Bloomsbury Academic The Lord's Supper in Corinth in the Context of Greco-Roman Private Associations

Product Description In this socio-historical study, Jin Hwan Lee offers fresh insights on social aspects of communal banqueting practice in early Christ groups, particularly in Corinth. With an emphasis on banqueting practice in Greco-Roman private associations, he attempts to understand social conflicts at communal gatherings of the Christ group in Corinth. His research on the social dynamics of banquet meetings in associations is thorough, fresh, and even striking; readers will be amply rewarded by new ideas to this field. Making use of a wide range of ancient literature, and epigraphical and papyrological sources from associations, Lee helps recover the real issues that the Christ group members encountered at their communal meal described in 1 Cor 11:17-34, boldly claiming that current scholarly approaches to these issues at the Corinthian Christ group communal meal are anachronistic, Lee provides a new paradigm for thinking about early Christ movement meals, and by and large, early Christ movements in the first and second centuries A.D. Review The book functions as a testament to social arrangements in early Hellenistic Christianity. . . . Practical theologians in the subdiscipline of Word and Worship and clergy can find The Lord's Supper in Corinth useful because it provides a theological basis for the Sacrament of Holy Communion as 'not simply items of food and drink to be consumed at the table, but, indeed, they were given in order to prefigure the covenantal life that would be accomplished by his sacrificial death' (p. 174). Additional intended audiences include scholars of Pauline literature and historians with a specialization in pre-Constantine Greco-Roman Christianity.--The Expository Times Jin Hwan Lee uses research on social dynamics in associations and meals in the Greco-Roman era to challenge long-held assumptions about the social organization of early Christ groups. This investigation will require scholars of early Christianity not only to revisit many suppositions about the meal conflicts in the Corinthian communities Paul addressed but also to reconsider accepted depictions of the early Christ groups more broadly.--Susan (Elli) Elliott, Convening Collaborator, Shining Mountain Institute About the Author Jin Hwan Lee has taught courses at several colleges and seminaries in Toronto, including Wycliffe College, University of Toronto.