Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus

Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus PDF Author: Anna M. V. Bowden
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1978710186
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
In an effort to bring the (im)practicalities of John’s command for withdrawal from cultural participation in 18:4 to the forefront of scholarly discourse, this book reconstructs the marble economy of ancient Ephesus and proceeds to read Revelation by foregrounding the daily lives of its marble-workers. This book argues that Ephesus was a major center of the marble economy in the Roman world and that the infrastructure that went into creating, building, and sustaining such an enterprise generated the need for a large workforce. Anna M. V. Bowden further demonstrates that the majority of marble-workers endured poor working conditions and struggled on a daily basis to ensure subsistence. Finally, Bowden explores the ways marble-workers participated in empire “through the work of their hands” (9:20) and questions John’s characterization of marble-workers as idolaters, sorcerers, murderers, fornicators, and thieves. Bowden concludes that the praxis Revelation requires from its audience of complete withdrawal is pragmatically not sustainable and is ultimately a manifesto leaving marble-workers jobless, hungry, and with a heightened risk for malnutrition, disease, injury, and even death.

Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus

Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus PDF Author: Anna M. V. Bowden
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1978710186
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Get Book

Book Description
In an effort to bring the (im)practicalities of John’s command for withdrawal from cultural participation in 18:4 to the forefront of scholarly discourse, this book reconstructs the marble economy of ancient Ephesus and proceeds to read Revelation by foregrounding the daily lives of its marble-workers. This book argues that Ephesus was a major center of the marble economy in the Roman world and that the infrastructure that went into creating, building, and sustaining such an enterprise generated the need for a large workforce. Anna M. V. Bowden further demonstrates that the majority of marble-workers endured poor working conditions and struggled on a daily basis to ensure subsistence. Finally, Bowden explores the ways marble-workers participated in empire “through the work of their hands” (9:20) and questions John’s characterization of marble-workers as idolaters, sorcerers, murderers, fornicators, and thieves. Bowden concludes that the praxis Revelation requires from its audience of complete withdrawal is pragmatically not sustainable and is ultimately a manifesto leaving marble-workers jobless, hungry, and with a heightened risk for malnutrition, disease, injury, and even death.

Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus

Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus PDF Author: Anna M. V. Bowden
Publisher: Fortress Academic
ISBN: 9781978710177
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
In an effort to demonstrate the (im)practicalities of John's command for withdrawal (18:4), this book reconstructs the marble economy of Roman Ephesus and reads Revelation through the daily lives of its workers. It concludes that John's call for zero cultural participation is utterly devastating for its workers.

Matthew, Disability, and Stress

Matthew, Disability, and Stress PDF Author: Jillian D. Engelhardt
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1978712049
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
In Matthew, Disability, and Stress: Examining Impaired Characters in the Context of Empire, Jillian D. Engelhardt examines four Matthean healing narratives, focusing on the impaired characters in the scenes. Her reading is informed by both empire studies and social stress theory, a method that explores how the stress inherent in social location can affect psychosomatic health. By examining the Roman imperial context in which common folk lived and worked, she argues that attention to social and somatic circumstances, which may have accompanied or caused the described disabilities/impairments, destabilizes readings of these stories that suggest the encounter with Jesus was straightforwardly good and the healing was permanent. Instead, Engelhardt proposes various new contexts for and offers more nuanced characterizations of the disabled/impaired people in each discussed scene, resulting in ambiguous interpretations that de-center Jesus and challenge able-bodied assumptions about embodiment, disability, and healing.

The Nonviolent Apocalypse

The Nonviolent Apocalypse PDF Author: Jeffrey D. Meyers
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1978708351
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Revelation is resistance literature, written to instruct early Christians on how to live as followers of Jesus in the Roman Empire. The Nonviolent Apocalypse uses modern examples and scholarship on nonviolence to help illuminate Revelation’s resistance, arguing that Revelation’s famously violent visions are actually acts of nonviolent resistance to the Empire. The visions form part of Revelation’s proclamation of God’s way as a just and life-giving alternative to the system constructed by Rome. Revelation urges its readers to pursue this radical form of living, engaging in nonviolent resistance to all that stands in the way of God’s vision for the world.

The Walls of Babylon

The Walls of Babylon PDF Author: David Arthur
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1978702507
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The Walls of Babylon is a radically revisionist reading of the Revelation to John, offering startling insights into the historical roots of Gnosticism, the social dynamics of early Christianity, and the shattering impact of apocalyptic eschatology. Based on a careful analysis of the text, David Arthur argues that the motivating circumstance for Revelation was provided not by external Roman oppression but by a fierce internal dispute between gnostic and proto-orthodox factions within the early church. In the ensuing controversy, John did not side with ecclesiastical officials, as might be expected, but instead took up the cause of the persecuted outcasts. Following the precedent of the classical prophets, he speaks as a champion for the downtrodden and dispossessed––represented, for him, by the gnostic heretics. The book he has left us presents a fiery symbolic rebuke of proto-orthodox Christianity, and by extension, challenges normative religious paradigms at every level of belief and praxis.

Recovering the Monstrous in Revelation

Recovering the Monstrous in Revelation PDF Author: Heather Macumber
Publisher: Horror and Scripture
ISBN: 9781978703032
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Strange hybrid and liminal creatures populate the pages of the book of Revelation but only some are called monsters. Heather Macumber challenges traditional binary descriptors of good and evil to argue that all cosmic beings are monstrous, whether they originate in heaven or the abyss.

The Book of Revelation and the Visual Culture of Asia Minor

The Book of Revelation and the Visual Culture of Asia Minor PDF Author: Andrew R. Guffey
Publisher: Fortress Academic
ISBN: 9781978706576
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Comparing the verbal images of the book of Revelation to the visual rhetoric and images of Asia Minor, Andrew R. Guffey argues that Revelation is to be "seen" and not just read. By engaging Revelation as a visual text, Guffey reinserts it into the visual culture of early Christianity.

Revelation Road

Revelation Road PDF Author: Nick Page
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 1444749684
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
If you're reading this, we're still alive. The end of the world has not occurred. But it can't be long now, can it? For two thousand years, the Book of Revelation has inspired countless conspiracy theorists, film-makers, writers and artists, as well as theologians and teachers. But why are we so bothered? After all, the end of the world still hasn't turned up, and it's been quite a while now. When Nick Page wanted to get to the bottom of what this mysterious book is really all about, he realised there was only one way to go about it: he had to go to the land of apocalypse. Travelling to Patmos via the ruined cities of the seven churches of Revelation, determined to seek out a revelation of his own, Nick explores the culture behind Revelation, who wrote it, why they wrote it, and what it means for us today. Mixing history, commentary, creative reconstruction and sun-crazed travelogue, here at last is the (perhaps not quite) final word on heaven, hell, the four horsemen of the apocalypse - and why the end of the world never does turn up when it's supposed to.

Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy

Wealth in Ancient Ephesus and the First Letter to Timothy PDF Author: Gary G. Hoag
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 157506832X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Scholars are divided in their views about the teachings on riches in 1 Timothy. Evidence that has been largely overlooked in NT scholarship appears in Ephesiaca by Xenophon of Ephesus and suggests that the topic be revisited. Recently dated to the mid-first century C.E., Ephesiaca brings to life what is known from ancient sources about the social setting and cultural rules of the wealthy in Ephesus and provides details that enhance our knowledge of life and society in that place and time. In this volume, Hoag introduces Ephesiaca and employs a socio-rhetorical methodology to explore it alongside other ancient evidence and five passages in 1 Timothy (2:9–15; 3:1–13; 6:1–2a; 6:2b–10; and 6:17–19). His findings augment our modern conception of the Sitz im Leben of the wealthy in Ephesus. Additionally, because Ephesiaca contains some rare terms and themes that are found in 1 Timothy, this groundbreaking research offers fresh insight for biblical reading and interpretation.

The Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation PDF Author: Martin M. Culy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498241689
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Revelation, by any modern standard, is a strange book. It has intrigued and perplexed readers through the centuries, and all too often has fallen victim to fanciful interpretations. Although it may seem mysterious and impenetrable to us today, it represents a distinct message in language and imagery that was familiar to the original readers, woven together into a beautiful tapestry of twenty-two interconnected chapters. The Book of Revelation: The Rest of the Story demonstrates that the key to understanding the message of Revelation is found in this intricate relationship between the seven "letters" and the rest of the book, with the visions of Revelation 4-22 building on, fleshing out, and driving home each of the messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. In the end, Revelation proves to be not primarily a guide to how things are going to unfold at the end of the age, but rather a profound call to a life of radical devotion to Jesus regardless of one's circumstances.