The Cambridge Companion to St Paul

Cambridge Companions to Religion

by James D.G. Dunn (Editor )

The apostle Paul has been justifiably described as the first and greatest Christian theologian. His letters were among the earliest documents to be included in the New Testament and, as such, they influenced Christian thinking from its very beginning. This Companion provides an important assessment of the apostle as well as a new appreciation of his continuing contemporary significance. With eighteen chapters written by a team of well-known international Pauline specialists, the collection will have wide appeal and be an invaluable point of departure for subsequent studies.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Biblical Studies, Reference, New Testament, Nonfiction

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

James D. G. ("Jimmy") Dunn (born 1939) was for many years the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the Department of Theology at the University of Durham. Since his retirement he has been made Emeritus Lightfoot Professor. He is a leading British New Testament scholar, broadly in the Protestant tradition. Dunn is especially associated with the New Perspective on Paul, along with N. T. (Tom) Wright and E. P. Sanders. He is credited with coining this phrase during his 1982 Manson Memorial Lecture.

Dunn has an MA and BD from the University of Glasgow and a PhD and DD from the University of Cambridge. For 2002, Dunn was the President of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the leading international body for New Testament study. Only three other British scholars had been made President in the preceding 25 years.

In 2005 a festschrift was published dedicated to Dunn, comprising articles by 27 New Testament scholars, examining early Christian communities and their beliefs about the Holy Spirit. (edited by Graham N. Stanton, Bruce W. Longenecker & Stephen Barton (2004). The Holy Spirit and Christian origins: essays in honor of James D. G. Dunn. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. ISBN 0-8028-2822-1.)

Dunn has taken up E. P. Sanders' project of redefining Palestinian Judaism in order to correct the Christian view of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness. One of the most important differences to Sanders is that Dunn perceives a fundamental coherence and consistency to Paul's thought. He furthermore criticizes Sanders' understanding of the term "justification", arguing that Sanders' understanding suffers from an "individualizing exegesis".

Reviews

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul is a collection of essays that try to ascertain the biographical and historical facts about Paul, the Christian apostle, as well as try to assess his letters for their genuine authorship, structure, and content. The picture of Paul that emerges is a first century man born in Tarsus (what is now south central Turkey) who grew up and became a kind a zealot, a radical Pharisee to be exact, who fought to preserve Judaism against the perceived Christian threat. According to his own story, in his letters, he had a religious experience: while riding on his horse, he fell off, and was blinded by a bright light. At this moment, he had a vision of Jesus. From that moment on, he became a Christian and dedicated his life to growing and helping new Christian communities throughout the Roman empire.

Regarding the authorship of the letters, there are what are regarded as the "undisputed letters" and the others are regarded as being written by other authors pseudonymously. The undisputed letters are the letter to the Romans, the first and second letter to the Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, the first letter to the Thessalonians, and Philemon. The disputed letters are Colossians, Ephesians and what are called the "pastoral letters," which are the second letter to the Thessalonians, the first and second letters to Timothy, and the letter to Titus. Also regarded as apocryphal is the letter to the Hebrews. As an aside, I should mention that I am not a Bible scholar and therefore cannot attest to any of these claims. To find out whether any of the text are of genuine authorship or not, a person would have to read the letters themselves in the original Greek, consult the earliest of sources on what Paul's letters were, and read more of the scholarship on this. Only then could you or I come to a more definite conclusion about this.

Regardless of one's perspective on the authorship of the letters, there does seem to be a marked stylistic and content difference between the letters that are undisputed and the letters that might have been written pseudonymously, according to the Bible scholars. For instance, the disputed letters contain several differences in vocabulary, grammar, and idiomatic expressions compared to the undisputed letters. The disputed letters are also more interested in the church as the body of Christ and more concerned with universalizing the church, as well as better organize it internally under bishops, deacons, and elders, among I suppose some other offices.

What I've provided here is just a rough sketch of the scholarly research, and it is well worth looking at if you are interested in this kind of scholarship.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exciting read on the Apostle Paul, from various scholars' perspectives. I especially enjoyed the essays by Alan Segal, Larry Hurtado, and Luke Johnson.