Christian Beginnings

Stanley Stowers is Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus at Brown University. He has authored A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles (Yale University Press, 1994), Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Westminster, 1986), The Diatribe and Paul's Letter to the Romans (Scholars Press, 1981) and more than thirty articles in books and peer reviewed journals. He has given invited lectures at many universities and conferences and has been a founding member and steering committee member of several program units in the Society of Biblical Literature, as well as a member of the steering committee of Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament. He has served on the editorial board of the Society of Biblical Literature and was elected president of the New England Region of the Society of Biblical Literature for 2003-04.

With uncommon theoretical and historical sophistication, Stowers presents a challenging picture. The world of Paul, the diaspora Jew who intones Greek philosophy, looks far less like the one projected by later Christianity — whether in notions of the sacred or ‘sin’ and the human condition. Paul’s socio-religious ethos of moral discourse and ritual performance emerges instead fully embedded in the vibrant interaction of Greco-Roman cultures. A game changer.

• Acknowledgements Introduction: Everyday Religion and Its Alternatives The Religion of Plant and Animal Offerings Versus the Religion of Meanings Essences, and Textual Mysteries Locating the Religion of Associations Why Common Judaism Does Not Look Like Mediterranean Religion: Paul As Freelance Expert Kinds of Myths, Meals and Power: Paul and the Corinthians The Social Formations of Paul and His Romans: Paul’s Message and Objectives The Dilemma of Paul’s Physics: Features Stoic-Platonist or Platonist-Stoic What is Pauline Participation in Christ? Paul’s Four Discourses about Sin Are Paul’s Moral Teachings for Ordinary Humans?: Historians and Critical Historiography The Concept of Community and the History of Early Christianity Jesus the Teacher and Stoic Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew The Secrets of the Gods and the End of Interpretation Bibliography