Search results for ""Author Stephan Joubert""

Reciprocity was at the heart of all forms of benevolence in the ancient Greco-Roman world. The bestowal of gifts usually initiated long-term relationships that involved mutual obligations and clear status differentials between the parties concerned. The leadership of the Jerusalem church requests at the so-called Jerusalem meeting " not to forget the poor" (Gal. 2:10), was interpreted by Paul in terms of these principles.In response to their benefactions, the Jerusalem church demanded that Paul address the needs of the socially destitute in their midst. In order to fulfill these obligations towards Jerusalem, but also in view of the fact that the church in Antioch did not live up to their responsibilities in this regard, Paul then took it upon himself to organize a collection in the Christian communities under his control.Paul utilized specific rhetorical strategies and contextual 'theologies' in the course of the collection project to ensure its completion, but also to secure his role as benefactor of Jerusalem.Paul and Jerusalem's conflicting ideologies threatened the eventual success of the collection. In anticipation of a possible rejection of the collection, Paul offered a new ideological angle of incidence to this project. In a 'Christian' reinterpretation of the basic principles of benefit exchange, Paul turned the collection into an 'eleventh hour success' within the framework of his communities.Although Luke is not well-informed on the Pauline collection, he presents us with the basic outlines of Paul's final visit to Jerusalem to deliver the collection. From the available information it may be deduced that Paul devised an emergency solution to ensure the eventual acceptance of the collection by the Jerusalem church. However, Paul's imprisonment brought an abrupt end to this imaginative project.

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The authors of this volume discuss the relevance and influence of various Old and New Testament documents, and early Christian and Jewish texts in terms of their impact in shaping the moral character, identity, and behaviour of the specific communities in which they were produced as well as their ethical application throughout the centuries. Against a narrow understanding of ethics, the term "application" is not used to analyse the texts of the Bible as step-by-step manuals for moral conduct. Rather, the contributors engage with biblical texts within the framework of a complex hermeneutical process of application of the relevance of these texts in contemporary ethical discourse. It is only when we understand more precisely what the texts themselves offer in terms of their self-understanding that we can reflect critically upon such hermeneutical processes and the appropriation of these biblical texts in contemporary ethical debates in different cultures as well as in current ethical theories and moral philosophy.

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