The Spirit World in the Letters of Paul the Apostle: A Critical Examination of the Role of Spiritual Beings in the Authentic Pauline Epistles. By GUY J. WILLIAMS.

Abstract

In a world where belief in a spirit world is on the increase, Williams’s study of the spirit world in Paul offers a solid basis for renewed reflection on the relation between Christology, salvation, and community and the spiritual world. Guy Williams, now teaching Philosophy and Religion at Wellington College (Berkshire, England), has completed a very readable in-depth analysis that guides the reader smoothly through the comparative study of Paul’s beliefs about the spirit world in his first-century context. The book demonstrates convincingly that belief in the spirit world is embedded as a set of unquestioned, implicit assumptions in Paul’s writings as it is in his ancient Jewish context. The book is divided into three major sections. The first introduces the issues and current scholarship about them. The second one studies references to the spirit world in Paul in comparison with other Jewish literature. The third one situates Paul’s references to the spirit world within his theological framework, with reference to his Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology.