Paul

A New, Political Saint Paul?
By Mark Lilla
BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS REVIEW

What Paul Meant
by Garry Wills
Penguin, 193 pp., $14.00 (paper)

The Political Theology of Paul
by Jacob Taubes, translated from the German by Dana Hollander
Stanford University Press, 160 pp., $48.00; $19.95 (paper)

The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans
by Giorgio Agamben, translated from the Italian by Patricia Dailey
Stanford University Press, 197 pp., $53.00; $20.95 (paper)

Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism
by Alain Badiou, translated from the French by Ray Brassier
Stanford University Press, 111 pp., $17.95 (paper)

Being and Event
by Alain Badiou, translated from the French by Oliver Feltham
Continuum, 526 pp., $21.95 (paper)

The Century
by Alain Badiou, translated from the French with commentary and notes by Alberto Toscano
Polity, 233 pp., $22.95 (paper)

Polemics
by Alain Badiou, translated from the French with an introduction by Steve Corcoran
Verso, 339 pp., $26.95

Une querelle avec Alain Badiou, philosophe
by Éric Marty
Paris: Gallimard, 185 pp., €16.00 (paper)

On Belief
by Slavoj Zizek
Routledge, 170 pp., $17.95 (paper)

Tertullian called Saint Paul 'the apostle of the heretics' and he was right. Ever since Marcion, the second-century theologian who thought Paul taught that the Christian God was a deity wholly distinct from and superior to the Hebrews' Yahweh, the Pauline corpus has been creatively misread. It is hard to find much in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount to inspire heretical thoughts, but Paul's epistles, with their powerful intimations about sin, grace, and imminent redemption, are another matter.