CTC Seminar | Women Benefactors in Ekklesia and Cities in Asia Minor

CTC Seminar – Women Benefactors in Ekklesia and Cities in Asia Minor

Presented by Dr Rosemary Canavan

Beginning with the rhetography of the ekklesia (assembly) in the house of a woman as part of the benefaction of the Christ follower communities in Asia Minor, I will engage the social intertexture of women benefactors especially those engaged in minting coins to explore the implications of female benefaction in the wider dynamics of the cities in Asia Minor and their relationship to benefaction within and among the Christ believer communities. In doing this, I also engage the social and cultural texture in understanding the relevance of benefactors in the economic life of the cities and ekklesia. In this way, I engage elements of the SRI (Socio-rhetorical interpretation) in conjunction with numismatic evidence of the first two centuries CE. I will intersect with Lucia Carbone’s economic relevance of benefactors, especially female ones. In doing this, I will examine women benefactors minting coins especially small bronzes that might be used by lower echelons of women and men to purchase household goods and provisions for their own household or ekklesia.

Photo: Baptistery of Church in Laodicea (courtesy of Dr Rosemary Canavan)

Zoom Link: https://divinity.zoom.us/j/88286892100?pwd=swv9ENIaLCr1WrQ41Io15cS9kXADQf.1