Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to offer a nuanced study of \n‘compassion’ in the context of the Pauline Letters. The Letters are \nconsidered within the socio-political context of imperial Rome. \n‘Compassion’ is a complex emotion; therefore, it has been \nnecessary to include, in my analysis, cognate sentiments such as \npatience, kindness, gentleness, and perseverance. Since this is a \nsemantic study, the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament \nbased on Semantic Domains, compiled by Louw and Nida (L-N), \nis used extensively. A dictionary provides a potential meaning, \nbut it is the context of the sentence, the sentence within a larger \nunit of the text as a whole considered within the prevailing social \nconditions, that influences meaning. This method reveals that \nPaul envisages ‘compassion’ as the means to establish \ncommunities, not enslaved by the values of ‘the world’, nor \ngrasping things for themselves at the expense of others. In Paul, \n‘compassion’ is expansive and inclusive, where the good of the \nwhole community is valued. His paradigm is the sacrifice of \nChrist. \nIntroduction
Authors: Rose Maisy Rowe, Johan M. Strydom
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2133660584