Professor Paul Trebilco
Professor
BSc (Canterbury), Bachelor of Divinity (Otago), PhD (University of Durham)
Room: 4S2, Arts Building
Tel 64 3 479 8798
Email paul.trebilco@otago.ac.nz
Paul Trebilco is Professor of New Testament. He studied Chemistry at the University of Canterbury, and then did a Bachelor of Divinity at Otago before completing his PhD in the New Testament in 1987 at the University of Durham.
He has published work on the Jewish and Greco-Roman backgrounds to the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles, the apostle Paul, early Christians in Ephesus, the relationship of Scripture and Church tradition, and the Self-designations used by the earliest Christians in the New Testament.
He is currently the General Editor of the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, published by Cambridge University Press.
Teaching
Interpreting the New Testament
The Gospels
Jesus in the New Testament
The Johannine Literature and the Pastoral Epistles
The Epistles
The Early Christians in Ephesus
Preferred Areas of Supervision
- The Historical Jesus
- The Johannine Literature (John's Gospel, 1-3 John and Revelation)
- Acts of the Apostles
- Pauline Theology
- The Pastoral Epistles
- Unity and Diversity in the New Testament
Main Research Interests
- The Early Christians in Ephesus
- The Pastoral Epistles
- The Johannine Literature
- Diaspora Judaism
Current Research
- The issue of self-designation in earliest Christianity. What terms would an early Christian use to address a gathering? We might think they would use the term "Christian", but since this is found only three times in the New Testament, it is unlikely that this is the term they would have used
- On-going work on the early Christians in Ephesus
- The development of early Christian communities in Asia Minor into the second century
- The Pastoral Epistles
- The sense of the "local" and the "global", as lens through which we can view the New Testament and earliest Christianity
Current Postgraduate Students
- Carmen Anderson (MTh) “Truth and Truth-telling in the New Testament”
- Doug Anderson (PhD) “Matthew 27:51b-53 Re-examined: Discussion of and Suggestions about the Peculiarities, Position, Provenance and Purpose of a Unique Passage of Scripture”
- David Balchin (MTh) “To Understand the Righteousness of God in Romans is to Understand how the Gospel is the Power of God for the Salvation of those who believe”
- Erin Bay (PhD) “Salvation as the Re-Sacralization of the Body: God's Pleasure in Human Embodiment of his Characteristics”
- Don Beattie (PhD) “Redaction and Testimony in Luke 15:1-16:13: Reconsidering the Original Orator/Lukan Author Relationship”
- Alesana Eteuati (PhD) “Destigmatization in Matthew 1-3: A reading of Matthew’s infancy and baptismal narrative”
- Erin Heim (PhD) “The effect of Huiothesia (Adoption) on shaping individual and collective identity in the early Christian communities of Galatia, Rome and Ephesus”
- Anna Hluan (PhD) “The meaning of 'silence' in Paul's writings: A study of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-15”
- Tom Innes (PhD) “Jubilee and Discipleship in the Gospel of Luke”
- Christine Sansotta (MTh) “Leadership in the New Testament with a focus on Pauline Literature”
- Dillon Thornton (PhD) “ 'Empty Talkers': Investigating the Hellenistic Elements of the Opposition in the Pastoral Epistles”
- Sean du Toit (PhD) “1 Peter: Negotiating Life within the Greco-Roman World”
- Rick Weymouth (PhD) “Dying and Rising with Christ: The Story and Example of Paul the Apostle”
- Max Whitaker (PhD) “A Quest for the Historical/Narrative Degree of the Acts of Jesus”
Recent Postgraduate students
- Tualagi Ah-Yek (MTh) “The metaphor of shepherding in John 10:1-18 and 1 Peter 5:1-7 and its significance for Samoan Ministry”
- Deborah Bower (PhD) “Isaiah, the Gospel of Luke, and Peter in Conversation with Cornelius. A Narrative-Critical Analysis of Acts 10:1-11:18”
- Chris Caradus (PhD) “Romans 9-11: Beyond a Sonderweg for Israel”
- Matt Easter (PhD) “The Faith of Jesus Christ in the Book of Hebrews”
- Gerard Ellis (PhD) “Lord and Emperor: Philippians 2:5-11 as a Challenge to the Pretensions to Divinity of the Roman Emperors”
- Mark Forman (PhD) “The politics of inheritance? The language of inheritance in Romans within its first-century Greco-Roman Imperial context
- Patrik Frank (PhD), "Blessed is he who keeps the words of prophecy in this book": an intra-textual reading of the Apocalypse as Parenesis
- Sarah Harris (PhD) “The Shepherd Motif in the Gospel of Luke”
- Alan Missen (MTh) “Worship and witness in the Apocalypse”
- Tony Siew (PhD) “The war between the two beasts and the two witnesses: a chiastic reading of Rev 11:1-14:5”
- Gillian Townsley (PhD) “Ideological Inter(sex)tions: Queer Readings Across 1 Cor 11.2-16”
- Kevin Waldie (PhD) “Compassion, Jesus and Luke - words and deeds in a redaction-compositional study of Luke 6:12-8:3”
- Martin Williams (PhD) “The doctrine of salvation in the first letter of Peter: a theological-critical study”
Publications
Books
Trebilco, P.R. Jewish Communities in Asia Minor, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 69, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 330 pages.
Trebilco, P.R. ed., Considering Orthodoxy: Foundations for Faith Today, Orewa: Colcom Press, 1995, 186 pages.
Trebilco, P.R. The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testamentum, 1. Reihe 166; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004; 826 pages; Paperback edition, Grand Rapids Eerdmans, 2007
Trebilco, P.R., Rae, S. 1 Timothy, Asia Bible Commentary Series; Singapore: Asia Theological Association, 2006; 199 pages
Trebilco, P.R., Caradus, C., Rae, S. 2 Timothy and Titus, Asia Bible Commentary Series; Singapore: Asia Theological Association, 2009
Trebilco, P.R. Self-designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2011)
Chapters in Books
Trebilco, P.R. Asia. In The Book of Acts in its Greco-Roman Setting. D.W.J. Gill and C. Gempf eds. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans (1994) 291-362
Trebilco, P.R. The Significance and Relevance of the Spirit in the Pastoral Epistles. In The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins, G.N. Stanton, S. Barton, B.W. Longenecker eds., Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans (2004), 241-56
Trebilco, P.R. Studying “Fractionation” in Earliest Christianity in Ephesus and Rome. In Religion and History in Early Christian Studies, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums, C. Breytenbach and J. Frey eds., Leiden: Brill (forthcoming, 2011)
Refereed Journal Articles
Trebilco, P.R. The Significance of the Distribution of Self-designations in Acts. Novum Testamentum 54 (2012), 30-49
Trebilco, P.R. Paul and Silas, Servants of the Most High God - Acts 16:16-18. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36: 51-73 (1989)
Trebilco, P.R. Christian Communities in Western Asia Minor into the Early Second Century: Ignatius and Others as Witnesses Against Bauer. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49.1: 17-44 (2006)
Trebilco, P.R. Why did the early Christians call themselves 'The Church'? New Testament Studies 57(3) (2011), 440-460