The Relevance of St Paul: Founder of Christianity?

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The relevance of St. Paul: Founder of Christianity? Discuss. 1. Introduction ‘It was Paul, the seat-of-the-pants pastor, who laid the foundation for a world religion. Paul presents a model for leadership in tumultuous times When one considers the scope and pace of change that both the church and the world are undergoing as we move into the 21st century, one can draw much strength and wisdom from Paul's experience in the first century.’ (Bowe 1993) That Paul’s impact on Christianity is unrivaled, is witnessed by his legacy to the early Christian Church. The thirteen letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, of which half tells of his conversion and missionary work, testify to his high regard and importance by the church for his teaching in their inclusion in the Canon. However, Paul ‘…has always been an uncomfortable and controversial figure in the history of Christianity.’ (Dunn 2003 p.1). His theology is sometimes difficult to follow and different exegeses of Paul can lead to different normative uses and applications. Since Baur (Baur 1845)in the 19thcentury, father of the ‘ Tubingen school’, who argued that there were significant differences between Paul’s theology and the beliefs of the Jerusalem church, and Wrede (Wrede 1904) who proposed that without Paul, Christianity would have had little influence and become another Jewish sect; there have been scholars such as Maccoby (Maccoby 1986) and Wilson (Wilson 1997), who have argued that Christianity is not just founded by Paul, but invented by him. 1a. How to proceed ‘No excuse is offered for ... yet another book on Paul, save the excuse offered by the second century author of the Acts of Paul: it was written amori Pauli, for love of Paul.’ (Bruce 1977, p.15) Not all authors writing on Paul might share this view. There is a plethora

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