Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | März/2024 |
Spalte: | 194-196 |
Kategorie: | Kirchengeschichte: Alte Kirche, Christliche Archäologie |
Autor/Hrsg.: | McCollough, David John |
Titel/Untertitel: | Ritual and Religious Experience in Early Christianities. The Spirit In Between. |
Verlag: | Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2022. XVI, 262 S. = Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. 2. Reihe, 577. Kart. EUR 89,00. ISBN 9783161618338. |
Rezensent: | Risto Uro |
David John McCollough’s study is the result of his second PhD, which he completed at the University of Durham under the guidance of Professor Douglas Davies and Professor David Janzen. It focuses on the theme of spirit experience and initiation in Paul and Luke-Acts, utilizing both narratological analyses of the texts and social anthropological approaches – a combination not often considered in biblical studies. The cross-disciplinary approach applied in the book yields results that challenge several widely accepted scholarly views, such as the idea that Paul believed the spirit was communicated through water baptism and that water baptism was the primary initiation rite in the early Christian movement. The main thesis of the book posits that the primary ritual for joining the community, at least in the Pauline and Lukan streams of Christianity, was spirit possession marked by dissociation and glossolalia.
The book is divided into three major parts: 1) exegetical me- thodology; 2) exegesis; and 3) interpretation. McCollough suggests that narratology, complemented with discourse analysis and literary analysis, offers significant advantages for studying the ritual practices of the Pauline and Lukan communities compared to relying solely on standard historical-critical methodologies. Earlier scholars of Acts who focused on historiographical questions have either interpreted the contents of Luke’s narrative directly in terms of the social anthropology of primitive Christianity or attempted to extract nuggets of realia from Luke’s tendentious account. In contrast to such approaches, McCollough argues that it is the Lukan teaching, revealed through the narratological methodology, that serves as the primary historical artifact providing data for social-anthropological interpretation. The narratological approach can also be applied to the Pauline texts. This interpretation involves carefully following the logic and development of the apostle’s argument in a specific text, rather than mixing diverse passages from the Pauline corpus to create an idea of Paul as a systematic thinker.
Paul’s and Luke’s teachings can be used as emic data for social-anthropological interpretation since they were written as exempla, models to be imitated. The production of such exempla was a cultural convention and an integral part of the Greco-Roman cultural discourse. McCollough relies on the work of the classicist Matthew Rollins here.
The exegetical analysis of Paul and Luke-Acts, guided by narratology, offers ample food for thought. McCollough argues, and I find his argument convincing, that for Paul, the reception of the spirit was highly experimental and distinct from the water rite, although closely associated with it. This view goes against the commonly held opinion but provides a solution to the classic problem of why Paul seems to undermine the value of baptism in some contexts (e.g., 1 Cor. 1:17) while emphasizing it as a source of unity in others (e.g., 1 Cor. 12:13). McCollough’s analysis of the Pauline evidence also leads to intriguing new suggestions, such as interpreting the »abba cry« as a pre-glossolalic stammering, theologized by Paul (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). An important observation is that both the Pauline and Lukan narratives about initiation imply liminality. In other words, joining the community involved a ritual process.
Luke’s stories elaborate on various aspects of the initiatory process, such as the encounter with the gospel message, conviction of the truth of the message, belief and repentance, immersion in water, a post-baptismal period of persistent prayer, the laying on of hands, speaking in dissociative language, eventually with intelligible control, and finally, partaking in table fellowship and full acceptance into the believing community (130). Luke writes about these and other aspects of initiation to establish ritual norms for his community but also acknowledges the performative (non-fixed) nature of the sequence and the ritual actions in the process.
In the interpretation section of his study, McCollough utilizes a wide range of theories and approaches from social anthropology and ritual studies. It is commendable that, in addition to classical anthropological theories, the author incorporates more recent theories about the cognitive and evolutionary basis of human behaviour. The extent of the theoretical frameworks and themes on which the social anthropological interpretation is built is indeed impressive, including ritual form (competence) theory by Thomas Lawson and Robert McCauley, commitment signalling (Richard Sosis and others), identity fusion (Harvey Whitehouse), sacred values theory (Douglas Davies and Scott Atran), religion and emotions (Douglas Davies), theories of mediation, social network theory, and others. A reader who is not well-versed in the world of ritual and anthropological theory might find this a bit overwhelming, but for the most part, McCollough is able to justify the use of his theoretical arsenal. Some condensing might have been helpful, though. For example, the (relatively short) discussion of social network theory does not significantly contribute to the main argument. The classic issue of »why people became Christians in the first century« exceeds the scope of this study and would have been more appropriately discussed in the conclusion rather than as part of the main analysis.
McCollough recognizes the recent work of Giovanni Bazzana (Having the Spirit of Christ, 2020), who also interprets New Testament evidence using anthropological models of spirit possession. However, in contrast to Bazzana, McCollough argues that the Afro-Caribbean possession cults referred to by Bazzana do not provide a good analogy for early Christian spirit possession. McCollough asserts that the latter should be situated in what the anthropologist Koenraad Stroeken has termed a »simplex« religious cosmology, in contrast to Cuban Santeria, which represents a »multiplex« cosmology. In multiplex societies, individuals are situated in many overlapping social networks, whereas in simplex societies, such as those in urban centres, networks tend not to overlap. The notion of simplex vs. multiplex cosmologies appears interesting but is not further elaborated, and the reader is not informed about how the different types of ethnographic examples used by McCollough and Bazzana impact their interpretations of New Testament materials.
The constraints of this review’s space do not allow for a detailed description of the numerous insightful interpretations that McCollough puts forward in his study. Particularly impressive is the way McCollough connects different fields of anthropology and religious studies to construct his bold thesis that the experience of spirit reception was a central ritual in the form of Christianity exemplified by Paul’s letters and Lukan writings. At times, McCollough seems to imply that this was also the case for other early Christian groups, but he does not contextualize his findings with the evidence from other New Testament or extra-canonical texts, or the norms of ritual life provided by these other texts for their readers. Such comparative analyses could open up fruitful avenues for future research.