RT Book
T1 Abject joy: Paul, prison, and the art of making do
A1 Schellenberg, Ryan S.
LA English
PP New York, NY
PB Oxford University Press
YR 2021
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1750512734
AB "No extant text gives so vivid a glimpse into the experience of an ancient prisoner as Paul's letter to the Philippians. As a letter from prison, however, it is not what one would expect. For although it is true that Paul, like some other ancient prisoners, speaks in Philippians of his yearning for death, what he expresses most conspicuously is contentment and even joy. Setting aside pious banalities that contrast true joy with happiness, and leaving behind too heroic depictions that take their cue from Acts, Abject Joy offers a reading of Paul's letter as both a means and an artifact of his provisional attempt to make do. By outlining the uses of punitive custody in the administration of Rome's eastern provinces and describing the prison's complex place in the social and moral imagination of the Roman world, this book provides a richly drawn account of Paul's subelite social context, where bodies and their affects were shaped by acute contingency and habitual susceptibility to violent subjugation. Informed by recent work in the history of emotions, and with comparison to modern prison writing and ethnography provoking new questions and insights, Abject Joy describes Paul's letter as an affective technology, wielded at once on Paul himself and on his addressees, that works to strengthen his grasp on the very joy he names"--
NO Includes bibliographical references and index
CN BS2705.52
SN 9780190065515
K1 Paul : the Apostle, Saint : Imprisonment
K1 Bible : Philippians : Criticism, interpretation, etc
K1 Imprisonment : Religious aspects : Christianity
K1 Contentment : Religious aspects : Christianity
K1 Joy : Religious aspects : Christianity