The Lost Letters of Pergamum by Bruce Longenecker (A book review)

Sight Magazine has just published a book review I just wrote. It is a review on Bruce Longenecker's The Lost Letters of Pergamum (Baker, Grand Rapids, 2003). Here are parts of the review.

"The genius of this book is Professor Bruce Longenecker’s ability to narrate a powerful tale through the lens of early church history. At the same time the story of Jesus is retold through the fictional accounts of Antipas and the early Christians in Pergamum. As a result, we modern readers reap the benefit of learning from Longenecker (a prominent Biblical scholar) important elements of New Testament history through a very user-friendly story. We are indebted to Longenecker for teaching us something about Luke’s Gospel, the background of Revelation, and the ancient letter writing style that shaped much of the New Testament."

"The Lost Letters of Pergamum is not so much a light bedtime reading. But neither is it an academic book that demands a heavy intellectual engagement. Rather, it is for Christians, pastors, theological students, and even children (from upper primary onwards), who want to gain insights into the New Testament and the power of the Gospel through a superb storyline that is both intriguing and engaging. I highly recommend this book."

Click here to read the entire book review.

God chooses the weak and the despised

I'd like to share a bit more from Professor Bruce Longenecker's book The Lost Letters of Pergamum: A Story from the New Testament World. 

This book consists of a set of fictional letters between a number of people in the first century. Here is an excerpt from a letter written to Luke (the writer of Luke's Gospel) from a nobleman in Pergamum, after reading the last chapters of Luke's Gospel. The nobleman is not a Christian at this point.

"Clearly, the punch of your narrative comes at the very end, with the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension into the heavenly world. These acts seem to be more than a simple vindication of one who claimed to act on behalf of his god. They reveal that Jesus can fill the role he predicted for himself - that of the ultimate and sovereign judge of the world, the Son of Man exalted to the right hand of the mighty god. I noted that this provided the narrative with a fitting point of closure, with the resurrection of Jesus highlighting the point he had made throughout his life: Jesus' god chooses the weak and despised as the favored vehicles of divine power and mercy. That a crucified outcast is resurrected by divine power is itself a most dramatic example in the theology of reversal that Jesus espoused throughout his life."

By the way, if you are wondering where Pergamum is (in the Bible), check out Revelation 2:13.

Galilean life from a peasant's perspective (Bruce Longenecker's book)

I am enjoying an excellent book written by Professor Bruce Longenecker called The Lost Letters of Pergamum: A Story from the New Testament World.

It is an excellent book that will help you to understand the New Testament. The following recommendation by Professor Stanley Porter tells us what the book is about.

"This fictional correspondence is not true, but it certainly could have been. Longenecker writes a very engaging account of several characters who, in their different ways, came to experience and respond to the risen Jesus Christ through Luke's narrative. I was especially moved by the character of Antipas as he is ennobled by being transformed from a Roman dignitary into a model of Christian self-sacrifice."

The book consists of many letters written by Antipas, Luke, and others. Here is an excerpt from one of the digests, in which Antipas gives an account of what Galilean life was like from a peasant's perspective.

"Like most other sectors of society throughout the empire, Galilean society is marked by two tiers of position: those in secure positions and those in insecure positions. Those enjoying a high degree of security are members of the elite, the ruling class and their high-ranking retainers. Those in an insecure situation include the peasants, most artisans and merchants, along with the unclean, the degraded, and the expendables. Although those in secure positions of wealth and power are few in number, they control the majority of the wealth of the society. The elite enjoy an extremely extravagant lifestyle, while the majority of the peasants live the most meager existence.

The elite have the luxury of establishing profitable relationships with other members of the elite, usually facilitated by means of lavish banquets that parade their wealth and opulence in contests of consumption. A member of the elite continually seeks ways of increasing his influence through investment opportunities, business partnerships, patron-client relationships, currying favor with imperial officials, or serving lucrative ambassadorial function on behalf of his city... The elite portray themselves as favored by the gods and go to great lengths to ensure that the religious institutions of the society promote this claim...

Rural peasants, conversely, expend significant energy simply trying to ensure the survival of themselves and their families. They usually live meager lives at subsistence level, having just enough food and resources to get by. Many fall below that level. Their poor standard of living is not the result of laziness or ineptitude, since a peasant's workday is long and hard. Nor is it the result of poor harvesting techniques, since peasant farmers reap significant gains from agricultural production. Instead, subsistence living is the result of imposed dues, tributes, and taxations, which peasants usually regard as excessively harsh because these expensive burdens extract everything over and above what is required to sustain the peasants' meager existence."

Economic profile of the earliest Christians - Urban Jesus-followers in Paul's letters (Bruce Longenecker)

In his new book Remember the Poor (2010), Bruce Longenecker provides a picture of the economic profile of a typical urban group of Jesus-followers in the days of the New Testament.

Longenecker emphasizes that the following figures are only rough estimates. But it seems that he has done extensive research on this and there are good reasons to use them as fairly reliable background information when it comes to interpreting Paul's letters in the New Testament.

Here is what he says,

"1.  Roughly 10% of this community is among the middling groups of Roman urbanism (ES4), not without economic risk, but also with a relatively significant level of economic security...

2.  Roughly 25% of this community has some minimal economic resources (ES5)...

3. Roughly 65% of this community is marked out by subsistence-level existence (ES6 to ES7)."

It is clear that the majority of the Christ-community in Paul's house churches lived below, at, or near subsistence level. This, I think, means that we should read Paul's letters in light of this important background.

For example, when we see the words "suffering" or "affliction" in Paul's letters, at least one aspect of these words would be related to socioeconomic hardships from the audience's perspective (unless the context clearly says otherwise).

Also, financial generosity in Paul is not so much about the wealthy giving to the destitute. Rather, it is about sharing the scarce resources available in the community. That is, it is about the relatively "less poor" Christians sharing their resource with the poorest among them.

Some concluding remarks from Bruce Longenecker about Paul and poverty

I am still reading Bruce Longenecker's new book Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World (Grant Rapids: Eerdmans), 2010. But here is what I found from a quick look at the final pages.

We have seen that Paul's concern for the poor had considerable impact on the way that he lived his life, to the point of risking his own life in "putting his money where his mouth was." This should surprise us only if, unlike Paul, we imagine the "good news" that transformed Paul from persecutor to apostle to be devoid of an economic dimension. But since Paul envisioned an economic component to lie deeply embedded within the good news of the Jesus-movement, the fact that his concern for the poor influenced his manner of living and his approach to peril falls wholly in line with all that we know of this man who, when committing himself to a cause, did so wholeheartedly, and with spirited enthusiasm. (page 316)

I have long been thinking that it is hard to read the stories of Jesus and Paul's letters (and Paul's life story in Acts) without being challenged to live a self-giving life as Christ's followers. And this self-giving life can hardly not include some kind of sacrifice in terms of lowering one's socioeconomic status. I think Longenecker's detailed analysis affirms this rather obvious observation.

(So far - I'm reading chapter 4 - I find Longenecker's analysis of the economic situation of Pauline churches very thorough. He interests with the most recent and the earlier scholarship really well, and has come up with a balanced view on the matter.)

Paul and poverty - Bruce Longenecker's new book

Just bought Bruce Longenecker's book called Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World (Grant Rapids: Eerdmans), 2010. Here is what he says in the first chapter (page 1).

[C]are for the poor is shown to be an integral part of the "good news" that Paul preached... For Paul, economic assistance of the poor was not sufficient in and of itself, nor was it exhaustive of the good news of Jesus; but neither was it supplemental or peripheral to that good news. In fact, falling within the essentials of the good news, care for the poor was thought by Paul to be a necessary hallmark of the corporate life of Jesus-followers who lived in conformity with the good news of the early Jesus-movement.