Bücher der Reihe Matrix: The Bible in Mediterranean Context

The Gospel of Matthew recounts several interactions between Jesus and ""marginal"" women. The urban, relatively wealthy community to which Matthew writes faces issues relating to a number of internal problems including whether or how it will keep Jesus's inclusive vision to honor rural Israelite and non-Israelite outcast women in its midst.Will the Matthean community be faithful to the social vision of Jesus's unconventional kin group? Or will it give way to the crystallized gender social stratification so characteristic of Greco-Roman society as a whole? Employing social-scientific models and careful use of comparative data, Love examines structural marginality, social role marginality, ideological marginality, and cultural marginality relative to these interactions with Jesus. He also employs models of gender analysis, social stratification, healing, rites of passage, patronage, and prostitution.

Description:Historical Jesus research remains trapped in the positivistic historiographical framework from which it emerged more than a hundred and fifty years ago. This is confirmed by the nested assumptions shared by the majority of researchers. These include the idea that a historical figure could not have been like the Gospel portrayals and consequently the Gospels have developed in a linear and layered fashion from the authentic kernels to the elaborated literary constructions as they are known today. The aim of historical Jesus research, therefore, is to identify the authentic material from which the historical figure as a social type underneath the overlay is constructed. Anthropological historiography offers an alternative framework for dealing with Jesus of Nazareth as a social personage fully embedded in a first-century Mediterranean worldview and the Gospels as cultural artifacts related to this figure. The shamanic complex can account for the cultural processes and dynamics related to his social personage. This cross-cultural model represents a religious pattern that refers to a family of features for describing those religious entrepreneurs who, based on regular Altered State of Consciousness experiences, perform a specific set of social functions in their communities. This model accounts for the wide spectrum of the data ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth while it offers a coherent framework for constructing the historical Jesus as a social personage embedded in his worldview. As a Galilean shamanic figure Jesus typically performed healings and exorcisms, he controlled the spirits while he also acted as prophet, teacher and mediator of divine knowledge.Endorsements:"In this book, Craffert uses the metaphor of traveling to describe the task he has undertaken. Given the existence of the two prevailing pathways leading into contemporary ''historical Jesus'' study, Craffert leaves the century-and-a-half old Schweitzer Street (Schweitzerstrasse) and Wrede Road (Wredebahn) to do some ''bundubashing'' (South African: to travel off road through remote and rough terrain) to get to the social personage of Jesus the Galilean. His critique of prevailing historical Jesus study is insightful and incisive, while his description of Jesus as first-century Galilean shaman is masterful and accomplished. His rationale for and realization of a work of anthropological history is quite on the mark, enabling a reader to have an encounter with a first-century, Galilean shamanic Jesus that shouldproduce an appropriate culture shock in those unused to the radically different cultural and social landscape of Mediterranean antiquity."--Bruce J. Malina, author of The New Testament World"Just when it seems that all has been said about the historical Jesus, Pieter Craffert offers a genuine paradigm shift in method and insights growing out of an ''anthropological-historical'' perspective. His interpretation of the public figure of Jesus using the social-type of a shaman opens up a new world view and encourages the inclusion of texts, events, and activities usually dismissed from discussions of the historical Jesus. His originality is matched by his meticulous research and the clarity he brings to a complex problem. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the historical Jesus, but especially for those who enjoy a genuinely new approach to an old problem."--William R. Herzog II, author of Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God"[This book] has the rare quality that it helps us to think ''otherwise'' about the Historical Jesus. We understand persons with the help of some category or model that suggests to us what they were like. The problem with categories used about Jesus is that they are either too distant historically to provide meaning to modern readers, or to modern to help us grasp the disturbing ''otherness'' about Jesus. Craffert''s use of ''shaman'' as a social model for Jesus makes sense of the otherness of Jesus in o

Description:New Testament scholarship lacks an overall interpretive framework to understand Judean identity. This lack of interpretive framework is quite acute in scholarship on the historical Jesus, where the issue of Judeanness ("Jewishness") is most strongly debated. A socio-cultural model of Judean ethnicity is developed, being a synthesis of (1) Sanders'' notion of covenantal nomism, (2) Berger and Luckmann''s theories on the sociology of knowledge, (3) Dunn''s "four pillars of Second Temple Judaism" and his "new perspective" on Paul, (4) cultural or social anthropology in the form of modern ethnicity theory, and, lastly, (5) Duling''s Socio-Cultural Model of Ethnicity. The proposed model is termed Covenantal Nomism. It is a pictorial representation of the Judean "symbolic universe," which as an ethnic identity, is proposed to be essentially primordialist. The model is given appropriate content by investigating what would have been typical of first-century Judean ethnic identity. It is also argued that there existed a fundamental continuity between Judea and Galilee, as Galileans were ethnic Judeans themselves and they lived on the ancestral land of Israel. Attention is lastly focused on the matter of ethnic identity in Q. The Q people were given an eschatological Judean identity based on their commitment to Jesus and the requirements of the kingdom/reign of God.[K.C. edited this down for the back cover. Leave the longer synopsis for the website.]Endorsements:"Cromhout''s book takes on a key question in the study of the Sayings Gospel Q, that of the kind of Judaism that the document presupposes. He shows convincingly how Q both manifests a Judaism that is both in significant continuity with other forms of Judaism, but also departs from traditional convenantal nomism. Jesus and Identity is splendidly conceived, sophisticated in its argument, and important in its conclusions."--John S. Kloppenborg, University of Toronto"In this study, Cromhout takes up current research on the historical Jesus, Galilee, and Q and sifts the evidence through the sieve of contemporary social-scientific models of ethnicity. The result is a theory about the ethnic identity of a ''Judean'' (Jewish) Messianist group represented by Q. His study engages modern scholarship, is well organized, and eminently readable. Both advanced scholars and discerning students will benefit greatly from Cromhout''s synthesis." --Dennis C. Duling, Canisius CollegeAbout the Contributor(s):Markus Cromhout is a research associate in the Department of New Testament Studies, University of Pretoria.

Description:While some of the chapters focus on systemic issues, others probe the depths of individual Gospel passages. The author''s keen eye for textual detail, archaeological data, comparative materials, and systemic overviews make this volume a joy for anyone interested in understanding Jesus in his own context. The volume is organized into three interrelated parts: 1) political economy and the peasant values of Jesus, 2) the Jesus traditions within peasant realities, and 3) the peasant aims of Jesus.Endorsements:""Anyone who has ever wondered why the Lord''s Prayer asks for the gift of bread and the forgiveness of debts has got to read this book. Anyone who has never wondered has even more cause to read this book. Anyone curious about the real value of a denarius or Jesus''s take on the morality of money or how many calories were necessary to keep from starving or how Jesus advised to resist an economic system geared for devouring widows'' houses--anyone, in short, eager to learn of the day-to-day realities of first-century Palestine as the matrix for Jesus''s message can''t get and read this book soon enough.""Behind the rich information on the peasant world of Jesus and his appeal to first-century peasants is a constant hermeneutical question humming in the background: what does this mean for us today? What are those ''general human concerns'' that suggest some link or bridge between ancient Israelite farmers and urban yuppies? How might a ''realist'' stance of reading find in the biblical experience and its symbols voices that speak about ''the essentially human''?""The information that Oakman provides in these essays is essential for understanding the world of Jesus and his peasant perspective. The moves Oakman suggests for bridging the gap from past to present are essential for keeping a reading of the Bible from becoming an exercise in canonical archaeology or an illusion that the Bible is hot off the divine press.""--John Elliott, University of San Francisco, EmeritusAbout the Contributor(s):Douglas E. Oakman is Professor of New Testament and Dean of Humanities at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. He is also the author of Jesus and the Economic Questions of His Day and coauthor of Palestine in the Time of Jesus.

Values are culturally specific. This handbook explains select biblical social values in their Mediterranean cultural contexts. Some examples of values are altruism, freedom, family-centeredness, obedience, parenting, and power. Though the English words for the values described here would be familiar to readers (e.g., altruism) the meanings of such words differ between cultures. In the Mediterranean world, for instance, altruism is a duty incumbent upon anyone who has surplus. It is interpersonal and group specific. In the West, especially in the United States, altruism is impersonal and universally oriented generosity that operates in a highly organized context. This handbook not only presents the Mediterranean meanings of these value words but also contrasts those meanings with Western ones.

Adult males did not simply stand up and speak. They needed authorization to exercise public voice. Why should anyone listen to them? In his first four chapters, Luke achieves this for Jesus, a process we access in two ways. In part 1, we examine how Luke establishes this by employing social-science models, which inform our understanding beyond what typical commentaries can achieve. We begin this by considering Luke 1-4 in terms of the social-science communications model, which exposes how God, as Sender-of-Senders, repeatedly sends Messages about Jesus, which cumulatively establish him with a public role and status, and so with public voice. Jesus'' ethos can be described by considering him in terms of typical group-oriented personality and by means of rituals of status elevation and confirmation, which dramatize his worthiness to have public voice. Part 2 consists of rhetorical materials that inform us on how typical beginnings began. Ancient rhetoric also taught formal ways to construct a proper ethos, both for authors and those about whom they spoke. Finally, Luke himself needs a proper ethos to warrant our acceptance of him as a reliable narrator, which he achieves in his prologue. Jesus deserves public voice.

Historical Jesus research remains trapped in the positivistic historiographical framework from which it emerged more than a hundred and fifty years ago. This is confirmed by the nested assumptions shared by the majority of researchers. These include the idea that a historical figure could not have been like the Gospel portrayals and consequently the Gospels have developed in a linear and layered fashion from the authentic kernels to the elaborated literary constructions as they are known today. The aim of historical Jesus research, therefore, is to identify the authentic material from which the historical figure as a social type underneath the overlay is constructed. Anthropological historiography offers an alternative framework for dealing with Jesus of Nazareth as a social personage fully embedded in a first-century Mediterranean worldview and the Gospels as cultural artifacts related to this figure. The shamanic complex can account for the cultural processes and dynamics related to his social personage. This cross-cultural model represents a religious pattern that refers to a family of features for describing those religious entrepreneurs who, based on regular Altered State of Consciousness experiences, perform a specific set of social functions in their communities. This model accounts for the wide spectrum of the data ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth while it offers a coherent framework for constructing the historical Jesus as a social personage embedded in his worldview. As a Galilean shamanic figure Jesus typically performed healings and exorcisms, he controlled the spirits while he also acted as prophet, teacher and mediator of divine knowledge.""In this book, Craffert uses the metaphor of traveling to describe the task he has undertaken. Given the existence of the two prevailing pathways leading into contemporary ''historical Jesus'' study, Craffert leaves the century-and-a-half old Schweitzer Street (Schweitzerstrasse) and Wrede Road (Wredebahn) to do some ''bundubashing'' (South African: to travel off road through remote and rough terrain) to get to the social personage of Jesus the Galilean. His critique of prevailing historical Jesus study is insightful and incisive, while his description of Jesus as first-century Galilean shaman is masterful and accomplished. His rationale for and realization of a work of anthropological history is quite on the mark, enabling a reader to have an encounter with a first-century, Galilean shamanic Jesus that shouldproduce an appropriate culture shock in those unused to the radically different cultural and social landscape of Mediterranean antiquity.""--Bruce J. Malina, author of The New Testament World""Just when it seems that all has been said about the historical Jesus, Pieter Craffert offers a genuine paradigm shift in method and insights growing out of an ''anthropological-historical'' perspective. His interpretation of the public figure of Jesus using the social-type of a shaman opens up a new world view and encourages the inclusion of texts, events, and activities usually dismissed from discussions of the historical Jesus. His originality is matched by his meticulous research and the clarity he brings to a complex problem. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the historical Jesus, but especially for those who enjoy a genuinely new approach to an old problem.""--William R. Herzog II, author of Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God""[This book] has the rare quality that it helps us to think ''otherwise'' about the Historical Jesus. We understand persons with the help of some category or model that suggests to us what they were like. The problem with categories used about Jesus is that they are either too distant historically to provide meaning to modern readers, or to modern to help us grasp the disturbing ''otherness'' about Jesus. Craffert''s use of ''shaman'' as a social model for Jesus makes sense of the otherness of Jesus in our own world, and also helps us grasp how the

While some of the chapters focus on systemic issues, others probe the depths of individual Gospel passages. The author''s keen eye for textual detail, archaeological data, comparative materials, and systemic overviews make this volume a joy for anyone interested in understanding Jesus in his own context. The volume is organized into three interrelated parts: 1) political economy and the peasant values of Jesus, 2) the Jesus traditions within peasant realities, and 3) the peasant aims of Jesus.""Anyone who has ever wondered why the Lord''s Prayer asks for the gift of bread and the forgiveness of debts has got to read this book. Anyone who has never wondered has even more cause to read this book. Anyone curious about the real value of a denarius or Jesus''s take on the morality of money or how many calories were necessary to keep from starving or how Jesus advised to resist an economic system geared for devouring widows'' houses--anyone, in short, eager to learn of the day-to-day realities of first-century Palestine as the matrix for Jesus''s message can''t get and read this book soon enough.""Behind the rich information on the peasant world of Jesus and his appeal to first-century peasants is a constant hermeneutical question humming in the background: what does this mean for us today? What are those ''general human concerns'' that suggest some link or bridge between ancient Israelite farmers and urban yuppies? How might a ''realist'' stance of reading find in the biblical experience and its symbols voices that speak about ''the essentially human''?""The information that Oakman provides in these essays is essential for understanding the world of Jesus and his peasant perspective. The moves Oakman suggests for bridging the gap from past to present are essential for keeping a reading of the Bible from becoming an exercise in canonical archaeology or an illusion that the Bible is hot off the divine press.""--John Elliott, University of San Francisco, EmeritusDouglas E. Oakman is Professor of New Testament and Dean of Humanities at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. He is also the author of Jesus and the Economic Questions of His Day and coauthor of Palestine in the Time of Jesus.