Pauline Studies – serie

The Pauline letters continue to provoke scholarly discussion. This volume includes papers that raise a variety of questions regarding the canon of the Pauline writings. Some of the essays are more narrowly focused in their intent, sometimes concentrating upon a single dimension related to the Pauline canon, and sometimes upon even a single letter. Others of the essays are more broadly conceived and deal with how one assesses or accounts for the process that resulted in the letters as a collection, rather than analyzing individual letters. There are also mediating positions that attempt to overcome the disjunction between authenticity and inauthenticity by exploring the complex notion of interpolation.

Does Paul have a theology? If so, what is it, or rather, what is it on various topics that he and the early Church confronted? This volume moves beyond the traditional discussion of whether Paul had a center to his theology to raise questions regarding his perspective on a number of important theological issues. These issues include his gentile mission, the concepts of faith, grace, and the law, reconciliation, the temple, eschatology, miracles, gender, and Paul's trinitarian tendencies. This collection of essays addresses topics of current interest in the study of Paul's theology—not to arrive at the center of his thought, but to understand what factors helped to center his thinking on a variety of important theological concerns.

This volume is concerned with Paul's world. The major question to ask is—what is that world of Paul? In determinable ways, Paul's world is everything in the world in which Paul lived and acted, and hence virtually everything that Paul did. In other words, Paul's world can be defined macrocosmically and microcosmically. As the term is defined in the various essays in this volume, Paul's world includes the surrounding environment in which Paul functioned, including its various religious, social, cultural, literary, rhetorical, linguistic and related phenomena. This volume treats some of the most important and germane factors that went into making up the world in which Paul lived, and that consequently defined who he was and became.

What does it mean to study Paul the Apostle as Jew, Greek, and Roman? The framing of the question exposes the fact that the distinctions themselves involve a complex of ethnic, social, and cultural designations. Paul is both a complicated individual of the ancient world, because he combines in his one personage features of life in each of these cultural-ethnic (and even religious) areas of the ancient world, and one of many people of that world who evidenced such complexity. This volume, Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman, explores a number of the important and diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious dimensions of the multi-faceted background of Paul the Apostle. Some of the treatments are focused and specific, while others range over the broad issues that go to making up the world of the Apostle.

Throughout the last century, there has been continuous study of Paul as a writer of letters. Although this fact was acknowledged by previous generations of scholars, it was during the twentieth century that the study of ancient letter-writing practices came to the fore and began to be applied to the study of the letters of the New Testament. This volume seeks to advance the discussion of Paul's relationship to Greek epistolary traditions by evaluating the nature of ancient letters as well as the individual letter components. These features are evaluated alongside Paul's letters to better understand Paul's use and adaptations of these traditions in order to meet his communicative needs.

Pauline scholars have always been interested in Paul’s relationships. In fact, some of the most influential developments in modern Pauline scholarship have been attempts to situate Paul socially. This volume addresses many of the questions surrounding Paul and his social relations, including how to define and analyze such relations, their relationship to Paul's historical and social context, how Paul related to numerous friends and foes, and the implications for understanding Paul's letters as well as his theology. As a result, a variety of methods are brought to an examination of Paul. These include explorations in social-scientific methodology, close readings of Paul's letters, and linguistically informed approaches to social relations. The conclusions well illustrate the importance of Paul's social relations and his own social connectedness.

In Paul and Pseudepigraphy, an international group of scholars engage open questions in the study of the Apostle Paul and those documents often deemed pseudepigraphal. This volume addresses many traditional questions, including those of method and the authenticity of several canonical Pauline letters, but they also reflect a desire to think in new ways about persistent questions surrounding pseudepigraphy. The focus on pseudepigraphy in relationship to Paul affords a unique opportunity to address this innovative inclination, not readily available in studies of New Testament pseudepigraphy in general. Regarding these concerns, new approaches are introduced, traditional evidence is reassessed, and some new suggestions are offered. In addition to Pauline letters, treatments of related non-canonical Pauline pseudepigraphs are included in discussion.

In Paul and Scripture, an international group of scholars discuss a range of topics related to the Apostle Paul and his relationship(s) with Jewish Scripture. The essays represent a broad spectrum of viewpoints, with some devoted to methodological issues, others to general patterns in Paul’s uses of Scripture, and still others to specific letters or passages within the traditional Pauline canon (inclusive of the disputed letters). The end result is an overview of the various ways in which Paul the Apostle weaves into his writings the authority, content, and even wording of Jewish Scriptures.