Challenging the authority of Jesus: Mark 11: 27-33 and mediterranean notions of honor and shame

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2000 by Hellerman, Joseph H

11 Pliny the Younger, for example, in a letter in which he informs a friend about a library he built and aliments he financed for the children of his hometown, observes, ". . . the cultivation of liberal inclinations . . . taught me to be free from the general bondage to avarice." Earlier in the letter, Pliny had specifically identified this "bondage" with the "innate disposition to accumulate wealth" by which, Pliny regrets, "mankind is universally governed" (Ep. 1.8).

12 In view here, of course, is the practice of urban patronage, so prevalent in Graeco-Roman antiquity. See R. Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); H. Moxnes, "Patron-Client Relations and the New Community in LukeActs," The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (ed. J. H. Neyrey; Peabody, MA: Hendrikson, 1991) 241-268. J. Nicols documents a change in the nature of the elite patron's traditional rewards, as Rome transitioned from Republic to Empire. During the republican era, the patron received from his clients votes at election time, soldiers for military campaigns, and the company of his clients as faithful retainers in public. The offices attained and battles won through the support of one's clients served, in turn, to enhance individual and familial honor. Centralization of power in the hands of the emperor, however, put an effective end to these avenues of public honor. Instead, Rome now encouraged a new ideology in which patronage was defined more in terms of civic virtue. In Rome and in the provinces, elites increasingly turned wealth into honor by spending their money on projects which benefited the public. Nicols refers to "the enormous (and virtually unparalleled) outpouring of private capital for public welfare in the second century" ("Puny and the Patronage of Communities," Hermes 108 [1980] 385).

is F. G. Downing has recently challenged the categorical assertions of Malina, Neyrey, and others who identify honor as the most important social value for persons in Mediterranean antiquity. Downing maintains instead that "`respect' ('honor and shame') is an issue of which we need to be aware, but that it is only dominant, `pivotal,' central (the `core') when, and where, it is clearly shown to be" (" `Honor' among Exegetes," CBQ 61 (1999] 55, author's emphasis).

It is certainly the case that much work remains to be done in refining our definitions of honor and shame, and it is preferable to understand the value as one among several important aspects of Mediterranean social life. Downing is therefore on the mark to challenge the reductionistic

tendency among certain exegetes to understand every interpersonal encounter in the NT primarily in terms of honor and shame. To support his contentions, Downing offers persuasive critiques of a number of recent, unconvincing attempts to read the Gospel pericopes in this manner ("Honor among Exegetes," 58-70). To this degree, Downing's conclusion is a sound one: "The issue of honor, of respect in community, is important, and it may even on occasion be of prime importance. It does not help to assume-irrespective of evidence-that it always must be dominant (ibid. 73, author's emphasis).