Corpus-Paul

[Jeff Peterson <peterson AT mail.ics.edu>]

Alex LaBrecque wrote:
> Perhaps the category for an eighth lecture could be
> interpretations that focus on the sociological aspect of Paul's letters.
> >From my limited readings in this category no single figure stands out as
> key, but John M.G. Barclay has made an impact on my thinking in this aspect.

Herewith a hopelessly biased vote in this category for my Doktorvater
Wayne Meeks, whose FIRST URBAN CHRISTIANS combines the two main emphases
of this approach to Paul (sometimes antithetical): a creative
appropriation of sociological theory (especially evident in his use of
"status inconsistency" to account for Paul's missionary success) and a
concern for realia, prosopography, etc. He once told a group of students
that his goal in pursuing what he has elsewhere described as an
ethnographic account of Pauline Christianity was to restore a sense of
reality to the rather rarefied debates over Pauline theology of
Bultmann, Käsemann, etc., which it is hard to imagine engaging the
passions of anyone outside a university setting. Instead Meeks asked
simply (yet profoundly) how provincial Greeks of the Roman era would
have understood these letters, and what would have attracted them to the
communities the letters address.

There -- told you I was hopelessly biased. 

Jeff Peterson
Institute for Christian Studies
Austin, Texas