PAUL

N.T. Wright argues that Bible scholars and pastors have focused so much attention on the apostle Paul's letters and theology that most have failed to step back and consider his humanity and the extreme unlikelihood of what he was able to achieve. ''The problem,'' he writes, ''is that Paul is central to any understanding of earliest Christianity, yet Paul was a Jew, and that for many generations Christians of all kinds have struggled to put this together.'' Wright refutes old scholarship that pulled Paul out of his Jewish world altogether and instead argues that the proper context for understanding Paul is in his Jewish world. In this biography, Wright hopes to fill in the human and intellectual drama behind the apostle's writings in order so that we see his thoughts and ideas afresh as well as more clearly.