Men on Mars

Krister Stendahl, former dean of the Harvard Divinity School, died yesterday at 86. He is best known in some circles as the author of the lecture, "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," the English translation of which was published in 1963 and set part of the stage toward a reassesment of Paul that led to what we now call the New Perspective on Paul. In the New York Times obituary today is the following paragraph: "

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In an interview with The New York Times in 1974, Dr. Stendahl rejected Christians' emphasis on life after death as "selfish" and as absent from Judaism and early Christianity. But life on other planets was another story."