Social Currency, Embodiment and Resilience (and/or Resistance). Judaism(s) and the Revelation of John in the Communicative Urban Market of Imperial Asia Minor (1st-2nd cent. C.E.)

This paper aims at demonstrating how the cultural-social structure of the Roman Asia Minor cities (1st-2nd cent. C.E.) should be understood, among other elements, also in light of two distinct but connected elements, i.e. that of media of communication and social currency. In light of such a premise, this essay tries to explore the intersection between embodied ways of communication, social currency and resilience in some honorary inscriptions from Asia Minor, where various «Jews» are mentioned and/or re-called, as well as in the seven letters of John’s Revelation (Rev 2-3), where the opposition between «true» and the «false» Jews/Judaism seems to inform John’s argumentations. In light of epigraphic documents from the Imperial Asia Minor, John’s Revelation emerges as an intra-Jewish reaction, or as a real counter-discourse in response to the Jewish attempt «to storm» the hegemonic communicative market of the Imperial Asia Minor cities.