All of You are One': The Social Vision of Gal 3.28, 1 Cor 12.13 and Col 3.11 (The Library of New Testament Studies) - Softcover

Bruce Hansen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 056768931X ISBN 13: 9780567689313

Publisher: T&T Clark, 2019

Synopsis

Hansen argues against prevalent views that the unity formula employed in Gal 3.28, 1 Cor 12.13 and Col 3.11 reflects either a Hellenistic anthropology of ideal androgyny or a modern liberal conception of social equality. Rather, Hansen contends, attention to function and context demonstrates each epistle's vision of social unity. Insights from ethnic theory elucidate how epistles characterize this unity in terms of a new social identity, and the practices warranted by that identity. Furthermore, Hansen claims that because identity construction is continual, dynamic and discursive, alternate identities (e.g. ethnic, gender, religious, economic) within the new Christian communities, may be seen as influencing one another and may be termed as the collective Christian identity. Hansen employs theories from Ethnic study as tools for assessing how such overlapping identities persist and interact with one another. His analysis thereby demonstrates that the social unity promoted by this formula opposes cultural dominance by any particular group and, conversely reinforces the persistence of marginal social identities within new communities. The issue is then not one of gender equality, but of the equality that Paul wishes to develop between competing social groups.

About this title

Review:

"'By applying the conceptual apparatus of 'ethnic theory' to the Pauline letters, he suggests that Paul attempts to supply his churches with a fictive kinship myth that renders them a new ethnos, drawn from Jews as well as Gentiles, rather than either group being subsumed to the other. In this way, Paul fashions for his churches a 'diaspora identity' (for which Hansen follows D Boyrain), but one that, rather than obliterating social differences between individuals, seeks to create a space that prevents any one pre-existing identity marker (such as circumcision) serving as a normative for all (pace Boyarin). This identity functions within a broadly bounded set of boundary-marking 'indices' that concern avoidance of idoltary and sexual immorality, and adherence to communal solidarity and Christ-like sacrificial love. There is much of value in this careful investigation.' David Lincicum, Mansfield College, Oxford " --Theological Book Review

About the Author:

Rev. Bruce Hansen, PhD (University of St. Andrews) is an ordained minister at San Francisco Christian Center and has been a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the San Francisco Bay area for twenty-three years.

About this edition

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 056768931X
• ISBN 13: 9780567689313
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256