New Testament
History and Literature
Dale B. Martin
Yale University Press £14.99
(978-0-300-18085-5)
Church Times Bookshop £13.50 (Use
code CT356)
"HOW did a rag-bag of
followers of an apocalyptic Jewish prophet become what history has
known as 'orthodox' Christianity? Why was Christianity so diverse
in its first two centuries?" The flavour of this book is captured
for us in these two questions. The New Testament is introduced not
so much as scripture, but as a collection of historical
documents.
Readers are urged to leave
behind their pre-conceived notions of the New Testament, and
instead to read it as if they had never heard of it before. Most
importantly, this involves understanding the historical context of
the books, and imagining how they might have appeared to an
audience in ancient times.
Yale University publishes
the cream of its own lecture courses for undergraduates in an
extramural series for a wider audience, Open Yale Courses. Dale
Martin's volume, he says, is written "from the bottom up", using
the spoken lectures as guides rather than being a transcript. Over
25 years, he has taught at Rhodes College and Duke University, as
well as at Yale. As readers of his earlier work, such as The
Corinthian Body (Yale, 1995), will know, his writing is
stimulating and provocative, driven by the desire to enter the
ancient cultural world of competing ideologies.
The layout of the present
book illuminates his methods. He discusses possible contexts for
the study: the idea of a canon, the Greco-Roman world, ancient
Judaism, and a comparison of Acts and Paul's letters in providing
an historical source. Next come three Gospels: Mark, Matthew, and
Thomas. The spread of Christianity is addressed both in relation to
Luke's Gospel and the Acts, and to the Gospel and letters of John.
Despite contradictions between narratives, how possible is it to
arrive at a picture of the historical Jesus?
Then Martin looks at Paul as
missionary, pastor, and Jewish theologian, and his legacy in the
Pauline texts. A comparison of the Pastoral Epistles and the Acts
of Paul and Thecla with Paul's own letters raises questions about
women's roles and the nature of the church household. Hebrews is
discussed as an example of ancient biblical interpretation,
comparing the person of Jesus with Jewish liturgy and priesthood.
The political implications of apocalyptic are examined in
Revelation and elsewhere in the New Testament. Finally, the
development of ecclesi-astical institutions is seen in the letters
of Ignatius and in the Didache. Such a survey provides a
rich harvest of ideas.
One of Martin's conclusions
is that "there is no 'universalism' inherent in the Christian story
of Jesus or in early Christian teachings that caused Christianity
to become, eventually, universally influential. It is part of the
messiness of history, not some quality inherent either in Jesus or
in the early Christian movement." Nevertheless a "decent historian"
will not attempt either to prove or to disprove issues of Christian
faith.
Dr John Court is
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Biblical Studies at the
University of Kent at Canterbury.
