St Paul

Melvyn Bragg and guests Helen Bond, John Haldane and John Barclay discuss the influence of St Paul on the early Christian church and on Christian theology generally. St Paul joined the Christian church in a time of confusion and wonder. Jesus had been crucified and resurrected and the Christians believed they were living at the end of the world. Paul’s impact on Christianity is vast: he imposed an identity on the early Christians and a coherent theology that thinkers from St Augustine to Martin Luther have grappled with. Crucially, Paul is responsible for changing Christianity from a Jewish reform movement into a separate and universal religion.Helen Bond is Senior Lecturer in the New Testament at the University of Edinburgh; John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews; John Barclay is the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University.

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Guests

• Helen Bond 2 episodes
  Senior Lecturer in the New Testament at the University of Edinburgh
• John Haldane 8 episodes
  Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews
• John Barclay No other episodes
  Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University

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Programme ID: b00kjk8z

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kjk8z

Auto-category: 270 (Christian church history)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. About 2,000 years ago, Saul of Tarsus, a young tentmaker and a Jewish zealot, was travelling to Damascus when a light flashed around him, as the King James version has it, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou me?