Paul’s letters offer eloquent testimony to his profound activity as a reader of Israel’s scriptures. This chapter offers an overview of that activity, discussing Paul’s scriptural sources and citation technique, the variety of formal and material ways in which Paul engages scripture, and the rhetorical purposes for which he quotes.

For the best part of fifty years, theoretical reflection on the law of torts has been afflicted by a schism between ‘economic’ and ‘moral’ approaches. More than an affliction, the schism has become an obsession among many who place themselves on the ‘moral’ side. On the ‘moral’ side, many write with embarrassing defensiveness as if their main task were to see off the economistic threat. Those on the ‘economic’ side who react at all tend to react condescendingly. As this cartoon suggests, the economists hold greater cultural sway, and this lends them a certain swagger in their work that their adversaries generally lack.

The possible reasons why people were attracted to Paul’s message have been rather neglected in Pauline studies but are important to consider. However, we need to approach the task cautiously and make careful comparisons, for various reasons, not least to avoid any presumptions of Christian superiority. Possible reasons for the appeal of Paul’s “good news” are considered, ranging from more theological or religious reasons, such as escape from divine wrath and mystical experience, to more personal and social ones, such as Paul’s charisma and zeal, and community meals and mutual support.

The notions of causation and responsibility are deeply entwined in the law. Two questions about responsibility are central to any legal system: (i) for which consequences of your actions are you responsible? And (ii) for which of your actions themselves are you responsible? Our main focus will be on the former, but causation plays a fundamental role in both.

This essay introduces the study of Paul and his letters to a non-specialist audience, overviewing the main issues that require negotiation and consideration whenever Paul’s letters are studied, including sections entitled: Why did Paul write letters? What letters did Paul write? Did other people contribute to Paul’s letters? To what extent is Paul’s discourse stable? How much do we know about Paul’s life? and To what extent can we make use of Acts?

Recent work in philosophy of law includes many discussions of law’s ‘nature or essence’, understood as those properties of law that are necessary, or at least important and typical or characteristic of ‘law as such, wherever it may be found’1 (or that help explain how and why law can be considered a kind, and laws or legal systems its instances or instantiations). Some hold that law has no nature; only natural objects have a nature, and law is artefactual, not natural. Others reply that there are kinds of artefacts: paper clips differ in nature from printer drivers, and being a soft cheese blob excludes being a paper clip – excludes being something of that kind or nature. Attention is shifting promisingly to paradigms of artefact more relevant to law than paper clips are: assertions, for example.2

Who was Paul? This essay places the apostle within his Diaspora social context of synagogue communities, gentile Judaizers, Roman authorities, hostile pagans and pagan gods, to reconstruct his mission and message. By turning the nations from their gods to his god, Paul was confirmed in his conviction that Christ was about to return to defeat cosmic powers; to accomplish that signature eschatological miracle, the resurrection of the dead; and to gather the twelve tribes of Israel and the seventy gentile nations under the universal sovereignty of God the father.

Contracts characteristically involve agreements, and contract law is – both conventionally and properly – understood as the law of agreements.

Eroica endures. This fact, discussed at some length in the final chapter of this book, was brought home strongly to me as I edited this volume. Escaping briefly from Eroica, or so I thought, after a day of proofreading, I turned to YouTube. Using a Google search with keyword ‘Agatha Christie’, I chanced upon a 1984 TV drama, Second Sight – A Love Story, starring Elizabeth Montgomery. The similarities to Beethoven’s biography can be seen in the main character’s stubborn and somewhat difficult temperament, and the painful irony that the sense that she most prizes and needs (sight) should be taken away from her. With hindsight – and with the help of this book’s chapters on reception – it was clear that the choice of the Eroica finale for this movie’s opening credits (fading in at bar 449) is overdetermined.

Chamber arrangements of Beethoven’s large-scale works ‘especially his symphonies’ were so prevalent in the nineteenth century that to ignore them is to miss an essential part of the reception or ‘life history’ of the works in question. The depth and dissemination of the arrangements of Beethoven’s works show that these arrangements, rather than the original versions, were an essential means by which Beethoven’s music took effect. In an era when concert performances were still relatively few, an arrangement was often the first instantiation of a Beethoven orchestral work that one would hear. This chapter explores these arrangements as nineteenth-century reception documents, looking at what they tell us not only about Beethoven, but also about the arrangers themselves and the processes of canon formation at the time. The chapter then considers the apparently new ways in which meanings are constructed for the symphony, through performance, and how these relate to Eroica myths and legends born in Beethoven’s day. It discusses ways in which the work has been performed, represented visually, and marketed in the twenty and twenty-first centuries, including the 2003 BBC production, Eroica.