Browsing by Subject "Paul."
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Item The characterization of the Christ as ideal king in Ephesians.(2010-06-23T12:33:20Z) Smith, Julien C. H.; Talbert, Charles H.; Religion.; Baylor University. Dept. of Religion.Lack of consensus regarding an historical situation that occasioned the writing of Ephesians has led to a recent trend in research, which seeks to read the letter as addressing more broadly the related issues of identity formation and behavior within the early Christian community. The present study will argue that in Ephesians, the characterization of the Christ as a type of ideal king, as understood within Jewish and Greco-Roman thought, would have resonated with the authorial audience's cultural expectations, thereby ensuring comprehension of the letter's argument and purpose. The letter's primary theme, the reunification of the fractured cosmos through the Christ (1:9-10), comes into sharper focus when the Christ is understood as the ideal king who establishes on earth the harmony that is understood to exist in the cosmos. Furthermore, salient aspects of the ideal king's reign function as unifying threads that tie various parts of the letter together under its main theme. "Learning the Christ" (4:20), or the resocialization into a way of life aligned with the Christian community, addresses the enablement of ethical behavior. This peculiar expression reflects the Hellenistic understanding of the ideal king as a "living law," possessing and distributing the benefits of divine reason and virtue. The casting of traditional household management codes into the realm of the Christ’s authority (5:22-6:9) reflects the belief that the reign of the ideal king ensures the stability of the social order. Above all, the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles within the Christian community (2:11-22) resonates with a pervasive cultural yearning for unity between disparate ethnic groups, and for freedom from factionalism within the social order. In both Greco-Roman and Jewish thought, such a golden age was thought to be the consequence of the reign of an ideal king.Item The wise man among the Corinthians : rethinking their wisdom in the light of ancient stoicism and studies on ancient economy.(2012-08-08) Brookins, Timothy A.; Longenecker, Bruce W.; Religion.; Baylor University. Dept. of Religion.Against recent trends, this dissertation argues that the divisive “wisdom” addressed in 1 Corinthians can be characterized most nearly as a Christian development of Stoic philosophy, espoused mainly by a few individuals among the church’s wealthier and more educated members. Though Stoic connections with the Corinthians’ wisdom have long been noted, in considering the possibility of philosophical training in the church no study to date has had recourse to the refined socio-economic data that has emerged over the last ten years. Still less has anyone attempted to cull the full breadth of evidence for the Stoic thesis from across the whole of the letter. The present dissertation attempts to draw all of this data together for the first time. The dissertation unfolds in six chapters. The first chapter offers a general introduction and a history of Corinthians scholarship on “wisdom.” Chapter 2 argues that the regnant, rhetorical thesis (to which the Stoic thesis is offered as an alternative) owes more to its account of the eminence of rhetoric in Corinth’s broader social milieu and to the methodological trends in current Corinthians scholarship than it does to careful analysis of exegetical, lexicographical, and historical details. Chapter 3 addresses the question of methodology. It is argued that reconstruction should begin, not with a mirror-reading of Paul’s denials (e.g., 1:17; 2:1, 4, 13), but rather with the full gamut of Corinthian language quoted and of Corinthian problems narrated throughout the letter. Chapter 4 attempts to construct a profile of the church’s social world, paying especial attention to the socio-economic status of church members and the question whether any may have received some formal philosophical training. Chapter 5 brings the study to its culmination. Treating the full spectrum of Corinthian language and problems seen in the letter, it is argued that an essentially Stoic perspective provides a unifying explanation for all the letter’s dominating topics, and is the only single perspective that can satisfactorily do so. Chapter 6 provides a concluding summary and reflections on why the Stoic thesis has not yet been widely accepted.