This chapter presents an overview of the structure of 1 Peter to lay the groundwork for the analysis of future chapters. Following Lutz Doering, this chapter argues that 1 Peter is a Christian diaspora letter. As such, it has much in common with Jewish diaspora letters. This chapter then examines the epistolary prescript (1:1-2) and postscript (5:12-14) to examine how these features are infused with the letter’s theology and anticipate its themes of diaspora, marginalization, divine regeneration, election, holiness, and peoplehood. Moving to the letter body, the chapter outlines the main structural divisions through attention to rhetorical devices, themes, and other features.

This chapter examines divine regeneration within its Jewish and early Christian contexts in order to appreciate how the author used Jewish traditions of divine begetting and Christian traditions of regeneration for his own theological purpose. After an introduction (§4.1), this chapter examines two discrete bodies of evidence gathered from Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity: first, the use of regeneration language, namely, ἀναγεννάω and παλιγγενεσία (§4.2), and second, the theme of God as begetter in Jewish and early Christian literature (§4.3). Finally, this chapter examines 1 Peter 1:3-5 and 1:23 in light of these insights (§4.4). The insights of §4.2-3 provide the information necessary to perform the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) in §4.4.

Beginning with a quote from Diognetus, this study asks why Christians came to be described as a γένος. This book argues that 1 Peter provides original, provocative answers to Diognetus’ questions. This book argues that the description of believers’ ethnic identity in 2:9-10 is founded on the complex metaphor of divine regeneration and its familial entailments. Just as physical ethnic identities are established primarily by birth into a particular group, the Petrine author ascribes to believers a divine regeneration that ushers them into a new ethnic community. However, ethnic membership is not a matter of birth alone: it is a social construct that must be taught, negotiated, maintained, and defended. It process of socialization stretches from infancy to childhood and finally adulthood. This introduction then surveys previous scholarship on divine regeneration in 1 Peter and establishes the need for a new look at divine regeneration in 1 Peter.