Ancient Letters and the New Testament

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Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis by Hans-Josef Klauck

Review
The ancient world, both Jewish, Greek, Roman and Christian, was through and through a culture of letter writing. Klauck's already classic, German presentation and discussion from 1998 of the actual evidence for this claim is here made available in English in a thoroughly updated version that engages the best of both European and North American scholarship from the 20th and 21st centuries. The book is a must for anyone seriously concerned to understand ancient epistolary communication, including one-third of the New Testament. --Troels Engberg-Pedersen, University of Copenhagen

This is an outstanding book, since it combines basic syllabus material with advanced philological and exegetical scholarship. Its author displays a profound knowledge both of Early Christianity and of the Hellenistic-Roman world. A special asset consists of the numerous little-known examples of ancient letters which are presented in a most convenient and easily accessible way in this rich book. --Samuel Vollenweider, University of Zurich, Switzerland

This splendid book is vintage Klauck. He offers a close reading of a wide range of ancient letters as well as brief discussion of ancient epistolary theory and of rhetoric. He strikes just the right balance between basic instruction and original insight. --Abraham J. Malherbe, Buckingham Professor Emeritus of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Yale Divinity School

Product Description
This volume places the New Testament letters squarely in the middle of all the important letter corpora of antiquity. Chapters cover the basic letter formula, papyrus and postal delivery, non-literary and diplomatic correspondence, Greek and Latin literary letters, epistolary theory, letters in early Judaism, and all the letters of the New Testament. Part I of each chapter surveys each corpus, followed by detailed exegetical examples in Part II. Comprehensive bibliographies and 54 exercises with answers suit this guide to student and scholar alike.

About the Author
Hans-Josef Klauck (Th. D. University of Munich) is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelly Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature at the University of Chicago.