Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity

by Luke Timothy Johnson

Publisher:

Yale University Press

, 2009

Overview

The question of Christianity’s relation to the other religions of the world is more pertinent and difficult today than ever before. While Christianity’s historical failure to appreciate or actively engage Judaism is notorious, Christianity’s even more shoddy record with respect to “pagan” religions is less understood. Christians have inherited a virtually unanimous theological tradition that thinks of paganism in terms of demonic possession, and of Christian missions as a rescue operation that saves pagans from inherently evil practices.

In undertaking this fresh inquiry into early Christianity and Greco-Roman paganism, Luke Timothy Johnson begins with a broad definition of religion as a way of life organized around convictions and experiences concerning ultimate power. In the tradition of William James’s Variety of Religious Experience, he identifies four distinct ways of being religious: religion as participation in benefits, as moral transformation, as transcending the world, and as stabilizing the world. Using these criteria as the basis for his exploration of Christianity and paganism, Johnson finds multiple points of similarity in religious sensibility.

Christianity’s failure to adequately come to grips with its first pagan neighbors, Johnson asserts, inhibits any effort to engage positively with adherents of various world religions. This thoughtful and passionate study should help break down the walls between Christianity and other religious traditions.

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Key Features

• Explains religion as a way of life organized around convictions and experiences concerning ultimate power
• Breaks down the walls between Christianity and other religious traditions
• Explores Christianity and paganism using four distinct ways of being religious

Contents

• Beyond Attack and Apology: A New Look at an Old Debate
• Beginning a New Conversation
• A Preliminary Profile of Greco-Roman Religion
• Religion as Participation in Divine Benefits: Aelius Aristides
• Religion as Moral Transformation: Epictetus
• Religion as Transcending the World: Poimandres
• Religion as Stabilizing the World: Plutarch
• Ways of Being Jewish in the Greco-Roman World
• The Appearance of Christianity in the Greco-Roman World
• New Testament Christianity as Participation in Divine Benefits
• New Testament Christianity as Moral Transformation
• Christianity in the Second and Third Centuries: Participation in Divine Benefits
• Moral Transformation in Second–and Third–Century Christianity
• Transcending the World in Second–and Third–Century Christianity
• Stabilizing the World in Second–and Third–Century Christianity
• After Constantine: Christianity as Imperial Religion

Top Highlights

“In a stroke of translation that would prove to have enormous consequences, the Septuagint (LXX, ca. 250 BCE) rendered the Hebrew of Psalm 96:5, ‘The gods of the nations are idols,’ as ‘The gods of the nations are demons [daimonia]’ (LXX Ps 95:5), thereby placing all pagan religion neatly into the realm of the demonic.” (Page 2)

“At the level of sensibility or temperament, I argue, Christians were religious pretty much in the ways that Gentiles were religious.” (Page ix)

“The point in all Greco-Roman religion was not correct doctrine and certainly not exclusive devotion. The point was the experience of power, and in that respect, Greco-Roman polytheism was a generous, cooperative, and noncompetitive religious system.” (Page 43)

“A single overwhelming realization comes over anyone who has surveyed this evidence, and that is how impossible it would have been for either Jew or Christian to completely avoid contact with Greco-Roman religion, so public were its temples and shrines, so pervasive were its markers and emblems, so common were the depictions of its myths.” (Pages 21–22)

“From the very beginning, Christians emphasized the distance between themselves and practitioners of pagan religion.” (Page 1)

Praise for the Print Edition

Luke Johnson, a contrarian of the most constructive kind, defying all the usual categories, looks at the age-old story of Christianity’s ‘triumph’ over ‘paganism’ and turns it topsy turvy. A provocative and deeply humane book, to be savored and argued with.

—Wayne A. Meeks, author of First Urban Christians

Seeking to overturn an attitude towards Greco-Roman religion epitomized in Tertullian's famous rejection of Athens, Johnson demonstrates four ways of being religious that were common to Greeks, Romans, Jews, and early Christians. The work is important not only for the study of ancient religion, but for inter-faith dialogue today.

—Gregory E. Sterling, The Reverend Henry L. Slack Dean and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament, Yale Divinity School

A remarkable synthesis that challenges reigning assumptions about early Christianity’s relationship to the Graeco-Roman world, this book proposes new analytical categories to advance and enliven the ongoing ‘Christ and culture’ debate.

—Carl R. Holladay, Charles Howard Candler Professor of New Testament Studies, Emory University

Product Details

• Title: Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity
• Author: Luke Timothy Johnson
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication Date: 2009
• Pages: 480
• Christian Group: Evangelicals
• Resource Type: Monographs
• Topic: Christianity

About Luke Timothy Johnson

New Testament scholar and early Christianity historian, Luke Timothy Johnson (1943–), is the Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Professor Johnson earned his BA in Philosophy from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, an MDiv in Theology from Saint Meinrad School of Theology, an MA in Religious Studies from Indiana University, and his PhD in New Testament Studies from Yale University. A former Benedictine monk, Johnson has taught at Yale Divinity School and Indiana University. He is the author of more than 20 books, has published a large number of scholarly and popular articles, anthologies, book reviews, and other academic papers, and lectures and received several awards for excellence in teaching. He often lectures at universities and seminaries worldwide, where he is widely perceived as the leading conservative scholar on the debates surrounding the Jesus Seminar, taking stances against its view of Jesus.