Social description or social-scientific interpretation? A survey of modern scholarship

Abstract

Recent interest in the social aspects of the first-century Mediterranean world reflected in the texts of the New Testament has taken primarily two directions. The one approach concentrates on social description, and the other on social-scientific interpretation. This article surveys the major works of several of the leading exponents of this type of study in terms of the extent to which they make use of the social sciences. It differs from existing surveys by having an in-depth look at the elements of social-scientific theory and method actually employed, and by making a comparative assessment of the importance allocated by different authors to the role of the text as a deliberate construction.