Surviving accounts of the foundation of the early Christian church are extremely limited, leaving scholars with few sources beyond the narrative found in the fifth book of the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles. And, for centuries, questions have persisted about the book of Acts itself: Who wrote it and for whom? What was the document’s purpose? And, how historically reliable is the account it provides?

In this podcast, Fellow Douglas Campbell, professor of New Testament in the Divinity School at Duke University discusses his current project to address some of these questions. Campbell is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the life and thought of the apostle Paul. His publications on the topic include, most recently, Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography (2014) as well as The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (2009) and The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy (2005).