This clear and user-friendly introduction to the interpretive method called "epistolary analysis" shows how focusing on the form and function of Paul's letters yields valuable insights into the apostle's purpose and meaning. The author helps readers interpret Paul's letters properly by paying close attention to the apostle's use of ancient letter-writing conventions. Paul is an extremely skilled letter writer who deliberately adapts or expands traditional epistolary forms so that his persuasive purposes are enhanced. This is an ideal supplemental textbook for courses on Paul or the New Testament. It contains numerous analyses of key Pauline texts, including a final chapter analyzing the apostle's Letter to Philemon as a "test case" to demonstrate the benefits of this interpretive approach.

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST CRIME NOVELS OF THE YEAR February 9, 1942. Disgraced Southern cop Woodrow Cain arrives in New York City for a new position with the NYPD and is greeted with smoke billowing out from the SS Normandie, engulfed in flames on the Hudson. On Cain’s first day on the job, a body turns up in the same river. Unfamiliar with the milieu of mob bosses and crooked officials in the big city, Cain’s investigation stalls, until a strange man who calls himself Danziger enters his life. Danziger looks like a miscreant, but speaks five languages, has the manners of a gentleman, and is the one person who can help Cain identify the body. A letter writer for illiterate European immigrants, Danzinger has a seemingly boundless knowledge of the city’s denizens and networks—and possesses information that extends beyond the reach of his clients, hinting at an unfathomable past. As the body count grows, Cain and Danziger inch closer toward an underground web of possibly traitorous corruption . . . but in these murky depths, not even Danzinger can know what kind of danger will await them.