Reading Ephesians: Exploring Social Entrepreneurship in the Text (The Library of New Testament Studies)

Minna Shkul examines how Ephesians engages in social entrepreneurship - the deliberate shaping of emerging Christian Identity through provision of ideological and social paradigms for the fledgling Christian community. Shkul uses social entrepreneurship as an umbrella for a variety of social processes reflected in the text. This eclectic theoretical framework and deutero-Pauline reading position has two key aims. The first is to offer a theoretically informed social-scientific reading which demonstrates the extensive socio-ideological shaping within the text, and displays the writer's negotiation of different group processes throughout the letter. The second is to examine emerging Christian identity in the text, testing its ideological and social contours and its reforms upon Jewish traditions. Crucially this is done without the theological presupposition that something was wrong with the Judaism practised at the time, but rather by focusing upon the divine 'legitimating' of the Christian group and its culture. These readings of Ephesians examine how the writer engages in a self-enhancing discourse that reinforces basic components of communality. These include the construction of a positive in-group identity and the provision of ideological and social legitimating for the community. Shkul also discusses the textual reflection of communal relations in other groups in Greco-Roman antiquity. She examines how Christ-followers are positioned in a Jewish symbolic universe, which is forced to make room for Christ and his non-Israelite followers. Finally, she explores the attitude toward non-Israelites within Ephesians, and their need for re-socialization. Contents 6 Dedication 9 Acknowledgements 10 Preface 12 Abbreviations 13 PART ONE: CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY 16 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 18 1. Positioning Ephesians Scholarship 18 2. Self-Positioning: Reading Ephesians as Social Entrepreneurship 26 3. Reading Ephesians 1: Social Identity Approach to Construction of Identity in the Text 40 4. Conclusions 58 PART TWO: LEGITIMATING IDENTITY 60 CHAPTER 2 – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR EXPLORING SOCIAL REMEMBERING AND COMMUNAL LEGITIMATION 62 1. Introduction to Readings of Ephesians 2 and 3 62 2. Theoretical Framework 75 CHAPTER 3 – READING EPHESIANS 2: 'REMEMBERING CHRIST' AND ITS COMMUNAL FUNCTIONS 94 1. Ephesians 2 and the Socio-Ideological Positioning of the Discourse 94 2. 'Christ Has Abolished the Law' as a Socio-Ideological Test for Readings of Ephesians 110 3. Ephesians 2.15, Ephesians Jewishness and Shaping the Reputation of Christ 150 4. Conclusions 154 CHAPTER 4 – READING EPHESIANS 3: REMEMBERING PAUL AND COMMUNAL LEGITIMATION 157 1. Paul's Reputation in Ephesians Scholarship 157 2. Reading Ephesians 3: Exploring the Construction of Paul's Reputation 160 3. Conclusions 186 PART THREE: POSITIONING IDENTITY 188 CHAPTER 5 – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR EXPLORING COMMUNAL SOCIAL ORIENTATION 190 1. Introduction to Reading Ephesians 4–6 190 2. Theoretical Framework 197 CHAPTER 6 – READING EPHESIANS 4–6: PROTOTYPES AND ANTITYPES: PARADIGMS FOR SOCIAL ORIENTATION 204 1. Communal Prototypes: The Holy, the Conservative 205 2. Communal Antitypes: The 'Gentiles', the Deviant 231 3. Social Entrepreneurship in Ephesians 4–6 249 4. Conclusions 252 CHAPTER 7 – CONCLUSIONS 255 1. Reading Ephesians and Exploring its Social Entrepreneurship 255 2. Reading Ephesians and Exploring Emerging Christianness 260 Bibliography 261 Index of Biblical Sources 285 Index of Authors 292 A 292 B 292 C 292 D 292 E 292 F 292 G 293 H 293 I 293 J 293 K 293 L 293 M 293 N 293 O 293 P 293 R 294 S 294 T 294 U 294 V 294 W 294 Y 294 Z 294 Minna Shkul. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [246]-269) And Indexes.