Re: Vinny's Jesus Agnostic Blog
Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:19 pm
If you could read only two, I'd say start with Philo (the Alexandrian Jew of course) and Epictetus (a Stoic), and work your way out from there, not neglecting your Seneca (one of two extant writers with long letters like Paul, and a Stoic), Cicero (the other, with Stoic leanings), Plutarch (a "middle" Platonist), Dead Sea Scrolls, and Jewish pseudepigrapha. Stephan has convinced me of the value of the Samaritan Pentateuch also. Read the Septuagint again, especially if you grew up Protestant and never took a trip through the Apocrypha... some of them books collecting background material in primary sources might be good (several), or just a sourcebook on mystery religions (Meyer has one). It may be third century, but some time with Plotinus' Enneads and Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers may also be of value. I'd also suggest reading Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Paul for a grok-able summary of ways in which Paul was read outside the catholic tradition. A lot of these roads have been traveled, so it's more a matter of finding the right bibliography and having the time.MrMacSon wrote:MrMacSon wrote: Care to provide a list of these pre-Pauline Jewish, Roman and Greek writings that express Paul's ideas?Thanks Neil.neilgodfrey wrote:
I was thinking of works exploring Paul's ideas as found in Greek-Roman and other Jewish literature:
And most recently I have been reading the following and finding many explanations of Paul's ideas found in Docherty's "Jewish Pseudepigrapha" and Litwa's "Iesus Deus" which identifies Greek and Roman sources for some of Paul's thought.
- Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Paul and the Stoics)
Malherbe (Paul and the Philosophers)
Huttenen (Paul and Epictetus on Law)
James Waddell (Messiah: A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios)
Jarvis Williams (Maccabean Martyr Traditions in Paul's Theology)
It would seem "exploring Paul's ideas as found in Greek-Roman and other Jewish literature" would be a useful historical exercise.