Margaret Y. MacDonald

Women Holy in Body and Spirit: The Social Setting of 1 Corinthians 7

In an elegant discussion of the roles of women in the Pauline congregations, Wayne Meeks has drawn attention to Pauls apparently deliberate attempt to make parallel statements about the respective obligations of males and females in 1 Cor 7 and in 1 Cor 11. 2–16. In the same study, Meeks makes a second observation about 1 Cor 11. 2–16: ‘If the passage places most emphasis on the female, that must be because in Corinth it is the charismatic women who are donning the attire of the opposite sex’. There is indeed a fairly wide consensus that the problem underlying the instructions about head attire in 1 Cor 11 is with women. Is there a connection between the antics of the women of 1 Cor 11 and Pauls exhortations in 1 Cor 7? Are we to conclude that 1 Cor 7 also responds to a situation instigated by females? Or, does the fact that the parallelism in 1 Cor 7 is even more extensive than in 1 Cor 11 imply that, in his discussion of marriage and celibacy, Paul was equally concerned with the practices of men and women?

Slavery, Sexuality and House Churches: A Reassessment of Colossians 3.18–4.1 in Light of New Research on the Roman Family

The instructions to slaves and masters in the Colossian Haustafel have long raised questions about their concrete meaning for their intended audience. Drawing principally on recent research on the Roman family, but also on other texts, inscriptions and imagery, this article seeks to show that the implications of the household code for the sexual treatment of slaves must have varied widely. Important factors included the believing or non-believing nature of each household and the complexity of familial arrangements generally. Ultimately, Colossians appears implicitly to recognise a degree of honour in the case of slaves, a view that may sometimes have led to greater respect for familial/sexual boundaries than was otherwise usual.

Early Christian women married to unbelievers

Margaret Y. MacDonald is now in the Department of Religious Studies, University of Ottawa, after moving from Saint Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The research on which this essay is based was undertaken with the assistance of a grant from the University Council for Research of Saint Francis Xavier University supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In his study of private life in late antiquity Peter Brown has spoken insightfully about the challenge of Christian fidelity: &dquo;Much of the history of the early Christian churches is the history of an urgent search for equilibrium among those whose ideal of single-hearted loyalty to each other and to Christ was constantly eroded by the objective complexity of their own position in Mediterranean society.&dquo;’ This article considers one aspect of the position of early church members in Mediterranean society which must have greatly tested their loyalty to each other and to Christ.

The Politics of Identity in Ephesians

Drawing upon recent work on the political framework of the Pauline epistles, the goal of this article is to shed light upon the problem of historical reconstruction of the context of Ephesians. In response to some commentators who have contended that the author of Ephesians failed to show interest in contemporary Jews, it is argued that Eph. 2.11-22 is best understood as reflecting significant engagement with the life and fate of the Jewish people. Both the conceptions of society and the presentation of the identity of the ekklesia are examined in light of the situation of the Jews in the empire under Domitian. It is argued that the use of ambiguous categories to refer to the relations between the ekklesia and Israel reflect concrete experiences in the ekklesia of shifting identity, in part dependent on the changing circumstances of the Jews. The existence of these social dynamics is confirmed by examining the points of contact between Ephesians and imperial ideology as revealed especially in the interplay of religious, civic, and domestic themes in the epistle. Comparison of Ephesians to Josephus’s Against Apion proves to be especially useful in bringing this interplay into full relief.

Beyond Identification of the Topos of Household Management: Reading the Household Codes in Light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of the New Testament

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s New Testament scholars produced groundbreaking work illustrating that the household code had its origins in discussions of ‘household management’ among philosophers and moralists from Aristotle onward. Despite this general consensus, many points of disagreement remained, especially with respect to the function of the codes in particular New Testament documents and what the codes reveal about the relationship of Christians with the wider world. This article revisits some of the initial debates and traces their influence on subsequent scholarship. The recognition of the household codes as a type of ‘political’ discourse is of particular interest, as well as its impact on subsequent feminist, political and postcolonial interpretation. The conclusion suggests five promising directions, closely tied to the study of early Christian families, for future analysis of the codes leading to a more complete understanding of household management in a house-church setting.

Reading the New Testament Household Codes in Light of New Research on Children and Childhood in the Roman World

The references to children and the child–parent relationship in the New Testament household codes (Col 3:20–21; Eph 6:1–4) have received little attention from scholars. Yet recent, cross-disciplinary interest in the study of children and childhood invites us to consider these exhortations afresh. In particular, current research in Roman Family Studies has led to greater appreciation of the multifaceted circumstances of children, raising new questions about the children who were addressed directly in the household codes of Colossians and Ephesians. Two themes are especially important to consider: (1) overlapping categories of identity tied especially to the complex structures of a slave-holding society; and (2) the household as a locus for education throughout the life course. Informed by current research on children and childhood, the household codes appear to be even more significant than was previously thought for understanding the place of house churches in the Roman imperial world. Les références aux enfants et la relation parent-enfant dans les codes domestiques du Nouveau Testament (Col 3.20–21; Ép 6.1–4) ont reçu peu d’attention des chercheurs. Pourtant, récemment, l’intérêt interdisciplinaire dans l’étude des enfants et de l’enfance nous invite à reconsidérer ces exhortations. En particulier, la recherche actuelle en études familiales romaines a conduit à une plus grande appréciation de la situation des enfants à multiples facettes, ce qui soulève de nouvelles questions sur les enfants qui ont été adressées directement dans les codes domestiques de Colossiens et Ephésiens. Deux thèmes sont particulièrement importants à considérer: (1) catégories qui se recoupent d’identité liée en particulier aux structures complexes d’une société esclavagiste, et (2) la maison comme un lieu d’éducation tout au long du cycle de la vie. Informé par la recherche actuelle sur les enfants et l’enfance, les codes domestiques semblent être encore plus importants qu’on ne le pensait pour comprendre la place des églises de maison dans le monde romain impérial.

Domestic Space and Families in Early Christianity: Editors’ Introduction

‘Aquila and Prisca, together with the church that meets in their house, greet you warmly in the Lord’ (1 Cor. 16.19; NRSV). Passing references to the ‘house church’ found in Paul’s letters and elsewhere in the New Testament have long sparked the curiosity of students and scholars alike: What kind of housing did these early church members use for meetings? How did the obviously very close association between the life of the household and the life of the community affect practices and beliefs? Yet, until relatively recently, there have been few detailed and systematic attempts to answer these questions.1 The appearance in 1997 of two works specifically dealing with early Christian families, households and house churches (Osiek and Balch 1997; Moxnes 1997) marked the beginning of a wave of publications in this area (e.g. Nathan 2000; Van Henten and Brenner 2000; Balch and Osiek 2003). The hope is that a direct focus on ‘family matters’ will shed new light on such diverse topics as rituals, leadership, asceticism, social location, community growth, and the lives of women, children and slaves in early Christianity. The publication of the volumes by Moxnes, and Osiek and Balch in 1997

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Word Biblical Commentary: Galatians. Vol. 41 Richard N. Longenecker Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1990. cxx + 323 p

biblical text. In addition to the obligations of justice (mishpat), biblical law enjoins the obligations of benevolence, special duties to those most vulnerable in society, such as widows, orphans, the poor, aliens and slaves (tsedakah). There were Greek terms for the obligations of justice, but none for obligations of benevolence before Philo’s time (see H. A. Wolfson, Philo [Harvard University Press, 1962], Vol. 2, p. 218-25).