Patrick Gray's Paul as a Problem in History and Culture: The Apostle and His Critics through the Centuries is an enormously well-read and researched volume that frequently will have the reader fascinated. Gray sets out to answer an age-old question, “Who founded Christianity, Jesus or Paul?” (3). The author recognizes that there are a host of questions lurking below the surface of this seemingly simple question. If Paul could be seen as the “founder” of Christianity, then all of the faults of historical Christianity could be placed at his feet. The anti-Semitism, the dogmatism, the importation of Roman and Greek philosophical models of thought, all of these can be seen as Paul's, rather than belonging to Jesus. Understandably, this is an appealing viewpoint for some observers, though never for all. So Gray attacks the question by taking up Paul and those who regard him as a problem. As he notes, “The approach taken here is neither to join the chorus of Paul's critics nor to mount a full-fledged defense but, rather, to report on the participants and to take note of the attitudes and assumptions at work” (7). Thus, the volume becomes a kind of a catalogue of the critics of Paul.

The book is structured into two parts. The first part, “Anti-Paulinism through the Centuries,” is a historical exploration that traces a chronological survey of the criticisms of Paul from the first century to the present. The second part, “Anti-Pauline Contexts, Subtexts, and Pretexts,” takes a topical approach. The first historical section begins with a chapter, “The First Hundred Years,” that considers Paul's contemporaries, as well as some of the difficulties that arise from the interpretation of Paul's own writings in the first century and those that followed. The author is well aware that when one writes of “Paul,” a variety of possible significations arise. Is Paul the author of thirteen epistles? Does Luke accurately describe Paul in Acts? If Paul is the author of only seven epistles, of what value are the deutero-Pauline writings for understanding the culture and communities to whom Paul wrote, and thus for understanding Paul? Gray's treatment of the set of issues around finding the real “textual” Paul is sensitive, yet readable, throughout the book, and he is also conscious of the parallel between the search for the historical Paul with the search for the historical Jesus, and that Schweitzer's critique, in The Quest of the Historical Jesus, about those who embark upon such hunting trips is just as likely to impeach the credibility of those who seek out the “true Paul.”

The second chapter, in accordance with its title, covers “The Premodern Era,” which is considered the early church, late antiquity, and the middle ages. This is followed by “The Enlightenment and Beyond,” a chapter that introduces the rise of modern critical biblical scholarship. The nineteenth century gets its own chapter, as a haven for some of Paul's cultured despisers that include early nineteenth-century deists and liberal theologians like Schleiermacher and Baur, and early existentialists such as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. The final chapter considers the Jesus vs. Paul dynamic in the public square, both inside and outside the academy.

The second section takes up a variety of anti-Pauline settings. “In the Tents of Shem” looks at Paul's reputation among Jews and Muslims, and runs the gamut from Paul being the source of the worst issues in Christianity to Pamela Eisenbaum's claim that Paul was not even Christian. “Jesus versus Paul” traces the parallel between the effects of Jesus and Paul to the modern notion of spirituality instead of religiosity. “A World Without Paul?” considers the variety of possibilities that arise from counterfactual histories that drop Paul, while noting the theoretical difficulties in any counterfactual history. “Not by Paul Alone” considers some other possible “founders” of Christianity, including John the Baptist, Mary, and Peter. The chapter that goes the furthest afield is “From Jesus to Paul,” an exploration in comparative religion. Perspectives are gathered from Daoism, Confucianism, Islam, and others. The book's conclusion culminates with a discussion of the taxonomy of anti-Paulinism, from his paganism, to his misogyny, to his hypocrisy. Gray finishes with the observation that Paul's relationship to the founding of Christianity may not be as simple as an affirmation or negation, and that the relationship of Paul to Jesus may be like other huge projects, such as the Manhattan Project or the Apollo program, that generate a wide variety of collateral benefits for the church and academy.

While the book is enormously erudite, at times it is also problematic in its approach. First, there is the issue of what to include—any consideration of almost two millennia in two hundred pages will run up against that. Sometimes the list seems to be just that, a list. Further, that inclusive imperative puts a variety of responses to Paul side by side, with insufficient discussion of their relative academic, cultural, and historical merits. As well, there is a problem with that which is left out. The early modern period is almost wholly skipped. Is that simply because the era of the Reformations was characterized by a love for Paul? But even if that were the case, should not that be addressed in the volume, if only to note that the early modern stood out?

At the end of the book, the reader experiences a variety of somewhat incompatible impressions. First, one is aware that much research has gone into this, and that it can lead in many directions—one learns a lot from reading this book. Second, the book feels incomplete, as the discussion of Jesus vs. Paul as the founder of Christianity does not carry the argument of the book to the end. Too frequently this becomes instead a catalogue of anti-Paulinism. Finally, the conclusion of the book does not seem to be an organic completion of the discussions that led to it, but instead is perceived as a somewhat incomplete defense of Paul that suggests the value of this study is the ancillary benefits to the academy and church that come from a discussion of Paul's detractors in considering the Jesus vs. Paul question. But in suggesting that, the author neglects an inconvenient fact—while both the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program produced numerous auxiliary benefits, they did so while achieving their stated goals. Setting aside one's goal is an odd way to reach a book's conclusion.