian thought by traveling everywhere as a missionary and preaching the good word of Jesus and claiming divinity for him. Wilson is not a historian, but this book is written in that style complete with footnotes and source material to back his claims. An excellent book. I was lucky enough to get the hardcover before it went out of print. Paperback is still widely available.