Was Paul of Tarsus the founder of Christianity?

Preface to the Russian edition

What the Apostle Paul Really Said grew out of lectures that were given to a wide variety of audiences. The last impetus for writing it was a new work by the writer E. N. Wilson, to which it was impossible not to respond. And some time later we met him at an open discussion, which was held in London, at the church of St. James in Piccadilly. Quite a lot of people gathered to listen to our discussion, and this proves that the problem of the origin of Christianity is still of concern not only to practicing church members, but also to those who stand "behind the fence" and from time to time look inside with curiosity.

It seems that such an interest would have pleased the Apostle Paul, since, contrary to popular belief, he saw his calling primarily in going to the "outsiders," to the "nations," to the Gentiles, to people who had never heard of the One God worshipped by the Jews, to those whose lives had been determined for many centuries by Greek, Roman, and other local cults. A significant part of our book consists of reflections on how Paul understood his (Jewish) apostleship among the Gentiles, and the search for an answer to this question allowed us to take a qualitatively different look at all of Paul's texts. Therefore, I felt it necessary to delve into some of the topics and, in particular, to speculate on the political consequences of the statement "Jesus is Lord", which in essence meant, among other things, that Caesar was an impostor. The reader can learn more about this in my commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, included in the tenth volume of the New Interpreter's Bible, 2002.

The interpretation of the Pauline texts is still controversial also because many Christians brought up in the Protestant and Reformed traditions tend to derive all the truths of the faith and church teaching from the way the great Reformers, especially Luther and Calvin, treated the Apostle Paul. I admire the brilliant Reformed theology and exegesis, and yet I am convinced that the Reformers themselves would most likely urge not to accept their words as immutable truths, but rather to follow their example, that is, to turn to the Scriptures again and again, to try to understand what God pleases us to reveal in the sacred Word. Scripture is inexhaustible; Paul's texts themselves call for a more complete and complete reading of them than Luther and Calvin did, and in this way the value of the discoveries of the Reformers is not only not abolished, but on the contrary made more apparent, just as a square appears when it becomes part of a cube, and disappears when it becomes a circle. Thus, I am convinced that the doctrine of justification by faith, so relevant to the Reformation, must be rethought in the light of a more attentive and historically sensitive reading of Galatians, which is what I am trying to do (see, in particular, Chapter Seven). Again, you can read more about this in the above-mentioned commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.

I was very pleased to learn that many colleges and seminars found my work to be a worthy introduction to the problems of the Pauline Epistles. Paul was a preacher, and his texts, if taken seriously, can undoubtedly grow up and form more than one generation of heralds of the word. I sincerely hope that the new edition of our book will contribute to this goal in its own way.

N. T. Wright