Abstract:
Although the tension which Christianity, in continuance with the Sache Jesu, first displayed
with its surrounding culture, gradually conformed to the predominate culture of the ancient
Mediterranean world, probably to avoid further conflict, it seems that the author of 1 Peter,
despite my preference for a later dating (circa the turn of the 1st century AD), was set on
maintaining this tension. 1 Peter employs a ‘revolutionary subordination’. When the author of
1 Peter urges wives to be submissive or slaves to obey their masters, he is not perpetuating
normative conservatism. Rather, wives and slaves as followers of Christ were to subvert
injustice the same way Jesus did. Wives therefore do not submit to their non-believing
husbands because they buy in to society’s evaluation of them as inferior to their male
counterparts. Rather, wives can submit to their non-believing husbands because they are
triumphant in Christ and therefore emancipated moral agents, who may win over their nonbelieving
husbands by their moral and godly conduct.
Description:
Dr Le Roux is participating in
the research project
‘Hermeneutics and Exegesis’
directed by Prof. Dr Ernest
van Eck, Department of New
Testament and Related
Literature, Faculty of
Theology and Religion,
University of Pretoria.
