Early Christian identity is a social construction including all aspects of group life: worship, teaching, behavior patterns. It is here analyzed from several analytical perspectives, such as intertextuality, construction of identity in texts, social psychology, gender analysis and postcolonial theory.
This conference volume focuses on showing that investigating various aspects of the Christian movement's identity helps us to understand its historical reality. Whatever is known about identity from ancient times reaches us mostly through ancient texts. Thus many of the essays in this volume are devoted to analyzing New Testament texts and showing how they reveal the processes of identity formation. One type of evidence here is how New Testament texts compare with or treat older texts which are in the same normative tradition, in other words biblical and Jewish texts. Another group of essays deals with specific literary techniques used in the service of creating identity, such as personification, stereotyping or marginalizing others as well as looking at the relationship between different kinds of social identity. A third group of essays directs attention to the light that gender analysis casts on the shaping of Christian identity, pointing both to surprising similarities and differences from the surrounding culture. The final group of essays applies the insights of postcolonial theory and its sensitivity to power relationships and the political dimension of human reality.
Table of contents:
The Role of Biblical Traditions in Identity FormationSamuel Byrskog: Christology and Identity in Intertextual Perspective. The Glory of Adam in the Narrative Substructure of Paul's Letter to the Romans -
Per Jarle Bekken: The Controversy on Self-Witness according to John 5:31-40; 8:12-20 and Philo,
Legum Allegoriae 3.205-208 -
Tobias Hägerland: Rituals of (Ex-)Communication and Identity: 1 Cor 5 and 4Q266 11; 4Q270 7
Identity Construction in textsJudith Lieu: Literary Strategies of Personification -
Lauri Thurén: The Antagonists. Rhetorically Marginalized Identities in the New Testament -
Thomas Kazen: Son of Man and Early Christian Identity Formation -
Raimo Hakola: Social Identity and a Stereotype in the Making. Pharisees as Hypocrites in Matthew 23 -
Rikard Roitto: Act as a Christ-believer, as a Household Member or Both? A Cognitive Perspective on the Relation Between the Social Identity in Christ and Household Identities in Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Texts
Gender-analytical PerspectivesHalvor Moxnes: Body, Gender, and Social Space. Dilemmas in Constructing Early Christian Identities -
Fredrik Ivarsson: A Man Has To Do What A Man Has To Do. Protocols of Masculine Sexual Behaviour and 1 Corinthians 5-7 -
Hanna Stenström: Masculine or Feminine? Male Virgins in
Joseph and Aseneth and The Book of Revelation
Postcolonial AnalysesHans Leander: The Parousia as Medicine. A Postcolonial Perspective on Mark and Christian Identity Construction -
Christina Petterson: Mission of Christ and Local Communities in Acts -
Anna Rebecca Solevåg: Perpetua and Felicitas. Reinterpreting Empire, Family and Sexuality
