Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts
Subtitle: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2023
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780567713278
Description: <b>Hyun Ho Park employs social identity to create the first thorough analysis via such methodology of Acts 21:17-23:35, which contains one of the fiercest intergroup conflicts in Acts. </b>Park's assessment allows his readers to rethink, reevaluate, and reimagine Jewish-Christian relations; teaches them how to respond to the vicious cycle of slander, labeling, and violence permeating contemporary public and private spheres; and presents a new hermeneutical cycle and describes how readers may apply it to their own sociopolitical contexts.   After surveying previous studies of the text, Park first analyses   Paul's welcome, questioning, and arrest, and how slandering and labeling make   Paul an outsider. Park then describes how, through defending his Jewish   identity and the Way, Paul nuances his public image and re-categorizes   himself and the Way as part of the people of God. When Paul identifies himself   as a Roman and later a Pharisee, Park examines Luke's ambivalent attitude   toward Rome and the Pharisees, and assesses how Paul escapes dangerous   situations by claiming different social identities at different times.   Finally, he discloses the vicious cycle of slander, labeling, and violence   not only against the Way but also against the Jews and challenges the   discursive process of identity construction through intergroup conflict with   an out-group, especially the proximate "Other." Furthermore, he demonstrates how the relevance of such scholarship is  not limited to Lukan  studies or even biblical studies in   general; the  frequent use of  slander, labeling, and violence in the politics   of  the United States  and other polarized countries around the globe  demands   new ways of  looking at intergroup relations, and Park's  argument meets the needs of    those seeking a new perspective on  contemporary political discord.