FROM daSeooi TO OlKO ; 0 eo ) : SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN PAULINE CHRISTIANITY (original) (raw)
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Kinship and Reciprocity in Pauline Congregations
Abstract A Study on Kinship and Reciprocity in Pauline Congregations Name: Hyunwook Choi Boston University School of Theology Supervisor: Prof. James Walters The fact that reciprocity merges as a significant form of economic relationship practiced by the Pauline communities is quite reasonable. It is understandable if we examine it against the prevailing situation of economic deprivation experienced by the early believers. The socioeconomic background of Pauline congregations called for generalized and balanced reciprocities among the members of the same congregation or other congregations to survive by overcoming their poor economic situations by means of leaning on each other. The reciprocity among Christians as members of an extended kinship group within congregation was an embedded strategy which was crucial to survival. It provided a means whereby individuals in precarious economic circumstances could attain some measure of material stability. It also called for redistributions between congregations that were some distance apart, through their spiritual leader, Paul, for the same kind of reasons. Moreover, if they accepted the teachings of the early Christian church that all believers of Jesus were siblings, and also had faith in the New Covenant of loving one another in Christ, which includes giving materially, it should be a natural thing for them to apply generalized reciprocity and redistribution as a practice of their faith. Thus Paul promoted the reciprocity relations to grow from balanced reciprocity to liking reciprocity. This could bring solidarity among Christian siblings of different backgrounds, proclaiming the gospel of Christ, which can be centered by the self-giving love of other-regard.
Religions, 2024
The scope and purpose of this edited anthology is to highlight the current trends and methods for interpreting Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christ followers, understanding the letter’s aim(s), methods, recipients, and theological impact. Paul is an adept epistle writer, with his corpus reflecting rhetorical sophistication, pastoral sensitivity, missional zeal, and theological power, all of which are on display in his short letter to the Philippian saints. As a shorter Pauline epistle—often assumed to be merely a “warm, friendly, joy-filled letter” in the commentary tradition—Philippians has historically been underappreciated and misunderstood in biblical studies. However, recent scholarship has corrected some of this neglect and misunderstanding, and this Special Issue seeks to present the latest insights emerging therefrom. Philippians, far from being a minor member of the Corpus Paulinum, serves as a powerful monument to Paul’s overall and mature theological, Christological, and pastoral vision.
This essay analyzes how late antique commentaries on Paul’s epistle to the Galatians capitalized on the issue of theological disobedience to elaborate the precise meaning of Christian kinship and cohesion in their times. Paul’s anger and frustration at the Galatians, in particular, provides a convenient rhetorical platform for theorizing the nature of and impediments to Christian community, as they define it. While most Pauline exegetes of this period read the Galatians’ disobedience as a conscious choice born of ignorance, misunderstanding, and weak-mindedness, Jerome located the source of this indiscipline in the Galatians’ ethnic or national disposition. For him, the Galatians were an ethnological plaything—a canvas upon which he could suggest an explicit correlation between Christian error, on the one hand, and ethnic disposition, on the other. The differences and factions that Paul described in his letters were reimagined in late antiquity as both exemplars of Christian heresy and as heresies of ethnological origin. Ultimately, however, the process of transforming Paul into a heresiologist served only to emphasize the complexity of interpretive maneuvers deployed to define the terms of Christian community vis-à-vis other manner of social, political, and ethnic affiliation.
2020
ABSTRACT: This article aims to elaborate on the sources of Pauline ethos by presenting individuals who influenced Paul's thinking, and by demonstrating how his moral values were formed. Apostle Paul was the most influential apostle over all of Christianity. The very important contribution of his ministry can be seen in two aspects: missions and writing. Even though St. Paul demonstrated flexibility in the way he approached the mission, he had clear and strong values, evident in the way his epistemology followed his ontology. Paul was interested in becoming first and acting after. This perspective protected him from erroneous decisions. He also had to analyze very diverse types of situations. His values helped him to make correct decisions, based on the Old Testament and Jesus' teaching. Paul, a traditional Jew, though born in Tarsus in a Greek culture, kept the very early Jewish values, which were rooted in the Old Testament. After his conversion, the apostles from Jerusalem...
Currents in Biblical Research
Rudolf Bultmann’s existential approach to New Testament theology found many supporters in the twentieth century. It also provoked a forceful response from his student Ernst Käsemann, who insisted that Bultmann’s individualizing interpretation, especially of Paul, was defective on exegetical, theological and philosophical grounds, because it ignored Paul’s cosmic and communal theology. The debate between these two scholars has been furthered quite vigorously in subsequent Pauline scholarship. Most scholars have followed Käsemann’s lead (directly or not) in reading Paul in a comprehensively, and, often, exclusively communal fashion. However, recent voices have questioned whether the communal reaction against Bultmannian existentialism may be one-sided, and may obscure other, equally important facets of Paul’s thought.This article surveys the debate between Bultmann and Käsemann, and the trajectories it has taken since, with special attention directed towards the most pressing interpretive issues related to the place of the individual and community in Pauline thought.