THE BIBLE AND CRITICAL THEORY ARTICLES Diagnosing an Allergic Reaction: The Avoidance of Marx in Pauline Scholarship

Contemporary study of the New Testament and of Paul more specifically shows symptoms of avoidance of basic categories of Marxist analysis such as economic class, class struggle, and mode of production. The result is that discussions of economic and social realities are often so abstract and sanguine as to be misleading – an expression, from a Marxist point of view, of the shadow cast over biblical studies by capitalist ideology. The medical metaphor in my title is somewhat misleading. My topic is the remarkable rarity of explicit reference to Marxism or Marxist categories in New Testament scholarship and Paul scholarship especially. But in the following remarks I do not so much offer a single diagnosis as I observe a range of symptoms and propose several possible diagnoses for consideration. Marxist interpretation of any part of the Bible has been scarce.1 Even today – when, after the dramatic dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Eastern Bloc in Europe, we might expect the name “Marxist ” to appear less inflammatory than before those events – only a few brave Hebrew Bible scholars, notable among them Roland Boer and David Jobling, routinely identif