Paul Francis Herring

Defending the Apostle Paul Paul Francis Herring

There are a great range of views of the Apostle Paul. Just as an example, a book 'Four Views on the Apostle Paul' has just been released in which four notable biblical scholars argue for four significantly different takes on who and what Paul was. These very different views still see the Apostle Paul as an advocate for the claims of Yeshua/Jesus as the Messiah. There are an increasing number of voices though that dispute even this; that argue that the Apostle Paul was out to discredit the religion of the Jewish people, that he was really a liar, a hypocrite, an egocentric and dishonest preacher who only sought to promote his own status and views which were very contradictory to the Jewish religion of his day. Some question whether he was even a Jew and argue that he was a Roman!Add to this the very strong evidence for the corruption, of some parts of his epistles; including some of the quotations of the Tanakh (OT) being clearly different and even contradictory to the original text they quote!The number, breadth and variety of divergent views is ample proof that the Apostle Paul's letters can at the very least be 'cherry-picked' to argue for very different and opposing views. Many who do this would appear to do so in a diligent and most sincere manner, and yet still end up with very different understandings. So, with such divergence (and confusion!), how can we hope to approach this question and bring even a little clarity and resolution to the enigma that is the Apostle Paul? I would like to suggest what is essentially a scientific approach. In this book I use a scientific method from the historical sciences to try to find the 'real' Paul.