REVIEW OF CAROLYN OSIEK AND MARGARET Y. MACDONALD'S A WOMAN'S PLACE

Edward Adams challenges a strong consensus in New Testament and Early Christian studies: that the early Christians met ‘almost exclusively’ in houses. This assumption has been foundational for research on the social formation of the early churches, the origins and early development of church architecture, and early Christian worship. Recent years have witnessed increased scholarly interest in the early ‘house church’. Adams re-examines the New Testament and other literary data, as well as archaeological and comparative evidence, showing that explicit evidence for assembling in houses is not nearly as extensive as is usually thought. He also shows that there is literary and archaeological evidence for meeting in non-house settings. Adams makes the case that during the first two centuries, the alleged period of the ‘house church’, it is plausible to imagine the early Christians gathering in a range of venues rather than almost entirely in private houses. His thesis has

Reviewed by: Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue Andrew Jacobs David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek , editors Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary DialogueGrand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003 Pp. xix + 412 + 11 plates. $28 (paper). Emerging out of a 2000 Brite Divinity School conference on the family and/in early Christianity, these seventeen papers (fourteen essays and three responses) provide excellent insight into the directions, methods, and materials of the burgeoning "early Christian families" industry. Balch and Osiek (whose collaborative 1997 Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches [Westminster/John Knox] arguably propelled the family in early Christian studies to new prominence) construe "interdisciplinarity" in a manner familiar to most students of early Christianity with a few twists: elements from classical studies (literary and epigraphic), archaeology, New Testament studies, early Judaism, ancient Christianity ("patristics") as well as critical insights drawn from sociology, anthropology, discourse analysis, comparative social history, and psychobiology. The first section treats "Archaeology of the Domus and Insulae." Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (3-18) wants us to "think about Rome not so much as an undifferentiated sea of distinct units of housing, be they domus or insulae . . . but as a series of cellular neighborhoods" (13). Rigid notions of "household" that preserve class and ethnic division give way here to overflowing "housefuls" encouraging much more social mixing. Monika Trümper (19-43) surveys house-types from ancient Delos in order to balance out our Rome-centric sense of urban topography and give a better sense of the type of house in which Paul himself might have preached. In the only essay in this section to treat the family directly, Eric Meyers (44-69) lays out the ways in which archaeology (here, of Roman Galilee) corrects our sense of family dynamics, showing that the unhelpful "public/private" division of "gendered space" "simply cannot characterize this space [the house] where all manner of household, family, and everyday activities were carried on" (59). The second section, "Domestic Values: Equality, Suffering," juxtaposes the two most dissimilar offerings in the collection. Peter Lampe (73-83) asks, "What does modern brain research have to do with theology?" (73) before introducing neurophilosophy into the study of Pauline house churches. He seeks to understand how Paul's communities negotiated the cognitive disconnection between "social" and "mental" constructs of equality (inside the house church) and inequality (in society at large). Lampe's is a creative but ultimately baffling and idiosyncratic attempt to preserve an early Christian erasure of hierarchy and explain away Paul's inconsistencies regarding social status. David Balch (84-108) asks, "What would Paul's word picture of Christ crucified look like, and would some Greco-Roman domestic paintings and sculptures have helped make his gospel comprehensible?" (88). The author draws on ancient art and art criticism to imagine the way in which common household images, such as Iphigeneia and Laocoon, inform the social and theological context of Paul's preaching. Parts III and IV on "Women" and "Slaves" respectively are the strongest in the [End Page 376] volume. Suzanne Dixon's work (111-29) on family in the Roman context is an invaluable source for students of the early Christian family. Moving fluidly between magical and philosophical texts, she pointedly asks what blinders prevent scholars from imagining affective (indeed, passionate) bonds between ancient husbands and wives. Next, Ross Kraemer (130-56) examines the unusually well-documented family lives of two Jewish women, i.e., Berenice, great-granddaughter of Herod the Great and paramour of Titus and Babatha, whose documentary archive survives among detritus of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Kraemer comes to the conclusion that "the study of Jewish families, while fascinating in itself, is not as germane to the study of early Christian families as it might initially seem" since "the dynamics of Jewish families do not appear appreciably different from those of non-Jews . . . in the early imperial Roman period" (155). It is refreshing to be reminded that ancient Jews do not always serve as "background sources" for the study of early Christianity. Margaret Y. MacDonald (157-84) rehearses familiar arguments for the centrality of women in the life and leadership of the first- and second-century church. Finally...

The house churches of early Christianity played a pivotal role in fostering faith communities through worship, education, and service. Female leaders within these communities contributed significantly to the spread of Christianity and the formation of inclusive congregations. This study examines the theological and social implications of female leadership in early Christian house churches by analyzing the perspectives of Kendra Haloviak Valentine and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Valentine explores the ethical vision of early Christian communities through hymns and literary symbols in the Book of Revelation, while Fiorenza reinterprets early Christian female leadership through a feminist theological lens. By comparing these two perspectives, this study seeks to provide insights into restoring female leadership in contemporary churches and implementing the house church model. Additionally, it discusses the potential of hybrid church models in the digital era and proposes theological approaches for strengthening female leadership. The study ultimately explores ways in which modern churches can embody the inclusive community model exemplified by early Christianity.

within the biblical miraculous healings, the story of the Haemorrhoissa (the haemorrhaging woman) has a special place (Mark 5: 24–34; Luke 8: 42–48 and Matthew 9: 19–22). The healing takes place th...

It is well known that the first-century Christians met in houses, and generally agreed that in our literature oikos refers not just to the physical structure whose ground plan archaeologists can occasionally uncover but to the extended family that lived in it and formed a small community that was in turn seen as the basic unit of which the city itself was composed. House churches might therefore better be termed ‘household churches’. Building on the extensive work done in this area by many scholars, especially in the last twenty-five years, Gehring sets out to provide the most comprehensive review yet of the evidence for household churches and to argue that the patterns of authority inherent in the household determined the organizational and leadership structures of the churches and that this contributed greatly to their success. A unique feature of this study is that it focuses not only on the churches of the Pauline mission but that it attributes the origin of the household church to Jesus himself and traces its development through the churches at Jerusalem and Antioch. Gehring argues first that Jesus himself was at least some of the time resident at, and based his itinerant mission on, the house of Peter in Capernaum, for which archaeology provides evidence that it was an early house church. The same thing appears to have happened in Bethany, suggesting to Gehring that similar house churches came into existence wherever Jesus preached and formed a network of communities in and around Capernaum and the surrounding villages, where the disciples of Jesus lived at the family of God. Secondly, he argues that the disciples were instructed to find a house from which to carry out their mission, as evidenced by the mission discourse, especially as found in Luke 10. It is argued that this does not simply reflect the practice of Christians in their post-Easter mission but goes back to Jesus. These households became centres for mission to their towns, offering a family of faith to those who had left home for the sake of the gospel, since while some were called to itinerant evangelism, others stayed at home and supported them.

As the apostles proceeded to carry out the Great Commission (Matt 28:18–20), they utilized a two-fold approach of meeting in the temple courts for large-group meetings and in the homes for more intimate small-group encounters. Very quickly, the house church became the definitive expression of church in the early Christian movement. In the wake of the Apostle Paul's missionary journeys, numerous churches sprang up and virtually all of the New Testament churches mentioned in the letters of Paul were in private homes. The house church remained the most significant context for early church worship, fellowship, and Christian education up to the early part of the fourth century, when Constantine legitimized Christianity. At that point in history, basilicas replaced the house church along with the small-group style of worship, ministry, and teaching. This article will explore the early house church as a model of small-group meetings and how these gatherings served as the context for the ongoing life of the early church.

Missiologists have often claimed that early Christian house churches could not have surpassed 15-30 people. The argument often centers on two prongs—persecution and space. Persecution kept house churches relatively small to avoid visibility. The size of Greco-Roman houses kept churches relatively small due to space limitations. For some missiologists, these limitations became advantageous and led to rapid multiplication as the church grew "sideways." This article questions both of these assumptions and instead provides evidence that early Christian churches could and did embrace several models based on their particular context.

House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity – Roger W. Gehring

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: A Woman's Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity

Book Review: House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity

Reviewed by: The Slave Metaphor and Gendered Enslavement in Early Christian Discourse: Double Trouble Embodied by Marianne Bjelland Kartzow Mary Ann Beavis marianne bjelland kartzow, The Slave Metaphor and Gendered Enslavement in Early Christian Discourse: Double Trouble Embodied (Routedge Studies in the Early Christian World; New York: Routledge, 2018). Pp. xiii + 167. $140. This study sets out to explore the slave metaphor, which is ubiquitous in early Christian discourse, using perspectives from metaphor, intersectionality, and embodiment theory. [End Page 149] The “double trouble” of the subtitle refers to the fact that the metaphor of slavery to God/Christ is not “merely a manner of speaking—it is a way of using some people’s vulnerable bodies and lives as source material to talk about abstract and concrete realties in God’s world” (p. 146). Marianne Bjelland Kartzow uses the device of “imaginary scenes” (following Carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. MacDonald, A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006] 18–19) to reconstruct the experience of the enslaved in the ancient ecclesia. Kartzow’s analysis ranges from well-known NT passages to the underinterpreted Shepherd of Hermas (chap. 5) and the explicit portrayal of Jesus as a slave trader in the Acts of Thomas (chap. 6). For example, in chap. 2, “Embodying the Slavery Metaphor: Female Characters and Slavery Language,” K. points out that Mary’s self-designation as “female slave of the Lord” (Luke 1:38) resonates with scriptural accounts of the slave girls Hagar, Bilhah, and Zilpah, who served as surrogate mothers for their barren mistresses, and in the interests of patriarchal lineages (pp. 50–51): “When used on a young girl such as Mary, . . . being a woman in reproductive age who is asked to give birth to her master’s son, the metaphor is ‘made real’” (p. 54). K. places the enslaved girl with a python spirit (Acts 16:16–19), dismissed by the text (and by most interpreters) as a nuisance, at the center of attention. By “freeing” the girl from spirit possession, K. notes, Paul causes her to lose her economic value to her owner(s), thus leaving her vulnerable to an uncertain, and likely worse, future (pp. 54–57). In both cases, Paul the “slave of Christ” and his free male com-patriots have very little in common with the metaphorical and real slave women of these narratives. Chapter 3 (“Metaphor and Masculinity”) examines the “no longer slave” formulations of John 15:15 and Gal 4:7, noting that this discourse assumes changes in relationships that are available only to males, whether slave or free: “Women rarely become acknowledged as friends or sons or heirs” (p. 83). Moreover, as chap. 4 argues, if all believers are slaves of the Lord, some (the actually enslaved) are more slaves than others. Chapter 5, on the Shepherd of Hermas, explores a text where a formerly enslaved church leader, the freedman and prophet Hermas, negotiates his transformation from slave of a female owner to metaphorical slave of God—Hermas’s favorite designation for believers. K. pays special attention to the striking parable of the slave and the son (Sim. 5.2), where a faithful slave is not only manumitted but adopted as son and co-heir with his master’s biological son. She speculates, “Perhaps he [Hermas] moved from being a slave of his owner to being a slave of God because he, like the slave in the parable, showed himself worthy of being a freed man and an heir” (p. 113). Paradoxically, K. observes, although metaphorical slavery pervades the Shepherd, actual slaves—apart from the putative author—are invisible, Hermas’s concern for the poor and marginalized notwithstanding (pp. 115–18). For Hermas, especially, the bodily experience of male enslavement and manumission intersects with the metaphorical usage. The last main chapter (“Jesus, the Slave Trader: Metaphor Made Real in The Acts of Thomas”) considers a fictive narrative in which a metaphorical slave of Christ is transformed into a “real” slave when Jesus sells the apostle Thomas to a merchant from India. K. ably unpacks the many ways in which the slave metaphor operates in the text, and how it works with respect not only...

A Woman's Place: House Churches in Early Christianity: Carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. MacDonald, with Janet H. Tulloch: Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. 345 pp. $20.00

Book Review : House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity

House church and mission: the importance of household structures in early Christianity

Book Review of A Woman's Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity, by Carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. MacDonald