In spite of his many sublime passages, Paul has never been a favorite of mine. So when I heard about Janis Koch's course Rescuing Paul, it occurred to me that I might not care much about rescuing him. Every ICJS course I have attended so far, however, has been so excellent and so illuminating that I joined the twenty-five or so feisty participants who met for six weeks to listen to Janis' fascinating rescue attempt.

One has to experience Janis' particular style of teaching to appreciate the precision of her mind and the depths of her scholarship. (She admits her language students have called her Conan the Grammarian!) Janis has no patience with what she considers sloppy interpretation and the imposing of theol-ogy on the texts. Consequently, she consigns all extant translations of Paul -- from Jerome through Luther, King James, up to and including the NRSV, the Good News and Con-temporary English Version -- to the ash heaps of history. Janis really keeps one's attention!

Although a few skeptics may remain, I suspect most of us were convinced that Paul is not, and never was, the problem we thought he was! The problems lay with all those who through the centuries basically misunderstood him. The churches, the teachers, the preachers, have for 2000 years presented a message that had little to do with Paul's gospel and failed entirely to understand the culture and current events of Paul's time. Alas, what have we wrought? Look at Romans 3:21-26 and substitute "of" for "in" in all the faith passages and you will see the issue!