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‘Race’, ‘Nation’, ‘People’: Ethnic Identity-Construction in 1 Peter 2.9*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2011

David G. Horrell
David G. Horrell
Affiliation:
Department of Theology and Religion, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, UK. email: [email protected]
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Abstract

1 Peter 2.4–10 is a significant passage within the letter, rich in material from the Jewish scriptures. Verse 9 is particularly significant for the construction of Christian group-identity in that it uniquely applies three words from the vocabulary of ethnic identity to the Church: γένος, ἔθνος, and λαός, widely translated as ‘race’, ‘nation’, and ‘people’. A survey of these words in pre-Christian Jewish literature (especially the LXX), in the NT, and in other early Christian literature, reveals how crucial this text in 1 Peter is to the process by which Christian identity came to be conceived in ethnoracial terms. Drawing on modern definitions of ethnic identity, and ancient evidence concerning the fluidity of ethnic identities, it becomes clear that ‘ethnic’ and ‘racial’ identities are constructed, believed, and sustained through discourse. 1 Peter, with both aggregative and oppositional modes of ethnic reasoning, makes a crucial contribution to the construction of an ethnic form of Christian identity.

Keywords

ethnicityraceChristian identity1 Peter
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 123 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 Elliott, John H., 1 Peter: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 37B; New York: Doubleday, 2000) 407Google Scholar.

2 Elliott, John H., The Elect and the Holy: An Exegetical Examination of 1 Peter 2:4–10 and the Phrase basileion hierateuma (NovTSup 12; Leiden: Brill, 1966) 217Google Scholar.

3 On the sense that γένος, ἔθνος, and λαός together represent the three crucial terms in this respect, cf. Buell, Denise Kimber, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University, 2005) 62, 69, 87, et passimCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sechrest, Love L., A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race (LNTS 410; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2009) focuses on the terms ἔθνος and γένοςGoogle Scholar. Despite the risks of anachronism and problematic associations, I shall continue to use the English terms given above as translations, while recognizing their fluid and contestable meanings. I also use the term ‘ethnoracial’, following Buell, Why This New Race, to denote the overlapping notions of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’. See further the reflections towards the end of this essay.

4 E.g., Elliott, 1 Peter, 444, stresses the ‘communal’ identity; Boring, M. Eugene, 1 Peter (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 1999) 98, notes the density of ecclesiological imagery hereGoogle Scholar; while Achtemeier, Paul J., 1 Peter (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1996) 167 focuses on the identity of Israel as holy and elect coming to designate the ChurchGoogle Scholar. Because of its influence on the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, the phrase βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα has received particular attention: see, e.g., Elliott, Elect; Elliott, , 1 Peter, 449–55Google Scholar; Brox, Norbert, Der erste Petrusbrief (EKKNT 21; Zürich: Benziger; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1979) 108–10Google Scholar.

5 See esp. Buell, Why This New Race; Buell, , ‘Rethinking the Relevance of Race for Early Christian Self-Definition’, HTR 94 (2001) 449–76Google Scholar; Buell, , ‘Race and Universalism in Early Christianity’, JECS 10 (2002) 429–68Google Scholar; and Lieu, Judith M., ‘The Race of the God-fearers’, Neither Jew nor Greek? Constructing Early Christianity (SNTW; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2002) 49–68 (first published in JTS 46 [1995] 483–501)Google Scholar; Lieu, , Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University, 2004) 239–68, all works which focus mostly on second- and third-century evidenceCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hodge, Caroline Johnson, If Sons, then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford and New York: Oxford University, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sechrest, A Former Jew, focus on Paul (cf. also Buell, Denise Kimber and Hodge, Caroline Johnson, ‘The Politics of Interpretation: The Rhetoric of Race and Ethnicity in Paul’, JBL 123 [2004] 235–51)Google Scholar. For brief comments on 1 Peter, see Buell, , Why This New Race, 45–6Google Scholar; Buell, ‘Relevance of Race’, 472; Lieu, , Christian Identity, 40Google Scholar.

6 Hall, Jonathan, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1997) 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Homer Il. 2.459 (birds); 2.87 (bees); 2.469 (flies); 2.91; 3.32 (warriors).

7 BDAG, 276 §2; MM, 181, who note uses of ἔθνη to denote the rural barbarians living outside the πόλις. For non-biblical ‘pagan’ uses, see e.g. Aristotle Pol. 7.2.5 (1324b 10): ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν (‘the non-Hellenic nations’ [LCL]); Cass. Dio Rom. Hist. 36.41.1; to denote foreign groups in Rome, see Appian Bell. Civ. 2.2.13; 2.26.107; 3.35.140. Cf. also IG II2 1283 (260–59 BCE), in which ἔθνος is used of (immigrant) groups in Athens (l. 5). I am grateful to John Kloppenborg for alerting me to this inscription.

8 Cf. Homer Il. 12.23: ‘the race of men half-divine (ἡμιθέων γένος ἀνδρῶν)’ (LCL); Il. 2.852: ‘the race (γένος) of wild she-mules’ (LCL); Ael. Arist. Or. 45.1: ‘the race of poets’ (τὸ τῶν ποιητῶν γένος). Cf. MM, 124, for the common use in the papyri to denote ‘a species or class of things’, as well as uses corresponding ‘to gens, a tribe or clan’.

9 Hall, Ethnic Identity, 36. Cf. Homer Il. 13.354: ‘Both were of one stock (γένος) and of one parentage (πάτρη)’. Homer Od. 15.267: ἐξ Ἰθάκης γένος εἰμί (‘Of Ithaca I am by birth’ [LCL]), which seems to mean, in effect, ‘I am an Ithacan’. Sophocles Oedipus Tyr. 1383: ‘of the race of Laius (γένους τοῦ Λαΐου)’ (LCL, 1994 ed.).

10 See Sechrest, A Former Jew, 84–7, 94–6.

11 LSJ, 480; cf. 344; as in, e.g., Herodotus 1.101: ‘Deioces, then, united the Median nation (τὸ Μηδικὸν ἔθνος)… The Median tribes (Μήδων γένεα) are these…’ (LCL).

12 Hall, Ethnic Identity, 36; Sechrest, A Former Jew, 90; see, e.g., Herodotus 1.56–57; Ael. Arist. Or. 1.50 (173D).

13 E.g., Homer Il. 2.365; 13.108; Od. 3.305. Cf. also H. Strathmann, TDNT 4.30.

14 It is most frequently used to render the Hebrew מין (‘kind’ or ‘species’) and עם (‘people’): Hatch–Redpath, 239, list 17 instances for מין and 16 for עם.

15 E.g., Exod 1.9; 5.14; Josh 4.14; 11.21; Isa 22.4; 42.5; 43.20; Jer 38.1, 35, 37; 1 Esd 1.32; Esth 3.13; 6.13; Add Esth 8.21; Pss. Sol. 7.8; 17.7; cf. Lieu, ‘Race of the God-fearers’, 58–60.

16 Lieu, ‘Race of the God-fearers’, 58.

17 Jdt 5.10; 6.2, 5, 19; 8.20, 32; 9.14; 11.10; 12.3; 13.20; 15.9; 16.17. Interestingly, the NRSV translation variously uses people, nation, race, and descendants to render γένος here. There is a further reference in Jdt 16.24, though this looks most likely to refer more specifically to Judith's kin (NRSV: ‘kindred’. Cf., possibly, 12.3). 2 Macc 5.22; 6.12; 7.16, 38; 8.9; 12.31; 14.8–9; 3 Macc 3.2; 6.4, 9, 13; 7.10.

18 Both authors use Ἰουδαῖος as the standard designation, and also use ἔθνος to denote the Jewish people (as a ‘nation’, see n. 20 below). For uses of γένος to denote the Jewish ‘race’ (τὸ γένος ἡμῶν, τὸ Ἰουδαϊκὸν γένος, κτλ.) see, e.g., Josephus C. Ap. 1.1–2, 59, 106, 130, 160; 2.8, 288; Philo Leg. Gai. 3–4, 201 (cf. also 265, for Jews among all the human ‘races’). Philo's comments in Sacr. AC 6–7 are especially interesting: he writes of Isaac being added ‘but not this time, with the others, to a people, but to a “race” or “genus” (οὐκέθ’ ὡς οἱ πρότεροι λαῷ, γένει δέ…), as Moses says (Gen. xxxv. 29). For genus is one, that which is above all, but people is a name for many' (LCL). Gen 35.29 LXX speaks of Isaac being added πρὸς τὸ γένος αὐτοῦ. Philo goes on to speak of those who have become ‘pupils of God’ as being translated ‘into the genus (γένος) of the imperishable and fully perfect’ (LCL).

19 Cf. Isa 42.6 and 49.6 (in some mss), for the contrast between the διαθήκη γένους (ברית עם) and the ἔθνη (גוים); G. Bertram, TDNT 2.367, insists that ברית עם ‘refers to the chosen people’.

20 See Bertram, TDNT 2.364–9; Hatch–Redpath, 368–73, who list 15 Hebrew words for which ἔθνος can stand as an equivalent. See 1 Esd 1.4 (τὸ ἔθνος αὐτοῦ Ἰσραήλ); 8.66 (τὸ ἔθνος τοῦ Ἰσραήλ); cf. also 1.32, 34, 49; 2.5; 5.9; 8.10, 13, 64. For examples in Josephus and Philo see C. Ap. 2.220; Bell. 1.232, 581; 2.282; Ant. 14.290; 18.6; Leg. Gai. 117, 119, 137, 161, 279.

21 Schwarz, Eberhard, Identität durch Abgrenzung: Abgrenzungsprozesse in Israel im 2.vorchristlichen Jahrhundert und ihre traditionsgeschichtlichen Voraussetzungen. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Erforschung des Jubiläenbuches (Europäische Hochschulschriften, Series 23 Theology 162; Frankfurt/Bern: Lang, 1982) 53–7Google Scholar.

22 For this observation, see, e.g., F. Büchsel, TDNT 1.685; Richardson, Peter, Israel in the Apostolic Church (SNTSMS 10; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1969) 172 n. 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 For clear examples where the contrast is drawn, cf. Luke 2.32; Acts 4.27; 14.5; 26.23; Rom 15.10; 2 Cor 11.26; Gal 2.14–15.

24 τὸ ἔθνος ἡμῶν, τὸ ἔθνος τῶν Ἰουδαιῶν, κτλ.: Luke 7.5; 23.2; Acts 10.22; 24.2, 10, 17; 26.4; 28.19.

25 Cf. F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter I.1–II.17: The Greek Text with Introductory Lecture, Commentary, and Additional Notes (London: Macmillan, 1898 [repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005]) 126, who notes that ἔθνος is never used of Israel in the NT Epistles and the Apocalypse, and that in most uses in the Gospels and Acts ‘it is so used only in sentences spoken by, or of persons of another nation’ except in John 11.50–52.

26 For especially clear examples, see Acts 26.17, 23; Rom 15.10; 2 Pet 2.1; for the plural λαοὶ Ἰσραήλ, see Acts 4.27.

27 Luke 2.31; Acts 4.25; Rom 15.11; Rev 5.9; 7.9; 10.11; 11.9; 13.7; 14.6; 17.15.

28 Is this perhaps why the author picks the phrase ἔθνος ἅγιον from Exod 19.6, rather than the more common λαὸς ἅγιος (Deut 7.6; 14.2, 21; Hos 11.12; Isa 30.19)?

29 The more common LXX phrase, λαòς ἅγιος, does not occur in the NT either, though some other applications of the term λαός to the Church suggest the theme of holiness, more or less explicitly: 2 Cor 6.14–7.1, where the general idea of separation is prominent; Tit 2.14, where the purpose of Christ's self-giving is ‘to purify for himself a special people (λαòς περιούσιος)’; and Heb 13.12, where the purpose of Jesus' suffering is ‘to sanctify (ἵνα ἁγιάσῃ)…the people (τὸν λαόν)’.

30 In a study of ‘the race of the God-fearers’, Judith Lieu focuses on the θεοσεβ- language and thus misses this point: ‘Both the idea of Christians as a race, a γένος, and an emphasis on their “fear of God” (θεοσέβεια)… seem to have been emerging more widely in the middle of the second century. Although these terms are foreign to the New Testament and earlier Apostolic Fathers…’. Here she cites in a note (only) uses of θεοσέβεια in 1 Tim 2.10; John 9.32; 1 Clem. 17.3 and 2 Clem. 20.4. See Lieu, ‘Race of the God-fearers’, 54 with n. 15.

31 See further below for the importance of a belief in shared descent in modern social-scientific definitions of ethnic groups.

32 See further Johnson Hodge, If Sons; Buell and Johnson Hodge, ‘Politics of Interpretation’, 243–50; Sechrest, A Former Jew.

33 See further David G. Horrell, ‘From ἀδελϕοί to οἶκος θεοῦ: Social Transformation in Pauline Christianity’, JBL 120 (2001) 293–311; Aasgaard, Reidar, ‘My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!’ Christian Siblingship in Paul (JSNTSup 265; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2004)Google Scholar.

34 I focus specifically on the term γένος because (a) it seems to be the most significant in subsequent literature (e.g., in Clement of Alexandria's citations of 1 Pet 2.9 and in the description of Christians as a third race), (b) it is the term that most strongly denotes a specifically ethnic form of identity, with its focus on the idea of shared descent, and partly also for reasons of space.

35 Elsewhere, different terms and images are the focus. For example, in 1 Clem. 59.2; Ep. Apost. 21 and Minucius Felix Oct. 1.4, it is the imagery of darkness to light that is cited.

36 Latin text from GCS Clem. Alex. III, 204, ll. 21–22. Clement also then comments on the royal and priestly identity of the Church.

37 On the reasons to take Extracts 4–5 as Clement's own work, see Sagnard, François, Clément d'Alexandrie, Extraits de Théodote: texte grec, introduction, traduction et notes (SC 23; Paris: Cerf, 1970) 59 n. 2Google Scholar; and for the agreement on this, see pp. 8–9. For the Greek text with English translation, see Casey, Robert Pierce, The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria (Studies and Documents 1; London: Christophers, 1934)Google Scholar.

38 van den Hoek, Annewies, ‘The “Catechetical” School of Early Christian Alexandria and its Philonic Heritage’, HTR 90 (1997) 59–87 (72)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Seven are listed in Biblia Patristica I (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975), eight in the biblical index to Clement's works provided in GCS Clem. Alex. IV.1, 25. The additional reference here is to Exc. ex Theod. 1.3, which seems to me a much less secure allusion.

40 Exc. ex. Theod. 4.1; Frag I (Adumbr. in 1 Pet); Strom. 7.7.35.2; 7.10.58.6; 7.12.73.5 (this last refers to the righteous as τὸ βασιλικὸν γένος).

41 Paed. 1.6.32.4: ἵνα καινοὶ γενόμενοι, λαὸς ἅγιος, ἀναγεννηθέντες (Greek text from GCS Clem. Alex. I, 109). The allusion to 1 Pet 2.9 is less than certain, but the surrounding vocabulary does suggest points of contact with the letter. Cf. also Justin Dial. 119.3 (λαὸς ἅγιός ἐσμεν).

42 Prot. 4.59.3: ἡμεῖς τὸ γένος τὸ ἐκλεκτόν, τὸ βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον, λαὸς περιούσιος, οἱ ποτὲ οὐ λαός, νῦν δὲ λαὸς τοῦ θεοῦ (Greek text from GCS Clem. Alex. I, 46). It is interesting to note the marginal summary given at this point in the Bodmer Papyrus text of 1 Peter (P72): περι γενος εγλεκτον βασιλιον ϊερατευμα εθνος αγιον λαον περιποησιν, which similarly focuses on these key phrases. This is one of nine such summaries that appear alongside the text of 1 Peter. On these, and their significance for the early interpretation of the letter, see David G. Horrell, ‘The Themes of 1 Peter: Insights from the Earliest Manuscripts (the Crosby-Schøyen Codex ms 193 and the Bodmer Miscellaneous Codex containing P72)’, NTS 55 (2009) 502–22 (511–12).

43 On this topic, see esp. Buell, ‘Relevance of Race’; Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’; Lieu, ‘Race of the God-fearers’; Lieu, Christian Identity, 239–68. For a brief overview of some of this material, see Wright, David F., ‘A Race Apart? Jews, Gentiles, Christians’, BSac 160 (2003) 131–41, esp. 134–7Google Scholar.

44 Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 441–50; Buell, Why This New Race, 138–65; cf. Hall, Ethnic Identity, 47.

45 Cf. Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 442.

46 ‘You too have your “third race” (tertium genus) not as a third religious rite (tertio ritu), but a third sex (tertio sexu)…’. Latin texts here and in the citations above from CCSL 1–2.

47 For the date of 100–120 CE, see Paulsen, Henning, ‘Das Kerygma Petri und die urchristliche Apologetik’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 88 (1977) 1–37 (13)Google Scholar. (Repr. in Zur Literatur und Geschichte des frühen Christentums [WUNT 99; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997] 173–209 [185].)

48 Adolf von Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, vol. 1 (London: Williams & Norgate; New York: Putnam, 1904) 347–8 n. 2. Cf. also Lieu, ‘Race of the God-fearers’, 57–9, who sees ‘[t]wo trajectories…[that] lead to the designation of Christians being a “race” ’ (57): one arising from the slurs of opponents; the other from Christian appropriation of Jewish identity designations. Similarly, Lieu, Christian Identity, 262–6.

49 Harnack, Expansion, 335.

50 Cf. Wright, ‘A Race Apart’, 137, discussing the description of Christians as a ‘third race’: ‘A badge of pride so easily became a hostile sneer’. For the opposite development with regard to Χριστιανός, see David G. Horrell, ‘The Label Χριστιανός: 1 Pet 4.16 and the Formation of Christian Identity’, JBL 126 (2007) 361–81.

51 Bigg, Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1910) 134Google Scholar, however, suggests regarding γένος that ‘[f]rom its use here [in 1 Pet 2.9] possibly comes the expression τρίτον γένος, applied to Christians’.

52 Michaels, J. Ramsey, 1 Peter (WBC 49; Waco, TX: Word, 1988) 107Google Scholar.

53 Achtemeier, 1 Peter, 69. Cf. also Brox, Petrusbrief, 103: ‘Für den 1Petr sind solche Aussagen von vornherein auf die christliche Gemeinde hin und für niemand sonst gemacht’. For a brief discussion of the broader issues this raises, see Horrell, David G., 1 Peter (NTG; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2008) 102–5Google Scholar.

54 Johnson Hodge, If Sons, 3–7 (quotations from 3 and 7). Cf. also Buell, Why This New Race, 138; Buell and Johnson Hodge, ‘Politics of Interpretation’. This contrast was earlier challenged in an essay by Nils Alstrup Dahl, ‘The One God of Jews and Gentiles (Romans 3.29–30)’, Studies in Paul (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977) 178–91, and, more recently, by Barclay, John M. G., ‘Universalism and Particularism: Twin Components of both Judaism and Early Christianity’, A Vision for the Church: Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology in Honour of J.P.M. Sweet (ed. Bockmuehl, Markus and Thompson, Michael B.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997) 207–24Google Scholar.

55 Cf. Sechrest, A Former Jew, 126 with n. 26, who insists, in connection with Paul's discussion of kinship with Abraham, that ‘Paul is speaking of new kinship relations with Gentiles that are as “real” as any other kind of ethnic relationship’ (n. 26).

56 Cosgrove, Charles H., ‘Did Paul Value Ethnicity?’, CBQ 68 (2006) 268–90 (272)Google Scholar.

57 Jackson, Peter and Penrose, Jan, ‘Introduction: Placing “Race” and “Nation”’, Constructions of Race, Place and Nation (ed. Jackson, Peter and Penrose, Jan; London: UCL; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1993/1994) 1–23 (1, italics original)Google Scholar. Cf. also Stone, John, ‘Max Weber on Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism’, Race and Ethnicity: Comparative and Theoretical Approaches (ed. Stone, John and Dennis, Rutledge; Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) 28–42 (33)Google Scholar; Avruch, Kevin, ‘Culture and Ethnic Conflict in the New World Disorder’, Race and Ethnicity (ed. Stone, and Dennis, ) 72–82 (73)Google Scholar.

58 Whitmarsh, Tim, ‘Greece and Rome’, The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies (ed. Boys-Stones, George, Graziosi, Barbara, and Vasunia, Phiroze; Oxford and New York: Oxford University, 2009) 114–28 (124)Google Scholar. Cf. also Alston, Richard, ‘Changing Ethnicities: From the Egyptian to the Roman City’, Gender and Ethnicity in Ancient Italy (ed. Cornell, Tim and Lomas, Kathryn; Accordia Specialist Studies on Italy 6; London: Accordia Research Institute, University of London, 1997) 83–96Google Scholar, who stresses the ideological and political dimensions of ethnicity (‘ethnicity is an ideological alignment’ [85]) and explores the fluidity between Egyptian and Greek ethnicities in Roman Egypt.

59 Cohen, Shaye J. D., The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA/London: University of California, 1999) 110Google Scholar.

60 Cohen, Jewishness, 136. Note, e.g., the straightforward statement at the opening of his chapter: ‘Ethnic (or ethnic-geographic) identity is immutable; non-Judaeans cannot become Judaeans any more than non-Egyptians can become Egyptians, or non-Syrians can become Syrians’ (109). Cf. the critical comments of Buell, ‘Relevance of Race’, 468–9; Buell, Why This New Race, 162–3.

61 Barclay, John M. G., Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE –117 CE) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996) 408Google Scholar; see 402–13. On Jewish proselytism, see also Barclay, ‘Universalism’, 212–13. It may also be relevant, then, to note that 1 Peter's use of the descriptions πάροικος and παρεπίδημος adopts terminology from the ‘semantic field’ of proselytes/proselytism in some Jewish sources: see Torrey Seland, ‘πάροικος καί παρεπίδημος: Proselyte Characterizations in 1 Peter?’, BBR 11 (2001) 239–68, repr. in Strangers in the Light: Philonic Perspectives on Christian Identity in 1 Peter (Biblical Interpretation Series 76; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 39–78.

62 Sechrest, A Former Jew, 97–105, esp. 104–5, also 209.

63 Cf. Eriksen, Thomas H., ‘Ethnicity, Race, Class and Nation’, Ethnicity (ed. Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony D.; Oxford Readers; Oxford: Oxford University, 1996 [1993]) 28–31Google Scholar.

64 E.g., Roetzel, Calvin J., ‘No “Race of Israel” in Paul’, Putting Body and Soul Together: Essays in Honor of Robin Scroggs (ed. Wiles, Virginia, Brown, Alexandra, and Snyder, Graydon F.; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997) 230–44Google Scholar; Esler, Philip F., Conflict and Identity in Romans (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 40, 55Google Scholar. Contrast the comments of Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 432–5, who deliberately uses ‘race and ethnicity interchangeably’ (435).

65 Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 434.

66 Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 436.

67 Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 436.

68 Hall, Ethnic Identity, 2 and 41 respectively. Cf. Brett, Mark G., ‘Interpreting Ethnicity: Method, Hermeneutics, Ethics’, Ethnicity and the Bible (ed. Brett, Mark G.; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 3–22 (10)Google Scholar: ‘Although ethnie can be exceptionally durable once formed, they are also symbolic constructions which have to be maintained by reiterated practices and transactions.’

69 Cited in Stone, ‘Max Weber’, 32.

70 Stone, ‘Max Weber’, 32, my emphasis.

71 Isaac, Benjamin, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2004) 34Google Scholar. Cf. pp. 30, 32–3, 515, etc.

72 Hutchinson, John and Smith, Anthony D., ‘Introduction’, Ethnicity (ed. Hutchinson, and Smith, ) 3–14 (6–7, italics original)Google Scholar. This summarizes the more extended discussion of the ‘foundations of ethnic community’ in Smith, Anthony D., The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) 22–31Google Scholar, for whom the roots of modern nations are to be found in a model of ethnic community (p. x). Sechrest, A Former Jew, 48–50, also presents this definition of an ethnic group, drawing on Smith's work.

73 I am grateful to Francis Watson for the encouragement to pursue this point, which I hope to work out in more detail in a future publication.

74 Cf. Philo Virt. 206–7, on those among the Jews—Abraham's offspring are particularly in view—who fail to reproduce the virtues of their ancestors (αἱ τῶν προγόνων ἀρεταί) and are thus ‘denied any part in the grandeur of their noble birth (εὐγενεία)’ (LCL). I am grateful to John Barclay for alerting me to this comparison.

75 This juxtaposition is, of course, central to the thesis of Elliott, John H., A Home for the Homeless: A Social-Scientific Criticism of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2nd ed. 1990 [1981])Google Scholar, where the household (οἶκος) is seen as the central positive image of belonging.

76 E.g., for an important recent study that locates Christian and Jewish groups among the various associations of antiquity, see Harland, Philip A., Dynamics of Identity in the World of the Early Christians: Associations, Judeans, and Cultural Minorities (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2009)Google Scholar. For the use of modern models of religious sects, see Elliott, Home, who argues that it is the conversionist sect in particular that provides ‘the closest sociological analogue’ for ‘the addressees and their situation as described in 1 Peter’ (102; see further 101–6).

77 In Rom 9.3, Paul clearly uses συγγενεῖς to refer broadly to fellow Israelites. This may well be the sense also in the uses of the same word in Rom 16 (7, 11, 21), though translations (e.g., NRSV) sometimes suggest a narrower group (‘relatives’).

78 I wrote these lines, in an early version of this paper, before I had access to Sechrest's study, but it is notable that her study (A Former Jew, focused on Paul) lends substantial weight to this claim.

79 Lieu, ‘Race of the God-fearers’, 58, cited above at n. 16. Perhaps it is no accident that we also find the terminology in defensive tracts by Josephus (C. Ap.) and Philo (Leg. Gai.); see above n. 18.

80 Tajfel, Henri and Turner, John, ‘An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict’, Intergroup Relations: Essential Readings (ed. Hogg, M. A. and Abrams, D.; Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 2001 [1979]) 94–109Google Scholar (originally published in Austin, W. G. and Worchel, S., eds., The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations [Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1979] 33–47Google Scholar), 104. Cf. Hall, Ethnic Identity, 31, on strategies that an ethnic group can employ in the face of negative social identity.

81 Cf. Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 442; Buell, , Making Christians: Clement of Alexandria and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1999) 104–6Google Scholar.

82 Cf. Goppelt, Leonhard, A Commentary on I Peter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993) 149–51Google Scholar; Feldmeier, Reinhard, The First Letter of Peter: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2008) 141Google Scholar; Green, Joel B., 1 Peter (Two Horizons New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 62Google Scholar; Elliott, 1 Peter, 439–40: ‘this proclamation of God's honor is fitting not only within but also beyond the boundaries of the Christian community’ (italics original). See also Fagbemi, Stephen Ayodeji A., Who Are the Elect in 1 Peter? A Study in Biblical Exegesis and its Application to the Anglican Church of Nigeria (Studies in Biblical Literature 104; New York: Lang, 2007), esp. 105–20Google Scholar.

83 Discussing Clement of Alexandria, Buell writes: ‘we find oppositional reasoning—Christians form a distinct race, superior to others—coexisting with aggregative reasoning—“others” can become Christians by adopting the true worship through a process of training in faith’. Through studies of various early Christian texts, she suggests, ‘we can begin to glimpse both the pervasiveness of ethnic reasoning and its strategic flexibility for early Christian self-definition’ (Buell, ‘Race and Universalism’, 445).

84 See Horrell, ‘Χριστιανός’.