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What Paul Meant - Book Review
April 24, 2007
What Paul Meant by Garry Wills
Reviewed by Joan
I admit it! I had not been a huge fan of St. Paul - all those Sundays, all those
Second Readings, only occasional connects. However, a review printed last fall of What Paul Meant by Garry Wills, piqued my curiosity (Hello, Holy Spirit?). I immediately became aware the reviewer was saying some of the clichéd things I had felt about Paul’s writings: too anti-women, too anti-Semitic, too esoteric, and even contradictory.
What a wonderful surprise! This is a book for your heart as well as your head. Wills writes as a biographer, revealing many details you know or think you know about Paul. Those details, however, are fleshed out, challenged, clearly documented with scholarly research.
The book is divided into areas of controversy so often connected with Paul: Paul and his Conversion, Paul and the Troubled Gatherings, Paul and Women, Paul and the Jews, and more. I found this format orderly and easy for re-visiting.
The inspirational, most rewarding part of this book, was the cross references to Scripture interspersed with the scholarly facts. Closely connected like this, the Inspired Words had so much more impact. Some of the letters are very familiar, many less so, but I kept finding myself saying, ‘I never knew that’ and ‘That makes sense now’ and ‘How real Paul seems’. May I recommend you also get to know Paul and what he meant?