Joseph R. Dodson – författare

If you discovered that pagan scholars influenced Paul’s thinking, would this shake your faith? On the contrary! Author Dr. Joseph R. Dodson argues that the more you understand Paul, the more your faith will grow.

Paul the Rabbi Philosopher: Stoic and Jewish Philosophy in the Apostle’s Thought is an exegetical and comparative study of Paul’s letters in dialogue with first-century Jewish and philosophical texts. This work argues for understanding Paul in his diverse context, where he is both rabbi and philosopher in his presentation of the good news and instruction of obedience to Christ.

In placing Paul amid his rabbinic and philosophical conversation partners, this study provides greater understanding of Paul’s gospel and his utilization of first-century language, rhetoric, and tropes to communicate the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as cosmological Victor, the glory of his cross, and our faithful response to the gift of righteousness. Section one places Paul alongside his Jewish contemporaries in their employment of personification and scripture citation to convey the cosmological victory of the Lord. Next, Paul is set in comparison to Stoic philosophers, chiefly Seneca, in their understanding of human depravity, suffering and glory, and apocalyptic eschatology.

Reading Paul with the lenses of his contemporaries is a necessary, invaluable framework for conceptualizing how Paul aligns with, contradicts, and surpasses the first-century presentation of elements such as good news, powers, grace, human depravity, and obedience. As these comparative studies allow readers to understand Paul more clearly, they also allow readers to understand the Jewish and philosophical texts more clearly—evidencing the value of comparative dialogue in Pauline and biblical studies.

Excellent for undergraduate, seminary and graduate students as well as pastors, teachers, and laypersons interested in comparative dialogue of the New Testament letters.

Biblical Foundations Award Finalist

What forces shaped the intellectual world of the apostle Paul? How familiar was he with the great philosophers of his age, and to what extent was he influenced by them? When he quoted Greco-Roman sources, what was his aim?

Pauline scholars wrestle with such questions in journal articles and technical monographs, but now Paul and the Giants of Philosophy brings the conversation into the college classroom and the church. Each essay addresses Paul's interaction with Greco-Roman philosophical thinking on a particular topic, such as faith, slavery, gift-giving, and the afterlife. And each chapter includes discussion questions and reading lists to help readers engage the material further. Dodson and Briones have gathered contributors with diverse views from various traditions who are united in the desire to make Paul's engagement with ancient philosophy accessible to many readers.

While scholars have often found value in comparing Wisdom and Romans, a comparison of the use of personification in these works has not yet been made, despite the striking parallels between them. Furthermore, while scholars have studied many of these personifications in detail, no one has investigated an individual personification with respect to the general use of the trope in the work. Instead, most of this research focuses on a personification in relation to its nature as either a rhetorical device or a supernatural power. The “Powers” of Personification seeks to push beyond this debate by evaluating the evidence in a different light – that of its purpose within the overall use of personification in the respective work and in comparison with another piece of contemporaneous theological literature.

This book proposes that the authors of Wisdom and Romans employ personification to distance God from the origin of evil, to deflect attention away from the problem of righteous suffering to the positive sides of the experience, or to defer the solution for the suffering of the righteous to the future.