Paul and His World: Interpreting the New Testament in its Context. By Helmut Koester

Abstract

Helmut Koester's Paul and his World is a collection of twenty-five separate articles and essays, spanning the more than fifty years of Koester's illustrious career. Chronologically, these papers range from a one-page (coauthored with Klaus Baltzer) technical discussion of the designation of James as Oblias according to Hegesippus (chapter 23, p. 266), originally published in German in 1955, to an unpublished lecture on Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Gospel of Thomas delivered in 2006 (chapter 18, pp. 195–206), and a previously unpublished concluding autobiographical piece (chapter 25, pp. 279–290). Only these latter two articles have not appeared in print before; every other chapter is a reprint of material already published in one form or another. This collection of essays demonstrates not only the depth and temporal spread of Koester's contributions to the field, but also the astonishing range of his learning, scholarship, and interests. Indeed, the book's putative organizational scheme can barely contain the scope of these pieces. The book is divided into three major parts, with only the most minimal homogeneity in each. Part one, “Reading Paul: his letters and their interpretation,” contains nine articles, all linked by a shared reference to Paul, but variously dealing with Paul's theology (or ideology, or rhetoric) in general, the context or situation behind individual letters, the interpretation of specific passages, text critical issues, and even post-Pauline traditions extending several centuries after Paul's own time, including the tradition of a Philippian tomb of Paul. Much of the attention in this section is given to the Thessalonian letters, with considerable emphasis also on 1 Corinthians, but the inclusion of some of the essays here is clearly motivated simply by the appearance of Paul's name somewhere in them, and not by any real topical or thematic coherence. Part two—“Reading Paul's world: the cultural and religious environment”—is rather more consistent: its eight essays deal with contextual aspects of the environment of ancient Christianity, with special emphasis (five of the eight pieces) on archaeological data, architectural and inscriptional, pertaining to ancient religion; in addition, one paper (Chapter 12: “Natural law in Greek thought”) explores the origins of the idea of natural law in Greek and Hellenistic literature. But even here, two articles with a primarily exegetical (Chapter 10: “Suffering servant and royal messiah: from second Isaiah to Paul, Mark, and Matthew,” pp. 93–117) or moral-theological focus (Chapter 11: “The figure of the divine human being,” pp. 118–125) are included. One also wonders about the rationalization for packaging this collection of material as evidence of Paul's world, when, in fact, it is evidence for the environment of any number of ancient Christian groups. The third section is the most diverse of all; entitled “Reading early Christianity,” the vague rubric expressed by this title prefigures the real lack of common topic or theme behind these eight essays, which variously focus on autobiography, theology, contemporary culture and politics, historical treatments of Gnosticism and heresy, and minor textual problems.