An analysis of the emotions of anger and fear in the undisputed Pauline letters

Abstract

In the 1980s, in the discipline of Classical studies in the field of Greco-Roman philosophy, the scholars showed renewed interest in the subject of the emotions. The outcome of their research reinstated the cognitive function in emotions. The research also recognised that the values and beliefs in the emotions are culturally conditioned. This outcome opened the possibility of discovering the values of a culture by analysing the emotions. Another outcome of the research showed that the interpretation of a lexical term, designating an emotion, did not necessarily imply the same meaning universally.

The knowledge of the emotions in this discipline influenced numerous branches of academic study. It was noted that this did not apply to New Testament studies and therefore became an opportunity for a research subject, namely: An Analysis of Emotions of Anger and Fear in the Undisputed Pauline letters. The purpose was to determine their meanings within the context of Imperial Roman values. The analysis was based on Aristotle's definition of anger and fear. This approach also required a study of social conditions in the provincial Roman cities in which Paul had formed communities.

The study was dependent on the emotional language used by Paul in his undisputed letters. Louw-Nida New Testament Greek-English Lexicon based on Semantic Domains was used to locate the words that expressed the emotional concepts of anger and fear.

The essence of the research problem was to discover the meaning of the emotions in the undisputed Pauline letters in the first century CE.