The Origin of Paul's Religion

J. Gresham Machen examines whether the Apostle Paul’s faith arose from borrowed religious ideas or from a genuine encounter with the risen Christ. Engaging with critical scholars and comparing Paul’s letters with the wider New Testament canon and extra-biblical texts, Machen shows that Paul’s faith and teaching were received, not invented. Paul’s theology cannot be explained as a blend of Judaism and paganism but must be understood as rooted in divine revelation.Machen shows why the first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman world fails to account for the distinctive shape of Paul’s message. He treats the supernatural elements of Paul’s experience as historical facts demanding serious consideration. The result is a disciplined defense of apostolic Christianity against the objections of modernist skeptics.