The Ritualized Revelation of the Messianic Age: Washings and Meals in Galatians and 1 Corinthians

Description

Turley begins by surveying the history of the interface between ritual studies and Pauline scholarship, identifying the scholarly gaps in both method and conclusions and a ritual theory adequate to address such gaps. The focus of the work is then on the two rituals that identified the Pauline communities: ritual washings and ritual meals. Turley explores Galatians and 1 Corinthians, two letters that present the richest spread of evidence pertinent to ritual theory. By exploring Paul’s reference to ritual washings and meals with a heuristic use of ritual theory, Turley concludes that rituals in early Christianity were inherently revelatory, in that they revealed the dawning of the messianic age through the bodies of the ritual participants. This bodily revelation established both a distinctly Christian ethic and a distinctly Christian social space by which such an ethical identity might be identified and sustained. Cover Title Copyright Contents Abbreviations Preface Part I: History of Research: A Ritual Reading of Paul Chapter 1. Ritual Studies and Pauline Scholarship 1.1. Introduction 1.2. What is a Ritual Reading of Paul? Three Approaches 1.2.1. Socio-Functional Significance of Pauline Rituals 1.2.1.1. Limitations of Socio-Functional Analysis 1.2.2. The Ritualized Body 1.2.2.1. The Generative and Expressive Body 1.2.3. Ritual as Social Practice 1.3. Assessing the Field 1.4. Ritual Theory and Procedure 1.5. Summary Part II: Paul and Ritual Washings Chapter 2. Ritual Washing in Galatians: Time, Body, and Social Order 2.1. Introduction 2.2. Tradition-Formula and Performatives in Galatians 3.26–9 2.3. The Relationship between p?st?? and ßapt??e?? in Galatians 3.26–7 2.3.1. The Digital Transformation of Private Processes 2.3.2. Time and World in Antiquity 2.3.3. Baptism, Faith, and Time 2.4. The Performative Significance of Baptism: The Body and Social Order 2.4.1. The Performative Uniqueness of Baptized Social Orders 2.5. Conclusion: Ritual Washing in Galatians Chapter 3. Baptism, Ethics, and the Eschatological Body: 1 Corinthians 6.11 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Baptism in 1 Corinthians 6.11 3.3. The Ritual Formation of Pauline Ethics 3.3.1. Ritual, Acceptance, and the Establishment of Ethical Obligation 3.3.2. Baptism, Time, and Ethics 3.3.3. Baptism and the Indicative–Imperative Ethic 3.3.4. Baptism, Ethics, and the Spirit 3.3.5. Baptism and the Eschatological Body 3.4. Summary and Conclusions Chapter 4. Baptism and the Spirit: 1 Corinthians 12.13 4.1. Introduction 4.2. The Relationship Between p?e?µa and ßapt??e?? 4.3. The Relationship Between p?t??? and ßapt??e?? 4.4. Metaphoric Predication 4.5. The Purifying Spirit: The Ezekiel 36 Tradition in Second-Temple Judaism 4.6. Paul and Ezekiel 36.25–7 4.7. Summary and Conclusions Chapter 5. Paul and Ritual Washings: Conclusions Part III: Paul and Ritual Meals Chapter 6. The Antiochene Meals: Embodying The “Truth of the Gospel” 6.1. Introduction 6.2. The Nature of Mixed Table-Fellowship at Antioch: State of the Question 6.3. Ultimate Sacred Postulates and the Mechanisms of Embodiment 6.4. The “Truth of the Gospel” and the Antiochene Meals 6.5. The Antiochene Meals and the Significance of Embodiment for Galatians 2.15–21 6.5.1. Seeing is Believing: Galatians 2.15–16 6.5.2. ???a ??µ?? 6.5.3. d??a???/d??a??s??? 6.5.4. p?st?? ???st?? 6.5.5. Galatians 2.17–21 and an Eschatological Lifeworld 6.6. Summary and Conclusions Chapter 7. The Logos of the Lord’s Supper: 1 Corinthians 8–10 7.1. Introduction 7.2. Coherence and the Corinthian Correspondence 7.3. Ritual and Cosmology: The Formation of a Liturgical Logos 7.4. Cosmology and Habitus: The Socially Inscribed Body 7.5. Social Practice, Disposition, and Cosmology: 1 Corinthians 8.1–13 7.5.1. Two Contrasting Social Practices: Feasting and Abstaining 7.5.2. Two Contrasting Dispositions: Arrogance and Love 7.5.3. Two Contrasting Cosmologies: Idols and Christ 7.6. The New Covenant and the Ritual Meal 7.6.1. The Lord’s Supper and the Eschatological Presence of Christ 7.6.2. The Lord’s Supper and Cosmic Space 7.6.3. The Lord’s Supper and the Ethics of Self-Giving 7.7. Fostering a Christian Habitus: 1 Corinthians 10.23–11.1 7.8. Summary and Conclusions Chapter 8. Paul and Ritual Meals: Conclusions Chapter 9. A Ritual Reading of Paul: Conclusions Bibliography Index