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.

Philippians

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Reuman
Keyword(s):  
Rhetorical Criticism ◽  
Social World ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
House Churches ◽  
The Social

In Philippians John Reumann offers both classical approaches and new methods of understanding this New Testament book. With fresh commentary on the social world and rhetorical criticism, and special focus on the contributions of the Philippian house churches to Paul’s work and early Christian mission, Reumann clarifies Paul’s attitudes toward and interactions with the Philippians. Departing from traditional readings of Philippians in light of Acts, Reumann allows Paul to speak in his own right. His three letters from Ephesus shed new light on relationships, and we come to see how he approves some aspects of the dominant “culture of friendship” in Greco-Roman Philippi while disapproving others. He seeks to help the Philippians discern how to be citizens of the heavenly kingdom and also Caesar’s state, though there is an undercurrent of “Christ vs. Caesar.” Scholars, students, and general readers alike will find much of interest in John Reumann’s deeply researched and insightful new volume.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

Carthage

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara K. Gold
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Human Sacrifice ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

This chapter discusses the rise, development, and Romanization of ancient Carthage in the early Christian period after the formation of the province of Africa Proconsularis in the Augustan period; the physical topography of the city of Carthage, including the Byrsa, the Antonine Baths, and the amphitheater; and it describes the tophet or outdoor sacrificial area and whether human sacrifice was practiced among the Carthaginians. It also covers the life, influence, and African roots of Septimius Severus, the Roman emperor during Perpetua’s life and death. Also discussed are the social, religious, and intellectual conditions for pagans in Roman Carthage, who their local gods were (Tanit, Saturn, Juno Caelestis, Baal Hammon), and the connections between civic and religious life.

Prostitution

2019 ◽  
pp. 644-660
Author(s):  
Carly Daniel-Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Social ◽  
Female Prostitutes ◽  
Female Prostitute ◽  
Negative Representation

This chapter shows how slavery informed the social realities of and rhetoric about prostitution and prostitutes, which informed the negative representation of female prostitutes in early Christian sources. Following Paul’s rhetoric, many Christians used sexual virtue to legitimatize themselves and bolster their triumphalist claims over others in the Roman Empire. To this end, they employed the degraded and debased female prostitute as a powerful symbolic figure as that which stood outside communal boundaries or as a threat that could undermine boundaries from within. In so doing, they marginalized prostitutes and enslaved persons, who could not, by virtue of their enslavement, sustain the sexual ethics that early Christians were promoting. The chapter concludes with debates about contemporary sex workers, arguing that it is critical for feminist historians to resist the rhetoric of the early Christian texts, which obscure the presence of prostitutes (and vulnerable slaves) in ancient Christ-believing 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.

Ressourcement and Theologies of Communion

2016 ◽  
pp. 682-700
Author(s):  
Gabriel Flynn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Church

This chapter describes the contribution of a group of (initially French) theologians known for promoting the work of ressourcement: renewal of the Church through recovery of biblical and Early Christian sources. The work of Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar receives particular attention (although the contributions of others, such as Marie-Dominique Chenu and Jean Cardinal Daniélou are also discussed), and the group as a whole is placed against the background of the social, political, and ecclesiastical context of France in the first half of the twentieth century. This chapter highlights the centrality of ressourcement theologians to the work of Vatican II. The final sections of the essay focus on one of the most important consequences of their work at the council, the development of accounts of the Church as ‘communion’.

scholarly journals Ireland and the Old Testament: Transmission, Translation, and Unexpected Influence

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-169
Author(s):  
Bradford A. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Irish History ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Social ◽  
Medieval Ireland ◽  
Religious Landscape

Abstract In spite of Ireland’s rich and complex religious history, the influence of the Old Testament in the shaping of the island is often overlooked. This study traces the use and reception of the Old Testament in Ireland through the centuries, focusing on stories of transmission, translation, and unexpected influence. In early Christian and medieval Ireland, the transmission of the Old Testament in diverse contexts points to an important role for the Old Testament in relation to social formation and notions of Irish history. Moving to early modern Ireland, the story of the translation of the Old Testament into Irish demonstrates how this collection contributed to contested issues of identity in this highly-charged era. Finally, we encounter stories of unexpected influence relating to Ireland and the Old Testament in James Ussher and John Nelson Darby. In both cases, ideas concerning the Old Testament that took shape in Ireland would go on to have impact on a global scale, even if this subsequent influence was a matter of accidence. Taken together, it is argued that the Old Testament has played a much more prominent role in the shaping of the social, cultural, and religious landscape of Ireland than is often assumed.

Summary and Conclusions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Blanton, IV
Keyword(s):  
Entire System ◽  
Temporal Framing ◽  
Labor Time ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
Significant Opportunity

This chapter summarizes the previous chapters and notes that Paul’s letters shift the temporal framing of the classic formulation do ut des, “I give so that you might give.” Paul’s reformulation was rather “I give because you have given”; in his view, the preeminent gifts—God’s gift of his son, and Jesus’ gift of himself on the cross—had already been given. The effect was to render members of early Christian assemblies and other potential converts in the role of recipients of divine gifts, to which they were to respond with thanksgiving, gratitude, and reciprocal gifts of labor time, money, and other material goods. In this way, religious myth served as the catalyst for an entire system of exchange in the sociopolitical realm of the early Christian assembly: it facilitated the creation of a “spiritual economy.” Today, Paul’s letters facilitate the elaboration of a number of theoretical perspectives on gift exchange developed within the fields of anthropology and sociology; the conjunction in Paul’s letters of “religion” and “gift” provides significant opportunity for interdisciplinary study.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document