Cultural Conformity and Innovation in Paul: Some Clues from Contemporary Documents

Abstract

Did Paul write a "blank cheque" (de Ste Croix) for the powers that be? he endorsed rank (including nationality, government, class, marriage, slavery) as part of God's temporary safeguarding of the world, the exousiai (Rom 13:1) having responsibility especially against civil corruption. But unlike the Isis aretalogies, Paul does not celebrate this order as natural. He rejected status based on cultivation (2 Cor 10:10) and the "patronal" system. Papyrus and epigraphic evidence cited includes the first parallel for the reading "patroness" in Rom 16:2. Paul's conception of oikodome offers for the first time a status-free reconstruction of social relations.