“Remain in Your Calling”: Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians

Remain in Your Calling

Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians

J. Brian Tucker

Remain in Your Calling

Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians

Copyright © 2011 J. Brian Tucker. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Tucker, J. Brian

Remain in your calling : Paul and the continuation of social identities in 1 Corinthians / J. Brian Tucker.

p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 13: 978-1-61097-393-9

1. Bible. N.T. Corinthians, 1st—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. N.T. Corinthians, 1st—Social scientific criticism. I. Title.

BS2675.2 T85 2011

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To Joe and Ann Tucker

Acknowledgments

The bulk of this research occurred during my PhD studies at the University of Wales, Lampeter, UK, now University of Wales Trinity Saint David. As frequently happens, my initial project was entirely too big, starting with a focus on 1 and 2 Corinthians, then only on 1 Corinthians, and finally on 1 Corinthians 1 – 4 . That research resulted in You Belong to Christ , which was published in 2010 . This left out a number of postgraduate seminar papers, conference presentations, and articles. Remain in Your Calling offers a chance to make much of that research available. I would like to thank my doctoral supervisor Dr. William S. Campbell, whose support and guidance is more evident each day in so many areas of my life. Dr. Kathy Ehrensperger, whose thorough and honest feedback helped me to improve as a scholar. I would like to thank Dr. K. C. Hanson and Dr. Chris Spinks at Wipf and Stock Publishers for their willingness and guidance in seeing this project to completion. I would also like to thank Mark Nanos, David Rudolph, Chris Zoccali, and Ralph Korner for reading sections of this work and providing valuable insights, which have made this a much better final project. Special thanks to Laura Hunt for her efforts in completing this book. Her suggestions, questions, ideas, and editing skills have made this a much better work than it would have been otherwise. Finally, thanks to Micah Jelinek, Daniel Thorpe, and Kristen Uppendahl for their proofreading and index work and Michael Jones and Katie Wyant for proofreading the manuscript at its final stage.

I want to thank my wife Amber, who completed her Masters in Theological Studies as I finalized this project. Congratulations for reaching such a milestone; you are a godly, beautiful, and intelligent woman, and I am truly blessed. To my four daughters: Ashley, Alexandria, Annaliese, and Abigail. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and one day soon I will write a book that you can enjoy reading! To my parents, Joe and Ann Tucker, I dedicate this monograph to the two of you. You have been amazingly supportive through the various ministry stages our family has gone through, and I realize I could not have done this without your encouragement, prayer, and support. To David and Kim Vincent, Bernie and Julie Fritz, and Paul and Kathy Cerny, thank you for being part of such an encouraging extended family, and for showing me the diverse ways in which people remain in their calling with God. To Richard and Carol Goode, thank you for your continual support and interest in our lives and ministry and for raising such a wonderful daughter. You all have been, and continue to be, wonderful in-laws.

I would like to thank the following publishers and organizations for permission to incorporate material, often significantly modified, from these articles: Paul and the Formation of the Urban Christ-Movement, Journal of Beliefs and Values 31.1 (April 2010) 97–106, with permission from Taylor and Francis; the journal’s website may be found at: www.informaworld.com/jbv. Did Paul Create Christian Identity? Criswell Theological Review N.S. 8.1 (Fall 2010) 35–51, with permission from the journal. By kind permission of Continuum International Publishing Group. J. Brian Tucker © 2010. Baths, Baptism, and Patronage: The Continuing Role of Roman Social Identity in Corinth, In Reading Paul in Context: Explorations in Identity Formation, edited by Kathy Ehrensperger and J. Brian Tucker, 173–88 (LNTS, 428; London: T. & T. Clark, 2010). Chapters 4 and 5 were originally presented at SBL Annual meetings, while chapters 1, 2, and 6 were initially presented at SBL Midwest meetings. Chapters 3 and 7 were presented at the University of Wales postgraduate seminars.

J. Brian Tucker

April 2011

Abbreviations

1

Introduction

This study argues that existing social identities and the continuation of difference mattered to the Apostle Paul, and that he viewed them as fundamentally significant in the lives of Christ-followers. This study is not a call to inertia. It is not designed to (re)inscribe hegemonic discourses that reify asymmetrical social relationships. Rather, the primary aim of this study is to show how Paul negotiates and transforms existing social identities of Christ-followers in order to extend the Pauline mission in Corinth. It accomplishes this through an investigation of 1 Corinthians. It builds on my findings in You Belong to Christ: Paul and the Formation of Social Identity in 1 Corinthians 1 ­– 4 and applies a similar identity-critical analysis to the rest of 1 Corinthians. ¹

This introduction provides an overview of the way I understand Paul’s identity-forming program in 1 Corinthians. It begins with a brief description of two scholars who address this topic in a manner somewhat different than the one undertaken here. Then it offers an introduction to a group of scholars referred to as Beyond the New Perspective on Paul. This study follows closely many of the findings within this group of scholars, and this overview provides clarity with regard to the type of reading that occurs in this monograph. Finally, it highlights many of the key issues in social-scientific criticism that are relevant to this study by reviewing a collection of essays by Still and Horrell, After the First Urban Christians.² This collection rightly notes the seminal influence of Wayne Meeks on social-scientific analysis of Paul’s letters and provides an excellent dialogue partner for the chapters that follow.³

Two Recent Approaches to Paul and Identity Formation

Recent studies on Paul and identity formation have brought to the fore the centrality of social identity in Paul’s thought.⁴ However, many of those studies reflect an approach that minimizes either Paul’s Jewishness or the way he values the continuation of gentile identity in Christ. Two of these studies are discussed here as a point of contrast and comparison with the approach taken in this study.

A Former Jew

For instance, Love L. Sechrest argues that the Pauline Christ-movement was a racial group as understood within Second Temple Judaism. She provides a reading that follows the contours of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) and suggests that Paul viewed those in Christ, both Jew and gentile, as a third race. Sechrest’s approach, however, is not the traditional third race perspective with its implicit anti-Judaism. The third race approach argued for in A Former Jew reveals Paul as one who continues to show affection for Judaism, sees ongoing interdependence between Jews and gentiles, and does not disparage the law. These three characteristics are often associated with the work of scholars that are part of the radical perspective on Paul.⁵ So, how does Sechrest come to such a conclusion concerning Paul and the formation of Christian identity? She starts by asking the question, What if ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’ meant something different to ancient Jews than white-male-dominated modern scholarship has appreciated?⁶ In A Former Jew, Sechrest offers a wide-ranging study that argues that modern conceptions of race and ethnicity have been read into Paul, resulting in a skewed understanding concerning his approach to the formation of Christian identity.

Though Sechrest has provided a thoughtful study, I remain unconvinced that Paul viewed the Christ-movement as a third race. First, the primary passage in which Paul addresses the continuation of the circumcision and uncircumcision callings is 1 Cor 7:17–24, which Sechrest does not address. In these verses, Paul’s rule is that those in Christ are not to seek to change their ethnic identification once they begin following Christ; rather Paul’s vision is one of continuing ecclesiological variegation.⁷ Second, in Rom 11:13 and 15:27 Paul clearly refers to the Christ-followers in Rome as still gentiles, but Sechrest does not account for these verses in her third race dialectic. Third, her approach to apocalyptic is not detailed and assumes discontinuity with the pre-turning life, though J. C. Beker’s approach to apocalyptic, which allows for continuity of ethnic identity in Christ, is not considered.⁸ Fourth, the role of the eschatological pilgrimage texts (e.g., Zech 8:23; Isa 2:2–3; Tob 14:7) and the way they describe gentiles as coming with Jews, as gentiles, to worship God in Zion are not considered;⁹ rather, Sechrest contends that Jewish and gentile identity will be dissolved into one undifferentiated eschatological identity.¹⁰ Finally, William S. Campbell and Mark Nanos are overlooked, though both have argued persuasively against the reading of Paul presented in A Former Jew.¹¹ Sechrest has written a useful work on Paul, though the continuing relevance of Jewish and gentile identity within the Christ-movement may be closer to Paul’s perspective, rather than the displacement of these by an emergent, newly formed, Jewish-like racial group.¹²

All of You Are One

Other scholars see Paul forming the Christ-movement as an ethnic identity. For example, Bruce Hansen, in All of You Are One, argues that the baptismal unity formula seen in Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:13, and Col 3:11 is Paul’s apprehension of a tradition that allows him to present his vision for social unity among his addressees—a unity in which their new identity in Christ may be described as a new ethnic identity formed around Israel redefined in Christ and their participation in Christ. The way in which previous identities continue is described as an amalgamation of previous identities, rather than an assimilation of those identities into an undifferentiated whole. Thus, previous identities may continue, but in a relativized way. The resulting identity may properly be described as something new, though this newness does not dismiss previous identities as irrelevant. So, the baptismal unity formula, far from rejecting difference and obliterating existing identities, encapsulates Paul’s vision of social reconciliation for previously alienated social groups. In that way, the baptismal unity formula is a shorthand way to describe a central component in Paul’s understanding of Christian identity. Thus, Gal 3:28, 1 Cor 12:13, and Col 3:11 express Paul’s mythic context of ethnic identity formation, building on Daniel Boyarin’s diaspora identity.¹³ This new identity is patterned on the reconfigured story of Israel and the story of Christ. It encourages identification with Christ and the typology of Israel in order to produce a community of siblings whose familial bonds are to transcend certain cultural traits, such as immorality, idolatry, or other cultural indices not central to the mythic framework. Thus, they will become an inclusive community of Christ-followers who embrace those who would otherwise be alienated. Furthermore, Hansen recognizes that Paul nuances his use of power as he navigates conflicts around socio-cultural practices in each of these epistles. He appears to disproportionately call the parties that have the greater social capital to relinquish that influence for the sake of solidarity with their weaker siblings.

Two brief evaluative comments will distinguish Hansen’s approach from the one undertaken in this study. First, what exactly is the status of historic Israel in Hansen’s approach? He develops a tenuous dialectic between the church as Israel and the church similar to Israel. For example, he views the church’s boundaries as a modification of Israel’s identity, thinks Jewish identity is attenuated, and that Paul’s churches preserve continuity with historic and ethnic Israel.¹⁴ Alternately, he notes that Christian identity may be described as the apocalyptically reconfigured story of Israel, and the church seen as the Israel of God, but then he states that Paul never directly calls the church ‘Israel,’ and he finally concludes that this approach does not obscure the role of Israel and Christ in Paul’s configuration of the church.¹⁵ Hansen comes close to saying the church takes over the identity of Israel, but then he notes, e.g., that Galatians does not really resolve the issue of the on-going status of Israel’s identity.¹⁶ So, would it be that individual Jews may continue to be Torah-observant as a matter of cultural sensitivity, but that as a broader cultural matter Israel’s identity is somewhat diffused, or taken over by the church?

This ambiguity exists primarily because Hansen follows David Horrell’s general approach to Christian identity, which begs the question, can the universalistic approach to Christian identity, so closely associated with David Horrell and even Philip Esler, actually support the continuation of previous identities in Christ? Horrell and Esler both argue that the in Christ identity transcends other identities, and if it is so, does this not imply the relegation of the other identities?¹⁷ The problem is more acute for Jewish identity, which is really the difficult case. Hansen seems to indicate that key indices of Jewish identity are relativized, but would it not be more accurate to suggest that they simply continue unabated for Jewish Christ-followers? This seems to be an implication of the phrase keeping the commandments in 1 Cor 7:17–24 and the continuing significance of the circumcision calling.¹⁸ This is the main contention between the universalistic approach and the particularistic approach to Christ-movement identity.¹⁹ Thus my query is, how does one get from Horrell to the continuation of previous identities (rather than the one Christian identity)? Hansen’s solution is that the mythic context is what is missing from these other universalistic approaches, and this context ultimately allows for a third ethnicity approach to Christian identity in which previous identities may continue in Christ. However, describing Christian identity as a new ethnicity confuses the categories with regard to Israel, and though Paul may draw on ethnic discourse to describe aspects of the transformation of identity in Christ, it does not follow that a new ethnic identity is formed thereby. These assessments aside, Hansen provides an improvement on traditional third race readings of Paul’s view of Christian identity, and he makes a persuasive case that the baptismal unity formula was central to Paul’s vision for social unity within the one body of Christ.

Studies such as Sechrest’s and Hansen’s bring to the fore the centrality of identity formation in Paul’s mission. Their explorations into his letters, though different from the one offered here, open up pathways for research, especially with regard to Paul’s view of Judaism and the status of gentiles within the Christ-movement. The present study contributes to this ongoing conversation by addressing the way Paul creates Christ-movement identity especially through the process of kinship formation.²⁰ It also looks at the way previous Jewish and gentile social identities are transformed and continue in Christ by providing case studies from 1 Corinthians where negotiation of social identities is evident.

Beyond the New Perspective on Paul

The approach to Paul taken in this book aligns closely with a group of scholars described as Beyond the New Perspective on Paul (BNP) or, alternately, the Radical New Perspective on Paul.²¹ The first question is, to whom does the Beyond the New Perspective on Paul group refer? This list includes: William S. Campbell, Kathy Ehrensperger, Peter Tomson, Mark Nanos, Caroline Johnson Hodge, David Rudolph, Pamela Eisenbaum, John Gager, Stanley Stowers, Lloyd Gaston, Krister Stendahl, Marcus Barth, Markus Bockmuehl, Anders Runesson, and Magnus Zetterholm.²² Although these scholars all follow the same broad mode of thought with regard to Paul, their positions on other matters, such as soteriological categories, differ.²³ While some in this group, e.g., Gaston, Gager, and Eisenbaum may argue that there remain two different pathways of salvation, or covenants, for gentiles and Jews, not all the scholars listed above hold to that view.²⁴

Michael Bird and Areas of Possible Concurrence

As a group, BNP scholars seek to move beyond the interpretive perspective of E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright.²⁵ Michael Bird, in thinking about the various ways disparate scholarly interpretive traditions might draw on Sanders, Dunn, and Wright’s insights, offers five areas of concurrence with the New Perspective on Paul (NPP): (1) The Jewish context of Pauline theology; (2) The social function of the law; (3) The unity of Jews and gentiles in one body; (4) Justification as covenant status; and (5) Righteousness and obedience.²⁶ However, these areas may be more contested than Bird’s analysis reveals. First, while those within the BNP agree with the focus on the Jewish context, many would say Sanders, Dunn, and Wright did not go far enough.²⁷ Second, sociological and soteriological aspects are dual foci; however, the social implications of the way this is distributed between gentiles and Jews is differentiated between BNP scholars.²⁸ Third, ethnic flattening-out is quite contested and represents an area where significant disagreement exists.²⁹ The issues of Justification as covenant status and Righteousness and obedience are somewhat beyond the scope of this monograph and quite controverted among BNP scholars. It is an open question as to whether or not these are possible areas of scholarly concurrence.

Characteristics of the Beyond the New Perspective Approach

What are the characteristics of the BNP approach? They may be described in the following way: They (1) reject universal/ethnic dichotomy in Paul; (2) break from Lutheran readings of Paul; (3) see Paul’s focus on the justification of gentiles and not the status of humanity in general; (4) find no implicit critique of Israel or the Law; and (5) view Paul as one who teaches his gospel using ethnic and kinship language to articulate God’s plan of salvation in terms of these identities, and not to the exclusion or erasure of these.

So, what are the implications of these characteristics for this study? First, Paul is seen as one thoroughly embedded within Judaism; this closely aligns with Bird’s first area of concurrence.³⁰ Second, the significance of Roman imperial ideology should be given its due with regard to the formation of the Christ-movement, both as an interlocutor and a dialogue partner.³¹ This closely aligns with Bird’s second area of concurrence. Third, a particularistic approach to identity is taken, in contrast to a universalistic one that sees only Christian identity that replaces previous identities.³² This addresses the third area of concurrence from Bird; however, it applies the idea in a different way. Fourth, there is in Paul no explicit critique of the Law or Israel.³³ Fifth, the use of social identity terms (e.g., ethnic and kinship) are seen as central in the formation of Christ-movement identity.³⁴

Social-scientific Approaches to the Study of Paul

Todd Still and David G. Horrell edited After The First Urban Christians: The Social-Scientific Study of Pauline Christianity Twenty-Five Years Later, which looks at the way Wayne A. Meeks’s The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul continues to influence social-scientific approaches to Paul and the early Christ-movement.³⁵ Still and Horrell bring to the fore key aspects of social-scientific analysis that inform the approach taken in this study. A review of their volume will accomplish two purposes. First, it will serve as a way to understand the approach taken here without needlessly repeating the extensive justification of the use of contemporary social-scientific methods in biblical studies that occurred in You Belong to Christ.³⁶ Second, the review that follows raises a number of issues with the various approaches of these authors. Remain in Your Calling is, in many ways, a response to some of the claims made in After the First Urban Christians. As this review unfolds, a number of the footnotes will direct the reader to subsequent sections of the book where the issue under discussion will be addressed.

Social-Scientific New Testament Interpretation

David Horrell’s essay, Whither Social-Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation? Reflections on Contested Methodologies and the Future, begins with a survey of Wayne Meeks’s methodology, described as moderate functionalism, a theoretical framework shared by Gerd Theissen. As a social historian, Meeks draws from the social sciences in an eclectic manner while focusing on various issues of social status within the early Christ-movement. Horrell’s brief summary reorients the reader to Meeks’s approach and serves as the foundation for his discussion in the rest of the chapter where he surveys key scholarly developments since the publication of The First Urban Christians. First, the field of social-scientific New Testament studies is now widely diverse and has developed into so many differing areas that it is almost impossible to discern a common, overarching methodological approach. Second, most of Meeks’s innovative ideas with regard to the social aspects of the Christ-movement are now part of the common field of knowledge in New Testament studies. Third, the work of Bruce Malina and the Context Group is noted as an approach which differs from Meeks’s.

Malina identifies his methodology as the proper locus for social-scientific interpretation of biblical texts. He contends: (1) Scholars must employ recognized social-scientific models to interpret the text if they want to engage in social-scientific interpretation. (2) There is a distinction between social historians and social theorists. (3) Social science interpreters are rejected if they do not follow the tightly defined disciplinary framework laid out by Malina and some within the Context Group.³⁷ This leads Horrell to ask, What does count for social-scientific criticism? He raises these issues and then provides a critical analysis of the approach represented by Malina. He argues that the exclusive reliance on models is not warranted in that some leading practitioners within the social sciences (e.g., Grace Davie and David Sutton) rely on approaches that do not cohere with Malina’s model-based approach.³⁸ This leads Horrell to conclude that a narrow definition of what social-scientific interpretation entails is unwarranted; however, and quite importantly, Horrell does think that outlining a coherent and explicit theoretical framework at the outset of one’s work is of vital importance.³⁹ This study follows Horrell’s general approach and allows themes to emerge from the text and then applies the insights from social identity approaches in order to determine the way the text forms social identity in its hearers/readers.

Horrell suggests four areas of further development within the broadly defined field of social-scientific interpretation: (1) literary ethnography; (2) Marxian economic and social history; (3) iconological studies; (4) postcolonial studies.⁴⁰ The first approach offers a thick description of texts in a manner similar to the anthropological work of Clifford Geertz in contrast to a broad-based, generalized reading of those same texts (such as is followed by the Context Group).⁴¹ The second approach is concerned with economic issues and doing history ‘from below.’⁴² The third approach interprets texts in dialogue with the material record. Horrell rightly notes the fine work of Davina Lopez in this regard.⁴³ The final approach researches the various ways the early Christ-movement negotiated the Roman Empire and its ideological practices.⁴⁴

Horrell’s chapter provides a useful summary of the current contours within New Testament studies with regard to social-scientific interpretation. However, by way of assessment, I would raise a few concerns. First, social-scientific interpretation, in Horrell’s approach, ceases to be a useful descriptor within New Testament studies. It is emptied of most of its distinctive content and comes close to being a term that is non-communicative. Second, Horrell’s argument that there is no significant difference between social historians and social theorists downplays the distinctive manner in which scholars such as E. A. Judge, Bruce Winter, and Andrew Clarke approach the interpretive task as compared to social theorists such as Philip Esler, William S. Campbell, and Kathy Ehrensperger. These approaches can be combined; however, it is too stark to suggest that there is no sustainable distinction to be drawn.⁴⁵ Third, Horrell slightly overstates the accepted view of the sectarian nature of the Christ-movement and questions the extent to which scholars may speak of discrete Pauline communities.⁴⁶ This reduction of a contextualized, discernible, Pauline ethos, if accepted, reinforces Horrell’s view of the early emergence of a singular Christian identity.⁴⁷ Here Horrell’s universalistic approach to Christian identity comes to the fore.

Urban Context

Peter Oakes’s essay, Contours of the Urban Environment, provides a brief overview of the physical and social environment of Pompeii and then compares and contrasts this with Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth. He concludes that Philippi and Corinth are quite similar to Pompeii, while Thessalonica differs with regard to its Greek political structure.⁴⁸ Oakes’s essay provides a generous sampling of resources related to the archaeological studies of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth. These references offer a wealth of information and may serve as an excellent entry-point into the archaeology of the Pauline communities.

Oakes concludes that subsequent scholarship has reinforced Meeks’s general but fragmentary understanding of the urban environment in the Pauline assemblies. Meeks, argues Oakes, lacks a sustained general description of a Greco-Roman urban environment.⁴⁹ Thus, it is difficult to see how the various aspects of Meeks’s research (e.g., local governing elites, regional urbanism, and differing responses to Roman imperialism) fit together in an overall pattern. Oakes’s essay orients the reader to just such a general theoretical model by using the best evidenced and researched first century Roman city, Pompeii. His survey builds on the useful work of Roger Ling. Furthermore, Oakes notes that the social significance of space is an area of development within Pauline studies since Meeks’s volume.⁵⁰ The use of critical spatial theory is evident in the work of Jorunn Økland, whom Oakes does mention in another context; she serves as an excellent example of how to integrate texts, archaeology, and critical theory.⁵¹

By way of evaluation, Oakes’s work raises a few crucial methodological questions. First, the choice of Pompeii as a model for a sustained description of the Pauline communities will strike some as odd. While Pompeii is a unique accident of history and its scholarship is immense, the remains in Ephesus rival those in Pompeii and could be combined to form a more comprehensive model of an urban environment similar to that experienced by the Pauline movement. Second, central to Oakes’s approach are the urban structures related to patronage.⁵² To accomplish his goal of a broad-ranging description of the urban environment, he expands the concept of patronage beyond its narrowly defined Roman practice to a social-scientific understanding of patronage, a move that requires further justification.⁵³ Third, Oakes follows the scholarly consensus but slightly overstates the amount of interpenetration of Roman and Greek culture and identity in Corinth.⁵⁴ He notes the complexity of this development later under Hadrian, but the evidence from the mid-first century CE, e.g., Argive petition and the baths north of the Peribolos of Apollo, indicates that Corinth was a thoroughly Roman colony during this period and that local expressions of philhellenism occurred at a later stage in the life of the colony.⁵⁵ Furthermore, Barbette Spaeth argues that there is evidence for the Capitoline Triad in Corinth. If she is correct, this would align with Oakes’s general description of the urban environment in Pompeii and Philippi,⁵⁶ while supporting the argument that the local expression of Corinthian Roman social identity was not interpenetrated in a significant manner by Greek cultural identity.

Economics and Rhetorics

Bruce Longenecker, in Socio-Economic Profiling of the First Urban Christians, provides a far-reaching and insightful essay that addresses many of the questions that interest scholars with regard to the socio-economic profile of the early Christ-movement. Meeks’s foundational concern with status inconsistency, and the way joining the Christ-movement might resolve this dissonance, frames much of Longenecker’s discussion.⁵⁷ He problematizes Meeks’s contention by noting that some (e.g., middling-level urbanites) who joined the Christ-movement might have experienced an increase in status inconsistency rather than a resolution of this perceived problem.⁵⁸ While this does not invalidate Meeks’s original argument, it may be the other side of the coin and provide much needed theoretical complexity in the discussion.

Longenecker steers a course between Meeks’s position that the economic status of the Pauline communities mirrored that of the broader Roman Empire in terms of representative social stratification (i.e., new consensus) and that of Justin Meggitt and Steve Friesen, who argue that the movement was drawn primarily from the poor within the empire. Longenecker rejects Meggitt’s binary economic categories and engages instead with Steven Friesen’s economic model, modifying it to include a slightly larger middling-group. Longenecker thinks that paying attention to the socio-economic profile of the Christ-movement is vital and that the next generation of scholarship on the first urban followers of Jesus will do well to put a scale of this kind front and center in its deliberations.⁵⁹ Longenecker does this with a brief summary of the prosopographic approaches of Meeks, Horrell, and Friesen, in which their findings are shown to be quite similar. Furthermore, by applying the economy scale to this material, Longenecker concludes that there is more in common than is sometimes thought between those who challenge the ‘new consensus’ and the more cautious advocates of the ‘new consensus.’⁶⁰

The rhetorical nature of Paul’s letters is sometimes noted as a reason scholars cannot expect to find useful sociological data about the early Christ-movement. Longenecker is aware of this but examines key passages with a rhetorically sensitive reading that combines the resources of the economy scale with rhetorical criticism. Longenecker concludes that the primary target of much of Paul’s rhetoric may be described as those stable near subsistence level that included merchants, traders, freedpersons, artisans, and military veterans.⁶¹ The rhetorical location of this group is then compared to Greco-Roman collegia and the role of benefaction within those associations. Here Longenecker argues that status inconsistency may actually become more acute for an individual joining the Christ-movement if any of the following existed: a lower than expected overall economic profile, a different conceptualization of honor, or the possibility of being associated with a subversive group with regard to the empire.⁶² Those who experienced status inconsistency and joined the Christ-movement may be described as changing their reference group. This is a key component in identity formation. Longenecker, building on Meeks, defines reference groups as those groups or arenas that people prioritize as most valued in terms of defining their identity and status.⁶³ Longenecker sees in this framework the way to explain the differing social experiences with regard to existing civic identities and new identity within the Christ-movement.⁶⁴

Longenecker’s work raises a few important issues that require further investigation in this book. First, his contention that the lowest level on the economy scale was a part of the Pauline communities still lacks prosopographical evidence but relies on inferences from the texts.⁶⁵ Second, though Longenecker provides readings that pay attention to Paul’s rhetorical constructs, it is still not clear when Paul is to be understood as rhetorical and when he is not.⁶⁶ Third, his discussion of reference groups overlooks the embedded nature of social identity and could be clarified further by considering that, in 1 Cor 7:17–24, Paul’s rule in all the e0kklhsi/ai is that Christ-followers are to remain in the social situation in which they were called.⁶⁷ Previous social identities continue to be relevant in Christ but in a reprioritized manner.⁶⁸ In this approach, the issue of status inconsistency now becomes, how do previous social identities continue to function within the Christ-movement? This question is a key concern for this study.

Group Dynamics within the Christ-Movement

Edward Adams’s essay, First-Century Models for Paul’s Churches: Selected Scholarly Developments since Meeks, reviews one of the most influential chapters in Meeks’s book, the one which covers the formation of the e0kklhsi/a. Meeks originally considered four ancient models for the Pauline community: (1) the household; (2) voluntary associations; (3) diaspora synagogues; and (4) philosophical schools. He concluded that none of the models fully accounts for the complexity of the Pauline movement and suggests that the contemporary social-scientific concept of a sect better fits the textual data.⁶⁹ The strength of Meeks’s chapter is that it provides a useful entry point into this important area of research; however, Adams’s section on subsequent research on the formation of the e0kklhsi/a is insightful and significant for this study.

Meeks understands the household as the basic context of the e0kklhsi/a;⁷⁰ however, Adams rightly notes that this has recently been called into question by Horrell.⁷¹ Adams suggests using the concept of houseful in which coresidence could occur without the extension of "family