JH Elliott argued that the Petrine terms παροικία, πάροικος, and παρεπίδημος are literal, while the majority of scholars understand them metaphorically. This chapter therefore defines metaphors, establishes the criteria by which they can be identifies, and develops tools for their analysis. Metaphors are defined as speaking about one thing (tenor, or target domain) in terms of another (vehicle, or source domain). Though the Petrine regeneration metaphor is cognitive, it is expressed in language grounded in Jewish and Greco-Roman culture. Metaphors are rich, interactive, and not reducible to prose. Simple metaphors can be combined into complex, systematic and narrative structures, which may contain embedded, culturally-based value judgments. This study employs the Metaphor Identification Process (MIP) to determine whether kinship terms in 1 Peter are metaphorical.

This chapter pivots to Parmenides’ poem by examining at a more general level the close intertextual connections with Odyssey 12. I then examine in close detail how the krisis or exclusive, exhaustive disjunction in Parmenides’ Fragment 2 bears a close resemblance to the exclusive, exhaustive disjunction in the hodos that Circe spells out in Odyssey 12; I also detail important differences between Parmenides’ and Homer’s uses of this disjunction. Finally, I explore the importance of this disjunction for Parmenides’ groundbreaking extended deductive argument and, especially, its role in the practice of demonstration.

This appendix addresses Parmenides’ Fragment 5, which has sometimes been taken as a challenge to the linear, hodos-like structure of Parmenides’ argument. I establish the matrix of possible readings this fragment allows and show how this framework can organize different interpretations of it offered by previous scholars. Finally, I make clear that none of these readings of Fragment 5 undermines the argument made in the course of this book.

This chapter is in many ways the culmination of the book. It applies the analysis of chapters 3 and 4 to the structure of Parmenides’ Fragment 8, and shows how Parmenides uses the blueprint of Circe’s hodos in Odyssey 12 to craft what we would call an extended deductive argument; in this, it develops the discussion of Chapter 5. It cashes out the implications of Chapter 1 by showing how Parmenides takes advantage of rut road imagery to articulate what we would call a notion of logical necessity, and by showing how the durative and telic components of the word hodos define the teleological shape of his arguments. Building on Chapter 2, I set out the traditions Parmenides developed by creating a discursive structure that is both systematic and argumentatively rigorous. I also examine how the poem’s complex relationships between story, plot, and the time of narration plays a crucial role in bestowing on Parmenides’ arguments, and on demonstration more generally, an ostensibly timeless quality. Finally, I assess my conclusions about Parmenides’ invention of deductive argumentation in relation to other scholars’ discussions of his arguments, and clarify what my argument does not claim to offer – and what it insists on.

This chapter examines divine regeneration within its Jewish and early Christian contexts in order to appreciate how the author used Jewish traditions of divine begetting and Christian traditions of regeneration for his own theological purpose. After an introduction (§4.1), this chapter examines two discrete bodies of evidence gathered from Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity: first, the use of regeneration language, namely, ἀναγεννάω and παλιγγενεσία (§4.2), and second, the theme of God as begetter in Jewish and early Christian literature (§4.3). Finally, this chapter examines 1 Peter 1:3-5 and 1:23 in light of these insights (§4.4). The insights of §4.2-3 provide the information necessary to perform the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) in §4.4.

In 1 Peter 2:1-3, the author compares believers to newborn babes who are to crave the pure, “wordly” milk in order to grow. This chapter examines the role of breastfeeding in socializing an infant in ancient society. Breastfeeding symbolized an infant’s Jewishness. In 1 Peter, believers’ metaphorical breastfeeding developed their Christian ethnic identity. As a maternal image, this chapter investigates Jewish use of transgender imagery. Though 1 Peter does not call God “mother,” it attributes maternal imagery to God the Father. In Jewish literature, God, and other men, are sometimes depicted with maternal imagery. In the New Testament, Paul describes himself in maternal terms. These traditions illustrate that the Petrine maternal imagery had Jewish and early Christian precedents. Finally, this chapter shows, first, that this Petrine imagery develops the ethnic identity of believers, and, second describes aspects of God’s relationship with believers in terms associated with motherhood. This Petrine imagery is a creative way of communicating theological truths but is still in continuity with Jewish and early Christian traditions.

This concluding chapter draw together the preceding arguments of the book. Mapping systematic metaphors can reveal an individual or group’s underlying beliefs. This chapter therefore assembled all of the contributing pieces of linguistic evidence for the divine regeneration metaphor in 1 Peter. Once these were assembled and grouped, they were analyzed. First the dataset contained evidence of repetition, such as πατήρ (1:2, 3, 17), ἀναγεννάω (1:3, 23), inheritance words (κληρονομίαν, συγκληρονόμοις, κληρονομήσητε; 1:4; 3:7, 9), and other terms drawn from the nuclear family (1:14; 2:2; 3:6; 4:17; 5:9, 12, 13). These repetitions draw the letter’s recipients’ attention to repeated, structural patterns. Next, some basic metaphor mapping was done. Finally, systematic metaphors were distilled from this evidence. The following systematic metaphors have been identified: CHRISTIAN MEMBERSHIP IS BELONGING TO A SOJOURNING NATION, 2, CHRISTIAN MEMBERSHIP IS BEING BEGOTTEN ANEW AND GROWING UP IN GOD’S FAMILY. 3, GOD’S FAMILY IS AN ETHNIC GROUP

Beginning with a quote from Diognetus, this study asks why Christians came to be described as a γένος. This book argues that 1 Peter provides original, provocative answers to Diognetus’ questions. This book argues that the description of believers’ ethnic identity in 2:9-10 is founded on the complex metaphor of divine regeneration and its familial entailments. Just as physical ethnic identities are established primarily by birth into a particular group, the Petrine author ascribes to believers a divine regeneration that ushers them into a new ethnic community. However, ethnic membership is not a matter of birth alone: it is a social construct that must be taught, negotiated, maintained, and defended. It process of socialization stretches from infancy to childhood and finally adulthood. This introduction then surveys previous scholarship on divine regeneration in 1 Peter and establishes the need for a new look at divine regeneration in 1 Peter.

What is the significance of Christians’ new identity in 1 Peter 2:11-5:11? This chapter argues that this identity is foundational for the exhortation that follows. The exhortation in 2:11-5:11 is deeply informed by the structures and conventions of Jewish and Greco-Roman exemplarity discourse. Greek, Roman, and Jewish discourse exhibited a strong preference for domestic role models. As a new γένος, ἔθνος, and λαός, Christians needed new Christian exemplars, which 1 Peter supplies. At the family level, the best exemplars for young Roman elite were their own illustrious ancestors. Similarly, Christians, as one family in the house of God, now have a host of their own illustrious ancestors from the scriptures and Christian tradition to aspire to and imitate, such as Sarah, Noah, Christian elders, and, especially, Jesus Christ, who is Christianity’s exemplar par excellence. This chapter concludes with a detailed analysis of Jesus’ exemplarity in the exhortation to slaves (and all believers) in 2:21-25. Through his passion, Jesus provided an example for Christian to imitate in their own suffering.

This chapter applies the analysis of the preceding chapter to the hodos that Circe spells out in Odyssey 12, which I argue serves as a discursive template or blueprint for Parmenides in his ‘Route to Truth’. In addition to building on the notions of the rhetorical schema and types of dependence developed in Chapter 3, I extend my analysis of the discursive architecture governed by the hodos to include the krisis or exclusive, exhaustive disjunction which is a central feature of Od. 12.55–126. I also show how the hodos in Odyssey 12 has distinctive features – including the use of modally charged negation and unusually lengthy description sections followed by argumentatively rich units of text – which link it to Parmenides’ poem but differentiate it in crucial ways from other texts and phenomena, including general patterns of Homeric deliberation, polar expressions, the crossroads in Hesiod’s Works and Days, and the so-called Orphic gold tablets.