Böcker av Markus Cromhout

This volume invites readers to walk in Israelite sandals, that is, to take a journey of the imagination, and to immerse themselves in the identity, values, and institutions of first-century CE Israelites with the help of contemporary social-scientific studies and theories. What emerges is that the Israelites did not practice a religion. Rather, they were an ethnos, or as this book describes it, an ethnic identity, who lived out a particular way of life and culture the customs of the fathers. It is to belong to a people who obtained their collective identity, honor, and sense of worth from their socialization and membership in Israel and from the social convention of loyalty to their rich cultural tradition. It was to belong to a ""world,"" or having a perspective on the world with its own quality of ""knowledge,"" which, among other things, preferred collectivism over individualism, and orthopraxy over orthodoxy.""Cromhaut tidily synthesizes Social Identity Theory, Social Construction of Reality theory, Primordial and Constructionist theories of ethnicity, the importance of group practices for ethnic boundary marking, and ethnicity models. He details ancient Israel as a boundary-marking ethnic group and Paul''s offering an alternative ethnos--new core values and a new, inclusive way of life. This informed, informative, readable study will engage and reward both introductory students and advanced scholars.""--Dennis C. DulingEmeritus ProfessorCanisius College, Buffalo, New York""Utilizing ethnicity theory and other social sciences with sophistication and insight, Markus Cromhout challenges many assumptions of what it meant to be a first-century Judean. In the process he also questions traditional understandings of the apostle Paul''s entire enterprise, as well as significant aspects of the New Perspective on Paul. He provides, in addition, an intriguing answer as to why most Israelites rejected Paul''s message. His excellent summaries are themselves worth the price of the book.""--Walter F. Taylor Jr.Ernest W. and Edith S. Ogram Professor of New Testament StudiesTrinity Lutheran Seminary""Cromhout has written an absolutely essential book in which he connects central topics of the New Perspective on Paul with insights about their social and cultural background within the ancient Mediterranean world. Based on a complex and well argued socio-cultural model of Israelite ethnic identity, the book deepens our understanding of Pauline concepts like ''works of the law,'' ''faith/belief,'' ''righteousness,'' etc., and traces them back to their contemporary discourses.""--Wolfgang StegemannAugustana-Hochschule, GermanyMarkus Cromhout is a Research Associate in the Department of New Testament Studies at the University of Pretoria. He is the author of Jesus and Identity: Reconstructing Judean Ethnicity in Q (Cascade Books, 2007).

New Testament scholarship lacks an overall interpretive framework to understand Judean identity. This lack of interpretive framework is quite acute in scholarship on the historical Jesus, where the issue of Judeanness (""Jewishness"") is most strongly debated. A socio-cultural model of Judean ethnicity is developed, being a synthesis of (1) Sanders' notion of covenantal nomism, (2) Berger and Luckmann's theories on the sociology of knowledge, (3) Dunn's ""four pillars of Second Temple Judaism"" and his ""new perspective"" on Paul, (4) cultural or social anthropology in the form of modern ethnicity theory, and, lastly, (5) Duling's Socio-Cultural Model of Ethnicity. The proposed model is termed Covenantal Nomism. It is a pictorial representation of the Judean ""symbolic universe,"" which as an ethnic identity, is proposed to be essentially primordialist. The model is given appropriate content by investigating what would have been typical of first-century Judean ethnic identity. It is also argued that there existed a fundamental continuity between Judea and Galilee, as Galileans were ethnic Judeans themselves and they lived on the ancestral land of Israel. Attention is lastly focused on the matter of ethnic identity in Q. The Q people were given an eschatological Judean identity based on their commitment to Jesus and the requirements of the kingdom/reign of God.[K.C. edited this down for the back cover. Leave the longer synopsis for the website.]

Description:New Testament scholarship lacks an overall interpretive framework to understand Judean identity. This lack of interpretive framework is quite acute in scholarship on the historical Jesus, where the issue of Judeanness ("Jewishness") is most strongly debated. A socio-cultural model of Judean ethnicity is developed, being a synthesis of (1) Sanders'' notion of covenantal nomism, (2) Berger and Luckmann''s theories on the sociology of knowledge, (3) Dunn''s "four pillars of Second Temple Judaism" and his "new perspective" on Paul, (4) cultural or social anthropology in the form of modern ethnicity theory, and, lastly, (5) Duling''s Socio-Cultural Model of Ethnicity. The proposed model is termed Covenantal Nomism. It is a pictorial representation of the Judean "symbolic universe," which as an ethnic identity, is proposed to be essentially primordialist. The model is given appropriate content by investigating what would have been typical of first-century Judean ethnic identity. It is also argued that there existed a fundamental continuity between Judea and Galilee, as Galileans were ethnic Judeans themselves and they lived on the ancestral land of Israel. Attention is lastly focused on the matter of ethnic identity in Q. The Q people were given an eschatological Judean identity based on their commitment to Jesus and the requirements of the kingdom/reign of God.[K.C. edited this down for the back cover. Leave the longer synopsis for the website.]Endorsements:"Cromhout''s book takes on a key question in the study of the Sayings Gospel Q, that of the kind of Judaism that the document presupposes. He shows convincingly how Q both manifests a Judaism that is both in significant continuity with other forms of Judaism, but also departs from traditional convenantal nomism. Jesus and Identity is splendidly conceived, sophisticated in its argument, and important in its conclusions."--John S. Kloppenborg, University of Toronto"In this study, Cromhout takes up current research on the historical Jesus, Galilee, and Q and sifts the evidence through the sieve of contemporary social-scientific models of ethnicity. The result is a theory about the ethnic identity of a ''Judean'' (Jewish) Messianist group represented by Q. His study engages modern scholarship, is well organized, and eminently readable. Both advanced scholars and discerning students will benefit greatly from Cromhout''s synthesis." --Dennis C. Duling, Canisius CollegeAbout the Contributor(s):Markus Cromhout is a research associate in the Department of New Testament Studies, University of Pretoria.

This volume invites readers to walk in Israelite sandals, that is, to take a journey of the imagination, and to immerse themselves in the identity, values, and institutions of first-century CE Israelites with the help of contemporary social-scientific studies and theories. What emerges is that the Israelites did not practice a religion. Rather, they were an ethnos, or as this book describes it, an ethnic identity, who lived out a particular way of life and culture the customs of the fathers. It is to belong to a people who obtained their collective identity, honor, and sense of worth from their socialization and membership in Israel and from the social convention of loyalty to their rich cultural tradition. It was to belong to a "world," or having a perspective on the world with its own quality of "knowledge," which, among other things, preferred collectivism over individualism, and orthopraxy over orthodoxy.