Well, I’m back from Vienna now and adjusting to real life (real life isn’t too bad either). There were a couple of other papers I thought I’d mention here as a follow through to my other post on the SBL conference. (I’ll soon have other posts on the Ephesos museum at Vienna).

Gerd Theissen’s paper on “The Historical Jesus and the Continuum between Judaism and Christianity” was quite interesting, even though the paper reflected (and did not necessarily defend) particular assumptions regarding what we can know about Jesus through the sources. Theissen argued for a somewhat high degree of continuity between Jesus and subsequent Christianity (including Paul). He did so by focussing on three main points:

1) Theissen pointed to evidence which he interpreted as Jesus’ universalizing tendencies, Jesus’ tendencies to include non-Judeans. These “liberal” (as Theissen calls them) ideas of Jesus are reflected in Jesus’ eschatological views (e.g. Mt 8:11-12), according to Theissen. In other words, Jesus opted for the inclusion, rather than annihilation, of the nations / gentiles (those from East and West, in Theissen’s interpretation) option within Judaism of the time. This reflects continuity with those Jews who likewise imagined the end-time inclusion of the Gentiles, as well as some continuity with Paul’s subsequent focus on including gentiles in God’s end-time community, according to Theissen.

2) Theissen then went on to outline the “radical” (rather than “liberal”) side of Jesus in terms of Jesus’ radicalized Jewish monotheism and restoration eschatology. Here there was an emphasis on Jesus in the context of millenarian movements in the first century. Theissen also proposed that Jesus focussed on love of neighbour and on humility, which radicalized ethics.

3) The combination of universalism and radicalism, which each had precedents in Judaism, were characteristic of the subsequent Jesus movements, in Theissen’s view. Here he brought in ideas from cognitive theory regarding intuitive and counter-intuitives to attempt an explanation of why Christianity was “successful” (here my memory fails me on the details).

This was my first time hearing Theissen speak, and so I enjoyed it despite my disagreements with this or that point and doubts about Theissen’s overall configuration of the materials.

I also managed to see Christopher D. Stanley’s helpful paper on past research into “Postcolonial Perspectives on Paul”. Stanley provided a very clear outline of what has been done (including work on Paul and “hybridity”) and where he plans to head with his own research into analyzing Paul’s letters in terms of post-colonial theory.

Stanley’s talk inspired me to ask him his opinion regarding the ways in which post-colonial theory has already heavily influenced studies by scholars such as Richard Horsley and some others involved in the Paul and Politics group of the SBL. In particular, I find that post-colonial theory has played a major role not in critical analysis but in pre-conceptions of what will be found in Paul’s letters. There is now a very common trend among those who study Paul and imperial issues to assume Paul’s anti-imperial stance rather than establishing it.

To generalize my take on it, there is an assumption (based on post-colonial or liberation theology ideas) that Paul MUST be anti-imperial. There is no need to establish whether he was. Instead, some scholars begin with this idea that he was anti-imperial and then focus on micro-details and terminology in Paul that CAN be interpreted as anti-imperial if one were to assume that he was. In this approach, there is no need to find explicit references to empire in order to assess Paul’s views. On the other hand, there are some interesting interpretive acrobatics with one of the very few explicit references to emperors and imperial matters, Romans 13 (with its seemingly positive statements on the relation between followers of Paul and the empire).

This method might be conducive to producing a good number more articles, books and dissertations on Paul’s supposed anti-imperialism (one needs more topics to study in such a well covered area as Pauline studies), but it is highly problematic in understanding the nuances of Paul’s “political” views, in my view. Stanley agreed with some aspects of my comments. He did agree that post-colonial analysis has indeed influenced the assumptions (rather than self-conscious method) of some scholarly work in this area and that there have been a number of problematic studies of anti-imperialism and Paul. We’ll have to wait for his forthcoming studies to see the details of Stanley’s findings.

As much as I agree with a modern perspective that would want Paul to be anti-imperial (I would characterize myself as anti-imperial now), I do see major problems in allowing our own modern political or theological views be the guiding principle in interpreting ancient documents, such as Paul’s letters. Enough on one of my pet peeves regarding modern scholarship on Paul and politics. (You can read more of my views and critique of such scholarship in my book, if you like.)

I’m lucky enough to be at the International meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature here in Vienna, Austria this year. Besides the great Austrian beer, the ornate buildings, and the Ephesos museum (about which I’ll talk later), some of the papers have also been interesting (a few happen to be Canadian), which I’ll briefly mention here.

On Monday we saw Kim Stratton’s (Carleton University, Ottawa) paper on the depiction of Satan in modern film (a topic I have often touched on here: see Satan –but not literally). Kim showed the varying depictions of Satan from more abstract and relatively harmless Mephistos to extremely powerful Satans like the one in End of Days, where Satan seems to be stronger than God in destroying a church, for instance. She suggested that European films tend towards the more abstract depictions and that US films tend toward a more conservative, real, and dangerous Satan. She also discussed the androgynous and anti-Jewish depiction of Satan in Gibson’s Passion of the Christ.

On Tuesday, Ellen Aitken (McGill U.) presented an interesting piece: “In the Mouth of a Hero: Eating Practices and Ritual Utterance in Hero Cults of the Roman Period”. Ellen suggested that the evidence for story-telling in connection with heros in the context of meal practices, namely remembering and relating the achievements of the hero, may provide an analogy for understanding remembrances of Jesus in the context of early Christian meals. She used Philostratus’ Heroikos as her main source for the case study, and it seems she plans to continue this approach in a broader project.

Right now I’ve got to run off to Gerd Theissen’s paper on “Continuity and Discontinuity between Judaism and Early Christianity and the Historical Jesus.” Later.

Since so many other bloggers are covering the Society of Biblical Literature conference (see the reports and links by Mark Goodacre, Jim Davila, Torrey Seland, and Stephen Carlson), I will say little. The session on meals in the Greco-Roman world, in which I presented my paper on transgressive meals, was quite enjoyable. And I managed to get to some early Christian Apocrypha papers, including one (timely) paper on the Gospel of Philip, which I will return to shortly (coincidentally we are reading the Gospel of Philip for next week’s class). I arrived late for the biblioblogging session but found it interesting, and it was nice to put faces to the names.

I also picked up some books, including Stephen Carlson’s The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark, which is certainly an exciting read. I will likely comment on what I think soon. Is this really the smoking gun?

A paper I have written will be among those discussed in the Meals in the Greco-Roman World seminar at SBL on Saturday afternoon (Nov. 19). Since the papers will not be read at the conference, I have made a draft of the paper available online here (pdf). It deals with wild banquets, including those that involve accusations of human sacrifice and cannibalism, a topic I have touched on in earlier entries on ethnography on this blog. The paper explores ethnographic discourses as reflected in Greek and Roman novels as well as historical works, and places the discussion within the framework of actual associations’ meals as known from inscriptions. It also sheds light on the supposed Oedipean unions (incest) and Thyestean feasts (cannibalism) of the early Christians. If you will attend, you may wish to read the paper in advance.

S19-118 Meals in the Greco-Roman World
11/19/2005 (SATURDAY)
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Washington A - Loews Hotel

Theme: Meals in Greco-Roman Associations

Dennis Smith, Phillips Theological Seminary, Presiding (5 min)

Richard Ascough, Queen’s Theological College
Eating with the Gods: Strengthening the Bonds of Community in Greco-Roman Associations (10 min)

Philip Harland, Concordia University
Culturally Transgressive Banquets in Reality and Imagination: Banqueting Values and the Associations (10 min)

Discussion (45 min)
Break (15 min)
Discussion (45 min)
Other (20 min)

Over at NTGateway Weblog, Mark Goodacre has a series of entries regarding the papers presented at the British New Testament conference. I’ve never been to that conference, so its nice to get an inside peek.

Just got back from a very interesting paper on “The Return of Nero in Hellenistic Oracles” by Rollin Kearns (Ohio Wesleyan University). Kearns discussed how oracles concerning Nero, the fleeing Nero (the “haughty one”), and the notion of his return developed very early (even before the death of Nero). His survey of Sibylline Oracles (5.214-221, 4.117-124 and 137-139; 5.361-374) unpacked various dimensions of these expectations and linked them up with our historical knowledge of Nero’s activities, including his activity in building a canal at Corinth, which was often interpreted as an action against nature, for instance (”he smote the rock with hardened bronze. He will destroy and ravage your land”). Earlier in the day, the discussion in the Greco-Roman seminar on Harrill’s forthcoming book went very well (see the post before last for the topic). Look out for that book on slavery which is due to be released at November SBL, I believe.

Overall, this conference has been a good experience, and it was nice to see the character of conferences in Europe and to see the positive changes that the fall of communism has brought here.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend (as a guest) the current meeting of the Society for New Testament Studies (Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas) here in Halle, Germany, and finally found a computer where I could say a few things about this conference. The atmosphere and style here is somewhat different than the SBL in many ways.

There are a number of main papers that everyone attends together, and then you choose a specific topical seminar to attend regularly for each of the three days. The advantage of the seminar style is that you get to know others in your area more fully over the days, and the discussions can progress over time as well. I chose the Greco-Roman world of the New Testament seminar, and discussions have been quite interesting thus far. Today we were discussing a paper which compared Paul’s use of boasting language (esp. kauchaomai) with Plutarch’s discussions of what methods of self-praise were appropriate or inappropriate. Tomorrow we will be focussing on Albert Harrill’s (Indiana University) forthcoming book on slavery and the New Testament. Harrill takes a new approach to the slaves represented in early Christian texts (including the martyrdom accounts) that places representations of slaves within the context of discourses of slavery and literary stereotypes of slavery in Greek and, especially, Roman sources (e.g. Roman Comedy). I’m looking forward to that discussion.

Apart from the seminar, there were two main papers yesterday. Richard Bauckham looked at John’s gospel in terms of its affinities with historiography, ancient history-writing (though not arguing that it is “historical”). Samuel Byrskog gave an interesting paper that employed theories of “social memory” in analyzing the gospel of Matthew.

I will finish with what is perhaps the most important difference between SBL and SNTS (at least this year): A steady flow of good German beer.

Many of the papers and discussions at the recent Canadian Society of Biblical Studies conference (this past weekend) were very interesting, and I thought it would be worth saying a few words about some of the work that is being done there for those of you out of reach.

Tony Chartrand-Burke (Atkinson College, York University) presented a paper that will inaugurate a new continuing seminar on curses in the ancient world. His introductory paper surveyed evidence from the Ancient Near East to late antiquity. He pointed out how biblical scholars tend to neglect curses in the bible itself, partly due to the fact that cursing is not in line with modern sensibilities. Generally, we don’t want a God, or a Jesus, who curses. Tony also pointed to the cases of curses in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which is his area of expertise. Among the well-known curses in that gospel is the following:

After this again [the boy Jesus] went through the village, and a lad ran and knocked against his shoulder. Jesus was exasperated and said to him: ‘You shall not go further on your way’, and the child immediately fell down and died (4.1).
Translation from W. Schneemelcher, The New Testament Apocrypha (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991) 1.444.

As a preview to their forthcoming work on the subject, Margaret Y. MacDonald (St. Francis Xavier University) and Carolyn Osiek (Brite Divinity) presented a very interesting paper on the education of girls and the role of women in educating within early Christianity and its world. Despite the sparseness of our evidence, they showed how we can indeed gain glimpses into this important aspect of the social history of early Christianity. In the same session, Harry O. Maier (Vancouver School of Theology) shed new light on the references to barbarians and Scythians in Colossians 3:11, showing how the author’s perspective on foreign peoples here intersects with Roman imperial notions of the subjugation and encorporation of foreign peoples as represented in art (e.g. the reliefs in temple of the revered ones [Sebastoi = emperors] at Aphrodisias).

The “Travel and Religion in Antiquity” seminar had its first two sessions, and the lively discussion that accompanied the seven papers suggested that this will be an intriguing and productive topic to explore in the coming years. Several papers focussed on realities of travel. Robert Jewett (presently guest Professor at the University of Heidelberg) discussed his exciting project, which will involve archeological work on the road network at Troas (north-western Turkey) and, perhaps most astonishing, constructing an ancient boat and sailing the seas as Paul did! Setting aside any possible implications for our view of the “we” passages in Acts, the re-creation of ancient travel will in itself be an important contribution to our knowledge in this area. Lincoln Blumell (U. of Toronto) discussed the realities of brigandage and Agnes Choi (U. of Toronto) discussed peasant travel from countryside to towns in the Galilee.

Several other papers began to delve into the intersection of religion and travel specifically. Following my introductory paper which surveyed some of the evidence, Ian Scott (King’s University College, U. of Western Ontario) focussed his attention on divinization and travel by comparing the narratives (or satirical literature) depicting the travels of Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Peregrinus, and others. He showed just how problematic the scholarly category of the “divine man” is, and drew attention to Apollonius’ roles as philosopher and cultic expert, which seem to outweigh his role as miracle-worker (thaumaturge). Steve Muir began to explore encounters with the gods (or God) en route, including the most famous narrated encounter of Paul with Jesus on the road to Damascus (according to Acts). He also spent some time discussing the Greco-Roman deities associated with travel, including Hermes (Greek) and Lares (Roman). Michele Murray’s (Bishop’s University) interesting paper looked at the ways in which the nomadic lifestyle of the Nabateans influenced their religious and cultural life. She also offered some comparative observations in relation to the burial practices of the Scythians, who were also nomadic.

There were many other sessions and papers that I was unable to attend.