Review: Social Science Commentary on the Book of Acts
I have just finished reading Bruce J. Malina’s and John J. Pilch’s latest contribution to the “Social Science Commentary” series: Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Acts. It is no secret that I am a great fan of this series. After all, I have focused years of my life and reputation on them; basing my Context Group Version translation of the Bible upon the results of their research. I have a standing order with Amazon for any new releases in this series. They have not let me down and despite some repetition between the volumes, I always glean new insights from each release. They remain the most marked up, highlighted, book-marked, and “margin-noted” books in my rather vast library.
The current volume is no exception. In fact, there is more information in the introduction that will impact your study of the Bible than do most commentary series throughout. Seminary professors and Adult Sunday School teachers would be well served to copy these first 11 pages (with adequate permission, of course) for study in their classrooms. They will open up the cultural context in which the New Testament was written and first read (an interpreted) like no other. Here is a small sampling of what lies within:
On modern historian’s anachronistic reading of the Bible:
For example, all historians know that the separation of church and state and of bank and state is an eighteenth-century phenomenon…Rather religion and economics were substantial institutions that were embedded in politics, resulting in political religion and political economy…To be historically accurate, then, Jesus project was an enterprise in political religion; the Jesus groups that emerged from his communication of the innovation of a forthcoming Israelite political theocracy (that is, his preaching of a Kingdom of heaven/God, or the reign of God) were domestic religious groups awaiting this new Israelite theocracy. (Pg. 1-2)
The assumptions of “history” and what constitutes “historical writing” were also different when Luke put his pen to the scrolls:
A number of scholars have demonstrated how before the nineteenth century there was no sense of history as we use the term today. Today people believe the past was different from the present, and hence people today need not be bound to the past. Before the nineteenth century, it was generally believed that people in the past were just as we are in all significant dimensions. The purpose of history was to present slices of living that illustrate unchanging truths about human nature and God’s judgment through a series of transparent instances of timeless truths, as a process of verifiable and meaningful change. (Pg. 4; emphasis added)
Our modern world view, the not only separates the “spiritual” from the “physical,” “heaven” from “earth,” and “miracle” from “reality” would be regarded as madness in the first century (as it’s reverse is in ours).
[T]his kind of anachronistic judgment is based on a worldview that distinguishes natural from supernatural…In antiquity, there was no such distinction until Origen. It was quite natural for God (and gods) to interact with humans and vice-versa. The objective world was full of humans as well as demons, angels, spirits, and deities. Although ordinary people experienced that objective world, there were some persons experienced in interacting with nonhuman personages. These persons were holy men and women. (Pg. 6; emphasis added)
In addition to the cultural analysis, the authors also give some invaluable insights into the literary structure of the book of Acts. I cite only a few:
The main sections of Acts are based on two commands of the resurrected Jesus: the first command to the Eleven (soon to be Twelve) (Acts 1:8), and the second command to Saul/Paul (Acts 9:15). The Twelve are to witness to the resurrected Jesus in Judea and Samaria up to the boundary of the land of Israel. Paul, on the other hand, is to witness before kings and many sons of Israel living in non-Israelite territory. (Pg 9)
..Luke-Acts is not concerned about the outgroup. This means that these volumes are not documents for outsiders. They are not composed to be shared with non-Jesus group members to read, so that they might become Jesus group members. On the contrary, they are documents to be read within specific groups to maintain those groups in their loyalty to the God of Israel.. In other words, Luke-Acts was not written for missionizing or proselytizing. (Pg 10)
Whether you agree or disagree with their assessments, the authors Malina and Pilch make for interesting reading. This is not to say that I agree with all of their positions. I certainly do not, though I find them all challenging and intriguing. In many cases, they follow much more liberal positions regarding the scriptures than I can maintain. For example, they give credence to the more modern position that Israel was a “mythical” nation prior to the “return from exile” out of Persia (pg 27). The central tenant of Israelite theology was not monotheistic but henotheistic (pg 220 among others); that Paul only wrote part of the corpus of letters currently attributed to him. However, the prize still goes to their assertion that the early church had no mission to Gentiles at all; their only concern was for Jews living in Gentile lands. Though this was tolerable in their volumes on the Gospels, is wears thin in this volume as well as in their book on the letters of Paul.
I have covered my critique of this assertion in my review of that earlier work here. However, they have added a new wrinkle in this book. Apparently the Apostle would not bother preaching to the Gentiles because they would have no interest in such an “Israelite” message. Uhhhh. How then did we get into the condition we have today where the majority of Christians are Gentiles? I take it that at least at some time some Gentiles became interested!
Nevertheless, this book, like all the others in the series, is magnificent. Just the introduction and the “reading scenarios” at the back are worth the price. However, the detailed analysis they offer in the middle will open up new vistas of interpretation for most readers and can’t be slighted either. In short, buy this book.
(From TheAmericanView.com site)
The Meaning of Theocracy
By Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had.
In Biblical law, the only civil tax was the head or poll tax, the same for all males twenty years of age and older (Ex. 30:11-16). This tax provided an atonement or covering for people, i.e. the covering of civil protection by the State as a ministry of justice (Rom. 13:1-4). This very limited tax was continued by the Jews after the fall of Jerusalem, and from 768-900 AD helped make the Jewish princedom of Narbonne (in France) and other areas a very important and powerful realm (see Arthur J. Zuckerman: ” A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France 768-900” (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1965, 1972). This tax was limited to half a sheckel of silver per man.
All other functions of government were financed by the tithe. Health, education, welfare, worship, etc., were all provided for by tithes and offerings. Of this tithe, one tenth (i.e. one percent of one’s income) went to the priests for worship. Perhaps an equal amount went for music, and for the care of the sanctuary. The tithe was God’s tax, to provide for basic government in God’s way. The second and the third tithes provided for welfare, and for the family’s rest and rejoicing before the Lord (see E.A. Powell and R.J. Rushdoony: “Tithing and Dominion” (Ross House Books, P.O. Box 67 Vallecito, CA 95251).
What we today fail to see, and must recapture, is the fact that the basic governmentis the self-governing of covenant man; then the family is the central governing institutionof Scripture. The school is a governmental agency, and so too is the church. Our vocation also governs us, and our society. Civil government must be one form of government among many, and a minor one. Paganism (and Baal worship in all its forms) made the State and its rulers into a god or gods walking on earth, and gave them total over-rule in all spheres. The prophets denounced all such idolatry, and the apostles held, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
From the days of the Caesars to the heads of the democratic states and Marxist empires, the ungodly have seen what Christians too often fail to see, namely, that Biblical faith requires and creates a rival government to the humanistic State. Defective faith seeks to reduce Biblical faith to a man-centered minimum, salvation. Now salvation, our re-generation, is the absolutely essential starting point of the Christian life, but, if it is made the sum total thereof, it is in effect denied. Salvation is then made into a man-centered and egotistical thing, when it is in fact God-centered and requires the death, not the enthronement, of our sinful and self-centered ego. We are saved for God’s purposes, saved to serve, not in time only, but eternally (Rev. 22:3). To be saved is to be working members of that realm.
In a theocracy, therefore, God and His law rule. The State ceases to be the over-lord and ruler of man. God’s tax, the tithe, is used by Godly men to create schools, hospitals, welfare agencies, counselors and more. It provides, as it did in Scripture, for music and more. All the basic social financing, other than the head tax of Ex. 30:11-16 was provided for by tithes and offerings or gifts. An offering or gift was that which was given above and over a tithe.
Since none of the tithe agencies have any coercive power to collect funds, none can exist beyond their useful service to God and man. For the modern State, uselessness and corruption are no problem; they do not limit its power to collect more taxes. Indeed, the State increases its taxing power because it is more corrupt and more useless, because its growing bureaucracy demands it.
California State Senator H.L. “Bill” Richardson has repeatedly called attention to the fact that, once elected, public officials respond only under pressure to their voters but more to their peer group and their superiors. Lacking faith, they are governed by power.
People may complain about the unresponsiveness of their elected officials, and their subservience to their peers and superiors, but nothing will alter this fact other than a change in the faith of the electorate and the elected. Men will respond to and obey the dominant power in their lives, faith, and perspective. If that dominant power or god in their lives is the State, they will react to it. If, however, it is the triune God of Scripture who rules them, then men will respond to and obey His law-word. Men will obey their gods.
One of the more important books of this country was Albert Jay Nock’s “Our Enemy, The State”(Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1935). Without agreeing with Nock in all things, it is necessary to agree with him that the modern State is man’s new church and saving institution. The state, however, is an antisocial institution, determined to suppress and destroy all the historic and religiously grounded powers of society. With F.D. Roosevelt and “The New Deal,” the goal of the Statists became openly “the complete extinction of social power through absorption by the State” (p.21). This will continue in its suicidal course, until there is not enough social power left to finance the State’s plans (as became the case in Rome). The State’s intervention into every realm is financed by the productivity of the non-Statist and economic sector: “Intervention retards production; then the resulting stringency and inconvenience enable further intervention, which in turn still further retards production; and this process goes on until, as in Rome, in the third century, production ceases entirely, and the source of payment dries up” (p.151f). It is true that crime needs suppression, but, instead of suppressing crime, the State safeguards its own monopoly of crime.”
We can add that the solution to crime and injustice is not more power to the state, but God’s law and a regenerate man. The best safeguard against crime is godly men and a godly society. Furthermore, God’s law, in dealing with crime, requires restitution and with habitual criminals, the death penalty. (See R.J. Rushdoony: “Institutes of Biblical Law”).
One more important point from Nock: he called attention to the fact that “social power” once took care of all emergencies, relieves, and disasters. When the Johnstown flood occurred all relief and aid was the result of a great outpouring of “private” giving. “Its abundance, measured by money alone, was so great that when everything was finally put in order, something like a million dollars remained. (p.6)
This was once the only way such crises were met. Can it happen again? The fact is that it is happening again. Today, between 20-30% of all school children K-12 are in non-state-ist schools, and the percentage is likely to pass 50% by 1990 if Christians defend their schools from state-ist interventionism. More and more Christians are recognizing their duties for the care of their parents; churches are again assuming, in many cases, the care of elderly members. Homes for the elderly people, and also for delinquent children are being established. (One of the more famous of these, under the leadership of Lester Roloff, was under attack by the State, which refused to recognize sin as the basic problem with delinquents, and regeneration and sanctification as the answer.) Christians are moving into the areas of radio and television, not only to preach salvation but to apply Scripture to political, economic and other issues.
Moreover, everywhere Christians are asking themselves the question, “What must I do, now that I am saved?” Answers take a variety of forms: textbook publishing for Christian Schools; periodicals and more. The need to revive and extend Christian hospitals is being recognized and much, much more.
Isaiah 9:6-7 tells us that when Christ was born, the government was to be on His shoulders, and that “Of the increase of His government and peace, there shall be no end.” By means of their tithing and actions, believers are in increasing numbers submitting to Christ’s government and re-ordering life and society in terms of it.
The essence of humanism, from Francis stateto the present, has been this creed: to be human, man must be in control (Jeremy Rifkin with Ted Howard: “The Emerging Order”, p. 27.). This is an indirect way of saying that man is not man unless the government of all things is upon his shoulders, unless he is himself God. It is the expression of the tempter’s program of revolt against God (Gen. 3:5). John Locke developed this faith by insisting that Christianity thus could not be the basis of public activity, but only a private faith. The foundation of the State and of public life was for Locke, in reason.
But, reason, separated from Christian faith and presupposition, became man’s will, or better, man’s will in radical independence from God. The State then began to claim one area of life after another as public domain and hence under the State as reason incarnate. One of the first things claimed by Locke’s philosophy and “reason” was man himself! Man, instead of being a sinner, was, at least in the human and public realm, morally neutral; he was a blank piece of paper, and what he became was a product of education and experience. It thus was held necessary for the state, the incarnate voice of “reason,” to control education in order to product the desired kind of man.
The State claimed the public realm. The public realm had belonged, in terms of Christian faith, to God, like all things else, and to a free society under God. The church was scarcely dislodged from its claims over the public realm when the state came in to claim it with even more total powers.
But this was not all. The state enlarged the public realm by new definitions, so that steadily, one sphere after another fell into the hands of the state. Education was claimed, and control over economics, a control which is now destroying money and decreasing social and economic productivity. The arts and sciences are subsidized and controlled, and are begging for more. Marriage and the family are controlled; a White House Conference on the Family viewed the family as a public and hence, Statist realm, one the state must invade and control.
Ancient Rome regarded religion itself as a public domain and hence licensed and controlled it. (The very word “liturgy,” Greek in origin, means public service. Religion is indeed a public concern, more so than the state, but not thereby a matter for state-ist control.) Rome, like all ancient pagan states, equated the public domain with the state’s domain, and it saw all things as aspects of the state’s domain.
For any one institution to see itself as the public domain is totalitarianism. All things public and private are in the religious domain and under God. No institution, neither church nor state, can equate itself with God, and claim control of the public (or private) domain. Every sphere of life is interdependent with other spheres and alike under God. No more than mathematics has the “right” to control biology do church or state have the “right” to control one another, or anything beyond their severely limited sphere of government.
There are thus a variety of spheres of government under God. There spheres are limited, interdependent and under God’s sovereign government and law-word. They cannot legitimately exceed their sphere. The legitimate financial powers of all are limited. The state has a small head tax. The tithe finances all other spheres.
The tithe, it must be emphasized, is to the Lord, not to the church, a difference some churchmen choose to miss or overlook. This robs the individual believer of all right to complain about things; by the godly use of his tithe, he can create new agencies, churches, schools, and institutions to further God’s Kingdom in every area of life and thought. Holiness comes not by our abilities to whine and bewail the things that are, but by our faithful use of the tithe and the power God gives us to remake all things according to His Word.
Tithing and godly action, these are the keys to dominion. We are called to dominion (Gen. 1:26-28; 9:1-17; Joshua 1:1-9; Matt. 28:18020; etc.). The creation mandate is our covenant mandate; restoration into the covenant through Christ’s atonement restores us into the mandate to exercise dominion and gives us the power to effect it.
Aspects of that mandate can be exercised through institutions, and sometimes must be, but the mandate can never be surrendered to them. The mandate precedes all instructions, and it is to man personally as man (Gen. 1:28). This is the heart of theocracy as the Bible sets it forth. Dictionaries to the contrary, theocracy is not a government by the state, but a government over every institution by God and His Law, and through the activities of the free man in Christ to bring ever area of life and thought under Christ’s Kingship.
—John Lofton, Recovering Republican