Paul, Community, and Discipline

Adam G. White is a senior lecturer at Alphacrucis College in Sydney, Australia.

Paul, Community, and Discipline offers a fresh and important study of exclusionary practices in early Christ groups. Göran Forkman’s The Limits of the Religious Community (1972) had studied the penal code at Qumran and its importance for understanding the gospel of Matthew. But White greatly expands our understanding of exclusionary practices in Paul by setting them in the much wider context of the exclusionary practices in Athens and Republican and Imperial Rome as well as sectarian practices at Qumran. Paul, Community, and Discipline is a sophisticated and nuanced treatment of discipline within Pauline groups, based on a deep knowledge of primary source material and current anthropological theory.

• Part 1: Expulsion in the Graeco-Roman World1. History of Exile: The Development of Athenian Ostracism2. History of Exile: Exile in the Roman Republic3. History of Exile: Exile under the Emperors4. The Psychology of Exile: Citizenship, Belonging, and the Grief of Exile5. Exile Writ Small: Community and Expulsion in Smaller Groups6. From Torah to the Talmud: The Development of Jewish ExileSummary of Part 1Part 2: Discipline and Expulsion in Paul’s Communities7. Defining the Boundaries: The General Shape of New Testament Communities8. Principles of Pauline Discipline: The Need for Warnings9. Principles of Pauline Discipline: Internal Arbitration10. Principles of Pauline Discipline: The Requirement for Witnesses11. Dealing with the Disorderly: Discipline in the Thessalonian Correspondence12. How to Spot Black Sheep: Dealing with False Teachers in Paul’s Communities13. Establishing Traditions: Discipline and Expulsion in the Pastoral Epistles