Tuesday, September 13, 2011

PhD Dissertation on Paul's use of OT Available for Free

Pastor-scholar Brian J. Abasciano has done a great service and made his PhD dissertation available online, for free no less. It baffles me that PhD dissertations are so difficult to access when they ought to represent some of the best work available. Of course, I do realize that these projects are intended to be converted into books, which Abasciano did. In fact, you can purchase the published version from the publisher for a mere $ 170! Or, you could check out Abasciano's expanded work for free.

Basically, Abasciano follows Richard Hay's argument in Echoes of Scripture that when Paul cites or alludes to an OT passage he his drawing from the larger context of the passage. He also follows Hays's criteria for hearing echoes of Scripture, though he does make expansions to it. In sum, he develops a very clear method for approaching Paul's use of the OT. Abasciano is currently working to expand his thesis to cover all of Romans 9-11, which he hopes will result in the most in depth treatment of the text anywhere.

I'm very much looking forward to interacting with Abasciano's dissertation as I develop my thesis on Romans and as he publishes his lengthy treatment. Until then curious readers should check out a review of Abasciano's dissertation (the published version) by Steve Moyise here. Both Abasciano and Moyise are scholars who take Paul seriously as he interacts with the OT.

4 comments:

Greg said...

Link not working.

Unknown said...

Greg,

I wonder if the server at the Society of Evangelical Arminians is down? I can't seem to access anything there. Check back in a few days.

Unknown said...

The link is back up.

Gertrude Peterson said...

It’s true that it is hard to find dissertation paper to be available, so it is good to hear that there are people who are willing to publish their paper from thesis abstract up to the last pages of their work to the public without any fee. And I think it would help a lot of people who are finding it hard to write a research paper.