Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus

Historian Donald Harman Akenson believes that biblical scholars have gone wrong in searching Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for the historical Jesus. All of the gospels, he points out, were written after the destruction of the second temple in A.D. 70; the Jesus of the gospels is therefore "a derivative of texts whose goal was to modify, minimize, or exorcise his Jewishness." Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus is Akenson's attempt to put historical Jesus studies back on track, by directing attention to the writings of Paul, "the only person who wrote about Yeshua before [the Temple's destruction]." Akenson's readings of Paul/Saul discern a faint vision of Yeshua, the follower of Yahweh, before he was made into Jesus and deemed a copartner with God. Thus, Akenson equips his readers better to understand Jesus as a first-century Jew, while minimizing the distortions and anachronisms that so often attach themselves to that designation. --Michael Joseph Gross