With colleagues of the Society of Biblical Literature and of the American Academy of Religion involved in these programs, he envisioned and edited A Global Bible Commentary (2004) and The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity (2010).
After reading the New Testament in terms of French existentialism (L’athéisme d’un Chrétien ou un Chrétien à l’écoute de Sartre, 1965, his MA thesis at the University of Geneva), he studied Jewish hermeneutics as expressed in early Midrash, Targum, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Early Jewish Hermeneutics in Palestine, 1975, his Th.D.
His involvement as General Editor of Semeia with many very diverse colleagues – feminist, African-American, postcolonial biblical scholars from the US and biblical scholars from Africa (including from South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria) and Asia (including from the Philippines, China, Korea, and India) – confronted him with the fact that any biblical interpretation (including the most rigorous critical exegesis) involves choosing one interpretation among several legitimate and plausible ones, and that this interpretive choice always has very concrete (often life and death) consequences.
These cross-cultural exchanges confirmed by structural semiotic theories (regarding the ways we make sense of texts) led him to a practice of 'Scriptural Criticism' – necessarily in collaboration with theologians, church historians, and other biblical scholars from around the world – that accounts for the analytical-exegetical, hermeneutical-theological, and contextual choices involved in any interpretation of the Bible.
With this approach, (A) he led a SBL Seminar (Romans Throughout History and Cultures, 1998–2011, involving 93 contributing scholars) in a study of the reception of Paul's letters to the Romans throughout history and in present-day cultures around the world; Patte and the theologian Cristina Grenholm co-edited a 10 volume book series, Romans through History and Cultures (2000–2013); (B) he edited (with José Severino Croatto, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Teresa Okure, Archie Chi_Chung Lee) A Global Bible Commentary (2004)[2] with contributions of seventy scholars from around the world; [2] (C) He was the General Editor of The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity (2010),[3] involving 828 contributing scholars from around the world) [3] that seeks to make understandable the complexity of present-day Christianity by clarifying the contextual character of Christian theological views, practices, and movements through history and cultures.