Ekklesia

Eight endorsements for Reading Revelation After Supersessionism written by Elaine Pagels (Princeton University), Paul Trebilco (U of Otago), Richard Ascough (Queens University), Anders Runesson (U of Oslo), Greg Carey (Lancaster Theological Seminary), Paul Rainbow (Sioux Falls Seminary), Gerald Borchert (Carson Newman University), and Henri Goulet (Messianic Studies Institute)

It is true that one could hardly assert that in the Septuagint text there is a consistent use of the word ἐκκλησία in its classical meaning. Nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence to support the fact that the word ἐκκλησία preserves its basic semantic load in the Septuagint usage, albeit in an attenuated form of its features as a technical political term.
Since the word ἐκκλησία in the Septuagint text is not exclusively used  for religious matters, but also for secular meetings , like the preparation of a war  or plans to avoid a danger, since it was convened in regular intervals,  it was assembled  in an official manner,  it served for the expression of political identity of the people of Israel, there is no strong rationale not to be designated as an institutional body, which could have been  successfully aligned with the contemporary technical Greek term denoting the civic assembly.

James R. Harrison is a New Testament social historian. He is the Director of Research at Sydney College of Divinity and an Honorary Associate of Macquarie University Ancient History Department. He provides an extensive review of Korner's volume The Origin and Meaning of Ekklesia in the Early Jesus Movements (AJEC98; Brill, 2017).

In volume 14 of the series The New Testament After Supersessionism (Cascade Books), Korner argues that, in Revelation, John's extensive social identification with Judaism(s), Jewishness, and Jewish institutions does NOT reflect a literary program of REPLACING ISRAEL with his multi-ethnic ekklesiai ("churches"), but rather a literary program of EMPLACING John's Christ-followers further WITHIN ISRAEL. Korner explores multiple ways in which John's Revelation ties his Christos-followers into a Jewish heritage through the literary structure, genre, eschatology, symbolism, and theological motifs of the Apocalypse.

In The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement, Ralph J. Korner explores the ideological implications of Christ-follower associations self-designating collectively as ekklēsiai. Politically, Korner’s inscriptional research suggests that an association named ekklēsia would have been perceived as a positive, rather than as a counter-imperial, participant within Imperial Greek cities. Socio-religiously, Korner argues that there was no universal ekklēsia to which all first generation Christ-followers belonged; ekklēsia was a permanent group designation used by Paul’s associations. Ethno-religiously, Korner contends that ekklēsia usage by intra muros groups within pluriform Second Temple Judaism problematizes suggestions, not least at the institutional level, that Paul was “parting ways” with Judaism(s), ‘Jewishness’, or Jewish organizational forms.

In this presentation, I will focus upon three examples of internal dynamics of power and authority among Christ-follower associations in the Roman empire, with particular emphasis upon the Christ-followers in Corinth. My investigative process will follow the order of the key words in the title of this essay (ekklēsiai, non-misogynistic, manumission).
First, I will explore, in some fresh ways, the socio-religious power dynamics between Pauline-loyal and Jerusalem-loyal Christ-followers. A brief foray into the “denominational” group designations of the differentiated Christ-follower associations in Rome (hoi hagioi/“the holy ones,” Rom 1:7; ekklēsia/“assembly,” Rom 16:3-5a) illuminates potential parallels among the differentiated Christ-follower associations in Corinth, and vice versa. At least two sub-group identities are evident in Corinth: (1) hoi hagioi of Cephas, and (2) Paul’s ekklēsia of God (1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1).
Second, I will interrogate existing assumptions of patriarchal power dynamics between males and females within Pauline ekklēsiai (esp. 1 Cor 14:33b-35: “women/wives must remain silent”). I will offer a new non-misogynistic interpretive paradigm for the meeting protocols of Paul’s ekklēsia associations that builds out from my above paradigm of “denominational” power dynamics not least among Cephas-loyal hoi hagioi and the Pauline-loyal ekklēsia.
Third, I will revisit the power dynamics of social stratification among Christ-follower slaves and their masters through the lens not least of both Greek (Delphic) and Jewish (Bosporan) manumission ethics. Greeks and Jews mandated continued paramonē (“remain with”) commitments to the freedpersons’s former owner (Greek) or to their former ethno-religious collective (Jewish synagogue). Paul, in analogous continuity, appears to allude to a paramonē clause, which scholarship to this point has not yet acknowledged (μενέτω παρὰ θεῷ; 1 Cor 7:24b).  One could thus loosely paraphrase Paul’s ekklēsia ethics (“my rule/nomos among the ekklēsiai”; 7:17) for his metaphorically manumitted douloi (“slaves”) of God as follows: “You are to remain obligated to God (not your former master, sin) in your ethnic (7:18) and social (7:21) station of life for as long as God, your new master, lives (7:24b).”
Paul’s love-based “rule/association nomos” (7:17) has application not only when dealing with social stratification (slaves/masters) but also with (competing) “denominational” allegiances (hoi hagioi versus ekklēsiai) and with (competing) male/female roles within the public and private life of Paul’s ekklēsia communities

Craig R. Koester (Luther Seminary), author of the volume on Revelation (2014) in the Anchor Yale Bible Commentary series, precisely represents, concisely summarizes, and incisively interacts with, Ralph Korner's book on Reading Revelation After Supersessionism in the multi-volume series the New Testament After Supersessionism (NTAS). He helpfully identifies that "Korner's main argument is that one central question is whether Revelation envisions replacing Israel with a remnant that includes only the Jewish and non-Jewish followers of Jesus or whether it seeks to emplace the multi-ethnic associations of Jesus-followers more deeply within Israel, without denying that 'Israel' is a valid national identity for Jews who do not follow Jesus."

What role did eating play in the NT church? While that may not seem like a particularly interesting question, my growing conviction is that theology should emphasize what the Bible emphasizes, and there are at least eight important connections between eating and a healthy NT church life. This article will survey eight ways that the otherwise common act of eating ought to be a part of that life.

ABSTRACT: In this dissertation I situate socio-historically the adoption of the term ekklēsia as a permanent identity by some groups of early Christ-followers. Given pre-existing usages of the word ekklēsia in Greco-Roman and Jewish circles, I focus on three investigative priorities: What source(s) lie(s) behind the permanent self-designation of some Christ-followers as an ekklēsia? What theological need(s) did that collective identity meet? What political and ethno-religious ideological end(s) did the appropriation of ekklēsia as a sub-group identity serve? In addressing these questions, particularly in relation to Paul’s use of ekklēsia, I contribute to at least four areas of ekklēsia research.
First, my study takes into account almost 1900 occurrences of the word ekklēsia in Greek epigraphic sources (5th cent. BCE–3rd cent. CE). My search of the extant epigraphic record indicates a lack of evidence for a non-civic association having appropriated ekklēsia as a permanent group designation.
Second, I build upon and develop the preliminary observation by Runesson, Binder, and Olsson (2008) that ekklēsia can refer either to a gathering of Jews or to the self-designation of a Jewish community, i.e., that ekklēsia should be understood as one among several terms referring to what is translated into English as “synagogue.” This problematizes, from an institutional perspective, suggestions common in scholarship that Paul was “parting ways” with Judaism(s), ‘Jewishness,’ or Jewish organizational forms.
Third, given both that non-Jewish Christ-followers could not be designated using the ethno-religious term “Israel” and that ekklēsia is a Jewish synagogue term, Paul’s designation of his multi-ethnic communities as ekklēsiai reinforces the possibility that, among Christ-followers, gentiles qua gentiles share with Torah observant Jews qua Jews in God’s salvation history with Israel. Ekklēsia, thus, does not necessarily indicate a supersessionist identity for communities designated by this term.
Fourth, Paul’s adoption of a political identity (civic ekklēsia) for his communities need not imply his promotion of counter-imperial civic ideology. Greek literary (e.g., Plutarch) and epigraphic evidence suggests that if an Imperial period non-civic group (e.g., voluntary association) self-designated as an ekklēsia, it could have been perceived as a positive, rather than as an anti-Roman, participant in society.

This study, consisting of two parts, explores Philo of Alexandria and the apostle Paul’s understanding of the experience of divine wisdom. Following an examination of Philo’s presentation of the gymnasium as an ideal institution (Chapter One), Part One examines Philo’s portrayal of the biblical patriarch Abraham as the exemplar of an overarching process of paideia, a process that finds its telos in the experience of divine wisdom. In Chapters Two and Three (which discuss the treatises Migr. and Her.), key elements of Philo’s process of paideia are gleaned from the Alexandrian’s literal and allegorical interpretation of events surrounding the Abrahamic narrative. In these treatises, God provides the means for Abraham to engage in a system of paideia that will find its telos in an encounter with the λόγος of God, an encounter that results in the experience of divine wisdom. Chapter Four (which discusses the treatise Congr.), presents Philo’s integration of his ideal educational process (the encyclia) by using Abraham solely as the allegorical personification of the mind, mostly disregarding the literal interpretation of the biblical text. Chapter Five explores Philo’s thematic arrangement of specific vignettes in the life of Abraham (in Abr.) for the purpose of either presenting (1) an individual/soul in transition still engaged in his process of paideia, or (2) an individual who has reached the telos of this process, the experience of divine wisdom, and acts accordingly as an exemplar of God’s virtue to the rest of humanity. 
The second major part of this study, explores a specific locus in Pauline thought, 1 Cor. 1-4 for the purpose of presenting the apostle’s understanding of the experience of divine wisdom, an understanding that will later be compared to Philo’s in this study’s concluding chapter. Following an introduction in Chapter Six, Chapter Seven introduces the method of this exploration, ruling out Abraham as an exemplar of this experience. Chapter Eight introduces the term ekklesia and the manner in which Paul (in 1 Cor. 1.1-9) evokes the Corinthian ekklesia’s theological identity which includes aspects of spiritual enrichment that permeate later chapters. Chapter Nine discusses the manner Paul (in 1 Cor. 1.10-31) subverts false concepts relating to divine wisdom and engages the ekklesia by focusing on the role of the Christ within the community.
Chapters Nine and Ten engage in the exegesis of 1 Cor. 1.10-31 and 1 Cor. 2.1-4.21 by exploring the manner in which the ekklesia has been called by God, established by Christ Jesus, and spiritually enriched by the Spirit (the mind of Christ) showing that it is within this relational continuum where their theological identity, an identity that directly undermines the factionist strife prominent within the ekklesia, makes the experience of divine wisdom possible. Chapter Eleven offers concluding thoughts on Paul’s understanding of the experience of divine wisdom and Chapter Twelve engages in a comparison of major themes present in both Philo and Paul’s understanding of this experience.

Lorenzo DiTomasso is Professor of Religions and Cultures (Concordia University Montreal). His research focuses on apocalyptic speculation in all its forms and in every culture, from the ancient world to the present day. He has authored or edited a dozen volumes and nearly 200 articles, book chapters, and other short studies.

In an hour where doctrine and doctrinal study is dismissed as lacking both significance and relevance, it is our belief that there has never been a time when truth must be proclaimed (preaching) and explained (teaching) loudly, clearly, and intelligently. Apologetics will forever be kept alive by lovers of truth!
In God, everything has its appointed time and place. The first volume of the Symposium on the Apostles doctrine has been years in the making.  e stars aligned and God furnished the ways and the means for this dream and burden to become a reality.  May God bless you all abundantly!

My presentation will integrate epigraphic evidence and scholarship on associations (e.g., Ascough, Harland, Kloppenborg) and on the political culture of Imperial period Asia Minor (e.g., van Nijf, Zuiderhoek) for the purpose of more fully understanding the socio-political implications of Pauline associations self-designating as a civic entity—the Greek ekklēsia (“assembly”). It has become clear that, generally, the citizenry (dēmos) of Imperial Greek cities had, to a large extent, lost the kratos necessary for the formal exercise of classical Athenian dēmokratia through their civic ekklēsiai. Nevertheless, the civic ekklēsia continued to play an important role in the construction of a political culture, especially in Asia Minor, wherein the influence of the dēmos became a positive factor in the spread of oligarchic munificence. This political culture included not only widespread festivals and monumentalism but also a ubiquitous “ekklēsia discourse” (e.g., Salmeri, Miller), each of which continued beyond the 1st century CE. Associations became a mediating influence between the dēmos and the bouleutic/oligarchic elite through, for example, the establishment of networks of euergetism and patronage. Given that associations frequently adopted political terminology for their organizational structure (e.g., civic leadership titles), without undue negative reaction from the Romans, it does not seem likely that an association which also self-designated as an ekklēsia (i.e., Pauline communities) would have raised Roman suspicions. It appears more probable, rather, that an ekklēsia association would have been perceived as making a positive attempt, albeit an ostentatious one, at integrating itself into the grass roots “ekklēsia discourse” of Imperial period Asia Minor.

This chapter analyzes how John describes and transforms the people of God as audiences, assemblies, slaves of God, saints, those who are clothed in white, and witnesses. John moves them from being audiences of a reader to audiences in the divine court, where they are transformed from ignorance to knowledge of Rome's violence and idolatrous economy. As assemblies, they receive messages from their true ruler asking them to deliberate on disengaging from the imperial economy and becoming an alternate society. As slaves of God, they are freed to publicly identify as God's people, protected for service, and separate from those who serve the empire. As saints, God gives new status to the people of God and they move from passivity to activity on behalf of others who suffer at the hands of imperial consumption. As those who are metaphorically clothed in white, they exchange literal luxury for status in God's court. As witnesses, they are moved to speak the truth about the One-Who-Sits-on-the-Throne and expose the lies that deceive people to participate in the imperial economy.

The Editor's summary from the Introduction to the Brill volume reads as follows: Ralph Korner continues our focus on city as communal identity, but in his case the community has no literal civic existence: it is the entirely textually created community of Christ-followers imagined by the author of the Apocalypse of John (the New Testament Book of Revelation). In particular, Korner looks at John's characterization of Christ's people as an ekklēsia (assembly) and a polis (city-state). After surveying recent scholarship on the civic political culture of the Roman East, Korner concludes that the usage of ekklēsia, while not devoid of political significance, does not function as straightforwardly anti-imperial discourse in the way that it has often been read. Rather, it is the use of polis, which is unique to John and expressed through the gigantesque spatial imagery (a cube-shaped "city" more than 2000 km on each side), that marks out the People of Christ as an alternative and successor to the Imperium Romanum.

In this presentation, I will focus upon three examples of internal dynamics of power and authority among Christ-follower associations in the Roman empire, with particular emphasis upon the Christ-followers in Corinth. My investigative process will follow the order of the key words in the title of this essay (ekklēsiai, non-misogynistic, manumission).
First, I will explore, in some fresh ways, the socio-religious power dynamics between Pauline-loyal and Jerusalem-loyal Christ-followers. A brief foray into the “denominational” group designations of the differentiated Christ-follower associations in Rome (hoi hagioi/“the holy ones,” Rom 1:7; ekklēsia/“assembly,” Rom 16:3-5a) illuminates potential parallels among the differentiated Christ-follower associations in Corinth, and vice versa. At least two sub-group identities are evident in Corinth: (1) hoi hagioi of Cephas, and (2) Paul’s ekklēsia of God (1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1).
Second, I will interrogate existing assumptions of patriarchal power dynamics between males and females within Pauline ekklēsiai (esp. 1 Cor 14:33b-35: “women/wives must remain silent”). I will offer a new non-misogynistic interpretive paradigm for the meeting protocols of Paul’s ekklēsia associations that builds out from my above paradigm of “denominational” power dynamics not least among Cephas-loyal hoi hagioi and the Pauline-loyal ekklēsia.
Third, I will revisit the power dynamics of social stratification among Christ-follower slaves and their masters through the lens not least of both Greek (Delphic) and Jewish (Bosporan) manumission ethics. Greeks and Jews mandated continued paramonē (“remain with”) commitments to the freedpersons’s former owner (Greek) or to their former ethno-religious collective (Jewish synagogue). Paul, in analogous continuity, appears to allude to a paramonē clause, which scholarship to this point has not yet acknowledged (μενέτω παρὰ θεῷ; 1 Cor 7:24b).  One could thus loosely paraphrase Paul’s ekklēsia ethics (“my rule/nomos among the ekklēsiai”; 7:17) for his metaphorically manumitted douloi (“slaves”) of God as follows: “You are to remain obligated to God (not your former master, sin) in your ethnic (7:18) and social (7:21) station of life for as long as God, your new master, lives (7:24b).”
Paul’s love-based “rule/association nomos” (7:17) has application not only when dealing with social stratification (slaves/masters) but also with (competing) “denominational” allegiances (hoi hagioi versus ekklēsiai) and with (competing) male/female roles within the public and private life of Paul’s ekklēsia communities.

ABSTRACT:
While political and economic aspects of Pauline organizational forms have been variously explored by scholars, the socio-religious ramifications of Paul’s collective designation of his communities as ekklēsiai need further examination. In this paper, I build upon and develop the preliminary observation of Runesson, Binder, and Olsson (2008) that ekklēsia can refer either to a gathering of Jews or to the self-designation of a Jewish community (Sirach, Philo, Josephus). Ekklēsia should, therefore, be understood as one among several terms referring to what is translated into English as “synagogue.” This problematizes, from an institutional perspective, suggestions common in scholarship that Paul was “parting ways” with Judaism(s), ‘Jewishness,’ or Jewish organizational forms. In fact, for reasons that will be explored in the presentation, Paul’s designation of his multi-ethnic associations as ekklēsiai reinforces the possibility that, among his Christ-followers, gentiles qua gentiles share with Torah-observant Jews qua Jews in God’s salvation history with Israel. Thus, in contradistinction to the perspectives of some scholars (e.g., Wright: 1997, 2001), ekklēsia need not indicate a supersessionist identity for communities designated by this term. The combination of Paul’s ideological depiction of his Corinthian and Roman Christ-followers as Jewish sacred space (e.g., temple, body of the Jewish Christos), along with their socio-religious identification as an ekklēsia, should lead to an understanding of these communities as associations steeped in their Jewish heritage. In addition, contrary to common assumptions, the use of the term ekklēsia indicates that these Pauline associations were presented as positive participants within the poleis of the Greek East rather than as counter-imperial organizations.

This paper is the verbatim of a talk presented in response to Jean-Marc Narbonne's talk, «Démagogie, populisme et tumulte (thorubos) en démocratie grecque» on the occasion of a book launch, in Quebec City, April 11th 2019: L’esprit critique dans l’Antiquité – Critique et licence dans la Grèce antique, édition Bernard Collette-Dučić, Marc-Antoine Gavray et Jean-Marc Narbonne, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2019. Ce bref article reprend les mots que j'ai prononcés en réponse à la conférence de Jean-Marc Narbonne, «Démagogie, populisme et tumulte (thorubos) en démocratie grecque» lors du lancement d'une nouvelle parution, à Québec, le 11 avril 2019 : L’esprit critique dans l’Antiquité – Critique et licence dans la Grèce antique, édition Bernard Collette-Dučić, Marc-Antoine Gavray et Jean-Marc Narbonne, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2019.

John H. Boyles reviews Korner's book The Origin and Meaning of Ekklesia in the Early Jesus Movement (Brill, AJEC98, 2017). He particularly focuses in upon Korner's claims that the designation of Paul's communities as ekklesiai did not reflect supersessionist ideology nor a counter-imperial impulse.

We need to develop a theology of space for our time. The church both views and uses space differently than we did even a generation ago. The Church of the Nazarene, for example, recently changed its official definition of “a church” to be less bound to a particular physical time and place. At the same time, we should affirm Jesus’ assurance that “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matt 18:20 NRSV). Yet, as John Wesley observed in the sermon “Causes of the Inefficacy of Christianity” (1789): “Does it not seem (and yet this cannot be!) that Christianity, true scriptural Christianity, has a tendency in process of time to undermine and destroy itself? For wherever true Christianity spreads . . . [and] wherever it generally prevails, it saps its own foundation. But is there no way to prevent this?” (para. 17–18, emphasis added). Wesley reiterates his answer through the individual and corporate practices of ‘gaining, saving, and giving’ all one can (para. 19). For us today, however, we must not only assess the attitudes and motives behind these practices, but also the places and spaces where we actually—and more routinely—put them in to practice. Of particular and growing interest is the shifting urban environment. To be sure, cities have been home to diverse expressions of the church as long as Christians have inhabited them. Recent decades, however, have experienced an increased presence of new church plants as well as non-edifice-based worshiping communities, language groups, and outreach prototypes ranging from house congregations to multisite megachurches. This paper seeks to give special attention to such alternative, or third spaces, which have come to be associated with the so-called missional movement and organic church and the place that such communities and their peculiar postures toward space may hold in the development of a more coherent theology of the gathered church.

This is an SBL 2020 (Boston) presentation accepted for the program unit, John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern.
At first, and maybe even at second, glance John appears to affirm a supersessionist, or at the very least an anti-Judaistic agenda, through his pejorative comments “those who say they are Jews and are not…[but] are a synagōgē tou satana” (2:9; 3:9). The interpretive road for understanding what John meant by the terms Ioudaioi and synagōgē tou satana has been well traveled. There are at least five options for John’s intended referent for the term Ioudaioi (“Jews”): (1) non-Jesus following ethnic Jews (contra-Jewish; supersessionist; A. Y. Collins), (2) non-Jesus following ethnic Jews (intra-Jewish; non-supersessionist; Hirschberg); (3) non-Jesus following Judean Jews (intra-Jewish; non-supersessionist; Kraabel); (4) judaizing non-Pauline Jewish Christos-followers (intra-Christos-followers; non-supersessionist; L. Thompson), and (5) non-judaizing Pauline gentile Christos-followers (intra-Christos-followers; non-supersessionist; Pagels).
I will explore a sixth option: judaizing non-Pauline gentile Christos-followers who were full Jewish proselytes or God-fearers before becoming Christos-followers. Such a scenario is akin to Matthew Thiessen’s argument for the potential referent behind Paul’s “so-called Jew” statement (Rom 2:17). These “not Jews” in Roman Asia, like the sectarian Torah observant Nazorean Christos-followers in Palestine, self-identity collectively as a synagōgē. Hirschberg’s observation that there was a strongly represented population of God-fearers in Asia Minor undergirds the socio-historical plausibility of this sixth option.
In light of the foregoing, I will suggest that John’s term “synagogue of Satan” is not meant to create a bifurcation between “Christianity” and “Judaism” (i.e., between Christos-following and non-Jesus-following Jews). Rather, one could view his term “synagogue of Satan” as having primary reference to the fact that judaizing (righteous) gentile Christos-followers would not have been granted the group identity “ekklēsia” either by Paul or John. Instead, consonant with Paul’s attribution of satanic functions to James’s judaizing Jewish Christos-followers in Galatia (Gal 1:10; cf. 2 Cor 12:13), John also identifies the Roman Asia (righteous) gentile Christos-follower synagōgē as being in collusion with Satan, or at the very least with a satanically inspired accusational agenda (e.g., LXX Zechariah’s satanas). Thus, John’s pejorative attack on the “not Jews” in Smyrna and Philadelphia is neither supersessionist nor anti-Judaistic, but rather is a protectionist maneuver against fellow Christos-followers over the very essence of the Gospel of the Lamb that was slain.

"Scholarship has variously explored the counter-imperial implications of the visionary content found in John’s Apocalypse. There is one dimension of political rhetoric, however, which has not yet been fully explored—the collective designation of Revelation’s addressees as two civic entities: an ekklēsia (e.g., 1:4) and a hegemonic, eschatological polis called the New Jerusalem (21:9, 10). My paper explores the degree to which the rhetorical force of these two political identities serves ideologically, within Asia Minor, to reinforce the counter-imperial content of John’s apocalyptic letter.
I argue that “ekklēsia” is not an inherently counter-imperial group designation, contrary to the assertions of political interpreters such as Horsley and Donfried. To begin, Christ-follower voluntary associations in Asia Minor, especially in Ephesos, mirror other Greco-Roman thiasoi in self-presenting as a “Greco-Roman city writ small” in their social structuration (Kloppenborg, Harland). As such, a thiasos which self-identifies as an ekklēsia could have been perceived as a positive, rather than as a counter-imperial, participant within the “political culture” of Imperial period Asia Minor (Wörrle, Mitchell, van Nijf, Zuiderhoek), especially given the vibrant “ekklēsia discourse” evident among Second Sophistic writers such as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, and Theon (Webb, Crescinda Miller, Salmeri).
Since the positive ideology associated with an ekklēsia identity undermines John’s apocalyptic polemic, he needed an offsetting counter-imperial identity. John’s symbolic depiction of his seven ekklēsiai as “the Jewish City writ large” served that purpose well. Thereby, John ironically reverses Rome’s two-pronged colonial strategy of “claiming the world as the possession of specific gods, with the centre located in Rome” (Runesson). John portrays his seven ekklēsiai, first, as a non-Roman polis whose walls reach from Jerusalem to Rome (21:14, 16-17; 12,000 stadia square), and, second, as a Jewish Temple-polis (21:14; a 12,000 stadia cube) within which the triune God of the kosmos resides (21:22; 22:1-5).
"

""Scholarship has variously explored the counter-imperial implications of the visionary content found in John’s Apocalypse. There is one dimension of political rhetoric, however, which has not yet been fully explored—the collective designation of Revelation’s addressees as two civic entities: an ekklēsia (e.g., 1:4) and a hegemonic, eschatological polis called the New Jerusalem (21:9, 10). My paper explores the degree to which the rhetorical force of these two political identities serves ideologically, within Asia Minor, to reinforce the counter-imperial content of John’s apocalyptic letter. I argue that “ekklēsia” is not perceivable as a counter-imperial group designation, as some political interpreters suggest (Horsley and Donfried). To begin, Christ-follower voluntary associations in Asia Minor, especially in Ephesos, mirror other Greco-Roman thiasoi in self-presenting as a “Greco-Roman city writ small” in their social structuration (Kloppenborg, Harland). As such, a thiasos which self-identifies as an ekklēsia could have been perceived as a positive, rather than as a counter-imperial, participant within the “political culture” of Imperial period Asia Minor (Wörrle, Mitchell, van Nijf, Zuiderhoek), especially given the vibrant “ekklēsia discourse” evident among Second Sophistic writers such as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, and Theon (Webb, Crescinda Miller, Salmeri). Since the positive ideology associated with an ekklēsia identity undermines John’s apocalyptic polemic, he needed an offsetting counter-imperial identity. John’s symbolic depiction of his seven ekklēsiai as “the Jewish City writ large” served that purpose well. Thereby, John ironically reverses Rome’s two-pronged colonial strategy of “claiming the world as the possession of specific gods, with the centre located in Rome” (Runesson). John portrays his seven ekklēsiai, first, as a non-Roman polis whose walls reach from Jerusalem to Rome (21:14, 16-17; 12,000 stadia square), and, second, as a Jewish Temple-polis (21:14; a 12,000 stadia cube) within which the triune God of the kosmos resides (21:22; 22:1-5)."""""

In hoeverre was de nieuwtestamentische gemeente daadwerkelijk nieuw in de tijd van Jezus? Er wordt beweerd dat met de uitstorting van de Heilige Geest de kerk of de gemeente is geboren, maar klopt dit wel? Al een aantal jaar houdt een aantal vragen met betrekking tot de nieuwtestamentische gemeente mij bezig. Zeker omdat ik tot de ontdekking ben gekomen dat zowel Jezus als ook Paulus nooit de intentie hebben gehad een nieuwe groepering/stroming te willen stichten. Laat staan een nieuwe religie, welke we nu het Christendom noemen. Jezus was en is toch de verwachte Messias van het volk Israël? Waarom zou Jezus dan een andere of nieuwe groepering/stroming willen beginnen? Waarom zou Jezus Zich dan van zijn eigen volk willen distantiëren? Ja, het is waar dat Jezus zelf de term ekklēsia (gemeente/vergadering) gebruikte. Jezus zelf heeft Jezus deze term zelf maar drie keer heeft gebruikt. En alle drie de keren wordt de term gebruikt in alleen het evangelie van Mattheüs, namelijk in Mattheüs 16:18, en twee keer in Mattheüs 18:17.

Eine Apologie zur Frage: Wer ist ein Jude?-Wer ist Israel? Vor einiger Zeit schrieb ein "messianischer Jude" in seinem Rundbrief: "Wenn eine Person Yeschua (Jesus) als ihren persönlichen Messiah akzeptiert, wird die kulturelle Identität von dieser Person nicht ausgelöscht, die kulturelle Identität von dieser Person bleibt!"
KOMMENTAR:
Der historische Befund
Der ideologische Hintergrund
Der biblische Befund
Das Zeugnis der jüdischen Apostel
Wer ist Jude?
Wer also ist bibelgemäß ein „Jude“, und wer nicht?
FAZIT
Anhang: Anmerkungen zum Zionismus
(2021-06-21)

In the Athenian democracy of the late 5th and 4th centuries, political influence directly resulted from oratorical skill. Intellectuals even considered the very existence of the Greek pólis as based upon lógos. The chapter tries to trace some of the most important roots of political oratory in Archaic Greece before outlining  the different spaces, stages, contexts, and personnel involved in and influencing political oratory in Classical Athens.

In the earliest phase of what became Christianity, Christ-followers, while differing in worship terminology with respect to Jews, appropriated a collective identity for their transnational communities that was, in many ways, synonymous with the Jewish “synagogue”; they self-identified as ekklēsia (“assembly”). Designating their semi-public voluntary associations as ekklēsia allowed multi-ethnic Christ-followers not only to affirm their Jewish heritage, but also to maintain ongoing social interaction with, and within, Jewish communities. This boundary permeability is evident in at least three ways—theologically, socio-religiously, and ideologically. Paul, in particular, can be said to exploit the use of ekklēsia in the Septuagint for the “assembly of Israel” (LXX), and in the Diaspora for Jewish voluntary associations (Philo), for his own theological purposes. Since non-Jewish Christ-followers cannot be called “Israel,” Paul’s designation of them as ekklēsia reinforces his argument for their theological continuity with the Abrahamic covenant (e.g., Galatians, Romans). This collective designation, then, minimizes perceptions of Christ-follower communities as being “other” relative to 1st century CE “Judaisms” (and vice versa). Instead, self-identifying as ekklēsia can be said, socio-religiously, to have helped maintain early Christ-followers’ access to Jewish communal gatherings and/or buildings (“synagogues”). Ideologically, this access may have been further strengthened given the sacral dimension attributed to some 1st century Jewish “synagogues” (e.g., CIRB 70 [=CIJ 1.683]) which mirrors portrayals of the ekklēsia as Jewish sacred space among multi-ethnic Christ-followers (e.g., living Temple, New Jerusalem). I will argue, however, that their self-perception as “fictive architecture” does not reflect a replacement theology by Christ-followers relative to other 1st century “Judaisms.” Rather, it would seem that the combination of Christ-followers’ ideological depiction as Jewish sacred space along with their socio-religious identification, in many ways, as simply another Jewish ekklēsia, can be said to affirm an indelible Jewish heritage.

This paper is the verbatim of a talk presented in response to Jean-Marc Narbonne's talk, «Démagogie, populisme et tumulte (thorubos) en démocratie grecque» on the occasion of a book launch, in Quebec City, April 11th 2019: L’esprit critique dans l’Antiquité – Critique et licence dans la Grèce antique, édition Bernard Collette-Dučić, Marc-Antoine Gavray et Jean-Marc Narbonne, Paris, Les  Belles Lettres, 2019.

Ce bref article reprend les mots que j'ai prononcés en réponse à la conférence de Jean-Marc Narbonne, «Démagogie, populisme et tumulte (thorubos) en démocratie grecque» lors du lancement d'une nouvelle parution, à Québec, le 11 avril 2019 : L’esprit critique dans l’Antiquité – Critique et licence dans la Grèce antique, édition Bernard Collette-Dučić, Marc-Antoine Gavray et Jean-Marc Narbonne, Paris, Les  Belles Lettres, 2019.