The Authentic Letters of Paul: A New Rading of Paul's Rhetoric and Meaning Paperback – Import, 1 November 2000

If you're interested in honestly looking at the Bible, the historical Jesus, putting the characters and stories within their historical context, you'll love this book. It will open up a whole new way that you have thought about these letters. To me it enhances the meaning of them, and gives me a respect for the great apostle Paul. Especially when you realize how revolutionary his ideas were, and how open he was to all people. He certainly would not have approved of the edits that were done to his work later on that made him look unaccepting and contradictory.

This is by far one of the best and most concise studies of the original letters of Paul I have ever read. The scholarship is brilliant and yet written in a "user friendly" way that makes it accessible to all. If you care about getting to the essential core of the Pauline message than this is a must read!

The Jesus Seminar and one of its participants, Arthur J. Dewey, have gone back and made scholarly interpretations of the various fragments of documents that are attributed to St. Paul that are still extant. The bad news is that you can become so enveloped by the scholarly information that reading St. Paul (except for Romans) seems like an afterthought.The good news, and why I gave this book five stars, is that while most of the letters seem prosaic (these really were letters, and meant to be read as such), but the translation of the Letter to the Romans leaves my soul singing and I expect to remember it for the rest of my life.

Not like Common English Version. Like New International Version but "strictly" unbiased by Evangelical leanings in u.s. Christianity. Replaces the new international version's emphases that is known by an already used or outdated everyday language or those who are older millilnials. The former version's needing a reader to be at least affluent in English to begin with. Ive lived in Los Angeles more than not and it's not a faithful translation as it is an easy one. No further comments

This book provides the best understanding of Paul's theology that I have ever read. The authors analyze the authentic letters, pointing out the verses that they feel were inserted or added by later authors. The reader gains a good insight into the mind of this passionate missionary who was able to change the worldview of Greco_Roman society.