St Paul

St Paul

Author: BBC Radio 4 May 28, 2009 Duration: 42:04

Melvyn Bragg and guests Helen Bond, John Haldane and John Barclay discuss the influence of St Paul on the early Christian church and on Christian theology generally. St Paul joined the Christian church in a time of confusion and wonder. Jesus had been crucified and resurrected and the Christians believed they were living at the end of the world. Paul's impact on Christianity is vast: he imposed an identity on the early Christians and a coherent theology that thinkers from St Augustine to Martin Luther have grappled with. Crucially, Paul is responsible for changing Christianity from a Jewish reform movement into a separate and universal religion.Helen Bond is Senior Lecturer in the New Testament at the University of Edinburgh; John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews; John Barclay is the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at Durham University.


Melvyn Bragg and a panel of academic experts gather each week to explore the vast and intricate landscape of religious history in In Our Time: Religion. This BBC Radio 4 podcast, a dedicated series within the broader "In Our Time" programme, delves deep into the beliefs, schisms, and social forces that have shaped the world's faiths across centuries. Rather than offering sermons or spiritual guidance, these conversations are rigorous historical inquiries. Listeners will find themselves immersed in detailed discussions about the origins of movements like the Cathars or the Quakers, the philosophical underpinnings of concepts such as the Trinity or Nirvana, and the complex legacies of figures from Maimonides to Martin Luther. Each episode unpacks a single topic with clarity and depth, making profound ideas accessible without sacrificing intellectual rigor. The tone is conversational yet authoritative, driven by curiosity and a genuine desire to understand how these religious ideas emerged, evolved, and fundamentally altered human societies. For anyone fascinated by the powerful role of faith in history, this podcast provides a consistently enlightening and thoughtful exploration, one thoughtful conversation at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

In Our Time: Religion
Podcast Episodes
The Book of Common Prayer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:00
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Book of Common Prayer. In 1549, at the height of the English Reformation, a new prayer book was published containing versions of the liturgy in English. Generally believed to have…
Prophecy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:06
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the meaning and significance of prophecy in the Abrahamic religions. Prophets, those with the ability to convey divinely-inspired revelation, are significant figures in the Hebrew Bibl…
Gnosticism [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:06
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Gnosticism, a sect associated with early Christianity. The Gnostics divided the universe into two domains: the visible world and the spiritual one. They believed that a special sort of…
The Cult of Mithras [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:12
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the cult of Mithras, a mystery religion that existed in the Roman Empire from the 1st to the 4th centuries AD. Also known as the Mysteries of Mithras, its origins are uncertain. Academ…
The Upanishads [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:00
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Upanishads, the ancient sacred texts of Hinduism. Dating from about 700 BC, the Upanishads were passed down through an oral tradition in priestly castes and were not written down u…
The Ontological Argument [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:11
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Ontological Argument. In the eleventh century St Anselm of Canterbury proposed that it was possible to prove the existence of God using reason alone. His argument was ridiculed by…
King Solomon [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:09
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the biblical king Solomon, celebrated for his wisdom and as the architect of the First Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Old Testament account of his life, Solomon was chosen as hi…
George Fox and the Quakers [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:53
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the origins of Quakerism. In the mid-seventeenth century an itinerant preacher, George Fox, became the central figure of a group known as the Religious Society of Friends, whose member…
Erasmus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:58
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus. In his lifetime Erasmus was almost universally recognised as the greatest classical scholar of his age, the translat…
The Safavid Dynasty [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:08
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Safavid Dynasty, rulers of the Persian empire between the 16th and 18th centuries.In 1501 Shah Ismail, a boy of fifteen, declared himself ruler of Azerbaijan. Within a year he had…