Studies the topic of divine communication in Paul’s letters in the context of Graeco-Roman divination
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Winner of the Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise
Provides rigorous historical comparison of Paul with a range of Greek, Roman and Jewish sources
Critiques conventional theological categories and prejudices that inhibit comparison between Paul and his historical context
Critiques one-sided treatments of divination that view it solely in terms of power relations
Brings together diverse topics such as prophecy, revelation, scriptural interpretation, anthropology and cosmology into a coherent whole through the lens of divination
This book analyses the apostle Paul’s claims to receive and interpret knowledge from divine sources within the context of divination in the Graeco-Roman world. Each chapter studies a particular aspect of divination in Paul’s letters in comparison with similar phenomena in the Graeco-Roman world, dealing in turn with the underlying logic of divination (in the context of ancient philosophical conversations), visionary experience, prophecy and divine speech, the divinatory use of texts and the interpretation of signs. As such, the book forms an in-depth study of divine communication in Paul’s letters, integrating this theme with the broader topics of cosmology, anthropology, eschatology and theology. While New Testament texts and early Christian figures have traditionally been studied from the vantage point of theological categories (such as ‘revelation’) that isolate early Christianity from its historical context in the Graeco-Roman world, this book re-reads Paul’s thought and practice concerning divine communication within, not against, the Graeco-Roman thought and practice of divination. In doing so it illuminates the coherence and connections both between Paul and his historical context and between diverse topics of Paul’s letters that have usually been studied in isolation from each other.
Sharp’s book is a valuable study of divination in the letters of Paul. Because the category of divination is etic to Paul but emic to his environment, one of the main benefits of the book is that it helps readers to imagine how Paul would have been understood by his contemporaries. At the same time, Sharp does an excellent job of showing how Paul’s own ideas and practices relate to and fit within his historical context. [...] Each chapter contains a trove of useful information, and this book should be considered essential reading for all who study divine communication in Paul’s letters.
Matthew Sharp convincingly embeds the apocalyptic Jewish Paul in his larger Greco-Roman environment. In doing so, he makes a significant contribution to the dismantling of the Judaism/Hellenism divide that continues to plague many modern approaches to the apostle Paul.
While [Divination and Philosophy] should be read by all who specialize in Paul’s letters, given the scope of Sharp’s research and his detailed engagement with Greek and Roman material, classicists and those interested in ancient divination more broadly will find this volume compelling. Divination and Philosophy is a welcome contribution to recent attempts to redescribe Paul in terms of ancient Mediterranean religion and the movement that some scholars have begun to call “Paul within paganism.”
Matthew T. Sharp completed his PhD, which this book is based on, at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity in 2020. He has a chapter, titled ‘Courting Daimons in Corinth: Daimonic Partnerships, Cosmic Hierarchies and Divine Jealousy in Paul’ forthcoming in an edited volume on demonology edited by Hector Patmore and Josef Lössl for Brill’s Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity series. He has also published a review of Gordon D. Fee, Jesus the Lord According to Paul the Apostle in the Expository Times, and has also published book reviews in the Expository Times, Review of Biblical Literature, and Journal for the Study of the New Testament. His current academic position is as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews.
