The Emergence of the Christian Religion: Essays on Early Christianity

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Emergence of the Christian Religion: Essays on Early Christianity Elizabeth DePalma Digeser Birgir A. Pearson. The Emergence of the Christian Religion: Essays on Early Christianity. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997. Pp. xiv + 241. $19.00. Why should Christianity be studied comparatively, as “one of the religions of the world”? Pearson’s essays tackle this question. He begins (chapter 1) by describing how Religion departments often isolate Christian studies from the comparative study of other religions. Pearson argues instead that a richer, more accurate understanding of early Christianity (including its theology) results from an empathetic, historically-oriented analysis, one sensitive to Christianity’s diversity and its relationship to other Mediterranean religions. In the succeeding essays (most published originally elsewhere), he demonstrates the fruitfulness of this approach in studies that spotlight a series of issues in early Christian history from the search for the historical Jesus to the secularization of the Late Antique church. For example, in chapter 2, Pearson examines the historical foundations of the Jesus Seminar. Although the Seminar set out to answer a historical question, Pearson’s philological and comparative analysis reveals anachronisms that undercut the Seminar’s interpretation of Jesus. The following chapters show Pearson applying his historical and comparative methodology in his own research. Chapter 3 looks at the structure, content, and historical context of 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16 to argue that this passage is an interpolation. In chapter 4, Pearson’s philological analysis of 2 Peter reveals the pagan background of its author. Taken together, chapters 3 and 4 show how the earliest Christians reached beyond and became estranged from their original Jewish communities. Chapters 5 through 8 explore Gnosticism, a topic for which Pearson is especially well-known. In chapter 5, Pearson compares the Apocalypse of Peter with 2 Peter to argue that Gnostic Christians drew on mainstream texts to help them assert their legitimacy. Chapters 6 and 7 explore Gnosticism’s origins. Pearson’s study of two apocalypses (John and Adam) supports his claim that Christian Gnosticism grew out of an originally Jewish form. In chapter 8, Pearson assesses how the larger Christian community viewed Gnosticism, as he contrasts the informed criticism of Christians such as Irenaeus and Hippolytus with the surprisingly ignorant attacks of the first Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea. Chapters 5 through 8 thus testify not only to the diversity of Christianity in the second and third centuries, but also to the efforts of later Christians to gloss over this variegated landscape, a topic that Pearson develops further in chapter 9. Finally, chapter 10 uses philology to understand Christianity in its social setting as a religion that emphasized philanthropia. Pearson looks at philanthropia in Greek, Roman, and Jewish contexts and then compares these practices with those in Christianity. Pearson, like Rodney Stark, sees Christian philanthropy as one key to the ultimate “success” of the new faith. The book ends with an epilogue reviewing the methodology of the previous chapters. As a plea for the historical and comparative study of Christianity, Pearson’s book will be most welcome to scholars in Religion departments interested in [End Page 306] adopting such an approach. Ancient historians, on the other hand, may find that Pearson’s first chapter simply states what they have long taken for granted. The book might also have been made more accessible to non-specialists if Pearson had defined specialized terminology (e.g., “trajectory,” “form criticism,” “hapax legomenon,” and “halakah”) the first time he used it and if he had transliterated more of the Greek. These, however, are minor criticisms. The Emergence of the Christian Religion will be useful to anyone interested in the historiography of early Christianity. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser St. Norbert College, DePere, WI Copyright © 1999 The Johns Hopkins University Press