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Overview
In this engaging introduction to the New Testament, Professor Dale B. Martin presents a historical study of the origins of Christianity by analyzing the literature of the earliest Christian movements. Focusing mainly on the New Testament, he also considers nonbiblical Christian writings of the era.
Martin begins by making a powerful case for the study of the New Testament. He next sets the Greco-Roman world in historical context and explains the place of Judaism within it. In the discussion of each New Testament book that follows, the author addresses theological themes, then emphasizes the significance of the writings as ancient literature and as sources for historical study. Throughout the volume, Martin introduces various early Christian groups and highlights the surprising variations among their versions of Christianity.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780300182194 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Yale University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/24/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
New Testament History & Literature
By DALE B. MARTIN
Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2012 Yale UniversityAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-300-18219-4
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Why Study the New Testament
Overview: This book approaches the New Testament not as scripture, or a piece of authoritative holy writing, but as a collection of historical documents. Therefore, readers are urged to leave behind their preconceived notions of the New Testament and read it as if they had never heard of it before. This involves understanding the historical context of the New Testament and imagining how it might appear to an ancient person.
Why Study the New Testament?
The first question people should ask themselves when they are taking up the study of the New Testament is why they want to study it. What is the New Testament, and why should one study it? The first answer many people give—and for many, the most obvious—is, "Because I'm a Christian." Or perhaps, "I believe the New Testament is scripture."
The problem with that answer, at least as it relates to this book on the New Testament, is that the New Testament isn't "scripture" for everyone. When we say that the New Testament is "scripture," we have to identify for whom it is scripture. What does it mean to call a document "scripture"? In Christianity, when people call the Bible scripture, that often means they intend to listen to the text for the "Word of God," whether read in church or alone at home. Christians often expect the Holy Spirit or God to communicate to them and to their church, or to some broader community, through this document.
But the text of the Bible is not scripture in itself. It is scripture only to a community of people who take it as scripture. The text itself, any text, is not holy writing. Originally, the word in Latin (scriptura) meant simply "something written," but we now take the word to mean holy writing, sacred writing. The writing, however, is not holy in itself. It is holy only to people who take it as holy.
I will not be assuming in this book that the New Testament is holy or sacred writing. In fact, the purpose of much modern scholarship on the Bible has been to avoid, at least momentarily and for the purposes of secular scholarship, taking the Bible to be sacred writing. Thus in my courses in Yale College, I explain that for the purpose of the course we will treat the different documents of the New Testament just as we would any other document from the ancient Mediterranean. Yale College, in spite of some of its traditions and accoutrements that might suggest otherwise, is not a religious community. We must presume that students who take our courses in religious studies are not necessarily religious. Those wanting to learn about Buddhism may not be Buddhist. In fact, for many courses, including many of those on Islam and religions of Asia, most of those taking the courses will not be adherents of the religions they are studying. Therefore, we teach these courses, including courses on Judaism and Christianity, the Hebrew Bible, or the New Testament, from a self-consciously secular, nonconfessional point of view. That means approaching the New Testament not as "scripture" but simply as ancient documents produced by the movement that eventually became Christianity.
Other people want to study the New Testament because they believe it is a "foundational document" for Western civilization. But again, what does that mean? Does that mean that people can't really get along in Western civilization unless they know something about the Bible? We might argue, though, that there are many other things more important for "getting along" than knowing the New Testament. I'd think it more important, for instance, to know how to fix one's car, or how to use computers, or how to speak other languages, or maybe even something about sexual technique. With a bit more reflection, we might decide that the New Testament would rank further down on the list of "things one must know to get along."
And what about the New Testament has been historically or culturally important? Often, the most culturally significant things about the New Testament have been not things that are actually in the New Testament studied historically, but things people think are in the New Testament. This is easily demonstrated by a little quiz. Here is a list of sayings or ideas that either are or are not in the New Testament. I provide the list first and the answers later, in case you want to play along. Just mark whether something is or is not in the New Testament:
1. The immaculate conception.
2. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
3. At Jesus' birth, three wise men or kings visited the baby Jesus.
4. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
5. The doctrine of the Trinity.
6. "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church."
7. Peter founded the church in Rome.
8. After his death, Jesus appeared to his eleven disciples in Jerusalem but not in Galilee.
9. After his death, Jesus appeared to his eleven disciples in Galilee but not in Jerusalem.
10. Peter was martyred by being crucified upside down.
11. Jesus taught that if people wanted to be his disciples, they had to hate their parents and even their wives.
12. Satan and his demons were fallen angels who rebelled against God.
13. Jesus taught people that God forbade divorce for any reason.
Now let's check our answers.
1. The immaculate conception is actually not in the Bible. Many people think it is because they (especially Protestants) may think it refers to the virgin birth of Jesus, which is narrated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. But the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and teaches that Mary was born without original sin. "Immaculate" means "without stain." This is a doctrine important in Roman Catholicism, but it is not in the Bible and is not accepted by Protestants. The "miraculous conception" of Jesus is in the New Testament (Matt 1:18–25; Luke 1:27–35), but not the immaculate conception of Mary.
2. Yes, this is a quotation from 1 Corinthians 13:7.
3. No, the Bible does not say that three wise men or kings visited Jesus after his birth. Only tradition teaches that there were three of them, no doubt just because in Matthew they are said to have brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matt 2:1–12). Readers saw the three gifts and made up the "fact" that there were three men.
4. This quotation is often taken by people to be from the Bible. Ironically, it is from Karl Marx, although many of us would argue that it expresses a sentiment that should reflect Christianity in its better moments.
5. The doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Bible if it is read in its historical context. Of course, one can find references to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, even together as a triad in Matthew 28:19. But the actual doctrine, which teaches that the three are different "persons" who each share the same "substance" of full divinity, took centuries to be developed, elaborated, defended, and established as Christian dogma. Christian theologians may be right if they say that the doctrine is at least "hinted at" in the New Testament, and that the later church was correct in "taking" the Bible to teach the doctrine, but that is a theological position, not a strictly historical one.
6. This quotation is from Matthew 16:18.
7. That Peter founded the church in Rome is part of Christian legend, and for Roman Catholics perhaps an important tradition, but it is not narrated in the New Testament.
8. This and the next are a bit tricky. Jesus did appear to his disciples in and around Jerusalem according to the author of Luke and Acts (Luke 24:33–36; Acts 1:4). Moreover, according to that author, Jesus appeared to them only in and around Jerusalem and not in Galilee.
9. But according to Matthew, Jesus appeared to his eleven male disciples not in Jerusalem but only later in Galilee (Matt 28:16–18). I explore this conundrum in a later chapter.
10. That Peter was martyred by being crucified upside down has been important in tradition and Christian art, but Peter's death is not described in the Bible, and historians actually have no reliable evidence about it at all.
11. Yes, contrary to much-trumpeted, supposed "family values" of Christianity, Jesus did teach, according to Luke 14:26, that his disciples had to "hate" their family members, including their parents and wives.
12. The idea that Satan was a fallen, rebellious angel who was joined by other fallen angels, who are the same beings as those called "demons" or "evil spirits" in the New Testament, is not actually in the New Testament. It is an invention of Christians that began in the second century C.E. and became important for Christian mythology and lore.
13. Yes, contrary to the teachings and practices of almost all Christian churches today, Jesus, according to Mark 10:2–12, forbade divorce for any reason.
So much for the quiz. My point with this little exercise is that on the one hand, there are many things people may think are in the Bible that are not, and on the other hand, many people are utterly surprised when they learn about other sayings or actions that definitely are in the Bible (Jesus told his disciples to hate their parents?). Many of these ideas, such as the immaculate conception or the imagery of wise men surrounding a manger, are important for Western civilization, for the history of art, and for the furniture of people's imaginations. So it may be important to know, for example, that legend says that Peter was crucified upside down, but it is not part of the New Testament. And the fact that much ancient Christian tradition is not actually in the Bible raises something of a problem for the study of the New Testament: if we study the New Testament by asking about its meaning in its ancient historical context, which will be the method mostly pursued in this book, are we thereby neglecting the most important historical "meanings" of the Bible—what that text has been taken to mean in the history of culture and interpretation?
The "historical-critical" approach to the Bible, which is the method demonstrated in this book and which will be explained and illustrated throughout, anchors "the meaning" of the text in its ancient context: what the original authors "intended" or the original readers likely "understood." But one could argue, as I do and have argued in other books, that it is just as important to learn about the impact and interpretation of the New Testament through history—that is, what the New Testament has been taken to mean later in history and culture, regardless of its "original meaning."
We can see this also by comparing what the New Testament actually says about some issues with what most people assume that it must say even on matters of significant beliefs. What do most people believe happens to someone after death? Some would say, "You're dead like Rover and dead all over." Some, "You go to heaven." What may we imagine that most people assume religious Christians to believe? Where is Aunt Martha during her funeral? A popular assumption, whether people actually believe it or not, would be, "She's safe in heaven. She's in the arms of Jesus. Her body may be in the casket, but her soul is up there." Many people assume that Christianity teaches the immortality of the soul.
But that, again, is not really something taught by the Bible, and it is not even the best interpretation of "official Christian orthodoxy," as would be contained, say, in the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, according to which afterlife existence is supposed to be experienced in the resurrection of the body or the flesh. Contrary to common opinion, even popular Christian opinion, the New Testament more often teaches a form of the resurrection than the soul's immortality (see, for example, 1 Cor 15).
So where do we get the very common idea of the immortality of the soul? Perhaps much more from Platonism than from the New Testament. So if one is interested in learning about the origins of central aspects of Western civilization, it may make more sense to study Plato than the New Testament.
The Bible as a Historical Text
My point has been to emphasize that this book will not be approaching the New Testament as scripture, nor will I analyze how important it was for medieval and early modern literature. I will be looking mainly at what it meant in the first and early second centuries. In fact, I will be attempting to approach the New Testament "from the outside," which is not always easy for people in our culture to do because most of us have grown up with some kind of cultural knowledge of "what Christianity is" and "what the Bible is." This is true even for those who are not religious, as well as for those who are Christians.
Most of us live in a post-Christian culture, and both aspects of that term are important. It is post-Christian in the sense that it is hard to live in America without having some exposure to Christianity and seeing its influence on society, politics, culture, and art. It is also post-Christian because we can no longer assume, especially if we live in a multiethnic, pluralistic environment, that everyone we meet will be Christian. In a sense, we live in a society that has something of a "hangover" from Christianity, but one in which people do not necessarily know a lot about Christianity in a critical and educated manner.
So let's make an attempt to scrape our brains clean of what we think we know about the New Testament and try to approach it from the outside, as something new and strange. At the very beginning, we find the Gospel of Matthew, which begins like this: "The book of the origin" (genesis is the Greek word for "origin" here) "of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Abraham had a son named Isaac. Isaac had a son named Jacob. Jacob had Judah and his brothers. Judah had Perez and Zerah from Tamar" (Matt 1:1–3). These are "the begats" that figure prominently in certain parts of the Hebrew Bible and begin Matthew. The text goes on like this for many sentences. As a modern person, one might ask, "What is this? Why begin this way?" Then we arrive at the birth narratives in Matthew, the stories of the baby Jesus. If we lived in the time of the writing, this would seem fairly familiar, because people knew other stories about stars appearing as signs of the birth of a great man. In fact, this is part of the propaganda culture of the ancient world. Matthew begins as one would begin the story of the birth of a famous man, and if you lived in that time, you would recognize the genre.
But we continue in our reading and find a story of a man who travels around, giving speeches, talking to people, and teaching. He also exorcizes demons, heals people, and performs a few miracles. For a modern person with no exposure to religious narratives like this, the story would sound odd. In the ancient world, though, it would have sounded familiar because people knew of other stories of teachers who healed and performed miracles. It was not an uncommon way of talking about someone supposed to be great. Of course, in the end the man dies a gruesome death by crucifixion, a form of Roman torture and execution usually reserved for slaves, rebels, and lower-class troublemakers. But even some "philosophers" and moral teachers were known to have been martyred in a "noble death."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from New Testament History & Literature by DALE B. MARTIN. Copyright © 2012 by Yale University. Excerpted by permission of Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments.................... ix
Map.................... xi
1. Introduction: Why Study the New Testament.................... 1
ANCIENT AND ACADEMIC CONTEXTS FOR THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT...........
2. The Development of the Canon.................... 15
3. The Greco-Roman World.................... 34
4. Ancient Judaism.................... 55
5. The New Testament as a Historical Source: A Comparison of Acts and
Paul's Letters.................... 67
GOSPELS....................
6. The Gospel of Mark.................... 79
7. The Gospel of Matthew.................... 93
8. The Gospel of Thomas.................... 108
THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY....................
9. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, Part 1: Structure and
Themes.................... 125
10. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, Part 2: Editing the
Beginnings of Christianity.................... 137
11. The Gospel of John.................... 152
12. The Letters of John and the Spread of Christianity.................... 168
13. The Historical Jesus.................... 179
PAUL AND PAULINISM....................
14. Paul as Missionary: 1 Thessalonians.................... 199
15. Paul as Pastor: Philemon and 1 and 2 Corinthians.................... 213
16. Paul as Jewish Theologian: Galatians and Romans.................... 231
17. Colossians and Ephesians.................... 247
18. Differing Christians: Christology, Faith, and Works.................... 261
WOMEN AND HOUSEHOLD....................
19. The Pro-household Paul: The Pastoral Epistles.................... 277
20. The Anti-household Paul: The Acts of Paul and Thecla................... 292
BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION....................
21. Hebrews and Biblical Interpretation.................... 309
22. Premodern Biblical Interpretation.................... 322
APOCALYPTICISM AND POLITICS....................
23. Apocalypticism as Resistance.................... 341
24. Apocalypticism as Accommodation.................... 360
DEVELOPMENT....................
25. The Development of Ecclesiastical Institutions: Ignatius and the
Didache.................... 379
Epilogue: Christianity after the New Testament Period.................... 389
Notes.................... 397
Bibliography.................... 415
Subject and Author Index.................... 425
Index of Scripture Citations.................... 443