Social Sciences Studying Formative Christian Phenomena: A Creative Movement*

The last thirty years or so have seen the introduction of a wide variety of new methods in studies of the New Testament and early Christianity. Alongside the established methods of historical criticism, new approaches have been developed using theoretical traditions from other disciplines, such as literary criticism and the social sciences.1 Social-scientific interpretation of early Christian phenomena, then, is part of a wider trend, reflecting increased diversity within the discipline of biblical studies and greater interdisciplinarity within the humanities and social sciences. Unlike some forms of literary criticism, the wide variety of social-scientific approaches to early Christian texts retain a close link with the aims of historical criticism (Barton 1995); the intention is that the use of the resources which the social sciences offer, alongside the other methods of textual and historical criticism, may enable a fuller and better appreciation of the biblical texts and communities within their historical, social, and cultural setting (cf. Elliott 1993: 7-8). John Elliott’s recent definition of contemporary social-scientific criticism offers a clear summary of the approach as applied to biblical texts: Social-scientific criticism of the Bible is that phase of the exegetical task which analyzes the social and cultural dimensions of the text and of its environmental context through the utilization of the perspectives, theory, models, and research of the social sciences. As a component of the historical-critical method of * This essay is based on David G. Horrell, “Social-Scientific Interpretation of the New Testament: Retrospect and Prospect”, in David G.Horrell (ed.) Social-Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999) pp. 3-27. It has bee