As H. rightly notes, there is ‘an astonishing abundance’ of books on Paul (p. xi), books that engage in extensive exegetical and theological discussion of the minutiae of Paul's letters. This major preoccupation of New Testament studies can make it difficult for scholars of ancient history to interact with the highly specialised scholarship on Paul. That helps to indicate why – despite adding to the hundreds of books published on Paul – this volume is most welcome: H. offers a study of Paul and his legacy that seeks to be rigorously historical, written in a way that should engage ancient historians as well as New Testament specialists and be accessible to a wide readership.
In a substantial introduction, H. explains his approach and surveys the primary sources. This is not a traditional biography, but more an ‘antibiography’ (p. 3): accepting that one cannot pretend objectively ‘to recover and re-enact a self’, H. aims instead to decentre ‘the subject into multiple selves’, offering ‘many different Pauls rather than “the” Paul’ (p. 3). Adopting a critical stance towards questions of authorship, H. accepts seven Pauline letters as genuine (Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon), regarding these as the key primary sources. Other letters and the book of Acts are secondary, and should therefore be used only with great caution to draw historical conclusions about Paul.
The book is divided into two main parts, the first of which considers Paul's life. Here H. examines the change ‘from Pharisee to Apostle’, arguing for substantial continuity between the Jewish and ‘Christian’ Paul. Paul's so-called conversion is more a matter of moving from one Jewish sect to another than of conversion to a different religion. After coming into conflict with other Jewish followers of Christ over the requirements to be expected of Gentile converts, Paul engaged in extensive missionary activity throughout the eastern Mediterranean, based primarily in urban workshops, where he established ‘assemblies’ (ekklesiai) of converts. Again Paul encountered opposition and rivals, not least in relation to his stance regarding the Jewish Law. H. stresses, however, that this is not a matter of an un-Jewish rejection of the Law on Paul's part, but rather a case of conflict between different Jewish perspectives on whether Gentile converts needed to be circumcised (e.g. p. 55). Far from rejecting the Law and Jewish tradition, ‘Paul Judaized former pagans to fulfill what he saw as the core summation of the Law’ (p. 61). Paul met his end, H. suggests (controversially), in Jerusalem, where he was murdered ‘by the faction of believers’, rather than executed in Rome, as Church tradition has it (p. 72).
The final chapter in Part 1 considers Paul's life in its Roman context. This is largely a critique of the influential approach to ‘Paul and Empire’ in recent New Testament scholarship, and specifically the view that Paul opposed the Empire (cf. p. 94). Instead, H. stresses how Paul's thinking was reflective of aspects of Roman culture, particularly in his deployment of ‘a discourse of mastery’ or auctoritas, a means to claim authority (p. 81). In other words, ‘Roman ideologies of authority shaped Paul's language of mission’ (p. 93), and he ‘advanced an imperialist ideology that was very Roman in its model of peace’ (p. 90).
Almost half of the book (Part 2) is devoted to the developing legends about Paul and constructions of his thought in Christian tradition. H. first considers competing stories about Paul in late antiquity, examining depictions of Paul as Roman Hero, as sexual role model (either as ascetic or as ‘family man’) and finally as deceiver. H. then focuses on the competing and contradictory Christian discourses that took Paul's collected letters as scriptural authority: the rival perspectives of Marcion and Valentinus; the interpretations of Paul by Irenaeus, Origen and John Chrysostom. Finally H. considers ‘How the West got Paul wrong’. Beginning with Mani and moving through Pelagius and Augustine to Martin Luther, H. outlines the development of what he sees as a ‘modern legend’ of Paul as the second founder of Christianity and the ‘discoverer of the individual conscience’ (p. 157). For H. this depiction is wrong, not only for its false notion of Paul's rejection of a supposedly legalistic ‘Judaism’ and its anachronistic view of his release from a guilty conscience but also for its misleading elevation of Paul as a unique figure within early Christianity; in fact ‘Paul was neither the first nor the only missionary to the Gentiles’ (p. 160).
A brief conclusion draws together some of the book's key arguments, and is followed by three helpful appendices – on extant writings attributed to Paul; the reconstruction of the Corinthian correspondence; and ancient Christian works (to the sixth century) containing legends and traditions about Paul. Finally, there are suggestions for further reading related to each of the chapters, a bibliography and indexes.
There is much that is impressive and valuable about this book. The first part serves well to set Paul's activity and letters firmly within the context of an early Christian movement which is essentially one of the diverse groups within Judaism, heavily influenced by Hellenistic culture and operating within the Roman Empire. The second part takes the interpretation of Paul far beyond the pages of the New Testament, and offers an impressively wide-ranging engagement with constructions of Paul in sources from the centuries thereafter.
There are of course questions and quibbles. H. states that he writes ‘strictly as a historian’ (p. xi) but his sceptical stance (e.g. regarding the historical value of Acts) cannot be equated with that which any historian would adopt, in contrast, perhaps, to the religiously committed perspective of theologians. Indeed, not a few ancient historians – such as A.N. Sherwin-White, S. Mitchell and H. Botermann – take the evidence of Acts very seriously, and dismiss the overly sceptical stance they see as characteristic of New Testament scholars. In terms of methodology, H.’s postmodern insistence that there is no single biography of Paul, but only manifold constructions, sits somewhat awkwardly with his insistence that the construction of Paul in the Western Christian tradition ‘got the historical Paul wrong’ (p. 150). None the less, it is important, and refreshing, that H. frequently notes that his reconstructions are (unavoidably) hypothetical, thus reminding readers that all historical depictions are open to question.
There are many ways to structure a short book on Paul, and any author must make difficult choices. Notwithstanding the considerable value of the material, one might question H.’s decision to spend almost half the book dealing with the legends about Paul in the centuries after his life and activity rather than dealing in more depth with the primary sources. In the first part of the book we get little by way of an attempt to capture Paul's thought or theology; whether coherent and cogent or not, it is that thought which made him such an influential figure for Christianity and the Western cultural and philosophical tradition. Even while insisting that every reading is a construction, H. might perhaps have done more to outline what he would see as the major features of Paul's thinking.
On the whole the book will serve its intended audience very well, though Chapter 3 may work best for those who know the contemporary New Testament scholarship that H. is opposing. Moreover, while H. makes a persuasive case that Paul deploys Roman concepts and ideology in his letters, showing himself thoroughly enmeshed in Roman culture, he perhaps downplays the extent to which Paul may at the same time represent some form of implicit (and perhaps unintentional) opposition to the Empire. Paul's depiction of ‘the triumphant coming of the Lord’ (cf. 1 Thess. 5.2–10) may well be ‘like the dominion of Rome’ (p. 90). But that does not necessarily rule out the possibility that Paul's declaration of Christ's universal lordship and imminent return at the same time constituted (and/or was heard as) a scarcely veiled threat to the endurance of the pax Romana. Paul's language can be expressive of, implicated in, and yet also antithetical to Roman imperial ideology.
Overall, however, there is much more to praise than to criticise about this book. It offers a learned, lively and accessible depiction of the life and activity of the historical Paul, together with an extensive consideration of the early constructions of Paul in early Christian traditions. Anyone interested in Paul will find here much of interest.
