Research is currently discovering the Letter to the Ephesians as an independent voice on other topics than ecclesiology that were also of interest to Paul. The contributors to this volume take this increased interest into account and discuss Deutero-Paul's Christological design, his revision of the Corpus Paulinum and the Letter to the Colossians, his early Christian interpretation of Greek philosophy and science, and his anthropological concept.
Study of the Deutero-Pauline letter to the Ephesians in the New Testament has typically focused on ecclesiology by assuming a generalized notion of church. In contrast, in this interdisciplinary volume the contributors delve into an array of underlying subjects in order to give the terms governing our understanding of Ephesians a much-needed further specificity and an enlarged foundation. The contributions in this collection address the following questions: Is the nature of the church in fact the main topic of Ephesians? If so, what exactly is that church's relationship to contemporary forms of Jewish community? What are the proper conceptualities and terminologies for analyzing the political, juridical, cultural, cultic, architectural, or religious distinctions most relevant to Ephesians? In what ways is Ephesians dependent on the Pauline letters and on Colossians—old questions explored in new ways? Highly attuned to questions of social location, space and urban setting, philosophy, epistolography, and ancient Judaism(s), in these essays the agenda for an improved reading of Ephesians is set and exegetical analysis in New Testament studies is enhanced.
Table of contents:
Annette Weissenrieder and Mark Grundeken: Reconsidering the Letter to the Ephesians in Ancient Context: An Introduction to the Recent Trends in Research -
Margaret Y. MacDonald: Ephesians in Context: The Impact of New Approaches for Understanding Its Distinct Perspective -
J. Albert Harrill: Ephesians as a Circular Letter:Forms and Functions of a General Address
- Thomas Johann Bauer: »Tychicus, the Beloved Brother and Faithful Servant in the Lord« (Eph6:21): The Letter to the Ephesians in the Context of Pauline and Early Christian Pseudepigraphy -
Harry O. Maier: Ephesians, Spatiality, Urbanity, and Place Entrepreneurship -
Teun Tieleman: Ephesians and Ancient Philosophy: The Communion of God and the Faithful -
Mark Grundeken: Ἑνότης in Ephesians 4:3 and 13: A Term from Popular-Philosophical Tradition -
Annette Weissenrieder: Thinking with the Eyes of the Heart: Ways of Knowing God in Ephesians -
Andrea Taschl-Erber: Making 'the Two' into One Body: De- and Recategorization of (Un-)Circumcision -
Stefan Krauter: Wall, Enmity, Law, and Peace: Ancient Contexts of Ephesians 2:14-16 -
Barbara Beyer Salvation in One Body: The 'in Christ' Phrases in Ephesians -
Christine Gerber: ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις - Interpreting a Puzzling Phrase in the Letter to the Ephesians -
Troels Engberg-Pedersen: Reading Ephesians through Paul: The Cosmological Role of the
Pneuma in Ephesians -
Nadine Ueberschaer: Ephesians as a Hypertextual Deutero-Pauline Reception of Galatians -
David E. Fredrickson: Subordination and Frank Criticism in Plutarch and Ephesians 4-5 -
Elna Mouton: Submissive to Whose Authority? Reimagining the Haustafel Dynamic of Ephesians 5:21-33 -
Kwok Hang Wen: »We Might Grow in Every Way toward Him Who is the Head, Christ.« Κεφαλή as the Architectural Dimensional Standard in the Growing Church in Ephesians 4:15
