Why is it so much more likely for biblical scholars to write about what went on inside ancient Jewish and Christian heads, than it is for them to write about what was going on in their lives? If we don't know their lives, how can we know their heads?
I'll admit reconstruction is daunting, and NT chronology hasn't been nailed down yet. But why are Paul's letters so much more valued for their philosophical content than for their ability to increase our sense of the Story that went on in the first century?
To whatever extent this is even a problem, I would blame the Reformation more than the Enlightenment, but evidently the 'early fathers' were no better. Why does Aristotle still dominate the New Testament? Why so rarely Aeschylus or Euripides?
There's deep drama in Paul's epistles. How often do you hear it brought out?
Bill Heroman, Amateur Academic