Pauline Parallels

Great book but its authors chose not to include 1 & 2 Tim. and Titus for their own reasons thus limiting its scope to the more liberal reader. Never the less it is a great resource.

As I see it, there are many books for biblical studies, but very few tools. As far as tools are considered, there are the primary texts themselves (including various literature from the time period), there are lexica (e.g., BDAG), concordances, grammars (e.g., BDF), and synopses (e.g., Aland's Greek synopsis of the four gospels). Pauline Parallels should join this list of necessary tools-especially for students of Paul. One of the weaknesses of this work is the exclusion of the Pastoral Epistles. I think they should have been included even under the assumption that the Pastorals were not penned by Paul because they would at least represent a Pauline school of thought or be useful to those who deem them Pauline. The same criteria for the Pastorals should be granted as is given for Deuteros, but at least the Pastorals are referenced in the notes. One of the strengths of Pauline Parallels is that it organizes the passages not by topic but by primary reference in canonical order. Thus the first passage is Romans 1.1-7 and the last is Philemon 25. Each section of Paul's writing is assigned a number so you can reference that number for further parallels. The passages are also divided into three sections. The first section is text at hand. So, let's say you're looking up Romans 12.9-21, the first section has the full text of that passage in bold typeface. The second and third sections are called Primary and Secondary respectively. What's the difference between the primary and secondary parallels? This is how it is explained: "Letter-structure paragraphs and paragraphs containing formal elements are labeled and have structural and formal 'primary' parallels. When there are additional, thematic parallels, they are included as 'secondary' parallels. Paragraphs not labeled as structural or formal, namely thematic paragraphs, simply have primary parallels." (xiii) There are also notes for specific verse references that refer the reader to sections in the Pastorals, Acts, other sections of the New Testament, and Old Testament. Additionally, there exists a helpful User's Guide and a number of different chronologies of Paul scattered throughout the book. The text used is that of the Revised Standard Version.