The Role of Emotion in 1 Peter

Provides the first full-scale, theoretically informed exploration of the rhetorical function of emotions in a New Testament epistle.

Katherine M. Hockey (Author)

9781108468138, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 October 2020

311 pages
22 x 14 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

'First Peter has received increasing scholarly attention in recent decades … Hockey extends this trend in an important new direction, focusing on 1 Peter's portrayal of emotion, a burgeoning focus of research across the sciences and humanities beginning to influence biblical studies.' F. Scott Spencer, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology

In this book, Katherine M. Hockey explores the function of emotions in the New Testament by examining the role of emotions in 1 Peter. Moving beyond outdated, modern rationalistic views of emotions as irrational, bodily feelings, she presents a theoretically and historically informed cognitive approach to emotions in the New Testament. Informed by Greco-Roman philosophical and rhetorical views of emotions along with modern emotion theory, she shows how the author of 1 Peter uses the logic of each emotion to value and position objects within the audience's worldview, including the self and the other. She also demonstrates how, cumulatively, the emotions of joy, distress, fear, hope, and shame are deployed to build an alternative view of reality. This new view of reality aims to shape the believers' understanding of the structure of their world, encourages a reassessment of their personal goals, and ultimately seeks to affect their identity and behaviour.

Part I. Introductory Matters: 1. Emotion studies and the New Testament
2. Emotion studies – theoretical foundations
Part II. Emotions in Antiquity: 3. Stoic philosophy of emotion
4. The rhetorical use of emotion
Part III. The Present Experience: 5. Joy despite distress – 1 Peter 1.6-8
6. Joy in suffering – 1 Peter 4.12-13
Part IV. Future Expectation: 7. Fearful hope
8. Appropriate and inappropriate shame
9. Conclusion
Appendix 1: chronology of the leading stoics.

Subject Areas: Biblical commentaries [HRCG1], Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG], New Testaments [HRCF2], Bibles [HRCF], Christianity [HRC], Religion & beliefs [HR], Humanities [H]