Summary of Robin Scroggs" article: The Sociological Interpretation of the New Testament: The Present State of Research

                     

This article  with a brief survey of sociological studies of the New Testament scholarship.  Though interest in the sociological studies of the New Testament appeared in the early part of the last century, it revived by the introduction of the sociological models and theories in the New Testament studies in the later part of the last centuries. This revival brings a new understanding of the early Christianity.                

Problems Confronting Sociological Analysis

The Problem of Methodology: Plentiful of sociological models and theories are currently available for the New Testament studies. However, the there is a dilemma about which is appropriate and valid. Such context, Theissen implies by his work that an eclecticism and pluralism is appropriate. Scroggs gives following suggestions: firstly one need to understand fully how the method works and to be clear that it can be applied to the data at hand. Secondly, one needs to know both the theoretical presuppositions and implications of the use of the method. 

The Problem of the Data: The data for sociological analysis of the New Testament is little. Further, the text is basically theological, not sociological. The sociologist must read the text as it were palimpsest. It means the researcher should work with the utmost caution and strictness, with adequate guard against over enthusiasm.

The Problem of Reductionism: one can use sociological methods from a reductionist point of view to explain any societal phenomenon completely in terms of hidden, unconscious social dynamic. At this point, New Testament scholars should be careful about the implication of the method that one selected, to ask weather that method implicitly or explicitly excludes all dynamic except the immanent social. Scroggs observes following things on this issue: 1. Social dynamics may create the situation but may not determine the response to the situation. 2. Subjection to the social dynamic is part of society’s encroachment on the freedom of individuals. 3. The sociological models are not to be absolute objective rather they are time and culture bound creatures of humans.

Report on Recent Scholarship

There are two types of sociological interpretations: social history and sociological analysis. The social history tries to identify the social composition of the Christian groups. It asks the question: What was the social level of early Christians? But the sociological analysis tries to discover the larger underlying dynamics at work in the group and in their relation to the wider society. Thus, it is comparative study since it often compares data of different groups.

Recent Research into Social History of the Early Church

E.A Judge, Martin Hengel, Abraham Malherbe, and Robert Grant are contributed to social history of the early church. Hengel focused on the political and economic history in relation to the first centuries of the church and particularly with regard to Jesus and his followers.  Diessman came to a conclusion in his studies that early Christians were from the lower social classes-peasants, slaves, artisans. But Judge argued that early Christians were from the all strata of the society. Malherbe and Theissen also think social class of early Christianity is much higher than what Diessman concluded.  Now the question is that how the same date provided new consensus that different from the Diessman. The implication of the new consensus is relevant for the study of the early Christianity and thus the testing of the new conclusion is also very important. 

Sociological Analyses of the Early Church

Typologies: The sociological analysis of the religious sects in Palestine gives insights about unconscious social protest as part of the social dynamics. Graydon Snyder perceives early Christianity was always in tension between the trans-local tradition and the local tradition. Further, he argues that any specific religious phenomenon will be a result of the tension between the two traditions in a given time and space.   Scroggs and Snyder concluded that this typology can be considered as a grid to understand the movement within the trajectories in the New Testament.

Cognitive Dissonance: This model is used by John Gager.  “When, in a community, religious or otherwise, a certain belief is held, specific enough for disconfirmation to be unavoidably clear, and given certain other condition (mentioned below), the likely result of any disconfirmation of the belief will not be the dissolution of the group but rather an intensification of its proselytizing.” (p.345). Following conditions are necessary if proselytizing is to occur following disconfirmation: 1. The belief must be held with deep conviction. 2. There must be committed action on the part of the believers. 3. The belief must be specific enough that disconfirmation cannot be denied. 4. The believers must recognize the disconfirmatory evidence. 5. There must be communal support for the individual believer. (P 345).

Role Analysis: Gerd Theissen used this model in his sociological studies. This model looks at the description of self-understanding of people who adopt or accept certain roles within the society, weather such roles are defined by social status, relationship of person to group, or kinds of activity expected of the role. It also investigates how such roles function in the larger societal context.

Sociology of Knowledge: The world in which one lives is socially constructed and created, communicated and sustained through language and symbols. Language including the theological language is not independent from other social realities. Thus, theological language and its claim cannot be explained without taking into account socioeconomic-cultural factors of that language. The questions here are: how to move between language and social realities and which social realities are to be connected to which linguistic structure? Wayne Meeks used this model in his article “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism.”

Marxist Interpretation

 Martin Robbe applied the Marxist-Leninist perspective to read the Bible, and he perceives that Christianity emerged as a social process, as a protest against the class society and its injustice. Milan Machovec used humanism in his reading of the Bible. He views that Jesus is very important figure and Jesus made his mark in the society through his teaching of eschatology and its present implication. Machovec equates Marxism with true humanism and humanism with the total person. He understood Jesus as the one who cares for the total selfhood of a person.

Another Marxist reader of the Bible is Fernando Belo who used the materialist reading of the Bible. Materialistic reading of the gospels portrays Jesus as teacher and actor of messianic practices. Messianic practices include the rejection of the dominant code of society, economically giving to each according to the need, replacing lord-servant relationship with community and ideologically it needs a conversion from the reading of the Bible from the perspective of the dominant codes of the society to the subversive messianic practices. Unlike idealistic reading, Belo connects the future-resurrection of body- to the messianic practices. One needs to follow the messianic practices to realize the future resurrection. 

Concluding Remarks

The sociological studies reveal importance of interconnections of the message of the New Testament and to the everyday life, social needs and context of the human beings. It also points out the fact that the text cannot be separated from social dynamic. Since the New Testament studies have several sociological methodologies, the issue is the appropriateness of the single method or eclecticism, the adequacy of the data to apply these methodologies and result of one method in comparison with the result of the another method (reductionism).