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Abstract
Comparison in the study of religion, in particular the study of the early Jesus movement has had an odd history, serious comparison often being eschewed and dismissed in the interest of preserving claims to the sui generis character of early Christianity. This paper argues that comparison should be regarded as heuristic rather than genealogical, and illustrates this by examining two forms of comparison, analytic and illustrative, in each case mobilizing comparisons of early Pauline groups and their practices with Graeco-Roman associations and the fiscal practices of Greek cities.
The explanation of 1 Cor 11:14-37, that Corinthian meal practice involved either peer benefaction (wealthy members providing the meal), or eranistic practices (members each contributing differing amounts and qualities of food), and the late arrival of the poorer members, is flawed in several respects. This paper uses data from Graeco-Roman associations to show that association meals were rarely funded by endowments or peer benefaction on a continuing basis, and there is no evidence of eranistic practices. The idea that poorer members typically arrived late at meals is based on anachronistic views of the structure of labor and on ambiguities in translations of προλαμβάνειν in 11:21. The disturbances at the communal meal, like those typical of association meals, likely involved competitive behavior that used differential allotments of food to assert status and privilege.
Abstract
The use of the Jewish Bible in James takes two contrasting forms: exact or near exact verbatim citation in chap. 2, and highly paraphrastic use elsewhere. This chapter argues that the verbatim citations in chap. 2 are a function of James’s polemical engagement with the use of texts from Genesis and Leviticus in Romans. When James has hortatory or protreptic aims in view (rather than polemical and argumentative goals), he uses the more common technique of aemulatio (rhetorical paraphrase), where the predecessor text is adapted and reconfigured to the linguistic and social register of the intended hearers.