On “Plato's Shadow” by Gary Petty ****

 

This book traces the changeover in Christianity from the first century into the fourth, as it moved from being chiefly a Jewish sect to being a new version of Greco-Roman religion, adopting many beliefs and practices from the latter along the way. There wasn't much new here to me, but Petty writes in a very simple manner that would make for easy reading and understanding among the most general of readers looking for an introduction (I wish I'd come across the book ten years ago, when I first started heavily reading in the subject). The period covered is a very long one, including not just the first four centuries of the Christian era but also the basics of Greek philosophy and the Jewish faith going back to their founding (and constituting almost half the book). As such, one can glean a clear sense of where Christianity comes in, but the history of the four centuries that are the book's focus is even more compacted as a result. The Bible is used heavily as a source, as are Bible helps; other sources include various classics on classical, Jewish, and Christian history, and there is a general smattering of quotes from various primary sources outside scripture. The most cogent argument Petty makes comes near the end of the book, when he notes how Paul could not be the source of so many of the changes to the faith established by Jesus and the original twelve apostles, but rather such changes were really the influence of later incorporation into classical Greek thinking. The argument is laid out succinctly and clearly, as with so much of the rest of the book; however, such would be unlikely to satisfy most diehard critics, who have laid out whole books on small aspects of the subject (usually, showing just the opposite of what Petty does but in more recent times increasingly appreciating Paul in his Jewish setting and beginning to understand that he was not the antinomian or anti-Petrine figure many earlier scholars have made him out to be).

On “The First Urban Christians” by Wayne A. Meeks ****

This book reminds me a bit of watching The Godfather. The two works, of course, have nothing to do with one another. But the comparison is the experience of reading Meeks's book and watching that movie. When I saw The Godfather, this classic of cinema, I was in my thirties, and the film was about the same age as I was. I'd heard for a long time about how important the film was and how great it was. Seeing it, however, I found to be underwhelming. I could see how the film was likely a great film in its time, but watching it thirty-years on, the picture seemed a cliché. All the gangster movie stereotypes were present. However, not having seen the film in the 1970s, when it first came out, I could not say whether in its time the film might have been extremely original. The problem, of course, is that so many (better) films and TV shows since then had used the same plot devices and characters. Arguably, those films were all drawing on The Godfather. So when I went back to watch this older movie, it seemed stale, when in fact as the origin of so much since, it might well be as important as I'd always heard.

Such is the care for Meeks's The First Urban Christians. This book is a classic, one of the first, apparently, to draw sociology so heavily into conversation with the first century of Christianity, and specifically with reading Paul's letters. The subject is covered better in many other works I've read, including by Rodney Stark. But the thing is, as I read, I realized the degree to which these other authors were likely drawing on Meeks. They just wrote better and added to the findings that he made, which made of course the original, coming to it after the more recent works, all that much less intriguing. And so, I'm left in the same position as I am with The Godfather. Was this a great book in its time? Almost certainly, but because I came to it later, after reading other stuff, it doesn't seem as revolutionary as it likely was in its time or as it would have been had I read it before those other works.

By looking closely at Paul's letters and at the social nature of Roman society, Meeks notes that most early Christians were likely from cities. That's because that's where most diaspora Jews were, which is among whom most Christian teaching began. Christians drew from a range of classes (though the idea of low, middle, and upper class is not a terribly effective way at looking at Roman society, which wasn't really based around the same sort of concepts as modern society): a slave might be richer or even have more power, for example, than a free man; a person of noble birth might be looked upon better than free man but not be as well off, and so on. The most prominent members were those with just such social inconsistencies in status: rich women, freed men with special skills, wealthy Jewish people. A particularly interesting chapter focuses on names, as they show up in the letters. Meeks then goes on to examing worship practices and governance in the church, using similar means, though the observations don't seem like anything beyond what I've read elsewhere. Meeks largely accepts the mainstream critical position that only seven of Paul's letters are genuine and that Paul was largely opposed to James and Peter in his views of the new faith, which to a degree colors his observations.