Introducing the New Testament

Fourth edition

John Drane

• Verlag: Lion Scholar
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781912552122
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Theology & Religion
• Thema: Biblical Studies

Continuously in print for over 30 years, and available in many different languages, John Drane's Introducing the New Testament has long been recognized as an authoritative and accessible survey of the subject.

This new edition has been fully revised and updated with fresh material on the many political contexts in which the early church flourished, along with new insights into the writing and reception of written texts in what was essentially an oral culture. Specific issues that will be of particular interest to students are highlighted in special boxed feature sections, along with an extensive glossary of technical terms and key maps and diagrams. This book is the ideal starting point for readers who wish to explore the New Testament and its world in the light of recent scholarship, and its relevance to life in the twenty-first century.

PART 1

CONTEXT AND CULTURE

CHAPTER 1

GREEKS AND ROMANS

Hellenism

In the world of the first Christians, the outward forms of administration and government were those of the Roman empire, but its cultural roots were embedded in a different world altogether that goes back to the time of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) and his Greek empire. The Romans were highly skilled in technology, building impressive roads and water supply systems wherever they went, but the underlying ideology and structures of civic life, the way children were educated, and the practice of religious faith as well as the dominance of the Greek language – all this and more derived from pre-Roman times.

Alexander had risen to fame almost overnight. He began as the son of a little-known local ruler in Macedonia, but was such a brilliant general that within a very short time he was able to defeat armies far more prestigious than his own, and establish himself as undisputed emperor of the whole of the world that was then known to people living in the Mediterranean lands. The Persian empire fell first, followed by Egypt, and ultimately by other territory even further afield, and by the time Alexander died at the young age of thirty-three his empire stretched from Greece in the west to the Indian sub-continent in the east. Alexander had no obvious heir, and there was much squabbling among his military commanders as they jostled for position to succeed him. It took another twenty years before the succession was finally resolved, in which his territories were divided between the various protagonists. Almost 300 years later they were finally reunited, when the Roman Octavian, later known as Augustus (63 BC–AD 14), incorporated the lands at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea into his own empire.

Octavian was himself a brilliant strategist. But he owed much of his lasting success to the fact that there was already a cultural unity among almost all the nations which he had conquered. In spite of their diverse national traditions, people throughout the Mediterranean world were deeply conscious of being part of a wider world. They spoke the same language – Greek – and the inhabitants of both east and west had common hopes, similar educational opportunities, and much the same understanding of life. All this sprang directly from the genius of Alexander the Great. One of his near-contemporaries, Isocrates (436–338 BC), could claim with some justification that ‘the name Greek suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and the title “Greek” is applied to those who share our culture rather than to those who share the same blood’ (Panegyricus 50). In his youth Alexander was a student of the philosopher Aristotle, and he never forgot what he had learned from him. Alexander was a fanatic for his own native culture, and was genuinely convinced that civilization had reached its ultimate high point with the Greek way of life. He was determined to share it with the whole world, and took steps to ensure that Greek customs, religion, philosophy, and language would be adopted throughout his domains. New cities were built in the Greek style, incorporating temples, theatres, and sports arenas. The way of life that resulted – ‘Hellenism’ – lasted for nearly a thousand years after Alexander’s death, and had a profound impact on the future course of the whole of European civilization. The early centuries of Christianity were dominated by the need to engage with this monolithic worldwide culture, and church leaders eventually found themselves forced to articulate, even to redefine, their faith in terms of the Hellenistic worldview.

The degree to which any particular nation adopted this Greek culture naturally varied from place to place. Sometimes the changes were only superficial. The names of local gods and goddesses might be changed into Greek forms, but their worship often continued much the same as it had always been. In addition, ordinary working people had little time or opportunity for philosophical debates and sports activities, and it was generally the ruling classes who became most involved in such pursuits. They were also the ones who were most at home with the Greek language, for it meant they could make international contacts without the tedious necessity of learning several languages. But Greek influence was everywhere, and in one way or another its impact was felt in all sections of society. This Greek-dominated world offered some obvious benefits to the earliest Christians as they sought to share their message with others. There were few language problems, cultural barriers were minimal, and by the Roman age great roads were being built which would make it easy to travel from one part of the empire to another.

Civic society

Roman society was highly regulated along lines of social class, and while it was not impossible to move from one class to another it was not something that happened every day and most people simply accepted the social circumstance into which they had been born. Individuals were able to improve their status through education or distinguished military service, but ownership of land was the real key to civic influence. This is what determined who could belong to the two major aristocratic groupings in Rome: the senators and knights (or equestrians).

Decision-makers and bureaucrats

The main qualification for membership of the senate was ownership of property worth at least a million sesterces, though in order to be an actual member it was necessary to be appointed to a formal position in the city of Rome itself. A typical member of a senatorial family might finish his education around the age of twenty, then be given some junior bureaucratic position, which might be followed by a period of military service (often in a managerial rather than a combative position), after which a good candidate could expect to become a quaestor (finance officer), which carried with it a senate seat. Then he could expect to become a praetor (a legal position), and for the most talented that might be followed by an appointment as a consul or provincial governor. By and large, the early Christians tended not to come into direct contact with this level of Roman governance, though there are some exceptions. When Paul and Barnabas visited the island of Cyprus, they were invited into the court of the proconsul Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:7), and Paul also met with Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, in the more formal setting of his legal tribunal (Acts 18:12–17). He later came face to face in a judicial setting with Felix and Festus, procurators of Judea (Acts 23:23–26:32). These procurators were the bureaucrats and civil servants of the empire, and Festus appears to have been a member of the equestrian order while Felix was a ‘freedman’: he was from a family of slaves who had been granted their freedom, whose appointment led Tacitus to comment that ‘he exercised the power of a king with the mind of a slave’ (Histories 5.9).

Slavery

Slavery was commonplace, and according to some estimates accounted for a fifth of the entire population of Rome. Defeated armies were regularly enslaved, along with children who were abandoned or sold by their parents and individuals who chose to sell themselves into slavery. Aristotle summed up a widespread belief: ‘the slave is a living tool, and the tool a lifeless slave’ (Nicomachean Ethics 8.11). Slaves had no legal rights and were regarded as less than human, though the treatment any slave received depended on the attitude of his or her owner. Slaves in industrial situations such as working in mines or on sea-going ships invariably had a hard time, though household slaves were often entrusted with important positions in civic and domestic life. Slaves were banned from marrying though there are many examples of slaves forming intimate long-term relationships, having children, and living in something resembling a family, often in the context of a larger Roman household where their owners gave them security and protection in return for their loyalty and obedience.

Slaves appear frequently on the pages of the New Testament, often as part of the extended households of the equestrian classes, whose villas frequently provided housing as well as employment for significant numbers of people. In socio-economic terms, these slaves occupied the same sort of niche as regular employees in today’s world, even earning ‘wages’ in the form of money that – though it was still legally owned by their masters – was available for the slaves to spend. Many of them saved this up in order to buy their freedom, which was often done in the context of a ceremony in a religious context (which could include the Jewish synagogues). Since a slave was not entitled to enter into a legal contract, the idea was that the deity would do that on the slave’s behalf, with the price of freedom being paid into the temple coffers. A fraternal club could also serve the same purpose, and at a later date churches operated in this capacity. This is the context in which Paul encouraged Philemon to grant freedom to his slave Onesimus, and it is often thought that this whole process of paying a ransom to a third party is the background against which Paul’s language describing the freedom of faith in Christ is best understood, rather than invoking sacrificial imagery from the Hebrew scriptures (see, for instance, 1 Corinthians 6:19; 7:22–23; Galatians 3:13; 4:5).

Adoption

Another common procedure that could lead to change in a person’s status was the practice of adoption, something that could happen at any age and which generally marked the start of a new life for the one adopted. This represented a far more thoroughgoing reorientation of lifestyle – and future prospects – than would be the case today. To be adopted meant the cancellation of all one’s debts, and a total reversal of an individual’s previous fortunes so that the adopted person not only took on the name of his or her new family but was entitled to all the privileges of that family, including full rights of inheritance. In return, of course, the adoptee came under the control of the new family’s head (invariably the father), who determined the future course of his or her life while offering safety, security, and family solidarity in exchange. In other words, an adopted person enjoyed exactly the same status as a person born into the family – something that Paul used as an appropriate metaphor for the gifts of God’s grace experienced through faith in Christ (Galatians 4:5; Romans 8:15, 23; 9:4; Ephesians 1:5).

Citizenship

One further category worth noting is that of citizenship. In the earliest days, you were a citizen of whatever city or province you happened to be born into. But almost from the beginning Roman citizenship was not limited to the city of Rome itself, as provincial alliances with different areas of Italy were forged, and Augustus took things a stage further so that citizenship became a mark of distinction unrelated to the place of one’s birth. Paul was a Roman citizen and he exemplifies this principle very well as he could quite easily be regarded as a citizen of two cities: of Tarsus, his birthplace (Acts 21:39), and of Rome (Acts 22:26–27) – even though, at that point in his life, it is unclear whether he had ever been to the city. This is another theme that Paul used to illustrate his understanding of Christian faith, insisting that there was no incompatibility between being a good citizen of Rome as well as owing loyalty to a ‘citizenship… in heaven’ (Philippians 3:20, NRSV), which involved being ‘no longer strangers and aliens, but… citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God’ (Ephesians 2:19, NRSV).

An individual could become a citizen through various routes: by being born to parents who were already citizens, as a reward for some special service on behalf of the empire (either commercial or military), or even as part of a package of privileges granted to freed slaves. Though in theory these various ways to gain citizenship were of equal status, Paul seems to have gained some advantage from being born as a citizen when he came to negotiate with Claudius Lysias, a military man who only became a citizen by paying a large sum of money (Acts 22:28). By New Testament times, citizenship involved very few formal duties other than loyalty to the empire, though it bestowed important privileges, including exemption from degrading punishments such as beatings or crucifixion, and the right to appeal to the courts in Rome over the head of the local judiciary – both of which feature in the stories of Paul.

Religion

The fundamental focus of traditional Greek and Roman faith was not on some other world, but on everyday life in this world. The idea that belief might constitute a discrete category that could be considered in isolation from the rest of life would have made no sense to either Greeks or Romans. It was concerned with ensuring that the correct observances were carried out in such a way that society’s ongoing security and prosperity could be assured. Matters of abstract belief – whether about God or the nature of the world and its people – were at best secondary, and devotion was expressed through acts of respect directed towards the deities, with different gods or goddesses being recognized for their influence in different circumstances and at different stages of life. For this reason it is misleading to speak of Greek or Roman ‘religion’ as if it was some special belief system comparable to Protestant Christianity. Religious observance, in which the intrinsic reality of the gods and goddesses was recognized, was simply an everyday part of life that was intended to preserve social stability, whether in the context of rites of passage or of legal transactions or military expeditions, or any other concern that people may have. For all these reasons, the underlying emphasis was never on the individual, but on the community and its well-being. The notion of having a personal relationship with one of the gods would simply not have occurred to anyone as being either desirable or possible. All the practices and traditional rituals were designed to maintain the well-being of the community by ensuring the observance of the correct social forms at the right times and in the right places. This could easily be done, for example, by the head of a household acting on behalf of all members of a family, or by local magistrates as representatives of an entire community. Appropriate sites for devotion did not need to be specially constructed shrines or temples, and many thousands of herms (stone pillars with the head of the god Hermes on top and a phallic symbol in front) have been discovered at roadsides, or on street corners, inviting passers-by to seek the protection of this particular deity, while recognizing the process as a way of affirming their solidarity with the community in which the herm was located.

The gods

Hellenistic religion had no organized central structure that could impose a uniform belief system, and though individual gods and goddesses had their own priests there was no recognized professional priesthood. Authority in religious matters generally rested with those who had secular power, which in the household meant the father while in a civic context it would be the local magistrates or even the assembly of all citizens. The most important religious functionaries were often seers, who would deliver oracles interpreting the divine will to any who asked their opinion – which they did, on matters as diverse as personal guidance, healing, the development of national policies, or military campaigns. The oracle at Delphi was one of the most highly respected sources of such spiritual insight. Sacrifice was a common way to gain the favour of the gods, most often of animals though corn or fruit could also be offered. Far from being a gloomy occasion, this was generally a time for festivity and celebration, for only the poorest parts of sacrificial victims were actually offered to the gods, with the best cuts of meat then being eaten in a communal banquet. There was of course a serious side to it all and worshippers regularly made offerings in order to win some particular favour from the deity. This was understood not so much as an attempt to bribe the gods, but more as a way of affirming that the human-divine relationship was a mutually beneficial one that operated in predictable ways in ...