Kinds of Myth, Meals and Power - Paul and the Corinthians - Insights from Jonathan Z. Smith’s Comparison

Oct 3, 2026

A scholarly essay examines how Jonathan Z. Smith’s comparison between the Corinthians in Paul’s letters and the Atbalmin of Papua New Guinea can open new ways to understand early Christianity. It proposes analytical tools—doxa, interests, recognition, and attraction—to explore social and cognitive processes typically hidden in traditional New Testament approaches, then applies them through Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages74

Reading Time3 h 6 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Smith’s Comparison and Scholarly Opportunities

Conceptual Framework

Doxa, Interests, Recognition, Attraction

Application to Paul and the Corinthians

Lord’s Supper as Case Study

Contrast With Typical Approaches

Academic Christian Theological Modernism

Kinds of Myth, Meals and Power: Paul and the Corinthians Stanley K. Stowers In: Redescribing Christian Origins. R. Cameron and E. Miller, eds. (Symposium Series: Society of Biblical Literature, forthcoming) . DO NOT QUOTE BEFORE PUBLICATION. Jonathan Z. Smith’s comparison of the Corinthians known from Paul’s letters and the Atbalmin of Papua New Guinea provides a remarkable opportunity for scholars of early Christianity. 1 The study of the New Testament has understandably been dominated by the internal perspectives of Christian theology. This means that approaches to Paul’s letters continually reinscribe an incomparable uniqueness and irresistible relevance. Privileged meta-narratives insure that the ways scholars imagine Paul and the Corinthians elide many of the human social and cognitive processes that students of a contemporary culture or a scholar in a department of history would assume as requirements for construing the people in question as human. Smith’s bold comparison breaks through these constraints that have dominated the field and creates an opening for imagining Paul and the Corinthians in ways that are quite normal in the humanities and the social sciences.2 Thus Smith’s comparative operation is only bold in view of the norms of New Testament Studies and quite familiar as a way of understanding human groups in the wider university. In this essay, I want to take advantage of the opening created by Smith’s article to raise some questions about certain social/cognitive processes that are usually hidden in traditional approaches. In a more comprehensive study, I would theoretically develop the concepts of doxai (hearafter doxa, doxai), interests, recognition, and attraction that I believe need to be added to Smith’s concepts of incorporation and resistance.3 I understand all of these as attendant to the processes of ongoing mythic formations that Smith’s paper allows us to imagine for the Atbalmin, and for Paul and the Corinthians. For the purposes of this article, I will stipulate the following. A doxa is a body of takenfor-granted beliefs, practical skills, assumptions and understandings that the researcher through historical investigation imagines that the people in question brought to a social situation.4 Interests are the most basic and important projects and ends that motivated the people in question. “Most basic” should be a matter of debate and corrigible for scholars. Recognition is the process of someone taking someone else (or another group) to be someone of a certain type or identity (or of certain types and identities) that to various degrees makes sense to them and that often entails some degree of or a lack of legitimacy or social capital.5 Attraction is the process of recognizing some sort of mutuality of interests that can be the basis for individuals or groups engaging in common practices or entertaining the possibility. In the latter, it is to be assumed that individual participation is differential and that individuals do not bring exactly the same skills, understandingsand so on to practices in common with others, even while they share certain common practical understandings with all those who participate in a particular practice.6 I will not so much explicate these concepts in what follows as to presuppose them as I first engage some facets of Smith’s paper and then use Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper as a case to explore how one might imagine the mythmaking and ritualization of Paul and the Corinthians as dynamic social activities. At the end of the paper, I will return to Smith’sconstrual ofthe incommenseurability that he sees between the religion of Paul and the Corinthians and suggest another interpretation. I will preface the discussion by noting some key ways that what I want to do differs from typical approaches. The dominant approach to Paul and the Corinthian letters I characterize as academic Christian theological modernism.7 The approach has made enormous contrib

FAQs

What opportunity does Jonathan Z. Smith’s comparison create for scholars?

It enables scholars to imagine Paul and the Corinthians beyond dominant theological frameworks by treating the comparison as a normal humanities/social-sciences method for understanding human groups.

What are doxa, interests, recognition, and attraction in the essay’s framework?

Doxa refers to taken-for-granted beliefs and skills; interests are fundamental projects motivating people; recognition is identifying others as certain types with varying legitimacy; attraction is mutual recognition of interests that can support shared practices.

How does the essay intend to use Paul and the Lord’s Supper?

It uses Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper as a case for exploring mythmaking and ritualization as dynamic social activities involving ongoing formation processes.

Oct 3, 2026

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