The Neighborhood (vicus) of the Corinthian ekklēsia: Beyond Family-Based Descriptions of the First Urban Christ-Believers1. (June 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Last, Richard
• Is Part Of: Journal for the study of the New Testament. Volume 38:Number 4(2016:Jun.)
• Page Start: 399
• Page End: 425
• Publication Date: 2016-06
• Subjects: Corinthians -- documentary papyri -- domestic architecture -- Greco-Roman associations -- house churches -- neighborhoods; 225.605
• DOI: 10.1177/0142064X16639526
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0142-064X

Abstract

It is commonplace to describe households as the primary social structures out of which the Jesus movement developed in its initial decades. However, the model of a Jesus movement originating from familial networks, and mostly set within domestic architecture, no longer accounts adequately for the data, and reflects contemporary Western cultural settings where religion is imagined as primarily located within the private setting. Taking the earliest population of Christ-believers in Corinth as a test case, this article pursues an alternative model, one that focuses on streets and neighborhoods as the basic social unit.