Introduction
The quest for the socio-historical world of the early Christianity started as early as the 19th century,[1] even though a new wave of interest in the field of sociological study of the Bible was revived again only in 1960s after a long halt.[2] And a systematic application of its concepts and theories/models took some more years to become a viable methodology and it began somewhere in 1970s.[3] Likewise, the interest of this section is to highlight some of the sociological models/theories that came about after the 1970s.
1. Presuppositions
1.1. Biblical texts are considered units of meaningful social discourse in which are also encoded information related to the social and cultural systems of biblical times. Therefore, to know what the text meant or could have meant in their original contexts requires some knowledge about the social and cultural systems of that time.[4]
1.2. Since sociological criticism presupposes all knowledge to be “socially conditioned and perspectival in nature,”[5] a proper understanding of the author or even the recipient cannot be achieved apart from identifying the social location.[6]
1.3. This would imply that the method of sociological analysis must include ways and means to differentiate and clarify differences that exist between “the social location of the interpreter and the social location of the author and objects to be interpreted.”[7]
1.4. To differentiate the context of ancient texts and modern readers and to clarify the relations between ancient social and cultural systems, sociological criticism presupposes that ‘theory’ and ‘models’ play an important role, even if they are not necessarily be acknowledged. For example, to study Pauline Christianity as urban phenomenon presumes a ‘theory’ that holds that Paul primarily moved about in urban areas. [8]
1.5. Sociological criticism also considers important to situatebiblical documents within their geographical, socio-cultural contexts (than within their respective time frames as in the case of historical criticism), specifically to situate in the world of Circum-Mediterranean and ancient Near West and to read them as products of that preindustrial region.[9]
1.6. Sociological criticism functions “differently from but complementary to” traditional historical criticism in producing what the authors said and meant by what they said in that particular context of Biblical world. That is to say, sociological criticism enables historical criticism to do “what it is intended to do.”[10]
1.7. Since there was no independent institution of ‘religion’ in antiquity as in today, sociological criticism presupposes that “the study of ‘religion’ in the Bible and its environment requires a study of social structures and relations.”[11]
1.8. The approach also asks how and under what conditions the Bible continues to be meaningful for modern readers. Therefore, it considers important to comprehend the social and cultural differences that divides the ancient and modern worlds and also find possible ways to bridge that gap for facilitating conversation.[12]
2. Select Proponents
2.1. Social Historical Approach: Under this section, two scholars have been selected for consideration; namely: Gerd Theissen and Wayne A. Meeks.
2.1.1. Gerd Theissen: Theissen’s sociological theory of “sociology of literature” investigates “the relations between texts and human behavior. It studies the social behavior of the people who make the texts, pass them on, interpret them, and adopt them. And it analyzes this behavior under two aspects: first, as typical behavior; second, as contingent behavior – behavior conditioned by outside circumstances.”[13] He is of the view that form criticism establishes the first aspect of behavior into biblical studies. The task of a sociologist in this process is to refer back to the life situation (Sitz im Leben) in which the text was used, and how that continuous use in turn has shaped the text (itself). That is to say, biblical texts are to be read in the light of the Sitz im Leben of the people who used them for instruction, worship or mission.[14] They are not to be regarded as mere utterances of authoritative individuals, but as a reflection of the faith of simple men and women, and their common life. Hence, “the situation, the Sitz im Leben, from which the Bible springs, is the life of the people.”[15]
The second aspect of study goes a little beyond form criticism by asking “the circumstances determining the behavior that has made the text what it is.”[16] In other words, there were aspects of life experienced by early Christian communities which were not religious at all.[17] For instance, the transmission of Jesus sayings in the early Christian community could be seen as a sociological problem because the survival of such sayings in oral tradition was dependent upon specific locations and people who passed them on.[18] To this must also be added the social condition of a Galilean farmer whose life experiences can greatly be different from a person living in the cosmopolitan city like Corinth. It may therefore be stated that the focus of Theissen builds on the ‘transmitters’ of the Jesus tradition and the correlation between their social circumstances and behavior, on one hand; and the content of their teaching, on the other. The task of sociological criticism in such study is to ask “about the intentions and conditions determining the typical behavior of the authors, transmitters, and addressees of the New Testament texts.”[19] However, it is not possible to have “a direct knowledge about the social behavior which is involved and which they reflect” unless it is “deduced” or “infer” in the way form criticism does that deduction: “(1) Analytical deduction from the form and content of a tradition to its situation (or Sitz im Leben); (2) constructive deduction from direct statements about the situation presumed to the traditions that were anchored there; (3) deduction by analogy from contemporary parallels that are similar in content.”[20]
The outcome of such study is that the radical teachings of Jesus concerning homelessness (Mk. 1:16; Mt. 8:20), lack of family (Mk. 1:20, 10:29), and lack of possessions (Mt. 10:10) were some of the lifestyles that disciples as well as early apostles embraced and practiced. Such lifestyles also demonstrated that they, as ‘outsiders,’ lived on the margins of the Palestinian society.[21]
2.1.2. Wayne A. Meeks: Meeks argues that to write history, it is always important to pay attention to the immediate context within which the Christian movement was born. In his words: “Since we do not meet ordinary early Christian as individual, we must seek to recognize them through the collectivities to which they belonged and to glimpse their lives through the typical occasions mirrored in the texts.”[22] But to consider religion as a system of communication and as “a subset within the multiple systems that make up the culture and subcultures of a particular society,” he thinks that it is important to take a “sociological perspective of structural-functionalism.”[23] Such reading presumes that every society has a well-integrated and stable structure of elements and how it works. The interest of inquiry then concerns about asking how early Christian movement worked. He asserts that by so adopting a “structural-functionalist perspective,” one can avoid the so called “reductionism” by keeping oneself remain opened to the particularities of the unique groups he/she is interested in to explore.[24] As a corollary, Meeks was able to explore questions related to the influence of “an urban environment on Christian social experience and theological reflection, social stratification within society and Christian communities, modes of Christian organization, self-identification, and governance; the social function of ritual; and the reciprocal relation between patterns of belief and patterns of behavior.”[25]
In spite of an attempt to study early Christianity in the light of its social historical context, Theissen and Meeks failed to propose for a fixed model. In other words, they did not lay down a hard and fast rule as to how a socio-historical approach is to interpret the Scripture.
2.2. Philip F. Esler: Robin Scroggs has long identified “early church as a religious sect.”[26] However, it was Esler who developed a little further than what Scroggs did, and his sectarian model has become very essential for the study of early Christian community and its relationship to other existing groups.
By having borrowed the term “sociology of knowledge”[27] from the subtitled of P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann’s book The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge,[28] Esler identifies ‘legitimation’ as the most significant perspective of his sociological model.[29] Such form of legitimation was important especially for the second and subsequent generations who needed some kind of explanation about the new order, especially when “the prevailing arrangements are under threat from dissenters from within, or through opposition from without, which may be capable of causing the members to falter in their commitment” as in the case of the early Christian communities who were often troubled by problems originated from within and without or both (e.g., Gal. 6:12-3).[30] Esler also opines that even the adult members of the first generation would have needed the same legitimation “especially where they have some residual allegiance to the old order, or where their new position exposes them to pressures which might make their loyalty waver.”[31]
Common in any religious movement is to become dissatisfied with the existing order for one reason or another. Often this process begins under the leadership of a particular individual who, by seeing the dissatisfaction felt by its members, takes the lead to propose an alternate path to follow. So long as the new movement stays within the parent body, it is described as a “reform movement.”[32] When the new movement is separated from the old because of dissatisfaction or expulsion, then it becomes a “sect.”[33] Such transformation of a reform movement into a ‘sect’ can be witnessed in early Christianity. Christianity was never the intended to establish a new religion, it originally began as a “reform movement” within the then existing Jewish religion. But when its charismatic leadership comes into conflict with the old, it was then transformed into a “sect.”[34] Such new “sects” needs instant legitimation (explanation and justification) because of the continuous pressing pressures from the old group. When the animosity gets too intense, says Francis Watson, the separation has to be legitimated at least in three ways: Firstly, “denunciation” of the old group for the good and cohesion of its members;[35] secondly, use of “antithesis” by way of contrasting the two (e.g. good/bad, holy/unholy); and thirdly, “a ‘reinterpretation’ of the religious traditions of the community as a whole in the light of the belief that the sectarian group is the sole legitimate heir to those traditions.”[36]
Esler’s sociology of knowledge can now be summarized as: (i) a transformation from reform movement into a sect, and (ii) the legitimation of a sect by its members through denunciation, antithesis, and reinterpretation.
2.3. Social-Scientific Criticism: According to James D. Dvorak, there are at least two phases of focus in social-scientific criticism, namely: (i) Socio-Cultural Anthropology, and (ii) Sociological Exegesis.[37]
2.3.1. Socio-Cultural Anthropology: The importance of cultural anthropology in New Testament interpretation was introduced by Bruce J. Malina[38] who emphasizes on the cultural scripts encoded in the New Testament writings. He, together with other proponents like Neyrey, and H. Moxnes, argue that locating the New Testament communities within the larger cultural context of the Circum-Mediterranean world is of great importance. And some of their models can be cited below.
2.3.1.1. Honor and Shame: There are two types of honor: (i) ‘Ascribed honor’ refers to unearned honor which was passively received “through birth, family connections or endowment by notable persons of power.”[39] It is comparable to Jesus being born from an honorable King David’s family. (ii) ‘Acquired honor’ is obtained through one’s own effort and achievements, benefactions (Lk. 7:4-5) and prowess (Lk. 7:16-7). Such honor occurs usually through a social interaction called ‘challenge-riposte,’ a competition that takes place between two persons/parties to earn the honor of another.[40] Different means were used to challenge honor including “gift-giving, invitations to dinner, debates over issues of law, buying and selling, planning marriages … business, fishing, mutual help …”[41] However, a proper challenge must take place among equal or almost equal in honor. To challenge somebody inferior or accepting a challenge from an inferior is considered shameful. While the winner of such a challenge defended or gained his honor, the loser would lost his honor and social standing.[42] Honor also requires a public claim and acknowledgment, otherwise it is never considered honor.[43]
2.3.1.2. Dyadic, Not Individualistic: Malina and Neyrey observe that the first century Mediterranean people are “not individualistic but dyadic or group-oriented personality.”[44] An individual is always identified in relation to the other social unit such as the family and clan (e.g., Simon is ‘son of Jonah,’ John and James are ‘sons of Zebedee’); place of origin/birth (e.g., Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus); group of origins/tribe (e.g., a Jew, a Samaritan); occupation, crafts and trade (e.g., a carpenter, a steward); and also social groupings/parties or factions like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and stoics.[45] Such persons are called ‘strong group persons’ because they are defined exclusively by the groups to which they belong or to which they are embedded.[46]
2.3.1.3. Labeling and Deviance Theory: ‘Labeling’ simply means “a social-name calling.”[47] Names are social labels by means of which an individual may be presented (in the story) negatively or positively. Likewise, Jesus is labeled both negatively (e.g., demon possessed) and positively (e.g., Christ, prophet, teacher). Labels such as “‘sinner,’ ‘unclean,’ and ‘brood of vipers’” are powerful social weapons which can cause injury to others.[48]
‘Deviance’ is to do with violations of social order. “Behavior is deviant when it violates the sense of order or the set of classification which people perceive to structure their world.”[49] Therefore, deviants are those who live out of social order and are mostly labeled negatively as murderer, rapist, terrorist, and the like. There are ‘ascribed deviant,’ who without their own effort, become defection like the man born blind (Jn. 9:1), and also ‘acquired deviant,’ who by virtue of his zealous collection of taxes, becomes a deviant person like Zacchaeus (Lk. 19:1-10) and the prodigal son who wasted his father’s inheritance (Lk. 15:11-16).[50]
2.3.1.4. Clean/Unclean, Pure/Polluted, and Holy/Profane: The writing of Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger[51] (1966) has been influential in this regard. Using the idea of ‘pollution’ as “out of place,” Neyrey argues that Jesus can be considered to be in ‘out of place’ on many occasions especially when He – (i) mingles with unclean people such as lepers, sinners and the like; (ii) does not observe Sabbaths or sacred places; and (iii) disregards food regulations and traditions.[52]
In regards to foods, Israelites prohibited eating of some unclean animals (Lev. 11; cf. Acts 10:14). Those who eat them were considered ‘defiled’ (1Cor. 8:7). Likewise, eating with unclean hands was restricted (cf. Lk. 11:38). In relation to physical purity, “much attention is given to the skin and surface of the body, but also to its wholeness as a precondition for access to holy space and holy tasks” (cf. Lev. 13; cf. Mk. 1:44).[53] A hemorrhage or menstruating women (cf. Mk. 5:24-35) and the leper (cf. Mk. 1:40-2) have been labeled ‘unclean.’[54] Places such as sanctuary, Jerusalem, and land of Israel are considered to be holier than other places (cf. m. Kelim 1:6-9).[55] There are also instances where spirits are labeled ‘clean’ or ‘unclean’ (Mk. 1:23; 3:11; Lk. 6:18; 9: 42).
2.3.1.5. Patron-Client Relations: Patron-client relations can be defined as “social relationships between individuals based on a strong element of inequality and difference in power.”[56] Such relationship was pervasive throughout the Mediterranean world. Examples can be cited as ‘brokerage’ (e.g., the local rulers) who serves as a mediator between two parties, and ‘friendship’ in which the patron (emperor) provides his close friends (clients) an access to his government (comparable to a corrupt interference with the system of government).[57] K. C. Hanson and Douglas E. Oakman posit that,“the patrons are elite persons (male or female) who can provide benefits to others on a personal basis, due to a combination of superior power, influence, reputation, position, and wealth. In return for these benefits patrons could expect to receive honor, information, and political support from clients. Clients on the other hand, are persons of lesser status who are obligated and loyal to a patron …”[58] John K. Chow sees patron-client relationship in terms of an “exchange relationship”[59] where a client could seek patron’s aid for “bureaucratic, legal, financial, or other social arrangements,” and in turn the client is expected to offer service that may include “collecting information, spreading rumors, backing the patron in a factional fight, or attending funeral.”[60] Such relationships are binding and long lasting because it demands a life-long commitment.[61]
2.3.2. Sociological Exegesis of John H. Elliott
Sociological exegesis is also known as ‘social-scientific exegesis’ which basically endeavors to interpret biblical text using a combination of two disciplines: Exegesis and sociology, and their practices, theories and techniques.[62] It is (i) ‘Exegetical’ in the way it focuses on determining “the meaning of biblical texts in their original contexts through a comprehensive examination of all the features of that text (textual, literary, linguistic, historical, traditional, redactional, rhetorical, and theological) and all determinants of its potential meaning.”[63] In this analysis, social-scientific exegesis functions as a complementary to all other exegetical disciplines.
And it becomes (ii) ‘sociological’ when ‘social-scientific exegesis’ exercises the presuppositions, theories, analytical methods, and comparative models of the discipline of sociology.[64] Such study assumes that meaning is shaped by “the social and cultural systems inhabited by both author and intended audiences.”[65] In other words, ‘social-scientific exegesis’ studies the text as reflecting and responding to the social and cultural settings in which the text was produced. Therefore, its task of exegesis includes determining “the social as well as the literary and theological conditions, content and intended consequences of our text; that is, the determination of the sum of its features which make it a vehicle of social interaction and an instrument of social as well as literary and theological consequence.”[66]The focus then is not limited to biblical texts alone, but goes beyond in its analysis of ancient social and cultural systems as investigated by historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists.[67]
There are two main phases in ‘social-scientific exegesis:’ (i) The first phase, which deals with the data collection and organization,[68] is characterized by “designing research, conducting the research, and organizing the findings in preparation for the second, interpretive phase.”[69] (ii) The second phase, which is the synthetic (interpretive) phase, particularly deals with explaining the social properties and relations.[70] When the hypothesis is supported by the data, or if the findings fit the model, then the model/hypothesis is confirmed. If not, it has to be modified or rejected.[71]
3. Critical Evaluation of Sociological Criticism
3.1. Contributions
3.1.1. Even though placed within a traditional historical approach, sociological criticism paradoxically offers a kind of insight and meaning comparable to synchronic approach. This way, it fills-in the gap where traditional approaches may not be able to do so.[72]
3.1.2. Sociological criticism also serves as a corrective measure to the so called “theological docetism” which tends to assume that what is so important about New Testament are its theological propositions, historical settings, and the understanding of ideas/words.[73]
3.1.3. Sociological criticism may also provide a tripartite understanding to biblical text by looking at “the world behind the text,” “the narrative world within the text” and finally to modern readers or interpreters of the text.[74]
3.1.4. Besides, sociological criticism enlarges the “agenda of interpretation” by allowing interpreters to ask different types of “questions of the biblical world and texts and to produce models for more fully describing those entities.”[75]
3.1.5. It also teaches that Christian life and experience with God does not take place in a vacuum or isolated place but in a particular time/period and context with “all the ebbs and flows of its political, economic, socio-religious, educational, institutional and cultural dynamics.”[76]
3.1.6. Its cross-disciplinary character of endeavor can also be considered constructive rather than destructive because people of different walks of life like the Bible reader, exegete, historian, archaeologist and theologian can all be benefited from it.[77]
3.2. Limitations
3.2.1. There is a danger of claiming too much about the contribution of sociological criticism (i.e., methodological egoism) that it tends to neglect the validity of other interpretive tools.[78] In other words, sociological criticism can be ‘imperialistic’ or ‘reductionistic’ because an interpreter tends to say that his/her interpretation is “the only valid explanation and ultimately all explanations are reduced or boil down to nothing but his[her] own.”[79]
3.2.2. There is also a danger in using models developed by modern scholars including sociological criticism to interpret the ancient world and the text of the Bible (i.e., anachronistic fallacy).[80] Sometimes, a sociologist is even tempted to modernize and recreate the people of the past and their context in his/her own image and context, whereas the two may differ distinctively.[81]
3.2.3. Since models which sociologists used to interpret the biblical text tend to “simplify reality,” one may fall into the trap of reducing the spiritual meaning of the biblical text and the experience of the community of faith to a mere human construct.[82] The fallacy is that when biblical texts are treated merely as “the effects of non-religious causes;” there is a possibility of arriving at different conclusions or even contrary to what the text actually says,[83] whereby even liable to reducing all theology to sociology and anthropology.[84]
3.2.4. As in the case of other criticisms already discussed, sociological criticism does not conform to a uniform (single) approach. Different scholars employ differently in order to read and interpret the New Testament text.[85]
3.2.5. Tidball argues that there are no sufficient materials (sources) for the sociologists to defend the evidence of their theory/model, apart from the New Testament text and few other contemporary documents.[86] Likewise, both Theissen and Meeks admitted the scarcity of source materials for doing sociological study of the Jesus movement in particular and the early Christianity in general.[87]
3.2.6. The problem with historical sociology is when its findings appear to be “less assured” than contemporary sociology because no historical sociologist has a way to test/check the credibility of his/her theories through devices like “surveys, interviews or participant observation” as in the case of modern sociology.[88]
3.2.7. Judge is skeptical about the validity of social historical approach unless it is tested and verified. He writes thus: “I should have thought there was no hope of securing historically valid conclusions from sociological exercises except by first thoroughly testing the models themselves for historical validity.”[89] The same is expressed by Theissen considering the social historical approach to be widely “conjectural” than being legitimated.[90] Some still see sociological criticism as “impractical.”[91]
3.2.8. The tendency in social-scientific criticism is of “generalization” in such a way that “the historical details of social situations fall out of focus.”[92] For instance, when ‘honor and shame’ was the core values of the Mediterranean world, yet what was honorable may vary from place to place, region to region, village to village and elite to non-elite.[93] Likewise, what is shameful for some group may become honorable for the other whereby making a way for the reversal of meaning at certain points.[94]
3.2.9. Another problem with such generalizing tendency is in relation to the “change over time” because social-scientific criticism is always less critical about the precise dating of the models in use. To claim that ‘honor’ functions as the social value of Mediterranean societies covers a very long period of time[95] which can even refer to contemporary context. Therefore, the use of these models is not without any danger, states Rohrbaugh, who also forewarns that: “If we simply follow scholarly intuition and fail to examine the implicit, Western models we inevitably use to organize whatever data we encounter, we risk blindly imposing our modern perceptions and categories on every biblical text we read.”[96] Therefore, models must carefully be tested before they can be employed.
The discussion shows that sociological criticism marks yet another milestone in the interpretation of the New Testament text. However, there is no uniformity in the application of the method. While ‘socio-historical approach’attempts to understand early Christianity in its socio-historical context; ‘social-scientific models’ tries to understand Christianity in the light of the cultural context of Circum-Mediterranean world. Again, Esler’s ‘sociology of knowledge’ inquires about the way in which legitimation took place in the early Christian church after they have been transformed into a sect. In spite of the doubts and concerns raised by scholars, the contribution of sociological criticism towards biblical interpretation must never be overlooked as the approach can enhance a better understanding of the Bible/New Testament and early Christianity. The approach must also be applauded for functioning well (in conjunction) with other approaches. It also does better than narrative criticism in finding the role of contemporary readers in the interpretation. However, it still needs a tested model which will keep the interpreters away from a tendency to manipulate the methodology at his/her own will.
[1] Cf. Gerd Theissen, Social Realities and the Early Christians: Theology, Ethics, and the World of the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 3-15.
[2] It started off with E. A. Judge’s book The Social Patterns of Christian Groups in the First Century: Some Prolegomena to the Study of New Testament Ideas of Social Obligation (London: Tyndale Press, 1960).
[3] John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 17. Some of the writings that came in 1970s may be cited as: Jacob Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973); Gerd Theissen, “Itinerant Radicalism: The Tradition of Jesus Sayings from the Perspective of the Sociology of Literature,” Radical Religion 2/2-3 (1975): 84-93; idem. Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978); John G. Gager, Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1975); Robin Scroggs, “The Earliest Christian Communities as Sectarian Movement,” in Christianity, Judaism, and Other Greco-Roman Cults, edited by Jacob Neusner, Early Christianity Part 2 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975); R. M. Grant, Early Christianity and Society (New York: Harper and Row, 1977); Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University, 1977); Bruce J. Malina, “Limited Good and the Social World of Early Christianity,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 8 (1978): 162-76.
[4] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 50.
[5] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 36.
[6] cf. Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 10-11.
[7] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 37.
[8] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 40-1. Models are the “cognitive maps or lenses” through which one observes, categorizes, compares and synthesizes elements of social data that are available to one’s senses. In a sense, “models do not create evidence; rather, they provide the means for envisioning relationships and patters among the evidence.” Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 43.
[9] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 49.
[10] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 14, 55.
[11] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 57.
[12] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 53.
[13] Theissen, Social Reality, 33.
[14] Theissen, Social Reality, 33-4.
[15] Theissen, Social Reality, 4.
[16] Theissen, Social Reality, 34.
[17] But form criticism is specifically concerned with the way in which the text was transmitted out of the faith congregation. In other words, form criticism considers biblical text to be a product of religious activities. Theissen, Social Reality, 34.
[18] Theissen, Social Reality, 34.
[19] Theissen, Social Reality, 34.
[20] Theissen, Social Reality, 36. Same approach is found in his other book Sociology of the Early Palestinian Christianity, stating that because of the scanty source materials of the Jesus movement and disputes over the way in which these sources are to be interpreted, sociological information can only be extracted by “a process of inference,” of which three procedures have been identified: (a) Constructive conclusions are drawn from an evaluation of pre-scientific statements which give either prosopographic information about the origin, property and status of individuals or sociographic information about the programme, organization and patterns of behavior of whole groups. (b) Analytical conclusions are drawn from texts which afford an indirect approach to sociological information. Statements about recurring events, conflict between groups or over ethical and legal norms…are all illuminating in this respect. (c) Comparative conclusions are drawn from analogous movements to be found in the world of time. The more widespread a pattern of behavior was in Palestinian Jewish society, the more we may assume that it was socially conditioned. Theissen, Early Palestinian Christianity, 2-3.
[21] Cf. Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 21.
[22] Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 2.
[23] Meeks, First Urban Christians, 6-7.
[24] Meeks, First Urban Christians, 7.
[25] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 25.
[26] The sectarian characteristics, which are used by Scroggs as the basis for the argument that early Christian community was a religious sect, are taken from a sociological analysis which states that – the sect started off as a (i) protest against the established/parent community because of some dissatisfaction and unhappiness. For such a protest to happen; however, it is important that there is a (ii) sectarian leader who would lead and influence them. Under whose leadership will the sect demonstrate in various ways about (iii) their rejection of the community which has humiliated them. Furthermore, the religious sect, as an egalitarian, assumes that every individual in the community is (iv) equal to each other. As such, they exchange love and acceptance within the community. Besides, the sect is also considered (v) a voluntary association, and at the same time, demands (vi) a total commitment from its members. Scroggs, “The Earliest Christian Communities,” 1-21.
[27] Philip Francis Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts, SNTSMS 57, edited by G. N. Stanton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 16; cf. Philip F. Esler, The First Christians in Their Social Worlds: Social-Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation (London: Routledge, 1994), 4-6.
[28] Esler, Community and Gospel, 16; cf. Peter L. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 112-14.
[29] Esler, Community and Gospel, 16.
[30] Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, 110-14.
[31] Esler, Community and Gospel, 16-7.
[32] Esler, First Christians, 13.
[33] Esler, First Christians, 13.
[34] Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and Gentiles, SNTSMS 56, edited by G. N. Stanton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 40.
[35] Esler, First Christians, 13-4.
[36] Watson, Paul, Judaism, and Gentiles, 40.
[37] James D. Dvorak, “John H. Elliott’s Social-Scientific Criticism,” Trinity Journal 28/2 (2007): 254-56.
[38] Cf. Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, revised edition(Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993).
[39] Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, “Honor and Shame in Luke-Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World,” in The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation, edited by Jerome H. Neyrey (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 27-8.
[40] Malina and Neyrey, “Honor and Shame,” 29.
[41] Malina and Neyrey, “Honor and Shame,” 29.
[42] Halvor Moxnes, “Honor and Shame,” in The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, edited by Richard L. Rohrbaugh (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 20-1. An honor based on gender is important for a man to maintain his masculinity, honor and social standing. In the process of doing and maintaining that honor, he should be able to protect and defend the purity of women under his dominance such as wife, sister and mother (but not his own chastity). If any of them lost their chastity it implies shame for him as well as his family and clan as a whole. Women were therefore looked upon as potential sources of shame. Malina and Neyrey, “Honor and Shame,” 42-3. Shame can also have a positive aspect in Mediterranean culture as it was understood as “modesty, shyness, or deference. It was these virtues, often construed as feminine, that enabled a woman to preserve her chastity as well as her obedience to the male head of the family in which she was embedded.” Moxnes, “Honor and Shame,” 21.
[43] Jerome H. Neyrey, “Loss of Wealth, Loss of Family and Loss of Honour: The Cultural Context of the Original Makarisms in Q,” in Modeling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in Context, edited by Philip F. Esler (London: Routledge, 2005),136.
[44] Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, “First-Century Personality: Dyadic, Not Individual,” in The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation, 72-3.
[45] Malina and Neyrey, “First-Century Personality,” 74-5.
[46] Malina and Neyrey, “First-Century Personality,” 73-4.
[47] Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, “Conflict in Luke-Acts: Labeling and Deviance Theory,” in The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation, 100.
[48] Malina and Neyrey, “Labeling and Deviance Theory,” 98-9.
[49] Malina and Neyrey, “Labeling and Deviance Theory,” 100.
[50] Malina and Neyrey, “Labeling and Deviance Theory,” 101. In deviance process, there will always be someone or group who would interpret some behavior as deviant. They are formally known as “agents of censure” like the Jerusalem elites and the local Roman government who sought to place Jesus in the deviance status (or as an outsider). The activity of deviance-processing agents contain three elements: denunciation, retrospective interpretation (having a biographical scrutiny from past to present in order find fault at him/her) and status degradation ritual (public humiliation of the culprit as deviant resulting into his/her stigmatization as in the case of Jesus who, after having branded as a deviant, was crucified on the cross. Malina and Neyrey, “Labeling and Deviance Theory,” 102-07.
[51] According to Douglas, to label things or persons as “pure” or “polluted” serves to establish identity and maintain the group, even to extent of resulting in excluding the other. Mary T. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 1966), 133.
[52] Jerome H. Neyrey, “Clean/Unclean, Pure/Polluted, and Holy/Profane: The Idea and the System of Purity,” in The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, 91-128.
[53] Neyrey, “The Idea and the System of Purity,” 81.
[54] Neyrey, “The Idea and the System of Purity,” 81.
[55] Cited in Neyrey, “The Idea and the System of Purity,” 92. However, Neyrey states that “‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ are not labels exclusively pertaining to cult and temple, however central they were to the values and structures of Israel.” Neyrey, “The Idea and the System of Purity,” 94.
[56] Halvor Moxnes, “Patron-Client Relations and the New Community in Luke-Acts,” in The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation,242.
[57] Moxnes, “Patron-Client Relations,” 244-45.
[58] K. C. Hanson and Douglas E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 70.
[59] John K. Chow, Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks at Corinth (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 31.
[60] Hanson and Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, 73.
[61] S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger, Patrons, Clients and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 48-9.
[62] John H. Elliott, A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005), 7-8.
[63] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 9.
[64] Elliott, Home for the Homeless, 8.
[65] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 8.
[66] Elliott, Home for the Homeless, 7-8.
[67] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 8.
[68] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 60.
[69] Dvorak, “John H. Elliott,” 268.
[70] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 61.
[71] Cf. Dvorak, “John H. Elliott,” 269.
[72] Dvorak, “Social-Scientific Criticism,” 276; cf. Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 10-11.
[73] Dvorak, “Social-Scientific Criticism,” 276.
[74] Dvorak, “Social-Scientific Criticism,” 276.
[75] Dvorak, “Social-Scientific Criticism,” 277.
[76] M. Robert Mulholland, “Sociological Criticism,” in New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, edited by David Alan Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 307-08.
[77] Elliott, Social-Scientific Criticism, 104.
[78] Dvorak, “Social-Scientific Criticism,” 277.
[79] Derek Tidball, An Introduction to the Sociology of the New Testament (Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1983), 17.
[80] Dvorak, “Social-Scientific Criticism,” 277-78.
[81] Meeks, First Urban Christians, 5.
[82] Tidball, Sociology of the New Testament, 20.
[83] Meeks, First Urban Christians, 2. In fact, not only with sociological criticism but with every other theory or method that claims for superiority is equally reductionistic or imperialistic. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 4; cf. Tidball, Sociology of the New Testament, 17.
[84] W. R. Herzog, “Sociological Approaches to the Gospels,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, edited by Joel B. Green, et. al. (Leicester: IVP, 1992), 765.
[85] Tidball, Sociology of the New Testament, 20-21.
[86] Tidball, Sociology of the New Testament, 20.
[87] Theissen, Early Palestinian Christianity, 2.
[88] Tidball, Sociology of the New Testament, 21.
[89] E. A. Judge, “The Social Identity of the First Christians: A Question of Method in Religious History,” The Journal of Religious History 11 (December 1980): 212 (201-217), cited in Esler, Community and Gospel, 14.
[90] Cf. Theissen, Early Palestinian Christianity, 3.
[91] Cf. Esler, Community and Gospel, 13.
[92] Richard L. Rohrbaugh, “Introduction,” in The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, 9.
[93] Rohrbaugh, “Introduction,” 9.
[94] Cf. Malina and Neyrey, “Honor and Shame,” 27.
[95] Rohrbaugh, “Introduction,” 9.
[96] Rohrbaugh, “Introduction,” 9-10.
LAI-LEENG 