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.

WHAT IF PAUL HAD TRAVELLED EAST RATHER THAN WEST?

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 171-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bauckham
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
First Century ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Geographical Scope ◽  
North And South

AbstractFor first-century Jews the eastern disapora was at least as important as the western. When Paul returned from Arabia (Nabatea) to Damascus, his intention was to travel east from Damascus to Mesopotamia, where the synagogue communities, descendants of the original exiles of both northern and southern tribes of Israel, would have been his starting point for mission to the Gentiles of the area. But when he escaped arrest by the Nabatean ethnarc, Nabatean control of the trade routes south and east of Damascus left him no choice but to travel to Jerusalem, where he re-thought the geographical scope of his mission. Had Paul travelled east, the Christian communities of both north and south Mesopotamia might have flourished already in the first century and Paul's writings might have had more influence on Syriac theology. Considering how Christianity in the Roman Empire would have developed without Paul entails rejecting such exaggerated views of Paul's significance as that Paul invented Christianity or that without Paul Christianity would have remained a Jewish sect. The Gentile mission began without Paul and took place in areas, such as Rome and Egypt, which were not evangelized by Paul. Without Paul much would have been different about the way the early Christian movement would have spread across the Roman Empire, but it would still have spread, with much the same long-term effects.

Reconfiguring Early Christian ‘Faith’

Ecclesiology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Horrell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Important Study ◽  
The New Testament

Teresa Morgan’s Roman Faith and Christian Faith provides a major new study of the lexicon of ‘faith’ (pistis/fides) in the early Roman Empire. This review essay provides a summary of the book’s contents as well as a critical assessment. The book begins with study of uses of pistis and fides in Greek and Roman sources, in domestic and personal relations, in military and religious contexts. It then moves to the Septuagint, before turning to the New Testament, which is considered in detail. The early Christian sources are unusual in the prominence and weight they give to pistis, but their usage nonetheless fits within the wider social and cultural matrix, in which pistis and fides primarily express the notion of trust and express the importance of trust and fidelity in a wide range of social and religious relationships. In these early Christian sources there is a heavy focus on divine-human pistis, but this creates networks of trusting and trustworthiness that are crucial to the formation and cohesion of early Christian communities. Some critical questions may be raised – for example, concerning Morgan’s heavy focus on divine-human pistis, and her arguments against the early emergence of a titular usage of pistis to denote the early Christian movement – but overall this is an important study which should reconfigure our sense of early Christian (and especially Pauline) pistis, which is less about ‘belief’, whether salvific or propositional, and more about relationships of trust, which are the foundation of community.

scholarly journals Social Status Retention in the Beyond: the Phobia of Man

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Gideon Imoke Emeng
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Life After Death ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right

Religions include the participation of a community of people who have a common spiritual belief system. It is possible to connect one's own spiritual views with those of others via different religious activities. As a result of social interaction, personal ideas may be shaped and deepened. Both religious ideas and human transpersonal experiences may convey the core of human existence. Religious ideas about life after death may affect how individuals conduct their lives in the here and now. This paper argues that human beings have the inborn drive for statuses. All religions of the world placed serious priority on them, so much: in the ranking of adherents and in the hereafter. Other social institutions see the necessity in statuses placements to enhance productivity, efficiency, proficiency, and profitability. Man in his imagination and realization of this, concludes that the right place to acquire the status is here on earth as the springboard to that of the beyond. He gets it first and this will be maintained in the beyond. By the beyond here we mean abodes after the earthly life. Christianity calls them paradise and hell, likewise Islam and Buddhism describe it as Nirvana. African Traditional Religion mentioned it as the home of the ancestors and the dead. Hinduism has its own as the several reincarnations where the individual soul strives to unite with the supreme Reality also called Brahman. This paper investigates Social Status in the Beyond.

Divine Accounting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Quigley
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Active Participant ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Christ Followers ◽  
Material Evidence

This book shows how the divine was an active participant in the economic spheres of the ancient Mediterranean world. Gods and goddesses were represented as owning goods, holding accounts, and producing wealth. The book argues that early Christ-followers also used financial language to articulate and imagine their relationship to the divine. It takes seriously the overlapping of themes such as poverty, labor, social status, suffering, cosmology, and eschatology in material evidence from the ancient Mediterranean and early Christian texts. The book begins with an overview of theo-economics, which is an intertwined theological and economic logic in which divine and human beings regularly enter into transactions with one another. It then moves on to discuss some of the contexts in which the gods and humans transacted in antiquity. The book examines the theo-economics of Philippians 1, with some consideration of Philippians 4, and moves on to evaluate Philippians 2–3. The book concludes that by taking seriously the ways in which persons in antiquity understood themselves to be participating in transactions with the divine, one can begin to break down some of the scholarly categories that separate theology from economics.

Lamps

2019 ◽  
pp. 312-332
Author(s):  
Maria Parani
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Religious Images ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities

Lamps with Christian imagery are among the earliest and most easily identifiable material witnesses to early Christian communities in the Roman Empire, but lamps employed by Christians were not confined to those adorned with religious images and symbols. This chapter presents an overview of the types of clay, metal, and glass lamps owned and used by Christians and discusses their functions in daily, funerary, ecclesiastical, and other ritual contexts. Continuities with and departures from earlier Roman practices are highlighted, while the emergence of a specifically Christian decorative repertory is associated both with the wish of early Christians to express their distinct religious identity in material terms and with the gradual elaboration of a Christian symbolism of light. The need for more focused, contextualized studies of lamps within the framework of Christian archaeology remains a desideratum for future research.

Subverting Slavery: Philemon, Onesimus, and Paul’s Gospel of Reconciliation

2014 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-115
Author(s):  
Bernardo Cho
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
First Century ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Cultural Expectations

The lack of a taxonomic exposition by Paul on the issue of slavery in the Roman Empire has led modern scholars to regard the apostle as a socially disengaged religious figure. However, given the risks of anachronistically employing modern categories to describe Paul’s social stance, it seems imperative that interpreters take seriously the context of the first-century Roman Empire when exegeting Paul’s view of the specific issue of slavery. By taking Paul’s Epistle to Philemon as a case study, this paper examines Paul’s particular request to Philemon in light of the concurrent Greco-Roman sources, and analyses how the apostle’s stance towards slavery intersected with the cultural expectations of his time. The intended outcome of this study is both to elucidate how Paul addressed the problem of slavery in the early Christian communities and to provide modern readers with a theological framework through which to engage their own social struggles.

Mining in the Later Roman Empire and Beyond: Continuity or Disruption?

1989 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 84-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Edmondson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
The State ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Right

One of the more tangible benefits that accrued to Rome from the conquest of an empire was the acquisition of significant mineral resources, significant because Italy, although rich in iron, could not provide a sufficient supply of the whole range of metals needed by the Roman state for coinage and by members of the élite for the luxury artefacts that helped to enhance their social status. Once Rome had gained control over metalliferous regions of the Mediterranean, Romans, and especially Italians, were not slow to become involved in mining overseas, while the state came to gain considerable revenue from the leasing of contracts for the right to exploit state-owned mineral resources.

QUO VADIS HUKUM ISLAM (ANTARA IDEALITAS DAN REALITAS INDONESIA)

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-108
Author(s):  
Dinda Izzati
Keyword(s):  
Political Rights ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
Eastern Indonesia ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Quo Vadis ◽  
The Right

Evidently, a few months after the Jakarta Charter was signed, Christian circles from Eastern Indonesia submitted an ultimatum, if the seven words in the Jakarta Charter were still included in the Preamble to the 1945 Constitution, then the consequence was that they would not want to join the Republic of Indonesia. The main reason put forward by Pastor Octavian was that Indonesia was seen from its georaphical interests and structure, Western Indonesia was known as the base of Islamic camouflage, while eastern Indonesia was the basis for Christian communities. Oktavianus added that Christians as an integral part of this nation need to realize that they also have the right to life, religious rights, political rights, economic rights, the same rights to the nation and state as other citizens, who in fact are mostly Muslims. This paper aims to determine and understand the extent to which the basic assumptions of the Indonesian people view the role of Islam as presented in an exclusive format.

ACCESS TO EDUCATION WITH ONLINE LEARNING AND OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES: CAN THEY CLOSE THE GAP?

2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Geith ◽  
Karen Vignare
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Global Education ◽  
Open Educational Resources ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Right To Education ◽  
Education Gap ◽  
The Right ◽  
Compare And Contrast

One of the key concepts in the right to education is access: access to the means to fully develop as human beings as well as access to the means to gain skills, knowledge and credentials. This is an important perspective through which to examine the solutions to access enabled by Open Educational Resources (OER) and online learning. The authors compare and contrast OER and online learning and their potential for addressing human rights “to” and “in” education. The authors examine OER and online learning growth and financial sustainability and discuss potential scenarios to address the global education gap.

Chimeras In Time-Honored Societies

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-466
Author(s):  
TUMMALA. SAI MAMATA
Keyword(s):  
Major Elements ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Life Changes ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Nature And Nurture ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
Superstitious Beliefs

A river flows serenely accepting all the miseries and happiness that it comes across its journey. A tree releases oxygen for human beings despite its inner plights. The sun is never tired of its duty and gives sunlight without any interruption. Why are all these elements of nature so tuned to? Education is knowledge. Knowledge comes from learning. Learning happens through experience. Familiarity is the master of life that shapes the individual. Every individual learns from nature. Nature teaches how to sustain, withdraw and advocate the prevailing situations. Some dwell into the deep realities of nature and nurture as ideal human beings. Life is a puzzle. How to solve it is a million dollar question that can never be answered so easily. The perception of life changes from individual to individual making them either physically powerful or feeble. Society is not made of only individuals. Along with individuals it has nature, emotions, spiritual powers and superstitious beliefs which bind them. Among them the most crucial and alarming is the emotions which are interrelated to others. Alone the emotional intelligence is going to guide the life of an individual. For everyone there is an inner self which makes them conscious of their deeds. The guiding force should always force the individual to choose the right path.  Writers are the powerful people who have rightly guided the society through their ingenious pen outs.  The present article is going to focus on how the major elements bound together are dominating the individual’s self through Rabindranath Tagore’s Home and the World (1916)

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