The study of Paul and his letters can be exciting, challenging, and life-changing, but only if it is done well and only if students achieve more than a basic familiarity with the subject. This is exactly what Pauline experts Bruce W. Longenecker and Todd D. Still accomplish with their new textbook aimed at college and seminary level courses on Paul and his writings.
Longenecker and Still bring decades of study and expertise to Thinking through Paul, challenging readers to delve deeply into Paul’s writings and wrestle with his richly-layered and dynamic theological discourse.
Seeking to situate their study of the Apostle in proper perspective, Longenecker and Still first look at Paul’s life before and after his encounter with the risen Christ en route to Damascus, then examine each of Paul’s letters individually, and finally synthesize the Pauline writings to highlight the main strands of Paul’s theologizing―all the while keeping in mind the particular context of first-century Christianity. Filled with images, maps, charts, and questions for further study and discussion, Thinking through Paul is both engaging and easy-to-follow, making it the perfect choice for classrooms and for interested readers.

Thinking through Paul: A Survey of His Life, Letters, and Theology

Literature & Fiction

Longenecker, Bruce W.

Still, Todd D.

History & Criticism

Zondervan Academic

The study of Paul and his letters can be exciting, challenging, and life-changing, but only if it is done well and only if students achieve more than a basic familiarity with the subject. This is exactly what Pauline experts Bruce W. Longenecker and Todd D. Still accomplish with Thinking Through Paul Video Lectures and the accompanying textbook.
Thinking Through Paul Video Lectures features 13 lessons (on 2 DVDs), introducing students to Paul’s life, letters, and theology. Longenecker and Still bring decades of study and expertise to bear, challenging students to delve deeply into Paul’s writings and to wrestle with his richly-layered and dynamic theological discourse.
Seeking to situate their study of the apostle in proper perspective, Longenecker and Still first look at Paul’s life before and after his encounter with the risen Christ en route to Damascus, then examine each of Paul’s letters individually, and finally synthesize the Pauline writings to highlight the main strands of Paul’s theologizing--—all the while keeping in mind the particular context of first-century Christianity.
As a helpful complement to the textbook, Thinking through Paul Video Lectures is both engaging and easy-to-follow, making it perfect for students learning in the classroom use and for independent learners.
Session Titles and Runtimes:
1 - A Survey of Paul's Life and Ministry (31 min)
2 - 1 and 2 Thessalonians (31 min)
3 - Galatians (26 min)
4 - 1 Corinthians (26 min)
5 - 2 Corinthians (18 min)
6 - Romans (26 min)
7 - Philippians (31 min)
8 - Philemon and Colossians (32 min)
9 - Ephesians (29 min)
10 - The Pastoral Letters (30 min)
11 - The Apocalyptic Narrative of Paul's Theological Discourse (19 min)
12 - Paul's Theological Narrative and Other Macro-Narratives of His Day (19 min)
13 - Paul's Theological Narrative and Other Macro-Narratives of Jesus Groups (13 min)
14 - Conclusion (3 min)

Thinking through Paul Video Lectures: A Survey of His Life, Letters, and Theology

This scholarly yet accessible study explores the various aspects of Paul's theology of divine triumph in the Book of Galations. For Paul, the divine invasion into "the present evil age" has resulted in the victory of God over competing suprahuman forces and establishment of a sphere of existence where God's reputation as the cosmic sovereign is displayed. Paul envisages Christian social interaction to be the stage upon which God's transforming power is performed and advertised. Accordingly, Paul calls his Galatian hearers not simply to a life unfettered by a ritualistic practice, but to a life of transformed existence through the power of the Spirit. Eschatological identity of this sort is the immediate consequence of the prior redemption of ethnic Israel, which the coming of Christ occasioned. In particular, Christian moral identity arises out of the "faithfulness of Christ" embodied in his loving and self-giving service. This feature is shown to be crucial to the theological and corporate enterprise that Paul envisages in Galatians, having a radical impact upon his understanding of the law, of suprahuman forces at odds with the will of God, and of validity in Christian readings of Scripture. This book concludes by considering the place of salvation history in Galations, by explaining Paul's theology in relation to the "Lutheran" and "new" perspectives on Paul, and by demonstrating how Paul's theology in Galatians may provide an important resource for contemporary theology concerning Christian identity and modern society.

The Triumph of Abraham's God: The Transformation of Identity in Galatians

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

ABINGDON PRESS *

New in the Acclaimed Paideia Commentary Series Two respected senior New Testament scholars examine cultural context and theological meaning in Philippians and Philemon in this addition to the well-received Paideia series. Paideia commentaries explore how New Testament texts form Christian readers by attending to the ancient narrative and rhetorical strategies the text employs, showing how the text shapes theological convictions and moral habits, and making judicious use of maps, photos, and sidebars in a reader-friendly format. Students, pastors, and other readers will appreciate the historical, literary, and theological insight offered in this practical commentary.

Philippians and Philemon: (A Cultural, Exegetical, Historical, & Theological Bible Commentary on the New Testament) (Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament)

Baker Academic

Engaging Economics exposes economic dimensions of the theology of the early Jesus movement, as reflected both in the texts of the New Testament and in the reception of those texts within the patristic era. Under these two considerations, the contributors demonstrate that an economic dimension was an integral component of this early movement and indicate how, in later centuries, that economic dimension was either further developed or ignored altogether.

Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception

History

Liebengood, Kelly D.

World

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Anyone who is interested in the rigorous study of early Christianity and who has not engaged with the works of James D. G. Dunn is not really interested in the rigorous study of early Christianity. No one would dispute that Professor Dunn is one of the most prolific New Testament scholars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. And while a handful of scholars might have a list of publications to rival his own extensive publications list, none of them could claim to have set the agenda of scholarly study to the extent that Jimmy Dunn has done for a sustained period of time since the 1970s. The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins comprises a selection of original essays that explore a topic that has held a prominent and distinctive place in the majority of Professor Dunn's publications. Written by twenty-seven leading scholars, this singular volume probes deep into the nascent Christian communities and their writings and investigates the early Christians' convictions concerning the Holy Spirit. Ranging widely through Scripture and across early church history, many of these essays introduce groundbreaking research in biblical studies, and some engage directly with Dunn's work in the field. Presenting some of the best new work in New Testament studies as well as celebrating a respected career, The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins will help to stimulate further discussion and reflection in the theological academy and in the Christian church -- two sectors that Jimmy Dunn has consistently and passionately sought to straddle, nurture, and refresh. Contributors Robert Banks John M. G. Barclay Richard Bauckham Peder Borgen David Catchpole Gordon D. Fee Victor Paul Furnish Beverly Roberts Gaventa Joel B. Green Morna D. Hooker Robert Jewett Hermann Lichtenberger Bruce W. Longenecker Ulrich Luz I. Howard Marshall Scot McKnight R. W. L. Moberly Robert Morgan J. Lionel North Graham N. Stanton Loren T. Stuckenbruck Peter Stuhlmacher Anthony C. Thiselton Marianne Meye Thompson Paul Trebilco Max Turner Alexander J. M. Wedderburn

The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D.G. Dunn

Barton, Stephen C.

Stanton, Graham N.

Scholars of early Christianity are awakening to the potential of Pompeii's treasures for casting light on the settings and situations that were commonplace and conventional for the first urban Christians. The uncovered world of Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., allows us to peer back in time, capturing a heightened sense of what life was like on the ground in the first century the very time when the early Jesus-movement was beginning to find its feet. In light of the Vesuvian material remains, historians are beginning to ask fresh questions of early Christian texts and perceive new contours, nuances, and subtleties within the situations those texts address. The essays of this book explore different dimensions of Pompeii's potential to refine our lenses for interpreting the texts and situations of early Christianity. The contributors to this book (including Carolyn Osiek, David Balch, Peter Oakes, Bruce Longenecker, and others) demonstrate that it is an exciting time to explore the interface between the Vesuvian contexts and the early Jesus-movement.

Early Christianity in Pompeian Light: People, Texts, Situations

Fortress Press

The eruption that destroyed Pompeii in 79 preserved a wealth of evidence about the town, buried for centuries in volcanic ash. Since the town's excavations in the eighteenth century, archaeologists have disputed the evidence that might attest the presence of Christians in Pompeii before the eruption. Now, Bruce Longenecker reviews that material evidence and introduces artifacts previously unrecognized for their relevance to the issue. Illustrated with maps, charts, photographs, and line drawings depicting artifacts from the town, The Crosses of Pompeii presents an elegant case for the presence of Jesus-devotion in the Vesuvian town. Longenecker's arguments require dramatic changes to our understanding of the history of earliest Christianity.

The Crosses of Pompeii: Jesus-Devotion in a Vesuvian Town

Ancient Civilizations

This book brings together, for the first time, the relevant material evidence demonstrating Christian use of the cross prior to Constantine. Bruce Longenecker upends a longstanding consensus that the cross was not a Christian symbol until Constantine appropriated it to consolidate his power in the fourth century. Longenecker presents a wide variety of artifacts from across the Mediterranean basin that testify to the use of the cross as a visual symbol by some pre-Constantinian Christians. Those artifacts interlock with literary witnesses from the same period to provide a consistent and robust portrait of the cross as a pre-Constantinian symbol of Christian devotion. The material record of the pre-Constantinian period illustrates that Constantine did not invent the cross as a symbol of Christian faith; for an impressive number of Christians before Constantine's reign, the cross served as a visual symbol of commitment to a living deity in a dangerous world.

The Cross before Constantine: The Early Life of a Christian Symbol

In these volumes, Timothy Brookins and Bruce Longenecker provide a foundational analysis of the Greek text of 1 Corinthians. Distinguished by the detailed yet comprehensive attention paid to the Greek text, 1 Corinthians is a convenient pedagogical and reference tool that explains the form and syntax of the biblical text, offers guidance for deciding between competing semantic analyses, engages important text-critical questions, and addresses questions relating to the Greek text that are frequently overlooked or ignored by standard commentaries. Beyond serving as a succinct and accessible analytic key, 1 Corinthians also reflects the most recent advances in scholarship on Greek grammar and linguistics. By filling the gap between popular and technical commentaries, these handbooks become indispensable tools for anyone committed to a deep reading of the biblical text.

1 Corinthians 10-16: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament)

Reference

Brookins, Timothy A.

Words, Language & Grammar

Baylor University Press

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