Paul in Critical Contexts – serie

Paul’s letter to the Romans has a long history in Christian dogmatic battles. But how might the letter have been heard by an audience in Neronian Rome? James R. Harrison answers that question through a reader-response approach grounded in deep investigations of the material and ideological culture of the city, from Augustus to Nero. Inscriptional, archaeological, monumental, and numismatic evidence, in addition to a breadth of literary material, allows him to describe the ideological “value system” of the Julio-Claudian world, which would have shaped the perceptions and expectations of Paul’s readers. Throughout, Harrison sets prominent Pauline themes??his obligation to Greeks and barbarians, newness of life and of creation against the power of death, the body of Christ, “boasting” in “glory” and God’s purpose in and for Israel??in startling juxtaposition with Roman ideological themes. The result is a richer and more complex understanding of the letter’s argument and its possible significance for contemporary readers.

This book argues that the presence of women in the Christ communities of first-century Corinth changes how 2 Corinthians should be interpreted. Using a feminist approach to interpret the text, Arminta M. Fox presents readings that are ethically and historically viable. She examines how questions of community identity and leadership are situated within broader discourses of power in the Roman imperial and patriarchal contexts of the first-century Mediterranean world. By assuming the dialogical presence of strong and diverse women leaders in the community, Fox develops counter-readings to ones that assume Paul's singular authority.

Approximately 2,000 years ago, some Jewish communities of Galatia in central Asia Minor believed they had fallen under a curse, argues Jeremy Wade Barrier. A fellow Jew named Paul wrote the letter we call Galatians to help them escape its effects. In the letter, Barrier argues, Paul called for the Jews in Galatia to stop practicing circumcision. The rite had fallen into disuse within many Jewish communities in the Roman Empire, but Barrier argues the Galatian Jews believed it was a talisman that would protect them from harm. As a further precaution, they needed to deal with the person who had brought this evil to their community. A witch hunt was underway, and some had concluded that the witch was none other than Paul. Barrier provides a reconstruction of the original occasion of Paul’s letter to the Galatians and shows how Paul defended himself from accusations of witchcraft by countering that the ritual that would protect them from the “Evil Eye” was not circumcision, but rather baptism. Through the ritual of baptism, they could receive healing from a material, yet divine, “breath” of God. Barrier also reconstructs an earlier understanding of this pneuma that was lost to subsequent Christianity under the influence of Neoplatonism.

In Paul and Image, Philip Erwin challenges conventional interpretations of 1 Corinthians that tend to overlook the significance of ancient Roman visual culture in framing and posing exegetical questions. He argues that in 1 Corinthians Paul engaged in a long-standing philosophical discussion of visual representation, with consequential implications for how he and his Corinthian addressees interacted with the imagery around them. By situating Paul’s letter in the context of the critical discourse on visual representation from Plato to Philo to the Second Sophistic, Erwin redefines Paul’s critique of human wisdom, treatment of idols, and resurrection discourse in visual terms.

This book examines the way that Paul presents himself as a guide into mysteries, a “mystagogue,” in 1–2 Corinthians. By describing himself as a type of mystagogue for the community, Paul was following a precedent in both Jewish and non-Jewish sources for invoking mystagogic language to engage in polemics with a rival. In opposition to the precedent, however, Paul understands the mystagogue to be a bi-partite figure—comprised of both foolishness and wisdom simultaneously. C. Andrew Ballard argues that ancient mystagogues were often described in two disparate ways: figures of power, and figures of weakness and foolishness. Paul synthesizes both aspects of the mystagogue in his self-presentation to the Corinthians. The figure of the mystagogue, as a wise-fool, was useful to Paul because it was descriptive not only of his own experience as a suffering yet authoritative apostle, but also of the experience of his deity, the suffering and glorified Christ. By presenting himself as both a powerful and foolish mystagogue, Paul could argue that he was a more authentic imitator of Christ than his opponents in Corinth, who boasted in self-exaltation instead of self-humility. In this way, Paul used the character of the mystagogue as a strategic rhetorical tool in his communication with the Corinthians.

Paul and Seneca Among the Condemned: The Use of Spectacle in the Early Empire relocates the comparison of these two figures from the philosopher’s lecture hall to the amphitheaters of Rome and Corinth. The book explores the sites and images of spectacle that littered the landscapes of the ancient world. By examining archaeological remains alongside the letters of Paul and Seneca, James R. Unwin recreates their exhibitions of spectacle imagery. What we discover in viewing these provocative scenes from the grim world of the arena are suggestive responses to sovereign power and state terror. Their responses open up space for us to think through the reproduction of new arenas in our present world.

Taylor M. Weaver offers a provocative reading of Pauline community, focusing on social and historical readings of the Pauline collection, body metaphors, and socio-politics of the gift, through models and methods developed by critical theorists. Weaver pays attention to conceptual apparatuses revolving around gifting, community, and immunity found in the writings of Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito, augmenting common readings of the historical Paul, while also enriching philosophical co-optations of Paul. Using critical theories (revolving around munus/gift), Weaver unveils different gifting types, showing how these expand one’s understanding of early Christian community. The study ends with a new exegesis of 2 Corinthians 8:1–15, illuminating the text through effective theoretical avenues. This book expands methodological borders, providing innovative models of Pauline Christianity, and developing new readings of community profitable to both New Testament studies and theory.

Over the course of several years, Paul established numerous Christian communities in cities throughout the Roman Empire. Each of these small groups was founded on the premise of inclusivity, mutual love, and shared concern for other members. But what happened when these core tenets were challenged or undermined? In Paul, Community, and Discipline: Establishing Boundaries and Dealing with the Disorderly, Adam G. White begins by examining the practice of exile and expulsion in the cities of the Graeco-Roman world as well as in the specific social institutions of the family, school, association, and synagogue. He then examines the Pauline letters in light of this context, arguing that what we see in Paul's communities is both a continuation of as well as a divergence from contemporary practices.

Paul’s teaching about divine benefactions in Rom 12:6–8 extends the theme of worship that he establishes in Rom 12:1–2. Together, these passages address a uniquely gentile dilemma that many in his audience faced as new Christ-followers, which was the challenge of finding acceptable replacements for former cultic activities that were woven through all of life’s stages, from birth to death. One of the chief shortcomings of the scholars that have written about Rom 12:6–8 is a failure to address what Paul's gentile audience might have brought to his teaching and how his alignment of gifts with ritual (Rom 12:1–2) mirrored their polytheistic background. By analyzing examples from ancient texts and artifacts, Teresa Lee McCaskill shows that all seven of the terms Paul uses in Rom 12:6–8 would have had recognizable cultic antecedents for first-century worshipers in Rome. McCaskill presents a theoretical model that discusses how Paul’s gentile audience might have viewed the charismata and considered them as examples of sanctioned practices to replace former rituals. She also weighs the effectiveness of these particular gifts for furthering Paul’s missional objectives.