The Social Gospel of Jesus
From the Introduction (pre-publication version):I think even the most skeptical historian will agree that if Jesus spoke about anything, he spoke about the kingdom of Heaven (see Willis 1987; Chilton 1994; Fuellenbach 1995). The burden of Jesus’ proclamation was the kingdom of Heaven, a politically correct, Israelite way of saying “kingdom of God.” The question I wish to address in this book is the following: To what sort of social problem was Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of Heaven meant to be a solution? The word “kingdom” by any estimation is a word describing a society’s political institution. It is, in origin, a political term, even if a number of Bible readers, professional and non-professional, have appropriated the term metaphorically. What did a phrase like “kingdom of Heaven” mean to Jesus’ Israelite audience in the first century? The proclamation of the kingdom of Heaven meant at least that the God of Israel would be taking over control of the country soon. The phrase, “kingdom of Heaven,” is a descriptive and more concrete way of saying “theocracy.” Theocracy is a political science term referring to the political system of societies claiming to be ruled by God. Iran is a contemporary example.The outcome of Jesus’ career makes it rather certain that his proclamation of the kingdom of God was political, not metaphorical, much less “spiritual,” whatever that nineteenth-century word might mean. In what sort of first-century Mediterranean social context would the proclamation of theocracy make sense? In all gospel accounts about Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom, no one asks for an explanation of what exactly was it that he spoke about. While Jesus was reported to have offered a range of descriptions of what God’s rule is like (kingdom parables), he never for a moment explained what the structure of this kingdom of God might be, who would constitute its personnel, its bureaucracy, its chief executive?  Why was there not more discussion about the structure and functions of the theocracy that Jesus proclaimed? About how such a theocracy might work in everyday life? Why did people seem to know exactly what Jesus was referring to when he spoke about theocracy? It would seem that “kingdom of Heaven” was another of the many high-context terms mentioned in the New Testament. For the prevailing language “context” generally in vogue in the ancient Mediterranean was that of a high context society, as opposed to a low context society (see Hall 1976:91-101; 1983:59-77; Malina 1991a).Low context societies produce detailed verbal documents that spell out as much as conceivably possible, leaving little to the imagination. For example, most U.S. citizens know about the annual ritual of paying income taxes. Yet most do not know that the U.S. tax code contains some six thousand pages explaining the income tax. This points up the general norm of low context societies, namely that most things must be clearly set out, hence information must be continually added if meaning is to be constant. Such societies are fine-print societies, societies “of law” where every dimension of life must be described by legislators to make things “lawful,” even including, for example, twenty pages of detailed legal directions about how much fat is allowed in commercially sold sausage. The Congressional Record, a document produced by the U.S. government, offers hours of low context reading for whoever might wish to be entertained in this way. Hall considers the U.S. and northern European countries as typically low context societies.High context societies produce sketchy and impressionistic documents, leaving much to the reader’s or hearer’s imagination and common knowledge. Since people believe few things have to be spelled out, few things are in fact spelled out. This is so because people have been socialized into widely shared ways of perceiving and acting. Hence, much can be assumed. People presume, for example, that helping out a person in dire need makes that person obligated for the rest of his or her life to the helper. There simply is no need to spell out all these obligations, as we would when we sign for a car loan. In high context societies, little new information is necessary for meaning to be constant. Hall lists the Mediterranean, among other areas, populated with high context societies. Clearly the Bible along with other writings from ancient Mediterranean peoples fit this high context profile.How different, then, it is for low context, U.S. and northern European readers to read some high context document. To allay the difference, low context readers presume the high context documents are in fact other instances of the low context documents they are used to. The New Testament, for example, is believed to have sufficient information to serve as norm for Christian living in any society! Attuned to detail, they simply do not know what is assumed in a high context society. It is the purpose of historical biblical interpretation to fill in the assumptions of the high context documents that form the New Testament, assumptions which the authors of those documents shared with high context readers of their Mediterranean world.It will help us understand Hall’s observations about high and low context societies if we attend to their respective communication problems. The typical communication problem in low context societies such as the U.S., for example, is giving people information they do not need, hence “talking down” to them by spelling out absolutely everything. Consider the endless amount of information printed by the US Government Printing Office alone, or the useless knowledge no one needs to know that passes as “news” in the media. In contrast, the typical communication problem in high context societies is not giving people enough information, hence “mystifying” them. Consider the broad range of mystifications and hidden meanings derived from the Mediterranean, high context Bible in the hands of sincere and honest low context U.S. and northern European readers, from fundamentalist TV preachers to learned literary critics.Biblical mystifications and hidden meanings are contrived in a number of ways and for various reasons in our low context societies. A glance at the spate of “relevant” commentaries on Revelation is a case in point. So too, the fate of the term “kingdom of Heaven” in low context societies. The fact is, however, that “kingdom of Heaven” comes from high-context society and is a high-context term. High-context terms are words and phrases referring to social realities with wide ranging ramifications known to all persons in a given society. There is no need to spell out the details; everybody knows what is involved. Reference to the kingdom of Heaven simply indicates the tip of some proverbial iceberg, as is normal with high-context referents. What does that iceberg look like?