Currents in the Interpretation of Paul

The apostle Paul has long been championed or criticized as a Christian thinker as a brilliant theological genius or an enthusiastic convert who spun arguments to justify his new allegiances. In these essays Neil Elliott engages some of the most provocative currents in contemporary scholarship including Paul and the nature of violence; the presumptions of religious cultural or national innocence in particular interpretations of the apostle; the recent enthusiasm for Paul in some streams of Marxist thought; competing construals of economic realities in Paul's day (and our own); and questions surrounding Paul's legacy today.