A Home for the Homeless: A Social-Scientific Criticism of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy

by J.H. Elliott

Jack Elliott's A Home for the Homeless is one of the most exciting works in biblical scholarship that I have read in recent years, and the best book on 1 Peter that I have ever read. In my mind he is certainly on the right track in detecting the life-situation addressed in this important epistle. It is consoling to find that amid the plethora of writings on the Bible really worthwhile discoveries can still be made. --Raymond E. Brown author of Recent Discoveries and the Biblical World Already an acknowledged expert on 1 Peter, John Elliott here combines New Testament exegesis and a keen knowledge of the Hellenistic world with the emergent sociological analysis of the New Testament. Elliott has produced a fascinating statement on the broad social setting and religious meaning of an important but often overlooked piece of early Christian literature. It is clearly a significant methodological statement which has ramifications beyond a study of 1 Peter. --John R. Donahue, SJ author of The Gospel in Parable The power of this book lies in its demonstration of how we move from philology and literary studies to history and sociological reconstruction. Elliott is the first to show that from the meanings of words and their theology we are able to draw insight in the social reality, therefore relevance, of an important religious text from Judeo-Christian antiquity. The book is a methodological model, but also a tour de force of intellect and imagination. --Jacob Neusner author of Rabbinic Literature and the New Testament Attempts to look through the New Testament texts into the lives of real human communities of the past received a significant boost with the first publication of A Home for the Homeless. Elliott's work has had a central and provocative role in the debate that has grown and matured during the subsequent decade and which continues vigorously What are the appropriate ways of using methods of the social sciences to understand texts from antiquity? --Wayne A. Meeks author of The First Urban Christians John H. Elliott is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at the University of San Francisco. He is also the author of 'The Elect and the Holy, ' 'What Is Social-Scientific Criticism?, ' and '1 Peter' (Anchor Bible).

342 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2005

About the author

Sir John Huxtable Elliott, FBA, was an English historian, Regius Professor Emeritus at the University of Oxford and Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge. He published under the name J.H. Elliott.

Elliott was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was an assistant lecturer at Cambridge University from 1957 to 1962 and Lecturer in History from 1962 until 1967, and was subsequently Professor of History at King's College, London between 1968 and 1973. In 1972 he was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy. Elliott was Professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey from 1973 to 1990, and was Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford between 1990 and 1997.

He held honorary doctorates from the Autonomous University of Madrid (1983), the universities Genoa (1992), Portsmouth (1993), Barcelona (1994), Warwick (1995), Brown University (1996), Valencia (1998), Lleida (1999), Complutense University of Madrid (2003), College of William & Mary (2005), London (2007), Charles III University of Madrid (2008), Seville (2011), Alcalá (2012), and Cambridge (2013). Elliott is a Fellow of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, of whose Founding Council he was also a member.

Elliott was knighted in the 1994 New Year Honours for services to history and was decorated with Commander of Isabella the Catholic in 1987, the Grand Cross of Alfonso the Wise in 1988, the Grand Cross of Isabella the Catholic in 1996, and the Creu de Sant Jordi in 1999. An eminent Hispanist, he was given the Prince of Asturias Prize in 1996 for his contributions to the Social sciences. For his outstanding contributions to the history of Spain and the Spanish Empire in the early modern period, Elliott was awarded the Balzan Prize for History, 1500–1800, in 1999.

His studies of the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish Empire helped the understanding of the problems confronting 16th- and 17th-century Spain, and the attempts of its leaders to avert its decline. He is considered, together with Raymond Carr and Angus Mackay, a major figure in developing Spanish historiography.