Corpus-Paul

[Zeba Crook <zeba.crook AT utoronto.ca>]

Gary Burnett wrote:
> So people from pre-industrial agricultural societies have little or no
> concept of the future? Sounds just the sort of claim we might expect from someone who has suggested people from this background had no sense of their own selves as distinctive, unique and self-aware, or of others as distinct and unique beings - people for whom individual psychology, uniqueness and self-consciousness were of no conseqence. (see Malina's "New Testament World" & my own "Paul & the Salvation of the Individual")
This is far overstating the claims made by Malina et. al., even allowing
for the fact that Malina does express many of his views more exclusively
than some others who share his methodological approach.  It is not the claim
of NT Social Scientific critics that ancient people "had no sense of their
own selves as distinctive, unique and self-aware," but rather that unlike
their modern western counterparts they did not tend to be governed by that
awareness. 
> Could I suggest that Malina's extreme views owe more to 21st century
> US/Western imperial culturalism than to a sympathetic approach to other
> cultures? Attributing such simplistic outlooks to other cultures, including that of the 1st century Mediterranean world, seems much too patronising for my liking - aside from the fact that in extensive travel and work amongst both the urban and rural poor in Asia, I have never come across either the sort of community "embeddedness" so much touted by Malina, nor this latest idea that such people cannot have a thorough understanding, appreciation and hope for the future. (Yes, I've seen much more community-orientation, but "dyadic" personalities? Not at all.)
This is patently unfair criticism.  "21st century US/Western imperial culturalism"?
 The point is precisely to be the opposite, to emphasise that people the
world over are not exactly the same. Your reference to first-hand experience
could be read to imply the charge that Malina has never left the confines
of his armchair, nor that he too has plenty of first hand cultural experience.
 Further, his observations in this respect are based solidly on many other
anthropological and social-psychological studies emphasising the basic but
important differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures,
none of which contends an absence of individual self awareness in collectivistic
cultures nor an absence of allocentric behaviour in individualistic cultures.

Cheers,

Zeb

--

Zeba Antonin Crook (Ph.D. Cand)

University of St. Michael’s College

Faculty of Theology

81 St. Mary Street

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

M5S 1J4

 

(416) 964-8629

http://individual.utoronto.ca/zeba_crook/