From the Preface
While many books describe the world of first-century Palestine, the
originating home of Jesus and the Gospels, most of the existing ones do so
from the perspective of history, literature, or theology. Only recently
have biblical scholars begun to apply social-scientific models to the
Jesus traditions in any systematic way. While isolated observations and
conclusions of a "social" or "anthropological" character have been made
for years, what has been lacking are clearly conceived models of social
relationships to organize this material. The problems have been compounded
by the lack of cross-cultural comparisons. Another difficulty has been
the failure to provide any systemic overview showing the structure of the
social domains, the institutions that embody them, and the relationship
between those institutions.
In reading the New Testament and contemporaneous works it is fundamental
to understand both the social values and the social institutions of
ancient Palestine. The following pages focus on social institutions with a
view to how they are reflected in or had an impact upon Jesus and
traditions within the gospels.
Since we intend this book for the undergraduate, seminarian, pastor, or
generally educated reader, we have had to assume some things for the sake
of clarity and emphasis. Beyond what is said in chapter 1 and in our
glossaries, the reader should consult some of the many introductions to
the biblical literature or the history of this period. We hope that our
book, despite its limitations, will help readers to sort through
complicated material and issues in comprehensible and readable form.
Specifically, we have the following general goals in mind throughout our
work:
· To examine the primary social institutions of first-century Palestine
through a social-scientific methodology
· To present testable models of society that can be employed when studying
the Bible, and therefore be refined or modified as the reader acquires
more information
· To relate the systemic analysis directly to New Testament passages in
each chapter in order to demonstrate how this material is applicable
Chapter 1 presents an overview on the use of models (or scenarios),
and why they are important in doing social analysis. Especially important
here is to make clear that models are instructive tools that facilitate
all data to be seen in meaningful configurations, not pigeonholes into
which one forces the data. Chapter 1 also covers social domains, and how
the world was perceived and organized differently in the ancient
Mediterranean. The relationships and interactions of social domains are
investigated. Finally, we compare, on a large scale, the differences
between a pre-industrial society (such as first-century Palestine) and a
post-industrial society (such as the twentieth-century U.S.).
Our persistent aim is to employ the lenses of our models to help the
reader of the New Testament gospels imagine institutions and scenarios
more appropriate to first-century Palestine than those into which we were
socialized. In each major chapter we examine materials related to Jesus as
we address a different social domain. Chapter 2 focuses on kinship,
chapter 3 on politics, chapter 4 on political economy, and chapter 5 on
political religion. We take pains to show the reader how these social
domains interact and interpenetrate through specific social institutions.
Chapter 1 explains why the chapters and institutions unfold in this order.
The following sub-structure is followed in each chapter:
· Identification of central biblical passages or other texts
· A list of questions the passages raise
· The construction of meaningful models or scenarios
· Application of the models and scenarios to the focal texts,
consideration of the initial questions
· Highlighting aspects of the Jesus tradition through the models and
scenarios
· Identification of material for further reflection, suggested
applications of the chapter's perspectives
· Recommended readings
We have summarized important technical discussions through graphical aids
(pictorial conceptual models). While pictures are not always worth a
thousand words, we often require quite a few to explain our charts, these
can be helpful to the reader as orienting maps for the social-scientific
discussions. The general model of chapter one is elaborated for specific
institutional domains in subsequent models.
The reader will also find helpful the three glossaries at the end of
the volume, which include terms relevant to Palestinian culture (for
example, "tetrarch"), identification of ancient authors and documents (for
example, Josephus), and modern social-scientific terms (for example,
"institution"). The first time a technical term is used in each chapter it
will be marked with an asterisk to indicate that it is defined in a
glossary. [pp. xvii-xix]
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