The New Testament in Antiquity: A Survey of the New Testament within its Cultural Contexts
Authors: Gary M. Burge, Lynn H. Cohick, and Gene E. Green
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 9780310244950

Buy: Zondervan; Amazon

I have to admit that I was salivating about this book since I first saw the author interview posted on Zondervan’s Koinonia blog. I would like to extend my gratitude to the good folks of Zondervan for sending an advance review copy my way. There is so much in this survey of the New Testament that is right up my alley, though there are some perspectives included that have me wondering whether they’d be deal breakers when it comes to assigning it as a textbook.

The book itself is beautiful. The cover. The pages. The pictures. It certainly has one of the nicest “feels” of most any book on my shelf. The layout is great for students. The chapters are not that long, designed to be read in no more than a 20 minute sitting so it is easier for students to read the New Testament texts themselves alongside it (if the students read any of the required readings at all). Complicated and abstract topics are made more tangible and accessible through charts and pictures. The photos themselves are not generic shots of “the ancient world,” but rather pertinent to the discussion at hand. Shots of mikvehs and pools help with considerations of ritual washing and baptism. Diagrams of tombs with rolling stone entrances demonstrate the sort of tomb that might have been used for Jesus. One of the treats of the book is in the expertise of one of its authors, Gene Green, in numismatics (the study of coins). The eye-catching shot on the cover declares “Iudea capta” minted shortly after the Jewish War in the first century, with a Roman soldier standing over a Jewish slave. Reading through, students can recognize the importance of coins as propaganda. In general, the photos open up the cultural world of the New Testament texts in stimulating ways.

Side boxes are provided with helpful charts, such as a historical outlines of the Herod family or lists related to Roman rule of Judea. One chart suggests links between Paul’s ethical teachings in Romans and those of Jesus (333). Other boxes give us important passages from the era, such as “Cicero and Seneca on Clients” or an inscription on Rufina, a woman synagogue leader.

Sequence of Chapters. If you’d like, you can view the table of contents for yourself in the sample PDF on Zondervan’s website. Generally speaking, the book opens with several chapters discussing the various contexts of the New Testament era. Within these chapters, you find an historical overview of the Hellenistic era, the Secleucids, the Romans, etc. You have geographical discussions of Judea and the surrounding areas. Various groups (Josephus’ four groups, scribes, Samaritans, Herodians), important cultural items (Jerusalem temple, Sanhedrin, villages and synagogues), and Jewish literature (Scriptures, Pseudepigrapha, DSS, rabbinic literature, Josephus and Philo) are outlined quite effectively and concisely. There are three chapters on Jesus before actually getting to the chapters on the individual Gospels (hitting the “synoptic problem” complete with charts). The authors provide two background chapters to Paul before getting into the letters themselves, one on the Mediterranean world in which he operated (including information on social institutions like slavery and family, as well as politics, religion, and philosophy in the Greco-Roman world) and one with an overview of important features of Pauline theology and mission (including a brief, but well-written summary of the “New Perspective on Paul”). The remaining books either have their own chapter or, if shorter, are combined with other NT books. A final chapter, “Preservation and Communication of the New Testament,” is an engaging review of textual traditions. This chapter would be quite helpful for the student and could perhaps even be read before the chapters on the specific books to provide perspective.

Perspectives of This Survey. One of the most profound aspects of this particular survey of the New Testament is its rootedness in social history in concert with the evangelicalism of its authors (all Wheaton profs). And so, in this book you will find the interesting combination of a conservative outlook on authorship issues (traditional views of Gospel authors, Paul probably wrote the Pastorals, and John the apostle probably wrote Revelation), on the one hand, and references to the importance of the honor/shame context of these writings and the inclusion of the marginalized, on the other hand.

The former (authorship issues) is what I referred to as a possible deal breaker to me. It is difficult for me to fathom using a textbook that leans towards a traditional viewpoint on authorship. That said, at least they present both sides of the issue. The authors do a decent job of communicating present day scholarship in an accessible manner. Generally speaking, the authors lean on what early church tradition thought about authorship. One exception they make, however, is on the issue of Hebrews. I am left wondering, if we can break with early church tradition on the authorship of Hebrews, why not the Gospels or Revelation? (I know what the response would be regarding the Pastorals: they have a problem calling those letters pseudonymous.) I can appreciate their decision to hold off the discussion of “authorship and date” until the end of each chapter. While perhaps counter-intuitive, it does help to focus the student’s attention upon the message of the texts themselves without getting distracted too much at first with authorship issues (a conservative student audience seems to be assumed). If I had to classify the text, I would say it is on the progressive end of conservative evangelicalism. It is the sort of book that would be good at perhaps easing fundamentalist students out of uber-narrowmindedness to a more reasonably conservative viewpoint.

A Selection of Perspectives. The authenticity of the Gospels are argued based upon the strength of memory in an oral culture transmitting oral traditions of Jesus’ teachings. Women find a good hearing as they are highlighted as leaders of synagogues and within early Pauline communities. On the downside, while they use a box (page 334) to highlight the women of Romans 16 and they recognize Junia is a woman, they suggest that she is “well known even among the apostles”  (rather than being “outstanding among the apostles” as their preferred TNIV translation has it).

On the other hand, they explicitly put the Ephesians household code under the banner of Ephesians 5:21 ( “submit to one another” ; pg 345). The authors also put comments about women in 1 Tim 2 in context with the women of Rom 16, Euodia and Syntyche (Phil 4), Lydia, and Priscilla: “Paul’s churches, then, had men and women leading, teaching, and making decisions in the church” (369). Why stick to the (new) conservative stance on Junia? As far as I can tell, the role of women in Jesus’ ministry seems to be neglected (There is a short paragraph on page 134). The index, which is generally lacking, has no entry for women. From comments made by Lynn Cohick in the video interview, I expected more on women in the text–on the other hand, it is more than other conservative evangelical textbooks.

The authors’ section, “The Implications of the Gospel” (265), in the chapter on Paul’s life and teachings reviews the social implications of Paul’s teachings (including for women, ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and discusses Paul’s future orientation towards the parousia (they provide a quotation from Josephus on Vespasian’s entry into Rome to put the parousia into some context, 286). These (social concerns and apocalyptic eschatology) are a few of my favorite things.

Though the bibliographies and footnotes are sparse so as to remain accessible, members (and friends) of the Context Group may be happy to find themselves well represented among the citations (particularly among the chapters on historical and cultural contexts). The authors do not shy away from Jesus’ message to people on the margins of society, though they could have made a more direct correlation between that sort of teaching and Mediterranean honor/shame culture. They do have a box entitled “A Challenge to Honor” (206) in the chapter on Luke, but they emphasize Jesus’ attempt to gain honor, not his honor-challenging teachings (e.g., “the first shall be last”). Other frequently cited authors include a mix of folks like Dunn and Wright with folks like Blomberg and Bock. (I will try to stay out of trouble and leave the phrase “folks like” undefined.)

Krister Stendahl’s “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of he West” receives explicit attention (!) at the end of the chapter on Romans (334). The authors summarize its contents in a mostly positive manner and quite accessibly.

The chapter on Revelation discusses a variety of different approaches, but you’d think a book on the “cultural contexts” of the New Testament “in antiquity” would give more discussion to the preterist approach than a meager two paragraphs ( “futurist” receives five paragraphs). They seem to portray most positively an “eclectic” position on Revelation that combines various views in some manner.

Conclusion. This book is an outstanding work. As mentioned, it rests in the conservative evangelical camp in the areas of authorship and authenticity of historical sources. It pushes the boundaries of conservative evangelicalism in a progressive direction, however, in its inclusion of social issues as prominent. Even where it shares its most conservative perspectives, it will share the views of “some scholars” who hold differing views (and they do so without getting polemical). If I were to use this as a textbook, I would warn the students of the generally conservative viewpoint. I would probably supplement the reading with in-class discussions on the complications of authorship. I would also point out some of my differing opinions (such as with Junia) or where I don’t feel they made important connections explicit enough (such as with honor/shame and the counter-cultural teachings of Jesus). It might be interesting to combine this survey with something like Bart Ehrman’s survey to get discussion going.

Despite my hesitations, I say, snatch it up! It is bound to be a dominant standard survey textbook for years to come.

The book is making its way around the blogosphere. The only other review I see so far is from Nijay Gupta, but a review is yet to come from Nick Norelli. Matthew Montonini has an interview with co-author Gary Burge and Mike Bird makes mention of the book. I look forward to reading other folks’ reviews.