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Archive for the ‘Jason Borges’ Category


Christ’s Associations

In Community, Jason Borges, John S. KLOPPENBORG, NT social setting, Yale University Press on September 11, 2020 at 3:00 pm

2020.09.16 | John S. Kloppenborg. Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2019. ISBN: 9780300217049.

Review by Jason Borges, Durham University.

New Testament scholarship since the 1970s has explored the social history of early Christian origins. Wayne Meeks, Abraham Malherbe, Gerd Theissen, Howard Kee, and others charted the social aspects of early Christ communities, with a focus on the leadership structure, economic status, and ritual activities of these groups. John Kloppenborg’s Christ’s Associations stands in this current of social-science history and extends the conversation.

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Archaeology of the Letters of Paul

In Archaeology, Jason Borges, Laura Salah Nasrallah, Oxford University Press, Paul on July 3, 2020 at 3:00 pm

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2020.07.11 | Laura Salah Nasrallah. Archaeology of the Letters of Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9780199699674.

Review by Jason Borges, Durham University.

In Archaeology of the Letters of Paul, Laura Salah Nasrallah of Yale Divinity School examines archaeological materials from the Roman world to reexamine the social, historical, and political contexts of early Christ-followers in Pauline assemblies. This book focuses not upon the heroic apostles but on the everyday lives of the many, especially the unmentioned and marginalized brothers and sisters.

Nasrallah advocates for, and models, a particular methodology for using material evidence in New Testament studies. The opening chapter “On Method,” illustrates how this methodology, informed by feminist and post-colonial critiques, breaks from prior apologetic approaches to archaeology that sought monumental or “proof-text” evidence. Read the rest of this entry »