Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2006 by Peter Oakes

Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society. By Philip A. Harland. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003. Pp. xv 399. Paper, $22.00.

This is a very ambitious and impressive book. Harland manages, astonishingly, to marshal his evidence in such a way as to engage in a serious critique of about a dozen of the leading scholarly conclusions on the nature of interaction Gentiles, Jews, and Christians and relative civic context of each.

The book is in three parts. Part one lays the foundation with an analysis of associations. Harland generates a typology based on "principal network connections" by demonstrating diversity of social make-up, showing inter-relatedness of social, religious and funerary functions, and by giving examples of how associations were involved in a vigorous civic life. Pan two presents evidence of how associations were active in cubic and other monumental honoring of the emperors. Harland uses this evidence to question the significance of alleged tensions between empire or city and associations. Part three turns to synagogues and congregations. He shows similarities of these to associations and argues for a more complex "assimilation" model of congregations in preference to a sectarian one. He instances synagogue involvement in imperial honors and argues that "honor the emperor" in 1 Peter 2:17 and similar texts should be interpreted in similarly concrete ways. Finally he questions the centrality of the imperial cult in conflicts faced by Christians and he contrasts the anti-imperial rhetoric of Revelation with other Christian texts.

Harland's work is part of a broad scholarly movement that is currently using the analysis of large quantities of inscriptional evidence to challenge long-held positions which are essentially based on the classical education tradition with its emphasis on literary and juridical sources. Instances of a phenomenon (e.g., associations integrated in civic life) are used to reject general statements about it (legal texts restricting associations). This is an issue that, in one form or another, will need considerable methodological reflection in the coming years. Harland's book is at its strongest when it uses epigraphical evidence to show associations and synagogues participating in civic life. It is at its weakest when he tries to do to Pliny and the jurists what the classicists have generally done to inscriptions, e.g., to try to localize awkward cases to explain away their impact on the scholar's general thesis.

A systemic difficulty for Harland is that there is no congregational epigraphic evidence of links to civic life in the way thai there is evidence for associations and synagogues. He can point to Christian texts which urge the honoring of the Emperor. However, it is quite a jump to argue based on this that there were positive relations between congregations and civic life. The sectbased model interprets the same evidence as being, for example, part of a survival strategy. I agree thai Harland offers a viable interpretation. On the other hand, I am hesitant to accept the full force of his conclusions, particularly in view of the tension that he notes in regard to the Christian failure to honor the gods in general. A Christian writer need not have the stridently anti-Roman polemic of Revelation for his or her congregation to be in tension with civic life.

Finally, for analysis of texts such as 1 Peter, Harland wants to replace J. H. Elliott's use of a sectarian model with a more complex model based on assimilation (A Home for the Homeless [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981], and subsequent works). There is a lot to be said for Harland's model, especially in its consideration of the transforming effect that the arrival of a new member has on a congregation. However, we would need to see how fruitfully his model engaged with the text as a whole. Elliott uses his model to produce a reading that draws on all sorts of textual detail. The question is whether Harland's model will be able to do so as well. Harland's ideas are powerful and important. It would be good to read work by him applying them in a more extensively exegetical study.

Peter Oakes

University of Manchester