Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook

I warmly welcome a revised and enlarged edition of Paul in the Greco-Roman World! Professor J. Paul Sampley, his accomplished colleagues. and Bloomsbury T&T Clark are to be highly commended for producing a collection of informative, interesting, and, in not a few instances, important essays. These insightful contributions - now twenty-nine in number - enable Pauline interpreters to understand better the Jewish Apostle to the Gentiles as well as his 'weighty. forceful' letters bequeathed to us. * Todd D. Stilll, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, USA *
This volume, edited by Paul Sampley with contributions by the core experts in the field has become a classic which has established itself as a must in students' and scholars' libraries over the past one and half decades. This editions includes eight additional contributions on themes which has become the focus in the field since the publication of the first edition, ie on associations, circumcision, family life, Greek novels, literacy, marriage and divorce, memory, performance, social memory, and a concluding comprehensive epilogue by Paul Sampley himself which relates to the individual contributions within his proposed taxonomy. The volume is a masterpiece of knowledge and critical analysis of the Greco-Roman context of the Jewish apostle's letters and will continue to be an essential tool for Pauline scholars. * Kathy Ehrensperger, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, UK *
Sampley has captured the historical value of the recent surge of interest in the Greco-Roman setting of the Pauline letters. His method is novel. Twenty-one themes had been allocated to individual specialists, each working to a pattern that focussed an ancient socio-cultural phenomenon on some specific passage(s) in the letters. From 'Adaptability' to 'Virtue and Vice' they are taken in alphabetical order. But already our understanding of historical culture was moving on. Seventeen of the studies have been updated by their original authors. Four now have even radically different treatments by new authors and there are eight wholly new perspectives. * E.A. Judge, Macquarie University, USA *
Paul's complex, often paradoxical engagement with his social and cultural world is the key to understanding his writings and his unique role in the formation of what we call Christianity. In these two volumes we have summaries of cutting-edge scholarship in that field, present in clear and lively language. * Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University, USA *