Why scholarship struggles to change people’s minds: an analysis and reflection on the history of the term “Gnostics” and “Gnosticism” in the Encyclopedia Britannica

Proviso and acknowledgments: Before beginning this paper, I would like to explain why I have delved on this topic and my indebtedness to other people on this project. I have had an interest for some time in how the popular perception of religion continues to affect scholarly discussion. My large working hypothesis is that while scholarship is separate from the general populace, when scholarship tries to “meet the public” they do so to their own demise. Further, not only do they challenge their own field, they do it needlessly. Scholars being overly affected by ideas of isolationism and irrelevance (probably from reading too many books such as Victor Davis Hanson’s Who Killed Homer?), then try to “meet the people half way.” These types of discussions are insulting to a mass audience who does not believe that they are incapable of understanding complex ideas. Further, it forces scholars to present poor scholarship (as it is only “halfway”). Scholars cannot expect real paradigm shifting in thinking to occur if they do not give the popular understanding the information for the shift. As long as the long held stereotypes are allowed to continue, no scholar should be surprised that their work in an academic setting that challenges those stereotypes are not followed. Secondly, I argue that scholars are not as detached from the popular view of things as they wish they were. Getting back to the “meeting half way” analogy implies that very thing – scholars are accepting many popular perceptions (some good and some bad) that affects their work. Therefore, scholarship finds itself still holding on to those same clichés and categories that they only begrudgingly allowed for the “mass audience” to be the sounding board for everything they are doing. The relationship between the two is dynamic and important for the history of ideas. As a sidebar, when I use the term “popular” here, I am not necessarily speaking of masses versus intellectuals. I merely mean when publishing books and articles that are geared toward a general audience rather than works where it is expected that the audience are specialists. All of that stated is a working hypothesis. I am not certain that the above is true or provable. However, the relationship between the “popular” and the “scholarly” is something that needs to be evaluated. I am working on a much larger project than this one on the way church history is presented in surveys of church history for university students (with the idea that this is where the two meet). This project is working on how the term Gnosticism has been written by scholars and understood by people in the popular encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Britannica. I consider this particular example because it is a well known authority written for the mass audience that has a decent history. I also consider it because Concordia librarian Judy Anderson was able to obtain photocopies of the term over the various editions of Britannica from its first edition in 1768 to the last one in 2012. Finally, as to the discussion below, I must thank my good friend Alex Kocar, Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) at Princeton University for continued discussion about the category “Gnosticism” and its persistent problems in the current milieu of scholarship of religion.

 For the past two decades (since the 1996 publication of Michael Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism:” An Argument for Dismantling a Problematic Category) scholars have challenged many of the old clichés attached to the term Gnosticism. Williams argued for the abandonment of the term altogether. Karen King, following Williams’s idea wrote to question most all of the traditional tenets of the category in her 2003 book What Is Gnosticism?. Many other scholars have not written such aggressive “calls to action” for the academy as a whole, but have quietly agreed that the category “Gnosticism” is not very helpful and instead studied texts from Nag Hammadi without its constraint.[1] Most scholars are happy to admit that any category that tried to encompass The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Truth, as well as the works of Marcion is sloppy at best. If there is any commonality among the three, it is not very obvious when looking at the actual texts. However, the category has persisted. Some, like David Brakke in his recent work The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity, have continued using the term while at the same time trying to be more careful with it. Others, like Ismo Dunderberg in Beyond Gnosticism: Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus, have maintained the category without realizing it. While they have put the quotation marks around Gnosticism, they have not done anything differently. For instance, Dunderberg compares Valentinian tradition with other Valentinian texts. He does not consider the relation to those which are not in the category and thereby allows himself to remain in the category without realizing it. The discussion has led to an interesting problem – it seems not to matter whether one supports or refutes the term Gnosticism, as long as it is studied as a type of phenomenon of its own little changes. This article argues that the reason for the persistence of this category (either in ideology or in action) is based upon the stubborn popular category of Gnosticism which is framed in a Linnaean monothetic taxonomy. So long as that popular category remains in the state that it does, scholars will never be able to move beyond it. This argument is exemplified through an analysis of one avenue of popular knowledge, The Encyclopedia Britannica, over the course of the last several centuries.

Popular categories cause scholarly categories to persist. To understand how popular terms and categories persist, take as a case study Tomoko Masuzawa’s interesting argument about the development of the term “world religions.”[2] The term is confusing and Masuzawa shows that the term was originally coined to contrast with “national religions” which were not “universal” in the way that Christianity was universal. Rather, they were localized to specific cultures and therefore were not important enough to compare with Christianity. This lead to originally four world religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Paganism. The idea was that all other religions were housed in Paganism for the sole reason that they were polytheistic and therefore could not truly be compared with Christianity. Throughout Masuzawa’s argument, she shows that the term has now come to encompass most all religions making the term effectively pointless. If “world religions” means simply the “religions that are in the world,” the word “world” is redundant – I would hope that we are not investigating religions from other planets. However, the term is something that is a necessity in the English language and thus it persists. Most adherents do not know what the term exactly means, but this is less important than the built in category in their thinking. Scholars might try to slightly shift the term to “World’s Religions” to make themselves feel better, but it only is acceptable because the layman will skip over the possessive and read “world religions.” I should make clear here that I am not speaking of some mob of angry townspeople ready to burn a scholar who challenges the term; rather, people demand it in the way that they demand that people use complete sentences in the newspaper. They have a term in their mind that they are expecting and it is very difficult to switch to something else without convincing them rationally that something needs to be done.

The term “Gnosticism” is suffering from the same fate as that of “world religions.” It is a prevalent term that culture rhetorically uses. The category might change – both in how it is characterized and what exactly it is called, but the term will stubbornly persist. This is best displayed in the 2012 Britannica where Michael Williams, the very scholar whose work Rethinking “Gnosticism” began the process to abandon the category, is forced to use the category simply to argue that it is not very helpful.

Karen King’s work, mapping the intellectual history of the term, fails to change anything except to make the academy aware of its roots. King shows that the term, first being used by Henry More (1614-1687), developed in a variety of formats with differing discussions, but a single motivation – to distinguish the movement from Christianity. However, her conclusion challenges scholars to look more carefully at the phenomena and challenge many of the ideas of Gnosticism. However, as long as the category persists and the scholar’s position is relegated to the “questioning elements of it,” the popular perception of the term will persist as it always has.

Popular history of the term

In order to show what the popular term is, here follows a description how the term has been treated in the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the first edition of Britannica in 1771, there was an entry on “Gnostics” which was written the following passage:

Gnostics, in church history, Christian heretics so called, it being a name which almost all the ancient heretics affected to take, to express that new knowledge and extraordinary light to which they made pretensions; the word Gnostic signifying a learned or enlightened state.[3]

The entry has at its core, the name “Gnostic” being the key description for a people. It is argued that the people chose the name in order to understand themselves as distinct from Christians. This very brief entry does not provide many other elements to it except that it provides a type of “extraordinary light” which could frankly mean quite a lot of things. The importance of this first entry is simply that it was defined to be other than Christianity. This is the sole distinction that King argues is the basis for the term. At this point, it seems as if her view is correct.

If one moves to the second edition, the entry was developed and expanded slightly in 1780. This second entry first has the paragraph from the first edition, but then adds a second paragraph where its source is cited – Epiphanius. It then has a brief description of the people. It describes a very brief description of some type of higher heaven and then moves to what matters for its own consideration:

All the Gnostics distinguished the creator of the universe from God who made himself known to men by his son, whom they acknowledged to be the Christ. The denied that Word was made flesh; and asserted that Jesus Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary; that he had a body only in appearance, and that he did not suffer in reality.[4]

The description of the pleroma (the term itself not being used) is rather brief. Instead of discussing this, it spends its time discussing the role of Christ and how it is different from Christianity. The interest, then, is similar to that of the first edition – to show how it is distinct from Christianity while being a distinct sect which was organized around the name Gnostic.

The third edition in 1797 expanded the entry significantly to try to give a far more full description of the group. First, it is seen still as a clear group:

The name is formed of the Latin gnosticus, and that of the Greek ginosko “I know” and was adopted by those of this sect, as if they were the only persons who had the true knowledge of Christianity. Accordingly, they looked on all other Christians as simple, ignorant, barbarous persons who explained and interpreted the sacred writings in a too low, literal, and unedifying figuration.[5]

Here, the description of the group, has changed though. The group is first and foremost assigned to making mistakes based on bad exegesis of texts. This is continued later on in the article: “…but [Valentinus] shows the general principles whereon all their mistaken opinions were founded, and the method they followed in explaining Scripture.”[6] This new emphasis on scripture is explained by a description of their borrowing so heavily from the Platonic world.

The entry in the third edition has a more complex view of them as heretics – they are considered far more closely to the fold of Christianity; however, bringing them in closer (discussion about scripture, the nature of Christ, the view of creator, and ethical standards) actually makes them farther away than some group who had a name that was alien to Christianity. It in fact seems that nearly every heresy possible was pushed on to this group. We have already seen the description of their interpretation of scripture. The next point to be discussed is the denial of the resurrection of the body: “Their persuasion that evil resided in matter, as its centre and source, made them treat the body with contempt, discourage marriage, and reject the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and its re-union with the immortal spirit.”[7] What is noteworthy in this passage is not that it depicts the group has thinking of the material world as evil – this was a relatively common trope until twenty years ago. What is striking is why this discussion is developed – so it could push them into a heresy that was well known from the fourth to the sixth century in the Origenist crisis – the issue of the resurrection of the body.

To further paint the group as one of arch-heretics, the entry argues that the group believed in both subordinationism and docetism. Consider the following passage:

The Gnostics considered Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and consequently inferior to the Father, who came into the world for the rescue and happiness of miserable mortals, oppressed by matter and evil beings; but they rejected our Lord’s humanity, on the principle that every thing corporeal is essentially and intrinsically evil; and therefore the greatest part of them denied the reality of his sufferings.

Here the entry shows its own bias most profoundly. Usually “docetism” is explained by trying to protect the divine from suffering. However, subordination is also trying to protect the same thing. It is therefore likely that the author provides both in order to simply paint the figures with as much negative imagery as possible. Following this discussion is a discussion of their ethics which are opposed to the norm (using the patristic author’s slander of libertine behavior along with ascetic denial). This entry, then is not as interested in them as a group as much as it is interested in them as every type of heresy that can be conceived in the first several centuries of the church.

This entry went unchanged until 1856 in the eighth edition. It is also the first time that the entry is under “Gnosticism” rather than simply “Gnostics.” It further is the first time that an author is listed – John Tulloch. Tulloch’s argument here is less that they are the arch heretics of the third edition. Rather, Tulloch argues that the group is above all syncretistic:

Gnosticism, in its different heretical forms, sprung out of the mixture of Oriental and Hellenic elements of culture with Christianity towards the close of the first, and throughout the second century. In one and all of these forms it may be said to represent the systematic attempts made by the prevailing religious philosophies to understand Christianity, and adapt themselves to it. Refusing to accept it in its simple historical character, in its simple majesty of divine truth, and having in it these respects no affinity, these philosophies could not yet help recognizing in Christianity a sublime spiritual power of which they must give an account. They sought, therefore, to find, from their own point of view, a theosophic meaning in it, and to bring it into alliance with their own wild and fantastic schemes of cosmogony.[8]

This entry is the first one to try and create a religious world – it discusses the key questions that were trying to be solved – the origin of life and the origin of evil. It considers the doctrines of matter, the Immortal father, the pleroma, Demiurge, Archons, Sophia, as well as considering key figures commonly housed in the movement  such as Basilides, Marcion, Valentinus, Saturninus, Tatian, and Bardaisan. There is even an aside about Mani and his similarity. However, the real development is the development of two “schools of thought” in Gnosticism – the Alexandrian and the Syrian. The idea of this is that given that the category (and at this point it is a category with a variety of groups in it) is syncretistic, the Syrian is the one which combined Christian and “oriental” philosophy whereas the Alexandrian combined Christianity with Greek philosophy.

In describing each of these doctrines as well as each one of these figures, Tulloch goes through painstakingly to prove how they have combined elements of the truth with those of foreign philosophy. This is the first time King’s essential hypothesis is challenged. Here it does not seem that the figures are primarily seen as other to the church as heretics in one way or another, they are instead characterized more as what might be considered the heterodox – those who understand the power of Christianity, just fail to understand it as unique.  The reader should note how this shift occurred and that the popular notion of the category shifted dramatically (in fact, question can arise whether it is precisely the same category as what was described above), but the category still persisted without question.

Tulloch edited his entry for the 9^th edition in 1875 and what is important to recognize is how he shifted it – he revised his thesis as well as providing examples of how the syncretism fully developed. First, Tulloch argues, “Gnosticism [is] a general name applied to various forms of speculation in the early history of the church.”[9] The concept of speculative theology as that which is introduced through the syncretistic means is his primary argument.

One dramatic change however, is how Tulloch considered the movement’s syncretism as not heretical. He argues,

The more advanced writers of the preset day refuse to recognize Gnosticism as a heresy, or to speak of the Gnostics as deserters from the Christian Church. And they are right so far. The Gnostic schools were always so far outside the church. They were not heretical, therefore, in the ordinary sense.[10]

However, to make this argument, he does have to show whence any of the ideas came as it was parallel at least with the church. To do so, he says that this was because second temple Judaism had brought this along on its own. Judaism was syncretistic and, in his mind, fully Gnostic. He uses the evidence of Kabala to show how Hellenistic philosophy and Zoroastrian religion made its way into Judaism and this led to the creation of the category Gnosticism with its wild speculations. He then goes through the same doctrines and figures as before and attempts to argue why they are merely a syncretism with the speculation of a pantheism and Hellenistic philosophy.

This 9^th edition of Britannica shows that the category has once again changed radically – so much so that it is worth questioning whether it would even be describing the same phenomenon. It has shifted from being a Christian heresy, to Christian heterodoxy, to now a Jewish/Zoroastrian/Hellenistic amalgam with Christianity being only the poor victim of bad circumstance. This is something that should have outraged the public, but likely this was not the case as the concept of speculation persists for the next 100 years of consideration.

In 1910 Wilhelm Bousset rewrote the entry to echo the argument of Tulloch that it is a syncretistic movement as mystical in nature. However, Bousset argues that it is ultimately a mystical religion which forced the church to create a hierarchy and organization. When one reads carefully through Bousset’s article, it is clear that his primary argument (behind some of the very good description he has – in many ways descriptions far closer to modern ones than we have seen thus far) is anti-Roman Catholic polemics.

To begin the entry Bousset puts it in perspective next to the Catholic church, “Gnosticism [is] the name generally applied that spiritual movement existing side by side with genuine Christianity, as it gradually crystallized into the old Catholic Church, which may roughly be defines as a distinct religious syncretism bearing the strong impress of Christian influences.”[11] The primary reason for this was his second key characteristic – that of mysticism and secret knowledge. As he felt Gnosticism emphasized revelation more than speculation, the movement led to secret knowledge:

These little Gnostic sects and groups all lived in the conviction that hey possessed a secret and mysterious knowledge, in no way accessible to those outside, which was not to be proved or propagated, but believed in by the initiated, and anxiously guarded as a secret…In short, Gnosticism, in all its various sections, its form and its character, falls under the great category of mystic religions, which were so characteristic of the religious life of decadent antiquity.”[12]

This is the first time the concept of mysticism has been included in the discussion of Gnosticism. It is in this sense that Bousset argues it is syncretistic. He argues that Zoroastrian, Persian, Hellenic, Oriental, Babylonian, and monistic tendencies are found in Gnosticism as they are all mystical.

What is striking is that this is the first time sacraments are mentioned as being an element of Gnosticism. This description is not a flattering one for Bousset as he sees sacraments as simply another type of mysticism that is to be avoided preserved in the Catholic Church:

The Gnostic religion also anticipated other tendencies. As we have seen, it is above all things a religion of sacraments and mysteries. Through its syncretistic origin Gnosticism introduced for the first time into Christianity a whole mass of sacramental, mystical ideas, which had hitherto existed only in its earliest phases. But in the long run even genuine Christianity has been unable to free itself from the magic of sacraments.[13]

As one can see, Bousset opposes anything mystical in the church and blames Gnosticism for developing it. He further criticizes the church by suggesting that it was only this Gnosticism which corrupted the church into an organization:

Finally, it was Gnosticism which gave the most decided impulse to the consolidation of the Christian Church as a church. Gnosticism itself is a free, naturally-growing religion, the religion of isolated minds, of separate little circles and minute sects…This freely growing Gnostic religiosity aroused in the Church an increasingly strong movement towards unity and a firm and inelastic organization, toward authority and tradition.[14]

The thesis of this entry then is that Gnosticism is primarily a mystical religion which forced the church into some corners it should not have entered. One should once again note the striking contrast with everything that was considered up to this point.

In 1963, Gilles Quispel rewrote the entry in order to reverse the thinking of Gnosticism. He argues that it is its own religion, developed from a type of Judaism, which then adopted some aspects of Christianity into it rather than the other way around. Quispel argues that the Dead Sea Scrolls show some affinity with the idea of Gnosticism. However, he argues that the key determining difference to Gnosticism is not syncretism or speculation but rather: “Though it is not always easy to distinguish Gnosticism from Greek philosophy and the Christian religion, it has certain characteristics of it s own which are alien to Greek or Christian tradition, such as the deprecation of the cosmos and the rejection of atonement.”[15]

Quispel argues that the key determining factors of Gnosticism is personal revelation based upon a pre-Christian Jewish matrix rather than syncretism from other places: “These conceptions are expressed in various myths, which have used material from many oriental and Greek religions, but serve to express a basic experience which is new, the discovery of the unconscious self or spirit in man which sleeps in him until awakened by the Savior.”[16] He then follows with the argument that the category is one that has three fundamental tenets: 1. No atonement is necessary in the system, 2. They denied the reality of the creation as God’s creation, 3. Annulled the unity of the human race by dividing it into classes.[17] This is a striking difference from what has come before in the discussion of the category.

Robert Grant, in 1974 presented a type of maximalized entry for the next edition of Britannica. He followed Bousset in arguing that it was the primary cause for the development of the church as organization (while editing out Bousset’s value judgements about this) combined with the syncretistic idea of the previous century while at the same time trying to uphold the mystical side of Gnosticism based on the “divine spark” within humanity. He even went as far back as the early ideas that these worked in the fold of Christianity, but did so based on allegorical exegesis that led to their expulsion. To see the confusion Grant is forced into, he has a brief conclusion that “concludes” very little:

The basic question, as Jonas pointed out, is “what is Gnosticism?” But it must be answered in modern times by asking “what was Gnosticism?” The subject under discussion, whether or not alive today, is a phenomenon of the past, and therefore the problems of origins, sources, and possible development need to be considered as well as the problem of definition. With Jung, Jonas, and others, one finds the goal in an understanding of what gnosis and Gnosticism were as differentiated from their sources and even their influences. It is not enough to call Gnosticism “the acute Hellinization of Christianity” (Adolf von Harnack) or to trace its ingredients to Greek or Oriental ideas without explaining how and why men found it meaningful. It arose in age of syncretism, but it was not merely syncretistic. It was not precisely Greek, Jewish, or Christian, though elements of all existed in it. To a greater degree it was an anti-Greek, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian movement; in the 2^nd century, and in Manchaean form still later, it captured for a time the imaginations of such theologians as Basilides, Valentinus, and Augustine.[18] 

Unlike the previous entries where they simply changed the category aggressively, Grant does not change the category as much as he is unwilling to do much with it at all. He essentially is fixed as saying “it is nothing easy, but don’t ask me what it is.” It should be noteworthy that this strange, in some ways non-entry was accepted as reasonable.

Finally, Michael Williams’s current article on Gnosticism shows how a category can persist and be used in ways no one thought possible. Williams’s article is an argument against the category itself, yet it has to use the category to do so. In interest of full disclosure, Mike Williams was my graduate advisor for my Master of Arts program at the University of Washington and I find myself agreeing with most all his views on these sorts of ideas (I’d love to pretend that I came to these conclusions independently from his having the authority to pass me or fail me, but as we are molded by the people we surround ourselves with, a more honest approach is to simply admit the influence).

Williams begins by giving a very brief description of what might be considered a definition of “Gnosticism.” He then moves forward to describe a general type of myth based upon the Apocryphon of John that might be considered “Sethian” and a general type of myth that might be considered “Valentinian.” Williams is careful to point out that these myths have differences among them and the myths do not fall into the old clichés as might have been expected. He further argues that many of the texts often ascribed to the category have nothing at all to do with the myth and do not fit (the classic example of this is the Gospel of Thomas which is merely a sayings collection of Jesus and has no narrative at all – much less advanced mythology).[19]

Aside from the argument whether Williams is correct or not, the more important element is how the category is used. Throughout the history of Britannica’s entries, the category went from a sect of people using a common name, to a syncretistic Christian heresy, to a speculative philosophy, to a mystic religion, to a pre-Christian Jewish religion, to eventually not being a category at all. What is striking is not only how aggressively this changed, but that a publication such as Britannica was fine with the change. Britannica bases itself on sales and therefore, if they are find changing the status of the term to this extent, then the readership must also be fine with it. A further striking element that the silence supports is the complete lack of recognizing earlier views. Williams’s article is an exception in that he has no choice but to recognize what came before in order to challenge it. All of the rest of the entries change things aggressively and say nothing to anyone that this is something very new and out of line with the previously held thought. It seems that nearly anything is permissible for the description of Gnosticism so long as there is one.

Consequences and argument for why this discussion is helpful

To understand why these changes have taken place (and eventually why the scholarly world struggles to make any type of significant change for a sloppy category such as this), it is necessary to understand categories. Jonathan Z. Smith has argued that the Linnaean system of categorization has put the field of religion in a crisis that cannot be satisfied if we continue to use the taxonomy that a monothetic Linnaean taxonomy creates.

Linnaean taxonomy is the common logic developed by Carl Linnaeus to classify biological organization. It is an inverse pyramid that works from the most general down to the most specific. There are domains, kingdoms, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Each species is unique. It is considered monothetic in the sense that when it finally gets down to the level of species, there is only one single difference between different species in the same genus. For instance, one species of insect might be the same as another species with the only difference being the number of hairs on its legs. It becomes so specific that each biological entity must have every one of the characteristics of the category, or else it simply does not comply.[20]

Most people in the world have not studied Linnaeus or biological taxonomy. However, people tend to think in this matter (the same way people tend to think in terms of Baconian philosophy without realizing it). People can easily assume that a category is a definition – that all things in a category are “the same.” While most people are willing to accept that there is variation, the persistence of the category seems to suggest something about this Linnaean idea. While not everything has to be the “same,” the understanding is one the side that they are similar with differences rather than different with similarities.

The Encyclopedia Britannica is the paradigmatic example of the persistence of a category. Without categories, the encyclopedia cannot be organized. People are not encyclopedias, but they think in the same way – they need the general category. While it is easy enough to see how people can think in this way while being ignorant, it is more shocking to see how scholars have perceived the conclusion of Mike Williams’s book. They nearly always quote the one passage from the conclusion where he allows for comparison. In order to create comparison, he suggests there could be a very broad category that is not definitive of “biblical demiurgical myths.” Most, like Karen King have read that as suggesting that Williams does not want to do anything differently, he only wants to change the name of the category.[21] It seems that most people have missed Williams’s point and are still stuck in the idea of categories as Linnaean objects – which Williams has been historically opposed to saying.

The second problem with categories in a Linnaean taxonomy is that differences are emphasized among close partners. For instance, if there are two species that are very close to one another in proximity (supposing only one difference – therefore in the same genus), then what will be emphasized if one is only studying one of the species is that difference. However, I do not think many people would start by discussing an insect with the number of hairs it has. Instead, they would discuss the much more common elements. The same can be said of Gnosticism. If the category is based upon its relation to Christianity, all of the things it has in common with Christianity are likely going to be silenced in order to look at the differences.

Karen King’s argument that Gnosticism has been a category of the “other” in scholarship does not take seriously enough the place that popular understandings of the same has affected it. Looking at her analysis of the development of the term, history of religions school, the different styles of understanding the term after Nag Hammadi, and her conclusion suggesting future studies shows a type of surprising continuity rather than fluctuation in characterization. She rightly points out that the premises of the study have changed (for instance some are most interested in relation to church history, others in early sources, others in typology) but when it comes to actual characterization, they are relatively consistent in seeing Gnosticism as an “other.” This other then is a category in itself, insofar as all the diversity in the world, as long as they are considered from the angle of inside/outside will not be appreciated. This leads her to unfortunate conclusion that no matter what we call the thing, we will go about our business as usual doing things in a relatively similar manner. King’s argument, actually makes much more sense in the context of the popular view of taxonomy than in her intellectual history of the idea in the academy.

If there is one theme in the popular perception of Gnosticism is that it needs to be “the other.” The sketch that King presents of scholars on the same topic is not nearly as clear on that particular front (at least not as clear as she would seem to like it outside of the philosophy of hierarchy presented by Foucault). But in the popular Encyclopedia, until the year 2012, this is precisely what happened. It did not seem to matter as much what they called Gnosticism as long as they defined as different from something (in some cases Christianity, other cases Judaism, and in the one wild example of Bousset “true Christianity” in contrast to Catholicism). This is always what scholars present as “the very basics for the public” but in so doing, then make their entire field as suggesting “well, it’s not really like this” rather than educating the populace correctly in the first place. 

This leads to the final question for the scholarly world – is it really just for the sake of the popular conception that a category is maintained? There is an entire field of study that is Nag Hammadi and related texts. These scholars have their own meetings at national gatherings of religion rather than simply meeting in a 2^nd century Christianity group. The argument is that the challenge of these texts make it so that specialists want to work together. However, has not been the trend to challenge many of these ideas? Perhaps the best audience for a paper on the Apocalypse of Adam would be one which was quite familiar with The Shepherd of Hermas. So long as there is an isolation in the study, the category will continue – even though many scholars will belie its existence. The intense specialization might not be so difficult to get beyond and the absurdity of having to use a category to say it does not exist can finally be abandoned.

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[1] For a recent example, see Lance Jenott, The Gospel of Judas: Coptic Text, Translation, and Historical Interpretation of the ‘Betrayer’s Gospel’ (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011).

[2] Tomoka Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

[3] “Gnostics” Encyclopedia Britannica; Or, A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences Compiled Upon a New Plan in which the different sciences and Arts are digested into distinct treatises or systems, vol. II (Edinburgh: Society of Gentlemen in Scotland, 1771), 724.

[4] “Gnostics” Encyclopedia Britannica 2^nd Edition vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1780), 3336.

[5] “Gnostics” Encyclopedia Britannica 3^rd edition, vol. 7 (Edinburgh: A. Bell and C. MacFarquahr, 1797), 798.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] John Tulloch, “Gnosticism” Encyclopedia Britannica 8^th Edition, vol. X (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1856), 686.

[9] John Tulloch, “Gnosticism” Encyclopedia Britannica 9^th Edition, vol. X (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1875), 700.

[10] Ibid., 701.

[11] William Bousset, “Gnosticism” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11^th Ed., vol. XII (Cambridge: Unversity Press, 1910), 152. 

[12] Ibid., 153.

[13] Ibid., 157.

[14] Ibid., 158.

[15] Gilles Quispel, “Gnosticism” Encyclopedia Britannica 14^th Edition, vol. 10 (Chicago, London, Toronto, Geneva: William Benton, 1963), 453.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid., 454.

[18] Robert Grant, “Gnosticism” The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15^th Edition, vol. 8 (Chicago: William Benton, 1973), 219

[19] Michael Williams, “Gnosticism,” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/236343/Gnosticism> .

[20] Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), introduction.

[21] King, What is Gnosticism?, 168 and 214.

The Trouble With Seminal Books on Topics Previously Unexplored

Kristzian Ungvary’s claims that his book, The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II, is the first and best complete study on the siege of Budapest in World War II.[1] Ungvary had access to many sources previously inaccessible due to the propaganda machine of the Soviet Union. Further, he interviewed as many people as possible who experienced the siege of Budapest (both from the German, Hungarian, and Soviet soldiers as well as Hungarian civilians). His book then balances the formal sources with the first hand accounts of the events. I do not disagree that the book is the first and best description of the siege of Budapest (though in all fairness, I do not have the academic background in the history of World War II to truly weigh in on this). It is also engaging and thought provoking. However, what is striking about it, to me is the problem of these types of books which see themselves as seminal works in the field. While the book is well done and accurate, it has the weaknesses that any book has that tries to “tell you everything about a situation.” Further, my being a historian of the ancient world who tries to reconstruct the social world of a community using theory and pieces of evidence notes some of the strange character of a story that is one third military history, one third social world, one third expose, and somehow nearly no theory.

First, it is important to take a few minutes to describe the scope of the book. The  chronology of the book covers the immediate leading up to the siege of Budapest, the actual siege, and a brief conversation about the immediate aftermath. The scope of the book then, tries to cover “everything that happened” thin this time period. To do so, there are several topics that need to be considered. First is the military decisions and actions of the Nazi army, the Hungarian allies (or subordinates, depending upon how one thinks of it), and the red army. The discussing then discussed in detail how the city came to be encircled, the ensuing battles while the siege continued, and the eventual collapse of Budapest and the planned, but never executed evacuation attempts until the final one when it was far too late. Second, the book needs to cover the political decisions leading up to and explaining the siege of Budapest such as the strange relationship between the Hungarian government and Hitler (including the Hungarian government attempting to surrender to which Hitler responded by occupying Hungary itself and the government being replaced by the Arrow Cross government run by the S.S.). Further, political discussion is necessary for prolonging the siege when the city was already lost – with Hitler’s larger strategy of the war with Russia. Third, the book attempts to describe the social situation of the larger population in Budapest. This includes the awkward relationship Hungarians found themselves in during the siege – the vast majority of the people wanted nothing to do with the Nazis (and especially not the Arrow Cross government), but they wanted even less to do with the incoming Red Army and the consequences of the annexation to the Soviet Union. Further, it includes a strange place for Jews in any area occupied by Germans in World War II – while being persecuted heavily, the situation of Hungary for Jews was different than that of the larger empire governed by the third Reich. It was not until the Arrow Cross government arrived that there was any final solution being executed (and by this time in the war, the Nazis did not have the resources to deport them). Behind these last two points includes the background of the relationship with the Hungarian government with Nazi Germany in World War II. Hungary was one of the countries to ally to Germany with the idea that this war would restore some of their land lost at the end of the first world war. As a result, they were never occupied by the Nazis and the relationship was most amenable. Further, the fighting on the Eastern front mostly was not in Hungary itself and a strange type of isolation from the rest of Eastern Europe was developed. As one can see from this brief description (and it is about as brief as possible), this book is incredibly complex due to the breadth of its scope.

The first major critique of this genre of seminal books on a topic is that the arguments in them are not clear. Usually historians write books that argue a particular point. However, this book did not do that. It seems as if what it wanted to express is “this is what really happened.” As a historian of the early Church, this type of inquiry is often done when considering the life of Jesus. The study of the historical Jesus is making an argument as to what really happened in Jesus’ life rather than how it was portrayed later. However, in order to do that, good books on the historical Jesus then present a thesis of their picture of Jesus and then prove it. For example, John Dominic Crossan, one of the most famous (or possibly infamous depending upon the group) scholars of the historical Jesus in his big book on the topic argues that Jesus is primarily a social reformer.[2] His book then is to prove this point and shows the data at hand and why that picture is more accurate than others which he also produces. Ungvary, in his book on the siege of Budapest, does not do this. His picture of “what really happened” seems to revolve around what he happens to put together with no discussion of opinions and data to the contrary.

To refine the previous point, the problem is not necessarily that seminal books do not have a thesis, but that they have far too many. Upon reflection, Ungvary tries to prove all of the following theses in the book: 1). The naïveté of the Hungarian government in relations with Nazi Germany, 2). Why the siege of Budapest was different than other sieges in World War II, 3). Why the Hungarian populace fought so hard for the Germans for whom they were not supporters, 4). Why defenders had so little chance of succeeding while at the same time taking so long to complete, 5). Why Hitler did not allow any chance of a breakout and evacuation, 6). Why the liberators of Budapest were not very liberating, 7). The status of Jews in World War II Hungary, and 8). The odd isolation of Hungary as a whole for the major portion of World War II. As one can see, any one of  these topics would take an entire book to prove. Ungvary’s attempt to prove all of them doomed many to fail.

The second critique of the book is its seemingly unqualified use of data. As a historian of the ancient world, I often get amused when modern historians bemoan the lack of data for a project they are studying. Often, they are discussing evidences for a particular day or hour in time. In the ancient world, we simply do not have hardly any data at all for a particular region and we are left to reconstruct based on a number of circumstantial pieces of evidence to come to a conclusion. Ungvary does not have this problem – he has a tremendous amount of data for the siege of Budapest. There is not a day in the siege for which he does not know every military move that was made. Further, there is not any day for which he has not obtained either personal papers of survivors (or in many cases doing interviews himself with them). However, his weight of sources becomes a weakness for him when he does not critically use them. He presents so much of the source material he is “sure of” that the book begins to become a simple compendium of pieces of data rather than an argument about a particular social world. The data does not seemed to be judged or qualified in the manner that gives the reader the relevant data that completes a clear thought. If a book had less data, it might actually be more convincing (in a paradoxical seeming way). As an example for this phenomenon, consider Eberhard Bethge’s famous biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.[3] The book, being over 1100 pages is the best-researched biography of Bonhoeffer likely to ever be produced. Recently, Eric Metaxas wrote a new biography of Bonhoeffer which was far shorter and in some cases had far wilder claims.[4] Bethge’s book should be the superior one by far (and in many ways it is), but Metaxas’s is more compelling to a reader who wants to be convinced of who Bonhoeffer is and why he became involved in the plot to kill Hitler. Much like Ungvary’s book, Bethge’s uses too much detail and includes so much data that it counteracts from the book’s main purpose.

The error of the weight of data is most illustrated by the special emphasis on the military operations of the period. A rough estimate finds at least 65% of the book to be the precise movements of the military during the siege. As the book does discuss a moment in a theatre of war, it might not surprise that so much of the book emphasizes this aspect, but in doing so, the data of the book on the social world is lost. The book’s strength are the personal papers and interviews of the actual people. In discussing military operations in such detail, it takes the time that could have been spent doing careful discussion of the development of life in the siege. The book becomes interesting to those who enjoy military strategy, but not as much for those who want to understand the other 7 theses that the author is trying to prove.

The final and most concerning critique of this book – and many books like it in modern history – is its lack of stated theoretical framework. As stated above, in ancient history the theory one uses determines how one presents one’s conclusion. This is due doubly to the integrity of admitting that theory determines data as well as a simple lack of data so that a theory has to tie together disparate elements. This book, like many works in modern history and theology, never states a theory at all. There is no real discussion about which personal papers ought to be trusted and which not (after all, eyewitness accounts are almost never consistent with each other). It seems as if Ungvary has simply put together “what makes sense” but that alone is a theory – only in this case it is not being done deliberately and thus the unstated theory has more of a chance of obscuring data than for those which are card carrying.

In all, the book is excellent and deserves to be read. There are portions that simply need to be skipped and frustrations with the genre of the book. However, Ungvary’s work will hopefully be some type of “entrance” into the field (being a seminal book) so that more careful histories can be developed and real dialogue put forward about some of the aspects of the siege in a more academically acceptable format.   

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[1] Kristzian Ungvary, The Siege of Budapest: One Hundred Days in World War II trans. Ladislaus Lob (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002).

[2] John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (HarperOne, 1993).

[3] Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, Revised Edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).

[4] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2011).

Review of Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ

Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, New York: The New Press, 2012, ISBN 9781595584687.

Daniel Boyarin’s newest book argues that Jesus was fully Jewish and that the gospels are equally fully Jewish. He argues that there were sects of Judaism that were expecting the Messiah to be both human and divine. He further argues that Jesus’ activities can be understood from the framework of second temple Judaism. He considers the Jewish background of the terms “son of man” and “son of God” and explains what these terms meant to some in the late second temple period. Further, he considers Mark 7 considering kosher law as an example to consider as it is often used to show discontinuity between Jesus and Judaism. Boyarin argues that Jesus’ argument in Mark 7, while being a critique of the Pharisee’s interpretation of Torah, was not in fact challenging the Torah (or food laws specifically) at all.  Boyarin’s work is a helpful book for all of those who are unclear about the Jewish background to the Son of Man and Son of God language in Daniel, or those who do not understand the difference between purity and morality in Judaism. The strength of the book is that his thesis is quite convincing – Jesus was surely Jewish and the Jesus movement, as expressed in the New Testament, was in the Jewish framework for the most part. The weakness of the book is that while the thesis is convincing, it is also mundane – most people who are careful readers of the New Testament are quite clear that Jesus was Jewish and this book only affirms what they already knew. However, some of the specific points that Boyarin discusses are quite interesting and the book ought to be read if only for these elements.

Brief Summary

Boyarin begins by arguing that not only was there not a “Christianity” during Jesus’ lifetime, there was not even a “Judaism.” Speaking of the terms as “world religions,” Boyarin is surely correct. Further, there is no evidence in the New Testament, save th[1]e book of 1 Peter, that the Jesus movement is seen as something distinct from Judaism. The authors of the New Testament are not imaging a new world religion – they believe they are expressing the truth in continuity with the truth they have always known – that of Israel. This aspect is not surprising. What might be more surprising is his argument that at this time there was no “Judaism.” He points out properly that “Iudaismos” – the Greek word meaning “Judaism” is not attested at this time period. The term Iudaioi (Jews) certainly was, but the “philosophy of Jews” (Judaism) did not yet exist. Boyarin’s point is that not only was there not a monolithic group of Jews (as most everyone knows about the sectarian differences in the first century – e.g. the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, etc.), but there was not even a concept of a monolithic Judaism as a world religion. There were many Jews who believed many things with a mostly common tradition – but they were not necessarily part of a monolithic “religion.” They tended to identify with one another in meaningful ways, but this was due to ethnicity in practice rather than a formal “religion.”[2]

After developing this theoretical framework, then Boyarin shows what the titles “Son of Man” and “Son of God” meant in the first century. The Son of God language, he argues, is the language attributed to David and his descendents, showing the messiah to be a true king of Israel in the line of David. The Son of Man language, he argues is developed from Daniel as a divine being who acts alongside the “Ancient of Days.” This “one  like a son of man” is presented in Daniel’s apocalyptic section as the one who will come on earth, conquer, and rule it. He then shows how the idea of God having a plurality (both the son and the father being God) is not a problem in Judaism and that there was a longstanding tradition developed from the Canaanite idea of God as two (El and Ba’al) being expressed as one in the Hebrew Bible. The most famous example of this is probably the scene at the “burning bush” in Exodus 4, half the time the figure speaking is YHVH whereas the other half the time it is the “angel of the Lord.” Notwithstanding the origins of this text (as it might well have been a compilation), the final form of the text as it stands presents the idea well – what the Canaanites considered as two gods, Israel considers one. There is the idea of plurality and unity between these figures (this would be developed in the Logos, Sophia, Wisdom concept as seen in Proverbs 8:22).

Boyarin then argues that the concept of a Son of Man and Son of God being the same person was even understood in the late second temple period. He considers the similitudes in 1 Enoch 14 as evidence that the son of Man was messiah and a son of David. This is then corroborated by considering 4 Ezra which presented a new type of Messiah that would encapsulate both this son of Man and son of David motif.

After the discussion of the titles son of man and son of God, he discusses Jesus’ view about food laws in the Gospels. He argues that Mark 7, if understood correctly, actually is supporting rather than challenging kosher observation. He points out, as many have noted, that there is some evidence that the Pharisees believed that the special purity laws which the priests practiced ought to be practiced by everyone (though to be fair, evidence for what the Pharisees believed is amazingly scant). Jesus then was arguing against this interpretation rather than against food laws a whole. He points out that there are certain prohibited foods that all Jews are not to eat (pork, shellfish, etc.). There are also certain practices of eating that could make someone “impure.” However, this “impurity” is not the same as the forbidden foods. This impurity is that which keeps one from being able to enter the temple and worship before one goes through a proper ritual. Purity, definitionally, is a ritual rather than ethical category. The ritual washing discussed in Mark 7 is argued as to be relevant for one before they enter the temple to worship – it is not something that is simply forbidden at all times for all Jews. Jesus then is arguing that this understanding of food laws is problematic. He does not want to inadvertently make religion so hard for people that it becomes elitist (Jesus’ main critique is less “what is the kingdom of God” as much as “who can be included in the kingdom of God”).

Finally, Boyarin argues that the idea that the messiah would suffer can be found as a midrash (interpretation) of Daniel. The one like the “son of Man” is depicted as being crushed by the fourth beast before they rise up and conquer him on high. This has traditionally been interpreted to mean all of Israel rather than just the son of Man, but Boyarin shows that at least some people could interpret it this way in Judaism.

Merits and Critiques of the Book

Boyarin’s essential thesis is sound – of course Jesus’s message is rooted in and understood in a Jewish context. Further, his analysis of sources in the Hebrew Bible which inspired the theology of the New Testament is well done. He looks at one key text – the book of Daniel – in order to understand the apocalyptic role of Jesus, which is especially pronounced in the Gospel of Mark.

A further good discussion is his essential argument philosophically that readers must cease from thinking about the early Jesus movement as “Christianity” – meaning it had its own system as its own world religion. While Jesus was alive, there of course was no system – there was only a man. Even during the lifetime of Paul, there is no concept of a true “Christianity” separate from Judaism (see my earlier review of J. Albert Harrill’s book on Paul to see this issue and how it functioned in his life). Boyarin’s reminder that there was also no “Judaism” at this time is a helpful comment made for readers of the New Testament who at times forget that what they are characterizing is more than one thing.

The greatest merit of the book, however, is in the details. Boyarin’s discussion of Mark 7, the Son of Man, and the Son of God theologies is well done. As will be detailed below, I disagree with some elements of what he posited concerning the theology of “Son of God,” but the details are worth consideration. His interpretative priority of Daniel (rather than Ezekiel) for understanding Son of Man is well done (if into slightly reductive).

The detail about Mark 7 is incredibly well done, particularly for a modern American audience for whom “purity” is not a term that is understood well. Boyarin provides a perfect corrective by explaining what purity is and is not. Purity is a ritual category that prepares one for worship – it is not ethical. A women is not immoral for menstruating; however, she is impure, she must go through a cleansing ritual in order to prepare for worship. Morality is a separate issue that (possibly surprisingly) has nothing to do with worship. If someone is acting immorally, no ritual cleansing is going to help them – they need an ethical change (I am aware that atonement for immorality is a ritual, but essentially, they are separate if not connected). The challenge of this dichotomy that is probably most surprising to the modern reader is that if someone was immoral, not only did they not have to deal with purity rituals, that person would not necessarily be barred from worship. The idea is that it did not matter what one had done morally, if they were taking worship seriously and going through the proper rituals. Boyarin does an excellent job explaining this dichotomy as it pertains to food laws. Jesus is challenging the theology that it is better to remain ritually pure at all times (whether one is preparing for worship or not) in addition to the standard moral procedures.

The biggest challenge to the book is its scope. Boyarin argues that this book will show that both Jesus and the Gospels are Jewish. The challenge is that he does not show how he is reconstructing the historical Jesus. Further, he does not show how all of the gospels present the Jewish Jesus (he has little discussion of the Gospel of John, for instance, which is the one most involved in Greek philosophy).

His argument depends upon the “apocalyptic prophet” reconstruction of the historical Jesus. He views messiah through the lens of Daniel to create an apocalyptic figure who reveals his identity through a variety of means. I tend to agree with Boyarin on this point; however, his lack of discussion of it makes this work incomplete.

Secondly, the apocalyptic Jesus is not necessarily present in all four Gospels. In the Gospel of Luke/Book of Acts, the kingdom of God apocalyptic message means a radically different thing and 9in the Gospel of John it is absent. His argument is very good if relegated to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is a type of gospel with an apocalyptic message which makes most sense when understood through the lens of the Son of Man in Daniel. Had Boyarin made this claim, it would have been far stronger.

The next critiques are less in scope than in details. The first is his dependence upon the “son of Man” theology in Daniel that forgets the same theology in Ezekiel (where it simply means “human”). I would not at all be surprised for the Gospel of Mark to realize the term means both things and use both in tension. Jesus is both the “one like a son of man” and very much a human.

The second challenge is his argument about the “son of God” theology. He is not wrong in the least that the language of son of God depicts the kingly Messiah in David’s lineage. This is in keeping with the relationship of David to God as depicted by father to son in 2 Samuel 7. However, Boyarin tries to suggest that this makes some type of convoluted familial relation with God in the divine. If that were true, then David would also be divine – something that is not held by any Jewish group with which I am familiar. It seems that his interest to show that the concept of a divine messiah has influenced his reading of the data.

Finally, the chapter on the Jewish expectation that the messiah would suffer is relatively weak. He does point out that there were some interpretations of Daniel that could be understood as a suffering figure. He then hypothesizes that being crucified and dying would qualify. However, he does not discuss (as Paul does) that being crucified is a curse of the law. Serious question can be asked if crucifixion would fit so neatly into his “Jewish gospels.” Further, he does not have real evidence that the messiah was ever to die. Suffering is distinctly different than death and the gospels are quite clear that Jesus really died. This also challenges this basic argument.

As a whole, the book is valuable for Christians to read – it reminds them of some basic elements of the study of the New Testament. Further the precise arguments about the son of man, son of God, and Food laws are well worth the read. The book is written for a mass audience and as such is written in a highly entertaining and enjoyable style.

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[2] For more on the nature of Jewishness in the first century, see Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

Review of J. Albert Harrill, Paul The Apostle: His Life and Legacy in Their Roman Context

J. Albert Harrill, Paul The Apostle: His Life and Legacy in Their Roman Context Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, (pb), ISBN 9780521757805.

Harrill’s book, Paul the Apostle, discusses Paul in his Roman context. He has as his counter argument discussions which couch the historical Paul with the historical Jesus and suggest both are politically revolutionary. Harrill presents this book about Paul and the way Paul was interpreted throughout early Christianity as completely Roman (and in fact more Roman than the Romans themselves). This main thesis of this book is convincing and deserves to be read. However, there are also several asides in the book which wander from the thesis. Some of these asides are well done (e.g. Harrill writes a brief biographical sketch of Paul informed from the New Perspective on Paul). Others, however, while perhaps being accurate only confuse the reader (most notably the conversation about Augustine and how the West understood Paul incorrectly).

This book bridges the gap between biography and an academic argument. In the preface Harrill points out that modern biographies take the life of a person and map it on a plot sequence used in literature. Instead, he chooses to write an antibiography which abandons the literary narrative of a biography and also does not attempt to find the fixed form of a person’s identity – Paul even says that he is many things to many people.[1] Rather, he spends time going through what is known about Paul and critically uses sources.

The most interesting element of the first two chapters for those who are already familiar with Pauline studies is that Harrill proves to be interested in the “New Perspective” of Paul. The “New Perspective” is the trend in scholarship which argues that Paul was fully Jewish, never felt that the relationship God had with the Jews had been abandoned, and that his statements about Torah and Israel are relevant to gentiles but not Jews. This idea developed when Krister Stendahl, almost 50 years ago, noticed that much of what the West considered to be true for Paul was not true for Judaism. Luther’s experience of a failure of the law (trying to keep it and simply not being able) is not found in Paul’s writing – he says that opposite – “In regard to observation of the Torah, I was blameless.”[2] Question then began to arise as to what was it that Paul was saying if it was not a law vs. gospel dichotomy? Several authors have proposed the view that Harrill espouses. It can be supported by comments found in Romans 9-11. For instance, after going through a long process of discussing why the Gentiles were saved, he then points out that “all Israel will be saved.” It is not clear how Paul considers this to happen – do they need to be Christian? Can they be saved as is? Is this only a portion of Israel? The New Perspective, then, would argue that Paul’s primary argument was not a new religious movement, but rather a new way for Gentiles to join a rather old religious movement called Judaism (as he argues they did not have to become proselyte Jews but could remain gentiles while being in relation with God). It is clear from looking at the text more critically than a traditional Protestant lens is necessary.

The view of the New Perspective in regard to the question of Judaism has not been persuasive to all scholars. The largest piece of evidence holding this back is that the book of Galatians seems to tend toward a problem with Judaism. The conversation about the New Perspective has been continuing for half a century and Harrill does not provide new information about the New Perspective as much as presents it in a new format. He presents a reconstruction of the life of Paul given the New Perspective framework. This life then avoids the biographical genre not just because of critiques of the genres as a whole but because he does not see a “climax” in Paul’s conversion (where biographies usually center). Second, he does not argue that there is only one Pauline thought – he is happy to admit that Galatians and Romans might be slightly different (after all, a person can change one’s mind slightly to suit different periods of their life). The first two chapters of the book create a compelling portrait of the reconstructed life of Paul. It does a good job explaining where he gets the information he uses for his conclusions and that alone makes it worth reading. If one does not agree with his reconstruction (as I found his discussion of Paul’s death somewhat suspect), it is very easy to consider his sources and analyze their value.

The book then moves into its primary argument in chapter three which focuses on Paul’s Roman identity. Harrill argues, correctly, that Paul was not primarily an anti-Roman revolutionary and that he used Roman systems of authority and patronage in a rather standard way.[3] Paul further used the type of rhetoric to establish his authority the same way as notable politicians. For the best example of this, Harrill sets Paul’s discussion of his “humble acceptance of authority” (“We have not made use of this right (of authority over you), but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ”)[4] with that of the Emperor Augustus who famously would never take on the official term emperor (even though of course he had all of the power).

The second portion of the book is tradition about Paul after he died. Harrill considers several books attributed to Paul but not written by him. He considers the ones in the New Testament (2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles) as well as some that are not (Dialogue between Paul and Seneca, 3 Corinthians, Prayer of the Apostle Paul). He further considers works that are written about Paul – such as the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Paul, and the Martyrdom of Paul. He convincingly argues in chapter 5 that all of the works about Paul consider him as more rather than less Roman. In fact, in most of the cases, he is a better Roman than the Romans who are charging him.

The argument that Harrill presents about Paul’s Roman identity over against the idea that Paul was an anti-Roman revolutionary is the best part of the book and the heart of Harrill’s research and argument. His last two chapters seem an almost aside from that thesis. Because he was discussing tradition about Paul up until the fourth century, in the view of fairness, he has a chapter on Patristic interpretation of Paul up to the same time period. He goes through a number of figures in early Christian history who interpreted Paul’s works and may have even made a few comments about the man himself. The best portion of this chapters is Harrill’s fantastic job discussing Origen’s understanding (and frustration) with Paul. Harrill points out that Origen’s insights sound remarkably close to modern scholarship (not something usually said about any of the Father’s interpretation of scripture).

The final chapter, “How the west got Paul wrong” focuses on Augustine’s reading of Paul and the doctrine of original sin developed from Paul. He argues that Augustine had a poor translation of Romans 5:12 which led him to believe that in Adam’s sin, all sinned. This he sees as a watershed moment for Augustine because the idea of Sin versus Grace was introduced in a way that had not been previously. He does correctly point out that Augustine is not exactly Luther on this point, but the dichotomy between the two, as found in Paul, did originate in Augustine.

    

Merits and question for the main argument of the book

There is much that is laudable in this book. My main critiques that do not focus on the last chapter (see below for my critiques on that) are only questions I wish Harrill had discussed further so that his logic could be applied to differing ideas. Therefore, for this section, I will present what I thought was well done in the book and then supply a further study that could have made his point more convincing. 

The avoidance of writing a biography is a wise choice on the part of Harrill. This criticism of biography is quite apt. Most biographies force a person’s life into a plot sequence that has a climax. This is often not how the lives of people function – very few have a single moment when they “peaked.” For example, Walter Isaacson in his otherwise very good biography of Steve Jobs forces Jobs into having some internal change in personality between his periods of working at Apple, NeXt, Pixar, and then Apple again (with the Pixar/Apple job being the climax of the book). The problem is that any one reading the book will recognize that Jobs was the same challenging person throughout his life. When this same pattern is applied to Paul, his “call” becomes the climax of the narrative with his missionary journeys becoming the falling action and denouement. This emphasis forces the call to be far more than it is and to become the kind of conversion where he changes names (even though, as Harrill points out, there is no evidence that his name ever changed at any point). Harrill’s book is far better by describing what we know of Paul without falling into the genre of biography.

The major piece missing from his life of Paul was only his discussion of Paul’s mission. He does mention that Paul had such urgency in converting Gentiles to the Jesus movement because he felt the world was going to end so soon. However, this presents Paul as a philanthropist – he could sit quietly and his own salvation would be secure but instead he spends his time trying to help others. Rather, Romans 11:25 clearly states that the end has not yet come “until the full number of Gentiles has come in.” Paul’s motivation is completely selfish. He wants the reign of God to come as soon as possible. His missionary activity is attempting to hasten that day. The more gentiles he converts, the closer the coming of the kingdom of God is and his salvation is actualized.

The discussion of Paul’s Romanness is very well done as I intimated earlier. The idea that Paul uses Roman authority structures is convincing and clear. The one element that Harrill could have used was the idea of a Patron that Paul employs. Paul considers himself a Patron to all those he has converted as displayed in Philemon 11 and 17. Paul suggest that he has become Onesimus’s “father” in prison. The meaning of this is that Paul has converted Onesimus and now has authority over him. This was in full keeping with Greco-Roman patronage structures. The lower class would often adopt a “father” to take care of them (given that the state had almost no civic service whatsoever). This patron would then provide the subsidiary basic human needs in return for loyalty (which could well involve voting for that patron).

The only problem with the idea of Paul’s Romanness occurs that Harrill does not directly address the political implication of Paul’s language of “reign of God.” This is precisely the language that made Jesus’ message politically subversive. I do not think that Paul’s language is as politically challenging to the Romans as Jesus’ seemed to be for a few reasons. First, Jesus was implying (or at least the Romans felt he was) that he would be the king of the kingdom to come (though it is an interesting factoid that nowhere in the gospels does Jesus explicitly say this in this type of political language). However, more importantly, the precise nature of the reign of God might have a slight nuance between Paul and Jesus which made all the difference. Jesus’ discussion of the coming Kingdom was a kingdom on earth that would replace the “kingdom” that was already there (while Jesus was speaking globally, the Romans had no problem taking it personally). Paul, however, sees the reign of God slightly differently. The coming reign of God is the coming wrath upon the earth that will put an end to all the divergence among people. The earth will be under wrath while the righteous will be happily rescued and in communion “in the clouds.”[5] While it is possible that Paul then suggested a return to the earth, it is not quite explicit in that manner. While in some ways Paul’s view would be more bleak for the Romans, it also provided a way that did not suggest a replacement of one kingdom with another – thereby sounding politically dangerous. This conversation is missing from Harrill’s book and really is necessary if, as he suggests, he wants to show that the ideas of scholars such as Crossan, who hold that Paul was an anti-Roman social reformer, to be incorrect.

The final tremendous merit to Harrill’s book is how he uses the book of Acts. It is clear that Acts does not hold completely historical information about Paul – Harrill is hardly the first to note this issue. However, in discussion of Acts’ presentation of Paul, he shows some of the tension in Acts. He shows that in the flight from Damascus, Paul says that he left due to persecution from the state. Acts does not mention anything about the state and instead puts the persecution in the hands of the Jews. This shows one of the challenges of Luke-Acts. It wants to present the Jesus movement as being in full continuity with the Roman empire and Judaism. Here is an example when those ideas are in competition. Acts is willing to abandon its ties to Judaism for a moment in order to avoid its competing interest in continuity with the Roman state (similar to the way that in the parable of the good Samaritan Luke is willing to abandon continuity with Judaism in order to emphasize one of its other themes – care for the poor).

Critique of the final chapter of the book

As shown above, the book on the whole is a triumph. However, the last chapter can be critiqued primarily because it is so tangential. The last chapter, “How the West got Paul wrong” focuses on Augustine’s understanding of original sin. He argues that it was a misreading of Romans 5:12 from “Therefore, just as Sin came into the world through one man, and Death came through Sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned” to “Therefore, just as Sin came into the world through one man, and Death came through Sin, and so death spread to all in which all have sinned.” The reading then would suggest that Augustine read that Adam’s sin was collective.[6]

While I do not disagree that Augustine probably did read this line in this way, Harrill does not mention why this reading would not have been surprising to Augustine. One thing that is missing in his entire book (as it really has little to do with the Romanness of Paul either way) is the platonic concept of  “in Christ” throughout his work. He believed that those who were part of the movement participated in the eternal form of Christ (who happens to be the actual Christ who came on earth). Therefore, when one became part of the movement, then they joined a new humanity in Christ rather than the old one “in Adam” (“As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive”) This idea is developed in Romans 5 and not only is “Adam” a heavenly type that can be participated in, so is Sin and Death. He believed Sin and Death were cosmic forces that could enslave humans (and in fact had). He argues in the very passage Harrill accuses Augustine of misreading – that all participate in the cosmic power of Sin because all “have sinned” (note the difference between the capital and small letters here). The idea is that since everyone has erred at some point, then they are participating in the concept of Sin. This Sin is the thing that is connected with Death and therefore people will die (here it is fair to think this is spiritual rather than physical).

To be fair to Harrill, Augustine does make an error in the point – that is that Augustine considered original sin in many ways to be one of guilt – things a person actually had done (even though of course it was done before one was born) whereas Paul sees it more as a cosmic force to which one is enslaved (guilt is not a major factor in reading Paul). Harrill’s not bringing this point up makes Augustine look ridiculous. I agree that Augustine – much like all Patristic authors – used scripture creatively to meet his own ends (though in his case he does it openly with a laid out presentation in On Christian Teaching). However, the nuance is far more subtle when this “participatory model” is presented.

Harrill’s lack of presenting the participatory model shows why tangents are troubling. I do not think Harrill wanted to slander Augustine (though to be fair I have never met him). Had this chapter been at the end of a book discussing the participatory model, all of the material I felt needed to be supplied would have been supplied. The problem is that he presents this at the end of a book on Paul’s Romanness. However one considers Augustine’s presentation of Paul, I do not think any of the doctrine of original sin has anything to do with whether Augustine saw Paul as a good Roman or not. This is the real reason why this chapter stood out and was unclear – it simply did not flow with the argument of the book and as such, could confuse a reader.

Conclusion

This book is one well worth reading. It provides a very good reconstructed life of Paul and makes an important argument – that Paul was very much a good Roman. Further, the discussion of the tradition about Paul provides a new angle to a standard survey of Paul and has much interesting material. Further, Harrill writes the book so accessibly that anyone interested in the subject could understand it quite clearly (no matter how much they knew about Paul already). With the caveats listed above, this book is quite valuable and should be read.   

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[1] Harrill, Paul the Apostle, 3.

[2] Phil. 3:2.

[3] Harrill, Paul the Apostle, 80-88.

[4] I Corinthians 9:4.

[5] I Thessalonians 4:17.

[6] Harrill, Paul the Apostle, 143-144.