James Carleton Paget profile

Teaching Officers | Senior Lecturer, New Testament Studies

Profile

Present occupation

Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies, and Fellow and Tutor of Peterhouse.

Teaching and Research

James Carleton Paget has taught courses in all areas of the New Testament, as well as courses in the history of ancient Judaism between Alexander the Great and the end of the second century CE, second century Christian history, and the history of Biblical interpretation since 1800. His research interests focus on Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity, ancient Jewish Christianity, and the history of ancient biblical interpretation. He has a particular interest in the life and thought of Albert Schweitzer, New Testament scholar, philosopher, Nobel Laureate, musician, and medical doctor. He is currently compiling a collection of studies on Schweitzer, and seeking to write a book on the evolution of second-century Christianity.

Publications

Books

• The Epistle of Barnabas: Outlook and Background, WUNT II.64 (JCB Mohr [Paul Siebeck]: Tübingen, 1994 [314 pages]).
• Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity, WUNT I.251 (JCB Mohr [Paul Siebeck]: Tübingen, 2010 [538 pages]).

Edited Volume

• Redemption and Resistance in the Messianic Hope of Jews and Christians in Antiquity,with Markus Bockmuehl (London: Continuum, 2007).

Articles in refereed journals

• ‘Barnabas 9:4: a peculiar verse on circumcision', Vigiliae Christianae 45 (1991), 242-254.
• ‘Jewish Proselytism at the Time of Christian Origins: Chimera or Reality?', Journal for the Study of the New Testament  62 no. 2 (1996), 65-103.
• 'Paul and the Epistle of Barnabas', Novum Testamentum  38 (1996), 359-381.
• 'Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity', Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum  1 (1997), 195-225.
• 'Clement of Alexandria and the Jews', Scottish Journal of Theology 51 (1998), 86-97.
• ‘Some Observations on Josephus and Christianity', Journal of Theological Studies  n.s. 52 (2001), 539-624.
• ‘Albert Schweitzer’s second edition of The quest of the historical Jesus’, Bulletin of the John  Rylands Library 88 (2006; imprint 2009), 3-39.
• ‘After 70 and All That: A Response to Martin Goodman’s Rome and Jerusalem’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31(2009), 339-365.

Articles in collective volumes

• 'The Interpretation of the Old Testament in the Alexandrian Tradition', in Magne Sæbø (ed.), Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. The History of its Interpretation Volume 1 From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300).  Part 1 Antiquity  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1996), 478-542.
• 'The Idea of the Church in the Apostolic Fathers', in M.N.A. Bockmuehl and Michael J. Thompson (eds.), Vision of the Church. Festschrift for John Sweet (T & T Clark: Edinburgh, 1997), 193-206.
• 'Jewish Christianity', in William Horbury, W.D. Davies and John Sturdy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: CUP, 1999), 731-775.
• 'Quests for the historical Jesus', in Markus Bockmuehl (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Jesus  (Cambridge: CUP, 2001), 138-155.
• 'Jews and Christians in ancient Alexandria from the Ptolemies to Caracalla', in Michael Silk and Anthony Hirst (eds.), Alexandria. Real and Imagined  (Aldershot: Variorum, 2004), 143-166.
• ‘The Four and the Jews', in Markus Bockmuehl and Donald A. Hagner (eds.), The Written Gospel (Cambridge: CUP, 2005), 205-221.
• 'The Epistle of Barnabas and the New Testament', in A. Gregory and C. Tuckett (eds.), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: OUP, 2005), 229-249.
• ‘The Epistle of Barnabas’, The Expository Times 117 (2006), 441-446, reprinted in The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, Paul Foster (ed.) (T & T Clark; London, 2007), 72-80.
• ‘Egypt’, in M. N. A. Bockmuehl and J. Carleton Paget (eds.), Redemption and Resistance in the Messianiuc Hope of Jews and Christians in Antiquity (Continuum Press; London, 2007), 183-197.
• 'The Definition of the Term 'Jewish Christian and Jewish Christianity in the History of Research', in Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik (eds.), Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (Hendrickson: Peabody, 2007), 22-54.
• ‘The Religious Authority of Albert Schweitzer’s Jesus’, in M. N. A. Bockmuehl and A. Torrance (eds.), Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible: How the New Testament Shapes Christian Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 75-90.

Some forthcoming items

• ‘Miracles in early Christianity’, in G. Twelftree (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Miracles (Cambridge: CUP, 2011) (7, 000 words).
• ‘Albert Schweitzer: theologians in context’, accepted for publication in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, January 2011 (9, 500 words).
• ‘Albert Schweitzer and Paul’ (accepted for publication in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament)  (19,000 words).
• The New Cambridge History of the Bible. Volume 1:Antiquity,ed. with Joachim Schaper  (Cambridge: CUP, 2012).
•  ‘The Second Century’, in J. Carleton Paget and J. Schaper (eds.), The New Cambridge History of the Bible Vol. 1 (Cambridge: CUP, 2012) (16, 000 words).

Work in progress

• ‘The Christian second century: problems and thoughts’
• ‘Albert Schweitzer and Africa’ (in draft, though needing substantial revision).
• Studies in the Thought and Life of Albert Schweitzer
• Debating Jesus’ Existence: A Theological Controversy at the End of Wilhelmline Germany