Abstract
These collected essays explore the social and symbolic construction of community, primarily Paul’s, but also that of Philo and Josephus. Each study uses comparative data to illumine structural differences in social configuration, and all creatively engage contemporary social theory. Chapter 1 provides a thumbnail sketch of social-scientific research on the Pauline correspondence, offering a synthetic guide for the following essays. Barclay then explores the social significance of Jewish practices for Pauline communities: chapter 2 looks at Paul’s stance on Jewish food laws, chapter 3 examines his views on circumcision, and chapter 4, stepping back for a wider angle, studies the way that Paul coordinated “communal ethos” and “ethics” in his Corinthian correspondence without the structuration supplied by “the law.” In chapter 5, the collection and use of money is used to illumine social configuration. Chapters 6–7 look at how Diaspora communities recognized when someone had left the communal pale with an eye towards understanding better why Paul was so often cast as an outsider. Chapter 8 surveys anti-Jewish attitudes in antiquity, clarifying how early Christians adopted or modified anti-Jewish rhetoric in order to definitely differentiate themselves.
Chapters 9–13 explore the invention of distinctively Christian identity. Chapter 9 investigates how hostility from outsiders might contribute to internal social cohesion and a pervasive sense of difference. Chapter 10 traces how early Christian experience of God, interpreted as the presence of “the Spirit,” generated and was subsequently reinforced by language—especially by distinctive speech about pneumatika (“spiritual things”). Pauline communities sometimes marked Christian distinction quite clearly (e.g., regarding attitudes towards death: chapter 11)—but left other areas largely unchanged (e.g., age stereotypes: chapter 13). The household code in Colossians, viewed by many as mere baptism of preexisting social hierarchy, is construed by B. as neither inherently radical nor straightforwardly conservative, but rather an attempt to make routine relations a site of service to Christ and of Christian self-expression (chap. 12).
The last section investigates Diaspora relations with the Roman Empire. Chapters 14–17 contain close readings of Josephus, deploying postcolonial theory to illumine how Roman categories are leveraged to the advantage of the Jews. Chapter 18 argues that Paul’s critique of Roman religion was not focused on its character as Roman, “because his angle of perception views any worship not directed to the ‘living God’ through Christ as erroneous in principle” (32)—and hence even “the imperial cult” was not to him any special phenomenon, but fit within this larger framework. Chapter 19 critiques attempts to unearth references to the emperor and/or the Roman Empire in the Pauline correspondence—attempts which routinely portray Paul as an exponent of subversive politics. B. argues that Paul’s critique ran along quite different lines than scholars such as N.T. Wright have suggested: “Paul’s relation to Rome is subsumed under his relation to what he provocatively calls ‘the present evil age’ (Gal 1.14), on an apocalyptic stage newly configured by the Christ-event” (33)—and as such it was not the empire as Roman to which Paul objected.
The essays gathered here are uniformly thoughtful, engaging creatively both with social theory and with the text of Paul. Investigation of social and symbolic construction of community lends itself readily to overt reflection on “ecclesiology,” and, though B. himself rarely teases out theological implications, almost all the essays point in interesting theological directions. Almost all: the chapters of postcolonial analysis of Josephus will be of interest almost exclusively to specialists on that author. But, on the whole, theological appropriation lies ready to hand. Two examples will have to suffice. First, in chapter 4, B. contrasts Josephus’s emphasis on the comprehensive application of the law to daily life with the apparently looser relation between communal norms and ethical instantiation in Paul: “Paul’s ‘constitution’ seems to leave some room for moral discernment, under the guidance of the Spirit, not as a necessary evil (since all rules require interpretation), but as an integral characteristic of the moral task” (103). Paul certainly thinks that there are norms that govern the community, but precisely his willingness to accept a degree of ethical “polyphony” invites creative moral-theological engagement. A second example: according to B., the subversiveness of Paul’s gospel consisted not in opposing Roman imperial claims within their own terms, but in reducing Rome’s agency and historical significance to “just one more entity in a much greater drama” (386). B. himself gestures toward the larger significance this might have: “In an age when ‘politics-as-state-power’ is proving increasingly inadequate as a framework in which to analyze the corruption, oppression and degradation of our world, it may in fact be a theological advantage that Paul does not oppose Rome as Rome, but opposes anti-God powers wherever and however they manifest themselves on the human stage” (387). Paul’s categories, as interpreted by B., could prove fruitful for contemporary political theology.