This study explains Philippians (the apostle Paul's letter) by thinking about the lives of the Philippians (the people who received the letter). It is unique in using archaeology and literary evidence to build a detailed picture of the types of people likely to have been in Philippi and in the Christian community there. This comprehensive new explanation of Philippians as a letter written to call the Christians to unity under economic suffering, explains the letter (especially 2.6-11) in the specifically Roman setting of Philippi that includes a comparison of Christ with the Roman Emperor.

Philippians: From People to Letter (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, Series Number 110)

Reference

Oakes, Peter

Encyclopedias & Subject Guides

Cambridge University Press

Rethinking Galatians: Paul’s Vision of Oneness in the Living Christ (New Testament Guides)

About the Author\nPeter Oakes is Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, UK.\nAndy Boakye is Lecturer in Religions and Theology at the University of Manchester, UK.\nOakes and Boakye rethink Galatians by examining the text as a vision for the lives of its hearers. They show how, in tackling the difficulties that he faces in Galatia, Paul offers a vision of what the Galatians are in their relationship with the living Christ. This offers a new understanding of the concept of unity in diversity expressed in Gal 3:28.\nThe authors develop their views over six chapters. First, Oakes maps a route from the letter to a focus on its Galatian hearers and on Paul's vision for their identity and existence. In the next chapter, Oakes uses the Christology of Galatians as a way to support the idea of pistis as current relationship with the living Christ. Boakye then offers three chapters analysing the letter's scriptural quotations and ideas about salvation and law. Boakye sees a key dynamic at work in Galatians as being a movement from death to life, as prophesied metaphorically by Ezekiel and as made literal for Paul in his encounter with the resurrected Christ, trust in whom becomes the route to life. Life becomes a key category for evaluating law. Boakye also draws Galatians close to Romans 4 in seeing in both texts the promise of the birth of Isaac, with Paul closely tying that to the resurrection of Jesus. Oakes then argues that the letter has a thematic concern for unity in diversity. In the first instance this is between Jews and gentiles but, in principle, it is between any other socially significant pair of groups.\nBook Description\nPeter Oakes and Andy Boakye provide a guide to the key ideas that have informed the study of Galatians, summarising the history of Galatians-scholarship and interacting with new arguments.

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

T&T Clark

Oakes and Boakye rethink Galatians by examining the text as a vision for the lives of its hearers. They show how, in tackling the difficulties that he faces in Galatia, Paul offers a vision of what the Galatians are in their relationship with the living Christ. This offers a new understanding of the concept of unity in diversity expressed in Gal 3:28. The authors develop their views over six chapters. First, Oakes maps a route from the letter to a focus on its Galatian hearers and on Paul's vision for their identity and existence. In the next chapter, Oakes uses the Christology of Galatians as a way to support the idea of pistis as current relationship with the living Christ. Boakye then offers three chapters analysing the letter's scriptural quotations and ideas about salvation and law. Boakye sees a key dynamic at work in Galatians as being a movement from death to life, as prophesied metaphorically by Ezekiel and as made literal for Paul in his encounter with the resurrected Christ, trust in whom becomes the route to life. Life becomes a key category for evaluating law. Boakye also draws Galatians close to Romans 4 in seeing in both texts the promise of the birth of Isaac, with Paul closely tying that to the resurrection of Jesus. Oakes then argues that the letter has a thematic concern for unity in diversity. In the first instance this is between Jews and gentiles but, in principle, it is between any other socially significant pair of groups.

Boakye, Andrew K.

Product Description 
Peter Oakes has long been recognized for his illuminating use of Greco-Roman material culture and social-scientific criticism to interpret the New Testament. This volume brings together his best work and introduces a substantial new essay that challenges current scholarly approaches to paradoxical teachings of the New Testament. 
Of special interest to Oakes throughout this book is the concrete impact of economic realities and Roman imperialism on first-century Christian communities meeting in house churches. To address this, Oakes considers an array of textual and archaeological resources from first-century non-elite life, including extensive archaeological evidence available from Pompeii. Readers will find here a deep trove of wisdom for understanding the New Testament in the context of the Greco-Roman world. 
 Review 
“The essays contained in this book (especially those in its first two sections) flow from Peter’s main wheelhouse—listening for the way New Testament texts might have set off various resonances for people variously embedded within the world dominated by Roman structures of value. Whether he is setting out space-distribution modeling, or engaging in socioeconomic modeling, or exploring attitudes toward the Roman Empire, Peter doggedly earths the reading of theological texts in the historical realities of the ancient world. Few are as attuned to matters of Roman social history and cultural conventions as Peter Oakes. In this regard, Peter is one of the best representatives of contemporary New Testament scholarship—as testified to by the essays collected within this volume.”\n— Bruce W. Longenecker 
 from the foreword\n“Drawing together evidence from archaeological sites such as Pompeii, social science models, and various pictures of ancient economic relations, Peter Oakes imagines how a diversity of people in early churches would have responded to the gospel of Paul and related messages of Christ in the Roman imperial world. Impressive in its range, this collection is highly suggestive for interpretation of texts and the social-economic situation of those addressed.”\n— Richard Horsley 
 University of Massachusetts Boston\n“Oakes has a unique ability to delve into ancient archaeological evidence and create a vivid and detailed picture of the communities who heard and were shaped by the New Testament writings. Deeply rooted in on-the-ground first-century life, these essays provide stimulating and suggestive resources for interpreting Paul in his economic and imperial context.”\n— Sylvia C. Keesmaat 
 Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto\n“Peter Oakes is one of the pioneers of the new approach to interpreting the New Testament by a serious consideration of the socioeconomic conditions of the diverse kinds of members of first-century house churches that are reconstructed according to the archaeological data. In his essays on Paul’s and other New Testament writers’ attitudes to the Roman Empire, he is also to be commended for maintaining a cool scholarly head and producing balanced and sensible interpretations.”\n— Seyoon Kim 
 Fuller Theological Seminary\n“At the time of publication, Peter Oakes’s 
Empire, Economics, and the New Testament is the most holistic and stereoscopic account available of the sociopolitical realities encountered by the recipients of Paul’s letters. Architecture, cultural identities, economics, patronage, and politics all figure into Oakes’s comprehensive portraits of early Christian communities. This book is essential reading for those who want to understand the life situations of the first audiences of Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians.”\n— Mark Reasoner 
 Marian University\n“Reading New Testament texts from several perspectives of the sub-elite living in concrete houses in a Roman city like Pompeii and in concrete religious environments like Thessaloniki and Philippi under respective different economic conditions can impressiv

Empire, Economics, and the New Testament

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Eerdmans

City: The Untold Story of a Club That Went Bananas

Sports & Outdoors

Soccer

Front Page Books

Peter Oakes combines archeology and biblical studies to give the reader a fresher, deeper understanding of Paul's letter to the Romans. An investigation of the archaeological evidence from Pompeii helps us to think about the ways in which Paul s letter may have been understood by different people —such as a slave girl, cabinet-maker-cum-surgeon and an educated slave concubine—might have understood Paul's letter when they first heard it. 
 This encounter helps us to picture the lives of ordinary first century people more vividly and offers new insights into Romans. The result of this ground-breaking study is a fuller, richer appreciation of Paul's most important letter.

Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul's Letter at Ground Level

Fortress Press

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