The first thing to say about this scholarly book is that it is interesting. This needs to be said, for even highly interesting topics can be boringly discussed by academics, a race of people who have never seen a participial phrase that they didn’t want to leave dangling, or a pronoun whose antecedent they felt an obligation to supply. Yes, there is tendentiously boring writing about sex, but such writing is not here.
Kyle Harper is a young star of the classics faculty at the University of Oklahoma who commands wisdom and erudition well beyond his years. From Shame to Sin draws on the culture of the classical Greeks and Romans, on their philosophies and their legislators, but also, particularly, on their romances. It draws, too, on Christian sources, on Scripture and theologians and great preachers — yet also, and again particularly, on popular Christian literature.
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