ABSTRACT
One may see Paul's revolution as a shift in the central model within an anthropomorphic paradigm that includes a ruling deity as well as subordinate supernatural beings. The esteemed sociologist Max Weber calls attention to the “overpowering joy” radiating from Paul's letters, the joy of one who believed himself liberated from enslavement. In Paul's case, says Weber, it was the “slave law” that failed to provide the sense of salvation and that kept its devotees locked into “the fate of pariah status” suffered by Jews at that time. Luke, the Acts of the Apostles author, portrays Paul as a Jew born in Tarsus yet raised in Jerusalem by the noted rabbi Gamaliel, who trained him in every point of his ancestral law. David L. Dungan regards as romantic the claim that a fixed, sacred code of Jesus' teachings existed in Paul's time.
