PORTEFAIX, L.,
Sisters Rejoice. Paul's Letter to the Philippians and Luke-Acts as Seenby First-century Philippian Women.
Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm, 1988. XIX,260p. Paperbacl. Edges a bit rust stained. Else fine. Series: Coniectanea Biblica, New Testament Series, 20. 'This interesting history-of-religions approach localized in one city, chosen because it has long been excavated, has appropriate surviving materials, and has rich connections with early Christianity: Paul, Acts, and Polycarp all of whom feature something about- women. The method is descriptive and inferential. Part I reconstructs the social and religious environment of pagan women in Philippi through investigation of the city, women's lives, and what we can know of their religious interests and habits. This is the best part of the book. Life at Philippi comes alive, especially the popularity of local cults like the syncretism of Diana-Hecate-Artemis as evidenced in votive rock carvings. (...) The theme of women's identification with various female deities is woven throughout the description: with Diana-Hecate as 'ideal woman', with Ariadne the abandoned but remarried wife, and with Isis, healer and ideal wife. P. suggests that the cults were important to women because they "provided patterns for this life and thehereafter, gave emotional support in time of sickness, offered equal official positions for men and women, and enabled members of religious groups to communicate outside their families; the patterns they provided crossed all barriers of age and social conditions (p. 127) - in short, exactly what social historians have been saying for some time about Christianity. Such a perspective on pagan religious experience maybe rejected by the historical critic for lack of evidence, but still needs to reckon with the findings of comparative religious psychology. Part II approaches Paul's Letter to the Philippians, Luke-Acts, and the Letter to Polycarp as P. imagines they would have been received by Philippian women within their own context, e.g., Christ as model for servanthood compared to the humiliationof Dionysus; Christ as model for joy in suffering compared to the ritual reenactment of Isis' grief; and an interesting analysis of the structural similarities between the Philippian episode in Acts 16: 1 1-40 and the Bacchanals (p. 170). There are interestingnew insights, e.g., women converting as individuals would cause conflict with their role as priestess of the household gods.The second part, however, is disappointing, perhaps only because the biblical scholar is aware that more must be done with literary texts than description and inference. Here the inadequacy of the method is apparent and the inferences become impressionistic. A more solidly grounded comparative method could have yielded fewer but surer results. The stated method is a combination of history-of-religions, feminist criticism, and the 'reception theory' of Iser and Jauss. In the end, the book tries to do too much and no one accepted method is rigorously sustained. Portefaix is to be commended for pioneering a move toward a new direction of the study of women in early Christianity.' (CAROLYN OSYN in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1990, pp.359-360).
€ 40.00
(Antiquarian)