Constructing Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter

Who You Are No Longer

Janette H. Ok

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780567698537
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Janette H. Ok argues that 1 Peter characterizes Christian identity as an ethnic identity, as it holds the potential to engender a powerful sense of solidarity for readers who are experiencing social alienation as a result of their conversion. The epistle describes and delineates a communal identity based on Jewish traditions, and in response to the hostility its largely Gentile Anatolian addressees are experiencing as religious minorities in the Roman empire. In order to help construct a collective understanding of what it means to be a Christian in contrast to non-Christians, Ok argues that the author of the epistle employs "ethnic reasoning" or logic. Consequently, the writer of 1 Peter makes use of various literary and rhetorical strategies, including establishing a sense of shared history and ancestry, delineating boundaries, stereotyping and negatively characterizing "the other, " emphasizing distinct conduct or a common culture, and applying ethnic categories to his addressees. Ok further highlights how these strategies bear striking resemblances to what modern anthropologists and sociologists describe as the characteristics of ethnic groups. In depicting Christian identity as an ethnic identity akin to the unique religious-ethnic identity of the Jews, Ok concludes that 1 Peter seeks to foster internal cohesion among the community of believers who are struggling to forge a distinctive and durable group identity, resist external pressures to revert to a way of life unbefitting the people of God, and live as those born anew to a living hope.

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Introduction: What Do Ethnicity and Identity Have to Do with 1 Peter?

How do new converts become Christian? In what ways does being “born anew” change the way Christians relate to the world, their families, and one another? How are believers to understand and live into their new identities and make sense of who they are no longer? The letter of 1 Peter offers insights into the process of Christian identity formation in its efforts to shape and sustain a cohesive, resilient, and countercultural group identity for its addressees. This monograph examines how and why the author of 1 Peter depicts Christian identity as an ethnic identity. Peter¹ employs various literary and rhetorical strategies—such as establishing a sense of shared history and ancestry, delineating boundaries, stereotyping and negatively characterizing “the other,” emphasizing distinct conduct or a common culture, and applying ethnic categories to his addressees—to help construct his understanding of what it means to be a Christian relative to non-Christians. These strategies bear striking resemblances to what modern anthropologists and sociologists describe as the characteristics of ethnic groups.² What stands out among the various definitions of ethnic communities is the importance of shared myths, which include myths of origin (common descent) and election, and the orientation to the past or “ethno-history” (i.e., its origins, ancestors, and historical formation).³

The reason why Peter characterizes Christian identity as a kind of ethnic identity is to engender a powerful sense of solidarity for his largely Gentile⁴ addressees who, as addressed in Chapter 2, experienced social alienation and estrangement from the wider society as a result of their conversion.⁵ His socially beleaguered addressees have a future destiny that is bound up in their unique, shared past as people chosen by God the Father and born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The ransoming blood of Christ has disidentified them from their Gentile past (1.18–19) and has reidentified them as the people of God. Peter’s appropriation of Israel’s unique identity-forming language (γένος, ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος, and λαός) inscribes them into the narrative of God’s elect and holy people, Israel, and provides them with a more cohesive and resilient sense of collective identity as Christ followers. By depicting Christian identity as an ethnic identity akin to the unique religious-ethnic identity of the Jews, Peter seeks to foster internal cohesion among the community of believers, who are struggling to forge a distinctive and durable group identity and resist external pressures to conform to a way of life unbefitting the people of God.

Defining the Terms

Before going any further, I will define what I mean when I use the terms “identity” and, specifically, “ethnic identity.” Beginning in the 1960s, scholars working in the vast array of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities have taken an intense interest in questions concerning identity.⁶ In the field of New Testament studies, “identity” has become an increasingly popular term used to explore the social contexts and conflicts that give rise to biblical texts⁷ and to understand the different processes by which early Christians came to understand themselves.⁸ When writing about early Christian identity on the basis of early Christian texts, there is a paradox: On the one hand, it is primarily through early Christian texts, such as 1 Peter, that we can come to understand early Christian identity formation. Texts themselves have an important role in shaping Christian identity, as is evident in the role Scripture plays for Peter in providing the language and imagery for his construction of what it means to be Christian. On the other hand, “the phenomenon of identity cannot be limited to the ideas and words that Christ-believers in these communities used to express their self-understanding.”⁹ For this reason, various interdisciplinary approaches have been applied to help shed light on the primary texts available to us. The use of social scientific perspectives and approaches has proven particularly helpful for illuminating some of the ways in which the letter of 1 Peter contributes to the making of Christian identity.¹⁰

Although the concept of identity has a prominent place in recent scholarly research and the term is used frequently in everyday discourse, its meaning is difficult to capture and is often taken for granted.¹¹ Identity, in its most basic sense, is “the human capacity to know ‘who’s who’ (and hence ‘what’s what’).”¹² It involves multidimensional mappings of how individuals and/or groups understand themselves, how others understand them, how they understand others, etc.¹³ Rather than being a “thing” people possess, identification is a process that people do in order to sort out who they and who others are both at the individual and collective level.¹⁴ This interplay of individual and collective identity only makes sense within relationships, whether between individuals or groups.¹⁵ Richard Jenkins suggests that how people categorize others is often much more consequential than how they identify themselves.¹⁶ For example, if people of Asian descent identify as American while other ethnic groups and the dominant group (white Americans) perceive them as being less American and hence more foreign, Asian Americans often experience dissonance. This dissonance can result in the increased struggle to form a unified and integrated identity, which can lead to depressive symptoms and a lower level of civic participation relative to the white Americans.¹⁷ However, I argue in Chapter 3 that the way in which Peter urges his addressees to self-identify as an elect, holy people of God, born anew to a living hope and as members of a spiritual household and spiritual patrilineage, has enormous consequence on how they respond to the external misperceptions of their identity and to subsequent persecution and offers theological resources to see their stigmatized identity as a distinct and honored identity.

Two common threads that can be traced among the many heterogeneous ways identity has been defined by social scientists and literary critics and used in everyday discourse are the two senses implied in the concept of identity—one that is “social” and the other that is “personal.” James D. Fearon formulates a definition of identity that captures both of these senses:

“Identity” means either (a) a social category, defined by membership rules and allegedly characteristic attributes of expected behaviors, or (b) a socially distinguishable feature that a person takes a special pride in or views as unchangeable but socially consequential (or, of course, both (a) and (b) at once).¹⁸

Identity as a social category refers to the social groupings (e.g., race, ethnicity, nation, political party) in which people place themselves and what they understand to be the implicit or explicit rules of membership for these social groupings.¹⁹ Identity as something personal refers to the sources that give a person or group a sense of self-respect and dignity, not simply the categories to which people think they belong.²⁰ While there is no necessary linkage between the social and personal dimensions of identity, there is often much overlap, as in the case with ethnic identity. Ethnic identity can serve as both a social category in which people place themselves and as a source of pride. It is this double sense of identity—identity as social category and identity as the basis for self-respect and dignity—that I intend to convey when I use the term. Thus, “identity” in this study refers to the category that defines group membership for Peter’s audience and also to the sources of their collective sense of self-respect and dignity, which the author presents as essential aspects of who they are.

What then is ethnic identity? The adjective “ethnic” has its origins in the Greek word ἔθνος, which, in turn, derived from the word ἐθνικός. In Homer, ἔθνος identified a group or class of beings, such as warriors or young men, who shared a common identification.²¹ After Homer, it referred to “nation, people” or later to “foreign, barbarous nations” in contrast to the Greeks, or in the LXX to “non-Jews,” or in the NT to “Gentiles” or “Gentile Christians.”²² Herodotus’ most famous and cited articulation of ἔθνος, which can be summed up as the idea of common blood (real or perceived), common language, shared religious practice, and shared customs that give rise to a sense of peoplehood, is itself one of his many uses of the term (8.144).

The “real or perceived” aspect of common blood described above is significant. It has become the consensus view among social scientists that ethnicity is socially constructed. The idea of shared descent, central to many ancient and modern conceptions of ethnic identity, is difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain. Nonetheless, its significance cannot be underestimated. Steve Fenton explains,

The very idea that people (believe they) have some common identity—and more than that, a common interest and destiny—because of their (belief in a) shared past, including especially their (belief in) shared descent from the same set of ancestors, or at least roughly the same kind of ancestors, is clearly a powerful idea in human history.²³

“Belief in” does not mean that ethnicity is an illusory concept, for all people actually do have ancestors.²⁴ What is elusive about claims to shared ancestors, however, is when people choose to remember them, which ancestors they deem important, how much their idea of ancestry corresponds with the facts of ancestry, and what are the circumstances in which ethnic identity takes on greater or lesser importance.²⁵

According to the Oxford Living Dictionary, “ethnicity” refers to the “fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.”²⁶ This definition differs significantly from that of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary (1993), which defines “ethnic” as “pertaining to nations not Christian; pertaining to a race or nation; having common racial, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics especially designating a racial or other group within a larger system.”²⁷ The former definition says nothing about notions of shared ancestry, whereas the latter definition presents “race,” “nation,” and “ethnicity” as intertwined.

Social scientists have taken various approaches to defining the core similarities and divergences among these terms, particularly “race” and “ethnicity.” The concept of an “ethnic group” is closely associated with the terms “race” and “nation,” as all three convey a sense of peoplehood based on shared descent and culture and thus occupy the same linguistic territory without meaning exactly the same thing.²⁸ While the concepts of ethnicity race, and nation cannot be easily separated, they do have some divergences, even as they share the single core of referring to descent and culture communities. Fenton attempts to delineate the commonalities and differences among race, nation, and ethnic group in the following way:

Race refers to descent and culture communities with two specific additions:

1. the idea that “local” groups are instances of abstractly conceived divisions of humankind; and

2. the idea that race makes explicit reference ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: What Do Ethnicity and Identity Have to Do with 1 Peter?
• 2 Defining and Defying Ethnicity in the Ancient World
• 3 Common Blood: Establishing a New Patrilineage through the Blood of Christ
• 4 Constructing Boundaries and Contesting Stigma in the Making of Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter
• 5 Conclusion: Reinforcing Christian Distinctiveness through Bonds of Blood
• Bibliography
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index
• Imprint