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EN5245 CONCEPTS OF THE FAMILY IN PAULINE LITERATURE (A.Y. 2025/2026)
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Accademic Unit
Biblical Faculty
Descriptio n
During the past two decades, scholars have greatly advanced our understanding of the significance of concepts of the family for understanding Pauline literature. This course explores how a fuller picture of family life in the Roman world, including marriage, parenting, and the master-slave relationship, can shed light both on community interaction and important theological and ethical concepts. Key texts will be examined especially from 1 Corinthians, Colossians, and the Pastoral Epistles. In keeping with recent studies, the course will pay special attention to intergenerational interactions, concerns about children, education, and their bearing on the formation of leaders.
Objectives
There will be two main objectives: 1) Students will be introduced to relevant scholarship on such themes as the extended family, marriage, enslavement, and childhood in antiquity; 2) students will analyze select passages in depth (e.g., 1 Corinthians 7; Colossians 3:18-4:1; Titus 2:1-10) seeking to understand how knowledge of the family can shed light on the meaning these texts. The analysis will be informed by archaeological data, material evidence, and comparative literature from the Roman world as appropriate. While an understanding of New Testament texts within their proper literary and historical settings will be the focus, the course will also expose students to other methodologies which have been employed in investigations of concepts of the family, including recent adoptions of a child-centered approach.
Method
The instruction will primarily take the form of lectures, but there will also be opportunities for class discussion, and short student presentations. There will be an overview of historical background, with a close reading of selected passages, including comparative evidence from the Roman world. Students will be invited throughout the course to offer brief commentary on selected passages, taking into consideration selected readings from secondary literature and illustrating the exegetical and interpretative skills they are acquiring. Students will have occasion to demonstrate their knowledge of the ancient context and to discuss recent methodologies employed in the study of Pauline literature.
Evaluation
Students will be evaluated on the basis of a final written exam (120 minutes). They will be asked to comment on passages on the family from Pauline literature, analyzing key features of the Greek text and explaining how an understanding of the Roman context can shed light on these texts. Students will be expected to demonstrate knowledge of methodologies in the modern study of Pauline literature as well as important aspects of assigned reading. Ongoing class participation (including presentations) will also be taken into consideration when determining the final grade (20%).
In place of the final exam, students may elect to submit a research paper (3000 words) on a topic approved by the professor. Students may submit work in English or French.
Information
- Semester: 2° Semestre
- ECTS: 5
Teachers
Margaret Yvonne MACDONALD
Lesson schedule/Room
Lessons schedule not available
Bibliography (Required):
Macdonald , Margaret Y., The Power of Children: The Construction of Christian Families in the Greco-Roman World (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2014) 1-32+33-65+109-163.
Osiek , Carolyn – Balch , David L. , Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 1-90.
Osiek , Carolyn – Macdonald , Margaret Y., A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006) 118-143.
Supplementary Bibliography (selections from these works may be assigned as appropriate):
Adams , Edward, The Earliest Christian Meeting Places. Almost Exclusively Houses? Revised edition (London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
Balch , David, L., «Household Codes», in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament (ed. David E. Aune ) (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988, pp.25-50.
Balch , David L. – Carolyn Osiek (eds.), Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003).
Betsworth , Sharon – Julie Faith Parker , T&T Handbook of Children in the Bible and the Biblical World (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019).
Campbell , Ken M. (ed.), Marriage and Family in the Biblical World (Downer Grove, Il: Intervarsity Press, 2003).
Cianca , Jenn , Sacred Ritual, Profane Space: The Roman House as Early Christian Meeting Place (Kingston – Montreal: McGill Queens, 2016).
Charles , Ronald, The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts (London – New York: Routledge, 2021).
Elliott , Susan M., Family Empires, Roman and Christian (Salem, OR: Polebridge, 2018).
Garroway , Kristine Henriksen – John W. Martens (eds.), Children and Methods: Listening to and Learning from Children in the Biblical World (Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies 67; Leiden: Brill, 2020).
Harrill , J. Albert, Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006).
Hezcer , C., «Women, Children, and Slaves in Rabbinic Law», in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law (ed. P. Barmash ) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019) 489-503.
Hodge , Caroline E. Johnson, If Sons, Then Heirs a Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford – New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Moxnes , Halvor, Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor (London: Routledge, 1997).
Osiek , Carolyn, «The Family in Early Christianity: “Family Values” Revisited», The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58 (1996) 1-24.
Ramelli , Ilaria L. E ., Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Shaner , Katherine Ann, Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Sivan , Hagith, Jewish Childhood in the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
**** Selections from various commentaries as appropriate.