The result of over thirty years of research and lecturing, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes is a ground-breaking study of Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. Bailey examines this canonical letter through the lenses of Paul's Jewish socio-cultural and rhetorical background and the Mediterranean context of the Corinthian recipients. In a set of connected essays, he draws the reader's attention to the letter's rootedness in the Hebrew prophetic tradition, the intentional theological structure of Paul's epistolary organization and the Near Eastern cultural practices that inflect Paul's rhetorical performance. All of this is brought to bear in teasing out the nature of Paul's response to the critical situations facing the Corinthian community: racial, ethnic and theological divisions, sexual misconduct, intimate interaction with pagan practices and disputes about church practices.

Bailey shows the relevance of prophetic and rabbinic forms of language, uses Arabic, Coptic and Syriac sources, and rightly stresses the coherence of this epistle and its theology of the cross. He is alert to intertextual resonances, and offers distinctive ideas. I warmly commend this work. -- Anthony C. Thiselton, University of Nottingham
Ken Bailey is pure gold. No writer I can think of has been a greater help for teaching the Scriptures with freshness and clarity. What a gift to have his insights on Paul. -- John Ortberg, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
As he works through the letter Bailey, drawing on neglected Syriac commentaries and his Middle Eastern experiences, presents a gem laden exposition of 1 Corinthians that engages topics of Christian unity, the cross, living in a pagan culture, men and women in worship, and the resurrection. This is a study on 1 Corinthians like none other I have seen. -- Michael F. Bird, Crossway College, Australia

Kenneth E. Bailey is an author and lecturer in Middle Eastern New Testament studies. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he also serves as Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church, USA. He holds graduate degrees in Arabic language and literature, and in systematic theology; his ThD is in New Testament. He has written many books in English and in Arabic, including Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes and Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes, both published by SPCK.