The problem is that while it's true that "Gospel" has lost its original sense and, in fact, now has now meaning at all, writing "good news" in its place is a cure that's worse than the disease

Most people today think that "Gospel" designates a literary genre, the story of Jesus' life, and that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote Gospels the way that Racine wrote tragedies or Ronsard sonnets. But that meaning only established itself about the second century. The word that Mark wrote at the start of his narrative meant "good news." When Paul wrote to the Galatians and Corinthians thirty years earlier about "my Gospel," it meant: what I preached to you, my personal version of this good news. The problem is that while it's true that "Gospel" has lost its original sense and, in fact, now has now meaning at all, writing "good news" in its place is a cure that's worse than the disease: it has a "nice Catholic" ring to it, you instantly imagine the priest's syrupy smile and voice.

E. Carrere, The Kingdom (2014), tr. J, Lambert, 333

The Letter to the Galatians is like the Rhône river before Lake Geneva, and the Letter to the Romans is like the Rhône river after Geneva

In fact, the key idea of the Letter to the Romans is already found in the Letter to the Galatians - but as one Swiss exegete nicely says, the Letter to the Galatians is like the Rhône river before Lake Geneva, and the Letter to the Romans is like the Rhône river after Geneva: above a mountain torrent, below a majestic river. The Letter to the Galatians was written in anger in one brilliant sitting, while the Letter to the Romans was written slowly, after dipping the pen repeatedly in the inkwell

E. Carrere, The Kingdom (2014), tr. J, Lambert, 169

Infuriatingly, this is a classic example of Carrere's lack of footnotes. Which Swiss exegete? Was it one of the dodgy ones?

One thing that surprises me as I advance in this story is that it has done so little to inspire religious imagery

One thing that surprises me as I advance in this story is that it has done so little to inspire religious imagery. Before getting started I would have sworn that everything in the New Testament had been depicted, again and again, in art. But while that's true of the life of Jesus and those of the saints who followed him - preferably if they suffered some gruesome martyrdom - leaving aside the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus, almost the entire book that I scour page after page, the Acts of the Apostles, strangely escapes representation.

E. Carrere, The Kingdom (2014), tr. J, Lambert, 138