Sharon Mattila | University of North Carolina at Pembroke (original) (raw)
Papers by Sharon Mattila
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2010
Perhaps no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than t... more Perhaps no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than the common one of "peasants" as a distinct socioeconomic and cultural human type. This is despite the fact that there is at present actually no consensus among social scientists themselves on the issue of "whether a distinctive category of peasantry can be identified both conceptually and empirically." 1 Indeed, this is one of the most important ongoing debates in the social sciences.
Biblica, 1994
Les deux manuscrits 2Q246 et 1QM de Qumran presentent des eschatologies qui s'opposent et ne ... more Les deux manuscrits 2Q246 et 1QM de Qumran presentent des eschatologies qui s'opposent et ne peuvent donc provenir ensemble de la communaute essenienne. Le texte de 2Q246 a des paralelles dans la Bible, notamment en Daniel 7 et montre Dieu comme un demiurge ordonnant le chaos et pacifiant les Nations tandis que 1QM montre un net dualisme articule autour de l'opposition Lumiere-Tenebres
Journal of Religion, 2004
This is the article to accompany the colored diagram
Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods. Vol. 2
Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods. Volume 1, 2014
Much research on life in the Greco-Roman world has taken a "top-down" approach. It has focused fi... more Much research on life in the Greco-Roman world has taken a "top-down" approach. It has focused first on the activities of the rulers, temple authorities, and other members of the elite, only then taking into account those who lived outside these spheres. Moreover, it has been common to depict most of the non-elite as a homogeneous mass of "peasants": members of self-provisioning "peasant family farms" who lived in tradition-bound, autarchic village communities just above the level of subsistence after the ruling, parasitic, urban elite extracted rents and taxes. Market exchange was peripheral and harmful to this mode of existence, for subsistence-oriented peasant production was not geared toward markets. When peasants did exchange goods with each other, it was usually through barter. According to this received wisdom, few, if any, people existed between the self-sufficient, subsistence-level masses living in the villages, on the one hand, and the parasitic, ruling elite based in the cities, on the other. 1 To my knowledge, there has been no serious attempt properly to demonstrate, on the basis of hard evidence from ancient rural contexts, the existence of such masses of "peasants," or of a related "peasant economy" (often also called a "natural economy"). Instead, what one routinely encounters are either assumptions or assertions, backed only by appeals to the influential theories of certain social scientists and economic historians of the last century, as though I would like to thank my student research assistant, Mary Tess Johnson, for her invaluable assistance with the final research and editing of this chapter. This help was very timely as the hard deadline for this chapter's submission arrived.
New Testament Studies, 1995
This article is an abbreviated version of my University of Toronto Thesis, "Compositional Techniq... more This article is an abbreviated version of my University of Toronto Thesis, "Compositional Techniques in Classical Authors and in the Synoptic Gospels" (1993).
Journal of Religion, 2004
The Galilean Economy in the Time of Jesus, 2013
Novum Testamentum, 2004
In 1994, the author critiqued a 1971 statistical study of "Q" by Charles E. Carlston and Dennis N... more In 1994, the author critiqued a 1971 statistical study of "Q" by Charles E. Carlston and Dennis Norlin. Their recent reply has necessitated both a further clarification of their study's most serious flaws and an independent statistical analysis using a method that avoids these flaws. Such an analysis demonstrates that Matthew and Luke do not preserve "Q" sayings any more faithfully than Markan sayings. This can still be interpreted in support of "Q" being a single written source, but it is important to recall that the degree of Matt-Luke verbatim agreement is much lower than Carlston & Norlin's figures imply.
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2010
PERHAPS no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than t... more PERHAPS no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than the common one of "peasants" as a distinct socioeconomic and cultural human type. This result is despite the fact that there is at present no consensus among social scientists on the issue of "whether a distinctive category of peasantry can be identified both conceptually and empirically." 1 Indeed, this is one of the most important ongoing debates in the social sciences. Yet the concept of "peasants" continues to be employed by NT scholars with what appears to be an almost total disregard, if not ignorance, of this debate.
Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World
Novum Testamentum, 1994
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Journal of Biblical Literature, 2000
In his famous Hymn to Zeus, the early Stoic Cleanthes (d. ca. 232 B.C.E.) declared: "ever omnipot... more In his famous Hymn to Zeus, the early Stoic Cleanthes (d. ca. 232 B.C.E.) declared: "ever omnipotent Zeus, prime mover of nature (φύσεως αρχηγέ),... hail to you! ... All this cosmos, as it spins around the earth, obeys you, whichever way you lead, and willingly submits to your sway." 1 Were these words all that were extant from the Stoics, there would be little for us to distin guish between the Stoic worldview and that of Ben Sira, the Jerusalem scribe who between 185-175 B.C.E. composed in Hebrew his Wisdom of Ben Sira. 2 Nor, however, would there be much to distinguish between this worldview and that of earlier Jewish wisdom literature-whether Proverbs, the book of Job, or Qoheleth; or that of the Egyptian Demotic wisdom instructions, Ankhsheshonqy and Papyrus Insinger; or that of prophetic and eschatological texts as varied as Deutero-Isaiah, Daniel, Jubilees, 1 Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Community Rule, and the War Rule. 3 The belief that I would like to thank J. J. Collins, E. Asmis, R. Huff, and J. Miller for their helpful contribu tions to this article. 1 A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vols. 1-2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), #541 (Stobaeus 1.25.3-27.4 = SVF 1:537). 2 On this dating, see J. J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 23. Sometime after 132 B.C.E. in Alexandria, Ben Sira's grandson translated the work into Greek. Its textual history is notoriously complicated; only about 68 percent of the book is extant in Hebrew. On the textual evidence and problems, see ibid., 42-44; and P. W. Skehan and A. A. Di Leila, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (AB 39; New York: Doubleday, 1987), 51-62. All citations from Ben Sira's work are taken from F. Vattioni, Ecclesiastico: Testo ebraico con appa rato critico e versioni greca, latina e siriaca (Naples: Istituto Orientale di Napoli, 1968); transla tions are my own, in consultation with Skehan and Di Leila. 3 Carroll Stuhlmueller, "Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah," in NJBC, 333; R. Β. Y. Scott, The Way of Wisdom in the Old Testament (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 10-11, 21-22,138-40, 227-28; N. Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Boots of Apocalyptic Faith 473
Harvard Theological Review, 1996
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2010
Perhaps no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than t... more Perhaps no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than the common one of "peasants" as a distinct socioeconomic and cultural human type. This is despite the fact that there is at present actually no consensus among social scientists themselves on the issue of "whether a distinctive category of peasantry can be identified both conceptually and empirically." 1 Indeed, this is one of the most important ongoing debates in the social sciences.
Biblica, 1994
Les deux manuscrits 2Q246 et 1QM de Qumran presentent des eschatologies qui s'opposent et ne ... more Les deux manuscrits 2Q246 et 1QM de Qumran presentent des eschatologies qui s'opposent et ne peuvent donc provenir ensemble de la communaute essenienne. Le texte de 2Q246 a des paralelles dans la Bible, notamment en Daniel 7 et montre Dieu comme un demiurge ordonnant le chaos et pacifiant les Nations tandis que 1QM montre un net dualisme articule autour de l'opposition Lumiere-Tenebres
Journal of Religion, 2004
This is the article to accompany the colored diagram
Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods. Vol. 2
Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods. Volume 1, 2014
Much research on life in the Greco-Roman world has taken a "top-down" approach. It has focused fi... more Much research on life in the Greco-Roman world has taken a "top-down" approach. It has focused first on the activities of the rulers, temple authorities, and other members of the elite, only then taking into account those who lived outside these spheres. Moreover, it has been common to depict most of the non-elite as a homogeneous mass of "peasants": members of self-provisioning "peasant family farms" who lived in tradition-bound, autarchic village communities just above the level of subsistence after the ruling, parasitic, urban elite extracted rents and taxes. Market exchange was peripheral and harmful to this mode of existence, for subsistence-oriented peasant production was not geared toward markets. When peasants did exchange goods with each other, it was usually through barter. According to this received wisdom, few, if any, people existed between the self-sufficient, subsistence-level masses living in the villages, on the one hand, and the parasitic, ruling elite based in the cities, on the other. 1 To my knowledge, there has been no serious attempt properly to demonstrate, on the basis of hard evidence from ancient rural contexts, the existence of such masses of "peasants," or of a related "peasant economy" (often also called a "natural economy"). Instead, what one routinely encounters are either assumptions or assertions, backed only by appeals to the influential theories of certain social scientists and economic historians of the last century, as though I would like to thank my student research assistant, Mary Tess Johnson, for her invaluable assistance with the final research and editing of this chapter. This help was very timely as the hard deadline for this chapter's submission arrived.
New Testament Studies, 1995
This article is an abbreviated version of my University of Toronto Thesis, "Compositional Techniq... more This article is an abbreviated version of my University of Toronto Thesis, "Compositional Techniques in Classical Authors and in the Synoptic Gospels" (1993).
Journal of Religion, 2004
The Galilean Economy in the Time of Jesus, 2013
Novum Testamentum, 2004
In 1994, the author critiqued a 1971 statistical study of "Q" by Charles E. Carlston and Dennis N... more In 1994, the author critiqued a 1971 statistical study of "Q" by Charles E. Carlston and Dennis Norlin. Their recent reply has necessitated both a further clarification of their study's most serious flaws and an independent statistical analysis using a method that avoids these flaws. Such an analysis demonstrates that Matthew and Luke do not preserve "Q" sayings any more faithfully than Markan sayings. This can still be interpreted in support of "Q" being a single written source, but it is important to recall that the degree of Matt-Luke verbatim agreement is much lower than Carlston & Norlin's figures imply.
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2010
PERHAPS no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than t... more PERHAPS no social-scientific concept has had a greater impact on historical Jesus research than the common one of "peasants" as a distinct socioeconomic and cultural human type. This result is despite the fact that there is at present no consensus among social scientists on the issue of "whether a distinctive category of peasantry can be identified both conceptually and empirically." 1 Indeed, this is one of the most important ongoing debates in the social sciences. Yet the concept of "peasants" continues to be employed by NT scholars with what appears to be an almost total disregard, if not ignorance, of this debate.
Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World
Novum Testamentum, 1994
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Journal of Biblical Literature, 2000
In his famous Hymn to Zeus, the early Stoic Cleanthes (d. ca. 232 B.C.E.) declared: "ever omnipot... more In his famous Hymn to Zeus, the early Stoic Cleanthes (d. ca. 232 B.C.E.) declared: "ever omnipotent Zeus, prime mover of nature (φύσεως αρχηγέ),... hail to you! ... All this cosmos, as it spins around the earth, obeys you, whichever way you lead, and willingly submits to your sway." 1 Were these words all that were extant from the Stoics, there would be little for us to distin guish between the Stoic worldview and that of Ben Sira, the Jerusalem scribe who between 185-175 B.C.E. composed in Hebrew his Wisdom of Ben Sira. 2 Nor, however, would there be much to distinguish between this worldview and that of earlier Jewish wisdom literature-whether Proverbs, the book of Job, or Qoheleth; or that of the Egyptian Demotic wisdom instructions, Ankhsheshonqy and Papyrus Insinger; or that of prophetic and eschatological texts as varied as Deutero-Isaiah, Daniel, Jubilees, 1 Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Community Rule, and the War Rule. 3 The belief that I would like to thank J. J. Collins, E. Asmis, R. Huff, and J. Miller for their helpful contribu tions to this article. 1 A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vols. 1-2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), #541 (Stobaeus 1.25.3-27.4 = SVF 1:537). 2 On this dating, see J. J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 23. Sometime after 132 B.C.E. in Alexandria, Ben Sira's grandson translated the work into Greek. Its textual history is notoriously complicated; only about 68 percent of the book is extant in Hebrew. On the textual evidence and problems, see ibid., 42-44; and P. W. Skehan and A. A. Di Leila, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (AB 39; New York: Doubleday, 1987), 51-62. All citations from Ben Sira's work are taken from F. Vattioni, Ecclesiastico: Testo ebraico con appa rato critico e versioni greca, latina e siriaca (Naples: Istituto Orientale di Napoli, 1968); transla tions are my own, in consultation with Skehan and Di Leila. 3 Carroll Stuhlmueller, "Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah," in NJBC, 333; R. Β. Y. Scott, The Way of Wisdom in the Old Testament (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 10-11, 21-22,138-40, 227-28; N. Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Boots of Apocalyptic Faith 473
Harvard Theological Review, 1996