Light from the Gentiles : : Hellenistic philosophy and early Christianity : collected essays, 1959-2012 / / by Abraham J. Malherbe ; edited by Carl R. Holladay, John T. Fitzgerald, James W. Thompson, Gregory E. Sterling.

• Author: Malherbe, Abraham J.
• Place / Publishing House: Boston : : Brill,, 2013.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Novum Testamentum, Supplements 150.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (1153 pages)
• Notes: "Volume 1 / 2."
• Other title: Preliminary Material --; Introduction /; 1 The Corinthian Contribution /; 2 The Task and Method of Exegesis /; 3 The Beasts at Ephesus /; 4 “Gentle as a Nurse”: The Cynic Background to 1 Thessalonians 2 /; 5 The Inhospitality of Diotrephes /; 6 Social Level and Literary Culture of Early Christianity /; 7 ΜΗ ΓΕΝΟΙΤΟ in the Diatribe and Paul /; 8 Medical Imagery in the Pastoral Epistles /; 9 Antisthenes and Odysseus, and Paul at War /; 10 Exhortation in First Thessalonians /; 11 “In Season and Out of Season”: 2 Timothy 4:2 /; 12 Paul: Hellenistic Philosopher or Christian Pastor? /; 13 “Not in a Corner”: Early Christian Apologetic in Acts 26:26 /; 14 “Pastoral Care” in the Thessalonian Church /; 15 Did the Thessalonians Write to Paul? /; 16 Traditions and Theology of Care in the New Testament /; 17 Paulus Senex /; 18 Determinism and Free Will in Paul: The Argument of 1 Corinthians 8 and 9 /; 19 God’s New Family at Thessalonica /; 20 Paul’s Self-Sufficiency (Philippians 4:11) /; 21 The Christianization of a Topos (Luke 12:13–34) /; 22 Conversion to Paul’s Gospel /; 23 Anti-Epicurean Rhetoric in 1 Thessalonians /; 24 The Apostle Paul as a Pastor /
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• ISBN: 9004256520
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: by Abraham J. Malherbe ; edited by Carl R. Holladay, John T. Fitzgerald, James W. Thompson, Gregory E. Sterling.

Rather than viewing the Graeco-Roman world as the “background” against which early Christian texts should be read, Abraham J. Malherbe saw the ancient Mediterranean world as a rich ecology of diverse intellectual traditions that interacted within specific social contexts. These essays, spanning over fifty years, illustrate Malherbe’s appreciation of the complexities of this ecology and what is required to explore philological and conceptual connections between early Christian writers, especially Paul and Athenagoras, and their literary counterparts who participated in the religious and philosophical discourse of the wider culture. Malherbe’s essays laid the groundwork for his magisterial commentary on the Thessalonian correspondence and launched the contemporary study of Hellenistic moral philosophy and early Christianity.