Customer Reviews

The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If ancient culture is what interests you, this is one of the primary texts one should begin with. Rohrbaugh has brought together a great collection of articles on honor and shame, kinship realtions, purity regulations, patron and client, among others. This is an important book for all biblical interpreters and people generally interested in ancient culture. Furthermore, the bibliographic information provided on each subject is helpful for further research. I am going to use this book with my students for years to come.

I picked this text up at the regional AAR conference this spring and ended up reading 1/3 of the book that day.

"Cross-cultural reading of the Bible is not a matter of choice." (p.1) The authors intent is to help make us aware of our social distance...that we as Western individualists may not have the cross-cultural understanding to appropriately interpret the New Testament.

The authors readily admit that ancient and modern Mediterranean culture are not exact equivilents but many of the ancient characteristics persist still today which makes it a credible study for social science approach to interpretation.

Bruce Malina's essay on "Understanding New Testament Persons" was particularly helpful. I have had a growing displeasure with individualistic focus of so much Biblical interpretation over the past year and found Malina's thoughts refreshing.

As an introductory text into this conversation another very helpful aspect of this book are the references to other texts in the same field. It has been a great resource already.