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Loading... Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E. A. Judgeby Edwin A. Judge
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Few works have had as profound an effect on deepening our understanding of how the texts of the NT, particularly the letters of Paul, functioned in their original socio-cultural contexts, especially the degree to which and the ways in which Paul's ideas stood in such sharp contrast to the ideas of his own environment. For this reader, they also indirectly shed light on how Paul's engagement with the Greco-Roman world is of a piece with Jesus' engagement with his Second Temple Palestinian Jewish environment, and it explains why Paul did and said things that at times seem so mysterious to us. It also successfully debunks a number of assumptions that many NT critics, particularly the heirs of the history-of- religions school, had been making for the last hundred years or so.
This is a collection of pivotal essays by E. A. Judge, who initiated many important discussions in the establishment of social scientific criticism of the Bible. What is it that made the work of Judge in 1960 and in subsequent years so important? Judge was the first in scholarship after the mid-twentieth century to clarify early Christian ideals about society by defining what the social institutions of the broader cultural context were and how they influenced the social institutions of the early Christian communities. Judge points out that earlier scholars had entered into this field of inquiry, but that, in general, they failed due to the lack of careful definitions of the Greco-Roman social institutions at the time based on a thorough use of the primary sources. Thus, Judge was the "new founder" ( a turning point in scholarship) of what came to be called social-scientific criticism of the New Testament. Social-scientific criticism is the term in scholarship that refers to the use of social realities (e.g. institutions, class, factors of community organization) in the critical study of literary sources available (this is an advance over "merely" literary and traditional historical questions). No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)270.1Religions History, geographic treatment, biography of Christianity History of Christianity Apostolic; Nativity to ConstantineLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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