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M. David Litwa, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.

Abbreviations 15
Introduction: The Logic and History of Deification in Pauline Research 17
Transcendence and Deification in Hellenistic Religion 17
The “Otherness” of Deification 22
Paul and Deification 26
History of Research 29
Recent Research on Paul and Deification 37
Results 43
The Method of this Study 46
Conclusion: A Working Definition of Deification, and Issues of Clarification 47
Part I: The Context of Deification in Paul 51
Chapter 1: What is a God? Defining Divinity in the Greco-Roman World 53
Introduction 53
Formulating the Right Question 54
Divinity in the Greco-Roman World 57
Immortality 60
Power 62
Power, Divinity, and Kings 63
Ancient Jewish Conceptions of Divinity 66
The Pauline Understanding of Divinity 71
Conclusion 73
Chapter 2: Survey of Deification: Assimilation to Specific Deities 74
Introduction 74
The Greek Vocabulary of Deification 74
Evaluation 77
Deification in Homer 78
Deification in Hesiod, Pindar, and the Homeric Poets 79
Historical Precursors to Ruler Cult 82
Deification in the Ruler Cult 84
Philip II 84
Demetrius Poliorcetes 87
Ruler Cult in Ptolemaic Egypt 90
Ptolemaic Assimilation to Dionysus 93
Background on Dionysus-Osiris 93
The Beginnings of Roman Ruler Cult: Marc Antony’s Assimilation to Dionysus 97
Conclusion 101
Chapter 3 : The Jewish Roots of Deification 102
Introduction: Jews and Greeks on the Boundaries Between the Human and the Divine 102
The Biblical Roots of Deification 113
The Meaning of Iconic Similarity 116
The Glorified Moses in Philo 122
Sharing God’s Divine Sovereignty: The Divinity of Israelite Kings 125
Conclusion 131
Part II Sharing the Divine Identity 133
Chapter 4: Divine Corporeality and the Pneumatic Body 135
Introduction 135
The Bodies of the Gods 136
From the Glory Body to the Pneumatic Body 143
The Problem at Corinth 144
The Nature of Paul’s Pneumatic Body 145
Comparison of the Pauline Pneumatic Body with the Stoic Soul 153
Celestial Immortality 156
Celestial Immortality in Jewish Sources 163
Paul and Celestial Immortality 164
Chapter 5: Divine Corporeality and Deification 168
Introduction 168
Celestial Immortality as Deification 168
The Divinity of the Heavens 170
The Human Pneuma as a Divine Reality 174
Deification in Paul 177
Connaturality 182
Conclusion 185
Chapter 6: Deification and the Cosmic Rule of the Saints 188
Introduction 188
The Battle of the Gods: Cultural Antecedents 189
Paul’s Myth of Battling Gods 192
The Rule of the Saints in Pre-Christian Judaism 195
Paul and the Promise of Eschatological Lordship 198
Results: The Question of Deification 204
Conclusion 206
Chapter 7: Paul and Moral Assimilation to God 209
Introduction 209
Platonic Assimilation to God 211
Virtue and Deification 212
The Mode of Deification through Moral Virtue 216
Paul, Virtue, Self-Transcendence, and the Question of Deification 222
Deepening the Comparison 225
Paul and Assimilation to God 228
2 Corinthians 3:18 as Moral Assimilation to God 232
Conclusion 239
Part III: Addressing the Challenges: Monotheism and Divine Transcendence 243
Chapter 8: Monotheism and Divine Multiplicity 245
Problematizing Exclusivist Monotheism 247
Towards a Theory of Ancient Jewish Monotheism 255
The Status of Other Numina 261
Paul and Summodeism 264
The Meaning of God’s Oneness in Ancient Judaism 267
Conclusion 272
Chapter 9: Creation and the Objection of Absolute Transcendence 274
Introduction 274
Shareable and Unshareable Divinity 278
Mediate Divinity and Participation 279
Non-creating and Created Gods 282
God the Creator 286
The Question of Idolatry 290
Conclusion 290
Excursus: Worship and Divinity 291
Conclusion 298
Limitations and Clarifications 299
Results 315
Bibliography 317
Primary Sources 317
Secondary Sources 321
Subject Index 342