Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion you should be able to:

• Understand cultural elements present in the first century that drive meaning of New Testament texts

• Avoid misinterpretation of potentially foreign cultural elements

• Relate ancient Jewish and Hellenistic culture to modern settings

Course Outline

Introduction

• Introducing the Speaker and the Course

Unit 1: Honor and Shame

• Introduction to Culture

• Honor, Shame, and Social Control

• Honor and Shame in Complex Cultures

• Competing for Honor

Unit 2: Honor and Shame: 1 Peter

• The Experience of Shame

• Consider the Source

• Who’s on Trial Here?

• Reinterpreting Experiences of Shame (Part 1)

• Reinterpreting Experiences of Shame (Part 2)

• Defending Your Honor

• Using a Historical Background Collection

• Honored in God’s Sight

• The Social Matrix of Perseverance

• Embodying 1 Peter

Unit 3: Patronage and Reciprocity

• Patrons, Clients, and Brokers

• The Social Context of Grace

• Running a Louw-Nida Search on Charis

• Graceful Giving

• Graceful Receiving and Expression of Gratitude

• An Example from the Life of Jesus

Unit 4: Patronage and Reciprocity: Hebrews

• God as Patron

• Jesus as Patron and Mediator

• The Letter to the Hebrews and Its Audience

• Summons to Grateful Response

• Warnings against Ingratitude (Part 1)

• Warnings against Ingratitude (Part 2)

• Cultural Awareness and Solving Theological Problems

Unit 5: Family and Household

• Establishing Kinship

• Kinship Ethics

• The Household of the Classical World

• Women in the Household

• Studying Sirach on the Silent Wife

• Children

• Analyzing Parentage and Honor (John 8:31–41)

• Slaves

• Reconfiguring Kinship

• Searching for the Cultural Concept of Kinship

Unit 6: Family and Household: 1 Peter

• New Birth into a New Family

• Ethical Implications of the New Birth

• Advice for Christians in Natural Households: Wives

• Advice for Christians in Natural Households: Husbands

• Advice for Christians in Natural Households: Slaves

Unit 7: Purity and Pollution

• Basic Concepts

• Clean, Unclean, Common, and Holy

• Early Judaism’s Purity Maps (Part 1)

• Investigating Herod's Temple

• Early Judaism’s Purity Maps (Part 2)

• What Makes Purity Codes Meaningful?

• Levels of Concern for Purity

Unit 8: Purity and Pollution: Hebrews

• Purity Regulations in a Pauline Church

• Purity and New Group Boundaries

• Rewriting Maps of Sacred Space and Personnel

• Jesus’ Death as Consecration

• Reexamining Purity Lines Today

• Building a Sermon on Defilement (Mark 7:20–23)

Conclusion

• Authentic Hearing, Authentic Following

Details

• Title: NT201 The Cultural World of the New Testament

• Instructor: David A. deSilva

• Publisher: Lexham Press

• Publication Date: 2015

• Product Type: Logos Mobile Education

• Resource Type: Courseware, including transcripts, audio, and video resources

• Courses: 1

• Video Hours: 6