Voices of Power

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine A. Shaner
Keyword(s):  
Power Dynamics ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Religious Leadership ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Communal Ethics

This chapter explores the ambiguities in power dynamics that arise in Paul’s letters when enslaved persons enact religious leadership in the communities to which he wrote. The chapter demonstrates that 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and Philemon illustrate a debate about roles in the communities to which they are addressed, particularly the ongoing debate about whether enslaved persons are fully equal members of the ekklēsia or whether their experiences in slavery are problematic for communal ethics. The chapter examines the rhetoric of these letters, exploring the different stories scholars tell about Paul and slavery. The chapter shifts the methodological focus so that enslaved persons become the center of the story rather than Paul. Ultimately, the chapter argues that early Christian rhetoric continually subordinates enslaved persons because of the contestations of power that arise when enslaved persons act as full participants, even trained leaders, in early Christian communities.

Aphrahat and Pauline Reception: 1 Corinthians 7 and Baptismal Reasoning in East and West

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-423
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Edsall
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Latin West ◽  
East And West ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Present Argument ◽  
Greek East

In studies of Pauline reception, most scholars limit themselves to works in the second or early third century (often ending with Irenaeus or the Acts of Paul) and to material from the Latin West and Greek East. Although later Syriac sources are rarely engaged, those who do work on this material have long recognised the importance of Paul's letters for that material. The present argument aims to help broaden the dominant discourse on Pauline reception by attending to early Syriac sources, principally the work of Aphrahat the Persian Sage. I focus in particular on his discussion of baptism and marriage in Dem. 7.18–20, which has confounded scholars over the years. This passage displays a kind of Pauline ‘logic’ indebted to 1 Cor 7.20, which can be discerned among other early Christian applications of that passage in similar contexts, in both East and West.

Jesus and Paul

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-170
Author(s):  
Donald Senior
Keyword(s):  
Literary Form ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Pastoral Letters ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Paul's Letters

The writings of Paul form a major part of the New Testament. This includes not only the so-called undisputed letters of Paul but also other letters attributed to him in antiquity that might have been written by later disciples of Paul citing him as author to evoke his apostolic authority. This chapter describes what we know of Paul’s life, beginning with his strong Jewish identity as well as his roots in the Greco-Roman world. Paul himself cites his inaugural visionary experience of the Risen Jesus as a decisive turning point in his life, leading him ultimately to be an ardent proclaimer of the gospel to the Gentile world. Paul’s letters to various early Christian communities in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world served as extensions of his missionary efforts. Although fashioned in a different literary form than the gospel narratives, Paul’s letters also portray Jesus’s identity as both rooted in Judaism and exhibiting a unique transcendent character and purpose. Paul’s Christology focuses intensely on the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. The so-called deutero-Pauline Letters extend Paul’s theological vision; in the case of Colossians and Ephesians, situating the redemptive and reconciling role of Christ within the cosmos, and, in the case of the Pastoral Letters, bringing Paul’s exhortations about the life of the Christian community to some of the developing challenges of the late first-century church.

scholarly journals THE APOSTOLIC DECREE AND OUR MEAT MENU: READING ACTS 15 IN REDEMPTIVE- HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-40
Author(s):  
P.H.R. Van Houwelingen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Sexual Immorality ◽  
Historical Necessity ◽  
Jerusalem Council

The decision of the Jerusalem Council concerning Gentile believers - that they had to abstain, among other things, from meat with blood still in it and from sexual immorality - was officially recorded in order to be obeyed in the early Christian communities (Acts 15). It is echoed in Paul's letters, because this apostolic instruction was intended for non-Jewish believers like us. The prescription from Jerusalem was by no means incidental, it is rooted in basic principles of created life, and it was generally observed during the first centuries. Yet, most Christians today no longer feelbound bythis biblical rule and have no problem with eating blood pudding or rare steak. The purpose of this article is to explain why, in the course of time, the Apostolic Decree was considered to have become obsolete. In a church with an increasing number of Gentile Christians, the redemptive-historical necessity of the decree had ceased to exist.

The Letters of Paul and the Construction of Early Christian Networks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. G. Barclay
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Role ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Paul's Letters

The chapter argues that, contrary to what might be expected, in Paul’s network of early Christian communities, letters were subsidiary to non-literary, and thus non-epistolary, forms of face-to-face communication during meetings, by messengers, and through conversation and gossip. As Barclay shows in a close reading of 2 Cor 8:16–24, there was a lot going on orally before, behind, and in the wake of Paul’s letter(s) to the Corinthians. Nevertheless, Paul’s letters had a threefold managerial import: they managed perceptions as well as reputations, and they fulfilled a controlling function in that they affirmed his authority over his churches. Barclay claims that practice and physical presence were ultimately deemed superior to words and letters, and that Paul’s letters acquired the dominant role that we assign to them only in the subsequent rereading by different Christian communities.

Paul and Sexuality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale B. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Dysfunction ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Apostle Paul ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Thessalonians 1 ◽  
History Of ◽  
Paul's Letters

This chapter considers the topic, only raised in relatively recent intellectual history, of the apostle Paul and sexuality. First, it considers a number of common claims about Paul and sexuality for which there is in fact no historical evidence: that Paul held a ‘healthy’ modern view of sex, that Paul had a psycho-sexual dysfunction, that Paul had an early sexual trauma, that Paul was gay, and more. From there, the chapter builds a constructive case for what we can say about Paul and sexuality, beginning by identifying the relevant historical sources, then considering Paul’s identity as an apocalyptic Jew in the diaspora, then looking at key evidence from 1 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans, in turn, then considering the crucial question of the meaning of Greek porneia, and finally touching on developments in the Pauline tradition after the death of the apostle. It is argued that early Christian interpreters managed to find both a pro-household and an anti-household Paul in their readings of Paul’s letters.

Slavery and Sexual Availability

2019 ◽  
pp. 626-644
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Morality ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Right

Any investigation of slavery in the Roman Empire must contend with the sexual exploitation of slaves endemic to the system. Given the diversity of ancient Christian attitudes toward sexuality, there is no reason to expect that a slaveholding ethos touched all Christian communities in a uniform fashion. At issue, however, is not whether the wider context of a slaveholding empire affected the formation of Christian attitudes toward sexuality. At issue is how. The purpose of this essay is to question whether early Christian silence on the issue should be construed as wholesale rejection of a system in which social status scripted social morality, or as complicity with that system. In the end, it is difficult to imagine how the churches could have challenged the right of a male slaveholder to exploit his domestic slaves sexually without challenging his right to claim ownership of other human beings.

Kann man die neutestamentlichen Briefe der Gattung „Apostelbrief“ zuordnen?

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Bärbel Bosenius
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament

During the last 40 years New Testament scholarship did not apply the term “apostolic letter” consistently. All early Christian letters and only the New Testament or Pauline respectively Deutero-Pauline letters were called “apostolic letters” by New Testament scholars. Since the term from the sources ἀπόστολος in the undisputed Pauline letters refers to Paul’s function as founder of early Christian communities but not to his function as their leader, New Testament scholars should avoid the misleading term “apostolic letter.” Within the corpus of New Testament letters one should rather differentiate between “kerygmatic letters,” “pseudepigraphic Pauline letters” and “early Christian Diaspora letters.”

scholarly journals History and theory of Scripture translations

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole
Keyword(s):  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Functional Equivalence ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History And Theory

This article argues for the importance of Bible translations through its historical achievements and theoretical frames of reference. The missionary expansion of Christianity owes its very being to translations. The early Christian communities knew the Bible through the LXX translations while churches today still continue to use various translations. Translations shape Scripture interpretations, especially when a given interpretation depends on a particular translation. A particular interpretation can also influence a given translation. The article shows how translation theories have been developed to clarify and how the transaction source-target is culturally handled. The articles discuss some of these “theoretical frames”, namely the functional equivalence, relevance, literary functional equivalence and intercultural mediation. By means of a historical overview and a reflection on Bible translation theories the article aims to focus on the role of Africa in translation history.

The Message of Jesus Christ: The Tradition of the Early Christian Communities Restored and Translated into German

1939 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 288
Author(s):  
Ernest Cadman Colwell ◽  
Martin Dibelius ◽  
Frederick C. Grant
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities

Paul and Sacred Space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorunn Økland
Keyword(s):  
Sacred Space ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
House Churches ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Analytical Frameworks

This chapter analyses the terms with which Paul of Tarsus designates various sacred spaces—hieron, naos, eidoleion, ekklesia—in conversation with the archaeology of sacred spaces, research on the Pauline house churches, and with the help of theories of space, new materialism, and the sacred. The chapter starts with an introduction of the analytical frameworks and ends with ideas about ‘monumentalization’: that the social-structural relations between people in a sacred space tended to materialize over time into purpose-built buildings—hence the double meanings of synagogue, ekklesia, and hieron as designations both of assemblies and later of the buildings accommodating the respective assemblies. A central argument is that Paul’s letters constitute a special case in the development of the early Christian ekklesia and the parallel development of the synagogue, because in Paul’s time the temple in Jerusalem was still standing and was a self-evident part of his religious universe.

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