The “Unfading Crown of Glory” as Conceptual Key

Abstract

This article seeks to offer a new reading of 1 Peter, while building upon the work of Barth L. Campbell, Travis B. Williams, and David G. Horrell (and others of course). Campbell sought to elucidate the importance of honor for the audience of 1 Peter utilizing Rhetorical Criticism, while both Williams and Horrell have employed Postcolonial Criticism to provide a reading “from the margins.” Specifically, Williams offered an interpretation of “good works” which situated that semantic and conceptual domain within subaltern strategies of mimicry and symbolic inversion. However, heretofore largely unexplored in 1 Peter is that aspect of the honor equation which actualizes honor: the honorific. This study argues that “the unfading crown of glory” in 1 Pet 5:4 serves as a conceptual key to the subversive honorific language within, thereby actualizing (and subverting) the broader theme of honor through the recognition of “good works.”