Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Continuity or discontinuity? The new perspective on Ephesians, with reference to Ephesians 2.1–10
- 3 ‘You who were called the uncircumcision by the circumcision’: Jews, Gentiles and covenantal ethnocentrism (Ephesians 2.11–13)
- 4 ‘He is our peace’: Christ and ethnic reconciliation (Ephesians 2.14–18)
- 5 Israel and the new Temple (Ephesians 2.19–22)
- 6 Summary and conclusions
- Select bibliography
- Subject index
- Index of scriptures and other ancient writings
4 - ‘He is our peace’: Christ and ethnic reconciliation (Ephesians 2.14–18)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Continuity or discontinuity? The new perspective on Ephesians, with reference to Ephesians 2.1–10
- 3 ‘You who were called the uncircumcision by the circumcision’: Jews, Gentiles and covenantal ethnocentrism (Ephesians 2.11–13)
- 4 ‘He is our peace’: Christ and ethnic reconciliation (Ephesians 2.14–18)
- 5 Israel and the new Temple (Ephesians 2.19–22)
- 6 Summary and conclusions
- Select bibliography
- Subject index
- Index of scriptures and other ancient writings
Summary
Introduction
In the present chapter I shall argue that Ephesians 2.14–18 consists of an amplification (ἡ αἒξησις) which is in praise of the Messiah Jesus and his work in bringing reconciliation to the two estranged ethnic groups. Rather than a ‘parenthesis’ or ‘digression’ which is tangential to the primary design of the letter, as some scholars interpret it, I suggest that Ephesians 2.14–18 forms an integral part of the organisational and argumentative scheme of the author. It is to be seen as a ‘purple’ passage which comes directly after the author has underscored the defective status of Gentiles as Gentiles according to the exclusive attitude of the Jews. It reflects the author's utmost concern to redefine the identity of the people of God for the Gentiles for whom he wrote. It is my conviction that we cannot make full sense of the remarkably complex metaphors of the ‘one new man’ and ‘one body’ without giving the Jewish attitudes toward the Gentiles and the enmity between the two their due weight. These metaphors, as we shall see, are both society-creating and community-redefining metaphors; they are meant to reframe the notion of the people of God and to undercut the old ethnic forms of self-identification and allegiance as they replace them with a new community-identity in Christ. They lay bare the way in which Jew and Gentile could be correlated within one community-body, namely the body of Christ, and prepare for the Gentiles a place on which to stand within a redefined, inclusive community.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic ReconciliationPaul's Jewish identity and Ephesians, pp. 126 - 189Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005