Books in the Paul in Critical Contexts series

How did Roman imperial culture shape the environment in which Paul carried out his apostolate? How do the multiple legacies of modern colonialism and contemporary empire shape, illuminate, or obscure our readings of Paul's letters? In The Colonized Apostle, Christopher D. Stanley has gathered many of the foremost voices in postcolonial and empire-critical scholarship on Paul to provide a state-of-the-art guide to these questions. This latest addition to the Paul in Critical Contexts series includes essays introducing postcolonial criticism and applying its insights both to Paul's context in the Roman world and to the reevaluation of contemporary interpretation. Contributors include Susan Abraham, Jennifer Bird, Neil Elliott, L. Ann Jervis, Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Brigitte Kahl, Jae Won Lee, Tat-Siong Benny Liew, Davina C. Lopez, Joseph A. Marchal, Stephen D. Moore, Laura S. Nasrallah, Jeremy A. Punt, Robert P. Seesengood, and Gordon M. Zerbe.

* A timely discussion of a key Pauline theme and its value for the global church * Challenges a consensus regarding the "politics" of 1 Corinthians

Kahl brings to this insightful reading of Galatians a deep knowledge of the classical world and especially of Roman imperial ideology. The first wave of scholarship on the Roman imperial context of Pauls letters raised important questions that only thorough treatments of individual letters can answer. Kahl sets the letter to the Galatians in the context of Roman perceptions of vanquished peoples as represented in the Great Altar at Pergamum.

In this provocative study, Joseph A. Marchal argues that biblical interpretation, but most especially Pauline studies, must engage the full range of critical challenges brought by feminist studies, postcolonial studies, and Roman imperial studies. A feminist, postcolonial analysis requires negotiating the gaps, overlaps, and tensions between these three "strands" by adopting an explicitly multi-axial focus and an interdisciplinary methodology. Using Philippians as a test case, the analysis covers issues of both ancient and contemporary import: from imitation and authority to travel and contact. As a result, Marchal provides strikingly new perspectives on Paul's letters and fresh challenges to the paradigms of Pauline interpretation.