The River of God: A New History of Christian Origins

Abstract

The of God: A New History of Christian Origins, by Gregory J. Riley. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003. Pp. 252. $14.95 (paper). ISBN 0060669802. The attractive bait is in subtitle's promise to present a of Christian origins. Riley, it would seem, shares in aim that is spreading in academy among NT scholars and historians of early Christianity, to trouble, then to replace, ahistorical histories of early that stretch almost indistinguishably from sacred text (e.g., Luke-Acts) to countless textbooks. His is mounted on a tripod of metaphorical-conceptual terms which Riley too unjustifiably calls models. The first model aims to regard early in historical terms that oppose two familiar variants of representing status of in transcendent terms, either as a revealed religion (which, by definition, has no history) or as manifestation of divine (which is not so much a as a theological claim that imagines a narrow salvation-historical swath from ancient Israel to Jesus and church, bypassing both ancient cultures of Near and more mixed cultures of Greco-Roman period). It is because of this emic Christian conjunction of history and salvation that Riley sets aside term history and opts for term genealogy. has . . . had a (p. 3), he writes, but [f]or most of our era cannot be said to have had a at all (p. 2). He points out conceptual benefits of this move: a wider historical base and a far more complex lineage than small nation of Israel alone (p. 2); hence, Greco-Roman cultures are not merely environment or context for early but parental contributors, providing half of substance of Christianity (p. 7); historical fact of multiple early Christianities can now be acknowledged as fact and understood as several children who develop distinct personalities while sharing traits derived from their inherited and shared genealogy (p. 7). Riley imagines this process of derivation by means of his second model, a great river system (the Mississippi serves as illustration). The river, a murky flowing cauldron produced by countless tributaries and seasonal washes, contains the totality of historical and religious background of Christianity (p. 9), the vast store of ideas and traditions that [Christians] used to form their own unique expressions of religious truth (p. 11), or-and here Riley allows us a glimpse at a crucial premise to which I will return-a flow over time of relationship between God and humanity in ancient Near East (p. 9; cf. p. 219), hence River of God, for the flow is composed of contributions . . . from divine . . . and formulations of religious ideas and doctrines by inspired prophets, teachers, and wise people (p. 9). He positions the life of Jesus and inception of Christianity just above river delta, and the many divisions of delta are many versions of Christian movement that arose immediately after his [Jesus'] death (p. 10). Riley's third model is idea of equilibrium, drawn from modern paleobiological theory, where it is argued controversially by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould. The notion refers specifically to geologically brief (hence punctuated) adaptive events at level of speciation, concentrated bursts of change precipitated by environmental catastrophes during a long period of evolutionary stasis or equilibrium. Riley applies this theory to evolution of ideas so that rather rapid rise of is imagined as an adaptive response to crises presented by the new revelation and new pressures of Greco-Roman world (p. 13). Lest genealogical, streaming, and punctuated eruption metaphorics conjure view that early Christianities were unintended, nonagentive (in human terms) products of earlier cultural DNA strands, or an allogamous alluvial deposit of historical flow of ideas and traditions, so to speak, Riley also uses idea of equilibrium to wedge a bit of space for invention (p. …