Currents in the Interpretation of Paul: Collected Essays

by Neil Elliott

Overview

The apostle Paul has long been championed, or criticized, as a Christian thinker, as a brilliant theological genius, or an enthusiastic convert who spun arguments to justify his new allegiances. In these essays, Neil Elliott engages some of the most provocative currents in contemporary scholarship, including Paul and the nature of violence; the presumptions of religious, cultural, or national innocence in particular interpretations of the apostle; the recent enthusiasm for Paul in some streams of Marxist thought; competing construals of economic realities in Paul's day (and our own); and questions surrounding Paul's legacy today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781666752717
Publisher:	Cascade Books
Publication date:	09/05/2024
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Neil Elliott is an Episcopal priest and a New Testament scholar with particular interests in the political interpretation of scripture; he has taught biblical studies, early Christian history, and American civil religion at the College of St. Catherine and Metropolitan State University. His publications include The Rhetoric of Romans: Argumentative Constraint and Strategy and Paul's Dialogue with Judaism (1990), Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (1994), The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (2008), and, with Mark Reasoner, Documents and Images for the Study of Paul (2010).

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“These essays continue Neil Elliott’s usual wide-ranging and comprehensively critical analysis and discussion of Paul’s gospel in the controlling political-economic context of the ancient Roman Empire. Again and again Elliott offers insights into the implications of Paul’s counter-imperial letters for struggles against the empire of global capitalism and its neoliberal ideology by secular Marxist philosophers as well as by theologians and churches. This collection of articles exposes the problems with standard misunderstandings of Paul and provides additional indications that Elliott is this generation’s most profound and challenging interpreter of Paul.”

—Richard A. Horsley, professor of liberal arts and the study of religion, University of Massachusetts Boston



“Neil Elliott’s collection of essays and lectures, composed over the past thirty years, consistently confronts readers with startling and provocative questions, exposing the ideological assumptions that constrain contemporary interpretations of Paul’s epistles. Based upon deep knowledge of the socioeconomic realities of the Greco-Roman world, Elliott deploys Postcolonial and Marxist strategies of reading to disclose previously occluded dimensions of Paul’s thought.”

—L. L. Welborn, professor of New Testament, Fordham University



“In his most recent collection of essays, Neil Elliott offers highly valuable insights from a wide range of scholarly approaches to Pauline studies from Marxist and Postcolonial readings to the Paul within Judaism perspective. The essays are beautifully tied together by the idea that our interpretation of Paul has much to do with how we understand our own history and responsibilities today, making it intensely relevant to a broad audience, not only one interested in Paul.”

—Karin Hedner Zetterholm, associate professor of Jewish studies, Lund University



“Currents in the Interpretation of Paul is an important collection in its own right, but it is further so for showcasing the innovative work of Neil Elliott as among the most important in Pauline studies over the past fifty years. With learning deep and wide, Elliott goes beyond the parochialism of Pauline scholarship and engages with questions of philosophy, theory, religion, race, class, and colonialism—to name a few—and shows how significant Marxism is for the study of Christian origins and early Judaism. The advantage for those sympathetic to Elliott’s readings is that they have an advocate whose work cannot be ignored.”

—James Crossley, professor of Bible, politics, and society, MF Oslo



“Modern New Testament scholarship features a diverse and expansive array of interpretive strategies and conversations about how Pauline texts and traditions ought to be read and understood in the contemporary world. Discussion of how and for whom such methods came to be and what work we make the Pauline corpus do with their help is less common. This welcome and timely collection of Neil Elliott’s essays provides readers with a freshly textured map to navigate dense Pauline terrain, helping us understand the landscape in new and empathetic ways.”

—Davina C. Lopez, professor of religious studies, Eckerd College

Editorial Reviews

These essays continue Neil Elliott’s usual wide-ranging and comprehensively critical analysis and discussion of Paul’s gospel in the controlling political-economic context of the ancient Roman Empire. Again and again Elliott offers insights into the implications of Paul’s counter-imperial letters for struggles against the empire of global capitalism and its neoliberal ideology by secular Marxist philosophers as well as by theologians and churches. This collection of articles exposes the problems with standard misunderstandings of Paul and provides additional indications that Elliott is this generation’s most profound and challenging interpreter of Paul.”

—Richard A. Horsley, professor of liberal arts and the study of religion, University of Massachusetts Boston



“Neil Elliott’s collection of essays and lectures, composed over the past thirty years, consistently confronts readers with startling and provocative questions, exposing the ideological assumptions that constrain contemporary interpretations of Paul’s epistles. Based upon deep knowledge of the socioeconomic realities of the Greco-Roman world, Elliott deploys Postcolonial and Marxist strategies of reading to disclose previously occluded dimensions of Paul’s thought.”

—L. L. Welborn, professor of New Testament, Fordham University



“In his most recent collection of essays, Neil Elliott offers highly valuable insights from a wide range of scholarly approaches to Pauline studies from Marxist and Postcolonial readings to the Paul within Judaism perspective. The essays are beautifully tied together by the idea that our interpretation of Paul has much to do with how we understand our own history and responsibilities today, making it intensely relevant to a broad audience, not only one interested in Paul.”

—Karin Hedner Zetterholm, associate professor of Jewish studies, Lund University



“Currents in the Interpretation of Paul is an important collection in its own right, but it is further so for showcasing the innovative work of Neil Elliott as among the most important in Pauline studies over the past fifty years. With learning deep and wide, Elliott goes beyond the parochialism of Pauline scholarship and engages with questions of philosophy, theory, religion, race, class, and colonialism—to name a few—and shows how significant Marxism is for the study of Christian origins and early Judaism. The advantage for those sympathetic to Elliott’s readings is that they have an advocate whose work cannot be ignored.”

—James Crossley, professor of Bible, politics, and society, MF Oslo



“Modern New Testament scholarship features a diverse and expansive array of interpretive strategies and conversations about how Pauline texts and traditions ought to be read and understood in the contemporary world. Discussion of how and for whom such methods came to be and what work we make the Pauline corpus do with their help is less common. This welcome and timely collection of Neil Elliott’s essays provides readers with a freshly textured map to navigate dense Pauline terrain, helping us understand the landscape in new and empathetic ways.”

—Davina C. Lopez, professor of religious studies, Eckerd College

From the Publisher