Saint Paul - Tapa blanda

Without the spiritual earthquake brought about by St Paul, Christianity would probably never have survived. Yet Paul's importance extends very widely beyond the religious field. His effect upon Western thought has been immeasurable. This is the man Michael Grant has described in his book. Paul's own authentic voice can still be heard in his surviving letters or Epistles, which not only contain numerous autobiographical clues, but are the earliest Christian documents in existence and rank high among the most valuable literature the world has ever produced. Dr Grant considers in detail this extant literature, along with material of Paul's four evangelical journeys and discusses the reasons for his spectacular conversion on the road to Damascus. As in The Jews of the Roman World and Herod the Great, he brings together research on Israel on the one hand and Greece and Rome on the other, believing that it is necessary to study these cultures in conjunction, since Paul was a Jew who wrote in Greek and was a Roman citizen. The aim of this book, then, is to bring to life this many sided human being of outstanding and peculiar gifts.

Michael Grant was formerly a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University, the first Vice-Chancellor of the Queen's University, Belfast, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Khartoum. He is Doctor of Letters at Cambridge and Honorary Doctor of Letters and Laws at Dublin and Belfast respectively. He has also been President of the Classical Association of England, the Virgil Society and the Royal Numismatic Society.