Books by Abraham J Malherbe

Comments on the First Edition... Those concerned with Christian beginnings will find Malherbe stimulating and incisive on the New Testament. Robert M. Gratn, Journal of Religion The author is a scholar of great learning. I found the footnotes to be extremely useful, and the challenge of the book that a new consesus has emerged is a genuine contribution to continuing debate. Robin Scroggs, Journal of the American Academy of Religion An interesting and informed introduction to an important new development in the study of earliest Christianity. - Victor P. Furnish, Perkins Journal The book constitutes a major challenge to the depictions of early Christianity - especially of the Pauline Wing in earlier scholarly work. - Howard Clark Kee, Reflection

"This book deals with Paul''s practice rather than his theology. It especially traces the way in which Paul established a church in the important city of Thessalonica, the capital city of the Roman province of Macedonia, maintained contact with it in order to ensure its continuing nurture, and instructed its members on how to care for one another. Rather than simply organize a church, Paul founded, shaped, and nurtured a community. In so doing, he was sensitive to the needs of individuals within the community who had committed themselves to new beliefs and a new way of life. Paul was, in fact, engaged in pastoral care, although he does not describe the enterprise in that manner."--from the IntroductionAbraham J. Malherbe is Buckingham Professor Emeritus of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University. Malherbe has written extensively on the literary and social dimensions of ancient literature and Greco-Roman philosophy. Some of his many books include Moral Exhortation: A Greco-Roman Sourcebook, Paul and the Popular Philosophers, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, and The Letters to the Thessalonians.