A person of eighty-four years would be highly unusual. In the cities of antiquity nearly a third of the live births were dead before age six. By the mid-teens 60% would have died, by the mid-twenties 75%, and 90% by the mid-forties. Perhaps 3% reached their sixties. Few poor people lived out their thirties. The ancient glorification of youth and veneration of the elderly (who in non-literate societies are the only repository of community memory and knowledge) are thus easily understood. Moreover, we can note that much of Jesus' audience would have been younger than he, disease ridden and looking at a decade or less of life expectancy.

A woman's position in her husband's family was never secure until she bore a son. Only then did she have a "blood" relationship that secured her place. Stories of barren women thus describe anguish of the deepest sort (Cf. Gen. 11:30, 25:21, 29:31, Judg. 13:2, I Sam. 1:2). The late second century Protevangelium of James provides a good example of the bitterness of village ridicule heaped upon Anna, Mary's mother, before her belated first pregnancy. Seeing a sparrow with its young in the nest, she cries out with "bitter sobs before the Lord":

O Lord God, what sin have I sinned against thee? For behold, I, even I, only am a reproach in the house of Jacob... for the people make a mock of me, and they treat me as a stranger...

In that story Mary's father, Joachim, is not permitted to be the first to offer his gifts at the temple because he is without offspring. After searching the genealogical records and discovering that he alone among the righteous is childless, he flees to the desert in self-reproach, returning only when given a divine message that his wife will conceive. See also I Sam. 1:5-6 for the treatment to which a barren wife could be subjected.

In the Greek East, it became customary for wealthy people to lavish their mother cities with the building of civic buildings, the staging of games, the building of warships, and a host of other benefactions which where called "liturgies." In time, the cities came to expect that the wealthy would play the benefactor and so increasing social pressure was put on the elite to play the benefaction game, even if it led to financial brinkmanship. The benefactor, in turn, was awarded the commodity most valued in that world, public honor. As the passage from Josephus shows, cities had devised various ways of expressing this honor: (1) the public title "Benefactor"; (2) statues of the benefactor erected in the heart of the city; (3) public proclamation of the name of the benefactor at the most important civic events.

In the Roman West, such benefaction was viewed in terms of patron-client relations. An elite and wealthy person might spend lavishly to entertain the city or foster some election candidacy. In the process, those who receive this patronage are obligated to be loyal to the patron and accord him public honor. The rules for Roman patron/client relations are found in the cameo called "Patron" further in this collection.
 

(proclamation by Athens of honoring Hyrcanus) "Inasmuch as Hyrcanus, son of Alexander, the high priest and ethnarch of the Jews, has continued to show goodwill to our people as a whole and to every individual citizen, and to manifest the greatest zeal on their behalf, and when any Athenians come to him either on an embassy or on a private matter, he receives them in a friendly manner and sends them on their way with precautions for their safe return, as has been previously attested, it is therefore now been decreed on the motion of Theodotus, son of Diodorus, of the Sunian deme, who reminded the people of the virtues of this man and of his readiness to do us whatever good he can, to honor this man with a golden crown as a reward for merit fixed by law, and to set up his statue in bronze in the precinct of the temple of Demos and the Graces, and to announce the award of the crown in the theaters at the Dionysian festivals and at the Panathenaeum and Eleusinian festivals and at the gymnastic games; and that the magistrates shall take care that so long as he continues to maintain his good will toward us everything we can devise shall be done to show honour and gratitude to this man" (Ant. 14.152-54)
[this is the benefaction inscription from the famous Rosetta Stone]

Since King Ptolemy, the ever-living, beloved by Ptah, the God Manifest and Gracious, the Son of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoë, the Parent-loving Gods, has done many benefactions to the temples and to those who dwell in them and also to all those subject to his rule, being from the beginning a god born of a god and a goddess -- like Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, who came to the help of his Father Osiris -- [and] being benevolently disposed toward the gods, has consecrated to the temples revenues both of silver and of grain, and has generously undergone many expenses in order to lead Egypt to prosperity and to establish the temples...the gods have rewarded him with health, victory, power, and all other good things, his sovereignty to continue to him and his children forever (Dittenberger, OGIS 90; inscription from the Rosetta Stone; found in F.C. Grant, Hellenistic Religions [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1953] 67-69).

It is anachronistic to assume that "betrothal" is akin to our notion of "engagement" before marriage. Marriages in antiquity were between extended families, not individuals, and were parentally arranged. Marriage was one of the truly significant events in the family life of antiquity. Marriage contracts required extensive negotiation in order to insure that families of equal status were being joined and that neither took advantage of the other. In Palestinian villages yet today such contracts are negotiated by the two mothers, but require ratification by each family patriarch.

A village would be involved as well. The signing of the contract by the village leader (the mukhtar in traditional Arabic villages) and witnessed by the whole community sealed the agreement and made it binding. A couple thus betrothed did not live together, though a formal divorce was required to break the now-public agreement. Sex with a betrothed woman was considered adultery (Deut. 22:23-24).

Only after the public celebration (the wedding proper) did the bride join the husband's family. Since marriages were political, economic, religious and social arrangements between families, they were often arranged long before the age of marriage and thus betrothal could extend over a considerable period of time.

Peasant houses normally had only one room (Cf. Mt. 5:15 where one lamp gives light to all in the house), though sometimes a guest room would have been attached. The family usually occupied one end of the main room (often raised) and animals (at night) the other, with a manger in between. The manger would have been the normal place for peasant births, with the women of the house assisting.

See: Swaddling Clothes

References to bread usually refer to wheat bread, thought to be superior to that made from barley. Barley's lower gluten content, low extraction rate, taste and indigestibility made it the staple of the poor in Roman times. Both Old Testament (2 Kings 6:1,16,18) and Mishnah (m. Ketubbot 5,8) assume wheat meal to be twice the value of barley meal. Barley also requires less water than wheat and is less sensitive to soil salinity, hence became the major crop in arid parts of the Mediterranean world. Sorghum was less common than either wheat or barley and likewise considered an inferior product.

While most peasants ate "black" bread, the rich could afford the sifted flours that made "clean" bread (m. Makshirin 2,8). Milling was done at night and would require three hours of work to provide 3 kg. (assuming a ½ kg. daily ration) for a family of five or six. Bread dough would be taken to the village baker in the morning. In the towns and cities, bread could be purchased, hence those who could afford it avoided the difficult labor of daily milling. The Mishnah implies that milling and baking would have been the first chores unloaded by any wife with an available bondswoman (m. Ketubbot 5,5).

The competition for honor in honor-shame societies is perpetual and pervasive. In this competition the game of challenge-riposte is a central phenomenon and is always played in public. It consists of a challenge (almost any word, gesture, action) that seeks to undermine the honor of another person and a response that answers in equal measure or ups the ante (and thereby challenges in return). Both positive (gifts, compliments) and negative (insults, dares) challenges must be answered to avoid a serious loss of face.

In the synoptic Gospels Jesus evidences considerable skill at riposte and thereby reveals himself to be an honorable and authoritative teacher. In 4:1-13 Luke describes the ultimate honor-challenge, coming as it does immediately after the genealogy in which the highest honor is ascribed to Jesus by calling him the son of God. It is precisely that ascription that is challenged by the Devil: "If you are the son of God... (vss. 3,9). All that Luke tells about Jesus in the rest of his Gospel depends on Jesus passing this challenge with his honor vindicated.

Note that it is not only Jesus who is being tested. It is also the assertion that it is God who is the naming, honor-giving father. It is thus with the word of God, offered in riposte, that the Devil's challenge is defeated.

Ethnocentric and anachronistic projections of innocent, trusting, imaginative and delightful children playing at the knee of a gentle Jesus notwithstanding, childhood was in antiquity a time of terror. Infant mortality rates sometimes reached 30%. Another 30% of live births were dead by age 6, and 60% were gone by age 16. It is no wonder that antiquity glorified youth and venerated old age. Children always suffered first from famine, war, disease and dislocation and in some areas or eras few would have lived to adulthood with both parents alive. The orphan was the stereotype of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. The term "child/children" could also be used as a serious insult Cf. Lk. 7:32).

This is not to say that children were not loved and valued. In addition to assuring the continuation of the family, they promised security and protection for parents in their old age. A wife's place in the family was dependent on having children, particular male children, moreover, her children would have been one of her closest emotional supports (next to her siblings in her father's family).

See: Age

Though the origins of circumcision are obscure, it is clear that it was widely practiced in the societies of the ancient Near East. Though it occurred on the eighth day according to later Old Testament law (Gen. 17:12), in the early Hebrew period it may have been practiced at puberty (cf. Gen. 17:5) or at the time of marriage, since the Hebrew word for father-in-law, literally means "the circumciser." Though the significance of the practice varied over time, and though much can be said about its religious significance throughout Israelite history, it is worth noting a number of the social implications of the practice that can be seen in Luke's Gospel.

There can be little doubt of the early association of circumcision with the acceptance of a child by the father as his own. This may account for its use at the time of marriage and perhaps also for the special insistence upon it in times when exogamous (outside the paternal family) marriage existed. Thus the joining of two unrelated families is acknowledged by the father-in-law's participation in the circumcision rite. By contrast, there was also a special insistence upon circumcision following the Babylonian exile when exogamous marriage was seen as a threat to the community. Circumcision being a distinctive tribal mark, no female could be expected to misconstrue the character of anyone with whom she had sexual relations.

Acceptance by a father that a child was his own may also account for the association of circumcision with naming. See Luke 1:59 and 2:21. Note that Zechariah must publicly confirm the name of his son at the time of circumcision. Moreover, the requirement that this be done on the eighth day (Lev. 12:3), rather than the older practice of postponing it until puberty, gave special weight to the necessity of Jewish fathers acknowledging children as their own long before anything would be known of the child's character. Finally, community participation in the rite sealed with public recognition a father's acknowledgment that he had assumed paternal responsibility.
 

See: Kinship; Ritual of Status Transformation

The cities of antiquity were substantially different than their modern industrial counterparts. (85% of the population lived in villages or small towns and were primarily engaged in agriculture.) City populations were sharply divided between a small, literate elite which controlled both temple and palace and a large, mostly illiterate non-elite which provided the goods and services the elite required. Since the only real market for most goods and services was the city elite, the labor pool required to provide them was small. Excess population was thus kept out of the cities whenever possible.

Palace and temple dominated the center of the city, often with fortifications of their own. Around them, in the center, lived the elite population which controlled cult, coinage, writing and taxation for the entire society. At the outer limits of the city lived the poorest occupants, frequently in walled-off sections of the city in which occupational and ethnic groups lived/worked together. (Note that the configuration of an industrial city is just the opposite: the poorest people live in the center, while the richest live in the suburbs.) Outside the city walls lived beggars, prostitutes, persons in undesirable occupations, traders (often wealthy) and landless peasants who drifted toward the city in search of day-laboring opportunities. They required access to the city during the day, but were locked out at night. Gates in internal city walls could also be locked at night to seal access to elite areas by non-elite persons.

Socially, interaction between various groups living in the cities was kept to a minimum. Especially difficult was the position of those living immediately outside the city walls. They were cut off from both elite and non-elite of the city, and also from the protection of a village. In many cities they became the source of continual replenishment of the artisan population.

INCLUDE HERE THE DIAGRAM OF THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL CITY
 

See: Countryside

A coalition is what anthropologists call a multi-dimensioned network of relations that characterized non-elites in the first century Mediterranean world. In contrast to the "corporate groups" among the elite which were based on enduring principles such as birth or kinship, coalitions were informal, voluntary and loose-knit. They formed for a specific purpose and often for a limited time. Identifying with a coalition did not override membership or commitments to more fundamental groups such as the family. The pharisaic movement would be a clear example in the synoptic Gospels.

A faction is a type of coalition formed around a central person who recruits followers and maintains the loyalty of a core group. Factions share a common goal, though membership beyond the core group is often indistinct and fluid. Peripheral members sometimes divide their loyalty with other factions or leaders and can threaten a group's survival. Rivalry with other factions is basic, hence hostile competition for honor, truth (an ideological justification) and resources is always present. The recruitment of core disciples, beginning at Luke 5:1-11, clearly identifies the Jesus movement as such a faction and may also explain the rivalry with the John the Baptist movement Luke tries to put to rest in 3:15ff. (See also 5:33, 7:18ff., 9:7ff., 11:1, 16:16, 20:4ff.). Much of Luke's portrayal of Jesus as the honored Son of God, especially his depiction of Jesus' success in the game of challenge-riposte, can be understood as justification of Jesus' leadership of the faction that followed him.

332 b.c.e. Alexander the Great captures Tyre, and one of his generals captures Samaria, planting a Macedonian colony there
 

198 b.c.e. Palestine, including Galilee, is conquered by the Seleucid Antiochus III, at the battle of Paneion [in NT: Caesarea Philippi]. This Syro-Hellenistic dynasty controlled Israelite affairs until the rise of Judean nationalism under the Maccabees
 

166-60 b.c.e. Judas Maccabeus leads Judeans in revolt against Antiochus IV and his policy of forcing them to adopt Greek ways; independence gained
 

67 b.c.e. The Roman general, Pompey takes possession of Jerusalem, and reduces Judea to modest borders
 

40 b.c.e. Herod is appointed King of the Jews by the Roman senate
 

1-5 b.c.e. approximate date of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth
 

26/28 c.e. murder of John the Baptist and beginning of Jesus' ministry in Galilee
 

30 c.e. Trial of Jesus by Pilate; his execution
 

49 c.e. The Emperor Claudius expels all Judeans from Rome
 

64 c.e. Arrest of Paul in Jerusalem and his transport to Rome
 

66-70 c. e. Roman legions finally capture Jerusalem, destroying the Temple and the city, and after great carnage they took many Judean captives as slaves
 

95 c.e. First organized Roman persecution of Christians, but only in Asia Minor

Direct evidence of heavy indebtedness in first-century Palestine comes from primarily two items. One is Josephus' description of the burning of the debt archives by the rebels at the beginning of the Jewish War (66-73 c.e. See War 2.426-427) The other is a provision by Rabbi Hillel (the much-discussed prosbol) for evasion of the debt-remission required in the sabbatical law. Indirect evidence, however, is prevalent in a wide variety of sources, including Hellenistic papyri.

The processes by which peasants fell into debt were many. Population growth affected some: more mouths to feed reduced a farmer's margin of livelihood and made borrowing more likely in lean years. Unreliable rainfall contributed as well (Two significant famines occurred in the first half of the first century, one in 25 b.c.e. during the reign of Herod, and the other in 46 c.e. under Claudius. Cf. Acts 11:28) The chief reason for indebtedness, however, was the excessive demand placed on peasant resources. Demands for tithes, taxes, tribute and the endless variety of tolls kept small landowners under heavy pressure (evidence suggests that 35-40% of the total agricultural production was extracted in various taxes). Peasants unable to repay loans of seed or capital frequently became tenant sharecroppers on their own land.

Though evidence for marketization cannot be pushed too far, throughout the first century there apparently was also a gradual increase in cash-tenancies in place of sharecropping that was fueled by the demand to pay Roman tribute in money. The result was a concentration of land in the hands of large landholders who foreclosed on peasant land put up as security for cash loans. Late in the first century the numbers of peasants fleeing because of hopeless indebtedness grew so large that it required imperial efforts to keep tenants on land being left unworked - a situation that developed because once in debt few escaped it without the help of a substantial patron.
 

See: Taxes, Luxury,

In the world view of the first-century Mediterranean, causality was primarily personal. It took a person, human or non-human, to effect change. Not only was this true at the level of ordinary society, but at the levels of nature and the cosmos as well. Things beyond human control, such as weather, earthquakes, disease and fertility, were believed to be controlled by non-human persons who operated in a cosmic social hierarchy. Each level in the hierarchy could control the ones below:

1. God

2. Gods or sons of God or archangels

3. Lower non-human persons: angels, spirits, demons

4. Humankind

5. Creatures lower than humankind

Demons (Greek) or unclean spirits (Semitic) were thus personified forces that had the power to control human behavior. Accusations of demon possession were based on the belief that forces beyond human control were causing the effects humans observed. Since evil attacks good, people expected to be assaulted (Cf. Luke 13:16). A person accused of demon possession was a person whose behavior (external symptom) was deviant or who was embedded in a matrix of deviant social relationships. Such a deviant situation or behavior required explanation and could be attributed to God (positive) or to evil (dangerous), something the community would be anxious to do in order to identify and expel persons who represented a threat. Freeing a person from demons, therefore, implied not only exorcizing the demon but restoring him/her to a meaningful place in the community as well (Lk. 8:39).

Accusations that a person had an unclean spirit or was demon-possessed are prevalent in the synoptic Gospels. Thus in Luke 4:33 we are told about a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon and later Luke reports (4:41) that demons came out of many. In 11:14 Jesus casts a demon out of a dumb man who is then able to speak. In response to this, Jesus himself is accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.

In antiquity, all persons (Jesus, Paul) who acted contrary to the expectations of their inherited social status or role were suspect and had to be evaluated. Accusations of demon possession leveled at Jesus (Lk. 11:15) were essentially the judgement that because he could not do what he did of himself, an outside agency had to be involved. It could be God, as Jesus claimed, or the demonic forces claimed by his opponents. Note that in John's Gospel (8:44,48) Jesus and the Jews trade the charge of demon possession back and forth.

Though it is now common to call the casting out of demons "exorcism," this is not a word the New Testament uses of Jesus. Jesus' power over demons is essentially a function of his place in the hierarchy of powers (and is used as evidence of that by the Gospel writers). He is an agent of God, imbued with God's holy/clean spirit, who overcomes the power of evil.

A denarius was a standard day's wage in the first century. Two denarii would provide 3000 calories for 5-7 days or 1800 calories for 9-12 days for a family with the equivalent of four adults. Two denarii would provide 24 days of bread ration for a poor itinerant. This calculation is for food only; it does not take into account other needs such as clothing, taxation, religious dues and so on.

It is characteristic of the Mediterranean world to think in terms of stereotypes, that is, to think of persons in terms of place of origin, residence, family, sex, age and any other groups to which they might belong. One's identity was always the stereotyped identity of the group, meaning that much was encoded in the labels such groups acquired. Thus "Cretans" were always "liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons" (Tit. 1:12). Jesus was a disreputable "Galilean" (Jn. 7:52; Lk. 23:6), as was Peter (Lk. 22:59). Simon was a "Zealot" (Lk. 6:15). Jesus was Jesus "of Nazareth" (Lk. 24:19), while Simon was from Cyrene (Lk. 23:26). James and John were "sons of Zebedee" (Lk. 5:10) and Jesus was "Joseph's son" (Lk. 4:22).

Stereotypes could, of course, be either positive (titles such as "Lord") or negative (accusations such as demon possession). Negative labeling, what anthropologists call "deviance accusations," could, if made to stick, seriously undermine a person's place and role in the community. In our society labels like "pinko," "extremist," "wimp," "psycho" or "gay" can seriously damage a person's career or place in society (witness the fate of Thomas Eagleton or Edmund Muskie). In the Mediterranean world of the first century labels such as "sinner," "unclean" or "barren" could be equally devastating. Most serious of all was the label "demon-possessed." Such labels not only marked one as deviant (outside accepted norms or states), but once acquired could be nearly impossible to shake.

In refuting the deviance label in 11:14-23, Jesus makes use of several options available to him:

1) Repudiate the charge (vss. 17-18: Jesus is the enemy of Satan)

2) Denial of injury (vs 14: a man is free of demons)

3) Denial of a victim (vss. 21-22: only Satan has been harmed)

4) Appeal to higher authority (vs. 20: Jesus acts by the power of God)

5) Condemn the condemners (vs. 23: Jesus opponents are on the side of evil; see also 11:26, 29-32)

Jesus thus rejects the deviance label they are trying to pin on him and the crowd (or reader of the story) must judge if the label has been made to stick.

Labels and counter-labels are thus a potent social weapon. Positive labels ("Rock" - Matt. 16:18, "Christ" - Lk. 9:20) could enhance honor and status if recognized by a community. Unrecognized they could create dishonor (Lk. 3:8, 6:46). Negative labels, i.e., deviance accusations, which could destroy a reputation overnight, are typical of Mediterranean social conflict and are frequent in the Gospels ("brood of vipers," "sinners," "hypocrites," "evil generation," "false prophets"). Here in Lk. 11:14-23 Jesus and his opponents trade accusations about demon-possession in a game of challenge-riposte (See Cameo Essay on Challenge-Riposte, 4:1-13). Jesus' opponents acknowledge that he casts out demons, but accuse him of being a deviant and seek to shame him publicly in order to ostracize him from the community. If the label could be made to stick, implying as it did that Jesus was an evil deceiver in the guise of good, his credibility with his audience would have been irreparably damaged. Jesus' response was to enlist the sons of his accusers in confirming the divine source of his power, that is, to turn the community to his own advantage. At least one woman in the crowd (11:27) judges the exchange in Jesus' favor.

The diet of the first century consisted of a few basic staples, with other items depending on availability and expense. For Roman Palestine we have only one food-list that offers any specifics: according to a rabbinic text (m. Ketubbot 5,8-9) a husband must provide an estranged wife with bread, legumes, oil and fruit. The amounts specified presume an intake of about 1800 calories per day (The current United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recommends 1540-l980 as the minimum calories per day).

Of the three staple commodities - grain, oil and wine - by far the most important staple was grain and the products made from it. Bread (the Hebrew, , means both "bread" and "food"), constituted one-half of the caloric intake in much of the ancient Mediterranean region (just as it does today). Wheat was considered much superior to barley, hence barley (and sorghum) bread was the staple for the poor and slaves. The husband who provided an estranged wife with barley bread was required to provide her twice the ration of wheat.

Vegetables were common, but of much inferior status. A Talmudic comment on hospitality suggests that a host will serve the better food early in a guest's stay, but finally "gives him less and less until he serves him vegetables" (Peskita De-Rab Kahana 31) Of the vegetables, legumes were the more desirable: lentils, beans, peas, chickpeas and lupinus. Turnips were the food of the poor, hence the saying, "Woe to the house in which the turnip passes" (m. Berakhot 44,2). Of the green leafy vegetables, cabbage was the most popular. Oil, usually olive oil, and fruit, principally the dried fig, were also a required part of the provisions an estranged husband must provide.

Wine supplied another quarter of the caloric intake, especially for males and wealthy women. Even slaves received a daily ration. Estimates have been made that an adult male in ancient Rome consumed a liter of wine daily.

Meat and poultry were always considered desirable, but were expensive and thus rare for peasants. The majority ate it only on feast days or holidays, though temple priests ate it in abundance. That excess was widely considered to be the source of intestinal disorders. Keeping livestock solely to provide meat for the diet was unknown in Roman Palestine and was later prohibited by the Talmudic sages. By the fourth century Jerome comments that in Palestine eating veal was a crime (Contra Iovinianum II,7)

Fish was highly desirable and was a typical Sabbath dish. Despite considerable effort to obtain it even by the poor, it was widely available only near the Mediterranean coast and Sea of Galilee. Brining was the means of preservation (Taricheae on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee is Greek for "place of fish salting).

Milk products were usually consumed as cheese and butter since both kept longer and were more easily digested than fresh milk. Eggs, especially chicken eggs, were also an important food. Honey was the primary sweetener (figs met some needs) and was widely used in the Roman period. Salt was used not only to spice but also to preserve and purify meat and fish and was easily available from the Dead Sea and Mount Sodom. Pepper, ginger and other spices were imported and expensive.

See: Luxury

Ancient education had three levels: 1^st - basic literacy and some writing; 2^nd - skill in writing the basic forms needed for forensic, deliberative, and encomiastic speeches (see below); and 3^rd - skill in oratory (needed for public life) and other subjects like philosophy. In the 2^nd level, teachers used writing handbooks called progymnasmata, which generally contained 10 or more individual genres to be mastered. One of the most important of these was the encomium, which codified the cultural sources of honor and praise. It seems entirely probable that Luke and Matthew used this form for singing the praises of Jesus, the Christ. The encomium had four sections, which areas might provide data for honoring the person whose story was being told.
 

I. Origin and Birth consisted of:

A. Origin included: race, home locale ancestors and parents (pateres) [think "gender, generation and geography"] Noble people come from noble places and are the offspring of noble parents and noble ancestors. Genealogies belong here

B. Birth included: phenomena at birth (stars, visions, etc.)
 

II. Nurture and Training presented personality and character formation as well as general education; this involved one's teachers, arts and skills, and grasp of laws.
 

III. Accomplishments and Deeds looked to body, soul and the happen stances of life.
 

A. Considerations of the body: beauty, strength, agility, might and health; all the things an elite male needed to be a successful warrior
 

B. Deeds of the soul refer to the virtues of the person, especially to justice, wisdom, moderation rooted in a sense of shame, manly courage (andreia) and respect for those who control one's existence (i.e. faithfulness, loyalty, obedience)
 

C. Happen stances of life refer to whether the person is "fortunate" or "lucky"; such people were likely to have: power, wealth, friends [i.e., clients and faithful peers], children -- both many [see "Age"] and handsome, as well as fame and fortune, length of life, a happy death.
 

IV. Comparison, the final feature. By comparing the subject with others, the speaker or writer highlights the outstanding quality of the person in question.

When people rationalized about the sources of evil which might afflict them, one frequent cause of their misfortune was thought to be caused by envy (see limited good). The scenario goes like this: a person prospers, but his neighbors resent the new prestige that comes with prosperity or success and they wish to cut him down to size. Envy is expressed in the staring and hostile glances directed to the prosperous man, to his house, his wife and children, his land, etc. This glance is an evil eye, which was thought to inflict harm on the prosperous man. Thus "evil eye" belief is ocular aggression based on envy. Jesus mentions "the evil eye" in many places: 1) Mark 7:22, a catalogue of vices, contains "envy" but the Greek word there is "evil eye"; 2) Matt 20:15, the conclusion of a generous payment of wages, tell us that the complainers were envious of those who came late and received the same wage: Jesus accuses them of "evil eye"; 3) finally, Paul asks the Galatians if they have been "bewitched" (Gal 3:1), meaning, who is envious of my good work in you and has tried to put a spell on you?
 

Evil Eye Incantation (Akkadian; c 600 BCE)

[...] the eye, the eye is evil, [the eye] is hostile

[...] the eye goes out, [enveloped] in the splendor of an enemy.

Eyes of a woman, eyes of a man. . .

Eyes of a neighbor, eyes of a neighbor [woman],

eye of a child minder, two eyes!

O eye, in evil purpose, you have called at the door,

The threshold shook, the beams quaked.

When you entered a house, O eye. . .

You smashed the potter's kiln, you scuttled the boatman's boat,

You broke the yoke of the mighty ox,

You broke the shin of the striding donkey,

You broke the loom of the expert weaver,

You deprived the striding horse of its foal, and the ox of its food,

You have scattered the . . . of the ignited stove,

You have left the livestock to the maw of the murderous storm,

You have cast discord among harmonious brothers.

Smash the eye! Send the eye away

Make the eye cross seven rivers.

Make the eye cross seven canals,

Make the eye cross seven mountains!

Take the eye and tie its feet to an isolated stalk,

Take the eye and smash it in its owner's face like a potter's vessel!

(VAT 10018:1-21; Thomsen 1992:24, 26; Foster 1993:848)

Social interaction in agrarian societies fell across a spectrum running from reciprocity at one end to redistribution at the other.

Reciprocal relations, typical of small-scale social groups (Eg., villages), involved back-and-forth exchanges which generally followed one of three patterns:

1. General reciprocity: Open sharing based on generosity or need. Return often postponed or forgotten. Characterizes family relations.

2. Balanced reciprocity: Exchange based on symmetrical concern for the interests of both parties. Return expected in equal measure. Characterizes neighborly relations.

3. Negative reciprocity: Based on the interests of only one party who expected to gain without having to compensate in return. Characterizes relations with strangers.

Redistributive relations are typical of the large-scale agrarian societies of antiquity (Egypt, Palestine, Rome). They involved pooling resources in a central storehouse (usually via taxation and tribute) under the control of a hierarchical elite which could then redistribute them through the mechanisms of politics and religion. Redistribution relations are always assymmetrical and primarily benefit those in control. The temple system of first century Palestine functioned as a system of redistributive relations.

The household or family provided the early Christian movement with one of its basic images of Christian social identity and cohesion. In antiquity, the extended family meant everything. It was not only the source of one's status in the community, but also functioned as the primary economic, religious, educational and social network. Loss of connection to the family meant the loss of these vital networks as well as connection to the land. But a surrogate family, what anthropologists call a fictive kin group, could serve the same functions as a biological family and thus the Christian community acting as a surrogate family is for Luke the locus of the Good News. It transcends the normal categories of birth, class, race, sex, education, wealth and power. For those already detached from their biological families (Eg., non-inheriting sons who go to the city), the surrogate family becomes a place of refuge. For the well-connected, particularly among the city elite, giving up one's biological family for the surrogate Christian family, as Luke portrays Jesus demanding here, was thus a decision that could cost one dearly (Cf. 9:57-62; 12:51-53; 14:26; 18:28-30).

Increasing demand for fish as a luxury item in the first century led to two basic systems of commercialization. In the first, fishermen were organized by either royal concerns or large land holders to contract for a specified amount of fish to be delivered at a certain time. Compensation was either in cash or in kind (processed fish) and papyri records indicate that complaints about irregular or inadequate payment were not uncommon. Such records also indicate that this system was highly profitable for estate managers or royal coffers. The fishermen themselves got little.

The second system made fishing part of the taxation network. Fishermen leased their fishing rights from (the toll collectors of the New Testament) for a percentage of the catch, which evidence indicates could go as high as forty percent. The remaining catch could be traded through middlemen who both siphoned off the majority of profits and added significantly to the cost of fish in elite markets. Legislation in Rome early in the second century sought to curtail rising costs by requiring that fish be sold either by the fishermen themselves or by those who first bought the catch from them. Such tax fishermen often worked with (partners), the term used in Lk. 5:7, hence the fishing done by Peter, Andrew, James and John may have been of this second type.

In the Gospels the closest analogy for the forgiveness of sins is the forgiveness of debts (Lk. 11:4; cf. Mt. 6:12), an analogy drawn from pervasive peasant experience. Debt threatened loss of land, livelihood, family. It was the result of being poor (See the Cameo Essay on Poor, Poverty, 1:51), that is, being unable to defend one's position. Forgiveness would thus have had the character of restoration, a return to both self-sufficiency and one's place in the community. Since the introspective, guilt-oriented outlook of industrialized societies did not exist, forgiveness by God meant being divinely restored to one's position and therefore being freed from fear of loss at the hands of God. "Conscience" was not so much an interior voice of accusation as an external one - blame from friends, neighbors or authorities (Lk. 6:6; Jn. 5:45; 8:10. See especially I Cor. 4:4). Thus public accusation had the power to destroy, while forgiveness had the power to restore.

In the ancient world from time immemorial, males and females lived in gender-divided worlds. This may be noted clearly in the remarks of a lst century Jew living in Alexandria: "Market-places and councils-halls and law-courts and gatherings and meetings where a large number of people are assembled, and open-air life with full scope for discussion and action -- all these are suitable to men both in war and peace. The women are best suited to the indoor life which never strays from the house, within which the middle door is taken by the maidens as their boundary, and the outer door by those who have reached full womanhood" (Spec. Leg. 3.169). Philo locates males in the public arena of the agora, whereas females are located in the private arena of the house. "Open-air" vs "indoor" and other contrasting expressions give the impression that ideally women never leave their sphere ("never strays from the house"); but this may require considerable nuancing. Philo, moreover, is an urban figure, and so when he describes male space, he thinks in terms of the urban places where men gathered, such as the marketplace, the meeting halls, the council chambers, and the like. These would not be the male spaces in a peasant village.

Philo's remarks are hardly original, and reflect a discussion which can be traced back to Xenophon and Aristotle and the classical conversation on the rights and duties or men and women in society. For example, in his treatise on household management, Xenophon describes the respective places of males and females in a household: ". . . Human beings live not in the open air, like beasts, but obviously need shelter. Nevertheless, those who mean to win store to fill the covered place, have need to someone to work at the open-air occupations; since plowing, sowing, planting and grazing are all such open-air employments; and these supply the needful food. Then again, as soon as this is stored in the covered place, then there is need for someone to keep it and to work at the things that must be done under cover. Cover is needed for the nursing of the infants; cover is needed for the making of corn into bread, and likewise for the manufacture of clothing from the wool. And since both the indoor and the outdoor tasks demand labour and attention, God from the first adapted the woman's nature, I think, to the indoor and man's to the outdoor tasks and cares" (Oecomenicus VII.??)

Xenophon reflects the commonplace that males and female have different places, both spatial and cultural, in the household. Males belong in the "open air" or public space apart from the house. Females belong in "covered" or private space. Not only space, but labor is gender divided as well: males engage in the open-air tasks of agriculture and herding (plowing, sowing, grazing), whereas females occupy themselves with the "covered" tasks which include child rearing, food production and clothing manufacture. While Xenophon distinguishing space and tasks according to gender, he strongly insists on the complementarity of males and females: ". . .And God also gave to both impartially the power to practice due self-control, and gave authority to whichever is the better -- whether it be the man or the woman -- to win a larger portion of the good that comes from it. And just because both have not the same aptitudes, they have the more need of each other, and each member of the pair is the more useful to the other, the one being competent where the other is deficient."

Xenophon, moreover, invests with moral value this distinction between male/public and female/private: ". . .And besides, the law declares those tasks to be honourable for each of them wherein God has made the one to excel the other. Thus, to the woman it is more honourable to stay indoors than to abide in the fields, but to the man it is unseemly rather to stay indoors than to attend to the work outside. If a man acts contrary to the nature God has given him, possibly his defiance is detected by the gods and he is punished for neglecting his own work, or meddling with his wife's. I think that the queen bee is busy about just such other task appointed by God."

It is "honorable" when males and females act according to this social code, but "shameful" when they do not. Furthermore, the code is given heavenly sanction by the note that the gods will punish those who violate it.(1-43).

Aristotle likewise reflects the same gender distinction in his remarks on the household: "For Providence has made man stronger and woman weaker, so that he in virtue of his manly prowess may be more ready to defend the home, and she, by reason of her timid nature, more ready to keep watch over it; and while he brings in fresh supplies from without, she may keep safe what lies within. In handicrafts again, woman was given a sedentary patience, though denied stamina for endurance of exposure; while man, though inferior to her in quiet employments, is endowed with vigour for every active occupation. In the production of children both share alike; but each makes a different contribution to their upbringing. It is the mother who nurtures, and the father who educates" (Oeconomica I.3.4 (1343b 30 - 1344a 9).

Aristotle placed males in the public or "outside" world and females in the private or "inside" world. Males "defend" the house from the outside, from whence they "bring in" supplies. Females "watch over" the house from the inside, where they "keep safe" the family goods. The appropriate tasks of females in their proper place include both child rearing and handicrafts, presumably clothing production.

It follows, then, that objects in a household are also gender specific: farm tools and weapons are male; kitchen utensils and clothing production materials are female. Sheep and horses are male animals, whereas goats are female.

Tertullian: "I give that definition (of God) which all men's common sense will accept, that God is supremely great, firmly established in eternity, unbegotten, uncreated, without beginning and without end" (Adv. Marc. 1.3).
 

Diodorus of Sicily distinguishes true gods from divinized heroes. The difference lies exclusively in the fact that true gods are fully eternal, that is uncreated in the past and imperishable in the future. Divinized heroes, however, were born as mere mortals, but attained to "immortality" because of their benefactions to humankind:

As regards the gods, men of ancient times have handed down to later generations two different conceptions: Certain of the gods, they say, are eternal and imperishable . . . for each of these genesis and duration are from everlasting to everlasting. But the other gods, we are told, were terrestrial beings who attained to immortal honors and fame because of their benefactions to mankind, such as Heracles, Dionysus, Aristaeus, and the others who were like them (6.1.2).
 

Plutarch echoes just this sort of stereotyped description of the gods when he acclaims the excellence of Apollos Tegyraeus:

My native tradition removes this god from among those deities who were changed from mortals into immortals. Like Heracles and Dionysus, whose virtues enabled them to cast off mortality and suffering; but he is one of those deities who are unbegotten (agennêton) and eternal (aidion), if we may judge by what the most ancient and wisest men have said on such matters (Pelopidas 16).
 

From these examples, we can sketch the differences between true gods and divinized benefactor-heroes:

True Gods Divinized Benefactor-Heroes

1. ancient 1. recent, new

2. celestial 2. terrestrial

3. without a beginning 3. came into being

and ungenerated and born in time

4. imperishable 4. died, translated in death

5. eternal 5. made immortal
 

Among non-literate people (only 2-4% could read or write in agrarian societies), communication is basically by word-of-mouth. Where reputation (honor-status) is concerned, gossip informed the community about (and validated) on-going gains and losses, thereby providing a guide to proper social interaction. Its effects could be both positive (confirm honor, spread reputation, shape and guide public interaction) and negative (undermine others), though overall it tended to maintain the status quo by highlighting deviation. In antiquity gossip was primarily associated with women whose role it was to monitor social behavior. To do that well was one thing, though ancient condemnations are frequent of women whose uncontrolled tongues were seen to provoke ill-will and discord and thereby upset stability in the community. Because children (both male and female) were allowed in the women's quarters or other places off limits to some adults, they were frequently the chief purveyors of what they heard and saw throughout the village.

Ancient peoples were strongly group-oriented, not individualists as are known and celebrated in the modern world. They are always known as the "son of so-and-so" or the "wife of so-and-so" or the "daughter of so-and-so." When they are introduced, it is common to learn of their clan or ethnic group (a Benjaminite; an Ishmaelite; a Cretan). Their social status is often signaled by note of their father's trade or their position in Temple or Palace or some other status label. In short, they are know in terms of stereotypes.

Group-oriented persons are socialized from birth to know the ways and customs of their group and to live up to these expectations. Thus they constantly seek to know what others think about them or expect of them, so as to know what they should do. Failure to live up to the group's expectations results in "shame" (see honor and shame).

Group-oriented persons thus have a shared conscience. The very word "conscience" means knowledge shared with others (Latin con = with; scientia = knowledge; Greek syn = with; eidesis = knowledge). Hence, individual persons are schooled to know and respect group values and norms, and thus to measure themselves in terms of these. The ideal son is one who "learns discipline" from his father and uncles, and thus internalizes the group expectations. Thus his conscience is their conscience. It should come as no surprise that the virtues most valued in this configuration are obedience and fidelity (to family and clan laws and expectations).

Group-oriented persons are socialized to know the norms and customs of its social world through the endless proverbs and maxims which are taught. Individual members are thus taught the "traditions of the elders" and so past examples of heroes and past stories of ideal behavior serve to orient individuals to know and emulate the great figures of their past. It follows that what is "new" and different will not be thought well of, for this may clash with tradition and custom.

Group-oriented persons will canonize the notion of "common good," in which all individuals contribute to the maintenance of the collective. Illustrative of this are the descriptions from ancient writers comparing the social or political body with the physical body. For example, "If, now, these parts of the human body should be endowed, each for itself, with perception and a voice of its own and a sedition should arise among them, all of them uniting against the belly alone, and the feet should say that the whole body rests on them; the hands, that they ply the crafts, secure provisions, fight with enemies, and contribute many other advantages toward the common good. . .and then all these should say to the belly, 'And you, good creature, which of these things do you do? What return do you make and of what use are you to us? Indeed, you are so far from doing anything for us or assisting us in accomplishing anything useful for the common good that you are actually a hindrance and a trouble to us and - a thing intolerable - compel us to serve you and to bring things to you from everywhere for the gratification of your desires. Come now, why do we not assert our liberty and free ourselves from the many troubles we undergo for the sake of this creature?' If, I say, they should decide upon this course and none of the parts should any longer perform its office, could the body possibly exist for any considerable time, and not rather be destroyed in a few days by the worst of all deaths, starvation? No one can deny it. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 6.86.2-3).
 

Consider the following citation from Josephus, a first-century Judean. Identify for yourself here the elements of a group-oriented person:

Our sacrifices are not occasions for drunken self-indulgence - such practices are abhorrent to God - but for sobriety. At these sacrifices prayers for the welfare of the community must take precedence over those for ourselves; for we are born for fellowship, and he who sets its claims above his private interests is especially acceptable to God (Apion 2.195-96).

In the contemporary world we view disease as a malfunction of the organism which can be remedied, assuming cause and cure are known, by proper biomedical treatment. We focus on restoring a sick person's ability to function, to do. Yet often overlooked is the fact that health and sickness are culturally defined, and that in the ancient Mediterranean being was more important than doing. The healers of that world thus focused on restoring a person to a valued state of being rather than an ability to function.

Anthropologists thus distinguish between disease - a biomedical malfunction - and illness - a disvalued state of being in which social networks have been disrupted and meaning lost. Illness is not so much a biomedical matter as it is a social one. It is attributed to social, not physical causes. Thus sin and sickness go together. Illness is a matter of deviance from cultural norms and values.

In our society, a leper may be unable to function. In ancient Palestine, a leper was unclean and to be excluded from the community. The blind, lame, malformed and those with itching scabs, crushed testicles or injured limbs were not permitted to draw near the altar (Lev. 21:16-14). What is described in the New Testament, therefore, is not so much diseases as illnesses: abnormal socio-cultural human conditions, some of which would have had a basis in a physical condition (blindness) and others which did not (the inability or refusal to see or understand a teaching).

Since people in antiquity had little knowledge of cause-effect relationships, hence little understanding of the biomedical causes of disease, healers focused on symptoms rather than causes. Professional healers, physicians, are referred to infrequently in the New Testament (Mk. 2:17 and par.; 5:26; Lk. 4:23; 8:43; Col. 4:14), mostly in proverbial sayings common in non-Christian literature. Folk healers were more commonly available to peasants and Jesus appears as such in the Gospels: he is a spirit-filled prophet who vanquishes unclean spirits and a variety of illnesses and restores people to their place in the community. Such folk healers accept all symptoms as important (See Lk. 8:26-33) and see a direct relation between symptoms and belief systems (Lk. 13:16). A refocusing of one's meaning in life (metanoia) is essential to healing illness. Community acceptance of a folk healer's actions is essential (Cf. Lk. 7:16; 9:8,l9; 14:19) and would be a matter of public comment (Lk. 11:15; Mt. 9:34. See also Lk. 8:37 where the community prefers that the folk healer go elsewhere.).

Unlike our western guilt-oriented society, the pivotal value of the Mediterranean society of the first century was honor-shame. As in the traditional middle-eastern society of today, so also in biblical times honor (sharaf, in Arabic) meant everything, including survival. The Hebrew word, , often translated "honor," comes from a root meaning to be heavy, weighty or important. is similarly used in Greek, though the more common designation is . (Note Romans 12:10 where Paul admonishes Christians to outdo one another in showing honor.)

Honor can be understood as the status one claims in the community together with the all-important recognition of that claim by others. It thus serves as an indicator of social standing, enabling persons to interact with their social superiors, equals and inferiors in certain ways presecribed by society.

Honor can be ascribed or acquired. Ascribed honor derives from birth: being born into an honorable family makes one honorable in the eyes of the entire community. Acquired honor, by contrast, is the result of skill in the never-ending game of challenge and response. Not only must one win to gain it, one must do so in public because the whole community must acknowledge the gain. To claim honor the community does not recognize is to play the fool. Since honor is a limited good, if one person wins honor, someone else loses. Envy is thus institutionalized and subjects anyone seeking to outdo his neighbors to hostile gossip and the pressure to share.

Challenges to one's honor could be positive or negative. Giving a gift is a positive challenge and requires reciprocation in kind. An insult is a negative challenge that likewise cannot be ignored. The game of challenge and response (See the Cameo Essay on Challenge-Riposte, 4:1-11) is deadly serious and can literally be a matter of life and death. It must be played in every area of life and every person in a village watches to see how each family defends and maintains its position.

Since the honor of one's family determines potential marriage partners, with whom you can do business, what functions you can attend, where you can live, and even what religious role you can play, it must be defended at all costs. The smallest slight or injury must be avenged or honor is permanently lost. Moreover, because the family is the basic unit in traditional societies rather than the individual, having a "blackened face" (wajh, in Arabic), as middle-eastern villagers call it, can destroy the well-being of an entire kin group.

It also is important not to misunderstand the notion of "shame." One can be shamed, which is to have lost honor. To have shame is another matter. It can be understood as sensitivity for one's own reputation (honor) or the reputation of one's family. It is sensitivity to the opinions of others and is therefore a positive quality. Women usually played this shame role in agrarian societies, meaning they were the ones expected to have this sensitivity in a special way and to teach it to their children. People without shame, without this needed sensitivity to what is going on, make fools of themselves in public. Note the lament in Job 14:21 that a man's

"...sons come to honor and he does not know it, they are brought low, and he perceives it not."

Perceiving status is as important as having it. Certain people, such as prostitutes, tavern-owners or actors were considered irreversibly shameless in antiquity because they did not possess this sensitivity. They did not respect the boundaries or norms of the honor system and thus threatened social chaos.

Of special importance is the sexual honor of a woman. While male honor is flexible and can sometimes be regained, female honor is absolute and once lost is gone forever. It is the emotional-conceptual counterpart of virginity and any sexual offense on a woman's part, however slight, would destroy not only her own honor, but that of all males in her paternal kin group as well. Interestingly, it is not so much her husband as her father and brothers whom she can damage and it is they who must defend (to the death) her honor even after she has married.

1. A Complex Definition

Ideology is "an integrated system of beliefs, assumptions and values, not necessarily true or false, which reflects the needs and interests of a group or class at a particular time in history. Because ideologies are modes of consciousness, containing the criteria for interpreting social reality they help to define as well as to legitimate collective needs and interests. Hence there is a continuous interaction between ideology and material forces of history" (J.H. Elliott, Home for the Homeless. 1981:12). Let us define it as a set of values, attitudes, interests and modes of perception and evaluation that is shared, normally unawares, by a given group to set itself off from other groups and to make sense of its experiences. Ideology is often defended against outsiders. When it needs to be defended to insiders, the group is in process of dissolution. (See also David Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution 1770-1823. Ithaca: Cornell U. Press. 1974. p. 14)
 

2.0 Operative and Descriptive Definitions (Ideology compared: Malina, COCA 112-115)

Value: human beings generally share and live up to expectations about the general direction of the flow of actions, expectations usually realized in a given collectivist. The ordinary name for the general direction of the flow of action, a direction socially expected and usually pursued in the group, is value (Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology, 112).
 

Core Value: the general target, goal, end, or purpose that holds an entire society together in its varied and manifold interactions (Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology, 112)
 

2.1 USA Core Value:

Instrumental activism is the goal or target that directs the U.S. mainstream population, in general and individually, to attempt actively to master and control the environment as a main concern. This attempt at mastering the environment encompasses all the concrete and concretely experienced situations in which a person might find himself or herself.

This core value is often articulated, expressed, and explained in more specific values or norms in order to give mean to the activity of the group and to mark off the group from other groups. Such an articulation of the group's core value is called an ideology.

Given the U.S. core value of instrumental activism, the ideological expression of this value might be called technologism, the belief that pragmatic control of the environment is the defining characteristic of a meaningful human existence. Thus what is typical of the flow of human interaction in the U.S. is the active mastery and control of the environment -- nature, time, space, and other individuals, and other societies. While core values mark off the ends or goals of a society, there are more specific societal values, replicating the core values, that look to more limited pieces of behavior. For example, the U.S. general value of instrumental activism is replicated in the specific values of "democracy" which facilitates individual instrumental mastery. Such "democracy" implies free enterprise, equal opportunity, individual self-determinism, and individual franchise (Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology, 112-113).

Key: what does it mean to "make it" in America
 

2.2 Roman Society:

Core Value: past-direct activism the goal or target that directed Romans in general and individually actively to live up to and at least to match the deeds of their ancestors, the founders of Roman society ("founder" in Latin is "acutor," "growth giver"). Romans were taught to live th the burden of the past on their shoulders. Whatever was best or whatever was noblest and true was already lived out and achieved by the ancestors of a given Roman generation. Thus the individual and society as a whole in this strong group script could only live up to the greatness of the past. By commonly held presuppositions, this past could never really be equaled or surpassed. The greatness of the past was replicated and symboled in the elders of society, the people who, as they grew older, visibly moved closer to the great past. The elders were maiores natu, greater by birth and proximity to the truly great ones. The typical Roman ideological articulation of this value was auctoritas (often poorly translated as "authority"). The word means "authorization by the past," by the glorious tradition...Thus in the Roman system, anything that was demonstrably old was automatically good and certainly better than anything present that did not repeat the past. Any course of action in the present had to match expectations set by the glorious past and be justified in terms of models deriving from the past. COCA 113-114
 

what does it mean to "make it" in Rome?
 

2.3 Hellenistic Society:

Core Value: personal limitlessness ...to discover effective ways to overcome human finitude and limitation especially by means of virtual or actual forms of deification. The Greek tradition of divine and half-divine, the heroes, produced a plethora of such persons in the Hellenistic world. (Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology, 114)
 

2.3 Israelite and Judean Society:

Core Value: interpersonal contentment...to acquiesce in human finitude and limitation and yet to strive to achieve a genuinely human existence, finite and free. Thus while Romans sought to live up to the expectations of their ancestors and called upon ancestral divinities to help them in this endeavor and while Hellenists sought to be filled with the infinity of God, Jews sought only the enabling help of God to become what they were meant to be--limited, finite, free human beings (Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology, 114)
 

what does it mean to "make it" in Israel, Judea, Palestine?

While evidence about inheritance practices is not altogether clear, the following text from the Mishnah may illustrate the situation behind the parable:

If one assign in writing his property to his children, he must write, "from today and after [my] death." ... If one assign in writing his estate to his son [to become his] after his death, the father cannot sell it since it is conveyed to his son, and the son cannot sell it because it is under his father's control.... The father may pluck up [produce] and feed it to whomsoever he pleases, but whatever he left plucked up belongs to his heirs. (m. Baba Bathra 8,7)

The text then explains that this refers to a healthy person who wishes to retain the produce of the land during his lifetime. A later Talmudic commentary (b. Baba Metzia, 75b) explains that this situation might occur if a man wished to protect the inheritance rights of the sons of a first marriage (See Sir. 33:19-23 for a skeptical view of the wisdom of such action), however no known text implies that a son can ask for the inheritance on his own initiative.

Nor is there any precedent for the right of disposal during the father's lifetime. As a number of scholars have noted, the implication is that the younger son wishes his father dead. It should be noted that the elder son also receives his double share (Deut. 21:17) of the inheritance while the father is still alive ("And he divided his living between them."). Nonetheless the father has retained control of produce of the property as the Mishnaic rule provides - as his actions later in the parable make clear.

The fact that Joseph comes to Bethlehem to be enrolled may imply that he had land (hence family) there, since enrollment was for land-taxation purposes. If so, he would have been obligated to stay with family, not in a commercial inn. Moreover, being a small village only a two-hour walk from Jerusalem, Bethlehem almost certainly had no commercial inns anyway. If close family was not available, mention of Joseph's lineage would have resulted in immediate village recognition that he belonged and space in a home would have been made available.

While the Greek word in 2:7, , can mean "inn," its normally refers to a large furnished room and is best translated "guest room." Its only other use in the New Testament is in the story of the last supper (Mk. 14:14; Lk. 22:11) where it is translated "upper room." The normal word for a commercial inn was (Lk. 10:34), a place that "receives all." The fact that there was no "place" for Joseph and Mary in the guest room of the home probably meant that it was already occupied by someone who socially outranked them.

Kinship norms regulate human relationships within and among family groups. At each stage of life, from birth to death, these norms determine the roles we play and the ways we interact with each other. Moreover, what it meant to be a father, mother, husband, wife, sister or brother was vastly different in ancient agrarian societies than what we know in the modern industrial world.

Note, for example, the lists in Lev. 18:6-18 and 20:11-21. By New Testament times these had become lists of prohibited marriage partners. They include a variety of in-laws for whom we do not prohibit marriage today (Eg., see Mark 6:18). Moreover, for us marriage is generally neo-local (a new residence is established by the bride and groom) and exogamous (outside the kin group). In antiquity it was patrilocal (the bride moved in with her husband's family) and endogamous (marrying as close to the conjugal family as incest laws permitted). Cross-cousin marriages on the paternal side of the family were the ideal and genealogies always followed the paternal line of descent.

Since marriages were fundamentally the fusion of two extended families, the honor of each family played a key role. Marriage contracts negotiated the fine points and insured balanced reciprocity. Defensive strategies were used to prevent loss of males (and females as well whenever possible) to another family. Since the family was the producing unit of antiquity (the consuming unit in our society), the loss of a member through marriage required compensation in the form of a bride price. By far the strongest unit of loyalty was the descent group of brothers and sisters and it was here, rather than between husband and wife, that the strongest emotional ties existed.

Socially and psychologically, all family members were embedded in the family unit. Our individualism simply did not exist. The public role was played by the males on behalf of the whole unit, while females played the private, internal role that often including management of the family purse. Females not embedded in a male (widows, divorcees) were women without honor and often viewed as more male than female by the society. (Note the attitude toward widows in I Tim. 5:3-16.)

How an ancient person expressed the common notion of kinship:

Then, too, there are a good many degrees of closeness or remoteness in human socity. To proceed beyond the universal bond of our common humanity, there is the closer one of belonging to the same people [gentis], tribe [nationis], and tongue [linguae] by which men are very closely bounded together; it is a still closer relation to be citizens of the same city-state [civitatis]; for fellow-citizens have much in common - forum, temples, colonnades, streets, statutes, laws, courts, rights of suffrage, to say nothing of social and friendly circles and diverse business relations with many.

But a still closer social union exists between kindred [propinquorum]. Starting with that infinite bond of union of the human race in general, the conception is now confined to a small and narrow circle. For since the reproductive instinct is by nature's gift the most common possession of all living creatures, the first bond of union is that between husband and wife, the next, that between parents and children; they we find one home, with everything in common. And this is the foundation of the civil government, the nursery, as it were, of the state. Then follow the bonds between brothers and sisters, and next those of first and then of second cousins; and when they can no longer be sheltered under one roof, they go out into other homes, as into colonies. Then follow between these, in turn, marriages and connections by marriage, and from these again a new stock of relations; and from this propagation and after-growth states have their beginnings. The bonds of common blood hold men fast through good-will and affection; for it means much to share in common the same family traditions, the same forms of worship, and the same ancestral tombs.

But of all the bonds, there is none more noble, morepowerful than when good men of congenial character are joined in intimate friendship; for really, if we discover in another that moral goodness on which I dwell so much, it attracts us and makes us friends to the one in whose character it seems to dwell. And while every virtue attracts us and makes us love those who seem to possess it, still justice and generosity do so most of all. Nothing, moreover, is more conducive to love and intimacy than compatibility of character in good men; for when two people have the same ideals and the same tastes, it is a natural consequence that each loves the other as himself; and the result is, as Pythagoras requires of ideal friendship, that several are united in one

Another strong bond of friendship is effected by mutual interchange of kind services; and as long as these kindnesses are mutual and acceptable, those between whom they are interchanged are united by the ties of an enduring intimacy (Cicero, De Officiis 1.17)

SOCIETIES

Variables	1st Century Judean	20th Century U.S.A.
Family Form	Endogamous Community (multi generational)	Absolute Nuclear (dual-generational)
Spousal Choice	Controlled by custom and parents	Free Choice by couple
Marriage Strategy	Endogamous (Ideal)	Exogamous (Required by law)
Wedding Endowment	Formal: Dowry, Indirect Dowry and Bridewealth	Informal: Family gifts
Post-Marital Residence	Patrilocal (with groom's parents)	Neolocal (New household)
Cohabitation of Married Sons with Parents	Yes	No
Economic Function	Producing and Consuming Unit	Consuming Unit
Geographical and  Social  Mobility	Severely restricted, thus closed networks	Limited restrictions, thus open networks
Inheritance Distribution	Oldest son: double other sons: single daughters: dowries	no inheritance rules

In the symbolic world of Israel, the bread of Passover was consumed unleavened; the travel constraint during the Exodus from Egypt [no time for leavened bread] came to symbolize the transition of Israel, not just from slavery to freedom, but from uncleanness to holiness. Hence, at Passover time, they celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This meant that an observant family scoured the house and removed from it all leavened bread, which was burned outside. Hence the Passover was celebrated in purity, that is, in a state of un-leavenedness (1 Cor 5:6-8). It helps us to understand the Israelite interpretation of leaven = unclean to realize what effect leaven has on flour: it causes it to change its shape (too much) and to put out an foul odor, associated with something corrupt. Note the remark of Plutarch: "For the leaven itself is generated out of corruption and when mixed (with flour) corrupts the mass, for it (the mass) becomes slack and powerless and in general the leavened thing appears to be putrid; then, increasing, it becomes sour and corrupts the flour" (Qu. Rom. 289F). Similarly, Plutarch records, "People say, too, that flour rises better at the time of the full moon; indeed, leavening is much the same process as putrefaction, and if the proper time limit be ignored, leavening in making dough porous and light produces the same decomposition in the end" (Quaes. Conviv. 659B)

In Judea: Jerusalem, Bethlehem

In Galilee: Nazareth, Capernaum

The Decapolis: roughly where were these cities? What ethnic background?

Samaria

Tyre, Sidon

Caesarea Philippi

Rome
 

All of these cities and places are important for the career of Jesus: his place of birth, the village where he was raised, towns and villages where he conducted his ministry, and the place where he was captured, tried and killed. We think of these places as Israelite, either the land of Judah proper or places strongly Judean in religion and practice. Yet other places here which are non-Judean, which Judeans were forbidden to enter ["You know how unlawful it is for a Judean to associate with or to visit any one of another nation" Peter speaking; Acts 10:28]. Yet Jesus went there and preached and did mighty works. Finally, Caesarea Philippi: Israelite? Or Gentile? What climactic event in the life of Jesus took place here?

Meals in antiquity were what anthropologists call "ceremonies" (as opposed to "rituals" which confirm a change of status), meaning that they are regular, predictable events in which roles and statuses in a community are affirmed or legitimated. In other words, the microcosm of the meal is parallel to the macrocosm of everyday social relations.

Though meals could include people of varying social ranks, normally that did not occur except under special circumstances (Eg., some Roman Collegia). Since eating together implied sharing a common set of ideas and values, and frequently a common social position as well (Cf.13:26), it is important to ask: Who eats with whom? Who sits where? What does one eat? Where does one eat? How is the meal prepared? What utensils are used? When does one eat? What talk is appropriate? Who does what? When does one eat what course? Answering such questions tells us much about the social relations a meal affirms.

There is much evidence from both Hellenistic and Jewish sources of the importance of such matters. Old Testament food regulations are well known, as are the provisions for the ritual purity required when eating. In the rabbinic period people formed religious societies (Haberim, Ne'eman) which joined together for table fellowship (Haburah) and vows of piety. In order to avoid pollution they would not accept an invitation from the 'am ha-'ares, the people of the land, because they could not be trusted to provide tithed food. If they invited such a person to their own home, they required the guest to put on a ritually clean garment which the host provided (m. Demai 2:2-3). In a similar fashion, Roman sources describe meals at which guests of different social rank are seated in different rooms and even served different food and wine depending on their social status (Martial, Epigrammata, I,20; III,60; Juvenal, Satura V; Pliny, Epistulae II,6).

The Gospel of Luke is likewise full of small hints about the importance of behavior at meals. Thus it is noted whether one washes (11:38), who eats what, when and where (6:4), what is done or fails to get done at the table (7:38,40,44,49), who is invited (14:12-14), where people sit (14:7-11), with whom one eats (15:2) and in what order persons of different rank come to the table (17:7-8).

Exclusive fellowship required an exclusive table while inclusive fellowship required an inclusive one. The statement in 13:29 about people coming from east and west, and from south and north to sit at the table in the kingdom is thus a statement of inclusive Christian social relations. The refusal of those first invited to the great banquet (14:18-21) is similarly a statement of social exclusivism among the elite, while the invitations to the "poor, maimed, lame and blind" (14:13,21) are evidence of inclusive Christian social practices that are reflected in their meals.
 

See: Ceremony, Diet, Bread, Hospitality
 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Pliny The Younger's Criticism of Socially Discriminatory Meal Practices (Epistulae, II,6)

It would be a long story, and of no importance, were I to recount too particularly by what accident I (who am not fond at all of society) supped lately with a person, who in his own opinion lives in splendor combined with economy; but according to mine, in a sordid but expensive manner. Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of the company; while those which were placed before the rest were cheap and paltry. He had apportioned in small flagons three different sorts of wine; but you are not to suppose it was that the guests might take their choice: on the contrary, that they might not choose at all. One was for himself and me; the next for his friends of a lower order (for you must know, he measures out his friendship according to the degrees of quality); and the third for his own freed-men and mine. One who sat next to me took notice of this, and asked me if I approved of it. "Not at all," I told him. "Pray, then," said he, "what is your method on such occasions?" "Mine," I returned, "is to give all my company the same fare; for when I make an invitation, it is to sup, not to be censoring. Every man whom I have placed on an equality with myself by admitting him to my table, I treat as an equal in all particulars." "Even freed-men?" he asked. "Even them, " I said; "for on those occasions I regard them not as freed-men, but boon companions." "This must put you to great expense," says he. I assured him not at all; and on his asking how that could be, I said, "Why you must know my freedmen do not drink the same wine I do - but I drink what they do."

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Marriage in the ancient world were always arranged by the families, and not by the individuals. Marriage was viewed as the joining of two families or clans, which produced economic and social advantages for both. Thus modern notions of romantic love (and democratic choice) are foreign to the ancient cultures. Families always tried to marry up the social ladder, to secure advantage; but the higher ranking family would be loathe to marry down and lose advantage.

When a daughter was married, several exchanges took place. A dowry was provided for the daughter, who left her family and clan and went to live in the household of her husband; thus she brought a certain amount of new wealth into the household which she joined; this wealth, of course, was hers and would have to be returned if the husband divorced her. Her husband paid a bride price to her father to compensate him for all the wealth lost to that household from clothing production and child rearing. It goes without saying that in an honor society the families of both partners would strive to appear noble and wealthy and thus provide a show of wealth to the public in these negotiations.

Several variables need be kept in mind when studying the shape of marriages:

(a) endogamy and exogamy. At certain times, it was permissible and advantageous for the daughters of clans and families to marry outside their clan (exogamy); but at other times, it was required by a clan that their females marry within their households and not join those of non-clan and different-ethnos groups (endogamy).

(b) marriage partners. At times, the ideal marriage partner was a cousin (thus keeping family lands together); in Egypt brother-sister marriage was quite acceptable. Leviticus gives a detailed list of prohibited marriage partners (see purity/pollution).

(c) normally, the first-born son was expected to live in the house of his father, and so he brought his wife back there (patrilocal residence). The new bride was always considered an outsider to this established household, hence the endless stories of conflict between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. The new bride secured a place finally by producing male children, who would take up her interests in this alien environment.

When we systematically consider "name," we should think first of "fame" or reputation, which betokens honor, value and worth. But "name" in antiquity also linked one with family and clan. Inasmuch as the most basic honor of ancient persons was ascribed to them by birth into such-and-such a clan and family, "name" was be an immediate index of status and honor.

Anthropologists of the Middle East describe four aspects of the names of individuals and what such names indicate about the person who holds them: (1) personal names, (2) nicknames, (3) names derived from occupation, origin and affiliation, and (4) patrifiliative names or names embodying one's parents and clan. These observations, which are based on contemporary Arab practices, provide a useful analytical scheme for studying names in the ancient world. In general, this analysis indicates that names link one to family and kinship group (ascribed honor) or reflect an individual's prowess or lack thereof (achieved honor).

Personal or "first" names can be drawn from a range of religious and secular sources. The personal name of the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth seemed unusual to their kinsfolk (Luke 1:59-63); the culture would expect that the child be named after his father (Josephus, Life 1.4; Ant. 14.10; 20.197) or grandfather (Josephus, Life 1.4-5; 1 Macc 2:1-2; Jub 11:15).

Nicknames are acquired by people for any number of reasons, such as distinctive physical characteristic. Josephus mentions the nickname of his grandfather Matthias as "Curtus," which means "humpback" (Life 1.4). Older examples of this would be Hakkatan or "Tiny" (Ezra 8:12) and Kareah or "Baldy" (2 Kg 25:23). Among Jesus' disciples, James and John are known as "Boanerges" or "Sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17) and Simon as "Rock Man" (Matt 16:16-17; see Simon "the Leper," Matt 26:6). This type of naming was very common in the culture which produced the Hebrew scriptures; one thinks of Jacob's nickname as "the Supplanter" (Gen 27:36) and Nabal as "Fool": "For as his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him" (1 Sam 25:25). Nicknames which convey neutral or positive images might be used when actually addressing a person face-to-face, whereas nicknames which label a person negatively might be used behind a person's back as challenges to their honor and status.

Names deriving from occupation, origin and affiliation indicate that individuals draw their role and status from the popular evaluation of origin, occupation, and affiliation. Paul claims significant social status by birth as a Roman citizen in Tarsus, "no low-status city" (Acts 21:39; 22:3); and his public career let him reside in most of the truly honorable cities of the ancient world: Antioch, Corinth and Rome. We do not know the precise value to ascribe to the place from which Simon of Cyrene comes (Matt 27:32), much less the honor rating of Ethiopia, the home of the eunuch mentioned in Acts 8:27 or the various worths of the places from which the Pentecost crowd came (Acts 2:9-11). Proper honor evaluation would depend upon the ancient stereotype of these places, which can be found in ancient rhetorical and physiognomic literature.

In regard to other aspects of names, both Joseph and Jesus are both known in terms of their occupation, name, "carpenter" (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3); John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth becomes known in terms of his social role, namely, "the Baptizer" (Matt 3:1; 11:11-12; 14:2, 8). Among Jesus's disciples, Matthew is known as "the Toll Collector" (Matt 10:3). In terms of affiliation, Paul tells us that he was a "Pharisee," indeed, a Pharisee's Pharisee (Phil 3:5-6). Some people have no personal identity except the name of the party to which they belong, such as Epicurean and Stoic (Acts 17:18). Whatever honor is ascribed from this type of name depends on the local evaluation of place, occupation and affiliation. In general, Jesus would not be particularly honorable being a carpenter from Nazareth (John 1:46).

Finally "patrifilial" names stand out as most important for us because they directly indicate the ascribed honor which an individual enjoys relative to some family, clan and tribe. After all, kinship was the most basic institution in antiquity. For example, when the narrator of 1 Samuel introduces Kish, the father of Saul, he presents him in terms of his family, clan and offspring: "There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth; and he had a son whose name was Saul" (9:1). For the readers of 1 Samuel, Kish's importance lies in the fame of his son, Saul, who became king. James and John are "sons of Zebedee" (Matt 4:20) and Simon is "son of John" (Matt 16:17). The personal name of Salome is much less important to history than her identification as Herod's wife's daughter; her legitimacy and status were called into question by John. All we need to know is told us when Matthew narrates that "the daughter of Herodias danced. . ." (Matt 14:6).

When we apply this typology of names to Jesus, we get some very interesting results. In regard to personal names, Jesus was ascribed his personal name, "jesus," by God (Matt 1:21). Although his name does not formally link him with his kinship group, such that he would automatically enjoy honor from that association, yet it describes in a general way his role and status, which is to be "savior of his people." Many personal names in ancient Israel were theophroic names, that is, names in which some relationship to the deity was recognized. For example, Zechariah means "Yahweh has remembered" and Gamaliel means "Recompense of God." "Jesus," which was not an uncommon name in the first century, simply meant "the salvation of the Lord," without any particular reference to the individual's actual social status. But in a useful discussion of just this name, Philo commented on the change of names of the great Joshua and notes that this figure, who was once called Hoshea ("he is saved") received a change of names to Jesus (), which in fact implied a new role and status, namely, "salvation from the Lord" ( ) (Mut. 121). Thus his personal name, "Jesus," describes the role that Joshua will play in mediating the safety and salvation of God to his people. Thus great honor is ascribed to the offspring of Joseph and Mary by virtue of his personal name, for in the context of the gospel his name "jesus" not only indicates favor of God, but also the significant role and status ascribed to him by God, namely, Savior.

We do not know any nickname of Jesus, although his enemies attempted to stigmatize him with many negative labels. In terms of origin, occupation and affiliation, Jesus "of Nazareth" who is the son of the carpenter would not be regarded as a particularly worthy or important person. In terms of origin, Nazareth is not an honored place, and so to call him "Jesus of Nazareth" stereotypes him as deserving of little honor (John 1:46). Elites did not work, which immediately set them apart from 90% of the population which labored for its daily bread. Working for wages rather than being master of one's own farm, however modest in size, indicated a still lower status.

In societies where central government is strong and has direct contact with citizenry through a bureaucracy there is more or less equal access to resources and services for all regardless of race, creed, ethnic background or birth. In societies where a weak central government has little direct contact with its citizenry, hence law cannot be enforced, patronage becomes the system for mediating goods and services.

Patrons are powerful individuals who control resources and are expected to use their positions to hand out favors to inferiors based on friendship, personal knowledge and favoritism. Benefactor patrons were expected to generously support city, village or client. The emperor related to major public officials this way, and they in turn related to those beneath them in similar fashion. Cities related to towns and towns to villages in the same way. A pervasive social network of patron-client relations thus arose. Connections meant everything and having few was shameful.

Brokers mediate between patrons above and clients below. First order resources - land, jobs, goods, funds, power - are all controlled by patrons. Second order resources - strategic contact with or access to patrons - are controlled by brokers who mediate the goods and services a patron has to offer. City officials serve as brokers of imperial resources. Holy men or prophets could also act as brokers on occasion. Jesus is regularly labeled as a "mediator": 1 Tim 2:5; Heb 7:26; and all times that Paul talks about grace and peace coming "through" Jesus Christ.

Clients are those dependent on the largesse of patrons or brokers to make it in the system. They owe loyalty and public acknowledgment of honor in return. Patronage was voluntary but ideally life-long. Note that one cannot be client of both God and the wealth-system (Lk. 16:13).

Friends are social equals and having few is shameful. Bound by reciprocal relations, friends are obligated to help. Patrons (or brokers) are not. They must be cultivated. Jesus' enemies call him a "friend" of tax collectors and sinners (7:34; 15:1-2).

In the New Testament the language of grace is the language of patronage. God is the ultimate patron whose resources are graciously given and often mediated through Jesus as broker (See the frequent comment that Jesus spoke with the authority of his patron. Cf. 4:32,36). Luke expects the rich patrons of his community to be generous, but is intensely critical when they are not (12:13-21). (Cf. Dio Chrysostom who defends himself against this same charge.)

The Judean historian, Josephus, describes his relationship with the Roman emperor, Titus, who became his Patron: (Titus) gave me another parcel of ground in the plain. On his departure for Rome, he took me with him on board, treating me with every mark of respect. On our arrival in Rome I met with great consideration from Vespasian. He gave me a lodging in the house which he had occupied before he became Emperor; he honored me with the privilege of Roman citizenship; and he assigned me a pension. He continued to honour me up to the time of this departure from this life, without any abatement in his kindness toward me (Josephus, Vita 422-23).

The following except from Dionysius of Halicarnassus provides a native point of view about patronage and patron/client relations. Try to figure out the point of view of author: is he an impartial reporter? Does he favor one side of the relationship? Which one?
 

IX. After Romulus had distinguished those of superior rank from their inferiors, he next established laws by which the duties of each were prescribed. The patricians were to be priests, magistrates and judges, and were to assist him in the management of public affairs, devoting themselves to the business of the city. The plebeians were excused from these duties, as being unacquainted with them and because of their small means wanting leisure to attend to them, but were to apply themselves to agriculture, the breeding of cattle and the exercise of gainful trades. This was to prevent them from engaging in sedition, as happens in other cities when either the magistrates mistreat the lowly, or the common people and the needy envy those in authority. He places the plebeians as a trust in the hands of the patricians, by allowing every plebeian to choose for his patron any patrician whom he himself wished. In this he improved upon an ancient Greek custom that was in use among the Thessalians for a long time and among the Athenians in the beginning. For the former treated their clients with haughtiness, imposing on them duties unbecoming of free men; and whenever they disobeyed any of their commands, they beat them and misused them in all other respects as if they had been slaves they had purchased. The Athenians called their clients "thetes" or "hirelings," because they served for hire, and the Thessalians called theirs "penestai" or "toilers," by the very name reproaching them with their condition. But Romulus not only recommended the relationship by a handsome designation, calling this protection of the poor and lowly a "patronage," but he also assigned friendly offices [i.e., "duties"] to both parties, thus making the connexion between them a bond of kindness befitting fellow citizens.

X. The regulations which he then instituted concerning patronage and which long continued in use among the Romans were as follows: It was the duty of the patricians to explain to their clients the laws, of which they were ignorant; to take the same care of them when absent as present, doing every that fathers do for their sons with regard both to money and to the contracts that related to money; to bring suit on behalf of their clients when they were wronged in ;connexion with contracts, and to defend them against any who brought charges against them; and, to put the matter briefly, to secure for them both in private and in public affairs all that tranquillity of which they particularly stood in need. It was the duty of the clients to assist their patrons in providing dowries for their daughters upon their marriage if the fathers had not sufficient means; to pay their ransom to the enemy if any of them or of their children were taken prisoner; to discharge out of their own purses their patrons' losses in private suits and the pecuniary fines which they were condemned to pay to the State, making these contributions to them not as loans but as thank-offerings; and to share with their patrons the costs incurred in their magistracies and dignities and other public expenditures, in the same manner as if they were their relations. For both patrons and clients alike it was impious and unlawful to accuse each other in law-suits or to bear witness or to give their votes against each other or to be found in the number of each other's enemies; and whoever was convicted of doing any of these things was guilty of treason by virtue of the law sanctioned by Romulus, and might lawfully be put to death by any man who so wised as a victim devoted to Jupiter of the infernal regions. For it was customary among Romans, whenever they wished to put people to death without incurring any penalty, to devote their persons to some god or other, and particularly to the gods of the lower world. And this was the course which Romulus then adopted. Accordingly, the connexions between the clients and patrons continued for many generations, differing in no wise from the ties of blood-relationship and being handed down to their children's children. And it was a matter of great praise to men of illustrious families to have as many clients as possible and not only to preserve the succession of hereditary patronages but also by their own merit to acquire others. And it is incredible how great the contest of goodwill was between the patrons and clients, as each side strove not to be outdone by the other in kindness, the clients feeling that they should render all possible services to their patrons and the patrons wishing by all means not to occasion any trouble with their clients and accepting no gifts of money. So superior was their many of life to all pleasure; for they measured their happiness by virtue, not by fortune."
 

Honor and Self-sufficiency: clients avoid patrons

"They who consider themselves wealthy, honoured, the favorites of fortune, do not wish ever to be put under obligations by our kind services. Why, they actually think that they have conferred a favour by accepting one, however, great; and they suspect that a claim is thereby set up against them or that something is expected in return. Nay more, it is bitter death to them to have accepted a patron or to be called clients" (Cicero, de Off. 2.20.69).

Pilch and Malina (Biblical Social Values): "Humble persons do not threaten or challenge another's rights, nor do they claim more for themselves than has been duly allotted them in life. They even stay a step below or behind their rightful status (e.g., the "unworthy" John, Mark 1:7). Thus humility is a socially acknowledged claim to neutrality in the competition of life. Conversely, to attempt to better oneself at the expense of others, to acquire more than others, to strive for honors others now enjoy, are all instances of proud and arrogant behavior. . . To humble or humiliate oneself is to declare oneself powerless to defend one's status (e.g. Phil 2:8), and then to act accordingly either factually (becoming powerless, like the low-born), or ritually (by a rite in which the use of power is set aside, symboled by behavior typical of the low-born: fasting, rend garments, weeping, lamenting, confession -- e.g. Lev 26:41; 1 Kings 21:29; 2 Kings 22:8-20; Ps 69:10). . . While Jesus is no arrogant teacher (Matt 11:29), yet he does not exhort to traditional self-humiliation, but simply that one not challenge the honor of others (Matt 23:12; Luke 14:11; 18:14), as though one were as powerless to do so as a child (Matt 18:4)."
 

The "poor in spirit" are honored victims, people whose rights have been infringed and challenged; who are far from claiming any wealth or status. It is not that they are neutral in the agonistic competition of the village; they are precisely victims. All the other beatitudes are "visible": mourning, hungry, meek (landless), just (lives up to obligations), cast out and shamed.

The pervasive presence of the poor in Lucan texts probably reflects the situation of an earlier stage in the tradition than that of Luke himself. His knowledge of poverty is secondhand, via the tradition, which he uses to criticize the rich of his own congregation to whom he writes.

The term poor, "ptochos," should be understood in concrete (Luke does not spiritualize poverty), though not exclusively economic, terms. It is a social reality as well as an economic one. Essential to understanding it is the notion of "limited good." In modern economies, we make the assumption that goods are, in principle, in unlimited supply. If a shortage exists, we can produce more. If one person gets more of something, it does not automatically mean someone else gets less, it may just mean the factory worked overtime and more became available.

But in ancient Palestine, the perception was the opposite: all goods existed in finite, limited supply. This included not only material goods, but honor, friendship, love, power, security and status as well - literally everything in life. The pie could not grow larger, hence a larger piece for anyone automatically meant a smaller piece for someone else.

An honorable man would thus be interested only in what is rightfully his and would have no desire to gain anything more, i.e., to take what is another's. Acquisition was, by its very nature, understood as stealing. The ancient Mediterranean attitude was, "Every rich person is either unjust or the heir of an unjust person" (St. Jerome: "Every rich person is a thief or the heir of a thief," In Hieremiam, II,V,2,CCL LXXIV 61). Profit-making and the acquisition of wealth were automatically assumed to be the result of extortion or fraud. The notion of an honest rich man was a first-century oxymoron.

To be labeled "rich" was therefore a social and moral statement as much as an economic one. It meant the power or capacity to take from someone weaker what was rightfully his. Being rich was therefore synonymous with being greedy. By the same token, to be "poor" was to be unable to defend what was yours. It meant falling below the status at which one was born. It was to be defenseless, without recourse.

Note how often in the New Testament poverty is associated with a condition of powerlessness or misfortune. In Luke 4:18-19 the poor are the imprisoned, the blind, the debtors. Matt. 11:4-5 associates the poor with the blind, lame, lepers, deaf and dead. Luke 14:13,21 lists the poor with the maimed, the lame and the blind. Mark 12:42-43 tells of a "poor" widow (women without attachment to a male were often portrayed as the prototypical victim). In Luke 16:19-31 the rich man is contrasted with poor Lazarus, a beggar full of sores. Rev. 3:17 describes the poor as wretched, pitiable, blind and naked.

In a society in which power brought wealth (in our society it is the opposite: wealth brings power), being powerless meant being vulnerable to the greedy who prey on the weak. The terms "rich" and "poor," therefore, are not exclusively economic. Fundamentally they describe a social condition relative to one's neighbors: the poor are the weak, while the rich are the strong.

Prayer is a socially meaningful symbolic act of communication, bearing directly upon persons perceived as somehow supporting, maintaining, and controlling the order of existence of the one praying, and performed with the purpose of getting results from or in the interaction of communication. This definition identifies the nature of the activity, its object and its purpose. Prayer may take the form of petition, adoration, contrition or thanksgiving, but it is always a communication. Since prayer always addresses the person perceived as supporting, maintaining and controlling the order of existence of the one praying, it presupposes a superior/subordinate relationship. Finally prayer aims to have some effect on the person with whom the pray-er communicates, that is, it seeks results.

Prayers Classified by Their Object and Purpose

1. Instrumental ("I want..."): petitionary prayers to obtain goods and services for individual and social needs.

2. Regulatory ("Do as I tell you..."): prayers to control the activity of God, to command God to order people and things about on behalf of the one praying.⁽¹⁾

3. Interactional ("me and you..."): prayer to maintain emotional ties with God; prayer of simple presence.

4. Self-focused ("Here I come. . .; here I am..."): prayers that identify the self -- individual and social -- to God; prayers of contrition and humility, as well as boasting and superiority.

5. Heuristic ("Tell me why...?"): prayer that explores the world of God and God's workings within us individually and collectively; meditative prayers, perceptions of the spirit in prayer.

6. Imaginative ("Let's pretend..."): prayer to create an environment of one's own with God; prayers in tongues and those recited in languages unknown to the pray-er.

7. Informative ("I have something to tell you"): prayers that communicate new information: prayers of acknowledgment, praise and thanksgiving.⁽²⁾

It has been thought that there should be three reasons for punishing crimes. One of these the Greeks call either kolasis or nouthesia, is the infliction of punishment for the purpose of correction and reformation, in order that one who has done wrong thoughtlessly may become more careful and scrupulous. The second is called timoria by those who have made a more exact differentiation between terms of this kind. That reason for punishment exists when the dignity and prestige of the one who is sinned against must be maintained, lest the omission of punishment bring him into contempt and diminish the esteem in which he is held; and therefore they think that it was given a name derived from the preservation of honour [Gk: time]. A third reason for punishment is that which is called by the Greeks paradeigma, when punishment is necessary for the sake of example, in order that others through fear of a recognized penalty may be kept from similar sins, which it is to the common interest to prevent. Therefore our forefathers used the world exempla, or "examples," for the severest and heaviest penalties.

Accordingly, when there is either strong hope that the culprit will voluntarily correct himself without punishments, or on the other hand when there is no hope that he can be reformed and corrected; or when there is no need to fear loss of prestige in the one who has been sinned against; for it the sin is not of such a sort that punishment must be inflicted in order that it may inspire a necessary feeling of fear - then lin the case of all such sins the desire to inflict punishment does not seem to be at all fitting (Attic Nights 7.14.1-4).

Virtually all societies draw distinctions between the clean and unclean. Such purity distinctions embody the core values of a society and thereby provide clarity, direction and consistency to social behavior. What accords with these values and their structural expression in a purity system is considered "pure," what does not is viewed as "polluted."

Pollution refers to what is out of place, what does not belong. Purity systems thus provide "maps" designating social space and time in which everything and everybody either fits and is considered clean or does not and is regarded as defiled. As such, they provide boundaries marking off the places and times where things and people belong. The Judaism of Jesus' day provided such maps of: (1) time, which specified rules for the Sabbath, when to say the Shema and when circumcision should be performed; (2) places, spelling out what could be done in the various precincts of the temple or where the scapegoat was to be sent on the Day of Atonement; (3) persons, designating whom one could marry, touch, or eat with, who could divorce, who could enter the various spaces in the temple and temple courtyards and who could hold certain offices or perform certain actions; (4) things, that were considered clean or unclean, could be offered in sacrifice or allowed contact with the body; (5) meals, that determined what could be eaten, how it was to be grown, prepared or slaughtered, in what vessels it could be served, when and where it could be eaten and with whom it could be shared; and (6) uncleanness, which offered guidelines for avoiding polluting contact. Eg., see the maps of: times, 6:1-5; uncleanness, 8:42-48.

Controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees over such purity norms can be seen throughout the Gospels, often as a result of Jesus disregarding accepted interpretations of the maps. He does not observe the map of times (Luke 6:1-11), or the map of places (Luke 19:45-46). The same is true of the map of persons: Jesus touches lepers (Luke 5:13), menstruating women (Luke 8:43-48) and corpses (Luke 8:54). The map of things is disregarded when Jesus neglects washing rites in Luke 11:37-38. Contrary to the map of meals, in Luke 10:7-8 Jesus counsels contravention of dietary laws and eats with tax collectors and sinners (Luke 5:29-30). By disregarding such maps the Jesus movement asserts a clear rejection of the established temple purity system.

Though it is common in the contemporary world to think of politics, the economic system and religion as distinct social institutions (and to make arguments about keeping them separate), no such pattern existed in antiquity. In the world of the New Testament only two institutions existed: kinship and politics. Neither religion nor economics had a separate institutional existence or was conceived of as a system on its own.

Economics was rooted in the family, which was both the producing and consuming unit of antiquity (unlike the modern industrial society in which the family is normally a consuming unit but not a producing one). There was also a political economy in the sense that political systems were used to control the flow and distribution of goods, but nowhere do we meet the terminology of an economic "system" in the modern sense. There is no language implying abstract concepts of market, or monetary system or fiscal theory. Economics is "embedded," meaning that economic goals, production, roles, employment, organization and systems of distribution are governed by political and kinship considerations, not "economic" ones.

Religion likewise has no separate, institutional existence in the modern sense. It is rather an overarching system of meaning that unifies political and kinship systems (including their economic aspects) into an ideological whole. It serves to legitimate and articulate (or delegitimate and criticize) the patterns of both politics and family. Its language is drawn from both kinship relations (father, son, brother, sister, virgin, child, honor, praise, forgiveness, etc.) and politics (king, kingdom, princes of this world, powers, covenant, law, etc.) rather than a discreet realm called religion. There could be domestic religion and/or political religion, but no religion in a separate, abstract sense. Thus the temple is never a religious institution somehow separate from political institutions. Nor is worship ever separate from what one does in the home. Religion is the meaning one gives to the way the two fundamental systems, politics and kinship, are put into practice.

In trying to understand the meaning of Jesus' statement about rendering to Caesar and God what belongs to each, therefore, it would be anachronistic to read back into the statement either the modern idea of the separation of church and state or the notion that economics (including the tax system) somehow has a separate institutional existence in a realm of its own. Thus the frequent notion that "two kingdoms," one political/economic and the other religious, one belonging to Caesar and the other to God, are each being given their due in the reply of Jesus is to confuse ancient social patterns with our own.

First, the theory: Victor Turner described the difference between "rituals" and "ceremonies" thus: "I consider the term 'ritual' to be more fittingly applied to forms of religious behavior associated with social transitions, while the term 'ceremony' has a closer bearing on religious behavior associated with religious states. . .ritual is transformative, ceremony confirmatory.

The following model tries to bring out the distinction between "transformatory ritual" from "confirmatory ceremonies"
 

Elements of a Ritual	Elements of a Ceremony
1. Frequency: irregular pauses	1. Frequency: regular pauses
2. Schedule/calendar: unpredictable, when needed	2. Schedule/calendar: predictable, planned
3. Temporal focus:  present-to-future	3. Temporal focus: past-to-present
4. Presided over by: professionals	4. Presided over by: officials
5. Purpose: status reversal; status transformation	5. Purpose: confirmation of roles and statuses in given institutions

 
 

In the Mediterranean societies of the first century, one's honor-status determined both position in the community and the nature of one's life-chances. Though primarily determined by birth (ascribed), honor could also be acquired through outstanding valor or service or in meeting the challenges of daily living in an extraordinary way (See the Cameo Essays on Honor-Shame, 4:16-30 and Challenge-Riposte, 4:1-13).

Throughout his Gospel, Luke presents Jesus as a person whose words and deeds are all out of proportion to the honor-status of a village artisan. Thus Luke's account shows repeatedly how Jesus is recognized by friend and foe (grudgingly, indirectly, ironically) alike as being more than he initially appears. He is in fact the honored Son of God.

Notices in the Gospel that Jesus' opponents "feared the people" (20:19) or that they could not do anything because "all the people hung on his words" (19:48) are indications that Jesus' honor-status in the public mind rendered him invulnerable. Thus in order to destroy him, it became necessary for Jesus' opponents first to destroy his standing in the eyes of the people. In all of the Gospels they do so through what anthropologists call "status degradation rituals," by which is meant a process of publicly re-casting, re-labeling, humiliating and thus re-categorizing a person as a social deviant. Such rituals express the moral indignation of the denouncers and often mock or denounce a person's former identity in such a way as to destroy it totally. Usually it is accompanied by a revisionist account of the person's past which indicates he has been deviant all along. A variety of social settings - trials, hearings, political rallies - can be the occasion for this destruction of a person's public identity and credibility. See the Cameo Essay on Deviance Labeling, 11:14-23.

As Jesus is brought to the house of the high priest (22:53), the first of the degradation rituals which Luke records takes place. Jesus is blindfolded, struck from behind and mocked as a "prophet." He is reviled and insulted in other ways as well. By such humiliation in public (this apparently takes place in view of the courtyard where Peter and the others stand by, since Jesus can turn and look at Peter) which he appears powerless to prevent, Jesus' lofty status in the eyes of the people begins to crumble.

This process continues before the Council on the following day (22:66-71), and then quickly shifts to the arraignment before Pilate (23:1-7). Political charges ("perverting the nation") are illustrated by a retrospective re-casting of Jesus' teaching ("forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar" Cf. 20:19-26) and then repeated with the claim that the whole territory can bear witness to what has happened.

In the "trial" before Herod the humiliation of Jesus is described in brief, but graphic detail. Soldiers array him in gorgeous apparel and mock him in response to accusations by the chief priests and scribes.

The final re-casting of Jesus' identity comes before the chief priests and rulers and the people. Three times Pilate seeks to release Jesus, but the crowd is insistent. They cry out that they prefer the release of Barabbas, an insurrectionist and murderer, whose name in Aramaic Bar-'Abba' means "son of the father." In the ultimate irony of the entire degradation ritual, Jesus, the true Son of the Father, and Barabbas, the common criminal, have switched roles. As the crowd and rulers acquiesce, Jesus is reduced to a level of utter contempt.

The attempts of many to treat all this as a "legal" trial notwithstanding (frequently citing the regulations of the Mishnah for the conduct of criminal cases even though there is little attempt here to "prove" criminality), Luke and the other evangelists (it is especially clear in Matthew) portray these events as a public ritual of humiliation aimed at destroying the status that until now had given Jesus credibility in the eyes of the public. In the end, the success of the degradation ritual made Pilate's "sentence" a mere recognition of the obvious.

Those coming to arrest him in Gethsemane are greeted by Jesus with the comment, "Have you come out as against a robber...?" The Greek term used here by Luke, , is consistently employed by Josephus to describe the phenomenon of social banditry which played such a pivotal role in the spreading chaos prior to the great revolt of 66 c.e.

Social banditry is a phenomenon that is nearly universal in agrarian societies in which peasants and landless laborers are exploited by a ruling elite which siphons off most of the economic surplus they produce. Persons driven off the land by debt or violence or social chaos of any sort, resort to brigandage in which the elite are the primary victims. Recent evidence indicates that the popular legends of bandits who rob the rich and aid the poor frequently have a basis in actual experience. Moreover, such bandits usually have the support of the local peasantry who sometimes risk their own lives to harbor them. Historically, such banditry increases rapidly whenever debt, famine, taxation, political or economic crises force marginal peasants from their land.

According to Josephus, social banditry, caused by exactly such conditions, was widespread in Palestine prior to the reign of Herod the Great and again in the mid-first century leading up to the great revolt. In the days of Antipater (father of Herod the Great) Josephus tells how a Hezekiah, "a brigand-chief ( ) with a very large gang, was over-running the district on the Syrian frontier" (J.W. 1.204). Later he vividly describes the strenuous efforts of Herod to rid the territory of these bandits who usually hid in the inaccessible wadis and caves of the hill country:

With ropes he lowered (over the cliffs) the toughest of his men in large baskets until they reached the mouths of the caves; they then slaughtered the brigands and their families, and threw firebrands at those who resisted....Not a one of them voluntarily surrendered and of those brought out forcibly many preferred death to captivity (J.W. 1.311).

Such gangs of roving bandits formed much of the fighting force in the early stages of the great revolt, and it was they who coalesced with other groups to eventually form the Zealot party after the revolt broke out. While we hear less about such activity during the lifetime of Jesus, it undoubtedly existed since the conditions that produce it are those pictured in stories throughout the synoptic gospels.

It is also striking that the term Josephus uses for such bandits, , is the term Jesus uses when the chief priests, officers of the temple and elders come with swords and clubs to arrest him (Luke 22:52). Moreover, this same term is used by Mark (15:27) to describe the two men who were crucified on either side of Jesus (Luke changes it to the more general term for robbers, ). Some have likewise argued that social banditry is implied in the term Luke uses in 22:37 ( ), sometimes translated "transgressors" but more properly translated "outlaws," suggesting that Jesus was numbered among such by his accusers. Finally, Barabbas, who is called a in John's Gospel (18:40), and is said in Luke to have been arrested in connection with a riot in the city, probably should be seen in this light as well.

'Role' refers to a set of 'expectations' for interaction between a person who holds one position in a group and another person who holds a reciprocal position. In other words, there can be no 'leader' role without a 'follower' role (Hare IESS 6.283)
 

Roles have a form and a content, where form includes the frequency of interaction and the communication network and the content includes tasks and social-emotional behavior. Within the task area, the expectations refer to problem-solving behavior and within the social-emotional area, according to one recent formulation, to behavior along at least three dimensions: dominance-submission, positive-negative, and joking-serious (Couch 1960; Hare 1962) (Hare, IESS 6.284)
 

Task versus social-emotional roles. ". . .two kinds of role specialists: one an 'idea man' who concentrates on the task and plays a more aggressive role; the other a 'best-liked' man who concentrates on social-emotional problems of group process and member satisfaction, giving emotional rewards and playing a more passive role (Hare IESS 6.285)
 

The concept of role, borrowed from the stage, has been central in those sociological analyses which seek to link the functioning of the social order with the characteristics and behavior of the individuals who make it up. . .the following elements appear in the definition of role: it provides a comprehensive pattern for behavior and attitudes; it constitutes a strategy for coping with a recurrent type of situation; it is socially identified, more of less clearly, as an entity; it is subject to being played recognizably by different individuals; and it supplies a major basis for identifying and placing persons in society (Turner IESS 13.552)
 

"Status" Until about 1920 the term status was most commonly used to refer to either the legally enforceable capacities and limitations of people or their relative superiority and inferiority. More recently, the rights and duties fixed by law have seemed less significant than those fixed by custom; and thus the non-secular usage, now often called "status in the Linton sense," after the social anthropologist Ralph Linton (1936), has come to be a synonym of any "position in a social system. . .Whereas formerly superiority of status could mean any sort of hierarchical ordering -- of power, wealth, or honor -- to many it now refers only to esteem, prestige, honor, respect, that is, to various forms of evaluation.

According to Linton, a status is marked off by the fact that distinctive beliefs about, and expectations for, social actors are organized around it. 'Child' is a status because we believe children are less mature than adults and because in American society children are expected to be more submissive to the authority of their parents than are adults. . .Age, sex, birth, genealogy, and other biological and constitutional characteristics are very common bases of status. Nevertheless, status is a phenomenon, not of the intrinsic characteristics of men, but of social organization. . . What matters is not what you really are but what people believe you to be" (Zelditch, IESS 15.250).
 
 

The term status is often not clearly distinguished from the term role, and some use the two terms almost interchangeably. But one can make the distinction easily enough if one keeps in mind that status defines who a person is (e.g., he is a child, or a Negro, or a doctor), while role defines what such a person is expected to do (e.g., he is too young to work; he should not want to push himself ahead; he should care about patients). . .A common method of identifying the statuses of a social system is to discover its 'lists' of status designators. For example, kinship studies typically begin with a list of kin terms and their usage. If father's son and father's brother's son are both brothers, they have a common status (Zelditch, IESS 15.251).
 

Sets and sequences and roles. Social position is always defined relative to a counter position. A doctor behaves to a patient in one way, to a nurse in a second way, and to a hospital administrator in a third way. The elementary unit of analysis for social systems, therefore, is not the status itself, but the relation of two statuses (Zelditch, IESS 15.252).
 

"Current Summaries from Anthropology Textbooks"

Components of Social Structure: One of the most important components of social structure is status. A status is a recognized position that a person occupies within society. A person's status determines where he or she fits in society in relationship to everyone else. A status may be based on or accompanied by wealth, power, prestige, or a combination of all of these. Thus the different statuses in a society are related to the division of labor, the political system, and other cultural variables.

All societies recognize both ascribed and achieved statuses. An ascribed status is one that is attached to a person from birth. The most prevalent ascribed statuses are based on family and kinship relations (for example, daughter or son), sex (male or female), and age. In addition, in some societies ascribed statuses are based on one's race or ethnicity. For example, as we will see in a later chapter, skin color is used to designate ascribed status differences in South Africa under the system of apartheid. In contrast, an achieved status is based at least in part on a person's specific actions. Examples of achieved statuses are one's profession and level of education.

Closely related to status is the concept of social roles. A role is a set of expected behavior patterns, obligations, and norms attached to a particular status. The distinction between status and role is a simple one: you "occupy" a certain status, but you "play" a role (Linton, 1936). For example, as a student you occupy a certain status that differs from that of your teacher, administrators, or other staff. As you occupy that status you perform by attending lectures, taking notes, participating in class, and studying for examinations. This concept of role is derived from the theater and refers to the parts played by actors on the stage. If you are a husband, mothers, son, daughter, teacher, lawyer, judge, male or female, you are expected to behave in certain ways because fo the norms associated with that particular status.

As mentioned, the social statuses within a society usually correspond to wealth, power, and prestige. Anthropologists find that all societies have inequality in statuses, which are arranged in a hierarchy. This inequality of statuses is known as social stratification. . . (Raymond Scupin and Christopher De Corse, Anthropology and Global Perspective, 2nd ed; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995, p. 280).

Recent studies of genealogies indicate a wide variety of social purposes for them which in turn affected their form and character: preserving tribal homogeneity or cohesion, interrelating diverse traditions, acknowledging marriage contracts between extended families, maintaining ethnic identity. (Most Old Testament genealogies, for example, are from priestly writings or the period following the Babylonian exile when concern for community survival and integrity made ethnic purity a major issue.) Above all, genealogies established claims to social status (honor) or a particular office (priest, king), thereby providing the map for proper social interaction. It is thus this social function, rather than an interest in historical information, that should govern our attempts to understand the role played by the genealogy of Jesus.

All of the genealogies of the New Testament, indeed almost all those known from the agrarian period in the near east, are patrilineal, though evidence of matrilineal genealogies does exist for a much earlier period. Circumcision and naming rituals (See the Cameo Essay on Circumcision, 1:58-66) from this earlier period, carried out at the age of either puberty or marriage, may thus reflect the social acknowledgment of paternity (fictive or real) or paternal responsibility that could not be ascertained biologically. In publicly acknowledging a boy to be one's son, a father not only accepted responsibility but determined his status (honor) in the community as well. Genealogies documented what these rituals acknowledged. Designating a male child the "son of..." thus carried considerable social freight and as a result genealogies became particularly important to the elite classes who used them to document their places in the community.

The form of the genealogy of Jesus in Luke gives special stress to the notion "son of...," though unlike any other known genealogy from antiquity the ancestry it traces goes all the way back to God. Though this may indicate the oft-cited universalism of Lucan theology, it is also a clear attempt to document divine (paternal) responsibility as well as an honor status sharply contrasting with the biological and social circumstances of Jesus' birth. Its placement in the Lucan text immediately following the affirmation (3:22) of Jesus as the "son" with whom God is "well pleased," makes clear Luke's intention that it function in this way.
 

See the following web site:

www.georgetown.edu/faculty/pilchj

under his file "Mediterranean Culture," click on "genealogy"
 

"... the child, while still soft, shall be molded like wax, and be kept in swaddling clothes till it is two years old." -- Plato (Laws)

Swaddling has been widely practiced throughout the world and is still used in villages of Syria, Palestine and Lebanon. It refers to the practice of tightly binding the trunk and limbs of a baby in cloth or other material. The purpose has been variously construed, though is usually seen to provide strength and security and to insure a straight, strong, healthy body. Swaddling went out of style among upper-class Western Europeans in the eighteenth century (though it was still used in many areas, including America, into the late l9th century) as much for social as for scientific reasons, coming to be considered an unnatural restraint on human freedom. The swaddling clothes of Jesus are cited in some early Christian literature as having miraculous powers to cure disease.
 

One of the best attested aspects of the Jesus tradition is his association with tax (more accurately, "toll") collectors and other socially undesirable types. Understanding the position of tax collectors in Palestine in the first century, however, requires careful, nuanced treatment. Most important is to distinguish between "chief" tax-collectors such as Zaccheus, (Lk. 9:2), and their employees, , such as those referred to in Lk. 3:12. We must also understand what is meant by the term "tax."

Unlike the system of powerful, wealthy, tax-collecting associations of the republican period (509-31 B.C.E.), under imperial Rome, native entrepreneurs, (sometimes cities), contracted with the Roman administration to collect local taxes. Such individuals were required to pay the tax allotment in advance and then organize collection in the contracted district in hopes of turning a profit. Evidence indicates that such ventures were risky, open to abuse and often far from profitable. That some became rich is evident from Luke 19:2, but many clearly did not. The familiar in the synoptic tradition (Cf. Lk. 3:12; 5:27,29,30; 7:29,34; 15:1; 18:10,11,13) were for the most part employees of the and were often rootless persons unable to find other work. Evidence from the late imperial period suggests that cheating or extortion on their part would be less likely to benefit themselves than the for whom they worked.

Taxes in the first century were both direct and indirect. Direct taxes were levied on land, crops and individuals. Indirect taxes included tolls, duties, and market taxes of various kinds. Toll collectors sitting in customhouses (Mk. 2:14) collected levies on goods entering, leaving or being transported across a district as well as those passing crossover points like bridges, gates or landings. Tradesmen, craftsmen, and even prostitutes payed taxes on all goods and services. Conflict was especially intense between toll collectors and the tradesmen with whom they constantly interacted. Plutarch describes the outrage of travelers, taken for tradesmen, whose baggage was rudely searched for potentially taxable goods. Tolls and other indirect taxes did not play the same role in the Jewish rebellion of 66 c.e. as did direct taxes on land, crops and people.

Though often part of the abuse that such a system brought, few would have been rich and many were doubtless quite fair and honest. In assessing the low moral opinion of tax collectors so frequent in ancient texts we must therefore be careful to ask who it is making the judgments. Recent scholarship suggests that while Jewish moralists only attacked toll collectors when they were dishonest, tradesmen almost always did. Likewise the rich and educated universally held them in contempt. Since the poor, including day laborers, had little or nothing on which such duties could be levied, we would not expect them to be among those who despised .

We must also be careful in assessing the apparent conflict between pharisees and toll collectors in Luke. The evidence is less substantial than one might guess from reading Luke. The Mishnah states, "If tax-gatherers enter a house, the house becomes unclean" (m. Tohorot 7:6). But the house being referred to here belongs to one of the Haberim, the fellowship of those dedicated to ritual purity in table fellowship. It is therefore a special case. The assumption is that if a tax-gatherer entered the house, he would handle everything in order to assess the wealth of the owners. But it is not that the tax-gatherer per se is unclean, it is that anyone handling the objects in such a house would defile them. Thus the attitude expressed by the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14 may not reflect the Palestine of Jesus time so much as the attitudes of rich Christians in Luke's community whom he uses such stories to criticize.

Whereas the Greco-Roman world thought of the human person in terms of body and soul, the Semitic world thought in terms of what anthropologists have called "zones of interaction" with the world around. Three such zones make up the human person and all appear repeatedly in the Gospels:

1) The zone of emotion-fused thought includes will, intellect, judgment, personality, and feeling all rolled together. It is the activity of the eyes and heart (sight, insight, understanding, choosing, loving, thinking, valuing, etc.).

2) The zone of self-expressive speech includes communication, particularly that which is self-revealing. It is listening, and responding. It is the activity of the mouth, ears, tongue, lips, throat and teeth (speaking, hearing, singing, swearing, cursing, listening, eloquence, silence, crying, etc.).

3) The zone of purposeful action is the zone of external behavior or interaction with the environment. It is the activity of the hands, feet, fingers and legs (walking, sitting, standing, touching, accomplishing, etc.).

Human activity can be described in terms of any particular zone or all three. Here in 11:33-36 a single zone comes into play. The "eye" is a metaphor for the zone of emotion-fused thought. When a writer refers to all three zones, we can assume comment is being made about complete human experience. Thus John writes, "That which was from the beginning. which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life..." (I John 1:1). The statement is a Semitic expression of total involvement, "body and soul" as we would say. All three zones are likewise present in the Sermon on the Mount: eyes-heart (Matt. 6:19:7-6, mouth, ears (Matt. 7:7-11) and hands-feet (7:13-27). The same is true of the interpretation of the parable of the sower in Luke 8:11-15. For additional examples, see Ex. 21:24, Prov. 6:16-10, 2 Kings 4:34, Dan. 10:6.

Problem

Based on John J. Pilch, Introducing the Cultural Context of the New Testament

(New York: Paulist Press, 1991, page 224)
 

The Hebrew word for widow, , is the word for a silent one, one unable to speak. In a society in which males played the public role and in which women did not speak on their own behalf, the position of a widow, particularly if an eldest son was not yet married, was one of extreme vulnerability. If there were no sons a widow might return to her paternal family (Lev. 22:13; Ruth 1:8) if that recourse were available. Younger widows were often considered a potential danger to the community and urged to remarry (Cf. I Tim. 5:3-15).

Left out of the prospect of inheritance by Hebrew law, widows became the stereotypical symbol of the exploited and oppressed. Old Testament criticism of the harsh treatment of these women is prevalent (Deut. 22:22-23; Job 22:9; 24:3; 31:16; Ps. 94:6; Isa. 1:23; 10:2; Mal. 3:5). So also are texts in which they are under the special protection of God (Deut. 10:18, Jer. 49:11; Ps. 68:5. See also Deut. 14:29; 24:17, 19-21; 26:12; Lk. 20:47; Jam. 1:27).

In antiquity, all persons, but especially women, were socially, religiously, economically and psychologically embedded in the paternal family. All members contributed to the well-being of the whole. In some degree a marriage dis-embedded a woman from her family of birth and embedded her into that of her new husband. Betrothal, sealed by contract, began that process, and moving to the husband's home after the wedding completed it. Since marriages were arranged, and since God was seen to have been a party in the arrangement ("What therefore God has joined together...," Matt. 19:6), separation was to be avoided.

Nonetheless a wife remained for the most part on the periphery of her new husband's family. She would be perceived as a "stranger," an outsider by everyone in the house. Only after the birth of a son would this attitude diminish because she then had a "blood" relationship on which to depend. A son would be her closest emotional support and would, along with her own brothers and father, defend her against her husband (his father) or even his own wife (her daughter-in-law).

We have studied Lenski's model of social stratification, which indicated that at the top of the social pyramid were the aristocrats and elites (1-2%) and their retainers (5%). Dropping precipitously, the pyramid then locates merchants (few wealthy, most subsistence), artisans (again, mostly subsistence) and peasant farmers (overwhelmingly poor). The ancients themselves makes these same distinctions based on whether one enjoyed leisure (aristocrats) and did not have to work [this left time for philosophy and civic affairs], and the rest of the population which worked, often at slave like tasks just to get by. Thus the Lenski pyramid might be viewed as a snobbery index based on who did not work and who labored. This is Cicero's version of matter:

Cicero, De Officiis 1.149-151

(149) It is our duty to honour and reverence those whose lives are conspicuous for conduct in keeping with their high moral standards, and who, as true patriots, have rendered or are now rendering efficient service to their country, just as much as if they were invested with some civil or military authority: it is our duty also to show proper respect to old age, to yield precedence to magistrates, to make a distinction between a fellow-citizen and a foreigner, and, in the case of the foreigner himself, to discriminate according to whether he has come in an official or a private capacity. In a word, not to go into details, it is our duty to respect, defend, and maintain the common bonds of union and fellowship subsisting among all the members of the human race [qu: what part of the social pyramid is in view here?]
 

(150) Now in regards to trades an other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those whose means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherer and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery. Vulgar we must consider those also who buy from wholesale merchants to retail immediately; for they would get no profits without a great deal of downright lying; and verily, there is no action that is meaner than misrepresentation. And all mechanics are engaged in vulgar trades; for no workshop can have anything liberal about it. Least respectable of all are those trades which cater for sensual pleasures: "Fishmongers, butchers, cooks, and poulterers, and fishermen," as Terence says. Add to these, if you please, the perfumers, dancers, and the whole corps de ballet.
 

(151) But the professions in which either a higher degree of intelligence is required or from which no small benefit to society is derived -- medicine and architecture, for example, and teaching -- these are propr for those whose social position they become. Trade, if it is on a small scale, is to be considered vulgar; but if wholesale and on a large scale, importing large quantities from all parts of the world and distributing to many without representation, it is not to be greatly disparaged. Nay, it even seems to deserve the highest respect, if those who engaged in it, satiated, or rather, I should say, satisfied with the fortunes they have made, make their way from the port to a country estate, as they have often made it from the sea into port. But of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a freeman. [can you see the rising importance of wealth? Even low-status folk can gain high status with great wealth.]

1. Included here are curses, spells, incantations and the like. See Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obgink, eds., Magika Hiera. Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 2^nd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986) and Martin Meyer and Richard Smith, eds., Ancient Christian Magic. Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (San Francisco: Harper, 1994).

2. Malina, "What Is Prayer?" The Bible Today, 217-18.