The Damascus Road
A Novel of Saint Paul
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
From the author of the international bestseller The Last Station, a superb historical novel of the Apostle Paul, whose tireless and epic preaching of the message of Jesus brought Christianity into existence and changed human history forever.
In the years after Christ's crucifixion, Paul of Tarsus, a prosperous tentmaker and Jewish scholar, took it upon himself to persecute the small groups of his followers that sprung up. But on the road to Damascus, he had some sort of blinding vision, a profound conversion experience that transformed Paul into the most effective and influential messenger Christianity has ever had. In The Damascus Road novelist Jay Parini brings this fascinating and ever-controversial figure to full human life, capturing his visionary passions and vast contradictions. In relating Paul's epic journeys, both geographical and spiritual, he unfolds a vivid panorama of the ancient world on the verge of epochal change. And in the alternating voice of the Gospel writer Luke, Paul's travel companion, scribe, and ghostwriter, a cooler perspective on his actions and beliefs emerges -- ironic but still filled with wonder at Paul's unshakable commitment to the Christ and his divinity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Parini's fantastic latest (after Empire of Self) recounts the journeys of Paul of Tarsus as told from the apostle's own perspective and that of his traveling companion, Luke, the Gospel's author. A deeply intelligent and observant Jew determined to fight the burgeoning "Way of Jesus," Paul transforms into an advocate for the Christ after a life-changing vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. Parini details Paul's clashes with Jesus's brother James and the apostle Peter, his fraught travels from Jerusalem to Athens to Rome, his continuous struggles with the thorn in his flesh, and Luke's unflagging efforts to compile an accurate account of Christ's life. Chapters alternate between Luke and Paul's perspectives, and in Paul's chapters his boyhood enthusiasm for pondering the unknown (which continues throughout his life) are rendered as vivid explorations on the nature of divinity, spirituality, and conversion. Paul's idealistic, often hyperbolized perspective pairs wonderfully with the observations of the more pragmatic but no less faithful Luke. Parini has produced a stellar novel that humanizes the Christian message and its messengers.
