Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes

Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians

By: Kenneth E. Bailey

Narrated by: Tom Parks

Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, steeped in the learning of his people.

But he was also a Roman citizen who widely traveled the Mediterranean basin, and was very knowledgeable of the dominant Greek and Roman culture of his day. These two mighty rivers of influence converge in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

With razor-sharp attention to the text, Kenneth Bailey examines the cultural milieu and rhetorical strategies that shaped this pivotal epistle. He discovers the deep layers of the Hebraic prophetic tradition informing Paul's writing, linking the Apostle with the great prophets of the Old Testament.

Throughout, Bailey employs his expert knowledge of Near Eastern and Mediterranean culture to deliver to listeners a new understanding of Paul and his world. Familiar passages take on a new hue as they are stripped of standard Western interpretations and rendered back into their ancient setting.

©2011 Kenneth E. Bailey (P)2022 Tantor

The great depths of an epistles heart

This is probably the most in-depth commentary I've ever read of 1st Corinthians. The amount of references that attached really help bring home the meaning that Paul encoding in this letter. It has given me more breath and fundamentally strong understanding of the context that the Corinthians lived in. I also enjoy personal connections that Dr. Bailey shares from his decades of experience in the middle east. I will say it does have a bit of a mono-tone

Narrator skips over Bible verses.

This is an excellent commentary! The reader is good. it is very listenable. Kenneth Bailey brings in a very important Middle Eastern perspective to understanding the New Testament which is ultimately a Middle Eastern, Jewish text.

The problem though is that the narrator does not read out the Bible verses Kenneth Bailey is commenting on. They are passed over as if they were images. So when one is listening one has to think hard about which Bible verses he's talking about.

I happen to have a print copy so I can stop and see what he's talking about when I'm home. But of course, I cannot do that when I am driving. Kenneth Bailey says much about the grammatical structure of the Bible passages, some of which cannot be captured through an audio recording alone. But to skip the reading of the Bible passages in the audio version makes listening to this recording less profitable.

I recommend Audible go back and insert the reading of the Bible verses within this text. They don't have to be read with all the emphasis and the spacing that is used to visually explain the grammatical structure. But it is very important for somebody listening to a Bible commentary to also hear the Bible verses being commented on.