{"product_id":"civilized-piety-the-rhetoric-of-pietas-in-the-pastoral-epistles-and-the-roman-empire-9781481307178","title":"Civilized Piety: The Rhetoric of Pietas in the Pastoral Epistles and the Roman Empire","description":"\u003cp\u003eEarly Christians in Asia Minor had to navigate the troubled waters of Roman social, political, and economic life while also preserving their faith. The church faced a double threat: Greeks and Romans viewed Christianity as a barbaric and potentially seditious superstition and, at the same moment, wealthy Christian benefactors, and their client teachers, were both perceived to threaten the integrity of the Christian community.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChristopher Hoklotubbe investigates how the author of the Pastoral Epistles (1, 2 Timothy and Titus) strategically appealed to the Greek and Roman virtues of piety ( \u003ci\u003eeusebeia\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003epietas\u003c\/i\u003e) to ease these external and internal sociocultural threats. The Pastoral Epistles' rhetoric of piety--a term not found in the genuine Pauline epistles--becomes pointed when read alongside ancient discourses on piety from Roman imperial propaganda, civic benefaction\/patronage, and moral philosophy. As Hoklotubbe demonstrates, piety was rhetorically potent in the efforts of the Pastoral Epistles to present the fledgling Christian communities in a compelling cultural light, as well as efforts to unite communities around a socially conservative vision of the household of God. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eCivilized Piety\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the value of \u003ci\u003epietas \u003c\/i\u003ewithin an ideological marketplace of emperors, benefactors, and philosophers, all of whom contend with one another to monopolize cultural prestige. The Pastoral Epistles, by employing a virtue so highly esteemed by forces hostile to Christianity, manifest a deep desire to establish good order within the church as well as to foster goodwill with the church's non-Christian neighbors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eT. Christopher Hoklotubbe (Th.D., Harvard University) is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa. He is a former Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow and a Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow in Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA. Hoklotubbe has been recognized as a Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar for 2017, having been nominated by the New England and Eastern Canada Region.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Baylor University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50492615131410,"sku":"9781481307178","price":60.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2882262b-bdf0-432d-8694-3209125c275e.jpg?v=1730599697","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/civilized-piety-the-rhetoric-of-pietas-in-the-pastoral-epistles-and-the-roman-empire-9781481307178","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}