Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi

Here is a quotation from a worthwhile book I just finished from the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 132, Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi: Carmen Christi as Cursus Pudorum by Joseph Hellerman. As much as it pains me to say, I will not (as of now) be writing a review of this book, due to having too many Irons in the fire already. I gained many great insights from this book, but also had a few caveats.

"Instead of rejecting in principle the social realities of honor and shame, therefore, Paul and those who shared his sentiments sought to reconstruct the cultural values and social codes of the Roman world by substituting, for those attitudes and kinds of behavior deemed honorable by the dominant culture, a radically alternative set of attitudes and kinds of behavior to be honored in the Christian ekklesia. That God himself had profoundly honored these very attitudes and behavior in the life of his servant Jesus assures Paul's readers that the alternative vision for social relations which he offers them is, in the final analysis, far superior to - and much more enduring than - the public pomp and status-conscious value system of the Roman world." 165