Is Social-Scientific Research of the Bible Useless?
There is a story I heard recently about a prominent biblical scholar. Though he was not himself into social scientific criticism, he was invited to speak at a panel discussion of a book applying social theory to the Bible. This scholar was surprised to be invited. When he sat on the panel, he shared his honest opinion that there was nothing in this book that he had not thought of himself. He communicated to the audience that social scientific research was useless.
Similarly, I once overheard a scholar who emphasized theological approaches bemoaning his task as an outside reader to a New Testament dissertation. This dissertation spent a chapter discussing a particular social theory that she was using to frame her methodology. This scholar/outside-reader saw this sort of discussion as unimportant to what he considered the real work of biblical studies.
From what I gather, there is a significant population of biblical scholars who are entirely disinterested in social theories as applied to biblical texts. As far as I can tell, this stems from a belief that social theories merely dress up what biblical scholars already know in fancy jargon. On the one hand, point taken. If sociology and social psychology is being pillaged by biblicists merely to “sound new” while not really pushing the field any further, then shame shame.
On the other hand, social theory truly has the potential to raise new questions, frame stale discussions in helpful ways, provide new windows for insights, offer an alternative lens for viewing the social world of texts, etc. Social theory cannot be applied lock, stock, and barrel to ancient texts, of course, but rather serve as heuristic tools — incidentally, when I first learned the word “heuristic” as an undergrad, it took me years to understand what it really meant. Further, though, there are deeper issues here related to interdisciplinary fatigue (a nicer word than “laziness”) and ideology.
I’ll give you the difficulty of dealing with social theory on top of everything else that’s out there. Listen, it has taken me a long time even to begin to understand just one little piece of social theory (i.e., social identity theory). When I started reading literature on the topic, it all seemed like a big confusing cloud of jargon. It’s easy to just toss it aside and not to try to wrestle with it. Heck, New Testament studies may own the widest gap in all of academe between the minute puddle of primary literature and its vast ocean of secondary literature. We have enough to read already.
But to say that there is nothing social theory can tell us feels a bit like the old-fashioned view that “Hey, what’s a shrink going to tell me that I don’t already know?” For years many people wondered (and still do wonder) why talk to a mental health professional [who has spent years studying the intricacies of the human mind and the behaviors associated with it] when my own common sense serves me just fine, thank you very much. Haven’t we figured out yet that these professionals have scientifically-tested ways in which to weed out the crap that we are unable to see and help us through uncharted territory in useful ways? Sociologists and social psychologists are applying scientific techniques to the collective behaviors of groups, communities, ethnicities, societies, etc. These people have years of research and experience to guide them in their conclusions. If there is a way to apply what people are seeing in our own times to the ancient world, making some sense of our texts, then why not give it a chance?
On the one hand, it’s possible (probable?) that a particular author has done a botched up job trying to use social theory with biblical research. On the other hand, it is also possible (probable?) that–speaking of social identity–many outsiders to social scientific methods don’t really make an effort to understand the complexities of the methods. And therefore, they do not really understand how these methods push the field in new directions.
I’ll take on ideology in my next post. Then, on to mistakes made by biblicists using social scientific techniques — even if the mistakes don’t disqualify the techniques themselves.
Breastfeeding and the Bible at SBL
Breasts are not a typical conversation topic for biblical scholars, at least not in my experience. But they do tend to be a common conversation piece in my household. My wife, among other things, is a Certified Lactation Educator and is very passionate about breastfeeding. If the topic interests you, you may find her blog on the subject quite helpful: The Milk Mama.
Our interests rarely align very well, but I notice that there is a presentation at SBL right up both our alleys:
Gale A. Yee, Episcopal Divinity School, ‘Take this Child and Suckle it for Me’: Wet Nurses and Resistance in Ancient Israel
Exodus 1–2 is a story of three marginalized groups: slaves, midwives, and wet nurses. The first two groups come readily to mind when considering Exodus 1–2. Slaves are prominent, of course, because the chapter deals with the Egyptian pharaoh who, when threatened by the increasing numbers of Hebrew immigrants, set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. Midwives also are on the forefront of the story, because Exodus 1 is a marvelous narrative about the resistance of two midwives named Shiphrah and Puah against pharaoh’s genocidal decree against newborn Hebrew males. However, the social conditions of wet nurses as a marginalized group do not figure immediately in our collective consciousness when considering Exodus 1–2 or the biblical text as a whole. Through the clever deception by Moses’ sister, Miriam, Moses was able to be breastfed by his own mother. The resistance and deception which pushes back against oppression and genocide in this story ironically reveals that wet nurses generally do not get to nurse their own children. What then were the real conditions of wetnurses in antiquity? Through a socio-historical analysis, this paper will examine the story about an Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter and her Hebrew slave wet nurse, to discover the power relations and dynamics in which an empire exploits enslaved foreign women for the products of their bodies. It will then discuss how the Exodus 1-2 is an example of resistance literature in its subversion of the usual social expectations for wetnurses in antiquity.
Sounds intriguing! The paper is being delivered on Sunday in the 4pm-6:30pm slot for a session of the “Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures” group.
The New Testament in Antiquity by Burge, Cohick, and Green
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
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.
Paul's Mother Was a Roman Citizen
This is the suggestion of Lynn Cohick in a recent post on Zondervan’s blog Koinonia. I have not come to a conclusion myself regarding the citizenship of Paul. His citizenship plays a significant role in Acts, but is nowhere mentioned in Paul’s actual letters. Historically speaking, then, I think those who argue that Acts invented Paul’s citizenship actually have a decent case (Cohick dismisses the idea as a “minority” viewpoint). But it is entirely possible that Paul could have been a Roman citizen, as the empire often used citizenship as a “carrot” or reward for individuals as I understand it. One view is that Paul’s father gained citizenship through his business dealings with the Romans (a view that Prof. Ronald Mellor recently gave in a lecture for the 300+ student course “History of Rome” at UCLA).
Cohick suggests a different take, based upon her understanding of “licit” and “illicit” relationships and the transference of citizenship to children. She suggests that it is more likely Paul’s mother was a citizen and transferred her status on to her son. I am intrigued. I suppose the question then is: how did Paul’s mother become a citizen?
Dr. Cohick is one of the three co-authors of the new textbook The New Testament in Antiquity, about which I am growing more and more excited. The textbook seems to be written from the angle of social history, which is where I am rooted in my UCLA program. This is one of the few New Testament surveys, as far as I can tell, that is both written by evangelicals (all Wheaton profs) and also seeks to incorporate social history so thoroughly.
Jesus' Family Values
I’m borrowing the title of Deirdre Good‘s book even though I haven’t read it. It’s a catchy way of getting at what I’ve been considering quite a bit lately. As we read Jesus’ statements in the Gospels, he often feels somewhat hostile to blood families. Christians caught up in “family values” culture wars in North America might find these statements somewhat odd–they might try to find ways of working around them. They don’t make for happy Mother’s Day sermons (though I am proud to say that I did preach on one for one Mother’s Day!). But what we have to remember is that Jesus was in the midst of a vastly different culture, with a vastly different understanding of what the family was. The family in the ancient Mediterranean honor/shame (patriarchal) culture was dominated by the father. The father could do whatever he pleased with his family, which “belonged” to him, and his honor was intimately tied to how well he could manage his household. Jesus takes the father-dominated household to task. This is something my doctoral advisor, Scott Bartchy, discusses often. In fact, he has a book due out next year on the topic. You can find a little taste of it in his chapter for the recent publication of The Social World of the New Testament.
One of the things I find interesting about this insight is that there is such a strong movement today to challenge the use of “Father” language for God in church liturgy. Often people cite the notion of abusive Fathers and a desire to balance the masculinized image of God with a more maternal picture, which is also biblical. But Jesus himself was challenging an even more domineering image of fathers than we typically have in Western society and he spoke of God as “Father” because of (not in spite of) this. His statement that disciples should “call no man father” but God (Matthew 23:9) is a direct challenge to the patriarch of the family here. Again, I’m borrowing from Bartchy’s arguments here.
Most Christians don’t think much about what the “brother and sister” language means for fellow Christians. Why was sibling language so attractive for the Jesus movement? What did it mean for them? Community with fellow disciples was a “new family” for the Jesus followers.
I’d like to list a few of these “family values” texts, in which Jesus takes on this social institution of the ancient Mediterranean:
- “While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’ But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Mt 12:46-50; cf. Mk 3:31; Lk 8:19-21)
- “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.” (Mt 19:29)
- “Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.’” (Mk 10:28-30; cf. Mt 19:29) [Notice in Mark's version how Jesus mentions father as something to leave, but it is left out of what will be received in this life.]
- “To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’” (Lk 9:59-62; cf. Mt 8:21-22)
- “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
father against son
and son against father,
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Lk 12:51-53) - “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Mt 10:34-37) - “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:26)
- “But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (Mt 19:11-12)
- “And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven.” (Mt 23:9)
Film: "Birth of a New Religion"
Bartchy had his survey course, “History of Early Christians,” watch a section of a documentary film on Christianity to review. I thought I would share my own thoughts here. Part One of the film “Two Thousand Years: The History of Christianity” (1999), a section entitled “The Birth of a New Religion: 1st and 2nd Centuries,” gives a standard outline of the first two centuries of the movement later called Christianity. Interviewing many respected scholars, including Jim Charlesworth, N.T. Wright, Henry Chadwick, Paula Frederickson, and Elaine Pagels, the documentary does have its foundation in solid scholarship on the early Christian movement. The film briefly mentions the person of Jesus, while especially highlighting the event of the crucifixion and how this might have affected his followers. Though it is not thoroughly examined (and there is a humorous moment when Jim Charlesworth seems to represent the resurrected Christ), the resurrection is discussed as a defining moment for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ disciples are surprised by both the crucifixion and resurrection, after which they reinterpret the meaning of Jesus’ messiahship. At this point, the documentary outlines the Book of Acts (particularly the issue of Gentile inclusion) in an uncritical manner, moves into the challenges of Roman suspicion of their movement and their subsequent martyrdom in the second century, while finally ending on the crisis of Gnosticism which is quashed by Irenaeus (who is depicted as the sole canonizer of the New Testament and the original author of orthodox Christian doctrine) [catch a free preview of the bit on Irenaeus here].
We can hardly blame the filmmakers for a simplistic presentation of facts that one finds in standard introductions to Christian origins. They cannot solve in 40 minutes all of the conundrums that have confounded New Testament scholars throughout modernity. In fact, there are several quite strong points that should be highlighted, especially comments from N.T. Wright on the influence of Paul within the early movement. In perhaps the strongest articulation of the content of this movement’s ideology, Wright acknowledges that Paul established a “counter empire, a rival empire, with little cells of people giving allegiance to Jesus rather than Caesar.” Wright notes that, while this counter empire is not quite like the Roman Empire, it is “sufficiently subversive to be dangerous.”
Elsewhere in the film, however, we have little discussion of the counter-cultural nature of the Jesus movement and hardly any mention of Jesus’ actual teachings themselves. Though Wright mentions that the new movement is a “new family” created by God, we have no explanation of how this idea challenges conventional understandings of the patriarchal family within the Greco-Roman world. Even with Wright’s comment that the Jesus followers are considered subversive and dangerous, we have no explanation of how this movement is subversive or why it would be considered dangerous.
Further, Jim Charlesworth’s necessary caution that the early Jesus followers are not “Christians” and did not have “churches” is muted by the narrator’s comment that by the end of the first century, “Christianity” is born–implying that a whole monolithic and organized religion already developed within decades. This is paired with the comments of Fr. Paul Lawlor, who suggests that eucharistic meals in the second century would have looked similar to what goes on in small parish churches today. The film has some strange shots in its take on second century Christianity. With mysterious music, images of catacombs, and three people in matching robes around a table, we have the picture of a strange secretive cult (perhaps bolstering certain Roman texts against the Christians cited in the film). Such moves in the documentary are overly simplistic and somewhat careless. In sum, the film does a decent job of surveying a few of the key issues at stake in the Jesus movement, but does a poor job of giving the viewer a reliable picture of “on the ground” social realities. This, however, is a broader symptom of surveys in Christian origins more generally.
In the Mail: Malina's The New Testament World
Many thanks to Westminster John Knox Press for sending over a review copy of Bruce Malina’s unique New Testament introduction, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology! This is a standard text for Scott Bartchy for many of his classes at UCLA. I actually haven’t read the book yet, so I thought it’d be a good opportunity to review it while I also get to see how it’s used in a class for undergrads this fall.
-
Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
-
As a member of RevGalBlogPals, I am committed to building a supportive online community for women clergy, women church professionals, and women in religious life.
Research assisted by: