Paul and the Giants of Philosophy: Reading the Apostle in Greco-Roman Context

"We do not know how far Paul's education extended into direct literary engagement with the giants of Greek and early Roman philosophy, but that is not the point. The conversations created here do not presuppose that Paul had read Aristotle, Cicero, Epictetus, or Seneca: comparison can work very well without a genetic link. The purpose of these essays is not to prove that Paul knew this or that philosophical idea (though it is certainly possible that he did). Their purpose, rather, is to put Paul into dialogue with other people in his cultural context who thought just as deeply about many of the topics that mattered greatly to him.

When we put him alongside others who thought about the same topics and who came out with sometimes similar and sometimes startlingly different conclusions, we get a better grasp of what shapes Paul's thought and why his mind works as it does. Just as we clarify our own ideas and understand our own assumptions better when we argue them through with someone else, so putting Paul into discussion with a variety of conversation partners helps bring to the surface things we had never realized before. If you are anything like me, you will find here a lot of new insights on Paul that would never have occurred to you had you not seen Paul in this comparative perspective. Numerous times when reading these essays I have found myself thinking, 'I had never thought of that,' or 'I had never seen it that way before.' Prepare to be surprised and intrigued, and from those reactions I hope you will be led to think more clearly, more deeply, and with greater comprehension about that incessant conversationalist Paul, whose letters keep inviting us across the centuries to respond to his provocative chatter."