From Pompeii to Rome: Paul's Letter and its Hearers

这个项目测试了这样一种观点，即研究一世纪的罗马社会结构可以为保罗写给罗马人的信提供有用的启发。它首先从最近对庞贝社会住房的研究中得出了庞贝社会的一个基本模型。然后，它对此进行修改，以提供社会模式，首先是为波林教堂提供一般的社会模式，然后是为罗马一世纪中叶的公寓教堂提供社会模式。四种方法被用来检验这一模型作为研究保罗书信的解释工具：考虑与听者之间的社会多样性有关的问题；关于圣洁的身份语言的语境化，以及在书信的神学中考虑这一点与圣洁的关系；道德规劝的语境化；关于合一的修辞的语境化。

This project tests the idea that study of first-century Roman social structures can shed useful light on Paul's letter to the Romans. It begins by deriving a rudimentary model of Pompeian society from recent research on its housing. It then modifies this to provide social models, first, for Pauline churches in general, then for mid-first-century apartment-churches in Rome. Four methods are used to test this model as an interpretative tool for studying Paul's letter: consideration of issues in relation to social diversity among the hearers; contextualisation of identity language about holiness, and consideration of the relationship of this to holiness in the letter's theology; contextualisation of moral exhortations; contextualisation of rhetoric on unity.