Chrys Caragounis responds to the Gaventa review

A few days ago I published Alisha Paddock’s helpful review of Beverly Roberts Gaventa's, Our Mother Saint Paul (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007)

Chrys Caragounis, Professor in New Testament Exegesis at the University of Lund, read Alisha’s review and sent me some of his thoughts concerning the claim that Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 2:7, “portrays himself both as an infant and as a nurse, taking care of her own children” (Alisha’s summary of one of Gaventa’s argument).

Chrys strongly disagrees with this reading!

I have uploaded his 1 page letter as a pdf here. Do give it a read as on all such Greek language matters, Chrys is an internationally recognised leading authority. I think it is exciting that blogs like this can facilitate such scholarly dialogue.

By the way, the article, which he refers to in his letter, can be downloaded here. Click the top option, “Did Paul Behave?”

I sent Alisha a copy of Chrys' letter before I left for England, and she has already written a brief response in the comments to her guest post. I think it is the mark of a good review that it generates such discussion. So if you want to review any more, Alisha .... :-)

I must say, Chrys' article is rather impressive, and it functions, I would add, as a good case study to demonstrate one of the points made in his book The Development of Greek and the New Testament. Namely, that a linguistic and philological inquiry needs to address “the evidence of the entire history of Greek” (p. 5 of his online version of the Festschrift article).