Strangers to family : diaspora and 1 Peter's invention of God's household / Shively T.J. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, Shively T. J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bible. Peter, 1st--Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bible.

Bible. Peter, 1st.

Households--Religious aspects--Christianity--Biblical teaching.

Households.

Emigration and immigration--Religious aspects--Christianity--Biblical teaching.

Emigration and immigration.

Emigration and immigration in the Bible.

Globalization--Religious aspects--Christianity--Biblical teaching.

Globalization.

Globalization--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Biblical teaching.

Emigration and immigration--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Households--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Physical Description:

xxi, 207 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Waco, Texas : Baylor University Press, [2016]

Summary:

In Strangers to Family Shively Smith reads the Letter of 1 Peter through a new model of diaspora. Smith illuminates this peculiarly Petrine understanding of diaspora by situating it among three other select perspectives from extant Hellenist Jewish writings: the Daniel court tales, the Letter of Aristeas, and Philo's works. While 1 Peter tends to be taken as representative of how diaspora was understood in Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian circles, Smith demonstrates that 1 Peter actually reverses the most fundamental meaning of diaspora as conceived by its literary peers. Instead of connoting the scattering of a people with a common territorial origin, for 1 Peter, diaspora constitutes an "already-scattered-people" who share a common, communal, celestial destination. Smith's discovery of a distinctive instantiation of diaspora in 1 Peter capitalizes on her careful comparative historical, literary, and theological analysis of diaspora constructions found in Hellenistic Jewish writings. Her reading of 1 Peter thus challenges the use of the exile and wandering as master concepts to read 1 Peter, reconsiders the conceptual significance of diaspora in 1 Peter and in the entire New Testament canon, and liberates 1 Peter from being interpreted solely through the rubrics of either the stranger-homelessness model or household codes. First Peter does not recycle standard diasporic identity, but is, as Strangers to Family demonstrates, an epistle that represents the earliest Christian construction of diaspora as a way of life. - from publisher

Contents:

Part I Diaspora through the Lens of I Peter

1 Chosen Kinship: Imagining Christian Diaspora 17

2 The Cultic Life: Practices of the Christian Diaspora 45

3 Provinces and Households: The Relational Matrix of the Christian Diaspora 61

Part II Diaspora the Way Others Imagine

4 Diaspora Life in Babylon: The Court Tales of Daniel 87

5 Diaspora in Egypt: The Letter of Aristeas 117

6 Diaspora in Alexandria: Philo 141.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Smith, Shively T.J., author. Strangers to family.

ISBN:

9781481305488

1481305484

OCLC:

946161227