The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. Author's Response

Only Connect? Network Analysis and Religious Change in the Roman World

“…A third kind of network was formed in some regions among those civic grandees who travelled 12 E.g. in MEEKS, 1983. annually to participate in provincial koina and concilia, paying cult to various combinations of Rome, the emperor and the divi, and doubtless doing other business on the side (DEININGER, 1965). The impact of all this activity in creating provincial and regional élites out of local ones is underexplored, but there are plenty of instances recorded of intermarriage between the very richest families of different cities, and also of the acquisition of portfolios of landholding that straddled a number of civic territories.…”

Paul, military imagery and social disadvantage

“…Socio-historical studies of texts and their interpretation do more justice to the crucial role of first-century Roman Empire, even where their influence 1 Avoiding the debate about the socio-economic level of the early followers of Jesus and their communities in the wake of Meeks' (1983) notion that they were socially upwards mobile and Theissen's (1983) work -both representative of the so-called new consensus entertaining the notion of heterogeneous communities of rich and poor -suffice it to refer to Meggitt (1998), in particular, who made poverty central to considering the economic context of the Pauline letters, and whose analysis of the social structure of the Pauline communities was further refined by Friesen (2004). Oakes (2012) and Oakman (1996) also provide valuable assessments of the socio-economic status of first-century communities.…”

OFFERING THE GOSPEL ADAPANON : An interpretation and application of 1 Corinthians 9:18

“…Therefore his interpretation leads to the assumption that this phrase is an indication of people with a different socio political status. Concurrently with Theissen, Wayne Meeks (1983) . He (1983:51 73) argues very boldly in favour of the Christians in the First Century being from "mixed strata" within a substantial middle and higher class, rather than being "proletarians", as Deissmann argued.…”