Customer Reviews

The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology

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3 star:		(1)
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Malina's book was written for "the beginning student of the New Testament" and he has achieved his goal, although intermediate and advanced students will benefit as well. He covers a wide range of subjects (e.g., honor and shame, group vs individual personality, social status, envy, kinship and marriage, clean and unclean) with sufficient depth to get his points across. Personally I would have preferred more in depth discussions and certainly more documentation, but perhaps that would have made a much larger book.

Malina's discussion provide insights into the broad sociocultural and psychological constructs which were operational at the time of the 1st millenium. Thus, they help us understand the customs and language of the New Testament where we might otherwise fail to grasp a critical saying or event. For example, his chapter on envy puts into perspective one of the chief motivations for the conspiracy to kill Jesus, which might otherwise not be apparent. In this same vein, his chapter on maintaining social status goes a long way toward explaining what appear to be strange greetings between Jesus and his prospective followers.

The book is not perfect. The writing style tends toward the academic, yet it lacks the true scholarly flavor some might be searching for. Perhaps this comes from the attempt to make academic material more accessible to the general public. I certainly recommend it as a supplementary text for anyone interested in understanding Jesus and his time period.

Expanding and reissuing an established classroom text, Professor Malina provides the beginning Bible student with an historically and culturally accurate panorama of first century a.d. Palestine. The greatest value in his work is that it helps contemporary Christians to avoid anachronisms when contemplating Jesus and the early Jesus movements.

Professor Malina's syntax is often stilted and verbose. This text reviews substantial amounts of materials published elsewhere. Nevertheless, the text is useful, especially for the beginning student of the New Testament.

I really enjoyed this book and its insights into the norms and mores of the time when Jesus walked the earth. Being American, most of the material regarding everyday life in the Middle East at that time is somewhat foreign to me, my way of thinking and my upbringing. This book will help clear up difficulties encountered in the Gospels in the areas of: honor and shame, individual versus group, social status, kinship and marriage and what is considered clean and unclean. It is written in a relaxed, easy style and is a great resource for studying the life and times of Jesus. I have made room for this fine work on my shelves so that it will be at my fingertips when I need a first century reality check. -- Moza

Malina looks into the culture, presuppositions and values of the first century Mediterranean peoples. The understanding of the way of life and values open up new understanding of many passages principally of the Gospels which are difficult to understand. The value of honor & shame illumine many of the controversies surrounding the person of the hisorical Jesus. This really is great reading for anyone who wants to understand the Gospels today. Enveloped in a Western materialistic and individualistic culture (anti-culture?) it's difficult to enter into the mind of the first century. Malina helps us to do this and therefore to be able to understand the Gospels and the person of Jesus better.

If you ever wanted to read the Bible and truly understand the text behind the text, then this is the book you want to read.

Malina does a wonderful job of giving us insight in to the world that is 1st Century Judea. He brings out the cultural scene of the times to aid us in the understanding of what it was like to be someone in this time period.

Malina breaks down the culture based on the 4 levels of understand. They include kinship, power, religion and economics. He discusses the impact that kinship and power had on this era and how these two items were most prevalent in terms of how people viewed each other. Kinship is broken down into blood lines, where you were born, gender issues and so forth in a way that amazes a reader when it comes to truly seeing the time. Power discusses the fine art of challenge and repose and how challenge was used to try to break down status of an individual (why do you think the Pharisees asked Jesus so many questions???? To lower his power. Funny how Jesus always wins.). Malina discusses the impact of shame and honor and how that plays a role in the family and community.

For anyone who really wants to understand the message behind the text of the Bible this is a must have volume for your library.

All in all, I've been very pleased with this purchase. The book came to me highly recommended and I wasn't disappointed. I would caution the reader though when I say that the book is more than a little dry. Also, Malina tends to rely on abstract models to make his point, which is fine, but may not work well for some. On the whole, though, the book is indispensable and will serve anyone well.

Malina's volume is a must for anyone who intends to exegete the New Testament. Students of the Bible will benefit greatly from the material because it introduces one to a world unlike our own.

This book provides great insights into the culture of 1st century Palestine and gives fascinating insights into the psychology of the individuals present in the world of the New Testament. While other books cover well the radical challenge that the teacher Jesus made to financial and political systems of the time, this book makes very clear that the revolution he really sought was one involving consciousness itself - an entire (and to some, incredibly threatening) transformation of foundational values. Very readable as well, not too academic or full of needless jargon.

Understanding the cultural context of the Bible should be the first priority of any Christian or atheists who tries to debate or study the Bible. To this end, I also recommend "Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Ritual Purity" by David DeSilva. HPKRP is a great starter book for the novice as it is an easy read and yet covers the titular cultural facets to an acceptable depth as is befitting a book for novices. I would also recommend "The New Testament World" but would caution the novice that this book is a bit more complex and abstract than DeSilva's book.

"The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology" attempts to explain the culture of the 1st century Mediterranean world with particular emphasis on the Jews of the Bible. Honor, patronage, kinship, and ritual purity are covered as you might expect, but it plumbs them to a much greater depth. Here are some of the cultural facets that Malina attempts to explain:

1) Honor - what is it? How can honor be earned or lost? What is considered honorable? What is expected of an honorable male or female, lower class, or elite class member? What kind of examples in history demonstrate honor and shame in action?

2) Marriage - what values were attached to marriage in the 1st century? Who were eligible to be married and where would they seek their marriage partner? What role did marriage play in the kin? What marriage strategies were used in the different time periods of the Bible? What about divorce? When is divorce acceptable?

3) Kinship - who was considered kin? How important was your kin? What duties must one perform or live up to?

4) Relations with people outside of kin - what is a dyadic contract? A patron-client relationship? When would you seek such a relationship? How did one repay debts?

5) Ritual purity - what are purity maps? What purpose did they serve? Do we have parallels in our modern culture to ritual purity? What did one have to do to be considered ritually pure and what did one have to do should they defile themselves to be restored to purity?

6) Personalities of the First Century - how did a 1st century Jew view themselves? What kind of personality did they have? How does this relate to any other cultural consideration (honor, purity, and so on)?

7) Social activist groups - how common were they? How did they form? Why did they form? How does Jesus' little group of followers relate to other social groups of His time?

And above all, Malina attempts to tie all these in to Biblical accounts. One thing is for certain - if you can read and you read it with an open mind, this book will teach you things. You will never read your Bible the same way again.

Each chapter ends with a nice summary, there are several useful graphs to help you understand difficult, abstract concepts, and the book ends with study questions that you can use to test your understanding. All in all, this is a solid book for understanding the social context of the Bible.

So was there anything bad? Well, Malina tends to repeat himself at times and maybe it was just me, but he would at least appear to go off on tangents and explain things that might be considered irrelevant (at least to me); but there's nothing really obviously bad with this book. It's throughly documented, and the index in the back is invaluable as it lists topics with page numbers and a list of scripture references.

Final verdict - a definite buy, provided you don't mind swimming in deeper waters as opposed to some more novice-friendly books such as HPKRP.

This book arrived in perfect condition. It has very interesting knowledge which I found to be extremely helpful for my biblical backgrounds class. It gives you great insight to the culture and procedures of the bible world and makes understanding scripture in context a lot more easier!