Daniel J. Harrington

Sociological Concepts and the Early Church: A Decade of Research

During the past ten years the biblical-theological study of the Church seems to have stood still. Of course, there have been good presentations of the topics that constitute the agenda of this approach: the relation between Jesus and the Church, the images of the Church, diversity of structures, and forms of ministry. Nevertheless, the positions taken and the methods that underlie them are not substantially different from the ones in fashion in the 1960s. Perhaps we should simply be satisfied with the solid results of the biblical-theological approach1 and put our energies into making them more intelligible to nonspecialists. But there has been a development in biblical studies during the 1970s that may infuse some new life into the study of the Church in the New Testament. It involves the use of the concepts and methods of sociology. In North America to a great extent and in Europe to a lesser degree the social sciences are playing an increasing role in academic life. Many of the problems and concerns traditionally treated in philosophy have been taken over by psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Even in the traditionally philological disciplines like orientalism2 and biblical studies,3 the influx of the social sciences has been noticeable. Those whose primary academic training is in the social sciences now apply their concepts and methods to fields in which philology had reigned. The past decade has seen the introduction of sociological concepts to the study of the Church in the NT, and this article gathers together that research and explores what impact it might have for our understanding of the early Church and even of the Church today. The presentation is restricted to those books and articles that make explicit use of sociological ideas and methods. It does not treat developments in the social descripxad tion of early Christianity4 or studies of individual documents in the NT, though in the long run such investigations will probably be recognized as more important than the material treated here. What does the sociological approach do? Gerd Theissen5 has defined

Book Review: The Lordship of Christ: Ernst Käsemann's Interpretation of Paul's TheologyThe Lordship of Christ: Ernst Käsemann's Interpretation of Paul's Theology. By WayDavid. New York: Oxford/Clarendon, 1991. pp. xiv + 336.

Β. exhibits wide reading, not only in biblical criticism but also in 19th-century German intellectual history and contemporary literary theory; but there are some fundamental problems with his attempt to rehabilitate the canonical approach. Childs has explicitly rejected atxad tempts to link his approach to those of Gadamer or Lindbeck, which he considers too humanistic. The canonical approach is rooted in Barthian theology and stands or falls on its attribution of the canonical text to the Holy Spirit. To give up all talk of revelation, as B. suggests (164), would be to remove the raison dêtre of the canonical approach. If Gadamers approach is superior, why persist in talking about the canonical approach at all? It is a defect in B.s analysis of Childs that he never probes the theological roots of the canonical approach, or pursues the question of what constitutes theological interpretation. B.s sympathy for the canonical approach seems to arise from the fact that it focuses on the final form of the text and avoids much hypothetical study of backgrounds. He cites Gadamer and Karl Popper to show that some texts can and do speak for themselves. The authorities cited, however, scarcely prove the point. Texts may take on meanings that their authors never envisaged, but these meanings still depend on the context and intentions of the interpreters. At most, B. shows that there is much support for synchronic interpretation in various strands of contemporary thought. Whether such interpretation is in any way preferable to traditional historical criticism, is another matter. B.s concluding remarks, on the theological value of final form study, are the weakest part of the book. He argues that historical criticism creates a gap between expert biblical interpreters and the laity, by requiring subtle reconstructions behind the text (165), and that an egalitarian ecclesiology would take the final form of Scripture as its starting point. This argument might carry some weight as a pastoral strategy, but the difficulty of understanding an ancient text cannot be so easily avoided.

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Course and the Final Times. The Infancy Prologues are introduced as Roots and Shadows Cast Before; Jesus Passion and Resurrection forms the climax; and the Great Commission serves as the conclusion. M. writes in a style that is lucid and engaging, creating an interesting mix of demanding scholarly commentary (sans footnotes) and a personal sharing of relevant experiences and anecdotes that put the reader at ease. Following commentary that never fails to illuminate a part of Matthews gospel, M. often draws up a list of pastoral insights and applications. This emphasis on pastoral implications together with the authors personal reflections should make the book especially useful for homilists. However, neither the books attractive title, Companion God, nor the promising reference in the subtitle to a cross-cultural perspective are adequately developed or sustained within the commentary. This is due, in no small part, to the traditional commentary format that breaks up the gospel narrative into small, manageable units of text which, in the course of exposition, take on a life and importance of their own. As a result, a sense of the whole is readily lost. M.s generous sharing of his experiences living in a culture, as he says, vastly alien to my native America is always refreshing and very helpful. But, overall, the crossculture material remains sporadic and incidental rather than transformative and essential. Moreover, the insights of recent sociological analysis by New Testament scholars are not in evidence. A telling example is M.s novel reference to Josephs celibate fatherhood (18-19). The entire text of Matthews gospel is conveniently printed within the commentary but not in a distinguishing type for easy location. The translation used is the RSV, but M. makes expert use of other English translations to amplify and illustrate the rich texture of the original Greek. There are no indices.

Book Review: Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the PhariseePaul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. By SegalAlan F.. New Haven: Yale University, 1990. Pp. xvi + 368.

THE JEWS IN THE GREEK AGE. By Elias J. Bickerman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1988. Pp. xiii + 338.

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30. The late Professor Bickerman (1897-1981) was recognized as a leading authority not only in the study of Hellenism but also in the particular area of Hellenistic Judaism. His most famous books were Der Gott der Makkabàer (1937; English, 1979) and Institutions des Séleucides (1938). His technical articles have been gathered in the three-volume collection Studies in Jewish and Christian History (1976, 1980, 1986). He was widely admired for his mastery of the primary sources pertaining to the Hellenistic era and for his breadth of learning. He was indeed a scholars scholar. In his latter years he served as professor of ancient history at Columbia University in New York and research fellow at Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Although B. had completed the first draft of this survey of preMaccabean Judaism in 1963, he was revising his manuscript until shortly before his death. His manuscript has been prepared for publication by Shari Friedman, a member of the Jewish Theological Seminary research staff. Albert Baumgarten, professor of Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University, assisted with the final preparation and compiled a 15-page general bibliography. The theme of the volume is stability and change in Jewish society during the first centuries of the Greek age, from the fourth century B.C. until approximately 175 B.C. The first part (before and after Alexander) surveys the evidence for the early encounters between Jews and Greeks in the land of Israel and the Diaspora. The second part (the third century) is a historical sketch of Palestine under the rule of the Egyptian Ptolemies and then the Syrian Seleucids. The third part (permanence and innovation) takes up the volumes major theme with regard to religious institutions, economic life, law, learning, and literature. The retrospect emphasizes the paucity and selectivity of evidence for preMaccabean Judaism. It also cautions that contact between Greeks and Orientals was, so to speak, tangential, connection taking place only at the point marked government (302). It observes that real Hellenization of the Seleucid empire, outside Asia Minor, began only after the end of Seleucid domination, when the Hellenizing process was taken over by the native rulers. In Palestine the decisive point was the rise of the Maccabean dynasty, which some ancient sources paradoxically portray as anti-Hellenistic. The editors, Jewish Theological Seminary, and Harvard University Press deserve thanks for making available an important synthesis by a

Book Review: The Jews in the Greek AgeThe Jews in the Greek Age. By BickermanElias J.. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1988. Pp. xiii + 338.

tional spirituality that marked pre-Vatican II Catholicism and that still animates the faith life of large numbers of Catholics, and also with the changed approaches to prayer and piety that have attracted many Catholics since the Council. More than that, his own rather easy acceptance of both speaks for the possibility of the two views being synthesized rather than simply coexisting in the Church. This book is good, solid theology written without technical apparatus or terminology and thus available to educated nonprofessionals. It is clearly a level beyond catechetics, even good catechetics.

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American setting. For example, I would have liked an essay by someone like Luc van Stijlen, S. J., the founder of a new Green political party in Belgium who nevertheless chooses neither to belong formally to his own party nor hold public offices in it. Again, I would have liked greater biographical probing of the role conflict touched on by remarks of Lawrence ORourke in his essay on Geno Baroni during the Carter administration: As he spoke about moral commitments, he lost his acceptance as a politician and simultaneously began to be typecast as a priest who was out of his element in the federal government. With the exception of Peter Huizing and Knut Waifs 1982 volume May Church Ministers be Politicians? (Concilium 157), I know of no other rounded and systematic treatments of the theological, canonical, religio-symbolic issues of priests and religious in politics. In this new book in its series, the Woodstock Theological Center has once again made an important scholarly contribution to contemporary issues of faith and justice. The editor of this book wants to make sure that authentic quaestiones disputatae not be settled by fiat or disciplinary decree without the rounded debate they deserve. This volume suggests to me that the debate never really took place before the disciplinary rule of the canon law recently became a kind of absolute (e.g., the forced dispensation from vows of Agnes Mansour and Elizabeth Morancy).

Book Review: The New Encounter between Christians and Jews, Twenty Years of Jewish-Catholic RelationsThe New Encounter between Christians and Jews. By OesterreicherJohn M., New York: Philosophical Library, 1986. Pp. 470.

Pseudo-Jonathan found in the so-called Venice edition of the Pentateuch edited by Asher Forins in 1590. Why that printed text should be regarded the editio princeps is puzzling, when it is normally recognized that the London manuscript is a superior copy. The running heads on the pages of the targum of Deuteronomy do not reproduce accurately the title in the manuscript, which is spr hmysy, Fifth Book (not spr hmysy). Moreover, the title prsh dbrym is missing on fol. 189, as is the title spr rswn on fol. 4. In Gen 21:21 Clarke has corrected wtrk to wtrkh (also in the concordance on p. 613). Rieder did the same, but he at least indicated his correction in a footnote. These minor criticisms do not really detract from the value of this new edition of the text of Pseudo-Jonathan, for which we are all thankful. We are indebted to E. G. Clarke and his collaborators for the production of this volume, and especially for the much-needed concordance of this targum.

25.Twenty Years of Jewish-Catholic Relations. Edited by FisherEugene J., RudinA. James, and TanenbaumMarc H., New York: Paulist, 1986. Pp. iv + 236.

authors, and reader—uncomfortable. Dillon hints at a problem at the very beginning of his essay: A terminological problem must be faced at the outset of this paper: self-definition in relation to what? An individual or an organization must define itself in relation to whatever stands over against it as other at any given stage of its existence (60). But it is Kee who has the most intriguing discussion of method. He wants to offer an alternative to two familiar approaches, the history-of-religions school and the search for timeless patterns. What seems called for among responsible historians is rather to explore how, in a religious tradition, human self-understandings—personal, social and cosmic—undergo significant shifts even though the external features of a religions myth and ritual seemingly perdure (119). The McMaster project revives F. C. Baurs Hegelian theory of the rise of Early Catholicism (although work since Baur has pushed the origins of Early Catholicism embarrassingly close to the origins of Christianity itself), and adds the assertion that Christianity might willingly have settled for pluralism. But the diversity of earliest Christianity is not the same as pluralism; and in a world of diffuse Platonism, pluralism was not likely to be embraced as a value. But questions about the project leave the value of the articles intact.

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JEWISH LITERATURE BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND THE MISHNAH: A HISTORICAL AND LITERARY INTRODUCTION. By George W. E. Nickelsburg. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981. Pp. xx + 332.