This annotated list of readings on 2 Corinthians will look very familiar to those of you who have looked carefully at the list for 1 Corinthians I gave earlier.  That is because many books deal with both together, either on their own or as a part of a broader discussion of Paul and his letters.

I devote a fuller discussion of 2 Corinthians in my textbook, Bart Ehrman and Hugo Mendez, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 8^th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2024), ch. 20.  That’s a good place to start for a fuller exposition of what I have given here in my nutshell posts.  If you have an earlier edition of the book, it will be pretty much the same, except for the expanded bibliography.

Here is an annotated bibliography of books that will deal with 2 Corinthians.

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Aune, David. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987. Includes a superb discussion of the practices of letter writing in Greco-Roman antiquity as the social context for Paul’s epistles.

Beker, J. Christiaan. Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980. A sophisticated and astute discussion of the apocalyptic character of Paul’s theology and its various forms of expression in different situations that the apostle confronted. For advanced students.

Bruce, F. F. Apostle of the Heart Set Free. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977. A full study of Paul’s life and teachings by a major evangelical Christian scholar.

Dunn, James D. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. A clear and full overview of the major theological views of Paul by a leading British New Testament scholar.

Elliott, Neil, and Mark Reasoner. Documents and Images for the Study of Paul. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011. An extremely useful collection of ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish sources, and photographs of material remains (e.g., archaeological discoveries), that illuminate the teachings of Paul.

Harrill, Albert. Paul the Apostle: His Life and Legacy in Their Roman Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. One of the most informed studies of Paul in recent times, this highly informative biography situates the apostle carefully in his own social world.

Hawthorne, Gerald, and Ralph Martin. Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1993. A Bible dictionary that contains over two hundred articles on various topics relating to the life and writings of Paul, written by prominent evangelical scholars whom on several major issues take a different perspective from the one presented here (e.g., the authorship of the Deutero-Pauline and Pastoral epistles).

Hooker, Morna Dorothy. Paul: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld, 2003. A very useful introduction to the life and letters of Paul; a good place for students to begin.

Klauck, Hans-Josef. Ancient Letters and the New Testament. Waco TX: Baylor University Press, 2006. An authoritative account of how letters were composed in the Greco-Roman world in general (with numerous examples) and in the New Testament in particular.

Dale Martin, The Corinthian Body.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Meeks, Wayne. The First Urban Christians. The Social World of the Apostle Paul, 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. An impressive and highly influential study that explores the Pauline epistles from a sociohistorical rather than theological perspective. For more advanced students.

Meeks, Wayne, and John Fitzgerald. The Writings of St. Paul: Annotated Texts, Reception, and Criticism, 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2007. An edition of Paul’s writings with useful notes and a collection of important and classical essays written by a range of scholars and intellectuals, from philosophers to playwrights to historians, on the historical and religious significance of Paul.

Roetzel, Calvin. The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context, 6th ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2015. Perhaps the best introductory discussion of each of the Pauline epistles.

Wright, N. T. Paul in Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2005. An accessible introduction to Paul from a historical and, especially, theological perspective by a leading British scholar of the New Testament.

 

Commentaries:

Furnish, Victor Paul. Second Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries 32A. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. A technical commentary treating 2 Corinthians as a composite of two letters.

 

Online Resources:

Hugo Mendez, “Exploring the New Testament,” a 27-lecture course on the New Testament, including multiple lectures on Paul and his letters.