Philodemus and the New Testament World, edited by John T. Fitzgerald, Dirk Obbink, and Glenn S. Holland. NovTSup 111. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004. Pp. xiv + 434. 109.00 [euro]/$136.00 (cloth). ISBN 9004114602. While Hellenistic culture in general, and Hellenistic philosophy in particular, have been shown time and again to shed indispensable light on early Christianity, the writings of the Epicurean philosopher and epigrammatist Philodemus have, for a variety of reasons, figured only minimally into NT research. A native of Gadara, Philodemus studied in Athens with the preeminent Epicurean philosopher Zeno before becoming an important part of a vibrant Roman intellectual community that also included the likes of Horace and Virgil (see further on this community L. Michael White's contribution in the present volume, esp. pp. 104-8). In the eighteenth century, a number of Philodemus's writings were found among the ruins of Herculaneum's aptly named Villa of the Papyri, which was apparently owned by Philodemus's patron (and Cicero's nemesis), L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. Of these writings, the one that has thus far garnered the most attention from NT scholars is the treatise [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], whose extensive treatment of "frank speech" as a form of moralistic, psychagogic discourse has been used to illuminate the Pauline literature in particular (see Abraham Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987], and esp. Clarence Glad, Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy [NovTSup 81; Leiden: Brill, 1995]). The SBL's Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity section produced an English translation of this work in 1998 (David Konstan et al., eds., Philodemus: On Frank Criticism. Introduction, Translation and Notes [SBLTT 43, Greco-Roman 13; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998]), and the present volume, produced by the same SBL section, is intended as "something of a companion" to it (p. viii).