Seven new and forthcoming titles from biblical and religious scholars are exploring the life and writings of Paul the Apostle—the most studied figure in Christianity after Jesus. His epistles, or letters, predate the Gospels, and his writings have had a huge influence on Christian doctrine. Religion publishers recognize Paul as an evergreen source for study, with books populating shelves annually on Jesus’s most important early follower, who is widely recognized as the first Christian writer of all time.
“Authors today are drawn to this complex figure: a religious Jew, a citizen of a Greek city named Tarsus, and a Roman citizen,” says Doug Mangum, editor at Lexham Press. “So historians, theologians, and archaeologists all find something about Paul to write a book about.” Lexham is publishing In This Way We Came to Rome: With Paul on the Appian Way (Jan. 2024) by Glen L. Thompson and Mark Wilson, who detail Paul’s journey from Jerusalem to Rome, where he preached the gospel and stood trial before the Roman emperor Nero. The authors, both New Testament scholars, bring firsthand knowledge of Paul’s journey, having walked all sections of the Appian Way that are still visible, including the route Paul would have taken for the final 10 miles and to enter Rome.
“No one has ever mapped out Paul’s journey like this before—from his arrival at Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli) to his entrance into Rome,” Mangum says. “With its color maps and illustrations,” as well as photographs from the authors, “the book presents a stunning view of Italy in Paul’s day.”
Both scholars and general readers can benefit from the book, according to Mangum. Scholars will find interest in footnotes that highlight Italian archaeology around Paul’s route, he says, while general readers can use the text “to replicate the journey either vicariously in the armchair, or, using maps and GPS coordinates, on the ground by themselves or with a group.”
Two imprints are putting out books on Paul’s letter to the Romans, one of only seven that scholars agree were written by Paul himself. Zondervan Academic is offering what it calls “a theological exposition of Pauline theology through the lens of Romans 8” in Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive into Paul’s Greatest Letter (out now) by N.T. Wright, whom Katya Covrett, v-p and publisher for the imprint, calls “one of the most influential commentators and interpreters of Paul today.”
Wright, author of numerous books including the Christian Origins and Questions of God series, closely examines chapter eight, which centers on “life in the Spirit,” or the Christian’s spiritual life. “This book represents Wright’s newest thinking on Romans 8 and its effect on the overall Pauline theology, and indeed reading the Bible as a whole,” Covrett says. Describing Wright’s work as accessible and compelling, Covrett adds that the book “can be profitably read by both students and thoughtful readers” as an introduction to Paul’s theology and an interpretive lens.
WJK Books is publishing Romans: A Commentary (June 2024) by Beverly Roberts Gaventa, professor emerita of New Testament literature and exegesis at Princeton University and former president of the Society of Biblical Literature. Julie Mullins, academic acquisitions editor for WJK, describes Gaventa as “one of the most widely respected New Testament and Pauline scholars working today,” praising her work in Romans as “exploring the historically grounded moment in which it was written, its literary richness, and its rootedness in the event of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Meanwhile, Gaventa has endorsed Paul and Time: Life in the Temporality of Christ (Baker Academic, Nov.), by professor emerita of New Testament at Wycliffe College in Toronto Ann L. Jervis. This book asks the question, how did Paul understand time? Jervis proposes that Paul thought of time as life in this age, or life in Christ. Gaventa says that Jervis’s “startling proposals require and repay careful attention of all serious students of Paul’s letters.”
Two other books offer additional prisms through which to view Paul and his theology. Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites by Jason A. Staples (Cambridge Univ., Feb. 2024) reexamines texts that offer salvation to Jews and gentiles alike, linking Paul’s theology to the earlier stories of the southern kingdom of Judah and the fallen northern king of Israel.
“Paul’s concomitant belief was that northern Israel’s exile meant assimilation among the nations—effectively a people’s death—and that its restoration paradoxically required gentile inclusion to resurrect a greater ‘Israel’ from the dead,” according to the publisher. Staples is an assistant teaching professor in the department of philosophy and religious studies at North Carolina State University.
The New Perspective on Grace: Paul and the Gospel after ‘Paul and the Gift’ (Eerdmans, out now), edited by Edward Adams, Dorothea H. Bertschmann, Stephen J. Chester, Jonathan A. Linebaugh, and Todd D. Still, is a collection of essays expanding on John M.G. Barclay’s pioneering book Paul and the Gift, which analyzed Paul’s theology of grace within the context of gift-giving in the Greco-Roman world, according to the publisher.
In this volume, internationally renowned scholars contribute essays that address topics such as the role of grace in Paul’s life and ministry, grace and ministry in marginalized communities, and divine giving in the Gospels. The publisher says the new book is “essential reading for all students and scholars who want to understand the current state of Pauline scholarship.”
Mullins of WJK Books says that Paul’s “legacy resounds today for many reasons, in no small part because of the ways in which his writings have been received over time and continue to have bearing on crucial social issues—including the ongoing liberation of African Americans, women’s equality, and full LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church and beyond.”
Covrett understands the endless inspiration authors glean from Paul. “The writings of Paul comprise nearly half of the New Testament and are formative to the development of early Christian theology,” she says. “From an inside perspective of working with Pauline scholars, their noses are ever at the grindstone.”
One such scholar has been hard at work on Words of Faith: A Vocabulary of Paul the Apostle (Paulist Press, Nov.), a reference tool written in the post-Vatican II Catholic tradition, looking at Paul’s life and theology via the words he uses. More than 100 words, including apocalyptic, predestination, ethics, and gentiles, are defined by author Brendan Byrne, professor emeritus of New Testament at the University of Divinity in Melbourne. Donna Crilly, senior academic editor for Paulist Press, describes Words of Faith as a conceptual dictionary “that unpacks the meaning of each word on several levels—what the word means, how Paul uses and understands it.”
Ann Byle is the author of Chicken Scratch: Lessons on Living Creatively from a Flock of Hens.
