Clivedurdle

Just googled glosalallia and ASC and this is one of the articles.

http://www.psychohistorian.org/psychology/tongues.html

On speaking foreign languages, Rita Carter in Multiplicity reports Eberhardt Gmelin in 1791 having a patient with two personalities, one French, the other German.

arnoldo

Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

Clivedurdle

Plutonium?

DCHindley

Oh, I am always amazed by the brain's ability to make "sense out of nonsense." It is a 10 lb rationalizing machine. Luckily, most of those rationalizations prove useful to the human which surrounds that brain.

The "Context Group" is a group of moderate biblical critics who promote the application of social scientific theory to biblical criticism. They are not really liberals, and not really conservative. They are all practicing Christians (my guess would be "mainline" denominations).

They are the primary proponents of the honor-shame model for Mediterranan societies. They take pains to show just how intolerable life would be for us if we were magically teleported back to the 1st century CE, and I'm not talking about spartan living conditions or the fact that they washed clothes in fermented urine when rubbing frankinsense on them no longer covered up the stink that comes from not washing clothing for months at a time. I mean the client-patron relationship in general, and the way people of different ranks dealt with one another, parents raised their children, people's limited expectations, relative lack of mobility between classes, etc. That kind of society is sometimes called "agonistic" and "agony" is exactly how they depict every day life.

I get the feeling they want us to be so grateful that we don't live like that that we don't see Christian obligations (love of enemies, kindness to strangers, tithing or giving at church, volunteering time, etc) as so burdensom after all. Personally I think they over-do this depiction and ignore the other side of human nature, the one that copes, finds joy in simple things (rituals, songs, weddings, festivals, etc), and makes everyday existence bearable.

DCH

Solitary Man

This is not true. There's at least one who is certainly not a Christian.

I don't think they take great pains in order to show how life would be miserable. Rather what you see with modern Christian depictions of ancient Palestine is greatly white-washed. Is this your Jesus?

JohnG

DCH - Well that's interesting. On initial thought, I think people would have (and have) revolted if and when things got so bad they couldn't cope with day to day life. They weren't animals.

I am guessing that "party time" was probably more frequent then than it is now. One could more easily "dissappear" into the night if they didn't like their condition or treatment.

Day to day living conditions is something I am interested in, and I don't come across much of that type of information in many of the things I've read.

I am sure it is more complex than I imagine, but the more primative peoples that have been studied from more recent times don't seem to be living in utter despair. (The people in Bunky's linked video look very content, lounging around in hammocks)

One factor that might support their argument though, is the fact that the Hebrew culture, and especially the Christian culture, found it necessary to devise a religion that completely cuts them of from their environmant. Most forest/jungle peoples, First Nations of NA (for example) have beliefs that they are surrounded and in brotherhood with the environment. However, the Judeo/Christians long to get the heck out of here and want no connection to it. They connect to an otherwordly existance and even demonize any earth-related worship. That is an oddity in itself.

I think the "context group" that you speak of is at least on the right track by looking into it - whether they made correct assumptions about, I haven't the foggiest. Are you referring to John J Pilch, for example? I wouldn't mind reading more about that, just to know their perspective

Zeichman

Exactly. Anything by the Context Group is worth your money.


Malina and Pilch wrote the Paul Commentary, DeMaris did not contribute, as far as I know. I would have no reservations about ecstatically recommending that book, either. I would side with Malina in questioning the relevance of modern psychology in the interpretation of biblical literature, for a variety of reasons (pre-Enlightenment writings, collective personalities, importance of stereotyping, etc.). DeMaris wrote an excellent article published in JSNT 80:3-30 about Jesus' Baptism and altered modes of consciousness in the ancient world. He contends that Mark 1:10-11 are, contrary to almost all post-Bultmann scholarship, more likely to be authentic than anything else in Mark's narration of Jesus' baptism. He argues that Jesus' Baptism was affixed to another (embarrassing) tradition about Jesus having a vision without an accompanying ritual, as would be socially acceptable. Certainly, he did an excellent job of problematizing the status quo.
However, I think you might be right to criticize some of the Context Group's most prolific writers as writing less technical works in effort of "making a point." However, given the prevalence of irresponsible interpretations that are diametrically opposed to a social-scientifically informed reading of the bible (dominant Christian teachings on sexuality and sexual-orientation come to mind), I can hardly blame them for seeking to rectify such. I was talking to a friend the other day and we agreed that half of the experience one needs to teach a "theology of sexuality and marriage" college course would be familiarity with culturally-informed readings of Biblical verses relating to such.
To disclose this, DeMaris taught at my undergrad institution, but I never took a course with him.

JohnG, unfortunately, I don't know of any articles online. The link you posted looks pretty good, but I haven't reviewed it thoroughly. The discussion of "alternate realities" is not Pilch proposing that such actually exist, but that such were believed to be experienced. (Hence, Paul's 3rd heaven) I would suggest checking out either Malina's The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (or via: amazon.co.uk) (college textbook level) or his Windows on the World of Jesus: Time Travel to Ancient Judea (or via: amazon.co.uk) (layperson level). You should be able to find copies of the former pretty cheap as used textbooks on amazon or something. Be sure to get your highlighter ready, though. Dense, if important, stuff. They have a website, even if it is a bit out of date: http://www.contextgroup.org/ .

DCHindley

Do tell, which one's the evil traitor???

So, because real life in those times is not what we were told in Sunday Skool, it is OK to go overboard in the other direction?

You can get an alternate picture of 1st century life in Galilee and Judaea from John Dominic Crossan, Jonathan L Reed, K C Hanson, Douglas E Oakman, et al, that isn't quite as stilted.

Probably the best picture comes from books on archeology (but not archeology as it illuminates Christian or Jewish religion/circumstances - for example Excavating Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Crossan & Reed does tend to spin the evidence a bit).

DCH

Zeichman

You are aware that Crossan is heavily dependent on the Context Group, right? To the point where I think Malina claims that Crossan plagiarized their work (I'll find the quote if I can). The Context Group is aware of the fact that, more than most other industrialized cultures, middle-Americans are ethnocentric and retroject their own assumptions into ancient texts. It is certainly an alien context, and that aspect of biblical studies should not be diminished. And KC Hanson is a member of the Context Group.

DCHindley

Yes, I remember thinking "that's not right" when I posted it, but then said "naaawww." I think it was Demaris who wrote the peice I quoted from.

Was "ecstatically" meant to be a pun? <g>? Just how does Demaris know that a vision without a ritual would be socially unacceptable? Is this a cross cultural comparison, or based on a texts that criticize someone for haveing visions without suitable ritual? What exactly needs be present in a narrative to count as a ritual? There are no controls in place to temper the imaginations of the researchers.

An example in point is Gerd Theissen, who wrote several books that proposed to describe the sociological context for the development of early Christianity. The English translations were _Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity_ (1978), _Psychological aspects of Pauline Theology_ (1987), and Social Reality and the Early Christians_ (1992).

While Jonathan A. Draper is critical of Theissen and his primary source (Max Weber), he still manages to construct a fantastic reconstruction of the community that produced the _Didache_, which undoubtedly draws from the Theissen:

In Draper's view the Jesus movement, centered around the radical, itinerant and quite charismatic Jesus during his lifetime, immediately routinized after his death and centered itself physically and financially in Jerusalem. From this authoritative center, apostles were sent out to spread the message, backed up by itinerant prophets and their associated teachers who were themselves displaced from Galilee by "Jewish nationalists." Somewhere in time, one or more of the settled Jewish communities of Jesus followers reached out to Gentiles, guided by the rulings, utterances and instructions of the apostles, prophets and teachers.

One of these outreach communities was at Antioch in Syria, and it was here that the _Didache_ was produced by a process in which local bishops and deacons asked the teachers to put the instructions of the prophets in writing, and these writings eventually evolved by stages into the authoritative
document we now know. This community had demonized representatives of a position that they felt was too anti-nomian, and ultimately expelled them from their community. Draper suggests that one of these persons was Paul.

Eventually, the Jerusalem based central authority was scattered by the war of 66-70 CE, and the apostles stopped coming - replaced by vagabond rascals posing as apostles - resulting in severe restrictions on the hospitality to be afforded those that do visit. They do allow them, along with the prophets and teachers, to settle down among them in the capacity of priests, which they support with firstfruit tithes.

This is a somewhat abbreviated (and thus not quite accurate) outline of suggestions that Draper offers quite cautiously, but I felt that they dovetailed somewhat with Horsley's idea that Paul's communities saw the Christ cult, based upon a kind of universal appeal inherent in the Israelite prophetic tradition, as a form of passive resistance to the Roman empire's ethic of systematic exploitation of subject peoples.

Chronological thumbnail sketches of the three important essays forming the above summary:

Draper's paper at the 1989 SBL meeting in Anaheim, CA, entitled "Weber, Theissen and the Wandering Charismatics of the Didache," was critical of Theissen's use of sources for sociological theory. Draper seems to have objected to Theissen's characterization of the period following Jesus' death as a period of radicalism, since Max Weber would have predicted a period of routinization (settling in one place and control over the financial resources of the organization) immediately after the death of a radical charismatic leader. The period of radicalism would only be appropriate for the life-time of the charismatic leader.

In Draper's 1991 essay "Torah and Troublesome Apostles" (Novum Testamentum 33/4, and reprinted in _Didache in Modern Research_), he concludes from an analysis of the enemies of the Didache community that this community was "still living within the ambit of the Torah, though threatened by those former members of the community who are, in its view,
advocating the abolition of the law." Draper says "Our contention here is that the _Didache_ is the community rule of the Matthean community ..." He also thinks that "it is not difficult to extrapolate from the scenario which has
emerged from our study, that the false apostle who advocated abolition of the Torah is Paul, and that the community of the _Didache_ is Antioch."

Finally, Draper's 1995 essay "Social Ambiguity and the Production of Text ... " (in _The Didache in Context_, Brill), Draper envisions a community that vilified opposing parties as demonic forces that seek its overthrow, and consequently drive them out of it. He sees textualization of formerly verbal traditions as the result of a conflict between untestable charismatic prophets coming from outside the community and the local patrons of the community (its bishops and deacons). The conflict is resolved over time by itinerant teachers producing text from oral traditions derived from the words and tradition mediated by the itinerant prophets. These texts then serve as a control mechanism by which the sayings of the prophets themselves can be tested by the community.

Draper figures that the Didache community would have continued unrestricted support for visiting Apostles had they come from a center of authority, and infers that the _Didache_'s restrictions on the hospitality to be granted them was due to the drastic reduction in visits of bona-fide Apostles and an increase of scoundrels posing as Apostles. He reasons that this deterioration of the situation must have been due to the disappearance of a center of authority from which the Apostles had formerly emanated. This center of authority, Draper proposes, was Jerusalem, and the event that stopped their coming was the Jewish war and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem.

The Prophets and Teachers, on the other hand, were visiting with the intention to settle among the community. These he suggests originated in Galilee but had been driven out by the "Jewish nationalists." That the community could absorb them and support them by means of their "first fruits" meant that a fairly large community was involved. In addition, common tradesmen were settling among the community, a situation reminiscent of the way that marginalized peasants migrated to the larger towns and cities. All this makes Draper conclude that the Didache community was situated in
an urban environment. This environment, he says, was likely Antioch after the expulsion of Paul.

Draper sees this as a Jewish-Christian community oriented towards the conversion and initiation of Gentiles. These Gentiles are admitted without the having to accept observance of the full Torah, but only as much as they could bear. The minimum level of observance was abstinence from food offered to idols, and they were expected to improve their level of observance in order to reach "perfection."

How much can we take this kind of reconstruction of early Christian development seriously? It does offer a connection between the rural Jesus and the urban Paul, but is it realistic, or plagued by the same kinds of selective use of sources and circularities of reasoning that Draper complained about in his 1989 SBL paper "Weber, Theissen and the Wandering Charismatics of the Didache" and again in "Wandering Charismatics and Scholarly Circularities" in _Whoever hears you hears me : prophets, performance, and tradition in Q_ (Richard A. Horsley with Jonathan A. Draper, Trinity Press, 1999)?

I am suspicious of most modern historical reconstructions that utilize sociological models, although I quite understand and appreciate sociology as a discipline.

DCH