Jeffrey A. D. Weima - Paul the Ancient Letter Writer: An Introduction to Epistolary Analysis

The origin of this book began over thirty years ago. It was in the early 1980s, during my days as a student at Calvin Theological Seminary, when my Old Testament professor, John Stek, first showed me the importance of looking carefully at not just the content of the biblical text ( what the author says) but also the form of the biblical text ( how the author says it). My first reaction was skepticism as he employed the method of literary criticism to the book of Ruth. When Professor Stek applied this same method in a subsequent course dealing with Hebrew poetry and the book of Psalms, I became a bit more convinced about the importance of form and how a formal analysis of the biblical text can aid interpretation. Yet I still failed to see the implications of literary criticism for the interpretation of a different genreletters.

A few years later, as I was working on a PhD degree at the Toronto School of Theology, I took a course with John C. Hurd Jr. dealing with letters in early Christianity. It was then that I began to take seriously the form of Pauls letters and how deviations in the apostles typical or expected letter structure and his skillful adapting of various epistolary conventions were important for a correct reading of his correspondence. This recognition led me to do a formal analysis of Pauls letter closings for my doctoral dissertation, which was later published as Neglected Endings: The Significance of the Pauline Letter Closings (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994).

In subsequent years, I published essays on the letter closing of Galatians, the epistolary framework of Romans, and the epistolary conventions in Philemon. The research connected with these publications clearly demonstrated (at least to me) that the method of epistolary analysisthe term commonly used for the literary analysis of lettersprovided rich insights into not just the letter closing but the opening, thanksgiving, and body sections of Pauls letters as well. This conviction compelled me to include a section on literary analysis in my commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians for the Baker Exegetical Commentary series, in which I examined the epistolary form and function of each passage before commenting on it more specifically. My teaching of New Testament letters over the past twenty-four years has also long included an introductory unit on how to read an ancient letter.

This brief historical overview reveals how I have moved from my early skepticism to being a strong advocate for the importance of literary criticism in general and of epistolary analysis in particular. The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to both the method and the interpretative value of epistolary analysis. Although others have written on this method, their treatment of the four major sections of Pauls letters (opening, thanksgiving, body, and closing) and the diverse epistolary conventions found within each of these four sections is too brief. A bigger weakness of previous studies, however, is their tendency to highlight only the form and epistolary conventions of Pauls letters without demonstrating how this knowledge can help us better understand the purpose and content of the apostles writings. By contrast, this book provides numerous examples of the exegetical payoff from detailed epistolary analysis. Merely being able to identify epistolary conventions in Pauls letters is not enough. We must also understand the function of these epistolary conventions and how Paul skillfully uses them to aid his persuasive purposes.

I gratefully acknowledge the help of others in completing this book. Pter Balla, rector and professor of New Testament at Kroli Gspr University in Budapest, and Neil Martin, my former student and current doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, graciously read the entire manuscript and offered helpful suggestions for its improvement. Wells Turner at Baker did an excellent job of editing the book, saving me from embarrassing errors and enhancing the volumes overall quality. Elisabeth (Betsy) De Vries, my teaching assistant for several years, drafted the various tables found in the book and also compiled the indexes. Calvin Theological Seminary, both its administrators and board of trustees, kindly granted me a sabbatical and a publication leave to focus on the writing of this book. I am most thankful to my wife, Bernice, for her constant support of me and my various ministries outside the classroom; she continues to be my best friend and partner in ministry. Finally, I am pleased to recognize the key role that my parents, David and Hinke Weima, as well as my parents-in-law, John and Joanne Zwier, have played in my life and academic career, and so it is to them that this book is gratefully dedicated.