Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans by Aaron Ricker

Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans by Aaron Ricker

Aaron Ricker locates the purpose of Romans in its function as a tool of community identity definition. Ricker employs a comparative analysis of the ways in which community identity definition is performed in first-century association culture, including several ancient network letters comparable to Romans.

Ricker’s examination of the community advice found in Rom 12-15 reveals in this new context an ancient example of the ways in which an inscribed addressee community can be invited in a letter to see and comport itself as a “proper” association network community. The ideal community addressed in the letter to the Romans is defined as properly unified and orderly, as well accommodating to – and clearly distinct from – cultures “outside.” Finally, it is defined as linked to a proper network with recognised leadership (i.e., the inscribed Paul of the letter and his network). Paul’s letter to the Romans is in many ways a baffling and extraordinary document. In terms of its community-defining functions and strategies, however, Ricker shows its purpose to be perfectly clear and understandable.

[W]ell-researched and well-argued.. [Ricker] successfully shows how the norms of ancient subcultural association network letters illuminate much of Rom 12–15. His thesis goes a long way toward clarifying why Romans appears generic in comparison to Paul’s other letters despite being addressed to a specific community ... Ricker’s study does much to illuminate the paraenetic material of Rom 12–15 and to explain a number of the particularities of this letter in comparison to the rest of the undisputed Paulines. Any scholar interested in Romans would do well to spend time with this book. * Society of Biblical Literature *

Aaron Ricker is a lecturer in Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780567693983
ISBN 10	0567693988
Title	Ancient Letters and the Purpose of Romans
Author	Aaron Ricker
Series	The Library Of New Testament Studies
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published	2020-09-17
Number of pages	200
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.