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Dictionary of Paul and His Letters

The second edition of the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, published by IVP Academic, features significant updates and new contributions reflecting thirty years of advancements in Pauline studies. With over 95% of the articles written specifically for this edition, it addresses contemporary topics such as sexuality, gender, and various interpretative perspectives. The book is a valuable resource for students and scholars, offering extensive bibliographies and a diverse range of contributors.

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118 views3 pages

Dictionary of Paul and His Letters

The second edition of the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, published by IVP Academic, features significant updates and new contributions reflecting thirty years of advancements in Pauline studies. With over 95% of the articles written specifically for this edition, it addresses contemporary topics such as sexuality, gender, and various interpretative perspectives. The book is a valuable resource for students and scholars, offering extensive bibliographies and a diverse range of contributors.

Uploaded by

Peter
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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McKnight, Scot, Lynn H. Cohick, Nijay K. Gupta, Eds.

Dictionary of Paul and His Letters:


A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship. Second Edition. Downers Grove, Ill.:
IVP Academic, 2023. 1264 pp. Hb; $70. Link to IVP Academic

In 1993, IVP Academic published the first edition of The Dictionary of Paul and his Letters
(DPL). I was taking a seminary exegesis course on Paul’s letters, and the DPL was a required
textbook. This was my first introduction to controversial topics like the New Perspective on Paul
and Social-scientific approaches to Paul. When I began
teaching Pauline Lit classes at the university, the DPL was a
constant companion. I often send students to the Dictionary
as a source for research papers. IVP Academic handed out
samplers of this second edition and IBR, making it one of
the most anticipated books of 2023.

Remarkably, it has been thirty years since that first edition,


and things have changed considerably in Pauline studies.
The New Perspective is not new anymore. The Apocalyptic
Paul and Paul within Judaism are hot topics barely covered
in the original DPL. Today, people ask questions about
sexuality and gender, which scholars rarely addressed in
1993.

As the editors explain in the preface, “The DPL2, as we


editors call it, is not a mere touch-up of the original DPL but
truly a completely new dictionary.” Although fifteen articles
from the first edition were revised, the rest were written for
the second edition. The IVP Academic promotional material states, “Over 95% of the articles
have been written specifically for this edition.” The second edition is about 200 pages larger.

Scanning through the table of contents confirms this. This second edition has many new topics
which need to be addressed; these caught my attention:

• Louise A, Gosbell, Disability and Paul


• Jamie P Davies, Apocalyptic Paul
• J. J. Johnson Leese, Ecological Paul
• Michael F. Bird, Supersessionism
• Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity
• Joshua Jipp, Hospitality
• Trevor J. Burke, Kinship Language in Paul
• Lynn H. Cohick, Paul and Judaism
• Craig A. Evans, Qumran and Paul
• Dean Flemming, Mission
Paul Trebilco updates his article on Travel and Itinerary Plans (“Itineraries, Travel Plans,
Journeys, Apostolic Parousia” in the first edition) which now includes a detailed chart comparing
Paul’s letters to the book of Acts.

Paul’s views on women and sexuality have become increasingly controversial in Pauline studies
over the last thirty years. Michelle Lee-Barnewall contributes a detailed article on Man and
Woman in Paul (dealing with several of the most controversial verses). This replaces Craig
Keener’s excellent article in the first edition. Second, she also has an updated discussion of
marriage and divorce (including adultery and incest), replacing Gerald Hawthorne’s brief article
in the first edition. Lucy Peppiatt contributes a full article on Woman (in the first edition there
was only a pointer back to Hawthorne’s article). Judith. A. Oder has an article on Women named
by Paul (Junia was a woman Paul counted as prominent among the apostles) and an article on
maternal imagery in Paul. Justin K. Gill writes on Sexuality, Sexual Ethics. Unlike the first
edition, this article has detailed information about both Greco-Roman and Jewish backgrounds to
Paul’s sexual ethics. Preston Sprinkle contributed a much more detailed article on
Homosexuality. The bibliographies for each of the articles bring the discussions up to date.
Barry. N. Danylak add an article on Singleness and Celibacy.

One major section of the second edition is a collection of articles under the heading
“Interpretation of Paul” spanning fifty pages. As Nijay Gupta explains in his introduction to the
section, “A reader’s living world shapes their reading and interpretation, and all readers can learn
from insights and perspectives from other communities” (483).

• African American
• Asian and Asian American
• Augustine
• Calvin
• Jewish
• Luther
• Medieval
• Modern European
• New Perspective
• Patristic
• Postcolonial
• Reading Paul Latinamente (Latin American)

This section is useful, but a section on feminist interpretations of Paul would improve the list
(although there is a reference to feminist interpretations in the entry on postcolonial
interpretation). Shane. J. Wood covers anti-imperial readings of Paul in his article on “Politics
and Power.” Armin Baum contributes an article on pseudepigraphy, formerly covered only in
first-edition articles on Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles. Baum includes “coping strategies for
canonical pseudepigraphy” in Catholic and Protestant traditions. The articles on Ephesians (Lynn
Cohick) and the Pastoral Epistles (Lyn M Kidson) discuss pseudepigraphy. Both articles are
open to traditional authorship but do not strongly advocate for the view.

The second edition also allows a new generation of scholars to contribute to the ongoing
conversation. Sadly, some original contributors have passed on (I. Howard Marshall, Leon
Morris, James Dunn, Larry Hurtado, Grant Osborne, Gordon Fee), and others have retired. Quite
a few scholars who were only starting their careers when the first edition was published are now
major contributors to DPL2. For example, both associate editors, Lynn Cohick and Nijay Gupta,
are now established Pauline Literature scholars. Not only are the contributors younger, but they
are more diverse. Judging only by names, I count twenty-eight women in the second edition,
compared to only eight in the first. There are more international contributors.

One of the most important features of the Dictionary of Paul and his Letters is the bibliography
at the conclusion of the article. There are often extensive and will point students and scholars to
the relevant literature to further explore the topic. If you use the version in Logos Bible Software,
many entries are tagged for easy reference. Something new in the second edition: the author's
name is printed in bold in the bibliography, making the list easier to read.

Conclusion. The second edition of Dictionary of Paul and his Letters is worth the investment.
You should immediately buy this book and keep the first edition handy since there is so little
overlap between the two.

NB: Thanks to IVP Academic for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. I did
also purchase the Logos edition. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Published on April 18, 2023, on Reading Acts.

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