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This revised edition of John Ziesler's broad yet detailed overview of St Paul's thought and distinctive kind of Christianity is intended for a general readership, and is therefore of wider value than individual and more technical commentaries. Dr Ziesler's starting point is St Paul's view of Jesus Christ as marking the end of an era and the beginning of a new world and a new humanity. The concentration is on theology, but matters of authorship and dating are discussed briefly where relevant. A number of key passages from the Pauline letters are given a more extended treatment.
"Pauline Christianity" examines the reception of Acts and the 'Pauline' Luke by Irenaeus, the compositional intentions behind the construction of 'Pauline' Christianity in Acts, and the relation of the literary Paulinism of the author to the Paulinism of his sources.
Early Christians frequently used metaphors about slavery, calling themselves slaves of God and Christ and referring to their leaders as slave representatives of Christ. Most biblical scholars have insisted that this language would have been distasteful to potential converts in the Greco-Roman world, and they have wondered why early Christians such as Paul used the image of slavery to portray salvation. In this book Dale B. Martin addresses the issue by examining the social history and rhetorical and theological conventions of the times. The first half of the book draws on a variety of historical sources – inscriptions, novels, speeches, dream-handbooks, and agricultural manuals – to portray the complexity of slavery in the early Roman empire. Concentrating on middle-level, managerial slaves, Martin shows how slavery sometimes functioned as a means of upward social mobility and as a form of status-by-association for those slaves who were agents of members of the upper class. For this reason, say Martin, “slavery of Christ,” brought the Christian convert a degree of symbolic status and lent the Christian leader a certain kind of derived authority. The second half of the book traces the Greco-Roman use of political rhetoric that spoke about populist leaders as “enslaved” to their followers, especially to members of the lower class. This provides the context for Paul’s claim, in 1 Corinthians 9, that he has enslaved himself to “all” – that is, to those very people he is supposed to lead as an apostle. Martin thus interprets this statement to mean that Paul identifies himself with the interests of persons with lower status in the Corinthian church, calling on those with higher status to imitate his self-debasement in order to further the interests of those below them on the social scale.
Recent emphasis on the social matrix out of which the early church's documents arose marks a notable turn in the path of contemporary New Testament studies. Although the terms, goals, and procedures of scholars vary considerably, there is widespread agreement that much of the interesting and innovative work in the field is that of Gerd Theissen. Four of his most formidable and sustained contributions treat Paul's correspondence with the Christian community at Corinth. Together these four essays provide a composite picture of the social stratification at this ancient urban center and of the concrete organizational and ethical problems that that stratification engendered for the Christians' common life. A fifth essay helps to focus the critical questions of methodology that arise whenever one approaches ancient religious texts for information on issues which to the texts themselves are of peripheral concern. A lucid introduction by the translator and a helpful bibliography of the author's major writings round out this significant exploration and interpretation of the social world of early Christianity.
Provides a fresh engagement of the debated relationship between Paul's writings and the portrait of Jesus contained in the Gospels.
First Corinthians provides a unique glimpse info the life of a young Christian community in a Greco-Roman environment during the early decades of emerging Christianity. It supplies a range and richness of information about the early church that is unparalleled by any other New Testament document. Much effort has gone into reconstructing Christianity at Corinth; more recently, attention has focused on the Corinthian community itself. The scholarly picture of the Corinthian Christians throughout the period of modern interpretation has been far from constant, and their profile has altered as interpretive fashions have shifted. This collection of classic and new essays charts the history of the scholarly quest for the Corinthian church from F. C. Baur to the present day, and offers the reflections of leading scholars on where the quest has taken us and its future direction.
"The theme of revealed heavenly mysteries was a commonplace in Judaism, from which it passed on to Christianity. Markus Bockmuehl outlines how this theme developed, by showing where ideas of revelation and mystery coalesce. . . . An interesting and very thorough study."--Journal of Biblical Literature"A thoughtful and illuminating study of a subject which, rather surprisingly in the light of its centrality to the question of Christian origins, has not hitherto been investigated in detail. Whereas both 'revelation' and 'mystery' have been studied separately in the context of early Jewish and Christian literature, Bockmuehl's original contribution is to examine the interconnectedness of the two ideas."--Journal of Jewish Studies"This book is an excellent contribution to biblical scholarship. It synthesizes the light that a biblically based mystery sheds on revelation and revelation sheds on mystery. . . . Bockmuehl treats admirably many difficult passages and scholarly disputes. . . . He develops the progress of biblical understanding regarding revelation and mystery, carefully balancing analysis with synthesis--a talent that is somewhat rare of late." --Journal of Ecumenical Studies"A most useful study. . . . Bockmuehl has brought together material from an enormously wide range of primary and secondary literature, for which we are greatly in his debt." --Journal of Theological Studies"For single authors like Philo, Josephus, and especially Paul, Bockmuehl's studies significantly add to the discussion." --Religious Studies Review"Bockmuehl examines the concepts of revelation and mystery, not as distinct entities, but in their theological interplay: the revelation of heavenly mysteries. . . . This book's breadth and depth will repay the attentive reader." --Journal for the Study of the New Testament
In this “compulsively readable exploration of the tangled world of Christian origins” (Publishers Weekly), religious historian James Tabor illuminates the earliest years of Jesus’ teachings before Paul shaped them into the religion we know today. This fascinating examination of the earliest years of Christianity reveals how the man we call St. Paul shaped Christianity as we know it today. Historians know almost nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped and began to spread his message. During this time Paul joined the movement and began to preach to the gentiles. Using the oldest Christian documents that we have—the letters of Paul—as well as other early Chris­tian sources, historian and scholar James Tabor reconstructs the origins of Christianity. Tabor shows how Paul separated himself from Peter and James to introduce his own version of Christianity, which would continue to develop independently of the message that Jesus, James, and Peter preached. Paul and Jesus illuminates the fascinating period of history when Christianity was born out of Judaism.
This concise yet scholarly study elucidates four of the non-Pauline movements in the early church, each of whch can be identified with a particular leader: Peter, Stephen, James, and John. Bruce skillfully interprets the limited source materials found in Paul's letters, the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospels, and other early Christian writings to provide an informative and illuminating work.
Meeks analyzes the letters of Paul to see what kind of people joined the Christian groups in the urban centers and what it was like to be a Christian then.