Reading 1 Peter through the lens of feminist and diaspora studies
keeps front and center the bodily, psychological, and social
suffering experienced by those without stable support of family or
homeland, whether they were economic migrants or descendants of
those enslaved by Roman armies. In the new "household" of God,
believers are encouraged to exhibit a moral superiority to the
society that engulfs them. But adoption of "elite" values cannot
erase the undertones of randomized verbal abuse, general scorn, and
physical violence that women, immigrants, slaves, and freedmen
faced as the "facts of life." First Peter offers the "honor" of
identifying with the Crucified, "by his bruises you are healed"
(2:24). A Christian liberation ethic would challenge 1 Peter's
approach. Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia-Pontus in
north-western Asia Minor, is a contemporary of 2 Peter's writer.
The polemical, accusatory genre of 2 Peter, like Jude, originates
in Roman judicial rhetoric. The pastor, in the persona of a
prosecuting attorney, condemns immoral defendants, including
influential women. Their "crimes" encode community tensions over
women's leadership, Gentile-members' sexual ethics, their
syncretistic deviations from Jewish doctrine on creation, and the
certainty of divine judgment and punishment. Citations to Elizabeth
Cady Stanton's A Woman's Bible enliven the commentary. The
doctrinal disorder prompts the male pastor to sustain loyalists in
their commitment to "Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Second
Peter dramatizes an ecclesial crisis whose "solution" was the
eventual imposition of a magisterium to silence dissent. Brief,
combative, and assuming a familiarity with a literary culture that
most twenty-first-century readers do not have, the Letter of Jude
would be an obvious candidate for being the most neglected book of
the New Testament. As a model for a pastoral strategy, it can be
recommended only with great reservations: almost everyone will find
in it something problematic, if not offensive. Yet, in addition to
giving a window on a Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian milieu, Jude's
energetic prose testifies to the author's visceral concern for
those attempting to live by the gospel in difficult circumstances.
Furthermore, to the extent that over familiarity with parts of the
New Testament can blunt their challenge, this letter provides a
salutary reminder that the entire canon originated in a world that
is radically unfamiliar to us.
General
Imprint: |
Liturgical Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Wisdom Commentary Series, 56 |
Release date: |
June 2022 |
Authors: |
Pheme Perkins
• Patricia McDonald
• Eloise Rosenblatt
|
Volume editors: |
Linda M. Maloney
|
Editors: |
Barbara E Reid
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 32mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - With dust jacket / With dust jacket
|
Pages: |
360 |
Edition: |
Annotated edition |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8146-8206-7 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8146-8206-5 |
Barcode: |
9780814682067 |
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