Persecution, Persuasion and Power: Readiness to Withstand Hardship as a Corroboration of Legitimacy in the New Testament

ISBN-13: 9783161506123 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 443 str.

James A. Kelhoffer

Opis

James A. Kelhoffer examines an often overlooked aspect of New Testament constructions of legitimacy, namely the value of Christians' withstanding persecution as a means of corroborating their religious identity as Christ's followers. The introductory chapter defines the problem in interaction with sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital. Chapters 2-10 examine the depictions of persecuted Christians in the Pauline letters, First Peter, Hebrews, Revelation, the NT Gospels, and Acts. These exegetical analyses support the conclusion that assertions of standing, authority, and power claimed on the basis of persecution play a significant and heretofore under-appreciated role in much of the NT. It is also argued that depictions of persecution can have both positive implications for the persecuted and negative implications for the depicted persecutors in constructions of legitimation.An epilogue considers later examples of early Christian martyrs and confessors, as well as John Foxe's Book of Martyrs . The epilogue also addresses the ethical and hermeneutical problem of asserting the withstanding of persecution as a basis of legitimacy in ancient and modern contexts. This problem stems from the observation that, although the NT authors present their construals of withstanding persecution as a basis of legitimation as if they were self-evident, such assertions are actually the culmination of numerous presuppositions and are therefore open to dissenting viewpoints. Yet the NT authors do not acknowledge the possibility of competing interpretations, or that oppressed Christians could someday become oppressors. Accordingly, this exegetical study calls attention to an ethical and hermeneutical problem that the NT bequeaths to the modern interpreter, a problem inviting input from ethicists and other theologians.

James A. Kelhoffer examines an often overlooked aspect of New Testament constructions of legitimacy, namely the "value" of Christians' withstanding persecution as a means of corroborating their religious identity as followers of Christ. The introductory chapter defines the problem in interaction with sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's concept of "cultural capital." Chapters 2-10 are exegetical, examining the depictions of persecuted Christians in the Pauline letters, First Peter, Hebrews, Revelation, the NT Gospels, and Acts. An epilogue considers later examples of early Christian martyrs and confessors, John Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," and the ethical and hermeneutical problem of asserting the withstanding of persecution as a basis of legitimacy in ancient and modern contexts.

O autorze

Born 1970; 1999 PhD University of Chicago; 2003 postdoctoral fellow Catholic Biblical Association of America; 2007 postdoctoral fellow Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; currently Professor of New Testament Studies at Uppsala University (Sweden).