Early Christian Identity Formation: From Ethnicity and Theology to Socio-Narrative Criticism (original) (raw)

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Christian Identity, A Review Article

Barentsen, Jack. “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Christian Identity, A Review Article (Holmberg, Ed., Exploring Early Christian Identity (WUNT 1:226) and Holmberg & Winnenge, Eds., Identity Formation in the New Testament (WUNT 1:227)).” Biblische Zeitschrift 54, no. 2 (2010): 245–52., 2010

‘Early Christian Identity Formation amidst Conflict’, JECH 5 (2015): 26-48

This article examines the historical development and nature of early Christian identity during the first two centuries C.E. The formation of early Christian identity was inextricably related to conflict. There were conflicts within the emerging movement itself, and conflicts with both Judaism and the Roman Empire. Within these contexts, early Christian identity evolved from being a Jewish ethno-religious identity into a Christian identity that was unattached to a particular geopolitical and ethno-cultural identity. Even though early Christians constructed their identity by means of ethnoracial language, it simultaneously superseded and absorbed existing identities and hence was a meta- or trans-ethnic identity. THE DOWNLOADABLE ARTICLE IS THE FINAL WORD-VERSION BUT HAS DIFFERENT PAGE NUMBERS AND FORMAT THAN THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE.

Ethnic Reasoning and Early Christian Identity: A Pauline Theological Perspective

HTS Teologiese Studies / Teologiese Studies, 2020

Within the ethnic-reasoning position, which has gained momentum in recent years, it is argued that in the in-Christ identity there exists no dichotomy between natural, physical relationships and constructed, made-up relationships. Ethnicity is viewed as fluid and changeable and as including the category of religion, which is understood as involving a nation’s culture and their cultic and ritualistic practices. Yet, it is a question whether these notions are compatible with the way in which the in-Christ identity is portrayed, especially by Paul. In terms of the theological way in which ethnicity and even religious practices are portrayed, they rather belong to the domain of humanness or human conduct, and thus to the anthropological domain. In contrast, believers’ relation to Abraham and their new mode of identity in the S/spirit is portrayed as being in contrast with the anthropological domain or the domain of ‘flesh’, which includes things such as ethnicity, human conduct and even religious practices. This tension between divine identity and human or natural identity in the New Testament is accounted for and applied to the ethnic-reasoning position, which also influences the way in which the in-Christ identity finds cultural expression in the lives of present-day readers.

Jesus and Early Christian Identity Formation

Connecting Gospels, 2018

The article analyses various early gospels, canonical and noncanonical, with regard to their contribution to the development of the early Jesus tradition. It argues that the separation between “canonical” and “noncanonical” gospels cannot be equated with the distinction of “orthodox” and “heretical” groups in Early Christianity. Instead, also noncanonical gospels have contributed to the formation of the early Jesus tradition in a considerable way.