Research Catalog

Title

Strangers to family : diaspora and 1 Peter's invention of God's household / Shively T.J. Smith.

Author

Smith, Shively T. J.

Publication

Waco, Texas : Baylor University Press, [2016]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxi, 207 pages; 24 cm

Summary

In Strangers to Family Shively Smith reads the Letter of 1 Peter through a new model of diaspora. Smith illuminates this peculiarly Petrine understanding of diaspora by situating it among three other select perspectives from extant Hellenist Jewish writings: the Daniel court tales, the Letter of Aristeas, and Philos works. While 1 Peter tends to be taken as representative of how diaspora was understood in Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian circles, Smith demonstrates that 1 Peter actually reverses the most fundamental meaning of diaspora as conceived by its literary peers. Instead of connoting the scattering of a people with a common territorial origin, for 1 Peter, diaspora constitutes an already-scattered-people who share a common, communal, celestial destination. Smiths discovery of a distinctive instantiation of diaspora in 1 Peter capitalizes on her careful comparative historical, literary, and theological analysis of diaspora constructions found in Hellenistic Jewish writings. Her reading of 1 Peter thus challenges the use of the exile and wandering as master concepts to read 1 Peter, reconsiders the conceptual significance of diaspora in 1 Peter and in the entire New Testament canon, and liberates 1 Peter from being interpreted solely through the rubrics of either the stranger-homelessness model or household codes. First Peter does not recycle standard diasporic identity, but is, as Strangers to Family demonstrates, an epistle that represents the earliest Christian construction of diaspora as a way of life. - from publisher

Subject

• Bible. > Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Households > Religious aspects > Christianity > Biblical teaching
• Emigration and immigration > Religious aspects > Christianity > Biblical teaching
• Emigration and immigration in the Bible
• Globalization > Religious aspects > Christianity > Biblical teaching

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Part I. Diaspora through the lens of 1 Peter. Chosen kinship : imagining Christian diaspora -- The cultic life : practices of the Christian diaspora -- Provinces and households : the relational matrix of the Christian diaspora -- Part II. Diaspora the way others imagine. Diaspora life in Babylon : the court tales of Daniel -- Diaspora in Egypt : the letter of Aristeas -- Diaspora in Alexandria : Philo -- Conclusion: Liberating 1 Peter's diapora vision.

Call Number

JFE 17-308

ISBN

• 9781481305488
• 1481305484

LCCN

2016009308

OCLC

946161227

Author

Smith, Shively T. J., author.

Title

Strangers to family : diaspora and 1 Peter's invention of God's household / Shively T.J. Smith.

Publisher

Waco, Texas : Baylor University Press, [2016]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Form:

Online version: Smith, Shively T.J., author. Strangers to family. Waco : Baylor University Press, 2016 9781481306126

Research Call Number

JFE 17-308