A friend who happened upon Neil Elliott's new book The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (amazon.com) passed it along to me. There are some intriguing parts, it appears, but there is also a lot of current events/politics that has creeped into the book, from what I can tell. On the intriguing parts, check this excerpt from the introduction:

Unfortunately, rhetorical-critical interpretations of Romans have often done little more than glean from the classical Greek and Roman rhetorical handbooks a novel technical nomenclature for an outline of the letter that has already been established, without the benefit of rhetorical categories, in dogmatic readings. ... Similarly, some interpreters tend to describe the letter in terms resembling the genre of the philosophical treatise or letter essay, though it bears none of the hallmarks of the ancient letter essay. Others seek to identify the rhetorical genre of the letter according to the categories of the ancient rhetorical handbooks, but falter on prior assumptions regarding the letter's purpose.

In contrast, I expect the ancient handbooks to be of only limited usefulness in determining the genre of Romans. The handbooks were designed, after all, for the fairly formal expectations of public oratory in the Greco-Roman world. (Elliott pp. 17-18)

All that said, I figured I'd mention it since I normally mention new books I receive or purchase. I've not read this book (outside of the introduction) and it isn't on my to-read list, but if/when I next hit Romans, I'll probably check it out.

Here's the blurb from Amazon.com:

Product Description
Elliott offers a fresh and surprising reinterpretation of Paul's letter to the Romans in the context of Roman imperial ideology, bringing to the text the latest insights from classical studies, rhetorical criticism, postcolonial criticism, and people's history.

By setting the letter alongside Roman texts (Cicero, Virgil, the Res Gestae of Augustus, Seneca, poets from the age of Nero, as well as later historians and satirists), Elliott provides a dramatic new reading of the letter as Paul's confrontation with the arrogance of empire - and with an emerging Christianity already tempted by the seductive ideology of imperial power.

The Arrogance of Nations (amazon.com) explores such topics as: Empire and the 'obedience of faith'; Justice and the arrogance of nations; Mercy and the prerogatives of power; Piety and the scandal of an irreligious race; Virtue and the fortunes of peoples; and Paul and the horizon of the possible.

About the Author
Neil Elliott, an Episcopal priest, teaches biblical studies at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. He is the author of Liberating Paul and The Rhetoric of Romans.

If Romans is your interest, you should probably check it out (amazon.com).