Divine Regeneration and Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter

Book excerpt: In this book, Katie Marcar examines how 1 Peter draws together metaphors of family, ethnicity, temple, and priesthood to describe Christian identity. She examines the precedents for these metaphors in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity in order to highlight the originality, creativity and theological depth of the text. She then explores how these metaphors are combined and developed in 1 Peter to create complex, narratival metaphors which reframe believers' understanding of themselves, their community, and their world. Integrating insights on ethnicity and race in the ancient and modern world, as well as insights from metaphor studies, Marcar examines why it is important for Christians to think of themselves as one family and ethnic group. Marcar concludes by distilling the metaphors of divine regeneration down to their underlying systematic metaphors.