Embedded Files
( - previous issue - / - next issue - )
AR 25:21 - When did religion become a distinct domain?
In this issue:
ANCIENT CHRISTIAN LITERATURE - "the temptation to weave papyrological evidence into coherent, even compelling stories"
WORLDVIEW - the persistent "dominance of Western conceptions" in religious studies
Apologia Report 25:21 (1,478)
May 27, 2020
ANCIENT CHRISTIAN LITERATURE
God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts, by Brent Nongbri [1] -- with this review, James W. Yuile (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Ministry and Biblical Studies, Hope International University) reports that here "Nongbri crowns his extensive work on some of the most prominent Christian manuscripts.... His previous contributions to the study of manuscripts consist of peer-reviewed articles focusing on the excavation contexts, acquisitions, and treatments of papyri and codices. In each case, he provides a healthy dose of common sense to a field of study that has occasionally tolerated baseless conjecture. In this volume particularly, he challenges 'implausibly precise (and often implausibly early) dates ... assigned to a number of important manuscripts.' Furthermore, he calls for a more reserved way forward by means of investigating the original context of each literary manuscript: the book within which the manuscript was originally bound, the archaeological context in which this book was discovered, and what these observations reveal about the book's first use. [T]his volume serves to reveal how little we can know about the most prominent Christian manuscripts and how thin the evidence is upon which many of our theories rest. ...
"Nongbri <brentnongbri.com> argues that literary papyri are seldom analyzed as artifact books, a treatment which would entail examining their archaeological context, their codicology, the binding techniques used to assemble the original book of the manuscript, and observations made available by radiocarbon analysis. The vacuum left by a lack of hard evidence allows for unmerited freedom in the way scholars interpret and apply manuscripts, acting as if 'Christian manuscripts ... are essentially self-interpreting [with] secure dates, and clearly [confirming] or [disconfirming] some fact about early Christian history.' In response, Nongbri wishes 'to raise consciousness about how messy and fragmentary our knowledge about these books is.'
"Remarkably informative, chapters 1–3 serve as an introduction to the ancient task of making books and the modern tasks of dating and procuring early Christian books. Elsewhere, Nongbri echoes a concern of Larry Hurtado <www.bit.ly/2yEV3rW> that most professional scholars of the NT are not familiar with NT manuscripts....
"It is apparent that the author sides with dissenting paleographers who call attention to the problematic assumption that scribes' letter formation neatly develops chronologically, instead of geographically or personally. ... Nongbri places greater confidence in radiocarbon dating, yet he concedes that numerous challenges still remain."
Nongbri concludes with "a cautionary tale demonstrating that even 'scholars are susceptible to the overwhelming temptation to weave fragmentary bits of papyrological evidence into coherent, even compelling stories.'"
Where Nongbri falls short "is in providing enough examples of Christian books that have successfully undergone the sort of analysis which the author describes....
"I believe, even if he was required to draw from manuscripts dated later than early Christianity, including more positive examples would demonstrate to the reader what sorts of outcomes can emerge from treating books as 'three-dimensional archaeological artifacts worthy of study in their own right.'" Stone-Campbell Journal, 22:2 - 2019, pp292-5, <www.bit.ly/2XDxB6W>
---
WORLDVIEW
Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story, by Jack Miles, emeritus professor of religious studies at the University of California, Irvine [2] -- the publisher introduces the question addressed by Miles: "How did our forebears begin to think about religion as a distinct domain, separate from other activities that were once inseparable from it?"
Publishers Weekly (Aug 19 '19) notes that Pulitzer Prize-winner Miles <jackmiles.com> "argues that early Christians' separation of religious adherence from ethnicity and culture was a novel reconceptualization - one that Medieval European Christians, Jews, and Muslims turned into a lens for understanding other religions, even as it distorted them. ... In Miles's estimation, these frameworks for scholarship established by Western academics were insufficient for understanding many world religions, and he argues that current global standards for scholarship are still based on this limited foundation. Miles also positions the co-operation of Buddhist, Daoist, and Hindu leaders at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions as a watershed moment for a scholarship built on these flawed concepts - revealing the dominance of Western conceptions of religion that persists in religious studies. Miles's provocative thesis is powerful and unsettling. Any student of theology will be enlightened by this deeply satisfying work." [5]
Kirkus (Oct 1 '19) finds: "After an unnecessarily long introduction - at roughly one-fifth the length of the book, the preface wears out its welcome - the author examines the idea of religion, an ill-defined yet universal concept, which he and the Norton Anthology approach <www.bit.ly/36wwqKp> through the aspect of practice rather than 'belief.' ... Miles succinctly encapsulates what is essentially the history of religious studies, including particular scholars and authors who made surprisingly vast contributions to the world's understanding of religion. The author's use of his own personal story in this already-small volume is not particularly helpful. ... A brief but beneficial guide to where 'religion as we know it' comes from."
Library Journal (Nov 1 '19) adds that "Miles uses his advanced knowledge of this subject to pose the question of 'what exactly defines religion,' arguing that there is no definition that currently is generally accepted. The phrase 'as we know it' in the title of this work refers to religion 'as we talk about it.' Miles attempts to study and analyze the concept of religion, not define it further."
For more on Miles' controversial work from our past issues, visit <www.bit.ly/2zInZPC>
-------
SOURCES: Monographs
1 - God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts, by Brent Nongbri (Yale Univ Prs, 2020, paperback, 416 pages) <www.amzn.to/3cxTXgl>
2 - Religion as We Know It: An Origin Story, by Jack Miles (W. W. Norton, 2019, paperback, 128 pages) <www.amzn.to/2LzEIY5>
------
( - previous issue - / - next issue - )
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse