Chapter 1 - Introduction: Reading the History Of New Testament and Chrisitian Origins Scholarship

Summary

Far from more or less accurate repetitions of an ancient object, modernity's depictions of original Christianity must be read as a working through of its own identity.

Ward Blanton

This chapter will briefly introduce the ways in which New Testament and Christian origins scholarship have historically been embedded in their social, political and cultural contexts. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize some relatively non-controversial arguments made by several scholars, including myself, in order to provide a historical context whereby it can be seen clearly that scholarship is embroiled in the major political disputes of its day. The next chapter will provide a contemporary context where we will see scholars explicitly airing their political views. These first two chapters will be the foundation for the rest of the book because the subsequent chapters will then look at the more subtle ways in which politics and ideology continue to infiltrate New Testament and Christian origins scholarship.

Before we turn to a social history of New Testament and Christian origins scholarship, I will first look at a suitable model for analysing the role of politics and ideology among academics which will also form the basis for much of this book.

Manufacturing Consent: Christian Origins Scholarship in Context

Any group dominated by people with overarching similar interests will obviously have such interests reflected in its literary and rhetorical output. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky showed this with reference to intellectuals and the mass media in their development of a “propaganda model”.