The Logos Research Commentary is your starting point for study and research. It surveys all the relevant literature on a passage and brings the summary back to you. This commentary summarizes a broad range of views on a particular passage—views you may or may not agree with, but in all cases, views you will encounter as you critically study the text. A complete introduction to each literary unit in the Bible, it will bring new thoroughness to your research.

In this volume, Beattie undertakes a comparative survey of the treatment of women and marriage in three different kinds of texts: 1) those generally viewed as authentically Pauline—namely, 1 Corinthians; 2) the deutero-Pauline literature—Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles; and 3) some tractates from the Nag Hammadi Library—giving particular attention to the Gospel of Philip, the Exegesis on the Soul, the Hypostasis of the Archons, and the Gospel of Thomas. The theoretical position she takes is based upon the neopragmatist thought of Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish, Rorty’s notions of ‘contingency’ and ‘redescription’ being of particular importance.

“Be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). This is a recurring exhortation in the letters of the apostle Paul. No other New Testament writer gives such a sustained emphasis on thanksgiving—and yet, major modern studies of Paul fail to wrestle with it. David Pao aims to rehabilitate this theme by showing how, for Paul, thanksgiving is grounded in the covenantal traditions of salvation history. He states that to offer thanks to God is to live a life of worship and to anticipate the future acts of God, all in submission to the lordship of Christ. He makes a claim that ingratitude to God is idolatry. He shows a link between theology, including eschatology, and ethics. Here he provides clear insights into the passion of an apostle who never fails to insist on the significance of both the gospel message and the response this message demands.

We know that the earliest Christians sang hymns. Paul encourages believers to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” And at the dawn of the second century the Roman official Pliny names a feature of Christian worship as “singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to God.” But are some of these early Christian hymns preserved for us in the New Testament? Are they right before our eyes? New Testament scholars have long debated whether early Christian hymns appear in the New Testament. And where some see preformed hymns and liturgical elements embossed on the page, others see patches of rhetorically elevated prose from the author’s hand.

Studying Paul’s Letters provides a survey of the most relevant current methods in Pauline scholarship. Joseph A. Marchal leads a group of scholars who are also experienced teachers in courses on Paul. More than a series of “how-to” essays in interpretation, each chapter in this volume shows how differences in starting point and interpretive decisions shape different ways of understanding Paul. Each teacher-scholar focuses on what a particular method brings to interpretation and applies that method to a text in Paul’s letters, aiming not just at the beginning student but at the “tough choices” every teacher must make in balancing information with critical reflection. Studying Paul’s Letters is organized for use in a single semester course on Paul and is perfect for graduate students, seminarians, and undergraduate students. Logos Bible Software dramatically improves the value of Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspectives and Methods by enabling you to find what you’re...