Author: Anna Michelle Vestal Bowden

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13:

How might Jesus-followers living in first-century Ephesus have experienced John's urge to "come out from her," to disengage from imperial accommodation (18:4)? This dissertation explores the praxis Revelation requires from its audience and questions is practicality. Previous scholarship has failed to recognize explicitly that John's command is impossible to heed. This study offers a reading of Revelation within a construction of first-century Ephesus, bringing forward the (im)practicalities of John's command. After a brief description of the methods employed in this project (ch. 2), the study will have two foci. First, it constructs a detailed portrait of Ephesus's marble economy (ch. 3) and the life of the marble-workers, looking in particular at their living and working conditions (ch. 4). Second, it proceeds to read Revelation within my construction of the marble economy by foregrounding the experiences of Ephesian marble-workers in order to press questions concerning the (im)practicality of John's urgings for his audience to stop accommodating. Chapter 5 looks for ways in which Jesus-following marble-workers might identify as those to whom John is addressing in Revelation, focusing in particular on the opening letters (Rev 2-3). It also explores the ways in which the marble-workers participated in empire through "the work of their hands" (9:20) by looking in depth at three primary ways in which the marble-workers might have been seen as accommodating idolatry, materialism, and profiteering. Chapter 6 explores the practical implications of John's urge for zero cultural accommodation (Rev 2-3; 18:4) by asking if John's characterization of the marble-workers as idolaters, sorcerers, murderers, fornicators, and thieves overlooks their daily realities, their pragmatic concerns for food, shelter, and the basic necessities for life. This study concludes that from the cultural context of Ephesian marble-workers, the praxis that Revelation requires from its audience of complete withdrawal from all imperial involvement is pragmatically not sustainable and is ultimately a manifesto providing no concrete strategies to address consequences such as food insecurity. The result would be malnutrition, poor living conditions, and even death.