It is a common--and fundamental--misconception that Paul told people how to live. Apart from forbidding certain abusive practices, he never gives any precise instructions for living. It would have violated his two main social principles: human freedom and dignity, and the need for people to love one another. Paul was a Hellenistic Jew, originally named Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, who made a living from tent making or leatherworking. He called himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles" and was the most important of the early Christian evangelists. Paul is not easy to understand. The Greeks and Romans themselves probably misunderstood him or skimmed the surface of his arguments when he used terms such as "law" (referring to the complex system of Jewish religious law in which he himself was trained). But they did share a language--Greek--and a cosmopolitan urban culture, that of the Roman Empire. Paul considered evangelizing the Greeks and Romans to be his special...

A remarkable and accessible new translation of the Gospels, destined to become a definitive edition of these canonical texts, from one of today’s most respected translators of ancient literature For millennia, the first four books of the New Testament have not only supported the central tenets of Christianity but have also proved to be formative texts for the modern Western world. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ—but they are perhaps best understood as four separate versions of the same story, showing complex origins, intricate interweavings, and often inherent contradictions. Faithfully pointing the reader back to the original Greek, this masterful new translation from the renowned scholar and acclaimed translator Sarah Ruden is the first to reconsider the Gospels as books to be read and understood on their own terms. Mediating between the authors of the Gospels and...