Paul and identity construction in early Christianity and the Roman Empire

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Paul and identity construction in early Christianity and the Roman Empire
 
Creator Mbwangi, F. Manjewa
 
Subject — social identity theory; Roman Empire; economic identity; religious identity; political identity; assimilation; culture
Description The question of what subjects Paul addresses in his letters has been a matter of debate in New Testament scholarship. This debate shows the evolution of Pauline studies, whereby early scholars argued that Paul addressed topics ranging from questions of human existence, to relations between Jews and Gentiles, and even topics connecting Paul with the Roman Empire. Most of these scholars view Paul mainly from a religious perspective, particularly in terms of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. However, viewing Paul from a Jewish versus a Christian religious perspective only fails to present the multivalent function of the Pauline corpus. This article employs social identity theory to read Galatians 3:1–10 in order to defend the argument that Paul employs his letters to construct a superordinate identity for his community which embraces not only political perspectives but also has religious and economic trajectories.Contribution: The application of identification, contest and comparison, concepts derived from sociology, to analyze Galatians 3:1-10 in reference to 1st century economic, religious and political contexts to explain the multivalent nature of early Christian identity, contributes to multidisciplinary research aspects of Biblical studies which is in tandem with the scope of HTS Theological Journal.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2020-07-23
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v76i4.5652
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 76, No 4 (2020); 10 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5652/15428 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5652/15427 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5652/15429 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5652/15426
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2020 F. Manjewa Mbwangi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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