This is the first draft of a review destined for Neotestamentica. Naturally, it needs to be shortened but it contains so much good stuff for social-scientific scholars/students I thought I would publish it here.
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NEYREY, Jerome H. and STEWART, Eric C. (eds), The Social World of the New Testament: Insights and Models. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59856-128-9. xviii + 295 pp.
The Context Group has made a significant impact on biblical studies through social-scientific criticism, making us aware that the bible and related texts were products of their own day, subject to the social dynamics, values and institutions that also helped to shape its message. This is critically important to avoid anachronism and ethnocentrism, especially if we accept as a responsibility the duty to recover the original meaning of the texts. This volume, edited by Jerome H. Neyrey and Eric C. Stewart, represents social-scientific criticism having come of age, where concepts and models have been refined over several years of research. All the chapters in this volume have also been subject to peer review on two previous occasions, first in meetings of the assembled Context Group, and second, when published in journals or in chapters in books. Now we have the benefit of having these previously published articles/chapters collected in this volume, representing some of the finest work of some the scholars associated with the Context Group.
The volume consists of four main parts. Part 1: Social-Scientific Criticism (chap. 1); Part 2: Institutions (chaps. 2-4); Part 3: Culture (chaps. 5-13); and Part 4: Modal Personality (chap. 14). An introduction by the editors to every chapter helps the reader to prepare for the material to follow. The volume also contains nineteen illustrations and figures to help the reader, and apart from the contributions of the editors, also contain indexes of modern authors, subjects, and ancient sources for easy reference.
Chapter 1, titled “Rhetorical Criticism and Social-Scientific Criticism: Why Won’t Romanticism Leave Us Alone?”, author Bruce J. Malina sets the scene for the aims and purposes of social-scientific criticism, which “has as its goal to find out what an initial audience understood when it heard some person read a given [New Testament] document aloud” (p. 6). What this requires is knowledge of the social system of the particular group, and to appreciate that meanings (of texts/language) are inseparable from socially shared conceptions. So what then, about the usefulness of rhetorical criticism? (Malina’s focus appears to be on the interest in how people persuade one another.) Malina argues that contemporary (literary) rhetorical criticism (Malina also throws form criticism and the historical-critical method into the mix) is a residue of the reaction to the Enlightenment known as “Romanticism”, which is steeped in subjectivism. As such, subjective and individual experience, rather than “objective” knowledge of the ancient Mediterranean social world of meaning is (unknowingly) brought into the interpretation of texts. The reader “must share with the writer a scenario of how the world works … Patterns of persuasion are always rooted in patterns of social interaction” (p. 16, 19). Overall Malina’s point is well taken, although he at times expects much of his readers to follow his argument and what he understands as rhetorical criticism may not be shared by all. If you feel a bit lost at times, the table that summarizes the differences between social-scientific and literary (= rhetorical?) criticism (p. 18) may come to the rescue.
Chapter 2, titled “All in the Family: Kinship in Agrarian Roman Palestine” is a contribution by K.C. Hanson. Kinship, Hanson explains, was the primary social domain that affected all social relationships, institutions and values. It was a matter so taken for granted, it was often left implicit. Hanson gives concise descriptions of how kinship was influenced by gender (roles of males and females; gender and space), genealogy and descent (that established certain rights and social statuses), marriage and divorce, inheritance, followed by a short study of Jesus’ family in the gospels. For Hanson, there is a lot of uncertainty about Jesus’ origins and the nature of the relationship to his family (p. 43). He adduces the reason of the divergent reports to the oral nature of ancestries/genealogies for (illiterate) peasant families. But whatever the exact circumstances, the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke functioned to establish Jesus’ ascribed honor, and “the genealogies for Jesus ascribe important origins to him based upon his achievements during his adult lifetime” (p. 44). The Gospel of John (and Hebrews) gives “theological” import to Jesus’ origins, while our earliest sources (Q, Paul, Mark, Hanson also includes the Gospel of Thomas) make no claims for the ascribed honor of Jesus’ family lineage. The genealogies, however, also reflect other interests. Matthew’s genealogy speaks to Judeans with its emphasis on Israel’s glorious ancestors, especially Abraham and David, while Luke points to Jesus’ significance for non-Israelites by beginning with Adam.
In chapter 3, “God in the Letter of James: Patron or Benefactor?”, Alicia Batten argues that in contrast to the patron-client institution, God is depicted in the Letter of James as a benefactor. Whereas the patron-client relationship was characterized as an enduring exchange of goods and services between social unequals, sometimes even hypocritically described as “friendship”, benefaction, something she argues needs to be distinguished from patronage, is characterized by a lack of self-interest. The subtle differences between patronage and benefaction she also demonstrates from Greek and Roman sources. Biblical (especially wisdom) literature often use the language of benefaction to describe God. In the Letter of James, therefore, we find an opposition to patronage, especially in its discrimination between (flattery of) the rich and (ill-treatment of) the poor (cf James 2:1-13). James achieves this by his language of friendship and representing God as a generous friend and benefactor of the community. Yet this kind of benefaction must also be demonstrated through mutual aid in the community.
Chapter 4, “Jesus and Agrarian Palestine: The Factor of Debt”, is an investigation into the social dynamic of debt in early Roman Palestine by Douglas E. Oakman. Looking at various Greek and Roman sources, Oakman explains that debt could function to cement bonds of friendship and political relations, but for “little people” it mostly functioned as a brutal compulsion and form of oppression. Closely related to the distribution of land, Tacitus (Ann. 2.42), Josephus (e.g. Wars 2.427; 4.508; 7.61; Life 38), and the Mishnah (m.Seb. 10:3) give evidence of debt in Roman Palestine through repeated requests for relief of tax burdens, Hillel’s prozbul, and popular unrest before 70 C.E., while population pressure can be inferred from the archeological evidence. Oakman suggests that three levels of taxation (priests; Herodians; procurators) burdened the producers. Oakman also offers a model on p. 73 to illustrate the pressures imposed by debt on the lower strata in Palestine. If normal rents and taxes were not difficult enough, natural disasters and greed could also lead to debt and foreclosure, and this entire dynamic led to an increasing level of tenant farmers and the landless class. How did socio-economic concerns, then, feature in the ministry and message of Jesus (pp. 75-80)? Oakman’s survey of debt in the Gospels, especially within the parables (Matt 18:23-35; 5:25//Luke12:58; Luke 16:1-9), highlights the aspect of debt forgiveness, a revolutionary slogan in agrarian antiquity. The petition for forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer Oakman also argues refers to the horizontal “earthly shackles of indebtedness” (p. 80). This interpretation, Oakman suggests, is supported by the fact that Jesus’ message appealed in particular to the landless (beggars, prostitutes, tax collectors, etc). His vision of liberation coming with the reign of God directly attacked a principal element of the Roman order in Palestine. The abolition of debt was in itself a revolutionary and subversive agenda.
In Chapter 5, “Loss of Wealth, Loss of Family, Loss of Honor: The Cultural Context of the Original Markasrisms in Q”, Jerome H. Neyrey offers a study into the honor-shame dynamic in Q. Honor (fame, reputation, worth/worthiness, respect, praise) referred to the value of a person in his own eyes and in the eyes of his society and attached to social groups, especially the family, and was the most important value in the ancient world. Neyrey brings this into connection with the four markarisms in Q 6:20-22. At first he explains that “poor” (ptochos) refers to a beggar, which in addition to its economic meaning, also carried cultural and social import. Honor was intimately connected to (the public display of) wealth and the family (therefore ancestry, genealogy, clan, parents). Loss of family meant loss of wealth and honor. Also, makarios forms part of the lexical field of “honor and shame”. The hypothesis Neyrey advances is as follows: “[T]he original four markarisms describe the composite fate of a disciple who has been ostracized as a ‘rebellious son’ by his family for loyalty to Jesus. This ostracism results in total loss of all economic support from the family … and total loss of honor and status in the eyes of the village … Jesus proclaims them ‘honorable’” (p. 92). Neyrey’s arguments are convincing, and he substantiates it by looking at other passages in Q that reflect conflict or division within the family (Q 12:51-53; 14:25-26) or loss of wealth (Q 12:22-32; 12:33-34). Neyrey’s concise summary on pp. 99-101 neatly encapsulate the social predicament of Jesus’ (male) disciples, a loyalty that proved to be very costly, at least for some. It also brings to the surface that the family was a primary source of “persecution”.
Chapter 6 is authored by John H. Elliott and is titled, “The Epistle of James in Rhetorical and Social-Scientific Perspective: Holiness-Wholeness and Patterns of Replication”. For Elliott within the rhetorical structure of the letter the main theme of completeness and wholeness, as well as their opposites (division and fragmentation) is stated at the beginning (James 1:3-4). Throughout the body of the letter fragmented and divisive behaviour is countered by exhortations to wholeness and holiness (pp. 106-108). Elliott therefore argues that James, when addressing fragmentation and wholeness, “invokes traditional distinctions of purity and pollution to press for a restoration of holiness and wholeness of the Christian community and a reinforcement of its distinctive ethos” (p. 106). Elliott then gives an overview of purity and pollution in social-scientific perspective (pp. 108-111) and persuasively sets out how it applies to James (pp. 111-119). Purity/pollution schemes, which played a dominant role in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity, contrast order, wholeness, integrity, perfection, the holy and the sacred with their antitheses. It contrasts order versus social pollution or things that are out of place. The order operates on various levels that mirror each other, namely, the personal body, the social body, and the cosmos. For Israel purity meant wholeness, distinctiveness, and union with God. In contrast to the priestly conception of purity which saw that roles and statuses were determined by descent, in first-century C.E. Judaism more focus was placed on human intention and performance, of which the Epistle of James is an example. James, when addressing a mixed community of different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, wants to restore wholeness (holiness) on a personal, social and cosmic level “with respect to personal integrity, communal solidarity, and religious commitment” (p. 118). A table on p. 119 also neatly summarizes Elliott’s study of James’ contrast of wholeness and fragmentation.
In another contribution, Douglas E. Oakman investigates the social location of Jesus. In chapter 7, “Was Jesus a Peasant? Implications for Reading the Jesus Tradition (Luke 10:30-35)”, by using the parable of the Good (Oakman: “Foolish”) Samaritan, he argues that Jesus is best seen as a peasant artisan and that he spoke to at least some of the interests of fellow peasant villagers, although not always agreeing with them. He defines the peasantry as rural, and forced to give agricultural (or other economic) surplus to an outside group of powerholders – they have very little control over their political and economic situation (p. 127). In interpreting the story of the Good (“Foolish”) Samaritan, Oakman brings attention to social banditry, and that the peasantry would have considered bandits as heroes standing for justice denied by the system. The Samaritan was a merchant or trader, and so a double affront to Israelite peasants. Inns had notorious reputations for being primitive, noisy and dirty, and so Jesus’ peasant audience would have understood the Samaritan’s help as placing him in a worse position. So the Samaritan was a cultural enemy, evil because he was a trader, and a fool, because he treats a stranger like family. He was also unsavvy about the situation at the inn. He can hardly be called “good”, rather “foolish”. “Would not peasants have laughed all the way through Jesus’ story?”, Oakman asks (p. 135). But what does the parable mean? Oakman tentatively suggests the following: Jesus uses outside threats to peasants (bandits, commerce, the inn) as a positive metaphor for the kingdom. Jesus sees promise where others see challenge. God’s reign is likened to the actions of a hated foreigner of despised social occupation and revealed in the wilds of bandits and inns. God’s generosity (grace) is enormous, folly, and dangerous, and found in unlikely places. So the parable is not an example story, but functions as a parable of reversal. Peasant villagers (also the governing elites) must overcome some of their own prejudices. “The kingdom [of God] is total social challenge and transformation” (p. 137). Oakman’s interpretation needs to tie up some loose ends, but it leads us into new and exciting directions nevertheless.
Chapter 8, titled “The Social Location of the Markan Audience”, is an investigation by Richard L. Rohrbaugh. He works on the assumption that Mark was written in a village or small town in southern Syria or Transjordan or upper Galilee. In such a rural setting rates of literacy were very low (2-4 percent) in agrarian societies, and fear of writing existed widely as tools of deception for the elite. One must not therefore expect that Mark’s audience would have made connections between various parts of the narrative, or that they were able to catch sophisticated literary allusions (p. 144). Rohrbaugh also explains that a fundamental feature of agrarian societies was social stratification (see model of Palestine on p. 146) and he then offers an overview of the various social classes and how they are represented in Mark (pp. 145-156). Rohrbaugh at first contrasts the “Great Tradition” of the social urban elite (highest-ranking military officers, ranking priestly families, Herodians and other ranking aristocratic families), with the “Little Tradition” of the lower classes, and he explains that the two social groupings had little in common. The evidence in Mark demonstrates that all of Jesus’ opponents, scribes featuring prominently, come from the urban elite or their retainers. Pharisees are key actors in the retainer class who compete with Jesus for influence among the nonelite. Mark also features a high number of urban nonelite (the degraded, unclean, and expendables) that is surprising for they formed a small percentage of the overall population. Rural peasants, which formed 90 percent of the population, were involved in “primary” industries such as farming. Overall, Mark “accurately re-creates the sharply stratified peasant society” (p. 156). But what was the social level of Mark’s audience? The boundary language of Mark vis-à-vis the social elite indicates that Jesus repeatedly violated purity rules and his contact with the unclean demonstrated that marginal and unclean Israelites as well as Gentiles were welcome in the people of God. Rohrbaugh suggests that very few peasants could maintain the Great Tradition (ritual purity and dietary laws, Sabbath observance, etc) so Jesus’ own behaviour would have been nothing out of the ordinary. The way Jesus therefore behaved and his emphasis on an internal purity (that also functioned as a defense of Mark’s community) is therefore a “statement that purity before God is possible within the limits of a peasant way of life” (p. 158).
Chapter 9, authored by S. Scott Bartchy, is titled “Who Should Be Called ‘Father’? Paul of Tarsus between the Jesus Tradition and Patria Potestas”, and is a study on gender, especially Jesus and Paul’s challenge to filial piety and the authority of fathers. Bartchy explains that the system of patriarchy ensured that a boy was raised to be aggressive, “to demonstrate self-mastery, and not only to look forward to being served by his wife, children, and slaves, but also to expect deference from other males” (p. 166). Jesus challenged the Israelite system of filial piety and the authority (and honor) of fathers (e.g. Matthew 10:34-37; 8:22; Luke 9:60; 14:26), and required a redefinition of three related concepts: power, honor and family. In the imitation of God, domination must be replaced by the empowerment of others. “Part of the good news is that there are no fathers but God in Jesus’ vision”, and “Jesus’ most startling challenge to patriarchal authority is found in Matthew [23:9] …” (p. 169). Paul also sought in a variety of ways to put into effect Jesus’ strategy, and Bartchy offers an overview of 1 Corinthians 6-7 where Paul takes no account of the rights of fathers/husbands – he addresses each member as independent decision makers (pp. 170-172). Paul in his surrender of privileges and his various exhortations also demonstrate antipatriarchal behavior, where the “strong” are measured by their willingness to empower the “weak” (e.g. 1 Corinthians 4:12-16; 12:24-25). 1 Corinthians 4:15-16, where Paul refers to himself as “your father”, refers to his nonauthoritarian and nonretaliatory response to his life experiences. This rejection of partriarchal authority and domination, shared by Jesus and Paul, and which should not be confused for egalitarianism, plays out in a surrogate family and values of sibling kinship, where honor is attained through serving (not competing), and authentic power is demonstrated by empowerment (not control) of others (p. 178).
Chapter 10 is another contribution by Jerome H. Neyrey. Focusing on space it is titled “’Teaching You in Public and from House to House’ (Acts 20:20): Unpacking a Cultural Stereotype”. Neyrey explains Acts 20:20 sets out space as public and private, while also containing speech, that is, who may speak what, when, where, to whom, and for what purpose. His study then proceeds to explain a model of “territoriality”, to survey emic descriptions in Greco-Roman literature on public/private, and who has a voice in either space. “Territoriality” looks at classification, communication of that classification, and control of the place classified. What Neyery founds in the ancient texts are various classifications of public/private space for males. There is the public/political, and private space has two subsets: nonpolitical but nonhousehold, and household space (pp. 185-188, 197). Alongside this is the classification of space as honorable/nonhonorable, which also stand in relation to roles of males and females. In Paul’s description in Acts 20:20 therefore, we read “the broadest classification of space – that is, (1) political-civic space as well as (2) male private space, such as the synagogue, and (3) household-private space” (p. 189). But where does Luke typically locate Paul? Neyrey’s review of Acts leads him to conclude that Paul has a voice in (honorable) public Greco-Roman (political) space and in private household space, but is denied in Israelite public (temple) space and private (synagogue) space (p. 193, 196-197). Luke therefore represents Paul as treated as an honorable person in the cities of the Greek East, and when Acts 20:20 refers to “public” it means residences of governors, kings and city centers, and “house to house” denote private household space used for assembly.
Chapter 11 is a study on healing by John J. Pilch titled “Healing in Luke-Acts”. He uses cross-cultural concepts of sickness and healing and looks at the health care system and taxonomy of illness in Luke-Acts. He cautions that readers of the Bible must not impose observations of Western culture of health and sickness, healing and curing on the biblical period, and indeed, medical anthropology refers to it as “medicocentrism”, as if “scientific Western medicine is the only truth relative to questions of health and sickness” (p. 203). Focusing on the term illness, it refers to a socio-cultural perspective that depends on the social and personal perception of socially disvalued states (which may, or may not include what modern Western science would recognize as disease). Healing provides personal and social meaning for life problems, and so, “modern readers of the Gospels might be taking a hopeless and even misguided approach if they concentrate on issues of disease and curing” (p. 205). So healing is not the same as curing in the technical sense. Pilch then discusses the professional, popular and folk sectors of health care in Luke-Acts (pp. 205-211). Luke portrays Jesus as an anointed, spirit-filled, exorcising-and-healing prophet of the community, and the latter’s general acceptance and acknowledgement of him sets Jesus in the folk sector of the health care system (although he also features in the other two sectors). Pilch then looks at the taxonomy of illness (the identification, classification, and clustering of illness into culturally meaningful categories) and its application to Luke-Acts, investigating spirit involvement, the three symbolic body zones, and purity and impurity (pp. 211-216). Pilch suggests that impurity can be an all-encompassing category for explaining illnesses, for Jesus’ therapeutic activity restores afflicted persons to purity or wholeness (= health), and so restored to full and active membership in God’s community.
John H. Elliott makes another contribution in chapter 12, “Paul, Galatians, and the Evil Eye”, in view of Galatians 3:1. He notes that the world of antiquity was seen as inhabited by demons and humans with extraordinary powers that threatened life, a world filled with mysterious forces of magic, witchcraft, and the evil eye. The evil eye in particular referred to the belief that a god, animal, demons or individuals (especially strangers/outsiders, social deviants, physically disabled/deformed and blind persons) can cast an evil spell on anything they look at, causing injury, or the destruction of life or health, livelihood, honor or personal fortune. One of the root causes for this evil stare was envy. There were protective measures as well (e.g. apotropaic amulets, bullae, spitting, and various hand gestures), the underlying principle being homeopathic magic and similia similibus (“like against like”). In evil-eye cultures and close-knit communities evil-eye accusations against outsiders or opponents are commonplace to demarcate social boundaries, maintain social well-being, to discredit the honor and credibility of opponents, to marshal public opinion against them, and so to ostracize persons as social deviants (pp. 226-227). In Galatians 3:1 Paul writes: “O foolish Galatians, who has injured you with the evil eye …?” Elliott detects several instances of evil-eye language and nuances in Galatians (e.g. 4:12-18), and suggests Paul is “parrying an evil-eye accusation directed against him with a counteraccusation leveled against his opponents” who “sought to discredit him personally by stressing his unusual physical appearance and its negative moral implications” (p. 229). This study of Elliott is both engaging and convincing, and also brings to the surface how Paul acknowledged and defended his strange physical appearance.
Chapter 13, “‘He Must Increase, I Must Decrease’ (John 3:30): A Cultural and Social Interpretation” looks at the notion of “limited good” and its relationship to envy and the agonistic world of antiquity. Jerome H. Neyrey and Richard L. Rohrbaugh note that John’s statement (John 3:30) was quite foreign to Mediterranean culture. John 3:22-30 lays out a controversy between John the Baptist’s disciples and Jesus (and his disciples) and how the former’s worth diminishes while Jesus’ reputation grows. Yet John himself does not see the situation in terms of limited good. He will not engage in envy and already announced that his purpose was to herald Jesus (John 1:15, 26-27, 30). Hence his most countercultural statement recorded in John 3:30. The notion of limited good has to do with peasants seeing that all good things in the world exist only in finite and limited quantities. Any advantage achieved by a person or family is regarded as a loss to others. Social relationships are dependent on maintaining what you have and avoiding the perception of gaining more. If this balance is not achieved it leads to envy. On pp. 240-246 the authors give a host of examples of what they see as evidence for “limited good” in antiquity, which especially focus on the primary value of “honor”. It must be said, however, not all the samples they refer to are convincing, but according to them the idea of “limited good” is “implied” (see also summary and table of examples on p. 246). This is followed by them setting out the relationship between “limited good” and envy (pp. 246-249). The authors then place John 3:22-30 in its cultural context where the Baptist stops the spiral of envy. The authors remark: “Rarely does one find in Greek or Israelite literature a public figure who willingly and peacefully allows his honor and prestige to diminish without envy and hostile reaction” (p. 250).
Chapter 14 looks at modal personality, contrasting the individualist society of “modern Americans” with the “group orientated/collectivist” societies of the modern and ancient Middle East. Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey’s study, “Ancient Mediterranean Persons in Cultural Perspective: Portrait of Paul”, highlight the character of collectivism, where, inter alia, group goals precede individual goals and where a person is expected to conform to the social and cultural expectations or stereotypes associated with his/her group identity. People see themselves “sociologically” where basic personality derives largely from “generation, geography, and gender, hence from ethnic characteristics that are rooted in the water, soil, and air native to the ethnic group” (p. 259). These dynamics around the person are always concerned with the acquisition of public rewards and honor. Persons are also embedded in various in-groups with varying degrees of loyalty (God, family, fictive family, polis etc). Socialization therefore gives great emphasis to learning the ancestral traditions of the group and the past is held in great esteem and serves as a model for present behaviour. In view of the rhetorical practice of the ancient encomium, the authors contend that Paul “presented himself as the quintessential group-orientated person” (p. 267), although it is not always clear how the encomiastic categories excavated by the authors (pp. 268-273) serve to illustrate this. And certainly, to say that Paul “presented himself as the quintessential group-orientated person” and was “not at all individualistic” (p. 273) is simplifying the evidence. Can this explain his relationship to the Israelite ethnos, even to Israelite followers of Jesus? I don’t think so. But the overall point of Malina and Neyrey is clear and convincing (bearing in mind that their approach needs to be qualified by the admission that there were exceptions to the rule and there were nuances on the collectivism-individualism scale): ancient personalities were group-orientated or collectivist personalities. They were not evaluated in terms if individual psychology. They were anti-introspective and “other made” persons, where being “normal” and “self-awareness” were dependent on being embedded in the correct matrix of relationships.
As a whole this volume represents a powerpack of social-scientific criticism, representing what really good scholarship can achieve. By all means use it, learn from it, and engage with it. In future it needs to be complimented with further research to make more of the social world of the New Testament come to life and to refine existing methods and models. Certainly ethnicity theory and social identity approaches, amongst others, will have much to contribute. But this volume amply demonstrates the necessity and advantages of understanding the New Testament world on its own terms.
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