Social Justice and the Hebrew Bible Volume One

Gottwald

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498290562
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

CONTENTSPART 1: METHODS, MODELS, AND COMPARATIVE STUDIESWhat Does Sociology Have to Do with The Bible?The Bible and Economic EthicsSocial Class as an Analytic and Hermeneutical Category in Biblical StudiesSocial Class and Ideology in Isaiah 40-55: An Eagletonian ReadingIdeology and Ideologies in Israelite ProphecyPeriodization, Interactive Power Networks, and Teleogical Constraints in Hebrew Bible StudiesIcelandic and Israelite Beginnings: A Comparative ProbeStructure and Origin of the Early Israelite and Iroquois "Confederacies"PART 2: TRIBUTES TO COLLEAGUESJames Muilenburg: Superlative TeacherDavid Jobling: Fearless Frontiersman Marvin L. Chaney, Master Social CriticJack Elliott: Breacher of Boundaries

Part 1

Methods, Models, and Comparative Studies

1

What Does Sociology Have to Do with the Bible?

Abstract

In this overview, which originated as a lecture to seminarians, the key terms of sociology are defined; the relation of sociology to the study of religion is addressed; the importance of race, class, and gender—as well as their interaction—are articulated; and four lines of sociological approach are discussed: social description, social history, social theory, and sociological exegesis. These four approaches are not self-contained or mutually exclusive, but are, in fact, interlocking procedures that often need to be employed in combination.

•

This kind of course is new to theological education. We don’t even know if there is such a course in any other seminary. It has been difficult to find books that introduce this approach to students, but we think that the three texts we have chosen are suitable to our purposes. We believe that this course is important enough to include in our required curriculum. I will try to explain why. To do that properly I will need to clarify the task of sociology and acquaint you with some sociological terms and concepts that you will encounter in the readings and lectures. Taken together with the readings and lectures in Dean Trulear’s course on Social Theory and American Religion, you should be able to get a working familiarity with the subject matter and the methodology.

Some Basic Terms in Sociology

Society may be described as a group of people sharing a self-sufficient system of action that outlasts the life-span of individuals within it. It has to do with the patterned relationships among human actors that are arbitrary in the sense that some patterns are followed and not possible others. A society is created by people, cumulatively over time, and it can and does change. We humans are social creators and social creatures. Nevertheless, social changes cannot be willed or contrived by single individuals. Furthermore, the society of which we are a part may be difficult for us to understand, since we are in it and shaped by it. Like fish in the sea, we cannot escape our social environment but must try to understand it as a reality in which we are immersed.

Culture, a term closely related to society, refers to the totality of conventional behavior acquired mainly by social and symbolic learning. Tradition teaches us how to interact with one another through a kind of shorthand system of learning that socializes us to the group settings in which we live. We may think of culture as the repertory or inventory of learned behaviors and meanings that make up the formal and informal patterns of society. Family, school, church, advertising, and the media are big “culture generators” in our society.

Social Organization focuses on the patterns of relationships in a society. Social Structure, sometimes used interchangeably with social organization, is often reserved for more abstract models of how people relate socially. Political Organization refers to the individuals and groups who manage the affairs of the State, which can be defined as a complex of institutions by means of which the power of a society is organized on a basis superior to kinship. All available social power is not necessarily controlled by the state, but it does make the claim to legitimacy in the exercise of force in implementing its policies. Economic Organization refers to the means by which the goods necessary for life (and luxury) are produced, distributed, and consumed. Ideology designates the dominant notions in a society about the true beliefs and right actions for its members. Ideology is imbibed as a part of culture and serves to reinforce the dominant social structures. Ideology is usually not monolithic, however, so that there may be clashing notions among different sectors of the society, especially in times of political crisis and rapid social change.

The Social Sciences take up different aspects of society and culture from various perspectives. By tradition, Anthropology has dealt with non-literate, simple societies, and Sociology has treated more complex literate societies, especially since the industrial revolution. The tradition of anthropology has been to stress self-contained societies that do not undergo much change, if any, whereas the sociological tradition copes with the changes occurring in modern societies. More and more, however, these distinctions are breaking down, so that we now have anthropological studies of modern societies and sociological studies of ancient societies. Various strains of anthropological and sociological method and theory are now being applied in biblical studies. Economics and Political Science focus respectively on the productive base of the society and on the forms of governance in the society. Here too the lines that separate the disciplines are no longer so clear, since what is considered economically or politically relevant may be drawn from any or all aspects of society and culture. The dominant, and still influential, social theorists of the nineteenth and early twentieth century—Marx, Durkheim, and Weber—all adopted a global view of what sociology “covers.” Sociology of Religion studies religion as an aspect of society, treating its beliefs, practices, and organization.

Sociology and Religion

At this point a word is in order about the sociological study of religion. David Lyon’s book, Sociology and the Human Image, which many of you are reading in Dean Trulear’s course, treats this subject thoroughly and perceptively. I only want to underscore two points: 1) religion, including the religion of the Bible and our own religion, is social, a definite part of society. Religion in people’s lives is always related in particular ways to all their other social involvements, both consciously and unconsciously; 2) the truth or value of a religion cannot be determined in the last analysis by a study of its social forms and functions. Nevertheless, a social study of religion is valuable for indicating what aspects of human life religion addresses and how it does so. Such study becomes one way of assessing the place of religion in our lives as social beings and in helping us to determine how we wish to be religious. It can be an instrument for comparing our own ways of being Christian with the religion of early Christians.

But to study our history and present identity as Christians in social terms runs against the grain of individualism and psychologism in our culture. Thus we have to struggle to keep a social lens on biblical and theological topics that we are not accustomed to think of as aspects of a wider human reality. The only way to know if a social study of religion is worth the effort is to try it out in order to see if we get a better understanding of the Bible, Christian history and theology by doing so. In particular, we need to see if our participation and leadership in the church is enriched and strengthened in a time when social forces are facing us with great challenges.

Class, Race, and Gender

Three of the major dimensions of society that increasingly concern us, especially in this seminary, are class, race, and gender. Of these three, Class has the longest history of serious study in sociology. Class refers to divisions in a society based on indicators of wealth, power, and status. A Marxist understanding of class stresses that the divisions are based on how people are related to the means of production, whether or not they control the surplus produced. Class is seen to result not from natural ability as such but from power relationships that perpetuate patterns of dominance and subservience. The study of these patterns is called Political Economy, and the sum total of social relations that produce and perpetuate the class structures are called a Mode of Production. I have applied this form of class analysis to biblical societies in my article “Sociology (Ancient Israel)” (1992). Later in the course, I will show how a class analysis of one of the parables of Jesus can illuminate the biblical text.

In recent decades, race and gender have come to occupy great attention in sociology. Just as the social conflict between capitalists and laborers produced an earlier interest in class analysis, so now the emergence of ethnic identities and feminist movements have foregrounded race and gender. Race or Ethnicity is a term for a group of people, self-identified and usually recognized by others, as sharing some common features that are a complex mixture of biological, historical, and cultural factors. Gender refers to the cultural identities and roles attached to the different sexes. Ethnic and gender consciousness varies greatly. The consciousness of ethnicity and gender often arises, or is at least accentuated, as people experience social marginality, political disempowerment, and economic deprivation that is predetermined by the social value/disvalue attached to their identity.

As a result, class, race, and gender become interactive in complex ways. In any society, those of the privileged ethnic group or gender are more likely to be in the higher classes, and vice versa, while in any ethnic group, the feminine gender is likely to be the most disadvantaged. Ethnic and gender divisions may keep people from seeing their class affinities, e.g., poor whites may feel superior to poor “people of color,” upperclass African Americans and Hispanics may feel closer to upperclass whites than to their ethnic brothers and sisters, and women of varied classes and ethnicities may not be able to identify with one another or make common cause. In situations of population mobility, the latest wave of immigrants into an already established society, may become the brunt of social antagonism on the part of all those who consider themselves “insiders” against the “outsiders.” This social antagonism is often rooted in economic insecurity.

Similar volatile interconnections among class, race, and gender were at work in the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds, albeit in different historical and cultural forms. Biblical and early church studies have not paid much attention to any of these social conflicts, with the exception of Jewish-Gentile tensions. It seems that a preoccupation with religion and theology, rather narrowly conceived, has kept us from sustained study of the social world of early Christianity. In this course, we are taking a journey into very sketchily charted territory. Simply by asking some new questions, we will start to notice things about the first Jews and Christians that will deepen our understanding of them and perhaps throw some light on the social settings in which we practice the religion inherited from them.

Forms of Social-Scientific Inquiry

The title I have proposed for my presentation is “Social Description, Social Historical Analysis, Social Theory, and Sociological Exegesis.” These are the main umbrella terms used nowadays to describe what people do with the social sciences in biblical studies. Scholars and writers who use these terms do not always define what they mean by them. sometimes the impression is given, or at least inferred by readers, that these are self-contained or even mutually exclusive approaches. I believe it is possible to define the core of each of these approaches and to show that they are interlocking procedures that often need to be used in combination. So let’s take them one by one, illustrating first with a hypothetical sociological inquiry into New York Theological Seminary (NYTS) and then with the social world of formative Judaism and early Christianity.

Social Description

Social Description is the gathering of social data about the subject under study, making use of available sources of information and using some working concepts to organize the data. A social description of NYTS might collect information on the social constituency of the school by examining faculty, staff, students, graduates, and donors according to categories such as denomination, education, age, gender, ethnicity, income, etc. Social organization and structure might be clarified by noting stated goals, division of labor, lines of authority, procedures for adopting and changing policies, etc. A wider social description would lead to a comparison of NYTS with other seminaries, a study of the churches contributing students and funding, a study of forms of ministry practiced by graduates, etc.

In the biblical world, social description might entail the study of a single institution on the scale of NYTS, for example, a philosophical school in Alexandria, a synagogue in Antioch, the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, etc. Or the social description might be regional, taking on the study of an entire city or province, or it might be an inquiry into social organization (taxation, army, education, priesthoods). The broader the scope of the description, the more necessary it becomes to discriminate variations accord...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Gottwald’s Hermeneutical Ellipse/Circle
• Gottwald’s Hermeneutical “Circle,” “Spiral,” or “Flow”
• An Autobiographical Introduction: My Path through Life
• Abbreviations
• Part One: Methods, Models, and Comparative Studies
• Part Two: Tributes to Colleagues
• Acknowledgments