Theology

The Gospels and Their Stories in Anthropological Perspective

Ed. by Joseph Verheyden and John S. Kloppenborg

[Die Evangelien und ihre Erzählungen aus anthropologischer Perspektive.]

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Published in English.
How can social-scientific approaches to the gospels advance biblical studies? This volume offers the proceedings of a conference that brought together a number of expert biblical scholars, specialists of ancient religious practices, and proponents of an anthropological approach to ancient Christian and Greco-Roman religious tradition.
Over the past decades, biblical scholars have gradually become more aware of the importance of the social sciences for their own field. This has produced a steady flow of studies informed by work that was done in the fields of group formation psychology, the sociology of emerging movements and the sociology of religion, and historical anthropology. This volume offers the proceedings of a conference that brought together a number of expert biblical scholars, specialists of ancient religious practices, and proponents of an anthropological approach to ancient Christian and Greco-Roman religious tradition. It was the explicit purpose not to focus exclusively on purely methodological reflections, but to explore and evaluate how methodological concepts and constructs can be developed and then also checked in applying them on specific cases and topics that are typical for understanding earliest Christianity.
Survey of contents
Joseph Verheyden/John S. Kloppenborg: Introduction

Bodies, Demons, and Magic
Giovanni B. Bazzana: Beelzebul vs Satan: Exorcist Subjectivity and Spirit Possession in the Historical Jesus – Laura Feldt: Monster Theory and the Gospels: Monstrosities, Ambiguous Power and Emotions in Mark – Sarah E. Rollens: From Birth Pangs to Dismembered Limbs: The Anthropology of Bodily Violence in the Gospel of Mark – Brigidda Bell: Discerning the False Prophets: An Embodied Approach to Prophetic Testing in Matthew and the DidacheWilliam Arnal: Textual Healing: Magic in Mark and Acts

Practices
Zeba A. Crook: Religion's Coercive Prayers – Martin Ebner: Der Wanderprediger und sein Anhang als »Lehrer« und »Schüler«: Jesus und seine Jünger im Rahmen der römischen Lehrertopographie

Spaces
Halvor Moxnes: Secrecy in the Gospel of Matthew from an Anthropological Perspective: Creation of an Alternative World – Daniel A. Smith: Excursion, Incursion, Conquest: A Spatial Approach to Mission in the Synoptics

Visions
Santiago Guijarro Oporto: The Visions of Jesus and His Disciples – Jan N. Bremmer: Ghosts, Resurrections, and Empty Tombs in the Gospels, the Greek Novel, and the Second Sophistic – Pieter F. Craffert: Re-Visioning Jesus' Resurrection: The Resurrection Stories in a Neuroanthropological Perspective

Response
Simon Coleman: Being Undisciplined: An Anthropologist's Response
Authors/Editors

Joseph Verheyden is Professor of New Testament Studies in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the KU Leuven.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8646-5233

John S. Kloppenborg Born 1951; MA and PhD at the University of St. Michael's College; Professor and Chair of the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto.

Reviews

The following reviews are known:

In: Revue de l'histoire et de Philosophie Réligieuses — 99 (2019), pp. 564–565 (Christian Grappe)
In: New Testament Abstracts — 63 (2019), S. 154–155 + 359