University of South Africa Pretoria South Africa
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Abstract
This essay engages the theme “Manufacturing Religion: From Christian Origins to Classical Islam” by challenging scholarly assumptions about the rapid reception and cohesion of new or developing philosophical and religious movements in Greek and Roman antiquity. To illustrate this issue, I present two interrelated case studies: late Republic/early imperial Stoicism and its possible intersections with the later Christ movement of the first century. At a time when engagement with literate culture conferred a great deal of social capital, I suggest that the relative flexibility and “openness” of these two movements allowed for those seeking prestige, social mobility, or distinction – or those who were otherwise excluded from the top tiers of society – to participate in intellectual practices that emulated the standards of the elite. This model for understanding early Christianity counters traditional approaches within the study of religion that tend to foreground notions like belief, conversion and so forth as an explanatory model for membership over sociological and material motivations. This discussion also troubles understandings of Stoicism that tend to link it anachronistically with its later and more exalted imperial associations.
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Berthelot, Katell. “Grecs, Barbares et Juifs dans l’oeuvre de Philon.” Pages 47–61 in Philon d’Alexandrie. Un penseur à l’intersection des cultures gréco-romaine, orientale, juive et chrétienne. Edited by Bernard Decharneux and Sabrina Inowlocki. Monothéismes et Philosophie 12. Turnhout: Brepols, 2011.
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Berthelot, Katell. “Philo’s Perception of the Roman Empire.” JSJ 42, no. 2 (2011): 166–187. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006311X544373.
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Walsh, Robyn Faith. “IVDAEA DEVICTA: The Gospels as Imperial ‘Captive Literature’.” Pages 89–114 in Class Struggle in the New Testament. Edited by Robert J. Myles. Lanham, MD; London: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019.
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Walsh, Robyn Faith. The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture. New York, NY; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883573.
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Whealey, Alice. Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times. Studies in Biblical Literature 36. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2003.
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University of South Africa Pretoria South Africa
Search for other papers by Robyn Faith Walsh in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This essay engages the theme “Manufacturing Religion: From Christian Origins to Classical Islam” by challenging scholarly assumptions about the rapid reception and cohesion of new or developing philosophical and religious movements in Greek and Roman antiquity. To illustrate this issue, I present two interrelated case studies: late Republic/early imperial Stoicism and its possible intersections with the later Christ movement of the first century. At a time when engagement with literate culture conferred a great deal of social capital, I suggest that the relative flexibility and “openness” of these two movements allowed for those seeking prestige, social mobility, or distinction – or those who were otherwise excluded from the top tiers of society – to participate in intellectual practices that emulated the standards of the elite. This model for understanding early Christianity counters traditional approaches within the study of religion that tend to foreground notions like belief, conversion and so forth as an explanatory model for membership over sociological and material motivations. This discussion also troubles understandings of Stoicism that tend to link it anachronistically with its later and more exalted imperial associations.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 226 | 226 | 68 |
| Full Text Views | 8 | 8 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 121 | 121 | 4 |