Overview

The New Testament writing known as First Peter was probably written at the end of the 1st century CE; it is addressed to ‘resident aliens’ who live as colonial subjects in the Roman Province of Asia Minor. They are portrayed as a marginalized group who experience harassment and suffering. This letter is ascribed to the apostle Peter but was probably not written by him. It is a rhetorical communication sent from Christians in the imperial centre in Rome (camouflaged as Babylon), an authoritative letter of advice and admonition to good conduct and subordination in the sphere of colonial provincial life. 1 Peter is a religious document written a long time ago and in a culture and world that is quite different from our own. However, as a biblical book it is a part of Christianity’s sacred Scriptures. This guide to the letter keeps both of these areas, the cultural-social and the ethical-religious, in mind. It offers help for understanding the letter as both a document of the 1st century and as sacred Scripture that speaks about the religious forces that have shaped Christianity and Western culture. In short, this guide seeks to enable readers to read ‘against the grain’.

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9781350008915

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[Schussler Fiorenza] is to be commended for her interaction with a wide array of scholarship, for asking difficult questions of the text without leaving readers comfortless, for her insistence on identifying (and assistance in evaluating) readers' own frameworks of interpretation, and for presenting 1 Peter as a text ripe for the exercise of inquiry, biblical interpretation, and critical but constructive self-evaluation. * Reviews in Religion and Theology *

[Schüssler Fiorenza] is to be commended for her interaction with a wide array of scholarship, for asking difficult questions of the text without leaving readers comfortless, for her insistence on identifying (and assistance in evaluating) readers’ own frameworks of interpretation, and for presenting 1 Peter as a text ripe for the exercise of inquiry, biblical interpretation, and critical but constructive self-evaluation. * Reviews in Religion and Theology * As always, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza does not disappoint, with a thorough exegetical and scientific approach that entails a powerfully feminist reading of the text ... I certainly endorse this book, and I view it as a valuable contribution to NT scholarship. It would be very useful in the classroom, especially to expose students to different hermeneutical approaches. A highly recommended read. * Neotestamentica *

Author Information

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is the Krister Stendahl Professor at Harvard University Divinity School, USA.

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