I have long been wondering about the word "Radical" in the label that refers to the group of scholars who do not allow Paul to be read outside Judaism, i.e., the so-called Radical New Perspective on Paul (or the Paul-within-Judaism Perspective). I think that the term "Radical" is a red herring because placing Paul back … Continue reading Paul: Far Too Radical an Apostle
Paul the Innovative Letter-Writer
In my previous post, I promised to write more about the innovative nature of Paul's letters. No one denies that Paul lived in the Greco-Roman world as a devout Jew. But it is one thing to know that fact but is another to claim that Paul was nothing but an ordinary Jew living in the … Continue reading Paul the Innovative Letter-Writer
T. S. Eliot and the Apostle Paul
The 1948 Nobel Literature Prize laureate T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) wrote the seminal essay titled "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1917). This short paper was a fire he shot that was to be eventually heard around the world within less than a century. As the title of the article shows, Eliot contrasts tradition and the … Continue reading T. S. Eliot and the Apostle Paul