THE ECONOMICS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN RHETORIC: THE CASE OF THE SECOND PETRINE EPISTLE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

The aim of this paper is to elaborate an evaluative framework of religious choice within the early Christian communities as viewed in the narrative world of a New Testament Epistle 2 Peter. Drawing on an economic approach to moral dilemmas identified in this narrative context, the work concentrates on the stances, attitudes and social practices of deviant members who engaged in free-riding within early Christian congregations and were exposed to serious self-control problems. In our attempt to employ economic theories of religion, we are in a position to better assess the efficiency of early Christian responses to the entry of competing groups in the religious market of this era, as well as to identify and explore the sort of criteria that determine the intertemporal choices of distinct religious actors.