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The Politics of Identity in Ephesians

Department of Religious Studies, St Francis Xavier University, P.O. Box 5000, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, B2G 2W5, mymacdon{at}stfx.ca

Drawing upon recent work on the political framework of the Pauline epistles, the goal of this article is to shed light upon the problem of historical reconstruction of the context of Ephesians. In response to some commentators who have contended that the author of Ephesians failed to show interest in contemporary Jews, it is argued that Eph. 2.11-22 is best understood as reflecting significant engagement with the life and fate of the Jewish people. Both the conceptions of society and the presentation of the identity of the ekklesia are examined in light of the situation of the Jews in the empire under Domitian. It is argued that the use of ambiguous categories to refer to the relations between the ekklesia and Israel reflect concrete experiences in the ekklesia of shifting identity, in part dependent on the changing circumstances of the Jews. The existence of these social dynamics is confirmed by examining the points of contact between Ephesians and imperial ideology as revealed especially in the interplay of religious, civic, and domestic themes in the epistle. Comparison of Ephesians to Josephus’s Against Apion proves to be especially useful in bringing this interplay into full relief.

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