This past summer I was digging into some methodological issues (hence, my Social Identity Theory post) and I realized something. Even though my advisor, S. Scott Bartchy, is a long-time member of the Context Group, I had never really dealt with the knock-down, drag-out fight going on between those who call themselves “social historians” and those who call themselves “social-scientific interpreters” in biblical studies and New Testament studies in particular.

In case you haven’t heard of this battle, or it sounds as bewildering to you as it does to me, let me introduce the issue. Basically, the debate comes down to how strictly one should follow social-scientific models in addressing the social concerns of early Christ-confessing communities. On the one hand, you have the social historians who generally adopt a more “eclectic” approach a la Wayne Meeks:

In short, the application of social science in the following chapters is eclectic. I take my theory piecemeal, as needed, where it fits. This pragmatic approach will be distasteful to the purist; its effect will be many rough edges and some inconsistencies.

(The First Urban Christians, 6)

There is much talk of Clifford Geertz (a cultural anthropologist, by the way) and his use of “thick description” ethnographic analysis — this is where the subjective (read: messy) cultural context takes precedence over formal and precise models — such is seen as the key methodological approach for social historians.

Many of the social-scientific interpreters believe that the eclectic approach is sloppy. Bruce Malina is most highly associated with this view. In fact, you might think in terms of two classic representative works, Meeks’ First Urban Christians (originally published 1981) on the social history side and Malina’s seminal The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (orig. 1981) on the social science side. Malina has argued for strict boundaries around what might be considered “social scientific criticism.” He has said:

[T]here are in fact two in fact two main differences between social historians and social scientists. The first is that the social historian’s conceptualizations are invariably implicit, arbitrary, and unsystematic, while the social-scientific interpreter’s are explicit and systematic. The second is the social historian’s tendency to evade, as far as possible, the theoretical issues that underpin historiography, because what historians consider to be sources usually provide them a loose narrative pattern to which the facts can be related. In other words, social historians prefer not to deal with the underlying structures and cultural value orientations; rather, their concern is with so-called events and personalities, which are usually more sharply delineated in historical records (narratives) than in the materials social- scientific interpretation uses.

(“Social Scientific Methods in Historical Jesus Research,” in The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels, 16 n. 2)

Malina is not alone. Philip Esler, for example, has had some more harsh words regarding social history:

It has, indeed, proved something of a dead end. . . . Social history has become, in effect, a form of empiricism, whose practitioners regularly employ concepts such as ‘kinship,’ ‘identity,’ ‘ethnicity,’ and so on without subjecting these ideas to the social-scientific modeling they require for clarity of application.

(“Social-Scientific Models in Biblical Interpretation,” in Ancient Israel, 13)

In response to these and other critiques, the “social historians” carry on their work and feel that the “social scientific interpreters” are taking their models too seriously, reifying what are essentially scholarly constructs. Meeks has said recently:

“Our theories and our models are our constructions, whether they are cast in theological language or in the language of experimental or observational science. In the search for truth, they are tools, nothing more, to be prized and carefully honed so long as they work, but remade or discarded when they do not.”

(“Taking Stock and Moving On,” in After the First Urban Christians, 136)

The thing is, though, Esler and others wouldn’t disagree with this. Everybody is saying that these models are purely heuristic. That’s why it seems to me that this is a matter of emphasis and style. And here I sit (I know I’m not alone) thinking, “Why can’t we all just get along?” It seems to me that visualizing a chasm between one group (“social historians”) and another (“social scientific interpreters”) is entirely unhelpful. Instead, why not speak of a wide swath of various types of studies addressing the ancient Mediterranean social world, and biblical studies in particular, which includes within it greatly diverse ways of tackling the questions? It seems that constructing social boundaries around groups of scholars working on similar issues is counterproductive. There is after all, diversity within both “groups,” and overlap between them, such that it is really inaccurate to speak of two distinct, monolithic entities — anyone else see the irony as applied to Christian origins? I’m not the first to suggest these things (see esp. David Horrell), but I’ll write more in a followup post a bit later.

Giving my first paper presentation at the national meeting for SBL, I felt a bit like Napoleon Dynamite trying to work out at Muscle Beach. After going through with the presentation, I now understand the shocked stares I got from some people when they heard I would be giving a paper at SBL as a mere second year Ph.D. student.

My paper was accepted into the Construction of Christian Identities program unit, which has been around for six years. I had never attended the group’s sessions in the past, but it seemed perhaps the most appropriate one for the paper I hoped to submit last winter. As it happens, my paper was good, but not exactly the sort of thing they usually do. I hadn’t engaged social identity theory in the paper at all. So, maybe not as appropriate for the group as I had first thought.

When I first discovered that I would be presenting on Tuesday morning (the last day of the conference), and competing with Hans Dieter Betz at that, I was disappointed. No one would be there. Upon reflection, however, I realized that this was the perfect opportunity for my first foray into presenting at the big show. I could get my feet wet without having to deal with the stormy waters of a room packed with highly experienced scholars.

There were seven people around for my presentation and five still there for the discussion time after three presentations. There were some clearly solid scholars who are rooted within identity theory. The explicit feedback I received from my paper was that I need to be more specific about the “other” to which I refer in my paper. My problem on that point is that my texts are not quite as specific about the “other” as I would like. But if a group is to construct an identity, the assumption seems to be that they must construct that identity contra some other group. In other words, identity construction apparently demands an “other.” The implicit vibe I got was that, for this group, I need to move beyond textual analysis and move more into the realm of social theory. This is something I was already feeling beforehand.

I left the session feeling very much the rookie in methodological theory. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Scholarship consists of baby steps, especially for a scholarly peon like me. The greatest motivator I could ever have is a reminder of my own inadequacies, a reminder that I have a looooong intellectual road ahead of me. This gives me something to strive for.

My objective, then, is to dive headfirst into my method. I find the rising field of social identity fascinating enough that I am now dedicated to immersing myself in identity theory. I will continue to pursue participation in this group of outstanding scholars and learn from my experience.

One positive note I should mention, though, is that introducing a paper with a Monty Python quote is a very good idea. I mean, really, what have the Romans ever done for us?

I am often frustrated by arguments from silence. The following quote is an example of what is, to me, bewildering logic. The topic is the dating of James and the author would like to argue for an early dating by James the Just himself:

James’s lack of any mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, though an argument from silence, does seem to support an early date. The destruction of Jerusalem was a highly significant event for the Jews. James, a Jewish author, writing to a Jewish audience, the twelve tribes who were dispersed (James 1:1), and writing a letter with Jewish concepts, would likely mention the destruction of Jerusalem, especially if he was writing after the city was destroyed. If James wrote after A.D. 70, some of his readers could have been present at the destruction of Jerusalem.

The letter of James also does not mention the life, death (possible and debatable exception is 5:11), or resurrection of Jesus. Presumably the author is writing after these events, which would have been important for the author’s audience. It seems to me that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are quite a bit more relevant and more likely to be mentioned by the author than the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. By the way, Jerusalem itself was not destroyed in 70 CE, but the Temple was.