Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World
Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World

Author: John S. Kloppenborg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 447

ISBN-13: 1134778570

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Based upon a series of detailed case studies of associations such as early synagogues and churches, philosophical schools and pagan mystery cults, this collection addresses the question of what can legitimately be termed a 'voluntary association'. Employing modern sociological concepts, the essays show how the various associations were constituted, the extent of their membership, why people joined them and what they contributed to the social fabric of urban life. For many, those groups were the most significant feature of social life beyond family and work. All of them provided an outlet of religious as well as social commitments. Also included are studies of the way in which early Jewish and Christian groups adopted and adapted the models of private association available to them and how this affected their social status and role. Finally, the situation of women is discussed, as some of the voluntary associations offered them a more significant recognition than they received in society at large.

Associations in the Greco-Roman World
Associations in the Greco-Roman World

Author: Professor of Religion and a Cultural Studies Affiliated Faculty Richard S Ascough

Publisher:

Published: 2024-03-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781481320917

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Associations in the Greco-Roman World provides students and scholars with a clear and readable resource for greater understanding of the social, cultural, and religious life across the ancient Mediterranean. The authors provide new translations of inscriptions and papyri from hundreds of associations, alongside descriptions of more than two dozen archaeological remains of building sites. Complemented by a substantial annotated bibliography and accompanying images, this sourcebook fills many gaps and allows for future exploration in studies of the Greco-Roman religious world, particularly the nature of Judean and Christian groups at that time.

Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations
Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations

Author: Richard S. Ascough

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2022-06-20

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1666709018

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Over the past two and a half decades there has been an increasing interest in how the data from the associations—known primarily from inscriptions and papyri—can help scholars better understand the development of Christ groups in the first and second centuries. Richard Ascough’s work has been at the forefront of promoting the associations and applying insights from inscriptions and papyri to understanding early Christian texts. This book collects together his most important contributions to the scholarly trajectory as it developed over a two-decade period. A fresh introduction orients the sixteen previously published articles and essays, which are arranged into three sections; the first dealing with associations as a model for Christ groups, the second focused on how associations and Christ groups interacted over recruitment, and the third on two key elements of group life: meals and memorializing the dead.

The Offering of the Gentiles
The Offering of the Gentiles

Author: David J. Downs

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0802873138

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The monetary fund that the apostle Paul organized among his Gentile congregations for the Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem was clearly an important endeavor to Paul; discussion of it occupies several prominent passages in his letters. In this book David Downs carefully investigates that offering from historical, sociocultural, and theological standpoints. Downs first pieces together a chronological account of Paul's fund-raising efforts on behalf of the Jerusalem church, based primarily on information from the Pauline epistles. He then examines the sociocultural context of the collection, including gift-giving practices in the ancient Mediterranean world relating to benefaction and care for the poor. Finally, Downs explores how Paul framed this contribution rhetorically as a religious offering consecrated to God.

Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans
Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans

Author: Aaron Ricker

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-09-17

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0567694011

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Aaron Ricker locates the purpose of Romans in its function as a tool of community identity definition. Ricker employs a comparative analysis of the ways in which community identity definition is performed in first-century association culture, including several ancient network letters comparable to Romans. Ricker's examination of the community advice found in Rom 12-15 reveals in this new context an ancient example of the ways in which an inscribed addressee community can be invited in a letter to see and comport itself as a “proper” association network community. The ideal community addressed in the letter to the Romans is defined as properly unified and orderly, as well accommodating to – and clearly distinct from – cultures “outside.” Finally, it is defined as linked to a proper network with recognised leadership (i.e., the inscribed Paul of the letter and his network). Paul's letter to the Romans is in many ways a baffling and extraordinary document. In terms of its community-defining functions and strategies, however, Ricker shows its purpose to be perfectly clear and understandable.

Serve the Community of the Church
Serve the Community of the Church

Author: Andrew D. Clarke

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780802841827

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This volume explores the nature of leadership in the Christian community, especially as it was variously taught by Paul and practiced in the congregations of the first century. Exploring valuable ancient source material as well as the New Testament texts, Andrew Clarke describes the theories and practices of organization and leadership in key areas of first-century society-the city, the colony, associations, Jewish synagogues, the family-and discusses the extent to which these models influenced the first-century Christians as they sought to define the parameters and distinctives of their own communities.

T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament
T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament

Author: J. Brian Tucker

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-01-02

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 0567017605

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Combining the insights of many leading New Testament scholars writing on the use of social identity theory this new reference work provides a comprehensive handbook to the construction of social identity in the New Testament. Part one examines key methodological issues and the ways in which scholars have viewed and studied social identity, including different theoretical approaches, and core areas or topics which may be used in the study of social identity, such as food, social memory, and ancient media culture. Part two presents worked examples and in-depth textual studies covering core passages from each of the New Testament books, as they relate to the construction of social identity. Adopting a case-study approach, in line with sociological methods the volume builds a picture of how identity was structured in the earliest Christ-movement. Contributors include; Philip Esler, Warren Carter, Paul Middleton, Rafael Rodriquez, and Robert Brawley.

Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World
Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World

Author: Judith Lieu

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2004-05-27

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0191532347

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'I am a Christian' is the confession of the martyrs of early Christian texts and, no doubt, of many others; but what did this confession mean, and how was early Christian identity constructed? This innovative study sets the emergence of Christian identity in the first two centuries, as it is constructed by the broad range of surviving literature, within the wider context of Jewish and Graeco-Roman identity. It uses a number of models from contemporary constructionist views of identity formation to explore how what comes to be seen as 'Christian' literature creates a sense of what to be 'a Christian' means, and traces both continuities and discontinuities with the ways in which Jewish and Graeco-Roman identity were also being constructed through their texts. It seeks to acknowledge the centrality of texts in shaping early Christianity, historically as well as in our perception of it, while also exploring how we might move from those texts to the individuals and communities who preserved them. Such an approach challenges more traditional emphases on the development of institutions, whether structures or credal and ethical formulations, which often fail to recognize the rhetorical function of the texts on which they draw, and the uncertainties of how well these reflect the actual practice and experience of individuals and communities. While building on recent recognition of the diversity of early Christianity, the book goes on to explore the question whether it is possible to speak of a distinctive Christian identity across both the range of early texts and as a pressing historical and theological question in the contemporary world.

Solving the Romans Debate
Solving the Romans Debate

Author: A. Andrew Das

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published:

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 9781451403367

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* A fresh and thorough new reading of the situation prompting Paul's most important and puzzling letter

Civic Ideology, Organization, and Law in the Rule Scrolls
Civic Ideology, Organization, and Law in the Rule Scrolls

Author: Yonder M. Gillihan

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-10-06

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 9004212183

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Over the past sixty years, several studies have demonstrated that the Dead Sea Scrolls sect was one of numerous voluntary associations that flourished in the Hellenistic-Roman age. Yet the origins of organizational and regulatory patterns that the sect shared with other associations have not been adequately explained. Drawing upon sociological studies of modern associations, this book argues that most ancient groups appropriated patterns from the state. Comparison of the Rule Scrolls with Greco-Roman constitutional literature, as well as philosophical, rabbinic, and early Christian texts, shows that the sect's appropriation helped articulate an "alternative civic ideology" by which members identified themselves as subjects of a commonwealth alternative and superior to that of the status quo. Like other associations with alternative civic ideology, the Covenanters studied constitution and law with the intention of reform, anticipating governance of restored Israel at the End of Days.