Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

268
Journal of Biblical Literature
to the perceived threat to the stability of the Christian community caused by
the Christian women’s suffering as a result of these family conflicts.
The third anomaly of the Petrine Haustafel is its situation in the context of
the author’s extensive identification of his audience as “Israel.” Immediately
preceding the Haustafel, the author referred to the Christians as “a chosen
race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (2:9). He clearly
meant to convey to his readers, including women and slaves, that they were distinct
and were chosen to be separate and superior, not to assimilate. 55
These three major changes by the author of 1 Peter are his response to
social and community circumstances that differ from those surrounding the
other NT household codes. He does not speak to Christian households; he
addresses socially inferior groups that are suffering in non-Christian homes
because of their Christian beliefs and actions. He considers them distinct and
elect and encourages them to continue behaving in nonassimilating ways. The
exhortations themselves should be understood in this context of nonconformity
rather than in a context of assimilation, as others have tried to argue.
IV
One key to the interpretation of the exhortations lies in the combined discourses
of boundary-crossing and persecution that lie behind the text: the radical
disobedience of the slaves and wives, the resulting persecution/suffering at
the hands of the kuvrioi of their households, the slaves’ and women’s subsequent
response to the suffering/persecution, and their reinterpretation of the
suffering/persecution. 56 An analysis of the exhortations to the slaves and wives
will demonstrate that the author’s advice arises out of this sort of complex interaction
of motives, actions, and reactions.
The slaves are the first household group that the author addresses (2:18-
25) and he says to them, in part:
ily as the Bearer of Religion,” 72). That tension was no doubt productive; it is likely that the domestic
conflict produced by Christianity contributed to the creation of a fictive, spiritual household
emphasized in 1 Peter (Elliott, Home for the Homeless, 219–33).
55 This claim may be supported by the author’s reliance on the imperatival participle; see
Appendix, below. This is not the only refutation of the argument for assimilation. The author’s
appeal to identify with Jewishness; the epistle’s address to Christians rather than non-Christians, as
an apology would be; his insistence that the persecution would continue and intensify, not abate;
his use of slaves and women as positive representatives of the Christian community; and the lack of
a consistent representation of Greco-Roman ideals all argue against the idea that the author was
encouraging assimilation.
56 As pointed out above, the act of conversion itself was a step of radical disobedience.