Paul’s Letters and Contemporary Greco-Roman Literature

Paul Robertson, Ph.D. (2013), Brown University, is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College. He received his BA from Reed College, and has published in classical studies, New Testament, and the theory of religion.

"This monograph asks important questions about the relations between a text's form, content, and social purpose. It points scholarship into a direction of observing how people and their texts form groups based on shared claims."Svetlana Knobnya, The Journal of the New Testament Booklist 2017, Volume 39.5, August 2017"Ultimately, Robertson’s astute analysis of his collection of relevant data contributes a significant component to the task of understanding the Pauline letters in their literary context, and his emphasis on socio-literary spheres helps advance the discussion beyond polarizing binary approaches that do not adequately account for the complexities of comparing ancient literature. Paul’s Letters and Contemporary Greco-Roman Literature is aimed particularly at scholars studying the literary examination of Paul’s letters in their ancient literary context, and it deserves engagement in future endeavors in the field."Eric Covington, Universtity of St Andrews, Reviews of Biblical and Early Christian Studies (December 2016)

• ContentsIntroduction 1 Paul, Paul’s Letters, and Contemporary Greco-Roman Literature of the Ancient MediterraneanMy Approach: Textual Characteristics, Comparanda, and Socio-Literary SpheresGrounding the Present Study: Literary Criteria, and Specific versus Abstract ContentScholarship Characterizing Paul and Paul’s LettersScholarship Characterizing the Broader Greco-Roman Literary LandscapeAncient Mediterranean Comparanda: Authors and Texts2 Rethinking Paul and Paul’s Letters: Paul, Epictetus, and Philodemus in ContextA Brief Introduction to Epictetus and PhilodemusTextual Analysis and ComparisonSocial Location: Paul, Philodemus, and Epictetus3 How Do We Compare Literature? Re-Classifying Paul’s Letters in a Socio-Literary SphereAn Introduction to Genre and TaxonomyGenre, Taxonomy, and Modern Literary TheoryThe Theoretical Turn I: Social PurposeThe Theoretical Turn II: Linguistic Anthropology, Metadiscursivity, and Metapragmatics4 An Overview of the Data: Annotated Literary Criteria in Paul, Epictetus, Philodemus, and Other Pauline ComparandaThe ApproachThe CriteriaTable of Contents for Literary Criteria General CommentsAn Introduction to the Data SetsThe Data: A Brief Discussion Control Documents: Aelius Aristides’ Panathenaic Oration, the Damascus Document, and Other Pauline Comparanda5 Socio-Historical Implications of Textual Comparison: The Education and Lives of Paul, Epictetus, and PhilodemuPaul’s Letters, Literacy, and EducationBroader Implications: Education and Social LocationA Few Final Structural, Textual, and Abstract ConsiderationsConclusion: Socio-Literary Spheres and Literary Classification in Biblical and Classical StudiesReview of ConclusionsFurther Thoughts and Future StudyAppendixGraphical Analysis: Paul’s Letters and ComparandaDistilled Data: Literary Sphere and Other ComparandaSpecific Textual Data: Paul, Epictetus, and PhilodemusBibliographyIndex of TermsIndex of Ancient Authors and Texts