When "Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king" (Matt. 2:1), he was born into a Jewish kingdom ruled by an Idumaean king with a Greek name, installed and sponsored by the Romans.

The New Testament in Its Social Environment (Library of Early Christianity)

History

Stambaugh, John E.

Balch, David L.

Ancient Civilizations

Westminster/John Knox Press

What was the family like for the first Christians? Informed by archaeological work and illustrated by figures, this work is a remarkable window into the past, one that both informs and illuminates our current condition.
The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.

Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Family, Religion, and Culture)

Politics & Social Sciences

Osiek, Carolyn A.

Sociology

Book by Balch, David L., Ferguson, Everett

Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe

FERGUSON, EVERETT

World

Fortress Press

Elucidates the pros and cons of current Christian discussion on the question of homosexuality. Challenges partisan views and provides a balanced discussion.

Homosexuality, Science, and the Plain Sense of Scripture

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Wm. B. Eerdmans-Lightning Source

Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in I Peter (Society of Biblical Literature, Monograph Series, No. 26)

Religion & Spirituality

UNKNO

In contrast to most studies of earliest Christianity that focus on texts, David Balch inquires into the visual world of the culture in which early Christians lived and worshipped. Jews and Christians outside Israel lived in Greek and Roman houses and apartment buildings. During earlier Republican and later Imperial periods, artists painted frescoes on the walls of their patrons' houses. Beginning in the mid-1700s, archaeologists began unearthing brilliantly colored domestic paintings, often of Greek (rarely of Roman) myths and tragedies, especially in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome. The author inquires how visual representations seen daily might influence the understanding of Jewish and Christian scriptures read and heard in those same spaces as well as the meaning of rituals performed in domestic worship. Scenes from the tragedies of Euripides as well as visual representations of contemporary gladiatorial games make suffering, sacrifice, and death surprisingly present in Roman houses, themes not first introduced by Christian preaching or the Eucharist. Further, David Balch includes not only recent studies of domestic art, but also of Roman domestic architecture (domus and insulae) by British (Wallace-Hadrill), American (Clarke, Leach), German (Zanker, Dickmann), and Italian (Maiuri, Pappalardo) scholars, studies that affect descriptions of the social history of early Christianity.

Roman Domestic Art and Early House Churches (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament)

Arts & Photography

Mohr Siebeck

How are archaeology and art related to understanding New Testament texts, for example, narratives of the Lord's Supper and other meals? An international group of archaeologists, art historians, and New Testament scholars investigate the function of spaces in Roman houses and temples in Pompeii, Herculaneum, Corinth, Rome, Ostia, Ephesus, and Judaea. Another concern is more fully to understand the relationship between different architectural forms, Roman domus, villae, and insulae, in relation to Paul's letters and the gospels, in order to enable informed interpretation of leadership, meal customs, social relationships, and ethics in those contested spaces.

Contested Spaces: Houses and Temples in Roman Antiquity and the New Testament (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament)

David L. Balch argues that Luke-Acts participates in the ethnic, economic, and political debates of the first century CE. Cities and peoples are to receive immigrating foreigners (Act. 10.28); the proud urban rich are to humble themselves and become one community with the poor. Imperial Rome's expanding to include diverse peoples was the driving force that drove conflicts around ethnic inclusion and exclusion in Rome itself, but also in Athens and Jerusalem. Luke's biography of Jesus narrates him as founder who fulfilled Isaiah's prophecies and changed Moses' laws by receiving foreigners (Luk 4.19), which generated mission growth. Balch also relates New Testament texts to Roman domestic visual representations, presenting e.g. women as priests, believing charismatics parallel to Dionysiac maenads, and Thecla, who belonged to ""a category of women [painted by Roman artists] who upset expected forms of conduct"" (Bergmann).

Contested Ethnicities and Images: Studies in Acts and Arts (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament)

Das soziale Umfeld des Neuen Testaments (Grundrisse Zum Neuen Testament) (German Edition)

Vandenhoeck + Ruprecht

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Books by Balch, David L.