Book Notice: Thinking Through Paul

Bruce W. Longenecker & Todd D. Still

Thinking Through Paul: A Survey of His Life, Letters, and Theology
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014.
Available at Amazon.com

There are a lot of good introductions to Paul out there (heck, I’ve even written one!). However, this one by Bruce Longenecker and Todd Still stands out. It is a genuine text book in that it is written, designed, and produced to be a great resource for teachers and their students. It is full of glossy pictures, maps, artwork, diagrams, and topic boxes that make it a delight to read. The book covers three sections: Paul’s Life, Paul’s Letters, and Paul’s Theology.

I enjoyed the various chapters, especially Romans and Colossians. That said, a highlight of the book has to be the final section on Pauline theology where the authors give an overview of Paul’s main theological tenets under the headings of:  (1) The Apocalyptic Narrative of Paul’s Theological Discourse; (2) Paul’s Theological Narrative and Other Macro-Narratives of His Day; and (3) Paul’s Theological Narrative and the Micro-Narratives of Jesus Groups.Importantly this section strives not to engage in a dichotomy between “apocalyptic” and “covenantal” readings of Paul, very good job done! Also, they soberly conclude that while Paul does not explicitly target Roman imperial ideologies in his letters, even so, the totalizing claims of Romans imperial ideologies are displaced by Paul’s theological narrative. They call Paul not “anti-imperial” but “supra-imperial.”

Here’s two videos from Still and Longenecker talking about the book in their own words.