Currents in the Interpretation of Paul

“These essays continue Neil Elliott’s usual wide-ranging and comprehensively critical analysis and discussion of Paul’s gospel in the controlling political-economic context of the ancient Roman Empire. Again and again Elliott offers insights into the implications of Paul’s counter-imperial letters for struggles against the empire of global capitalism and its neoliberal ideology by secular Marxist philosophers as well as by theologians and churches. This collection of articles exposes the problems with standard misunderstandings of Paul and provides additional indications that Elliott is this generation’s most profound and challenging interpreter of Paul.”

Richard A. Horsley

“Neil Elliott’s collection of essays and lectures, composed over the past thirty years, consistently confronts readers with startling and provocative questions, exposing the ideological assumptions that constrain contemporary interpretations of Paul’s epistles. Based upon deep knowledge of the socioeconomic realities of the Greco-Roman world, Elliott deploys Postcolonial and Marxist strategies of reading to disclose previously occluded dimensions of Paul’s thought.”

L. L. Welborn

“In his most recent collection of essays, Neil Elliott offers highly valuable insights from a wide range of scholarly approaches to Pauline studies from Marxist and Postcolonial readings to the Paul within Judaism perspective. The essays are beautifully tied together by the idea that our interpretation of Paul has much to do with how we understand our own history and responsibilities today, making it intensely relevant to a broad audience, not only one interested in Paul.”

Karin Hedner Zetterholm

“Currents in the Interpretation of Paul is an important collection in its own right, but it is further so for showcasing the innovative work of Neil Elliott as among the most important in Pauline studies over the past fifty years. With learning deep and wide, Elliott goes beyond the parochialism of Pauline scholarship and engages with questions of philosophy, theory, religion, race, class, and colonialism—to name a few—and shows how significant Marxism is for the study of Christian origins and early Judaism. The advantage for those sympathetic to Elliott’s readings is that they have an advocate whose work cannot be ignored.”

James Crossley

“Modern New Testament scholarship features a diverse and expansive array of interpretive strategies and conversations about how Pauline texts and traditions ought to be read and understood in the contemporary world. Discussion of how and for whom such methods came to be and what work we make the Pauline corpus do with their help is less common. This welcome and timely collection of Neil Elliott’s essays provides readers with a freshly textured map to navigate dense Pauline terrain, helping us understand the landscape in new and empathetic ways.”

Davina C. Lopez