James R. Harrison

Editorial: More of the same in these last daysJohn A. Davies, Solomon in the Gospels and Acts-Saint or Sinner?Nickolas A. Fox, The mechanisms of unity: The social identity-forming power of the eucharistFrancis Otobo, The Holy Spirit and Luke's infancy narrative: Reading a legitimatory rolePatrick Cole, Global evangelism in Jesus' Temple destruction/ last times discourse in Luke-Acts and in synoptic tradition: Confluence, congruence, intertextual linkages, and connective shapingJames R. Harrison, 'Wonders in the heaven above' (Acts 2:19): The Graeco-Roman portent mentality and terata in Luke-ActsChristoph Stenschke, Human flourishing and the Paul of the book of ActsAndrew Stewart, Herod Agrippa II: The embodiment or extinction of Israel's hope?

This volume of the New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity series introduces scholars and students to the historical, political, civic, religious, cultural, and social context of Ephesian inscriptional evidence. Each of the twenty-five entries includes the original inscription, translation, and a commentary that sheds light on early Christianity.

This volume of the New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity series introduces scholars and students to the historical, political, civic, religious, cultural, and social context of Ephesian inscriptional evidence. Each of the twenty-five entries includes the original inscription, translation, and a commentary that sheds light on early Christianity.

Paul’s letter to the Romans has a long history in Christian dogmatic battles. But how might the letter have been heard by an audience in Neronian Rome? James R. Harrison answers that question through a reader-response approach grounded in deep investigations of the material and ideological culture of the city, from Augustus to Nero. Inscriptional, archaeological, monumental, and numismatic evidence, in addition to a breadth of literary material, allows him to describe the ideological “value system” of the Julio-Claudian world, which would have shaped the perceptions and expectations of Paul’s readers. Throughout, Harrison sets prominent Pauline themes--his obligation to Greeks and barbarians, newness of life and of creation against the power of death, the body of Christ, “boasting” in “glory,” God’s purpose in and for Israel--in startling juxtaposition with Roman ideological themes. The result is a richer and more complex understanding of the letter’s argument and its possible significance for contemporary readers.

The modern cult of celebrity, commencing with Garibaldi, Byron, and Whitman, is compared to the quest for glory in late republican and early imperial Roman society. Studies based on the documentary and literary sources - including the "great man," the elite quest for civic honour, the Mediterranean athletic ideal, the ethical curriculum of the gymnasium, and local association values - provide the basis for James R. Harrison to assess the ancient preoccupation with fame, hierarchy, and status. He shows how Paul's gospel of the crucified Christ stood out in a culture obsessed with mutual comparison, boasting, and self-sufficiency. It departed from the self-exalting mores of classical culture and enshrined humility and other-centeredness in the western intellectual tradition. As such, the soteriological power of the cross became an impetus not only for individual moral transformation but also for social change.

James R. Harrison investigates the collision between Paul's eschatological gospel and the Julio-Claudian conception of rule. The ruler's propaganda, with its claim about the 'eternal rule' of the imperial house over its subjects, embodied in idolatry of power that conflicted with Paul's proclamation of the reign of the risen Son of God over his world. This ideological conflict is examined in 1 and 2 Thessalonians and in Romans, exploring how Paul's eschatology intersected with the imperial cult in the Greek East and in the Latin West. A wide selection of evidence - literary, documentary, numismatic, iconographic, archeological - unveils the 'symbolic universe' of the Julio-Claudian rulers. This construction of social and cosmic reality stood at odds with the eschatological denouement of world history, which, in Paul's view, culminated in the arrival of God's new creation upon Christ's return as Lord of all. Paul exalted the Body of Christ over Nero's 'body of state', transferring to the risen and ascended Jesus many of the ruler's titles and to the Body of Christ many of the ruler's functions. Thus, for Paul, Christ's reign challenged the values of Roman society and transformed its hierarchical social relations through the Spirit.