Rhetoric, Gender, and Imperial Values in Early Christian Narrative

FAIN: FT-51786-03

Todd Penner
Austin College (Sherman, TX 75090-4440)

This study on the New Testament book of Acts examines the ways in which ancient perceptions of gender intersect with the complex manner in which the writer portrays and pairs female and male characters in order to persuade his readers towards adopting particular values, virtues, and socio-political and religious aims. These cultural values are consciously appropriated and then creatively redirected by the writer in his argumentative strategies, and are important for understanding the distinctive developments of Christian rhetoric, ideology, and discourse in the ancient world. This apologetic narrative seems to forge and promote a particular Christian identity in the cultural battles of the Greek East in the Roman imperial period.