Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus PDF full book. Access full book title Revelation and the Marble Economy of Roman Ephesus by Anna M. V. Bowden. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Anna M. V. Bowden Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1978710186 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 247
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.
Author: Anna M. V. Bowden Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1978710186 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 247
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.
Author: Anna Michelle Vestal Bowden Publisher: ISBN: Category : Bible Languages : en Pages : 255
Book Description
How might Jesus-followers living in first-century Ephesus have experienced John's urge to "come out from her," to disengage from imperial accommodation (18:4)? This dissertation explores the praxis Revelation requires from its audience and questions is practicality. Previous scholarship has failed to recognize explicitly that John's command is impossible to heed. This study offers a reading of Revelation within a construction of first-century Ephesus, bringing forward the (im)practicalities of John's command. After a brief description of the methods employed in this project (ch. 2), the study will have two foci. First, it constructs a detailed portrait of Ephesus's marble economy (ch. 3) and the life of the marble-workers, looking in particular at their living and working conditions (ch. 4). Second, it proceeds to read Revelation within my construction of the marble economy by foregrounding the experiences of Ephesian marble-workers in order to press questions concerning the (im)practicality of John's urgings for his audience to stop accommodating. Chapter 5 looks for ways in which Jesus-following marble-workers might identify as those to whom John is addressing in Revelation, focusing in particular on the opening letters (Rev 2-3). It also explores the ways in which the marble-workers participated in empire through "the work of their hands" (9:20) by looking in depth at three primary ways in which the marble-workers might have been seen as accommodating idolatry, materialism, and profiteering. Chapter 6 explores the practical implications of John's urge for zero cultural accommodation (Rev 2-3; 18:4) by asking if John's characterization of the marble-workers as idolaters, sorcerers, murderers, fornicators, and thieves overlooks their daily realities, their pragmatic concerns for food, shelter, and the basic necessities for life. This study concludes that from the cultural context of Ephesian marble-workers, the praxis that Revelation requires from its audience of complete withdrawal from all imperial involvement is pragmatically not sustainable and is ultimately a manifesto providing no concrete strategies to address consequences such as food insecurity. The result would be malnutrition, poor living conditions, and even death.
Author: Anna M. V. Bowden Publisher: Fortress Academic ISBN: 9781978710177 Category : Languages : en Pages : 246
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.
Author: Jillian D. Engelhardt Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 1978712049 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 233
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.
Author: Jeffrey D. Meyers Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1978708351 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 201
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.
Author: Andrew R. Guffey Publisher: Fortress Academic ISBN: 9781978706576 Category : Bible Languages : en Pages : 276
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.
Author: David Arthur Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1978702507 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 260
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.
Author: Heather Macumber Publisher: Horror and Scripture ISBN: 9781978703032 Category : Languages : en Pages : 224
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.
Author: Nick Page Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 1444749684 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 278
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.
Author: Martin M. Culy Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers ISBN: 1498241689 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 290
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.