Download Communal Legitimation in Ephesians

SBL Annual Congress
San Diego 2007
S19-110 Disputed Paulines
Contested Reputations and
God’s Eternal Plans:
Communal Legitimation in Ephesians
Minna Shkul
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 In recent years Ephesians’ scholarship has been
enriched by a discussion of various aspects of
Jewishness of the letter and its author.
 This paper seeks to contribute to such a
discussion by offering a fresh methodological
perspective that draws from literature on social
memory in exploring how the writer shapes and
adapts Jewishness in the light of the Christevent
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Reading Ephesians as Post-Pauline social
entrepreneurship: the deliberate shaping of ideology
and social orientation, beliefs and values of the nonIsraelite Christ-followers addressed
 The textual world - the social world of the community
 The writer’s worldview - the audience’s worldview
 The writing offered a vehicle for social influencing
that project its author’s views upon its audience.
 What kind of socio-ideological resources the text
provides for the belief and social life of its recipients?
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 ‘Collective memory not only reflects the past, but
also shapes present reality by providing people
with understandings and symbolic frameworks
that enable them to make sense of the world’
(Misztal 2003:13)
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Selective remembering of Jesus in Ephesians 2

Jesus transformed the alienation of non-Israelites:
2.13 ‘But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by
the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups
into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15
He has abolished the Law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might
create in himself one new humanity in place of two, thus making peace, 16 and
might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to
death that hostility through it. 17 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who
were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him both of us have
access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and
aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of
God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus
himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole structure is joined together and
grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22 in whom you also are built together
spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
 Inventing traditions and transforming existing stories to provide the
community with suitable ideological resources to bolster identity and
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communality
Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Selective remembering of Paul in Ephesians 3

I Paul am the prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you non-Israelites – 2
for surely you have heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for
you, 3 and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above
... 4 a reading of which will be enable you to perceive my understanding of the
mystery of Christ. 5 In former generations this mystery was not made known to
humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the
Spirit: 6 that is, the non-Israelites have become fellow heirs, members of the same
body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel. 7 Of this
gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given
me by the working of his power. 8 Although I am the very least of all the saints, this
grace was given to me to bring to the non-Israelites the news of the boundless
riches of Christ, 9 and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden
for ages in God who created all things; 10 so that through the church the wisdom of
God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the
heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has
carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord...
3.1...
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 The task of reputational entrepreneurship is
‘to make an ordinary person great – or to bring the person’s greatness to public
attention’ (Schwartz 2000:67).
 Both Jesus’ and Paul’s reputations are
representations of the past, based on
1) historical events and
2) commemoration, which attaches the values of
the non-Israelite Christ-followers to the selected
stories
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Paul’s assumed character, interest and
achievements resonated with the concerns of
the later Christianness seeking for further
legitimacy in building social and ideological
distance to other groupings and social networks.
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 The reputational constructions in Ephesians 2 & 3
engage with and challenge the following aspects of
Jewish heritage:
1) Israel’s election;
2) her identity as Yhwh’s covenant people;
3)
Israel’s God-sanctioned distance from ‘others’ and 4)
her history as a community who benefits from
God’s providence and revelation.
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 The way Ephesians remembers Jesus and Paul
deals with those discursive manoeuvres that
distance the community from Jewishness, given
that its ideological filters result in challenging
Israel’s election, the law, what constitutes the
people of God, and who is a divinely
commissioned prophet of God.
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Ephesians historicises non-Israelite Christianness
by creating a ‘collectively imagined past’
(cf. Misztal 2003:50, 69)
 Remembering has a communally legitimating
function, as it provides an explanation and
justification for the communal ideology that hails
Jesus as the Messiah and sanctions a culture that
disvalues Torah observance.
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Communal legitimation is especially important
when a reform movement departs from its wider
cultural matrix and seeks to establish itself
independently (Esler 1994:13-14)
 The leaders of a reform movement need to
legitimate the group by providing a compelling
explanation for
1) the distinctiveness of the new group and
2) the distance it takes from the parent group
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Ephesians’ language of divine legitimation
functions as an ideological resource and
repository of meaning for social discourse
 Non-Israelite past received no positive value
 This controls communal discourse, eliminates
disputes and provides coherence to group values
and beliefs that derive from Israelite heritage.
 The only references to non-Israelite life before
Christ are negative stereotypes of an insufficient
non-Israelite past that condemn the ethnic other
as ‘uncircumcised’, ‘alien’, ‘stranger’, ‘atheist’
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(2.11, 12, 19) thus creating a deficient identity.
Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Therefore Ephesians demonstrates a number of
typical functions of communal remembering from
self-enhancement to controlling communal
remembering and decomposing existing memories
that do not conform to the ideology or values of the
group.
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 Ephesians’ ‘adapted Jewishness’ is an example of
‘resistance memory’, which transforms stigmatised
memories of condemned and executed Jews to
heroes of God using the language of divine
legitimation.
 Their reputations have been shaped through socioideological filters when the legitimacy of nonIsraelite inclusion, freedom from the law and
distance from non-Israelite cultures were formative
motivations for social entrepreneurship.
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 As a result, ‘the past matches and articulates
present feelings’ (Misztal 2003:70).
 Ephesians imagines that Christ-followers from
other nations are transformed in Christ into
God’s people, which involves both ideological reanchoring as well as re-socialisation, given that
the writer maintains the ideal of God’s holy and
separated people, although Jewish cultural
performances are devalued.
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Mark Chagall,
The Exodus
 As a result,
‘the past matches and articulates present feelings’
(Misztal 2003:70).
 Ephesians provides alternative frames of meaning
which relate to social shifts that affect the mnemonic
community and develops early Christianness with
the language of divine legitimating that justifies
communal values & beliefs.
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