Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans
The Law of the Membrane
Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans
The Law of the Membrane
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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9780567693983
Number of Pages: 200
Published: 17/09/2020
Width: 15.6 cm
Height: 23.4 cm
Aaron Ricker locates the purpose of Romans in its function as a tool of community identity definition. Ricker employs a comparative analysis of the ways in which community identity definition is performed in first-century association culture, including several ancient network letters comparable to Romans.
Ricker’s examination of the community advice found in Rom 12-15 reveals in this new context an ancient example of the ways in which an inscribed addressee community can be invited in a letter to see and comport itself as a “proper” association network community. The ideal community addressed in the letter to the Romans is defined as properly unified and orderly, as well accommodating to – and clearly distinct from – cultures “outside.” Finally, it is defined as linked to a proper network with recognised leadership (i.e., the inscribed Paul of the letter and his network). Paul’s letter to the Romans is in many ways a baffling and extraordinary document. In terms of its community-defining functions and strategies, however, Ricker shows its purpose to be perfectly clear and understandable.
[W]ell-researched and well-argued ... [Ricker] successfully shows how the norms of ancient subcultural association network letters illuminate much of Rom 12-15. His thesis goes a long way toward clarifying why Romans appears generic in comparison to Paul's other letters despite being addressed to a specific community ... Ricker's study does much to illuminate the paraenetic material of Rom 12-15 and to explain a number of the particularities of this letter in comparison to the rest of the undisputed Paulines. Any scholar interested in Romans would do well to spend time with this book. * Society of Biblical Literature *
