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Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography. By Bruce Chilton. New York: Doubleday, 2004. xiv + 335 pp. $24.95 (cloth).
Brace Chilton's narrative of Paul's life and ideas follows the lead of the Acts of the Apostles, which dramatizes Paul as a hero and singular missionary. Despite his criticism of the piety of Acts, Chilton follows Acts' chronology closely. Written for a general audience, the book tells of Paul's life in a wealthy family in Tarsus, his study as a Pharisee in Jerusalem, his debates with other Jewish leaders of the movement, and his ambition to speak as an apostle for all of Christianity. As a mystic who experienced the risen Christ in the pattern of 1 Enoch and Daniel, Paul's ability to translate his own vision into others' experience of transformation made him "the most successful religious teacher history has ever seen" (p. 128). Chilton draws on Hellenistic Jewish literature to set Paul in context in...