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In The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement, Ralph J. Korner explores the ideological implications of Christ-follower associations self-designating collectively as ekklēsiai. Politically, Korner’s inscriptional research suggests that an association named ekklēsia would have been perceived as a positive, rather than as a counter-imperial, participant within Imperial Greek cities. Socio-religiously, Korner argues that there was no universal ekklēsia to which all first generation Christ-followers belonged; ekklēsia was a permanent group designation used by Paul’s associations. Ethno-religiously, Korner contends that ekklēsia usage by intra muros groups within pluriform Second Temple Judaism problematizes suggestions, not least at the institutional level, that Paul was “parting ways” with Judaism(s), ‘Jewishness’, or Jewish organizational forms.
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The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums Founding Editor Martin Hengel † (Tübingen) Executive Editors Cilliers Breytenbach (Berlin) Martin Goodman (Oxford) Editorial Board Lutz Doering (Münster) Tal Ilan (Berlin) – Judith Lieu (Cambridge) Tessa Rajak (Reading/Oxford) – Daniel R. Schwartz (Jerusalem) Seth Schwartz (New York) – Christiane Zimmermann (Kiel) Volume 98 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ajec The Origin and Meaning of Ekklēsia in the Early Jesus Movement By Ralph J. Korner LEIDEN | BOSTON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Korner, Ralph J., author. Title: The origin and meaning of Ekklēsia in the early Jesus movement / by Ralph J. Korner. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Ancient Judaism and early Christianity, ISSN 1871-6636 ; Volume 98 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017011245 (print) | LCCN 2017024532 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004344990 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004344983 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Church—History of doctrines—Early church, ca. 30–600. | Ekklēsia (The Greek word) Classification: LCC BV598 (ebook) | LCC BV598 .K667 2017 (print) | DDC 262.009/015—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011245 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1871-6636 isbn 978-90-04-34498-3 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34499-0 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Contents Foreword ix Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Ekklēsia as Christ-follower Sub-Group Identity 1 1.2 Christ-follower Ekklēsiai: Three Investigative Questions 10 1.2.1 Ekklēsia as Group Identity: Precursors to Early Christ-Follower Usage? 10 1.2.2 Ekklēsia as Political Identity: Counter-Imperial Ideology? 13 1.2.3 Ekklēsia as Ethno-Religious Identity: Supersessionist Ideology? 17 1.2.4 Pauline Ekklēsiai: A Thesis Statement 21 2 Ekklēsia in Greek and Roman Sources 22 2.1 Introduction 22 2.2 Civic Ekklēs