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I just finished The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Icon by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan. The scholarship was sound and I learned a few new things about the first century missionary and self-proclaimed apostle. I wasn't as embracing of some of the major thrusts of what the authors claimed as Paul's theology, but that's okay. If nothing else, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan always make you think.
They begin their book by writing of how the seven letters which are nearly universally accepted among scholars as genuinely Pauline reveal a man who was extremely revolutionary and egalitarian in his thinking. They call him The Radical Paul. Then they contrasted those letters with the disputed letters, written, in their opinion, by other people in the name of Paul. The "Paul" of these letters they refer to as The Conservative Paul; a Paul who was toned down to make him more appealing to the official powers. The last letters to be considered are the Pastorals (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus), which they say were written in Paul's name long after he was dead. These, they claim, reveal a very different "Paul" who they refer to as The Reactionary Paul; a man so different in his thinking and his message that he could even be thought of as The Anti-Paul.
From there, they go on to challenge the way the genuine (Radical) Paul and his message have been understood for the last 1,000 years and beyond.
The book was well-written and well-paced, but I felt that some of the fresh slants they apply to theological terms and phrases used by Paul were a bit nebulous. Then again, perhaps the fault is mine and a re-reading would clarify in my mind what they mean by those terms.
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