Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

Bauman-Martin: Women on the Edge 263
although not in direct address, some of the Hellenistic Jewish codes were in the
form of exhortations. 36
This review demonstrates that no known ethical text exists outside of the
NT that contains all of the characteristics of the earliest Haustafel and that we
can say with certainty was the model that the Christians followed in creating
their household codes.
Instead, the NT household codes seem to be independent variations of a
distinct Christian parenetic discourse that focused on correct behavior within
the Christian household. The attitude behind that Christian tradition was
derived in the main from Hellenistic Judaism, which had already been exposed
to and absorbed the topos of oijkonomiva from classical philosophy via Stoicism,
combining it with traditional Jewish material and attitudes. So Balch’s thesis
that the Petrine use of the oijkonomiva topos indicates a specifically Aristotelian
purpose is not supported by a thorough comparison with Greco-Roman household
codes. This conclusion problematizes the argument that the Petrine
Haustafel is an obvious example of the use of patriarchal classical ideas to keep
women in line. In addition, Balch’s claim that the Haustafel form was adopted
by the author for apologetic purposes—to defend the Christian communities
against accusations of improper household relationships—is incompatible with
the overall theme in 1 Peter of a Christian peculiarity and distinctiveness.
III
Rather than adhering to a fixed, Aristotelian set of instructions, the author
demonstrates a greater willingness than the other Christian authors to manipulate
the model. The Petrine code is significantly different from the Colossian
code, and the changes were probably in response to the needs of the audience.
37 There are eight major ways in which the Petrine Haustafel deviates
36 Philo wrote, “Wives must be in servitude to their husbands, a servitude not imposed by violent
ill-treatment but promoting obedience in all things” (Hypoth. 7.3 [Thackeray, LCL]). Josephus
makes a similar statement in C. Ap. 2.201: “Let [the woman] accordingly be submissive, not for her
humiliation, but that she may be directed; for the authority has been given by God to the man”
(Thackeray, LCL). Another idea that Christians appear to have borrowed directly from Judaism
regarding slavery is that Christians were slaves of God or Christ—an idea not found in Greco-
Roman philosophers. Balch objects to Philo as the source of the Haustafel form because “1 Peter
does not verbally reproduce sentences from Philo” (“Let Wives Be Submissive,” 120). But neither
does 1 Peter verbally reproduce sentences from Aristotle, the Neo-Pythagoreans, the Stoics, or the
Peripatetics. Vocabulary and syntax are only two of several more important characteristics that
need to be compared.
37 See also J. Paul Sampley, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh”: A Study of Traditions in
Ephesians 5:21–33 (SNTSMS 16; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 23. Dibelius