Social-Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul

by Bruce Malina; John J. Pilch

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 2006

Overview

This latest addition to the Fortress Social-Science Commentaries on New Testament writings illuminates the values, perceptions, and social codes of the Mediterranean culture that shaped Paul and his interactions—both harmonious and conflicted—with others. Malina and Pilch add new dimensions to our understanding of the apostle as a social change agent, his coworkers as innovators, and his gospel as an assertion of the honor of the God of Israel.

Key Features

• Bibliographical references
• Notes and indexes

Contents

Top Highlights

“All these points indicate that reading is fundamentally a social act. Readers and writers always participate in a social system that provides the clues for filling in implicit information or for reading between the lines. Meanings are embedded in a social system shared and understood by all participants in any communication process. While meanings not rooted in a shared social system can sometimes be communicated, such communication inevitably requires extended explanation because a writer cannot depend upon the reader to conjure up the proper sets of related images or concepts needed to complete what is left unsaid.” (Page 2)

“Charisma refers to the various outcomes of God’s patronage revealed in the favors God bestows on those who believe in the Jesus-group gospel of God.” (Page 114)

“Members of the house of Israel lumped all the rest of the world’s population into that rubber-bag word, ‘the (other) peoples’ (Gentiles). The Greek word ethnē (Gentiles) literally means ‘peoples,’ and when used by Israelites to set themselves off from other peoples, the word meant Everyone Else (other peoples, peoples other than us).” (Pages 5–7)

“The New Testament was written in what anthropologists call a ‘high context’ culture. People who communicate with each other in high context societies presume a broadly shared, generally well-understood knowledge of the context of anything referred to in conversation or in writing.” (Page 5)

“As modern readers, we do not enjoy such an author-reader agreement with Paul. Paul’s letters neither begin with what we know about the world nor make any attempt to explain their ancient world settings in terms we might understand from our own contemporary experience. The letters presume that their readers are first-century, Eastern Mediterranean Israelites who are part of a particular social system. The letters further assume that their readers understand the intricacies of honor and shame, are fully aware of what daily life is like in a ruralized society and its pre-industrial cities, know how folk healers operate; believe in limited good, routinely experience interactions with patrons and brokers, and so on.” (Page 3)

Praise for the Print Edition

If you are tired of reading the same 'new' book on Paul over and over, this is the place to go next. In addition to traditional material on rhetoric and background, this social-scientific commentary brings to the fore necessary, significant and enlightening ways of understanding the social role of Paul and his social dynamics with the churches he founded. In this it is unique. . . The Reading Scenarios are themselves worth the price of this book.

—Jerome Neyrey, University of Notre Dame

This is not the typical introspective, individualistic Paul of Western theology. Rather Malina and Pilch reveal Paul as a thoroughgoing Mediterranean person, functioning as a change agent among Israelites living in minority communities around the Greco-Roman world. Pauline theology will never look the same again.

—Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Lewis and Clark College

Product Details

• Title: Social-Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul
• Authors: Bruce J. Malina and John J. Pilch
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Publication Date: 2006
• Pages: 432

About the Authors

Bruce J. Malina is Professor of New Testament at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. He is the author of The Social Gospel of Jesus, and with Richard Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels and Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John, all from Fortress Press.

John J. Pilch teaches biblical literature in the Theology Department of Georgetown University, and is currently visiting Professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Hong Kong, and at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is the author of Healing in the New Testament.