Peter Kirby

If you mean the textual variants in the manuscripts, then Metzger's textual commentary on the New Testament is a good place to start.

best,
Peter Kirby

Diogenes the Cynic

I think the problem for building a general model for the formation of Christianity is that it always has to be founded on some degree of speculation. It always breaks down at the first century. It can't be easily generalized because there's really no choice but to commit to a theoretical model based on a personal best guess as to what does or does not have any basic historicity in Christian origins. Was there a HJ or wasn't there? Was there a crucifixion? If there was a Jesus what was the content of his ministry? Was he an apocalyptic prophet? A Cynic sage? A mystic? Did he think he was the Messiah? Did his earliest followers perceive him as the Messiah or as something else?

Without being able to answer those questions, all we can really do is pick a model we like and try to flesh it out. Even the mythicist models require some speculation as to precise origin, as to what the movement was before Paul, as to the authorship and original compoistion of the sayings tradition, etc.

Peter Kirby

Okay, while not looking at necessarily proving anything, what would be the questions answered by a reasonably complete model of Christian origins?

What components would there be so that we'd say "Ah! Everything's there, it works well enough, even if there may be other ways to put together the pieces." Contrarily, what are some of the things that are missing from incomplete "models" that just present some arguments on particular points?

For example, I don't think that G. A. Wells in all his books ever really figured out what his model of Christian origins was, in any detail that would be remotely satisfying. He was focused on presenting the negative case on one opinion, the historicity of Jesus in the first century.

Finally, is there anyone here who is familiar with the social sciences and can explain a bit about what goes into a social-scientific hypothesis about how something like Christianity or Buddhism or whatever got started and developed early on?

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Toto

Just off the top of my head -

There is no agreed upon social science model of religion. The earlier generation of social scientists (especially anthropologists) thought of religion as superstition or a form of insanity, and figured it would wither away as people became more informed. The current generation is not so hostile. But there is still a lot of speculation about the origins of religion being temporal lobe epilepsy (as in Paul's visions) or similar psychiatric models with an emphasis on sympathetic magic, magical thinking, fertility rituals, and drugs. Freud's idea that religion is " 'an infantile obsessional neurosis' centered mainly on the primal father-figure" would probably be considered politically incorrect in today's atmosphere of religious tolerance, but I'm sure a lot of academics would privately agree with it. Religioustolerance.org has very little that is useful to say. This page on The Origins of Religion has a good survey of the history of thinking on the origins of religion, primarily by ethnologists and anthropologists.

Different social scientists have different approaches. If you are a marxist or a neo-marxist, you would look to the economic basis of the society, and how Christianity interacted with that, as Crossan talks about the displaced agrarian workers, etc.

Rodney Stark in his Rise of Christianity maintains that people join religions for reasons of rational self-interest. (Criticized by Vork here.) The Roman Empire was an alienated place with few social services, and people needed a structure for mutual cooperation. Christian charity drew people to their religion, and their supernatural beliefs provided some means of group cohesion and discipline, and controll of freeloaders. Stark is really explaining why Christianity grew, rather than how it started, but we can assume that there were a variety of religions in the Roman empire, and Christianity had the characteristics that led to survival, while other religions failed (or perhaps were incorporated into Christianity).

Vorkosigan

Peter, my own view is that any book on Christian origins must come last, after each and every work in the NT has been thoroughly analyzed from a skeptical perspective. What's really needed is a thorough study/critique of Wells & Doherty's ideas on Paul and his Christ, and an evaluation of the historicity of the information in Acts. Again IMHO study of Acts in particular is going to require mastery of the Ancient Greek Novels and their storytelling techniques -- start with Bowersock.

I would say the priorities would be Acts (which I am starting on after I finish Mark) and the letters of Paul. John would be great too, killing off any idea that it is independent of the Synoptics.....

Just my $0.02

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

I agree with this. One thing I am looking at is a way to introduce statistical theory as a tool of analysis once the substantive work of weighing the interpretative options for each passage is done.

For example, suppose that we simplify Paul down to writing three paragraphs, and these three paragraphs have the following probabilities of describing a Jesus who lived a life on earth with other humans:

1. There is a 0% chance that there is a mention of an earthly Jesus in this passage. If Paul did have an earthly Jesus in mind, there is a 30% chance he would have mentioned him here.
2. There is a 20% chance that there is a mention of an earthly Jesus in this passage. If Paul did have an earthly Jesus in mind, there is a 50% chance he would have mentioned him here.
3. There is a 0% chance that there is a mention of an earthly Jesus in this passage. If Paul did have an earthly Jesus in mind, there is a 10% chance that he would have mentioned him here.

Based on the likelihood that each passage furnishes a description showing that Paul knew of an earthly Jesus, and based on the likelihood that Paul would have mentioned this earthly Jesus if there had been one, I want to calculate how likely it is that Paul had an earthly Jesus in mind.

Am I missing variables? Does anyone have any idea of how to go about this? Your help with the math might give me the motivation to do what I have ben avoiding up to now, which is a thorough evaluation of these references in Paul.

best,
Peter Kirby

Diogenes the Cynic

My knowledge on this is fairly limited but I did take a couple of classes on the sociology of religion including one on the formation of New Religious Movements. Stark and Bainbridge was the textbook for that and essentially they broke it down into three models of formation, those models being the Psychpathology Model, the Entrepeneur Model and the Subculture-Evolution Model of cult formation. They are summarized thusly:
Translating all that stuff about the Subculture-Evolution model into English, it means that similar but discrete groups within a subculture may end up sharing ideas, members, goals and rewards until they become a sort of conglomerate cult of their own. An example of this might be the various "new age" subgroups or UFO enthusiasts, even something like the neopagan movement which incorporates a lot of new subgroups.


The most obvious model to use for the Jesus movement is the classic Psychopatholgy Model with the charismatic and "inspired" leader but thjat's probably too simplistic for Christianity. I can see the S-E Model plugging in just as well, or even a combination of both with Paul being a "psychotic" revolutionary within an existing subcultural Jesus movement.

I can actually see three or four different ways to use these models, either singly or in combination, but I think that the S-E model is the one most certainly at play in the late first century. Burton Mack suggests a subculture of "Q" communities preciptating the Jesus movement and that would work as well.

andrewcriddle

One of the problems with the approach of Stark and Bainbridge is that it seems explicitly to assume that such religious movements are false/bogus/misguided. Whether or not this is true it is not a question on which sociologists per se have any particular authority.

See for example Steve Bruce's critiques of Stark and Bainbridge.
If I was attempting to describe the rise of Christianity in similar terms to Bainbridge & Stark then I would describe the period of activity of Jesus in terms of what they call the Psychopathology model (more neutrally the 'Altered State of Consciousness' model) with Jesus' visions of the coming Kingdom of God attracting followers loyal to him, his prophecies and apparent healing power.

After the death of Jesus many of his followers are enabled by belief in his resurrection as divine vindication, to continue in their faith albeit in a substantially altered form. Jesus is now regarded as the Messiah rejected by his own people and crucified but vindicated by God in accordance with the hidden meaning of Scripture.

Probably 500-1000 followers of Jesus during his life continued to follow the resurrected Christ. The development of this new form of faith in Jesus begins what Bainbridge & Stark would call the Subculture-Evolution model phase with its ideas about God's purpose etc attracting people from much wider groups than the followers of Jesus during his life. Although the origins and fundamental logic of this new faith involve claims about the death and resurrection of Jesus such claims are sometimes not particularly emphasised by recruits to Christianity from these wider groups.

An important development is Paul coming to believe that his concerns about the gulf between God's demands in the Law and human weakness can be satisfied within a Christian framework.

(Although I agree that the Entrepeneur model is irrelevant for mainstream Christianity it may be involved in some forms of Gnosticism.)

Andrew Criddle

Diogenes the Cynic

I agree that Stark and Bainbridge are using some loaded terminology, particularly in what they call the "Psychopatholgy" model, but I think the Entrepeneur model is the only one for which they really ascribe outright, cynical falsehood or fraud. The other two assume some sort of sincere beliefs even by the "mentally ill" founders of the first model.

I believe that if some of the terminology and insuinuations are defanged, the dynamics in their first model are basically plausible-- There is a crisis within a specific culture or subculture or social group. An individual within that group undergoes some sort of cognitive transformation (be it "psychotic" or be it "mystic" or be it a "revelation") in which he or she is able to devise a new psychological response or strategy for coping with the the crisis. If this individual's "revealed" answers are satisfying or compelling to enough other people in the same crisis you get a cult formation.

The Roman occupation of Palestine would satisfy the requirement of a cultural crisis and there are a number of plausible Jesus scenarios in which an inspired "prophet" could offer a satisfying psychological response to a larger audience. A apocalytpic message that God was about to come back and kick ass, a belief that Jesus was the Annointed who would drive out the Romans, an internal, sociological paradigm that rejected materialism attempted to create a spiritual "Kingdom of Heaven" on earth. A mystic message or technique which promised direct communon with god, etc. All of these things could lead to an original, historic Jesus movement which culminated in the crucifixion of its founder.

Another obvious cultural crisis was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the diaspora that followed. Without the Temple as a center of worship, Jewish communities had to grapple with new paradigms and Rabbinic Judaism emerged as a dominant political force in Jewish communities that previously had been incorporating ideas and practices from Greco-Roman cultic influences. That included the Christos sects who were expelled from the synagogues.

There is no Keanu Reeves after 70 CE but Paul may have been a minor one in the Hellenistic Jesus movement of the 50's and may have helped to conglomerate and solify a more disparate set of communities and ideas into a more holistic movement, and after the diaspora, this movement took hold in some of the more powerful cities, including Rome.

I still think the hardest part of choosing a model is deciding whether there is anything historical in Palestine at the root of the initial Jesus movement. Burton Mack suggests that the original movement was a philosophical, Cynical group of communities which used "Jesus" sayings as a device for spreading and preserving a specific philosophical ideology rather than deriving them from an authentic leader of a movement. I guess that would follow the S-E Model.

Whatever the case, it seems like Christianity has a complex set of origins and much of the data has been lost.

Toto

This Bruce critique of Stark-Bainbridge model seems to challenge Stark's theories on secularization rather than the notion that religious movements are "false/bogus/misguided."

Two things should be noted about Stark: he got most of his data from studying the Unification Church and other "new religious movements" which seem to be the poster children from false, bogus, and/or misguided religious instincts - but he was nevertheless fairly sympathetic to those new religious movements. And he assumed that Christianity in its formative stages was very much like the Unification church, which is headed by a man who is clearly a psychopath.

And Stark has now converted to Christianity and has taken a plum job at Baylor University.