Sermon Tone Analysis

Ethnicity and The Jerusalem Council

Ethnic Identity and Biblical interpretation

Ethnic Identity

Why ethnic identity?

Study of ethnic identity informs social context of the New Testament

Recognizing the Greek, Roman and Jewish social settings of the New Testament can inform biblical interpretation

Ethnicity as an important lens to discover how early Christ followers overcome their differences

Ethnic identity is also important for understanding social context of the NT (P60.

Not only is an understanding of the identity-forming process connected to ethnicity significant for understanding our own social contexts, the pervasive and powerful nature of ethnic identity is relevant to biblical scholars interested in understanding the social context from which the New Testament emerged.

Though not initially indebted to developed theoretical accounts of ethnicity, biblical scholarship in the mid-twentieth century began to be influenced by readings (of Paul in particular) that began to intuit the significant of ethnicities both on and within the texts that comprise the New Testament.

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Recognizing the Jewish nature of Paul's social setting was a key insight of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) (In a genealogy that initially began with Krister Stendahl’s landmark work on Paul, and that stretched through E.P. Sanders’ work on Second Temple Judaism down toward the New Perspective on Paul, interpreters began to attend to the significance of group identities for understanding the New Testament texts in context.

In these texts, themes of social identity in general, and ethnicity in particular, emerged as a result of contextual and exegetical investigation.

Emerging slightly later, and sometimes in parallel to the so-called New Perspective work, a burgeoning number of interpreters have turned their attentions more overtly to the significance of ethnicity within the New Testament texts and world.)

Recognizing the Jewish nature of Paul's social setting was a key insight of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) (In a genealogy that initially began with Krister Stendahl’s landmark work on Paul, and that stretched through E.P. Sanders’ work on Second Temple Judaism down toward the New Perspective on Paul, interpreters began to attend to the significance of group identities for understanding the New Testament texts in context.

In these texts, themes of social identity in general, and ethnicity in particular, emerged as a result of contextual and exegetical investigation.

Emerging slightly later, and sometimes in parallel to the so-called New Perspective work, a burgeoning number of interpreters have turned their attentions more overtly to the significance of ethnicity within the New Testament texts and world.)

Social identity approaches have also recognized the importance of ethnicity as a social category in the NT (P61.

A case can be made that once the New Testament is viewed through a heuristic lens that appreciates the significance of ethnicity as a social category, the Bible begins to bristle with the stories of people groups and their exemplars in ways that draw into deep relief the significance of social difference-and its reconciliation-in the pages of the New Testament.

While some would argue differently, it is certainly plausible to suggest that one of the most revolutionary effects of Christianity in its ancient contexts had to do with its impact on social groups at explicitly ethnic boundaries.

For it is here that the vision of peace, so closely connected to the Old Testament and New Testament vision of the reign of God, was manifest socially.

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Social identity approaches have also recognized the importance of ethnicity as a social category in the NT (P61.

A case can be made that once the New Testament is viewed through a heuristic lens that appreciates the significance of ethnicity as a social category, the Bible begins to bristle with the stories of people groups and their exemplars in ways that draw into deep relief the significance of social difference-and its reconciliation-in the pages of the New Testament.

While some would argue differently, it is certainly plausible to suggest that one of the most revolutionary effects of Christianity in its ancient contexts had to do with its impact on social groups at explicitly ethnic boundaries.

For it is here that the vision of peace, so closely connected to the Old Testament and New Testament vision of the reign of God, was manifest socially.

)

Theories of Ethnicity

Primordial - A sense of being derived from Territory or Descent

A sense of being from somewhere or someone

Social anthropological model and related propositions - Richard Jenkins and Markus Cromhout

Social anthropological model and related propositions - Richard Jenkins and Markus Cromhout

Myth of common ancestry

Shared history

Common culture (i.e.

languages, customs, religion)

Link with a homeland

Group solidarity

Constructivist theoretical position (Fredrik Barth) - group defined by ethnic boundary

Group definition only exists in relation to other groups

Cultural objects can change over time

Formation

Refer to Appendix I

Common proper name

Myth of common ancestry

Shared history

Common culture (i.e.

languages, customs, religion)

Link with a homeland

Group solidarity

Definition of a ethnic group - Markus Cromhout

1. Ethnicity is a form of social identity and relation, referring to a group of people who ascribe to themselves and/or by others, a sense of belonging and a shared cultural tradition.

2. Ethnicity is socially (re)constructed, the outcome of enculturation and socialization, as well as the social interaction with 'other' across the ethnic boundary.

3. Ethnicity is about cultural differentiation, involving the communication of similarity vis-a-vis co-ethnics (aggregative 'we') and the communication of difference in opposition to ethnic others (oppositional 'we-they').

4. Ethnicity is concerned with culture - shared meaning - which consists of any combination of the following: widely accepted values/norms which govern behaviour, a corporate name for the group.

myths of common ancestry, shared 'historical' memories, an actual or symbolic attachment to a specific territory or ancestral land, a shared language or dialect, kinship patterns, shared customs, a shared religion, and shared phenotypical or genetic features.

5. Ethnicity is no more fixed than the culture of which it is a component, or the situations in which it is produced and reproduced.

6. Ethnicity is both collective and individual, externalized in social interaction and internalized in personal self-identification.

Formation of social identity

Categorization - Division of the social world into assessable group entities

Division of the social world into assessable group entities

Identification - The self-definitions that arise from membership in groups

Maintenance of positive self-esteem

Reduction of subjective uncertainty

Comparison - The process of comparison and evaluation in which the ingroup favourably differentiates itself from outgroups

Comparative criteria are fluid

Primary goal is the expression of ingroup love rather than outgroup hate

Ethnicity and social conflict

High-status stability

Impermeable group boundaries

Status illegitimacy

External threat

High status stability – social groups unable to improve social position

Impermeable group boundaries – individuals unable to defect from ingroup to join high status group

Status illegitimacy – low status group views high status group as holding position illegitimately

External threat – group identity perceived to be at risk

Options for improving social status

Social mobility

Social creativity

Social competition

Social mobility - movement of individuals from a low-status group to a high-status group

Social creativity - construct positive social identity by

Redefining the criterion for intergroup comparison

Selecting a different outgroup against which to evaluate the ingroup

Social competition - direct competition for status and resources

Jerusalem Council and identity formation

Ben Witherington says: It is no exaggeration to say that is the most crucial chapter in the whole book.

Marshall is right to note that this chapter is positioned both structurally and theologically at the very heart of the book.

A measure of the importance of this meeting for Luke is shown in that after it the Jerusalem church virtually disappears from sight in Acts (but see below on ) and Peter does not appear again.

In any case, after recording the council, Luke’s focus is clearly on the missionary work in points west of Jerusalem from Antioch to Rome.

Here the matter must be resolved as to what constitutes the people of God, and how the major ethnic division in the church (Jew/Gentile) shall be dealt with so that both groups may be included in God’s people on equal footing, fellowship may continue, and the church remain one.

Luke is eager to demonstrate that ethnic divisions could be and were overcome, despite the objection of very conservative Pharisaic Christians.

Luke’s purpose is not merely to display or explore ethnic diversity in the Empire, but to show how out of the many could come one, a united people in a saved and saving relationship to the one true God.

His social premise is not the pagan one of one emperor and so one Empire, but rather one God, and one redeemed people gathered out of the many.

Here the matter must be resolved as to what constitutes the people of God, and how the major ethnic division in the church (Jew/Gentile) shall be dealt with so that both groups may be included in God’s people on equal footing, fellowship may continue, and the church remain one.

Luke is eager to demonstrate that ethnic divisions could be and were overcome, despite the objection of very conservative Pharisaic Christians.

Luke’s universalism has often been remarked on, but to my knowledge no one has noted the connection of this theme to ancient ethnography.

At least a significant part of Luke’s purpose is not merely to display or explore ethnic diversity in the Empire, as might be the case if he merely intended to entertain or inform the curious, but to show how out of the many could come one, a united people in a saved and saving relationship to the one true God.

His social premise is not the pagan one of one emperor and so one Empire,341 but rather one God, and one redeemed people gathered out of the many.

It will be seen that one of the main reasons for the rise and flourishing of the cult of the emperor as the Empire grew was to provide a religious foundation for the unity of the Empire.

Since it could not be centered on one particular pagan deity, not even Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the divinizing of the emperor, who had to be universally recognized as ruler, was necessary.

The Jerusalem Council has been described as ‘the turning-point, “centre-piece” and “watershed” of the book, the episode which rounds off and justifies the past developments, and makes those to come intrinsically possible’.1 Contextually, the narrative (15:1–35) is framed by Paul’s first missionary journey (13:1–14:28) and his second campaign (15:36–18:22).2

More broadly, the Gentile mission set in motion by Peter’s preaching to Cornelius, the growth of the church at Antioch in Syria, and Paul’s first missionary journey had created problems about the status of Gentile converts and their relationship with Jewish Christians.