Crossing Borders: The Life and Work of Peder Borgen in Context

The intention of this biography is—on the one hand—to describe what happened as Peder Borgen (b. 1928) grew up and tried to establish himself as a theologian and a New Testament scholar in his Norwegian and Lutheran state–church context. On the other hand, it also describes how his development and life as a student of the New Testament and Philo of Alexandria were influenced by his minority background and the borders he had to cross to achieve his goals.
Crossing Borders is thus a description of the life and work of a Norwegian Methodist, scholar, church politician, ecumenist, and an internationally acclaimed writer on the Gospel of John and Philo of Alexandria. Students of both the New Testament and Philo of Alexandria should feel enlightened by this volume of how context may influence both a person and his scholarly achievements.

As a biblical scholar, my fields of interest are the life, ideology, literature and social world of the Jews and the early Christians in the first century CE Diaspora settings. More narrowly defined, I am especially focusing on the life and role of Early Christianity and Diaspora Judaism as demonstrated in and by the works of life and thought of the early Christians as witnessed by the New Testament, and Judaism as witnessed by Philo of Alexandria.



I retired in 2014, and in addition to reading and writing, I spend time on my hobbies; golfing and thematic philately.

Paul N. Anderson is Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies at George Fox University. Author of The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, The Peril of Modernizing Jesus, The Book of Acts in History and Navigating the Living Waters of the Gospel of John, he is also co-editor of John, Jesus, and History (3 vols.).