The catastrophes of the twentieth century have decisively broken the grip of Aristotle’s fixed universe on our minds. ’Society’ is no longer the logical category of statecraft that is to determine our lives. The glorious horrors of fascism discredited the survival of the fittest, upstaged even by the compulsory class equality of the Soviets. Instead we now appeal to ’culture’ and mutual ’communication’ as we hope to grow together in response to each other. The universe itself at last is open-ended. Particle physics and the genetic code ensure diversity for us all. Our individual gifts will reveal our identity and our mission in life. We are indeed personally answerable for the choices we make. The twenty-first century’s great leap forward is Jerusalem’s long foreshadowed answer to Athens. Not logic but experiment has been the mainspring that has unlocked it. The transformed life of the apostle Paul in Christ first experienced the developmental prospect that has inspired the cultural reformation of our time.
Om författaren
Professor James Harrison is the Director of Research at Sydney College of Divinity and an Honorary Associate of Macquarie University Ancient History Department. He is author of two monographs on Paul (Mohr Siebeck), the co-editor of New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity Volume 10 (Eerdmans), and the editor of E.A. Judge’s Collected Augustan and New Testament Essays (Mohr Siebeck). His articles are widely published in books and international journals. He is a New Testament social historian, with strong interests in the historical Jesus and Second Temple Judaism, as well as the apostle Paul in his Graeco-Roman context.