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Paul within Paganism: Restoring the Mediterranean Context to the Apostle
A collaborative project, this work introduces a burgeoning new approach to the study of Paul, which contextualizes the pagans' apostle within the wider world of ancient Mediterranean religion (so-called "paganism"). The anthology assembles cutting-edge essays from both senior and rising scholars, whose contributions collectively demonstrate how Paul's Jewish religious program is native to the ancient Mediterranean. While providing a go-to introductory resource for teachers and scholars of biblical studies, the essays are pitched to be accessible for students (both liberal arts and divinity), in order to invite seminarians and church groups to think in religious-studies ways about Paul's letters.
This volume explores in particular how Paul positively avails himself of ideas and activities constitutive of his own time and place, such as divination, deification, magic, idols, and a host of other social practices traditionally attributed to pagans and so emphatically denied of Jews and Christians. At the same time, it interrogates how features of Paul's letters traditionally categorized as exclusively Jewish--such as his use of scripture, his claims about faith, his ideas about law, and his focus on foreskin--are themselves evidence of Paul's participation in wider Mediterranean ways of promoting engagement with the numinous. Paul operated "within paganism" even at his supposedly "most Jewish" points.
Just as the "Paul within Judaism" movement emphasizes Judaism not primarily as the contrast to but rather as the context for and content of Paul's gospel, Paul within Paganism does the same for Paul in relation to wider Greco-Roman culture. Paul and his Judaism emerge here as instances of, not exceptions to, ancient Mediterranean religion.
This volume explores in particular how Paul positively avails himself of ideas and activities constitutive of his own time and place, such as divination, deification, magic, idols, and a host of other social practices traditionally attributed to pagans and so emphatically denied of Jews and Christians. At the same time, it interrogates how features of Paul's letters traditionally categorized as exclusively Jewish--such as his use of scripture, his claims about faith, his ideas about law, and his focus on foreskin--are themselves evidence of Paul's participation in wider Mediterranean ways of promoting engagement with the numinous. Paul operated "within paganism" even at his supposedly "most Jewish" points.
Just as the "Paul within Judaism" movement emphasizes Judaism not primarily as the contrast to but rather as the context for and content of Paul's gospel, Paul within Paganism does the same for Paul in relation to wider Greco-Roman culture. Paul and his Judaism emerge here as instances of, not exceptions to, ancient Mediterranean religion.
359 pages, Hardcover
Published November 4, 2025
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January 19, 2026
In this book presents a cavalcade of leading NT scholars summarizing the best insights of their most recent research into Paul's historical context, as well as thoughtful analysis of what makes for good historical method. This book is a follow-up to the path-breaking _Paul within Judaism_ (Fortress, 2015) and represents the development of that trajectory. I can't think of a better summation of current, cutting-edge scholarship on how Paul fits into his historical context.
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