Sarah Ruden

It is a common misconception that Paul told people how to live. Apart from forbidding certain abusive practices, he never gives any precise instructions for living. It would have violated his two main social principles: human freedom and dignity, and the need for people to love one another. Paul was a Hellenistic Jew, originally named Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, who made a living from tent making or leatherworking. He called himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles" and was the most important of the early Christian evangelists. Paul, regarded by Christians as the greatest interpreter of Jesus' mission, was the first person to explain how Christ's life and death fit into the larger scheme of salvation, from the creation of Adam to the end of time. Preaching spiritual equality and God's infinite love, he crusaded for the Jewish Messiah to be accepted as the friend and deliverer of all humankind. This book explores the meanings of the Paul's teachings and how they might have affected the people in his own time and culture.… (more)

The review is for Ruden's translation, remarkable in its achievement of her goal to strip centuries of artififce from the text and instead to 'look first at [the] thing itself', and not for the spiritual nature of the content. This was a fascinating dive into these venerated and oft misunderstood Christian texts that was done with a reading club.

I am perhaps leaving with more questions than answers (as is so often and pleasurably the case with academic study!), but the references to contemporary myth and pagan practices as well as to Graeco-Roman literature (both epic and tragic) ground these works as very much of their time. The exercise of identifying the clearly unique themes from one gospel to the next makes this worth reading in itself. Ruden's translation provides a philosophically stimulating experience and a compelling study in ancient literature.… (more)