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Divination and Philosophy in the Letters of Paul

In divination, Edinburgh University Press, Joshua W. Jipp, Magic, Matthew Sharp, Paul, Philosophy on September 25, 2024 at 8:28 pm

2024.09.06 |  Matthew T. Sharp. Divination and Philosophy in the Letters of Paul. Edinburgh Studies in Religion in Antiquity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023.

Review by Joshua W. Jipp, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

This revised doctoral thesis, completed at the University of Edinburgh, takes as its starting point the question: “if Paul claims to convey the words and will of a deity, how does he believe he has received such knowledge?” (p. 1). While there is an abundance of studies devoted to aspects of this question (e.g., Paul and healing, Paul and prophecy, Paul and religious experience, Paul and signs and wonders, Paul and glossolalia), “Pauline scholarship has so far lacked an adequate analytical category through which to account for all of these methods of divine communication in Paul’s historical context” (p. 2). Sharp proposes, then, to engage in a careful examination of Paul’s letters through the ancient category of “divination” – that is, “the reception and interpretation of knowledge that is believed to have a divine, or superhuman, source” (p. 2). Paul does not use this category himself, but the scholarly use of divination to make sense of Paul’s religious knowledge, Sharp proposes, will enable scholars “to bring together a collection of related practices and ideas in Paul’s letters that existing scholarly categories usually keep apart” (p. 25).

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The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri

In Eleni PACHOUMI, Magic, Mohr Siebeck, Papyrology, Paul Linjamaa, review on May 30, 2017 at 3:09 pm

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2017.05.11 | Eleni Pachoumi, The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri. Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity 102. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. XVI, 258 pages. ISBN 978-3-16-154018-9.

Review by Paul Linjamaa, Lund University.

This monograph is devoted to the many and varying forms of ancient magical papyri – spells, hymns, amulets, rituals, remedies, and mythological and liturgical elements, from the Greco Roman Egypt of second century BC to the seventh century CE.  The focus is, as indicated in the title, to investigate the “concepts of the divine”. The study comprises revised parts of the authors’ doctoral dissertation (chapter 3?) and “some articles” (chapter 1 and 2?) (9). The central concern, as stated on the back, is to investigate how “philosophical, religious and mystical assimilations affect the concepts of the divine in the Greek magical papyri”. The study includes an introduction, three central chapters, followed by an epilogue and appendices (comprising of a mind map of how the magical papyri were used and an assortment of lists pertaining to the source material used in the study).

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