In Part One, I first argue that the life and thought of educated Graeco-Romans was profoundly shaped by a tension between characteristions of a primary reality and the social experiences of everyday reality. The tension surfaced in various models, images, and expectations of the real-the-essence-the-ideal-the-perfect which both reflected and reinforced the presumption of a higher reality lying somewhere other than in the stuff of everyday life. The second chapter sketches the broad contours of Paul's preoccupation with Jesus Christ. I note how his focus on Christ spilled over into a penchant for the historical, the personal, and the social. I explore these as three interdependent axes of his thought. In chapter three I use the vantage point constructed in the first two chapters to see the distinctiveness of Paul's thought and experience over against the patterns of Graeco-Roman philosophy, theology, religion, and morality. Part Two, explores the ways in which Paul's knowledge of Christ offered coherence within the contingencies of everyday experience. Chapter four focuses on Paul's conversations for change. The topic of these chapters are really inseparable not only from each other, but from those of the previous chapters on Paul's life and thought. Thus certain themes recur through chapters two to five so that the four chapters form a continuous presentation of Paul's life and thought, albeit from several different perspectives. Part Three carries the conversation forward to evangelicalism. In chapter six, I view the sermon as a critical event in the life of evangelicalism, and as the bridge between the academy and the congregation. I concentrate on the intellectual and social phenomena which highlight an evangelical's experience of the movement as a system and a culture. This leads me to consider how evangelical meanings have broken down in the experience of some evangelicals. In chapter seven, I look at ways in which the system and culture and evangelicalism shape the reading of Paul. My focus here is on the drive to attach the epithets 'biblical' and 'unbiblical' to people, propositions, and behaviours. I argue that the intellectual and social phenomena suggest that being 'biblical' or otherwise has as much to do with social acceptability as it does with proximity to the biblical texts. This brings me full circle to the analogies which evangelicalism holds both Paul and to his Graeco-Roman milieu. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/235427 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Strom, Mark, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, Faculty of Health, Humanities and Social Ecology, School of Social Ecology, Russell, David |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Source | THESIS_FHHSE_SEL_Strom_M.xml |
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