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Spring
2000 (30:1)
Presenting
the Issue: Religious Naivete
David M. Bossman
The
Jesus Movement and Social Network Analysis (Part II: The Social Network)
Dennis C. Duling
Abstract
The intent of this
study is to imaginatively shed light on Gerd Theissen’s view of the early
Jesus Movement with the help of social network analysis. Part I,
after a brief introduction to network analysis, discussed Graph Theory, Central
Place Theory, Urbanology, and settlement archeology as aids
to understand the importance of the Galilean towns Jesus is said to
have visited, especially those around the Sea of Galilee. It included some information
about lake harbors, Roman roads, and Dead Sea towns (the Babatha
archive). It also attempted to see Capernaum as a minor Central Place
from which Jesus could travel, both by land and by sea. Part II resumes
with a more detailed discussion of social network concepts and then
analyzes the Jesus Movement discussed by Theissen as an “Ego-centered
network.” It offers as an illustration Jesus’ natural kinship network,
and concludes with reflections about several important critical issues
in current Jesus study. (Many works cited in Part II are in “Works Cited,” Part
I, BTB 29/4 [1999: 171–75]). Jesus’
Eating Transgressions and Social Impropriety in the Gospel of Mark:
A
Social Scientific Approach Dietmar Neufeld
Abstract
Food events are an
integral feature of the Markan narrative. Frequently they provide the
occasion during which serious controversy erupts over certain, significant
religious practices in Judean society. This article seeks to interpret these
food incidences and the debate they generate from the perspective of social-scientific
categories. Accordingly, the themes of food, eating, and
household are set into the dynamic context of an anthropology of
eating, honor/shame, and kinship/household. Eating and food in the world
of antiquity furnish a menu in which to debate and redefine intensely
held beliefs concerning holiness/purity, gender, and group identity,
where honor and shame, their loss and gain, were at stake. Food events provide
an opportunity for Mark to portray Jesus in fierce debate with the
religious elite from which he emerges an honorable man but for which he
is eventually executed. Eating and food are occasions for Mark to present
Jesus, not only as popular hero, but also as subversive sage.
What
Kind of Canon Do the Lectionaries Constitute? Gerard S. Sloyan
Abstract
The Roman Catholic
Church inaugurated a three-year cycle of three readings from the
Bible entitled LECTIONARY FOR MASS in Advent, 1969. Four U.S.
Protestant Churches shortly produced their own patterned on it,
one of them proposed for use by eight of the member Churches of the
Consultation on Church Union (the ninth had its own). At present there
are three in use, the Catholic lectionary that is internationally
employed, one composed by the U.S. Episcopal Church for its revised
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, and the REVISED COMMON LECTIONARY
of the Consultation on Common Texts. The last named has
been adopted by the Lutheran, Reformed tradition, and Methodist Churches
that had previously developed a lectionary of their own. The proclamation
of God’s life–giving and redemptive deed in Jesus Christ in
the power of the Holy Spirit is the architectonic principle governing all the
lections proposed. In aid of this, the ancient resort to typology has been
employed, which sees a prefiguring of something in every Gospel pericope
in some incident or passage in the First Testament. Fearful that the
fullness of God’s revelation to Israel may have been obscured by this
technique, the RCL has proposed lengthier readings from that Testament
unrelated to the day’s Gospel for one half of each year. This article
will attempt to answer the question posed in the title.
Book
Reviews
Strickert, BETHSAIDA:
HOME OF THE APOSTLES (D. A. Fiensy)
Farmer, ed. THE
INTERNATIONAL BIBLE COMMENTARY (B. J. Lillie)
Brueggemann, ISAIAH
1–39, ISAIAH 40–66 (J. F. Craghan)
Pilch, THE CULTURAL
DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE (D. E. Goodman)
Guijarro, FAMILIA
POR CAUSA DEL DISCIPULADO Y DE LA MISIóN EN LA TRADICIóN
SYNóPTICA (C. Osiek)
Nissenen, HOMOEROTICISM
IN THE BIBLICAL WORLD: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE (J. B. Burns)
Murphy, THE BOOK
OF JOB: A SHORT READING (D. M. Bossman)
Summer
2000 (30:2)
Presenting
the Issue: Re-valuing the Past for an Energized Biblical Theology
David M. Bossman
Isaiah
56:1-8 and the Redefining of the Restoration Judean Community
Clinton E. Hammock
This article
argues that the prophetic oracle of Isaiah 56:1-9 was intended to redefine
the social boundaries of the Judean community in the early second temple
period. This prophecy offers an alternative viewpoint to the nationalist
and exclusionist view of Ezra and Nehemiah as to who can be a member of
the Judean community. The position taken by this passage utilizes the images
of the eunuch and the foreigner to reveal conflicts over land possession
and the reproduction and socialization of children. It is argued that the
exilic principles of community membership revolve around the issues of
"purification" (in the exile) and the exclusion of outsiders who did not
share this experience, and "loyalty," seen as endogamy and the reproduction
and socialization of children to preserve the ethnic purity of the exilic
community. The cases of the eunuch and the foreigner (convert) challenge
both these principles and offer alternative principles of "loyalty" by
relocating the markers of community membership into Sabbath observance
and ethical behavior,k social markers that do not require any ethnic purity
or reproductive ability, and which ease the conversion of non-exiles into
the community while allowing the community access to additional land resources.
Rethinking
the Judean Past: Questions of History and a Social Archaeology of Memory in
the First Book of Maccabees Mario I. Aguilar
This article
explores the issue of history within post-structuralist social models of
investigation applied to the biblical text. Within the context of a biblical
narrative of Judean history, such as the Hasmonean revolt, the author assumes
the necessary exploration of social voices, narratives, and even "controversial"
texts, in order to gain a fuller understanding of the Maccabean period.
While historians have perceived the past as a reality to be reconstructed
and collided, this article argues for the perception of the past as an
ethnographic reality, where sociability and the authority of texts depend
on conflicting memories. Narratives and historical narrations arise out
of a concern for continuity and the future, more than out of the past and
its singularity. Thus social and individual memories reflect social and
individual experiences and cannot be discareded, even when they conflict
with one another.
Editorial
Dilemma: The Interpolation of First Corinthians 14:33-25
in
the Western Manuscripts of D, G., and 88
D. W. Odell-Scott
I argue
that the transposition of verses 34 and 35 after verse 40 in Western manuscripts
D, G and 88, does not strongly support the modern interpolation hypothesis
which contends that since there are textual deviations, as well as significant
inconsistencies if not contraditions between the content of verses 24 and
25 and the rest of First Corinthians, the verses were inserted into the
epistle by post-Pauline editors. I review the "egalitarian interpretation"
of 1 Cor 14:34-36, and my earlier arguments against the modern interpolation
hypothesis. Assuming the egalitarian interpretation, I suggest the editors
of manuscripts D, G and 88 removed verses 34 and 35 from their canonical
location at 33/36, and inserted them after verse 40 in order to shelter
the silencing and subordination of women from the critique of verse 36
and to positively associate the silencing and subjordination of women with
Paul's admonition for decency and order. I further argue that the editors
assessed that the verses in question were misplaced by an earlier editor
for which they offered a corrected edition. I conclude that both the earlier
and modern interpolation interpretions of the final verses of the fourteenth
chapter of First Corinthians assessed that the canonical text was incoherent.
Yet both interpretative projects are unable to resolve the textual incoherence
that results with the removal of verses 34 and 35 before the twofold native
rhetorical question of verse 36.
Book
Review
Hector Avalos, HEALTH
CARE AND THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY (P.F. Craffert)
Fall
2000 (30:3)
Presenting
the Issue: Tarnished Images
David M. Bossman
Questions
Concerning Biblical Theology
Roland E. Murphy
Abstract
These questions are
based on a research report given at the August, 2000, annual meeting of
the Catholic Biblical Association, at Loyola-Marymount University, Los
Angeles, California. (1) Are there lessons to be derived from the spate
of volumes on biblical theology published in the second half of the 20th
century? (2) Is there an inner unity to the Bible? (3) How does the relationship
between the Testaments affect a reading of the Old Testament? (4) How does
biblical theology differ from history of religion (Religionsgeschichte)?
(5) Conclusion: what, then, does "biblical theology" stand for?
The
Endangered and Reaffirmed Promises of God:
A
Fruitful Framework for Biblical Theology
James Hanson
Abstract
Traditional ways
of understanding the relationship between the First and Second Testaments
of the Christian Bible have proven untenable both theologically and historically.
Theologically, they have had at their foundation a supersessionistic stance
over against biblical Israel and Judaism, and have often proffered an unsustainable
claim of triumph over evil and suffering. Historically, historical-critical
interpretation has rendered a straightforward reading of the First Testament
as pointing toward the coming of Jesus problematic. This article proposes
that seeing the relationship between the Testaments in light of the literary
and theological rubric of God's endangered and reaffirmed promises overcomes
many of these problems. It yields a fruitful basis for a biblical theology
that acknowledges that both the story of Jesus and the church and the story
of Israel and Judaism involve a mix of faithful response to God's promises,
fundamental struggle with their endangerment, and common hope for their
reaffirmation. Healing
Stories and Medical Anthropology:
A
Reading of Mark 10:46-52
Santiago Guijarro Abstract
The healing stories
of the Gospels have been studied by exegetes from a literary and a theological
point of view. Both approaches have contributed greatly to a better understanding
of them. Nevertheless, none of these methodologies has been able to interpret
those stories from their native point of view. The purpose of this article
is to contribute to this native understanding of the healing stories. This
aim is pursued by using some cross-cultural models taken from medical anthropology.
These models can help us to imagine how Jesus and his contemporaries experienced
and understood illness and healing. The first step is to elaborate a reading
scenario combining these models and some literary and archaeological evidence.
Then this model is applied to the story of the blind man of Jericho (Mark
10:46-52). This example shows how medical anthropology can be a tool for
a more fruitful reading of the healing stories.
Book
Reviews
Hyam Maccoby, RITUAL
AND MORALITY: THE RITUAL PURITY SYSTEM AND ITS PLACE IN JUDAISM (John F.
Craghan)
Paula McNutt, RECONSTRUCTING THE SOCIETY OF ANCIENT ISRAEL (James W. Flanagan)
Winter
2000 (30:4)
Presenting
the Issue: Political Choice
Leland J. White
Grafted
In: Why Christians Are Thinking about a Jewish Biblical Theology
Anna Brawley
In the expoloration
of the question, "Why are Christians thinking about a Jewish biblical theology?"
the opinions of two opposed representative Jewish and two opposed representative
Christian scholars on the issue of a Jewish biblical theology are compared
and assessed. Why, then, are Christians interested in the idea of a Jewish
biblical theology in the first place? Based on a detailed analysis of Romans
11:11-24, the conclusion is that this interest has come about in part because
of the unique neature of the relationships between Judaism and Christianity,
and Jews and Christians, and most especially because of the unique way
in which Christians regard Jews and Judaism.
Improving
Bible Translations: The Example of Sickness and Healing
John J. Pilch
Every scholar
and teacher has a list of infelicitious translations which misrepresent
or distort the meaning intended by biblical authors. The time has come
to prepare new translations that are more respectful to the ancient author,
what the author intended to say, and actually said. Such a translation
should also respectfully report what the original audience understood.
Ideally, this translation should also make sense to the modern reader in
another culture. In the matter of sickness and healing, medical anthropology
has provided an excellent set of terms and definitions that fulfill all
these hopes.
Networds
and Exchanges: Ephesians 4:7-16 and the Community Function of Teachers
Peter W. Gosnell
Though often
recognized as part of a discussion on unity, Ephesians 4:7-16 is seldom
considered for its contributions to that discussion. Deviating from the
usual focus on possible leadership structures in post-Pauline churches,
this study emphasizes attention on what the passage says about the function
of certain individuals in promoting unity. When social network and exchange
theories are brought to bear on Ephesians 4:7-16, they illuminate strategies
in the passage that underscore the role of teachers who protect the comunity
from "false" information on the one hand and strengthen the community with
"true" information on the other. Those strategies coordinate with the overt
behavioral message of the passage. When community members respond as they
should to those teachers, they are said to promote beneficial behavior
that results in a more unified community. The net effect of such analysis
is to de-emphasize Ephesians 4:7-16 as a reflector of ecclesiastical practices
while re-focusing attention on what the passage is overtly trying to convey.
Titus:
Epistle of Religious Revitalization
Kenneth D. Tollefson
James D.
Miller (138) contends that the Epistle of Titus has "no driving concern,
no consistent focus of interest" and appears "like an anthology of traditions,
many arranged mechanically together by topic, some simply juxtaposed."
The purpose of this study is to ascertain to what extent the Epistle of
Titus demonstrates some concise strategy or logical ordering to the materials
presented. It is assumed that writers have some overarching purpose in
mind in order to decide what should be included or excluded in a manuscript
to achieve the intended objective. Thus, this analysis is concerned with
the text as text rather than any literary, historical, or other method
of interpretation. This analysis suggests that the Epistle of Titus is
organized in the same six-phase sequence that is found in thousands of
case studies of "revitalization movements" around the world.
Book Review
Thomas L. Brodie,
THE CRUCIAL BRIDGE: THE ELIJAH-ELISHA NARRATIVE AS AN INTERPRETIVE SYNTHESIS
OF GENESIS-KINGS AND A LITERARY MODEL FOR THE GOSPELS (Robert Karl Gnuse) | 
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