Palestine in the Time of Jesus

Palestine in the Time of Jesus:

Social Structures and Social Conflicts

K. C. Hanson and Douglas E. Oakman

RESOURCES FOR CHAPTER ONE

"Catching the Drift"
Introduction to the Social System of Roman Palestine

Chapter Summary

It has long been obvious that the modern reader stands at a distance from the text of the New Testament in terms of history, geography, language, and literature. But this volume addresses a different set of gaps between the New Testament and the modern reader: those due to differences of culture and social system. Most of us have never encountered some of the most common first-century Palestinian social institutions, such as patronage/clientage. First-century social institutions were configured and related in ways different from our own, such as religion as embedded in kinship or politics. Our orientation to values is different from their emphasis on honor and shame. And the U.S. emphasizes the individual over the group, unlike the ancients in Galilee and Judea.

Bridging the cultural gap calls for using more adequate cultural scenarios. This means that we need to draw on social-scientific studies regarding Mediterranean and peasant studies. And these studies need to be set within context of the study of Palestinian history and archaeology, especially the study of first-century Galilee. The closer the analogies to ancient Palestine in terms of time and space, the fewer cultural hurdles one needs to account for. But our basic premise is that drawing analogies from the Mediterranean world will provide better starting-points than our own experiences in the modern Western world. A comparative approach, however, is not only helpful, but vital.

We use explicit models in order to clarify our understanding of first-century Palestinian institutions. These models are not set in stone, but are always open to adjustment as we develop new insights and find new information. And while the social sciences predominate in our methodology, we are also aware that other methods must be taken into account, especially history, archaeology, and historical geography. A balance must always be maintained between the general and the particular, between the typical and the unique. In social-scientific perspective, our primary focus will be on the typical and general in its application to understanding the particular and unique.

Near East Map #2 (Oriental Institute)