Reading with Anthropology: Exhibiting Aspects of New Testament Religion.

Reading with Anthropology: Exhibiting Aspects of New Testament Religion. By Louise J. Lawrence. London, UK: Paternoster, 2005. Pp. xix + 212. Paper, $35.00.

After two introductory chapters describing what the author calls "reading with anthropology," Lawrence proposes a tour through a conceptual anthropological museum for which she constructs seven exhibitions for the visitor. These exhibitions consist of ethnographic soundings from a range of anthropologists and biblical interpreters pertinent to themes chosen by the author along with various biblical passages (she curiously calls them "texts") that presumably relate to those themes. The selected themes include the social role of shaman, the social role of trickster, rituals of resistance, features of women's religion, the literary form of poetry, behavior involving community of goods, and finally the significance of food and memory.

This is a very curious book. I kept wondering about the identity of the audience for whom it was intended. It is surely too high-context for an undergraduate reader, and insufficiently low-context for persons acquainted with social scientific criticism. While she is concerned with "reading with anthropology," the author fails to say what reading entails. And while her biblical specimens are from written documents, she fails to say how such writings from antiquity can communicate meaning across cultures at all. In general, nothing is said about the fact that language derives its meanings from specific social systems. To visit this museum, English and the social system from which it draws its meanings presumably suffices.

At the outset the author notes the "pitfalls" in using "anthropology to overcome the cultural differences in biblical interpretation. The most obvious limitation in the adoption and application of predefined models ... is that of determinism. Once evidence is viewed within the framework of a particular model, it is difficult, if not impossible to consider viewpoints that do not fit that framework" (p. 14). She then goes on to present seven exhibits, that is seven particular predefined models, through which she processes various passages of the Old and New Testament. That of course makes it "difficult, if not impossible, to consider viewpoints that do not fit that framework." On the other hand, it is quite easy to see that some of her frameworks are totally inadequate to the New Testament data at hand. While lip service is paid to the concepts of emic and etic, she makes no attempt to produce an adequate set of derived etic descriptions. For example, why use the word shaman, when holy man will do (as in Mark 1:24, Jesus' first title in the story)? Why trickster, when anti-language and anti-societal behavior better covers John's narration? As for features of women's religion, why no mention of males in non-patriarchal roles, for example males in the matrilateral line with uterine ties to the wife in patriarchal societies? As Victor Turner long ago noted, such males in quasi-feminine statuses are associated with "spiritual characteristics, mutual interests and concerns, and collaterality ... [that] makes for inclusiveness and does not serve material interests" (The Ritual Process, 1969: 114). Do these males belong in women's religion?

In her introductory overview, Lawrence notes that "the Context Group assume [sic] that cultural anthropology based on studies of the Mediterranean region enables the interpreter to correlate at least in part values in that area, with ancient Mediterranean contexts and situations. Abstraction in turn forms the raw material for the construction of a model" (p. 10). This is a rather confusing statement that makes one wonder whether the author knows what she is talking about. As a matter of fact, she immediately moves from anthropology to "social scientific criticism," in terms of John Elliott's definition. She is ignorant of the fact that Elliott was the person (along with Richard Rohrbaugh) who in fact "spearheaded" the gathering of scholars who would make up the Context Group. While Lawrence complains that in social scientific criticism, individuals are not given proper prominence, she does note that social scientific criticism uses more than anthropology. As a matter of fact, social psychology, a discipline dealing with "the mesh between the self and society," has always been prominent in the work of social scientific interpreters of the New Testament. It seems Lawrence does not know that social psychology deals with individuals within their societies.

And while she notes that those New Testament exegetes who use social scientific models are much concerned with anachronism, not so this author with her atemporal museum exhibits. Social scientific criticism is, in fact, a form of historical criticism. It takes historical awareness and historical learning quite seriously. Otherwise, why the caution against anachronism? In this work the author throws out concern for anachronism in favor of the -ism through which she works (hard to tell what it is, perhaps British colonialism). For example, while there was no separation of church and state until the 18th century in the west (and still not in much of the world), the author innocently speaks of New Testament religion (as though the New Testament were about religion) and many of her exhibits deal with explicit, unembedded religion. But wait. There is more. For if the reader buys the premise that the New Testament is about religion, then all the exhibits the author offers are related to religion--a term the author is unbelievably pleased to leave undefined. Whether people before the 18th century, including people of the New Testament period, had any interest in religion in the post-18th century sense of the term is rather doubtful.

To simplify a broad range of information from a wide array of data, one must prescind from many and rich differences and focus on similarities in some rather abstract way. Such simplification requires the assimilation of much information and the ability to work at an abstract level. On both accounts the author is unsuccessful. No abstract generalizations are provided here. Yet, as every museum curator knows, a fossil or document from the past is not a museum specimen until it is prepared, identified and catalogued in terms of some abstract model. However if one simply seeks a scattergram of information that one might personally "chunk" together for one's own private purposes without the intention of communicating to others (e.g. many solutions to the Synoptic problem), then this book will be useful.

In sum, the author's attempt at an atemporal exhibit of curious and unrelated themes is interesting. For whom? Anthropologists seeking parallels and museum curators. The author's selection of experts to illuminate her themes is admirable, but the format of "type-bytes" (minimal citations) might better be left to footnotes. Finally, it might come as a surprise to the author that "Christ" was not Jesus' personal name, and John's Gospel does not belong to the same linguistic register as the Synoptics.

Bruce J. Malina

Creighton University 

Omaha NE 68178