Resurrection As Anti-Imperial Gospel

Resurrection As Anti-Imperial Gospel
Author: Edward Pillar
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2013-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1451469683

Presuming that the heart of Paul's gospel announcement was the news that God had raised Jesus from the dead (as indicated in 1 Thessalonians 1:9b-10), Pillar explores the evidence in Paul's letter and in aspects of the Roman imperial culture in Thessalonica in order to imagine what that proclamation would have evoked for its first hearers. He argues that the gospel of resurrection would have been heard as fundamentally anti-imperial: Jesus of Nazareth was executed by means of the epitome of imperial power. The resurrection thus subverts and usurps the empire's immense power. The argument is verified in aspects of the response of those living in a thoroughly imperialized metropolis.

Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity

Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity
Author: Claudia Setzer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2021-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900449653X

Setzer uses social science and rhetorical studies to demonstate the importance of the belief in resurrection in the symbolic construction of Jewish and Christian communities in the first to early third centuries.

Paul's 'Spirit of Adoption' in its Roman Imperial Context

Paul's 'Spirit of Adoption' in its Roman Imperial Context
Author: Robert Brian Lewis
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2016-01-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567663892

Robert Lewis examines Paul's use of the phrase “Spirit of Adoption” in Romans 8:12-17 against the background of its Roman Imperial context in order to shed light on interpretation of Paul's Letter to the Romans. Whereas other scholars have explored what Paul may have meant when he uses the term “adoption” Lewis instead explores the reasons behind Paul's coupling of it with the term “spirit”. Having examined theories for a possible Jewish antecedent for Paul's use of this phrase, and found them less than persuasive, Lewis unlocks the data within the term's Roman Imperial context that significantly clarifies what Paul means when he uses the phrase “Spirit of adoption". Lewis shows that when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, adoption had become a feature of Imperial succession. Roman religion gave a great deal of prominence to the Roman family spirit - the genius. The Emperor's genius became identified as a deity in Roman religion and its veneration was widespread in Rome as well as the provinces. When Romans 8.12-17 is read against this background, a very different kind of exegetical picture emerges.

Sacramental Charity, Creditor Christology, and the Economy of Salvation in Luke's Gospel

Sacramental Charity, Creditor Christology, and the Economy of Salvation in Luke's Gospel
Author: Anthony Giambrone
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2017-07-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783161548598

In this work, Anthony Giambrone investigates the appropriation and development of Jewish charity discourse in Luke's Gospel. In contrast to previous scholarship, neither the coherence of Lukan "wealth ethics" nor its contemporary actualization defines his study. Instead, the sacramental significance of almsgiving becomes the starting point for a more theologically oriented exegesis. The end result recognizes Luke's "Christological mutation" of the inherited tradition.The text is organized around three exegetical probes, each handling parabolic material: i.e. Luke 7:36-50, 10:25-37, and 16:1-31. The author advances an approach to these parables that highlights Christological allegory (metalepsis) as a Lukan narrative device. A break is thus implied with the dominant rationalist constructions of Luke's parabolic art and ethics. Also in contrast to a dominant trend, stress is laid upon Luke's Jewish rather than Greco-Roman context.

Songs of Resistance

Songs of Resistance
Author: R. Alan Streett
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2022-11-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725269996

Songs of Resistance: Challenging Caesar and Empire examines New Testament hymns in light of their historical and cultural contexts. Such a reading yields new insights. Rather than finding theological truths alone, one also discovers lyrics that contest and defy Rome’s “great tradition.” The early Christ followers sang songs that opposed the empire’s worldview and offered an alternative vision for society. These songs were a first-century equivalent of modern-day protest songs. But instead of marching and singing in the streets, believers gathered in private spaces where they lifted their voices to Jesus and retold the story of his execution as an enemy of the state and how God raised him from the dead to rule over the universe. As they sang, believers were emboldened to remain faithful to Christ and withstand the temptation to comply with the sociopolitical agenda of the empire.

Resurrection As Anti-Imperial Gospel

Resurrection As Anti-Imperial Gospel
Author: Edward Pillar
Publisher: Emerging Scholars
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781451465686

Presuming that the heart of Pauls gospel announcement was the news that God had raised Jesus from the dead (as indicated in 1 Thessalonians 1:9b-10), Pillar explores the evidence in Pauls letter and in aspects of the Roman imperial culture in Thessalonica in order to imagine what that proclamation would have evoked for its first hearers. He argues that the gospel of resurrection would have been heard as fundamentally anti-imperial: Jesus of Nazareth was executed by means of the epitome of imperial power. The resurrection thus subverts and usurps the empires immense power. The argument is verified in aspects of the response of those living in a thoroughly imperialized metropolis.

Searching Paul

Searching Paul
Author: Kathy Ehrensperger
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 470
Release: 2019-10-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3161555015

Firmly rooted in his ancestral Jewish traditions, Paul interacted with, and was involved in vivid communication primarily with non-Jews, who through Christ were associated with the one God of Israel. In the highly diverse cultural, linguistic, social, and political world of the Roman Empire, Paul's activities are seen as those of a cultural translator embedded in his own social and symbolic world and simultaneously conversant with the diverse, mainly Greek and Roman world, of the non-Jewish nations. In this role he negotiates the Jewish message of the Christ event into the particular everyday life of his addressees. Informed by socio-historical research, cultural studies, and gender studies Kathy Ehrensperger explores in her collection of essays aspects of this process based on the hermeneutical presupposition that the Pauline texts are rooted in the social particularities of everyday life of the people involved in the Christ-movement, and that his theologizing has to be understood from within this context.

1 and 2 Thessalonians

1 and 2 Thessalonians
Author: Nijay K. Gupta
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2019-07-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310518725

The study of Paul's Thessalonian letters is enjoying fresh interest today. These texts are considered by many to be amongst the earliest extant Christian documents. They are included in conversations about early Jewish and Christian apocalypticism. New insights are coming from examination of the religious, socio-cultural, and political contexts of Roman Thessalonica. And, looking back, these letters have played an important role in the development of Christian eschatology. This volumes serves as an up-to-date guide to these academic discussions and debates and much more. This volume on 1 and 2 Thessalonians in the Zondervan Critical Introductions to the New Testament series offers a volume-length engagement with subjects that normally only receive short treatments in biblical commentaries or in New Testament Introductions. This volume addresses: Authorship Date Audience Socio-Historical Context Genre Purpose Integrity Textual History Greek Style Structure Argument Other Critical Issues Main Interpretive Issues Reception into the Canon Selected History of Interpretation Bibliography

Paul at the Crossroads of Cultures

Paul at the Crossroads of Cultures
Author: Kathy Ehrensperger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 056746637X

Based on recent studies in intercultural communication Kathy Ehrensperger applies the paradigm of multilingualism, which includes the recognition of cultural distinctiveness, to the study of Paul. Paul's role as apostle to the nations is seen as the role of a go-between – as that of cultural translator. This role requires that he is fully embedded in his own tradition but must also be able to appreciate and understand aspects of gentile culture. Paul is viewed as involved in a process in which the meaning of the Christ event is being negotiated 'in the space between' cultures, with their diverse cultural coding systems and cultural encyclopaedias. It is argued that this is not a process of imposing Jewish culture on gentiles at the expense of gentile identity, nor is it a process of eradication of Jewish identity. Rather, Paul's theologizing in the space between implies the task of negotiating the meaning of the Christ event in relation to, and in appreciation of both, Jewish and gentile identity.