Defining The Parameters Of Paul’s World: An Introduction

Abstract

In determinable ways, Paul's world is everything in the world in which Paul lived and acted, and hence virtually everything that Paul did. In other words, Paul's world can be defined macrocosmically and microcosmically. This complexity perhaps explains why the notion of Paul's world is treated as it is in some recent books on Paul. The Hellenistic world, as might be expected, includes the Septuagint, non-biblical language, rhetoric, and then Hellenistic religion and philosophy. Paul's world can also be circumscribed more narrowly to include a number of identifiable and definable issues and factors that go into making up the particular and concrete world in which Paul lived. Ronald Hock takes up the problem of Paul's social class again, responding to recent work that has continued the evaluation of hypotheses put forward by Hock in earlier work. Keywords:Hellenistic world; Paul's world; Ronald Hock