Review of: James R. Harrison. Paul and the Ancient Celebrity Circuit: The Cross and Moral Transformation. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament (WUNT) 430. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Xvii+449 pp. ISBN 978-3161546150

Abstract

In a peer-reviewed collection of essays entitled "Paul and the Ancient Circle of Celebrity. The Cross and Moral Transformation," its author, Australian antique historian and biblical scholar James R. Harrison, compares aspects of the modern cult of celebrity, fuelled by various media, with the quest for fame in Roman antiquity. The latter was characterised by the constant self-promotion of Roman nobles who sought not only to equal the fame of their ancestors, but to surpass it. Against the backdrop of this highly visible quest for patrimonial and personal glory, Harrison explores how 'the shame of the cross overturns a deeply rooted Greco-Roman culture of veneration and, in a remarkable case of social levelling, affirms humanity as the crowning virtue' (vi). This leads to the question of how this "cultural clash, still echoing today, affected the civic ethos of Paul's converts, their communal ethos and paradigms of group identity, their pedagogical program, and their understanding of honour and dishonour?" (vi). In addition to the introductory and concluding chapters, Harrison presented three new studies (Chapters 2, 3, and 6) written specifically for this collection. The five previous studies have been updated to emphasise their contribution to understanding how the cross of Christ produced a moral transformation in the face of the self-affirming values preached by luminaries among ancient luminaries (vi).