The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels [Paperback]

Wolfgang Stegemann (Author), Bruce J. Malina (Editor), Gerd Theissen (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0800634527 | ISBN-13: 978-0800634520 | Publication Date: July 1, 2002

The context of Jesus, his followers, and the early movement What do the social sciences have to contribute to the study of Jesus and the Gospels? This is the fundamental question that these essays all address - from analyses of ancient economics to altered states of consciousness, politics, ritual, kinship, and labeling. Contributors: Bruce J. Malina, Wolfgang Stegemann, Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Ekkehard W. Stegemann, Gerd Theissen, T. Raymond Hobbs, Dennis C. Duling, K.C. Hanson, Philip F. Esler, S. Scott Bartchy, John J. Pilch, Christian Strecker, Richard DeMaris, Stuart L. Love, Jerome H. Neyrey, Douglas E. Oakman, Gary Stansell, Santiago Oporto Guijarro

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Wolfgang Stegemann is Rektor and Professor of New Testament at the Augustana Hochschule, Neuendettelsau, Germany; he is the co-author of The Jesus Movement: A Social History of Its First Century (Fortress Press, 1999).

Bruce J. Malina is Professor of New Testament at Creighton University, author of The Social Gospel of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2000) and co-author of Social Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Fortress Press, 2000).

Gerd Theissen is Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and the author of The Religion of the Earliest Churches (Fortress Press, 1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 420 pages
• Publisher: Fortress Press (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800634527
• ISBN-13: 978-0800634520
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,083,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Abandon ethnocentricity, all ye who enter here!, December 23, 2002

By 

David Laufer (Atlanta GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels (Paperback)

Editor Stegemann is to be commended for assembling a diverse and highly specialized field of writings into a survey which is about as cohesive as it can be given the few facts we have about Jesus and the vast body of Christian apologetics.

This book is a compilation of essays by contemporary academic writers each of whom take a very rigorous and detailed look at a different aspect of "the historical Jesus" and the origins of "the Jesus Movement". Bring your dictionary- this is not a casual read. And while the language sometimes seems almost showy in its complexit, a majority of the contributors present their ideas in an orderly fashion, and all have important conclusions.

What the editor sets out to do is ambitious: help the serious lay reader strip away the 21st century baggage we unwittingly bring to our reading of Jesus and his teachings. There are few conclusions here, and no proofs, but there are some wonderful insights.

The highly erudite approach to the material necessarily makes the treatment of Jesus seem a bit clinical. But I found it both informative and uplifting. This reader, at least, emerged from the labyrinth with the sense that Jesus-Messiah, avatar, healer, radical and yes, savior -survives the dissection and critique to be resurrected more provocative and inspiring than before.

Mr. Stegemann has done Christendom an important service by admitting the community of faith to the kind of discourse that undergirds the continuing Christian revolution.

I would give this book a fifth star if it had a glossary.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent social-scientific intro to the NT, July 22, 2007

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www.DavidLRattigan.com (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels (Paperback)

This volume is one of the best academic introductions to social-scientific study of the New Testament available. Most key contemporary scholars in the field are represented, and the essays cover a wide range of issues related to the gospels, including miracles, exorcisms, honour/shame etc.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Quest for the Historical Jesus on Steroids, January 25, 2009

By 

Dennis M. Swanson "Narnia3.com" (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels (Paperback)

Seeking to answer the question, "What can one, with the help of historically informed social-scientific models, know about the `historical' Jesus from the New Testament that cannot be know by other approaches?" (vii), this volume is the compilation of paper presented at the Fourth International Meeting of the Context Group in Tutzing, Germany in 1999.

This group is dedicated to interpreting the New Testament by means of historiography, utilizing social science research, once of course after they find a "suitable model" (p. 3) to facilitate such research. This group advocates a minimalist to radical minimalist approach to the text of Scripture. In fact their view of Scripture is simply assumed and never defended, the idea of an inspired and inerrant text from which propositional truth derived would be considered nonsensical. In fact this reviewer could not find a single instance where the word Scripture was even used and there is no mention of inspiration at any level.

This reviewer was struck at the beginning of the book by two things: (1) the distain for any approach to New Testament studies that affirms absolutes in terms of theological truth; and (2) the acrimony towards those who disagree with their affirmations. Once such example should suffice where Malina states:

For the most part, social-scientific research in New Testament studies has been concerned with interpreting written documents, not with the general storytelling of historians. In other words, its concerns have been exegetical, not historiographical . . . This is perhaps why, so far, there has been no "life" of the historical Jesus based on social-scientific interpretations . . .Nonetheless, what has been done with the social sciences is significant, much of it important enough to be plagiarized by John Dominic Crossan (4).

This is a technical work, not for the faint of heart. The authors assume conversance with various social-science constructs and they make no effort to explain their models at all, except as over against why their selected model is chosen over another competing model (p. 15). There is a great deal technical jargon from the social science, such as the so-called "forming" "storming" "norming" "performing" and "adjourning" phases of small group development that the authors ascribe to the ministry of Jesus (pp. 11-15). One author speaks of the "public self" the "private self" and the "in-group self" of Jesus (38) and states that if Jesus did think that He was the Messiah no one would have heard about it in His lifetime because to assert such "private self" beliefs would be a shameful practice (39).

Other chapters discuss "Jesus as Fatherless Child" (65-84); discusses Jesus' baptism by John and His walking on water in terms of "altered states of consciousness" models (108-111); demon possession is described as a "socially accepted way to deal with tensions, because it allowed those possessed to do and say what they could not do or say as a sane person (165). There is a chapter entitled "The Jesus Movement and Network Analysis" (301-32) where the travels of Jesus and His disciples are evaluated in terms of an "ego-centered network" (325).

All of this is simply what we might call the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" on steroids. It is the full-scale abandonment of the text of Scripture as inspired and historical-grammatical hermeneutics as a viable methodology for interpreting and understanding the text. Paul's warning that in the last days there would be those who are "always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim 3:7) is the best summation possible for this thoroughly useless book.