Mark Keown

Back! Gulf Harbour is a hole by the way. Little boxies on the hillside, 'little boxes made of ticky-tackey... and they all look just the same.' Still, it was cheap and we had fun. Anywho, I read 'Paul, A Novel' by Walter Wangerin Jr. It is one of those books I am not sure what to do with. On the one hand he is to be congratulated for writing it. Well done, writing books is not easy. Such books can bring the text alive, help unbelievers get a grip on things. He did a good job in some ways. He moved back and forth across characters, brought out Paul's high view of women, linked into the social background especially Seneca, Nero's advisor. But on the whole I struggled with it. Why? For a start he does not begin with Paul's early years in Tarsus. Scholars downplay this dimension of his upbringing. It was there that he would have learnt Torah, learnt the Greco-Roman culture etc. He could have done some going back perhaps? He also failed to really account for tho...