Excursus: Essential Reads

In the last few weeks I have come across a paper and a book, referred to in that paper, which are gratifyingly validating of the approach expressed in this blog and in my new book as well as some of the papers I have published, and also profoundly illuminating in their own right.

J. Louis Martyn's Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Continuum 1997) is the best book on the subject I have ever read. If you aren't interested in the issues discussed in the first couple of essays, begin at p. 90.

The paper that led me to this book is Peter J. Leithart's 'The Gospel, Gregory VII, and Modern Theology' in Modern Theology  19.1, 2003. His thesis is very similar to mine except that he follows the 'trail of oil' instead of the trail of the 'work of silence'. An absolutely riveting paper for anyone interested in what went wrong with Christianity very early on, the effects of which haunt us today.

I can't recommend these two works highly enough.