Corpus-Paul

[Jeff Peterson <peterson AT austingrad.edu>]

On Monday, August 18, 2003, at 11:56 AM, Terence Donaldson wrote:

>  In our study of the religions of late antiquity it might be better to 
> dispense with the term "mission" altogether, at least for a while, and 
> to investigate afresh the ways in which religions propagated 
> themselves (by creating a public profile, attracting and incorporating 
> new members, etc.).

A moratorium on the use of the word "mission" might be useful, and in 
any case we need to take care in defining the terms of our discussion, 
but I don't think one can get around earliest Christianity as an 
outward-looking and -moving community. Paul gives us evidence not only 
for his own missionary activity (oops, I used the word! -- read 
"recruitment" or something more vanilla) but also for that of Peter and 
Jerusalem folk -- the handshake or holy kiss sealed the fact that he 
was entrusted with an APOSTOLH to the gentiles, as they held one 
directing them to Jews (Gal 2:1ff). And as far as I can see (pending my 
promised read of Dixon), the evidence is against any detectable number 
of non-Christian Jews in antiquity regarding themselves as actively 
sent to include gentiles within the covenant, or as organizing 
themselves to fulfill such a comission; how you dealt with gentiles who 
were bright or pious enough to see that in covenant with Israel's god 
was where they belonged, that was another question.

Jeff Peterson


Jeffrey Peterson
Austin Graduate School of Theology
Austin, Texas