List of Appendices
4.7. Cultural View of the Context of Luke’s Gospel
Luke’s narrative world is located in Jewish Palestine in the period of Roman occupation before the downfall of the Jerusalem Temple. It is set in the midst of Jewish custom, culture and people. According to Robbins (1991:121) “culture is a humanly constructed arena of artistic, literary, historical, and aesthetic competencies”. Berger (1967:4) also claims that culture is a humanly constructed world. He argues that, as a direct consequence of “man’s” biological constitution, “man” must on- goingly establish relationship with the world. “Man” is born into a world that predates him but, unlike the world of animals, ‘man’s’ world is open and unstable. “Man” must fashion a world by his own activity. It is through this process of world building that ‘man’ creates stability for himself. Culture provides firm structures for human life that are lacking biologically.
Society is one aspect of culture. It is “that aspect of non-material culture that structures man’s ongoing relationships with his fellowmen” (Berger, 1967:5-7). Esler (1987:43-87) writes that concern with social factors relating to commensality and purity laws were highly significant in shaping Lukan theology.
In the light of this understanding there is a double imperative to look more closely at the social world of the Gospel. Firstly, through an understanding of the social world we visit the narrative in the context in which it was set. Secondly, if, as Esler claims, Lukan theology is formed in response to the social pressures experienced by the community, then Lukan theology becomes more accessible as we understand the culture through which it is conveyed. The use of the social sciences in interpreting New Testament texts
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has developed rapidly over the last 20 years (Osiek,1992:54). Whereas history is concerned with the specific, particular, atypical situation, the social sciences are concerned with the usual, recurring, typical features of a community as the basis for understanding the social setting. Sociology is the discipline of the social sciences that in essence examines the recurrent and typical aspects of social behaviour and institutions.
Esler (1980) provides a helpful introduction to issues of methodology.
In the task of biblical interpretation there is a growing dependence on the use of models and theories as the categories of social organisation and social world as comprehensive world of meaning are employed. Osiek (1992:23), drawing on the work of Jonathan Smith (1975:52), suggests four distinct approaches to biblical interpretation: description of social facts or realia, social history, social organisation and social world as a comprehensive world of meaning. The various stages of social science research can be seen in these different approaches to biblical interpretation.
The use of the social sciences in biblical interpretation, however, has not been without its critics. Esler (1987:44) has addressed various objections to the use of the social sciences. Osiek (1992:54), on the other hand, identifies the problems associated with the proper and valid use of social models on material quite different from that for which the models were originally intended. She concludes her paper with two challenges facing social scientific biblical interpretation: the problem regarding the proper and valid use of social- science models on materials quite different from that for which the models were originally intended and making results available in a helpful format to other reseachers using other methods.
An institution is commonly defined as “a distinctive complex of social actions” (Berger, 1969:87). Drawing on the work of a German social scientist Arnold Gehlen, Berger develops the notion of an institution as a regulatory agency, “Institutions provide procedures through which human conduct is patterned, compelled to go, in grooves deemed desirable by society.” According to Elliott (1991), institutions “comprise social associations or processes that are highly organized and systematized in terms of roles, relationships, and responsibilities. They are stable over time.” Institutions encompass a wide range of areas of organized social life including kinship, politics, education, religion
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and economics (McVann,1991). The model of social relations will assist in analyzing the two key institutions of first century Palestine, the Temple and the household.
Elliott (1991:220) draws on the work of Malina to present a comparative model of ancient social relations. Malina (1986) argues that the forms of social relations in pre- industrial societies fall along a spectrum marked by types of reciprocity at one pole of the spectrum and types of redistribution or centricity at the other. The model of ancient social relations contrasts reciprocity and redistribution. Reciprocity is typical of small-scale societies, villages and household life. Personal back and forth exchanges of goods and services such as food, clothing, shelter, hospitality and other basic necessities of life are shared between households, kins and fictive kins. On the other hand, redistribution is typical of large-scale societies with a central political base and central storehouse economies. Goods and services are pooled, usually in association with a Temple. They are kept under centralized control and are redistributed by the powerful elite or temple hierarchy.
The Jerusalem Temple can be aligned with the social-economic system of redistribution (Elliot 1991:221). The Jerusalem Temple was at the heart of first century Palestine's redistribution economy which was controlled by an alliance of the city’s elite (chief priestly families, lay elders, Herodians) in collaboration with Rome's colonist policy. It became a system of exploitation causing poverty and distress to a growing number of peasants who were unable to pay the taxes required. Not only was the Jerusalem Temple the political and economic centre of first century Palestine it was also the means by which the people understood and maintained their relationship with God. The Temple was understood as the place where God dwelt, the expression of the holiness encoded in Genesis 1 and, therefore, of God’s holiness. The Temple represented the chief visible symbol of Israel’s identity as God’s Holy people and their union with God (Myers, 1988:200; Neyrey 1991:277). Furthermore, the JerusalemTemple was at the heart of the Jewish purity system and as such set the pattern for Jewish life. Purity is a cultural map that indicates order, correct position, in placeness. Pollution indicates disorder, confusion, out of placeness. In first century Judaism purity and pollution took on specific meanings with certain people, places and times becoming pure, and others representing uncleanness or pollution. God’s command for holiness formed the basis of the purity code for Israel.
‘Be holy as I am holy’ was one of the core values in first century Judaism. A person,
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place, thing or time is pure or holy insofar as it has a specific place and stays in that place. This notion of holiness became the norm (the purity code) which indicated how things in Israel’s world should express the divine order established in God's initial programmatic action of creation (Neyrey, 1991:277). With reference to the Temple, certain ceremonies, people, places and times symbolized what was clean, pure and holy and other people, places, and times symbolized what was unclean and taboo.
Both the institution of Temple and household feature prominently in Luke’s narrative. While the gospel opens in the Temple and closes in the Temple, Jesus met with people in households, shared meals and formed family with those who came to faith. An understanding of the dynamics of the institution of both Temple and of household will assist our understanding of the Lukan narrative.
The process of legitimation, a process by which the socially constructed world is maintained, takes places after the social institution has been established. It serves to support and maintain the social order. “Legitimation is the process whereby socially objectivated “knowledge” serves to explain and justify the social order” (Berger, 1967:112). It may also be described as the collection of ways in which an institution is explained to its members (Esler 1987:86). The process of legitimation ranges from the self-legitimating existence of social institutions to the legitimation of social institutions in the face of challenge, or theoretical constructions of an all-embracing symbolic universe.
Legitimation operates at both an objective and a subjective level. There is an important relationship between religion and legitimation. While legitimation maintains the socially defined reality, religion legitimates that reality. “Religion legitimates reality by bestowing on it an ultimately valid ontological status that is by locating that reality within a sacred and cosmic frame of reference” (Berger1967:33-35). Religious legitimation has the unique capacity to locate human activity within a cosmic frame of reference, to ultimate, universal and sacred reality. When religious legitimations ground socially defined institutions in the ultimate reality of the universe, the institutions are given a semblance of inevitability, firmness, durability, that is analogous to the Gods themselves.
Although these institutions remain tenuous, they are perceived as being stable: a manifestation of the structure of the universe (Capps 1995:112). This has been referred to by Berger and Luckmann (1969: 48) as a ‘symbolic universe’. The symbolic universe is a body of theoretical tradition that integrates different provinces of meaning and
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encompasses the institutional order in a symbolic totality. Within such a universe members of the institution have an experience of everything being in its right place and also of the various phases of their life as being ordered. As people look back into their past or forward into their future they conceive of their lives unfolding within a universe whose ultimate co-ordinates are known. People create a world of classification and definition to bring order out of chaos. This world becomes their symbolic universe. It acts as a sheltering canopy (Berger 1967:214). It orders history and locates all collective acts in a cohesive unity that includes past, present and future. From birth people are socialized into perceiving the world in this way. Individuals are linked with their predecessors and successors in a meaningful way. They understand themselves as belonging to a universe before they were born and they will be there after they die (Esler 1987:287).
Problems emerge when a small group comes to share a version of the symbolic universe that is different to the one shared by society at large. In this case the symbolic universe of the deviant group, by its very existence, challenges the objective reality and existence of the original mainstream symbolic universe. The dominant group responds with repressive measures against the new group, who then in turn responds to the challenge. This in effect leads to the creation of two competing symbolic conceptions of reality. Alternatively, problems emerge when, through conflict or war, key symbols of the all-embracing symbolic universe are damaged or destroyed (Malina 1981:222)
Luke’s community was facing both these challenges. Firstly, with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the symbolic universe of the Jews had been shattered.
Secondly, as Jews rebuilt their world, there was conflict between those who had decided to convert to Christianity and those who did not. Luke’s Gospel, written in the light of these circumstances, legitimates the choice of Christians to convert to Christianity.
Through the gospel Luke creates a new symbolic universe that is anchored in the person of Jesus Christ, but linked in terms of its past with Jewish history, Temple and scriptures, and in terms of its present and future with the anticipations of Israel of old. All the above, will help our reading and exploration of Luke’s Gospel in its context and also see the Jesus attitude within the context.
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