Abstract This article analyses how Christian communities in Asia Minor, including Ephesus, respond as religious minorities to the dominance of the Roman imperial family ideology through a study of the Epistle to the Ephesians, specifically the Haustafel of Ephesians. I argue, using an Indonesian postcolonial perspective, Christian communities described in the Epistle to the Ephesians, categorised as minority religious groups, engaged in political discourse with the imperial ideology of family through three strategies. First, Christian communities in Asia Minor adopted the imperial family ideology to support social harmony, namely by making this a part of Christian teachings and by recognising the important position of the paterfamilias in the family. Secondly, they adopted imperial ideology to affirm communal identity by adding an element of Christ and placing it in the context of the ekklesia . Thirdly, Christian communities in Asia Minor critically engage imperial ideology, namely by reducing the power of the paterfamilias and by making weak parties in the family agents of action. These three strategies show how minority groups may survive under a dominant majority ideology.
In 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, Paul describes a troubling situation in which some people have become weak, ill, and even died due to their improper ways of celebrating the Lord's Supper. According to Paul, the impropriety lies in some people arriving early without waiting for everyone and sharing the meal. While those who arrive later remain hungry, this creates a clear causal link between food shortages and deaths. But one important question remains: Were the deaths a punishment by God over the rich or the consequence of malnutrition for the poor? Historians describe cases of severe famine in the region during the relevant period, thus making starvation a plausible and deadly factor that can hardly be ignored. This article examines the views expressed in this passage, together with interpretive options suggested by modern scholars, using the concept of cognitive dissonance (Festinger).
In recent decades, modern scholarship has critiqued anthropocentric and ecologically deleterious readings of Genesis 1:26-8. While these critiques often promote more ecologically attuned visions of human beings' divine image-bearing (as well as their "dominion" over other creatures and their "subduing" of the land), ecological re-readings often fail to reconsider the first-person plural verb and pronouns in the phrase, "Let us make humankind in our image" (1:26). Throughout Gen 1:1-2:4a, however, a meaningful and consistent linguistic pattern suggests that God's speech to "us" is addressed to the land and may be understood as an address to an earthly collaborator (in contrast to an angelic or divine council). Such a reinterpretation directs readers to identify human beings as integrally related not only to God but also to the land and its creatures as well. The human creature, consequently, emerges as a living being who bears not only the image of God but also the image of earth, and the earth appears as God's valued and creative partner in the divine project of making and sustaining life.
This article analyses how Christian communities in Asia Minor, including Ephesus, respond as religious minorities to the dominance of the Roman imperial family ideology through a study of the Epistle to the Ephesians, specifically the Haustafel of Ephesians. I argue, using an Indonesian postcolonial perspective, Christian communities described in the Epistle to the Ephesians, categorised as minority religious groups, engaged in political discourse with the imperial ideology of family through three strategies. First, Christian communities in Asia Minor adopted the imperial family ideology to support social harmony, namely by making this a part of Christian teachings and by recognising the important position of the paterfamilias in the family. Secondly, they adopted imperial ideology to affirm communal identity by adding an element of Christ and placing it in the context of the ekklesia. Thirdly, Christian communities in Asia Minor critically engage imperial ideology, namely by reducing the power of the paterfamilias and by making weak parties in the family agents of action. These three strategies show how minority groups may survive under a dominant majority ideology.
Since hair removal in the Bible expresses an underlying trauma of gender instability in the terror of political irrelevancy and domination, an analysis of biblical men removing their hair enhances feminist biblical interpretation. Genesis characters Jacob and Joseph diverge from the hypermasculine due to hair removal. Jacob self-identifies as hairless (Gen 27:11) and Joseph shaves in a non-Israelite context (Gen 41:14). This article firstly introduces feminist and political uses of the term "terror" and their relevance to biblical masculinity and hair, and a second section then examines the gendered and ethnic trauma of hair removal in the Hebrew Bible. Thirdly, a feminist postcolonial reading of masculinity and ongoing hair removal by Jacob and Joseph illustrates how they contrast with normative biblical hair removal. Finally, the conclusion explains the importance of addressing the questions of biblical masculinity studies within a feminist postcolonial reconstruction of gender and power.
While many prophetic texts display human actions as echoing into the non-human world, Hos 4:3 and Zeph 1:2-3 uniquely do so by reversing the order of creation as found in Gen 1:1-2:3. Both texts literarily deconstruct creation as part of larger paradigms of judgment. Whereas Hosea presents human action (i.e., repentance) as capable of averting the coming crisis, humans are powerless to halt the unraveling of creation in Zephaniah. This shift in the relationship between human agency and creation's destruction parallels modern ecological concerns, as human actions increasingly stress natural earth systems, threatening to trigger environmental feedback loops (or "tipping points") that will take the trajectory of climate change out of human control. The following article offers an ecocritical reading of Hos 4:3 and Zeph 1:2-3 in dialogue with the shifting function of human agency in modern calls for human change in response to the climate crisis.
This article attempts to revisit the notion of "rest" from the perspective of colonial discourse analysis. By examining two passages in the Hebrew Bible (Ps 95 and Gen 2), I aim to show how the idea of "rest" is intertwined with the colonial imagination. I endeavor to demonstrate that the notion of "rest" in those passages does not straightforwardly entail liberation but instead involves the colonization of space and time. To sustain the argument I divide the article into three parts. First, I consider what the concept of spatial colonization entails in the notion of "rest" in the Exodus-Conquest traditions. Furthermore, I analyze temporal colonization in the notion of the Sabbath "rest" motif in the Creation narrative. Finally, as both Ps 95 and Gen 2 were cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews' discussion of "rest" (chs. 3-4), I conclude this article by offering a preliminary reading of Heb 3-4 as an implication of the discussion of spatial and temporal colonization of "rest" in those Hebrew Bible passages.
Paul believes it is better for the Corinthian assembly not to many (1 Cor 7:25-35). According to him, one disadvantage of marriage is that the married will experience "affliction in flesh" (OAI is 'r Qapui, 7:28). I offer a contextual interpretation of Paul's discussion on marriage through the lens of voluntary childlessness in contemporary China, which I argue can serve as a subversive form of resistance. During 2020-2022, some unborn children in China were lost due to the anti-COVID measures. In response, numerous Chinese netizens declared, "This will be our last generation," promoting voluntary childlessness as a form of protest. I suggest that this trend can illuminate Paul's preference for a marriage-free life. His advice for the Corinthian virgins to abstain from marriage - and presumably from procreation - can be interpreted as a subtle critique of the Roman marriage legislation promoting procreation.
This article presents a hybridized postcolonial analysis of Acts 16:6–18, focusing on Lydia’s offer to support and host Paul and his companions while juxtaposing this with her failure to provide any aid to the slave girl in Philippi, whose divining spirit is exorcised by Paul. This analysis is situated within the author’s positionality as a middle-class white woman. The study begins by situating the Philippian narrative within Musa Dube’s framework of type-scenes of land possession, highlighting its imperialistic undertones. Lydia is then positioned as a hybridized figure who collaborates with Paul’s missionary efforts, ultimately contributing to the abandonment of the slave girl, who is left outside of the Christian community without spiritual or socio-economic support. The article closes with proposing strategies for those seeking to resist the structures of whiteness and imperialism in contemporary contexts, offering an alternative framework to avoid the limitations exemplified by Lydia.
Despite significant contributions on the topic, remnants of colonialist and imperialist ideas continue to be materially, conceptually, methodologically, institutionally, and pedagogically present in biblical scholarship. The situation comes at a great cost to the so-called “minority” scholars, whose challenges lie beyond the production of good and reliable biblical scholarship. This article reflects on the social-epistemic challenges faced by these scholars and questions the helpfulness of this terminology. From an anthology of colonialist “advices” received by the author in the last five years, and using insights from the sociology of knowledge and decolonial thinking, the article reflects on the coloniality of biblical studies. Therefore, in conversation with Latin American critical thinking and under what Freire called “ raiva justa ” (righteous wrath), five pillars of injustice are unveiled from the pieces of advice, and suggestions for radical action are provided to inform new contributions to biblical theology.
This article seeks to offer a Nigerian/British women’s reading of Herodias’ daughter’s dance in Mark and Matthew by reading it alongside Simi Bedford’s Yoruba Girl Dancing . In this article, the dominant Western interpretation of Herodias’s daughter’s dance being erotic is shown to have been heavily influenced by hypersexualised art reception history in the face of no biblical evidence. By combining insights from Simi Bedford’s novel (which depicted Yoruba dance on British soil to be a public statement of resistance against European colonialism), and the important role that dance played within Yoruba life and death rituals, this article, written from the perspective of a Nigerian/British woman’s, reconfigures Herodias’s daughter’s dance to be a form of resistance against the patriarchal gaze, a prophetic ritual lament of the death of John the Baptist, a means to communicate to a higher deity, and finally a means to mark the end of the John the Baptist era.
Paul believes it is better for the Corinthian assembly not to marry (1 Cor 7:25–35). According to him, one disadvantage of marriage is that the married will experience “affliction in flesh” ( θλῖψις τῇ σαρκί , 7:28). I offer a contextual interpretation of Paul’s discussion on marriage through the lens of voluntary childlessness in contemporary China, which I argue can serve as a subversive form of resistance. During 2020–2022, some unborn children in China were lost due to the anti- Covid measures. In response, numerous Chinese netizens declared, “This will be our last generation,” promoting voluntary childlessness as a form of protest. I suggest that this trend can illuminate Paul’s preference for a marriage-free life. His advice for the Corinthian virgins to abstain from marriage – and presumably from procreation – can be interpreted as a subtle critique of the Roman marriage legislation promoting procreation.
First-generation Asian immigrants in the “West” often encounter persistent stereotypes of “perpetual foreigners” and “model minority” despite their societal contributions and integration efforts. Compared to native-born Asians, these new immigrants are frequently further marginalised as “Fresh off the Boat ( FOB s),” a term describing their perceived dissonance from mainstream culture and their presumed need to conform to the dominant hegemony. This article explores the intercontextual overlaps between the marginalised and invisibilised experiences of Asian immigrants with John 4’s portrayal of the Samaritan woman. I examine how the text appropriates the Samaritan woman’s marginalised position to highlight both her need and the superiority of a saviour, Christ. I illustrate that the evangelist casts the woman as a perpetual foreigner by invisibilising her contribution to missions and silencing her voice among her fellow Samaritans within the Johannine story-world in a manner comparable to first-generation Asian immigrant experiences and the complex intra-Asian community dynamics.
