I am pleased to announce the soon-coming appearance of an article of mine:
‘A Spiritual House of Royal Priests, Chosen and Honored: The Presence and Function of Cultic Imagery in 1 Peter’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 36.1 (2009): 61-76.
In this article, I attempt to utilize insights from social and cognitive-literary theories to demonstrate not simply how cultic metaphors (temple, priest, sacrifice) are meant to say something (theologically), but also do something (especially with respect to value systems, honor and shame, responses to suffering). If Richard Hays has spent a lifetime arguing that ‘echoes of Scripture’ aid in converting the imagination of those who engage in the NT, I wish to supplement and support this by saying that the NT writers utilize many clusters of metaphors (kinship, cult, politics) towards the same purpose.
Nijay:
Congrats on the article. I look forward to reading it!
I must mention also that I have an article forthcoming in the very same issue of PRSt (Spring 2009). My article is entitled “Jacob, Laban, and a Divine Trickster: The Covenantal Framework of God’s Deception in the Theology of the Jacob Cycle.” On my blog (click my name) I have mentioned briefly this piece; I plan to post up a .pdf of it in the next week or two. I invite you all to check it out and offer comments—especially because it is a seminal piece of my dissertation.
All the best, and congrats again Nijay!
Nijay,
I didn’t realize you were at Durham. I’m actually looking at Ph.D study in Biblical Theology or Hermeneutics and Durham is one of the schools I’m checking out. I’d be interested to hear any feedback you could give me on it.
I just found your blog and have to say I’m impressed. You’ve become quite the academic dynamo it seems!
Hope you and Amy are doing well!
JMS