Rohrbaugh Reviews Crossley
In an RBL review Richard Rohrbaugh reviews Crossley's Why Christianity Happened. Danny Zacharias and Jim West respond to the review, not pleased with Rohrbaugh's remark, "it is unfortunate that Crossley appears to have only a superficial acquaintance with the now well-established scholarship in the field of social-scientific criticism". He probably wanted to see more of the honor-shame model assimilated into this account of Christian origins. On the whole I think it's a sharp review, giving Crossley his due (particularly regarding his knowledge of the Torah and rabbinic traditions) and criticizing fairly (especially regarding Mark as pre-50 and pro-law). It's true that the book delivers less than the title promises, but it's worth reading nonetheless.
posted by Loren Rosson III @ 3/27/2007
1 Comments:
I'm ultra busy right now but I will get to responding. The title was not mine but I think it means little anyway as the preface explains quite explicitly what the intentions of the book are. As for the social-science literature, God only knows what he means. The Honour-Shame stuff may have been in mind but how that would have answered the question about the shift in law observance, I don't know. Moreover, I have nothing to add to the honour-shame thing. And like Danny Z, I am simply not convinced by people telling me something is wrong without any argument.
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