Essay: Moving chronologically from what you determine is the earliest letter to the latest, explain which letters were written by Paul (and which were written by someone else). Your decisions about the order and authorships of the letters must be grounded in arguments and the primary texts rather than appeals to scholarly consensus.
Recommended Readings:
The primary texts (all the letters attributed to Paul in the NT) are always most important.
- Campbell, Douglas. 2014. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
- Gamble, Harry Y. 2014. ‘The Formation of the Pauline Corpus’ in The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies, Matthew V. Novenson and R. Barry Matlock, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Horrell, David. 2015. An Introduction to the Study of Paul, 3rd ed. London: Bloomsbury.
- Jewett, Robert. 2012. Dating Paul’s Life. London: SCM.
- Johnson-DeBaufre, Melanie. 2012. ‘Historical Approaches: Which Past? Whose Past?’ in Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspectives and Methods, Joseph A Marchal, ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p13-32.
- Tatum, Gregory. 2006. New chapters in the life of Paul: The Relative Chronology of his Career. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association.
- Wright, N.T. 2018. Paul: A Biography. San Francisco: HarperOne.
To begin assessing the arguments for each letter, study bibles and NT introductions will also be helpful. See, for example:
- Longenecker, Bruce W. and Still, Todd D. 2014. Thinking through Paul: A Survey of his Life, Letters, and Theology. Zondervan. [An introductory resource]
- Oxfordbiblicalstudies.com
- HarperCollins Study Bible
- See Anchor Bible Dictionary entries on “Paul” and the respective letters.
For in-depth arguments pertaining to a particular letter, see any critical commentary.
Questions to consider and some Notes of Guidance:
For this first essay, (1) begin with the NT letters attributed to Paul. Here you might also consider Hebrews, which through the centuries has had very mixed views regarding its connection (or not!) to Paul; (2) Other texts you might consider that are attributed to Paul that are not in the NT canon are 3 Corinthians, and perhaps the Epistle to Barnabas; (3) Consider whether narrative texts connected to Paul, such as the Acts of Paul or the Acts of the Apostles might have anything to contribute. To what extent can we lean on information found in Acts?
- Do you find the standard arguments for or against the authenticity of the letters convincing?
- Obviously, a tutorial essay could be written on the date and authorship of any one letter, so this essay requires careful economy of words.
- The opinions defended in this essay will no doubt be revised, but the purpose of the essay is to give you a provisional outline of Paul’s literary history.
Some key primary texts: Gal 1.1-20; 2 Cor 3.5-4.6; Phil 3.1-10; Acts 9, 22 and 26.
- Boyarin, Daniel. 1994. A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Chester, Stephen J. 2003. Conversion at Corinth: Perspectives on Conversion in Paul’s Theology and the Corinthian Church. Studies of the New Testament and its World. London/New York: T & T Clark.
- Crook, Zeba A. 2004. Reconceptualising Conversion: Patronage, Loyalty, and Conversion in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean. Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter.
- Donfried, Karl P. 2004. ‘Paul the Jew – But of What Sort?’ In Testimony and Interpretation: Early Christology in Its Judeo-Hellenistic Milieu. Studies in Honour of Petr Pokorný., 11-27. Ed. J. Mrázek and J. Roskovec. JSNTSup 272. London/New York: T&T Clark International.
- Eisenbaum, Pamela. 2012. ‘Jewish Perspectives: A Jewish Apostle to the Gentiles’ in Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspectives and Methods, Joseph A Marchal, ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p135-54.
- Fredriksen, Paula. 2017. Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Fredriksen, Paula. 2014. ‘Paul the “Convert”?’ in The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies, Matthew V. Novenson and R. Barry Matlock, eds. Oxford: OUP.
- Frey, Jörg. 2007. “Paul’s Jewish Identity.” In Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World = Jüdische Identität in der griechisch-römischen Welt, 285-321. Ed. J. Frey et al. Ancient Judaism and early Christianity 71. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
- Gaventa, Beverly. 1986. From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
- Hicks-Keeton, Jill. 2019. ‘Putting Paul in his Place: Diverse Diasporas and Sideways Spaces in Hellenistic Judaism’ JJMJS 6, 1-21.
- Murphy-O’Connor, J. 1996. Paul: A Critical Life. Oxford: Clarendon.
- Nanos, Mark D., and Magnus Zetterholm, eds. 2015. Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
- Novenson, Matthew V. 2020. ‘Did Paul Abandon either Judaism or Monotheism?’ in The New Cambridge Companion to St Paul, Bruce W. Longenecker, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p239-59.
- Sanders, E. P. 2016. Paul: The Apostle’s Life, Letters, Thought. London: SCM.
- Taylor, Justin. 1998. ‘Why Did Paul Persecute the Church?’ In Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity, 99-120. Ed. G. N. Stanton and G. G. Stroumsa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Thiessen, Matthew. 2016. Paul and the Gentile Problem. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Suggested Practice Gobbet: 1 Corinthians 15.3-10
- Childs, Brevard S. 2008. The Church’s Guide for Reading Paul: The Canonical Shaping of the Pauline Corpus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Das, A. Andrew. 2007. Solving the Romans Debate. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
- Dunn, James D. G. 1994. “Prolegomena to a Theology of Paul.” New Testament Studies 40: 407-32.
- Dunn, James D. G. 1998. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Gaventa, Beverly R. 2016. When in Romans. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
- Gorman, Michael J. 2008. Reading Paul. Cascade Companions. Eugene: Cascade Books.
- Haacker, Klaus. 2003. The Theology of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. New Testament theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Kirk, J. R. Daniel. 2008. Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Kittredge, Cynthia Briggs. 2016. ‘Romans’ in The Letters and Legacy of Paul, Margaret Aymer, Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, David A. Sánchez, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 395-426.
- Matera, Frank J. 2012. God’s Saving Grace: A Pauline Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Soderlund, Sven K. and N.T. Wright. 1999. Romans and the People of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
- Stowers, Stanley K. 1994. A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Tamez, Elsa. 2002. The Amnesty of Grace: Justification by Faith from a Latin American Perspective. Transl. Sharon Ringe. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
- Wedderburn, A. J. M. 1988. The Reasons for Romans. SNTW. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
- Wolter, Michael. 2015. Paul: An Outline of His Theology. Waco: Baylor University Press.
Suggested Practice Gobbets: Romans 8.17-25; Ephesians 2.8-10
- Blackwell, Ben C. 2011. Christosis: Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria. Mohr Siebeck (see Section II on Pauline Soteriology)
- Burnett, Gary W. 2001. Paul and the Salvation of the Individual. Leiden: Brill.
- Dunn, James D.G. 1998. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Eerdmans (especially chapters 5 & 6 on Salvation and p237 which includes some words on 1 Cor 15.17).
- Fee, Gordon. 2004. “Paul and the Metaphors of Salvation: Some reflections on Pauline Soteriology” in The Redemption: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Christ as Redeemer, eds S.T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins. Oxford University Press.
- Gaventa, Beverly R. 1986. From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament. Fortress Press.
- Gorman, Michael. 2009. Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Eerdmans.
- Gorman, Michael J. 2020. ‘What did Paul think God is doing about What’s Wrong? in The New Cambridge Companion to St Paul, Bruce W. Longenecker, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p187-209.
- McGrath, Alister. 2001. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Blackwell Press. (for an introductory view, see the heading “Pauline Images of Salvation”)
- Schnelle, Udo. 2003. Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology. De Gruyter. (see especially the section on 1 Corinthians, the Church in Rome, Theology and Christology which both have sections on salvation, and Soteriology)
- van der Watt, Jan G., ed. 2005. Salvation in the New Testament: Perspectives on Soteriology. Brill. See especially the chapters on Pauline literature (such as the ones by du Toit; Tolmie; and Breytenbach).
Suggested Practice Gobbets: Romans 5.9-14; 1 Corinthians 6.9-10
- Bauckham, Richard. 1998. God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament. Didsbury Lectures, 1996. Carlisle: Paternoster Press.
- Chester, Andrew. 2007. “The Christ of Paul.” In Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity 109-21. Ed. M. Bockmuehl and J. Carleton Paget. London/New York: T&T Clark.
- Dahl, Nils Alstrup. 1991. “The Messiahship of Jesus in Paul.” In Jesus the Christ 15-26. Minneapolis: Fortress.
- Dunn, James D. G. 1989. Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation. 2nd edn. London: SCM Press.
- Dunn, James D.G. 1998. The Christ and the Spirit: Christology (see especially the sections of Pauline Christology).
- Fee, Gordon D. 2007. Pauline Christology. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers.
- Gaventa, Beverly and Richard Hays, eds. 2008. Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage. Eerdmans.
- Hays, Richard B. 2008. “The Story of God’s Son: The Identity of Jesus in the Letters of Paul.” In Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage, 180-99. Ed. B. R. Gaventa and R. B. Hays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Horrell, David. 2015. An Introduction to the Study of Paul, 3rd ed. London: Bloomsbury, p. 79-100.
- Horsley, Richard A., ed. 1997. Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International.
- Hurtado, L. W. 2003. “Paul’s Christology.” In The Cambridge Companion to St Paul, 185-98. Ed. J. D. G. Dunn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. 2003. “The origins of Paul’s Christology: From Thessalonians to Galatians” in Christian Origins: Worship, belief, and society. K. J. O’Mahony, ed. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
- Novenson, Matthew V. 2012. Christ Among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Novenson, Matthew. 2009. “The Jewish Messiahs, the Pauline Christ, and the Gentile Question.” Journal of Biblical Literature, 128.2: 357-73.
- Tilling, Chris. 2012. Paul’s Divine Christology. WUNT 2:323. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Suggested Practice Gobbets: 1 Corinthians 2.1-5; Romans 8.28-34
- Bieringer, Reimund. 2018. “Proclaimed message or proclamation of the message? A critical analysis of EUAGGÉLION in the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Mark.” In Receptions of Paul in Early Christianity, eds. J. Schröter, S. Butticaz, A. Dettwiler, C. Paul. Berlin: de Gruyter.
- Campbell, Douglas. 2005. The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A suggested strategy. London: T&T Clark.
- Dunn, James. 2006. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Dunn, James D.G. 2011. “The Gospel according to St Paul” in The Blackwell Companion to Paul.
- Hays, Richard B. 2004. “Is Paul’s Gospel Narratable?” Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 27.2; pp 217-39.
- Gorman, Michael. 2009. Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Horrell, David G. 2020. ‘Why were people attracted to Paul’s Good News?’ in The New Cambridge Companion to St Paul, Bruce W. Longenecker, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p260-77.
- Kim, Seyoon. 1982. The Origin of Paul’s Gospel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Räisänen, Heikki. 1987. “Paul’s Conversion and the Development of his View of the Law,” New Testament Studies, 33.3; pp 404-19.
- Sanders, E. P. 1991. Paul: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Sanders, E. P. 2008. “Did Paul’s Theology Develop?” in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Stanton, Graham. 2003. “Paul’s Gospel” in Cambridge Companion to St Paul, ed. J.D.G. Dunn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Stuhlmacher, Peter. 1991. “The Pauline Gospel” in The Gospel and the Gospels, ed. P. Stuhlmacher. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Questions to consider:
- Was Paul’s theology systematically worked out, coherent but not systematic, merely ad hoc, or something else?
- What is the essence of Paul’s message? How would you explain it if you were asked to write an OUP Very Short Introduction to Paul?
Suggested Practice Gobbets: 1 Corinthians 1.18-24; Ephesians 3.2-9
- Aune, David. 2010. “Galatians 3.28 and the problem of equality in the church and society” in P. Walters (ed) From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and transition. Leiden: Brill, p153-83.
- Botha, P. 2000. “Submission and violence: Exploring gender relations in the first-century world” Neotestamentica. 34.1. pp1-38.
- Buell, Denise Kimber and Caroline Johnson Hodge, 2004. “The Politics of Interpretation: The Rhetoric of Race and Ethnicity in Paul,” Journal of Biblical Literature 123.2: 235-51.
- Byron, John. 2008. Recent Research on Paul and Slavery. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix.
- Campbell, Douglas. 2003. “Reconciliation in Paul: The gospel of negation and transcendence in Galatians 3.28” in The theology of reconciliation, ed. C. Gunton. New York: T&T Clark, p39-65.
- Clarke, Andrew. 2002. “Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female: Paul’s theology of ethnic, social, and gender inclusiveness in Romans 16. In Rome in the Bible and the early church, ed. by P. Oakes. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. p103-25.
- Cosgrove, Charles. 2006. “Did Paul value ethnicity?” in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 68.2, p268-90.
- David, Pablo Virgilio S. 2018. “A Postcolonial Reading of Galatians 3:28” in Concilium, no 1, p 37-45.
- Glancy, Jennifer A. 2002. Slavery in Early Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Harrill, J. Albert. 2016. ‘Paul and Slavery’in Paul in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Paul J. Sampley. London: T&T Clark. Especially 593-98.
- Horrell, David. 2000. “‘No longer Jew or Greek’ Paul’s corporate Christology and the construction of Christian community” in Christology, controversy and community: New Testament essays in honour of David Catchpole in David Horrell and C.M. Tuckett, eds. Leiden: Brill. p321-44.
- Horrell, David. 2017. “Paul, Inclusion and Whiteness: Particularizing Interpretation” in Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 40; p 123-47.
- Interview with Dr. Laura Nasrallah on Race and the Letters of Paul
- Neutel, Karin B. 2015. A Cosmopolitan Ideal: Paul’s Declaration ‘Neither Jew Nor Greek, Neither Slave Nor Free, Nor Male and Female’ in the Context of First-Century Thought. London: Bloomsbury.
- Parker, Angela N. 2018. “One Woman’s View of Racial Reconciliation in Galatians,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 34.2: 23-40.
- Tolmie, François. 2014. “Tendencies in the Interpretation of Galatians 3.28 since 1990” in Acta Theologica, p105-29. See this link, as well: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f379/36d09edac33dd0feb0d6fe4154fd62a656a7.pdf
- Williams, Demetrius K. 2012. ‘African American Approaches: Rehumanizing the Reader against Racism and Reading through Experience’ in Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspectives and Methods, Joseph A Marchal, ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p155-74.
Suggested Practice Gobbets: 1 Corinthians 7.21-24; Ephesians 5.22-28
“MY APOSTLE” OR “THE APOSTLE OF THE HERETICS” (TERTULLIAN): WHICH IS MORE ACCURATE FOR THE EARLY READERS OF PAUL?
Reading:
- Tertullian, 1972. Adversus Marcionem, ed. E. Evans. Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Aageson, James W. 2008. Paul, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Early Church. Peabody: Hendrickson Press.
- Babcock, William S., ed. 1990. Paul and the Legacies of Paul, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press.
- Bain, Andrew M. 2011. “Tertullian: Paul as Teacher of the Gentile Churches.” In Paul and the Second Century, eds. Michael F. Bird and Joseph R. Dodson. London: T&T Clark.
- Harrill, J. Albert. 2012. Paul the Apostle: His Life and Legacy in their Roman Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Kannengiesser, Charles. 2003. Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity, Fathers of the Church 1–2. Leiden: Brill.
- Longenecker, Richard. 1999. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans.
- Mitchell, Margaret M. 2020. ‘How was the Reception of Paul Shaped in the Early Church?’ in The New Cambridge Companion to St Paul, Bruce W. Longenecker, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p278-98.
- Pagels, Elaine. 1992. The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International.
- Rankin, David. 1995. Tertullian and the Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Welborn, Laurence L. 2002. “‘Take up the Epistle of the Blessed Paul the Apostle’: The Contrasting Fates of Paul’s Letters to Corinth in the Patristic Period.” In Reading Communities, Reading Scripture: Essays in Honour of Daniel Patte, edited by Gary Phillips and Nicole Wilkinson Duran, 345–360. Harrisburg, Pa: Trinity Press International.
- White, Benjamin L. 2014. Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“THE ETERNAL ENEMY OF WOMEN”: IS THIS AN ACCURATE UNDERSTANDING OF PAUL?
Reading:
- Cotter, Wendy. 1994. “Women’s Authority Roles in Paul’s Churches: Countercultural or Conventional?” Novum Testamentum, 36 (4), 350-72.
- De Conick, April. 2011. Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter. London: Bloomsbury.
- Ehrensperger, Kathy. 2014. ‘Paul and Feminism’ in The Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies, Matthew V. Novenson and R. Barry Matlock, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Hylen, Susan. 2019 “Women διάκονοι and Gendered Norms of Leadership,” Journal of Biblical Literature138.3, 687-702.
- Johnson-DeBaufre, Melanie and Laura S. Nasrallah. 2011. “Beyond the Heroic Paul: Toward a Feminist and Decolonizing Approach to the Letters of Paul,” in Christopher D. Stanley ed., The Colonized Apostle: Paul through Postcolonial Eyes. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 161-74.
- Keener, Craig S. 1992. Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul. Ada, MI.
- Kittredge, Cynthia Briggs. 2012. ‘Feminist Approaches: Rethinking History and Resisting Ideologies’ in Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspectives and Methods, Joseph A Marchal, ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, p117-34.
- Klassen, William. 1984. ‘Musonius Rufus, Jesus and Paul: Three first-century feminists’, in P. Richardson, J. Hurd, & F. Beare. From Jesus to Paul : Studies in honour of Francis Wright Beare. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
- Marshall, Jill E. 2017. “The Recovery of Paul’s Female Colleagues in Nineteenth-Century Feminist Biblical Interpretation” in Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 33; p 21-36.
- Mount, Christopher N. 2010. “Religious Experience, the Religion of Paul, and Women in Pauline Churches” in Women and Gender in Ancient Religions: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. S.P Ahearne-Kroll, et. al. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
- Moxnes, H. 1989. ‘Social Integration and the Problem of Gender in St. Paul’s letters.’ Studia Theologica – Nordic Journal of Theology, 43(1), 99-113.
- Newbury, Julie. 2019. “Paul’s Allusive Reasoning in 1 Corinthians 11.7-12” in New Testament Studies 65; p43-58.
- Peppiatt, Lucy. 2018. Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11.2-16. Eugene: Cascade Books.
- Schüssler Fiorenza, Elizabeth. 1984. In Memory of Her: A feminist theological reconstruction of Christian origins. New York: Crossroad.
- Westfall, Cynthia Long. 2016. Paul and Gender : Reclaiming the apostle’s vision for men and women in Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
- Whelan, Caroline. 1993. ‘Amica Pauli: The Role of Phoebe in the Early Church.’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 15(49), 67-85.
- Winter, Bruce W. 2003. Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
