Anthropology and Biblical Studies: Avenues of Approach

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2006 by Zeba Crook

ANTHROPOLOGY AND BIBLICAL STUDIES: AVENUES OF APPROACH. Edited by Louise J. Lawrence & Mario I. Aguilar. Leiden, The Netherlands: Deo Publishing, 2004. Pp. 324. Paper, n.p.

This is a collection of essays, most of which were presented at a small 2003 conference at the University of St. Andrews. While the title suggests that one will find in this book introductions to various ways anthropology can be fruitfully used by biblical scholars, that is not the case. Nonetheless, what one does find is a wide variety of papers, most (but not all) of which take an explicitly anthropological approach to a topic in biblical studies. One of the strengths of this collection is that anthropology is very broadly conceived: the papers cover topics as diverse as translation theory, written and oral language, economic exchange, as well as more traditional topics like sacred space, ritual, and purity.

After a fine introductory essay by Louise Lawrence, the book is divided into four sections. The first, "Acknowledging Cultural Difference," includes essays by David Chalcraft (Nineteenth-Century Comparative Sociology on Israel: The Contribution of Herbert Spencer), Philip F. Esler (The Context Group Project), and David J. Clark (Anthropology and the 'End User': The Influence of Receptor Cultures on the Translation of the Bible).

The second part focuses on the Hebrew Bible and Jewish Pseudepigrapha, with papers by Nathan MacDonald (Driving a Hard Bargain? Genesis 23 and the Models of Economic Exchange), Joachim Schaper (A Theology of Writing: The Oral and the Written, God as Scribe, and the Book of Deuteronomy), Seth L. Sanders (Parallel Literary Editions of Joshue and the Israelite Mythologization of Ritual), Bernhard Lang (The Hebrew Wife and the Ottoman Wife: An Anthropological Essay on Proverbs 31:10-31), and James R. Davila (Ritual and the Jewish Pseudepigrapha).

The third part focuses on New Testament Studies, with papers by J. A. (Bobby) Loubser (Possession and Sacrifice in the New Testament and African Traditional Religion: The Oral Forms and the Conventions behind the Literary Genres), Karen Wenell (Land as Sacred and Social Space: Some Reflections on the Early Jesus Movement and the Huahua Religion), Timothy J. Ling (Virtuoso Religion and the Judean Social Order), Douglas J. Davies (Purity, Spirit and Reciprocity in the Acts of the Apostles), and Albert L. A. Hogeterp (Anthropology and the Community as Temple in Paul's Letters).

The final section, "Methodological Reflection," contains a single paper from Mario I. Aguilar (Changing Models and the Death of Culture).

It would appear, from this volume, from the conference that generated it, and from other publications of Louise Lawrence, that she is attempting to set up a counter-Context Group. With the exception of MacDonald's and Aguilar's fair and balanced papers, the collective work of the Context Group is anathema: either it is ignored, as when Loubser refers several times in his paper to altered states of consciousness and yet never refers to the scholar who brought this phenomenon into biblical scholarship, namely John J. Pilch; or it is attacked with startlingly misguided and misdirected polemic, as is the case with Ling's paper.

I would like to respond to a few of the papers in this volume that stand out (mostly in a positive way). Nathan MacDonald (pp. 79-96) objects (politely) to Stansell's reading of Genesis 23 as an attempted gift exchange that Abraham turns into a commercial exchange in order to avoid entering into a endless cycle of reciprocity. MacDonald suggests that an understanding of bazaar economies provides a different explanation: Ephron's offer is the opening gambit in a "haggle" exchange, which typically starts with an unreasonable asking price. The model of the Bazzar economy is very promising, but it is far from clear that it applies to the interaction between Ephron and Abraham: Ephron does not ask a high price, eventually meeting Abraham in the middle. He offers the property for free. Evidence that this occurs in bazaars is not evident in MacDonald's model. The irony of this essay is that it is a perfect example of a model limiting interpretive options (not expanding them), which Lawrence in other publications objects to in very strong terms. I invite MacDonald to continue developing his model of Bazaar Economies, and its heuristic potential for Biblical studies.

Timothy Ling's essay (pp. 227-58) stands out for its invective directed at Bruce Malina for the claim that the ancient Mediterranean was characterized by an ethos of "limited good." The polemic, which is relentless, is misdirected, since it is not Malina who first related the notion of limited good to peasant society. The essay might just as easily have argued that Foster's faulty anthropology had informed New Testament studies to its detriment. Yet in the end, Ling's criticism is also misguided. His own evidence shows that an ethos of limited good (or something that looks remarkably like it) can appear in societies under pressure (Sherry Ortner's HIGH RELIGION: A CULTURAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF SHERPA BUDDHISM [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989], and if his only criticism is that limited good is not the only option open to peasant societies in duress, then the invective is utterly unnecessary. The polemic mars what could have been a very worthwhile and interesting discussion of Weber's "virtuoso religion" and how it might illuminate aspects of Jesus' behavior.