On "Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church" by Richard Bauckham *****

Another very interesting work by Richard Bauckham--this one focuses on the other brothers and relatives of Jesus outside of the heavily written about James. The second half of the book is mostly a close reading of the book of Jude, which while providing some interesting insights, is not so engaging as the first half, but that first half was very much illuminating in ways I never expected.

I first came across mention of this book in another work in that author's discussion of the family of Jesus in Ctesiphon in the second century. I had been aware of this claim in primary works, but I hadn't given it much thought until mentioned there. I was, like, I've got to check out what Bauckham had to say about that, and I'm glad that I did. The reason: Bauckham, in his focus on Jesus's family, sees possible ties to Jewish Christian settlements in the East (not heavily covered here, but not really covered anywhere) but also in Galilee, which until now, based on other reading, I'd largely figured was mostly devoid of Christians after the first century. By tracing where such people as Symeon (James's successor in Jerusalem) actually came from, he's able to show the likely continuing influence of Jesus's family in the region of Galilee.

The section on the book of Jude goes heavily into the way it interacts with the book of Enoch and the Testament of Moses and traces its views of Christ as God, which is a high Christology. Alas, I kind of figured Bauckham would tie the two things--the relatives and the book together--at the end, but it didn't really come together as I hoped or thought it would. He tries to do it via a discussion of the genealogy of Jesus as recorded in Matthew and most especially Luke, and while he certainly shows that the genealogies had rhetorical purposes (ties to specific individuals, to David but not through the kingly line, numbers of generations, etc.), the discussion didn't for me really tie things together as much as I'd have liked. Still, much of this book blew my mind in terms of the observations I hadn't yet considered.

On "Christianizing Asia Minor" by Paul McKechnie ***

At the start of this work, McKechnie raises an important point--namely that the assumption that early Christianity was largely an urban movement cannot be wholly true. If 10 percent of the Roman Empire was urban and also 10 percent was Christian, that would mean that the cities would have been virtually all Christian. Clearly, much of the Christian world was not in the major cities but in the small towns and in the country. Less attention has been played to these locations, so that's what McKechnie sets out to do in the book, specifically with regard to Asia Minor, and most especially with the region of Phrygia, whose cities were much smaller than those of the western coast (those of Revelation) we are more familiar with. It's a worthy subject. Alas, the work beyond that, I found, difficult to follow.

He pulls from some familiar sources--Pauline letters, some Eusebian comments, Ignatius--and some wonderful secondary sources that I'm glad now to know about. However, much of the discussion stems from examination of gravestones, which lends to the more difficult reading and the greater difficulty in forging conclusions. Some authors are able to look at such things, gather statistics, and forge a cogent argument. That's not the goal here, however. McKechnie is interested in the stories left behind, but it's difficult to gather stories from a few lines across multiple stones. As such, the work seemed quite diffuse and less interesting that I had hoped.

On "Montanism" by Christine Trevett ***

This was not exactly an introduction to the subject of the heretical Christian group that emerged in the last second century. What I mean is that the work is definitely aimed at scholars who have a pretty good degree of familiarity with the subject. It's full of arguments with other scholars about the sect and specialized language. As such, it wasn't quite what I was hoping for.

Trevett's views on the subject are in some way difficult to parse, insofar as she spends much time presenting the views of others and then discounting those. If I read her correctly, she believes the Montanists got a bad wrap and that they were not nearly so heretical as they are said to have been.

Montanism originated with a set of prophecies made by one Montanus and a couple of women in the late second century and spread rapidly from its central Asia Minor origin to Rome and Africa and elsewhere, converting along the way the famous Christian writer Tertullian. They were known for being against marriage, for various prophecies (the New Prophecy), for their ecstatic state when making such prophecies, and for their claim to be actually the embodiment of God and the Holy Spirit when prophesying.

All this may be twaddle Trevett seems to say. The ascetic views were not terribly out of keeping with many other Christians of the era. The world certainly did seem to be falling apart for those alive at the time (war, pestilence that may have killed as much as 25 percent of the Roman Empire's population). Our knowledge of the sect comes mostly from those who stood up against it, save for Tertullian, but the degree to which his African variety actually spoke for the earlier origin, we can't know.

As such, the Montanists may root back to a tradition of prophecy in the area established by John, the other of Revelation, and by Philip's three prophesying daughters. The prophecies that we know of don't seem all that out of step with common prophecies denoted in the Old and New Testament, regarding the end of the world. The idea that these prophets thought themselves the embodiment of God may just be the (possibly intentional) misreadings of their statements (or readings of later prophets rather than the early ones). What's really going on, Trevett seems to be claiming, is a conflict between hierarchical authority being established in Rome and a more organic concept of God speaking directly to his believers through the spirit. (This would have found a central point of contention in the Montanists view that "Jerusalem" had been relocated to the local settlement of Pepuza, to which Jesus would return.) It's an interesting theory, though I can't say that I am convinced that the views of the Montanists were otherwise quite orthodox insofar as following earlier beliefs, if we are to take Tertullian's writings as indicative of them, since he clearly taught some things not part of the first-century church's views (trinity, heaven and hell). However, the New Prophecy certainly does seem to be in line with many an apocalyptic group that let its enthusiasm carry them away into specific application of biblical prophecy that turned out to have no bearing in reality.