A Critical Introduction to Social-Scientific Study of the New Testament

Social-scientific criticism of the Bible is an analysis of the biblical texts using the research, theories and models of the social sciences. John Elliott defines it as:

…that phase of the exegetical task which analyzes the social and cultural dimensions of the text and of its environmental context through the utilization of the perspectives, theory, models, and research of the social sciences.[1]

The distinctive characteristics, then, of social-scientific criticism are an emphasis on the ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ dimensions of text and context, and the ‘perspectives, theory, models, and research’ of the social sciences.

One major implication of this definition may be noted at the outset: it assumes the practitioner’s familiarity with the research, theories and models of the social sciences. The use of social-scientific criticism in biblical studies is the application of one independent field of study to another. On the other hand, social-scientific criticism of the New Testament (NT) may be seen as a sub-division of the historical-critical method, which includes source, form, redaction, historical, literary, narrative, textual, rhetorical and theological criticism as well as social-scientific criticism.[2] It is not intended to take the place of other methods, but to be used in conjunction with them.

Social-scientific criticism began to take its place in the modern exegete’s repertoire of critical tools in the 1970’s. There had been an interest in the social phenomena of the biblical world for a long time prior to that. But it was not until the 1970’s that the science of the method was more carefully developed and intentionally used. Prior to the 1970’s one may find collections of social data, attempts to reconstruct a social history of the NT or applications of social data to the exegetical enterprise, but there was no scientific interpretation of these data.[3] That kind of interpretation was first performed in work by Gerd Theissen, Fernando Belo, John Gager, Howard Clark Kee, Bruce Malina and John Elliott (among others). Theissen’s 1973 article had an especially great impact. From the various studies that have been produced over the years, Elliott distils two basic foci:

One focus of research with a social-scientific orientation has been the social and cultural conditions, features, and contours of early Christianity and its social environment. In this case, the social sciences are used to construct theories and models for collecting and analyzing data that illuminate salient features of ancient Mediterranean and early Christian society and culture…[4]

A second dimension of social-scientific criticism is specifically exegetical in nature and directs primary attention to the interpretation of biblical texts.[5]

Current social-scientific approaches to the Bible range from simple collection of social information without attempt to analyse, to the writing of social histories, to the intentional application of social-scientific models and theories for the purpose of analysing specific biblical texts.[6] These approaches can be seen as complementary:

It is clearly the case that analyses of a specifically social-scientific nature are enormously indebted to the extensive body of materials gathered by studies that are primarily descriptive in nature. However, when we consider the theoretical and methodological orientations of this diverse body of research, it is necessary to distinguish in general between approaches involving strictly ‘social description’ with no attempt at social-scientific explanation and those employing social-scientific theory and models for the express purpose of social-scientific explanation so that we are clear about the aims of such research.[7]

As with any new method of criticism, one is inclined to ask why it needs to be used at all. What is the reason for using the social sciences to aid us in biblical interpretation? The reason given by social scientists is that all communication is embedded in its culture of origin. Communication is influenced by and intended to influence the culture whence it comes. It is an outgrowth of a specific social context and a response to that context.[8] Because communication is culturally conditioned, the recipient of the communication needs to understand something about the culture that produced the communication. In other words, if we hope to understand the New Testament, we need first to understand the culture in which it was written.

A ramification of the fact the NT documents are socially conditioned is that they make assumptions about their social context that we do not necessarily share. They “…presume a broadly shared acquaintance with and knowledge of the social context of matters referred to in conversation or writing.”[9] The difficulty comes when the readers of the texts do not in fact share that “acquaintance with and knowledge of the social context.” This is where social-scientific criticism is useful, because it assists us in familiarising ourselves with that original social context.

One of the great values of the social-scientific method is its nature to be clear about what models are being employed. Speaking more generally, there is an attempt to clearly set forth presuppositions from the outset. John Elliott lists the following ten presuppositions of the social-scientific method:[10] First, all knowledge is socially conditioned; that is, the author and the interpreter each exist within a specific context that shapes their understanding. (This is not a statement about the validity of the truth claims of either author or interpreter). This presupposition may prove true, but it is worth asking whether all knowledge really is socially conditioned. Is there anything we know that is not dependent upon our social contexts? If so, what difference does it make whether people have access to some common pool of socially un-conditioned knowledge?

Second, the interpreter must distinguish between the interpreter’s social context and that of the interpreted; where ‘context’ includes all influencing factors. In the case of biblical studies, the distinction is made between the modern interpreter and the authors of the texts. Elliott focuses attention on emic and etic perspectives. Emic perspectives are the perspectives of the subject of interpretation. Identifying these is a matter of social description.

Etic constructs, by employing cross-cultural comparison and by taking into account a full range of factors not mentioned or considered in native reports, attempt to explain how native concepts and perceptions correlate with and are influenced by a full range of material, social, and cognitive factors. They seek to explain why the native thought and behaved so and not otherwise.[11]

Elliott claims that this moves attention away from thinking that ‘their’ views were ‘primitive’ and to consideration of why they thought the way they did.

Such a distinction also allows the modern interpreter the freedom to employ different schemes of classification and more inclusive categories of analysis. This facilitates cross-cultural comparison, generalization, and abstraction through the use of a consistent set of terminology and an inclusive range of empirical categories.[12]

The problem with this presupposition is that it could quite easily mask a tacit presupposition that the etic view is naturally more accurate, informed and well defined than an emic view of things, precisely because it takes more into account. Also, the etic view cannot put itself under examination: whoever is taking the etic view, he himself is doing so under emic conditions. Furthermore, one might ask whether it is beneficial to employ “different schemes of classification and more inclusive categories of analysis” at all. That may only obfuscate the primary concerns of the emic perspective by emptying that perspective into a general category.

Elliott’s third ‘presupposition’ is less a presupposition than a statement of methodology: theories and models should be used to analyse the data, and the researcher should make his/her use of models explicit.[13] Elliott defines a social model in the following way:

An abstract selective representation of the relationships among social phenomena used to conceptualize, analyze, and interpret patterns of social relations, and to compare and contrast one system of social relations with another. Models are heuristic constructs that operationalize particular theories and that range in scope and complexity according to the phenomena to be analyzed.[14]

We are to picture models as built upon theories of how social phenomena are interrelated. They vary in level of abstraction. They may be used to aid us in understanding social phenomena from the target culture, as well as to help us make predictions about the target culture where social phenomena is lacking (i.e., they can be used to fill in the gaps in our knowledge). They also help us make comparisons between cultures, including between their culture and our own. Models are not, however, comprehensive pictures of society. They must be deliberately abstract so as to be functional at all, and they must ignore the dissimilarities between cultures in favour of focusing on the similarities. Here is Bruce Malina’s definition of a model:

…models are simplified approximations of more complex real world realities; their value consists in the understanding that they can generate and the interpretations that they can corroborate. They are not intended to be statements of absolute truth, and they need to be validated. Moreover, they are abstractions based on similarities only and are constructed by shedding the concrete and rich differences that clothe the similarities.[15]

Fourth, the form of reasoning used in social-scientific criticism is ‘abduction’.[16] This seems to be the process of working back and forth between evidence and hypothesis, using evidence to form hypothesis and hypothesis to discover evidence, which further shapes and supports the hypothesis. The obvious danger here is in making use of circular reasoning.

Presupposition five:

The social and cultural models most appropriate for the analysis of the Bible and its environment, it is presumed, are those constructed on the basis of research and data pertaining to the geographical, social, and cultural region inhabited by the biblical communities, that is, the area of the Circum-Mediterranean and ancient Near East.[17]

Presupposition six has to do with several individual presuppositions about texts (either written or oral). It is difficult to follow Elliott on precise presuppositions here, but they seem to be these:[18] 1) texts presume and encode information about the social system in which they were composed; 2) the corollary to this is that to understand the texts we must also understand their social situations of origin; 4) texts are products and expressions of the ideologies and self-interests of their authors; 5) the ‘situation’ into which the text was authored and the author’s ‘strategy’ in authoring the text are important for understanding the text.

Presupposition seven: Whereas history is focussed on unusual events and particularities, social-scientific criticism examines the ordinary and makes generalisations and abstractions about the ordinary.

[Social-scientific] research tends to focus on social groupings and collectivities; regular, recurrent, routinized behavior; common and typical properties; social and systemic relations; institutionalized and structured patterns of behavior and relationships; and synchronic structures and process.[19]

Eight, religion was not a separate institution in the biblical world: “Instead, religion, like economics… and education, was embedded in the two dominant institutions of kinship and politics…”[20]

Nine, the researcher needs to recognize that social science is a field in its own right with its own schools of thought. There are a lot of theories and methods available, but the researcher needs to understand their strengths and weaknesses and know how to use them. The field is very deep in its own right, before it ever comes to be applied to biblical studies.

Ten, “Social-scientific criticism is concerned not only with the original meanings of the biblical documents but also with the aggregations of meanings down through the centuries. It also asks how and under what conditions the Bible continues to be meaningful for modern readers.”[21]

There are many different models that the social-scientific critic might use to analyse the NT. One of the most influential models has been Mary Douglas’ Grid and Group model, which Bruce Malina has used extensively. Because of its influence, it would be wise to say something about it here.

The model can be visualised as two intersecting axes. The vertical axis is labelled ‘grid’ and the horizontal axis is labelled ‘group’. ‘Grid’ refers to the level of correspondence found between the symbols a society uses to make sense of reality and what individuals in that society actually experience:

Grid refers to the degree of socially constrained adherence normally given by members of a society to the prevailing symbol system which enables societal members to bring order and intelligibility to their experiences. Grid points to the degree of match a person finds between the values, norms, and perceptions a society proclaims… and the experiences one has in that society.[22]

Thus high grid indicates a high degree of fit or match between the individual’s experience and societal patterns of perception and evaluation.[23]

Low grid, on the other hand, indicates a low degree of fit or match between an individual’s experiences and society’s patterns of perception and evaluation.[24]

‘Group’ refers to the level of pressure individuals feel to conform to society, as well as how much a part of a larger group individuals perceived themselves to be:

Group, as noted above, refers to the degree of social pressure at work on a given individual or group to conform to the norms of a society. Group refers to the degree to which an individual perceives himself or herself embedded in the larger group or groups in which the individual is emotionally anchored, for example, the family, the neighborhood, the city, the nation.[25]

Weak group indicates low pressure to conform socially along with rather nebulous group identity. Weak group is individualistic.[26]

Strong group indicates a great pressure to conform to socially held values, a strong corporate identity, and a clear distinction between ingroup and outgroup with clear sets of boundaries separating the two.[27]

Thus, possible combinations of these two axes are ‘High Grid / Weak Group’, ‘High Grid / Strong Group’, ‘Low Grid / Strong Group’, and ‘Low Grid / Weak Group’. Malina identifies the NT world as ‘Low Grid / Strong Group’. Each quadrant may be described in terms of several categories, which Malina calls ‘scripts’. The scripts used by Malina are: purity, rite, personal identity, body, sin, cosmology, and suffering and misfortune. These categories seem mainly to rely on ideas regarding the use (or non-use) of boundary lines to provide social definition, but see Malina’s explanation of the categories.[28]

Notice that a difficulty with this type of analysis is that it naturally works better to describe individuals than societies, because it is focused on the experience of the individual. At best, it seems that it could be applied only to the smallest identifiably distinct group in a society as a means of comparing that group’s experience of reality with the perceptions of reality held by the larger society of which it is a part. White Americans will have a totally different measurement on this axis than will black Americans, and so will blacks in Colorado and blacks in Georgia, but all are part of the same larger society.

It should be noted that the Grid and Group model is properly cultural-anthropological. Bengt Holmberg, therefore, in his 1990 assessment of social-scientific criticism of the NT, does not even discuss Malina’s approach. I include it here as an example of a ‘model’ that happens to be widely used.

Having defined the method, presented a rational for its use, considered some of its presuppositions, and examined a sample model, we might now ask whether social-scientific criticism of the NT is a sound practice. Cyril Rodd has raised the question of whether or not sociological criticism of the past is even possible.[29] Rodd thinks there is too little data available for performing a sociological analysis of the biblical world, and that the nature of the data makes it impossible to test an hypothesis.[30] Holmberg puts the concern like this:

The New Testament as a collection of evidence for the social history of the first Christians is a very small data set. Most of the texts do not treat social phenomena at all, and can only be made to yield information about such matters through various processes of inferential reading and interpretation. … This means that there are few data that are not modern interpretations of ancient texts. So the New Testament data we have on which to apply sociological interpretations are themselves interpretations, not hard (precise, measurable) data, which could be assembled again or verified through other sources or procedures.[31]

Tangential to the question of the availability of social data is the question of whether the formulation and testing of models on the basis of that data can be done reliably. If one must draw from models formed on the basis of other social evidence, what evidence will be considered relevant, and how far removed from the NT world, either temporally or culturally, may evidence be before it becomes irrelevant? The researcher makes a tremendous assumption about the NT world if he/she uses a model that is a composite of data from several modern cultures; specifically, the researcher begins by assuming some level of correspondence between the NT world and the modern cultures from which the model was derived. The question then is, “How much does selection of the model determine the results of the study?” Indeed, this question might be asked anyway. As I mentioned above, the process of ‘abduction’ seems to lend itself to circular reasoning: evidence ‘x’ means such-and-such because in my model I have defined it as meaning such-and-such.

I have no doubt that an understanding of the social context in which the NT was written is essential to understanding the NT documents. Social-scientific criticism is properly aware of this, and has the benefit of offering a thorough methodology for investigating that social context. However, without a deeper understanding of the actual process of social-scientific criticism, I feel unprepared to judge its usefulness as an exegetical tool. If it can accomplish what it intends without first falling prey to one of the criticisms against it that have been mentioned above, then it may be a very powerful tool in competent hands.

[1] John Elliott, Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1995), 7.

[3] Bengt Holmberg, Sociology and the New Testament: An Appraisal (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990) indicates that the lack of intentionally applied methodology does not mean that these earlier researchers worked without theory. Doing a social history of Christianity or a description of social phenomena of the ancient world does not make less use of social-scientific theory than does an all-out application of social-scientific models: “…no description of phenomena of social life can be made without some idea about what to look for and how to structure phenomena or, in other words, some theoretical frame. This may not have been made explicit by all historical scholars, but that should not lead us into thinking that any fact-finding or historical description can be made without the help of models and theories. Another and more serious effect of the distinction between social history and sociological explanation… is that it can so easily be understood as implying that social description is neutral and objective, while the applying of sociological concepts and models is more theory-laden and precarious;” Holmberg, 6.

[8] See Elliott, 9-11. See also Bruce J. Malina, Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology: Practical Models for Biblical Interpretation (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1986), 1-2. “All forms of communication encode and transmit information from the social system,” Malina, 1.

[10] For further elaboration, see Elliott, chapter 4, 36-59.

[16] See Elliott, 48-49 for more on this method of reasoning.

[19] Elliott, 55; Holmberg also makes this point, 10.

[29] See Holmberg’s discussion in Holmberg, 7-8.