Books in Brief

018

Introduction to the New Testament. Volume I, History, Culture and Religion of the Hellenistic Age; Volume II, History and Literature of Early Christianity

Helmut Koester

(Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1982) Vol. I: 429 pp., $24.95; Vol. II: 365 pp., $22.95

“Introducing” the New Testament, like skinning a cat, can be done in many ways. Some prefer a more focused, literary approach, dealing with the various problems raised by the 27 books of the canon. Others opt for a broader, contextual approach, attempting to place the canonical texts in the framework of contemporary culture and the development of early Christian literature and history. Helmut Koester, Professor of New Testament and Church History at Harvard Divinity School, has long maintained that the best, if not the only, way to understand the New Testament is within a broad historical context. His two-volume introduction to early Christian literature, handsomely produced by Fortress Press, is a remarkably rich and learned work which reflects Professor Koester’s basic convictions about the study of the New Testament.

The first volume, entitled History, Culture and Religion of the Hellenistic Age, provides a comprehensive survey of Hellenistic and Roman civilization from Alexander the Great through the end of the second century A.D. This volume offers a much more detailed treatment of the history of New Testament times than is usually found, even in historically oriented introductions. It can certainly serve as a historical text on its own, rivaling such well-known surveys as F. F. Peters’s The Harvest of Hellenism. Professor Koester does, however, regularly note the relevance of the topics treated in this first volume to the study of early Christian literature and history—the subject of his second volume.

Professor Koester’s treatment begins with a survey of the political history of the Hellenistic states, concluding with an insightful discussion of their political ideology and their ruler cult. This is followed by a lengthy discussion of social and economic aspects of the Hellenistic world, which highlights, as is common in such surveys, the role of the polis. This treatment, however, provides much detailed information on more mundane matters, such as agriculture, industry, slavery, commerce, and banking. Professor Koester immerses the reader in the realia of life in the Hellenistic world as few authors of New Testament introductions do.

The cultural life of the Hellenistic world is treated in two chapters. The first of these, on education, language and literature, provides a concise yet eminently comprehensible account of the complexities of the grammar of koine Greek and a wide-ranging review of Greek scientific and literary developments. Professor Koester’s brief sketches of new comedy, Hellenistic historiography and biography provide useful summaries of familiar topics, while his treatments of such phenomena as the Greek romances offer insightful perspectives on important but relatively neglected literary genres.

The second chapter on Hellenistic culture, dealing with philosophy and religion, goes over the Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Epicureans and Cynics—subjects generally familiar to students of the Hellenistic world. His review of the various Greek cults, both traditional and new, offers a fresh view of these varied religious developments, enriched by the abundant research of recent years on Hellenistic religions and by Koester’s own engagement with archaeological research during the last decade. The treatment of the phenomenon of “syncretism” during the period is particularly illuminating, since it dispenses with common cliches and sensitively explores the complexities of religious interaction in the Hellenistic period. Similarly, the discussion of the mystery religions, whose relationship to Christianity is a perennial problem, is carefully balanced and nuanced.

The Jewish people were as much a part of the Hellenistic world as any other people, demonstrating both their adoption of and their resistance to Greek culture. A separate chapter provides an account of Jewish history and Jewish engagement with the dominant political and cultural forces of the day. Much of the story is familiar to students of Biblical literature or Jewish history. Some parts of Professor Koester’s account, such as the survey of Jewish literature, are more catalogs than full analyses. Yet the chapter on Jewish literature offers useful insights on such controversial topics as apocalypticism and wisdom theology. Even the concise survey of Jewish literature, with its review of some of the lesser known pieces of Greco-Jewish writing (e.g., the fragments of Jewish authors preserved by the first-century B.C. compiler Alexander Polyhistor, and the symbolic novel Joseph and Asenath) goes beyond the bounds of conventional surveys.

Although the title of this volume names the Hellenistic Age, the final chapter deals with the early Roman Empire, properly viewed as the “Heir of Hellenism.” This last chapter follows the format of the preceding discussion of the Hellenistic Age proper and includes a survey of political history from the founding of Rome through the death of the Emperor Commodus in 192. A brief section on administration and finance indicates the ways in which conditions under the Empire differed from those of the Republic and the Hellenistic monarchies. Professor Koester also offers surveys of Roman literary and philosophical developments and of religion under the Empire, including such difficult topics as the emperor cult, Mithraism, Gnosticism, and Hermetism. A final section briefly reviews Palestinian Judaism in the Imperial period, from the reign of Herod through the revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries and on through the beginnings of Rabbinic Judaism.

The second volume of Professor Koester’s Introduction, entitled History and literature of Early Christianity, continues the comprehensive contextual approach to the New Testament begun in Volume I. A preliminary chapter discusses the sources for the history of early Christianity, including a very helpful review of the state of New Testament textual criticism. The remaining chapters are arranged along chronological and geographical principles, beginning with John the Baptist and then moving through the ministry of Jesus and the career of Paul into the history of the early Church in three major areas, Palestine and Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor, Greece and Rome. In each chapter, Professor Koester’s treatment is guided by his conviction that an introduction to the New Testament must encompass not only the canonical texts but also the other literary remains of the early Church. Hence, he gives considerable attention to the New Testament Apocrypha, the Apostolic Fathers, and much of the Nag Hammadi corpus.

The treatment of early Christian texts reflects in many ways the heritage of Professor Koester’s mentor, Rudolph Bultmann, to whom the work is dedicated, and the critical tradition of scholarship which stems from Bultmann. Thus, Professor Koester is duly 020cautious about what can be known of the historical Jesus and pays close attention to the forms in which early Christian materials were transmitted.

In his treatment of Paul’s career, Koester relies primarily on the evidence of the apostle’s own genuine letters, here reckoned to be Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians and Philemon. He pays careful attention not only to Pauline theology but also to the congregational situations reflected in Paul’s letters, which are generally seen to be instruments of ecclesiastical politics.

Koester’s discussion of the Johannine literature revives, in a modified form, some of the major suggestions of Bultmann. Like many contemporary Johannine commentators, Koester posits a source for the Gospels composed of miracle stories, often called a “signs” source. He also makes some intriguing suggestions in support of another Gospel source suggested by Bultmann—a collection of discourses sometimes called “revelation discourses.” Koester points out the affinities between the Johannine material and the heterodox tradition of sayings of Jesus developed in Syrian Christianity in such texts as the Gospel of Thomas, in which Jesus is portrayed as a revealer figure. His analysis of the Syrian texts illustrates the fruitfulness of his concerns with regional varieties of Christianity and with the relationship of the New Testament to non-canonical material.

Throughout the treatment of New Testament texts, Professor Koester advances boldly through numerous scholarly minefields and is seldom shy about advocating controversial positions, from partition theories of Pauline epistles to a rather late dating of Luke-Acts in the early second century and of the pastorals in the mid-second century. Few readers will agree with all the positions defended here, but none will fail to find them stimulating and provocative.

What emerges above all from Professor Koester’s introduction is a sense of how complex and variegated a phenomenon early Christianity was. One senses here, as in few New Testament introductions, the ebb and flow of theological and practical conflict, as followers of Jesus struggled to understand the heritage of his life and teaching and to work out the implications of their Christian commitment in a sometimes bewildering variety of ways in many diverse circumstances.

Although Professor Koester’s work is indeed a rich resource of breathtaking scope, it is an introduction. Hence some topics, such as the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism, receive rather cursory treatment. Nonetheless, Professor Koester’s Introduction to the New Testament sets an extraordinarily high standard for this genre of works about the New Testament and will no doubt be widely used as a basic text in the years ahead.

Desert Vegetation of Israel and Sinai

Avinoam Danin

(Cana Publishing House: Jerusalem, 1983) 148 pp., 16 pls., 150 figs., $28.75

If you’re a desert buff, especially of the Negev and Sinai, this book will delight you. If you happen to be an archaeologist, professional or amateur, interested in the ecological background to the facts and artifacts of nomadic or settled life in this region, Danin’s Desert Vegetation of Israel and Sinai is a must. And if you are just a confirmed armchair browser, this book will also be a pleasure.

Desert Vegetation of Israel and Sinai is organized under rubrics that range from environmental conditions and desert adaptation of plants, to vegetation, with descriptions of prominent as well as rare species and also of useful plants. Each chapter is bountifully supplied with line drawings to illustrate geographical distribution of soils, rainfall, flora and much more. The black-and-white photographs are both plentiful and clean. There are also 16 color plates that are bound in individually. These color photographs give the book a certain panache, but the process of pasting them into the text must have limited the number of books that will be available.

Professor Danin has filled a gap for readers of English by providing us with a readable book on the vegetation of the two major Biblical deserts. If you would like a short course in survival in these two deserts, if you would like to know how to find potable water, edible and medicinal plants, how to make a mattress or a shelter, how to light a fire with desert plants, or how to make a rope from date palm fibers, get a copy of Avinoam Danin’s Desert Vegetation of Israel and Sinai.

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St. Paul in Ephesus
St. Paul in Greece
St. Paul’s Last Journey
St. John of Patmos

Otto F. A. Meinardus

(Caratzas Brothers: New Rochelle, New York, 1979) paperback, $4.95 each

Paul would seem to be the natural patron saint for tourists now that St. Christopher has been declassified from the elect company. For almost two decades Paul traveled the highways and sea routes of the Roman Empire, covering far more territory than Jesus ever did and coming into contact with more local cultures. It has been almost 50 years since H. V. Morton followed In the Footsteps of St. Paul and wrote that fascinating account of his experiences. The tourist of today who ventures into the villages of Greece or Turkey will smile knowingly at Morton’s quaint question, “Which inn is the least interesting, entomologically speaking?” But people are still interested in following Paul’s adventures, both in the field and as armchair travelers, and for this audience Meinardus has written these guides. Each volume contains about 150 pages with copious black-and-white photographs of the sites and churches, artifacts and icons.

St. Paul in Ephesus traces the apostle’s first missionary journey from Antioch in Syria through Galatia in Turkey and back to Antioch. There are brief descriptions of each of the towns or cities visited correlated with passages from the Acts of the Apostles. The second half of the book is devoted to Ephesus where Paul stayed for two and a half years. Meinardus accepts the tradition of the Ephesian imprisonment of Paul. This permits a discussion of the literary problems of the “letters from prison” but does not contribute to his descriptions of the ancient places. St. Paul in Greece describes the cities in Macedonia with separate chapters on Athens and Corinth and a concluding section on Rhodes and Crete. St. Paul’s Last Journey is the most inclusive of these guides, geographically speaking. The title is a misnomer, since Meinardus includes no fewer than four trips, starting with Paul’s trip from Corinth to Jerusalem, then the trip to Rome as a prisoner, the disputed trip to Spain, and finally the return to Rome and martyrdom.

The fourth volume in the set concentrates on the seven cities in Asia Minor addressed in the first chapters of the book of Revelation written by St. John of Patmos. Each site is described from ancient sources, from the apostolic sources and traditions and from the standpoint of later Christian history.

Meinardus is writing for the Christian traveler in these guides, and he does it very well. He assumes the reader has already studied the texts of Paul’s letters and of Acts and of the Revelation of John and with this literary background wants to visit the places mentioned. Meinardus is also very good in reminding us that the traditions of the church continued to embellish the bare-bones accounts in the New Testament, and he shows how these traditions continue to flourish today in the churches and monasteries of Greece and Turkey.

The most controversial site identification in these volumes is the location of Melite (Acts 28:1 ff.). According to ancient geographers there were two islands with that name, one off Yugoslavia (Melite Illyrica, today Mljet) and the other south of Italy (Melite Africanus, today Malta). Meinardus makes a strong case that Paul was shipwrecked on the former and not the more familiar (to westerners) island of Malta. The descriptions of storms in the Adriatic (Sea of Adria, 084Acts 27:27) found in classical sources conform to those found in Acts. The presence of poisonous snakes is a puzzler. Both islands are now free of snakes, but Mljet has a mongoose population originally imported to control the snake infestation. Maltese tradition says Paul is responsible for the disappearance of their snakes, which is an argument that cuts off discussion without resolving the issue.

The most glaring weakness of these volumes is the maps. They are awful. Only the literary armchair traveler could benefit from them, since in most cases the Biblical place names are located but not the modern towns. There is not even a variation in the lettering on the maps to distinguish ancient and modern names. The actual traveler would be hard put to get to these places, since no roads are shown. Nothing points up so well the intention of the author to provide a handbook for the reader of Paul’s works and of the Revelation of John.

A good example of the way Meinardus blends the Biblical text with church traditions is in the matter of Paul’s trip to Spain. In Romans 15:24, Paul tells the Romans, “I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain.” By the second century, Christians accepted that statement at face value, that Paul was as good as his intentions and that he went to Spain. There is sufficient time between Paul’s arrival in Rome and his martyrdom to permit an Iberian excursion, but did he actually go? While scholars still argue the point, the churches in Tarragona and Ecija (ancient Astigis, west of Seville) recite the details of Paul’s visits to their districts. These traditions are very late and therefore suspect in the eyes of many historians and most Biblical scholars. What this process demonstrates, however, is that around the Mediterranean, local churches remembered that the travels of Paul were the critical means for spreading the Christian gospel from the confines of Judea and Galilee “even to the ends of the earth.”

Atlas of the Roman World

Tim Cornell and John Matthews

(Facts on File: New York, 1982) 240 pp., $35.00

The Roman World continues the Facts on File series of atlases of cultures significant in the development of the modern West. This outsize and most handsomely published volume is structured in chronological sequence as a four-part history of the development and attrition of Rome as a political and cultural power: Early Italy and the Roman Republic, From Republic to Empire, Provinces of the Empire, and The Empire in Decline. An additional section of special features covers an assortment of intriguing topics such as the Etruscans, Pompeii, festivals of the state religion, the Oriental cults, mills and technology, and Roman portraiture, to select a few. A useful addition is a double-page chronology ranging from Britain to Persia, covering events from 800 B.C. to 500 A.D. and noting contemporary developments in art, literature and architecture. Another two pages give lists of the emperors and years of their reigns (including the emperors of the eastern empire and the final barbarian rulers of Italy).

Of special interest to BAR readers are the sections describing the struggle of cults and religions in the late Empire and the story of how Christianity achieved the special and favored relationship to the state that it enjoyed under Constantine and later emperors. Beginning from the position of a small cult, sporadically persecuted for civic disloyalty and hatred of society, Christianity in time attracted both the poor and the powerful and under Constantine became the “state” religion. Nevertheless, Constantine’s own account of his “personal conversion”—his dreams and visions—contains ambiguities which still disturb historians. Only on his deathbed did he accede to baptism.

One of the most fascinating sections of this atlas describes the provinces, or more specifically, the chief cities of Spain, Gaul, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt and Cyrenaica (North Africa). Here the photographic splendor of this volume informs, delights, and amazes the eye. Many aerial views of Africa are breathtakingly panoramic: Leptus Magna bordering the blue-green sea, Dougga among fantastic hills, and best preserved of all, Timgad with fourteen public baths, a library, and a fourth-century Donatist basilica. (All these were luxurious retirement cities for the legionaries.) Further east lay Alexandria, where east met west as in a great wine press, not only of the body but of the soul, where great philosophers from Philo to Plotinus expounded Judaism, Christianity and neo-Platonism. Readers can contemplate a beautiful aerial view of Ephesus, whose Temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In the Syrian desert lies an oasis graced by vast and hauntingly beautiful ruins—proud Palmyra, whose queen, Zenobia, defied Rome’s legions 086with remarkable courage and tenacity. On the Euphrates, Dura-Europos shows remains of a most remarkable synagogue containing, despite supposed prohibitions against such representations, realistic paintings of Old Testament scenes.

Viewing the beautiful photographs of these cities stimulated in me a marked nostalgia. Surely, many of us had ancestors, patrician or plebeian, who lived and walked such cities, perhaps for generations.

There are two remarkable double-page photos of three-dimensional clarity: the Forum seen through the Arch of Septimius Severus and Hadrian’s Wall running over the snow-covered hills of Britain. Musing on the transience of power, one recalls in contrast the small still-life of boiled eggs from a house in Dura-Europos.

Of course it would be impossible to offer a comprehensive work on Rome without some discussion of what is popularly called its “decline and fall.” Here, the dissolution of Roman power and grandeur is explained without reference to moral-theological theorizing. Since World War I, some historians and religionists have identified “parallels” between the Roman “fall” and “things falling apart” in our once stable western society. They identify individual and social immorality as the culprit. Not so atlas historians Cornell and Matthews. They offer rather some no-nonsense explanations of Rome’s “fall”: unwieldy political machinery and unwise tax policies, growth of parasitic civic and imperial bureaucracies, inadequate distribution of food, inability to control urban and foreign populations, military disasters. Cornell and Matthews feel that an appropriate question would be: Why did the Empire last so long?

Today when classical studies—history, literature, languages—have been all but deleted from our schools and most universities, a volume like The Atlas of the Roman World can help compensate for this most unfortunate lacuna. This volume can both satisfy our intellectual needs and nourish our aesthetic sensibilities. I highly recommend it.

Introduction to the New Testament. Volume I, History, Culture and Religion of the Hellenistic Age; Volume II, History and Literature of Early Christianity