GERD THEISSEN A Theory of Primitive Christian Religion SCM Press 1999, 399 pp
£14.95 ISBN 0 334 027675

source: Anvil, 2001 review by Dr Derek Tidball

The publication of any new work by Professor Gerd Theissen, of Heidelberg, is
always something to look forward to and his recent ‘A Theory of Primitive Christian
Religion’ is not a disappointment. Theissen has established himself as one of the
most fertile thinkers in the field of New Testament scholarship. Freed from the
shackles of narrow historical critical approaches to the New Testament he brings
the benefits (and the liabilities) of lateral thinking to the task, not least the lateral
thinking of sociological insights. Among his wide range of publications are two
seminal works on the sociology of the New Testament, and a creative approach to
the quest for the historical Jesus, The Shadow of the Galilean”.

But his current work is genuinely new.

He defines religion as ‘a cultural sign language which promises a gain in life by
corresponding to an ultimate reality.’ In so doing he is within the mainstream of
anthropological and sociological definitions of religion which owe much to the work
of Clifford Geertz. And he opts for a definition which is consistent with the work
of Berger and Luckman and the approach of the sociology of knowledge, of which
more later. He assumes the justifiably accepted sociological axiom that human
beings use language to provide an interpretation of their world and lend it meaning.
When they do so they not only order their world but provide cognitive (knowledge),
emotional and pragmatic (action) structures for their lives. These are the gains in
life to which his definition refers. Several strands of the definition are picked up
later in the work but this one is not consistently woven into his later argument in
a way that might have been useful.

It must be noted that his definition is inclusivist and of a functionalist hue
(consistent with his general sociological thrust) rather than substantive and many
would consider it too vague to be of operational value. His real contribution lies
in the exploration of the ‘cultural sign language’ which early Christians adopted
and the developments which took place in its grammar and language, eventually
leading them to a total break from Judaism.

Throughout the book he uses the motif of ‘a semiotic cathedral’. He is
constructing a cathedral of signs (semiotic) which, he trusts, will be accessible to all, whether
people have a faith commitment or not, just as the history or grandeur of a
cathedral may inspire awe and appreciation in tourists even if they are not
worshippers. He believes the uninvolved visitors may gain much about the meaning
of the faith from the tour regardless of faith but his personal faith commitment
leads him to believe that to view it just from the ‘outside’ is not sufficient. 14
Cathedrals are complex structures. Architecturally they involve foundations,
walls, arches, roofs, towers or spires (and the engineering miracles that hold them
up). Historically, they are augmented or adapted as the centuries pass. Liturgically
they have sanctuaries, naves, lady chapels, crypts, fonts, altars and chapter houses.
Decoratively they adopt a certain style and have stained glass windows, altar cloths,
memorials, flags and gargoyles. Organically they have bishops, deans, canons, prebends, choirs, worshippers and onlookers.

Theissen’s choice of the motif of the cathedral is apt since his theory is complex
and many-layered in its exposition. Many of the elements above have their parallels
in his theory but perhaps, for me, it never reaches its organic potential. The buzz
of lively worshippers, the noise of ordinary people and the bustle of genuine lives
never quite surface. Perhaps, in view of his sociological writings, I anticipated more
of this dimension whereas it reads much more like the older German works of the
history of ideas rather than a really adequate socially-located work on the social
construction of knowledge.

Be that as it may, let me tour the cathedral pointing out some of its key features
before concluding with an evaluation.

First, note the design he brings to the work.

Semiotic cathedrals are composed of three elements: myths, rites and ethics. 15
Myths are the narratives which are the raw materials informing people’s
appreciation of the world and their lives from which they shape their interpretations.
They concern the actions of God (or gods), which raises the question of their
relationship to history. Rites are the repetitive patterns of behaviour, involving
words, actions and objects, which depict the ‘other reality’ in the ordinary world.
Ethics concerns the way in which people are required to live in the totality of their
lives in reference to God.

These elements enable the construction of a theory which is systematic; 16 and so
organized in itself and clearly distinguishable from other sign languages, such as, in
the case of Christianity, from Judaism. It is also a cultural construction which enables
one to trace the changes which occurs in it over time due to charisma or crisis.
In chapters 2 to 8 Theissen expounds systematically how the Primitive Christian
‘myth’ of Christ as Divine; the basic Christian ethics of love of neighbour and
renunciation of status; and the rites of baptism and communion, associated with
a sacrificial interpretation of the death of Jesus, were constructed from the raw
materials of Jewish monotheism and covenantal nomism.

Assuming, for the moment, the foundations on which he builds, Theissen is, I
believe, at his most effective in analysing the way in which the gospels begin to
transform the Christian message and introduce a degree of separateness from
Judaism, in which, according to his earlier work, it began as a renewal sect.18
Mark, he argues, pays particular attention to the transformation of the ‘ritual’
element. With the destruction of the Jewish temple a new centre for faith is needed
and Mark constructs a case for Jesus being the new centre. Controversies over
Jewish laws, the the rending of the temple curtain, the voice of God at his baptism,
the transfiguration, Jesus’ own comments on the Temple and the inclusion of nonJews
in the story all point to Jesus himself being the new centre and the old ritual
system of Judaism. 19

Matthew specifically addresses the ethical dimension. Classically, the Sermon
on the Mount lays on Jesus’s disciples a radical ethic and a ‘better righteousness’
than that of the aristocratic Jews. The show:;:; how this new ethic is the fulfilment
of the law and the prophets and also radicalizes, democratizes20 and universalizes
an old Jewish aristocratic ethic.

Luke does for the ‘myth’ (narrative) what Mark has done for ritual and Matthew
for ethics. He does it by means of a salvation-historical narrative in which from
the infancy narratives, where salvation is said to include the Gentiles, onwards there
is a growing inclusion of Gentiles in the stories and an increasing separation of
Jews and Gentiles leading to a hardening on the part of the Jews.22
Second, note the coherence he brings to his design.

Theissen’s ‘theory’ has an elegance about it. It demonstrates a balance and
coherence where other theories prove to be much more one-sided and therefore
lop-sided. Three illustrations of his balance are offered.

The first example is the balance between myth and history. Remember that by
myth Theissen means the basic narrative which informs the primitive Christian
worldview which relates to the action of a supernatural agent acting decisively in
the world. The ‘myth’ regarding Jesus is a perfectly consistent development from
earlier Jewish ‘myths’. 23 But the use of ‘myth’ should not be read as meaning
‘unhistorical’. To him primitive Christianity offers a ‘unique combination of history
and myth’ 24 and in it, ‘myth and history enter into a unity in tension’. 25 Neither
had priority. The relationship between them is two-way: concrete historical events
are transformed into mythical statements and ‘mythical expectations are
transformed into his history’ .
26 The word ‘transformed’ is perhaps not well-chosen
in this regard, but that there is a process of interpretation between event and
narrative is an incontrovertible proposition. It is the way he seeks to hold them
together which is admirable.
The second example is the balance between social construction of the faith and
divine revelation. The ‘human construction’ of the faith in unavoidable since all
interpretations of life, scientific and mathematical no less than religious, are social
constructions of meanings. But, he says, the human construction was ‘the response
to a revelation’.27 It was not a human creation ex nihilo but a making sense of a
reality which was experienced, an objective world which imposes itself on people.
The third example is the balance between the forces of radicalism and
moderation in the development of the faith. Both he says were necessary, the
former giving Christianity its identity and the latter its moderation. This perhaps
corrects the overemphasis some have seen in his early work on the significant place
of the radical itinerants in shaping the early Christian faith, and rightly
acknowledges that renewal movements often have their origins and derives their
energy from charismatic, if not itinerant, radicals but cannot sustain themselves
on radicalism alone.

Third, note the foundations on which he believes the cathedral is built.

Theissen’s thesis is that primitive Christianity began as a renewal movement within
Judaism and increasingly separated from it until it became a distinct movement in
its own right. We will look at the process by which that occurred shortly. For the
moment our concern is to emphasize the distinctly Jewish foundation of
Christianity. The two significant axioms of Judaism are those of monotheism and
covenantal nomism. Given monotheism, how could it be that Christians came to
believe in Jesus as the Messiah? The process, he claims, takes place in a way which
is perfectly consistent with monotheism since Jesus connects his own history with
the traditional apocalyptic expectation of the coming of the rule of God. 30
Covenantal nomism stresses that Judaism is a religion of grace/1 a grace which
finds expression is the coming of a redeemer and that gradually widens in its scope
from being exclusively for the Jews through the Jews still having priority, evident,
for example, in Romans 1:16, to being inclusive of all and embracing the Gentiles.
In both these cases then, the cathedral is found on the sign language of Judaism
and is in continuity with it.

Fourth, note the development which takes place in the cathedral
It is rare for a cathedral to have been built in one limited single period (Coventry
and Liverpool might be examples), without subsequently undergoing development).
In the case of Westminster Abbey, for example, part of the attraction and mystery
of the building is one’s ability to trace the remnants of its Saxon origins and the
subsequent expansions and additions to those which reflect the architecture of
different periods. Theissen applies such a perspective to the development of
primitive Christian sign language.

He traces the chronological development.of ‘primitive Christian religion from
a single unitary origin’ through its earliest expressions in Paul, and the synoptic
gospels until the reinterpretation of the myth, rite and ethic regarding Christ is fully
brought to consciousness in John’s gospel and then beyond the development of
catholic Christianity. The development occurred because the various crises of early
Christianity, such as the conflicts between Hebrews and Hellenists, Antioch and
Jerusalem and Peter and Paul at Antioch, and the later Gnostic and prophetic
crises34 ‘were not resolved in a uniform way. ‘ He accepts the basic perspective of
the picture of tension put forward in mid-nineteenth century Ttibingen but considers
it out-dated because in reality there were not two parties but ‘a multiplicity of
currents, between which there were tensions and conflicts.’35 The tensions were
resolved by the recognition of the canon which defined legitimate diversity within

early Christianity, ruled out illegitimate or heretical currents and, just as significantly.
defined primitive Christianity over against its mother religion, marking the final
separation form Judaism and the final and permanent severance of the bond with
it. 36 Another result of the canon was that it defined Christianity vis-a-vis paganism.
In the second generation, then, Theissen sees four basic currents (Pauline,
Jewish, Synoptic and Johannine) Christianity which flow, in the early second
century, into ‘early catholic church Christianity,’ as seen in the canon. The outer
edges are constantly under pressure from prophetic criticism, as, for example, in
Tertullian and the Montanists, on the one side and gnosticism ‘which dissolved the
Christian sign system into a universal symbolic language’ on the other.

It would be an interesting and significant exercise to compare and contrast
Theissen’s analysis of the diversity of early Christianity with that, say, of James
Dunn, posited in his Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, back in 1977.38 Dunn
posits a four-fold scheme of Jewish, Hellenistic, Apocalyptic and Early Catholic
diversity on theological grounds. Both are dynamic schemes but there are significant
differences between them. Dunn’s is a theological scheme and Theissen’s a semiotic
one. Dunn’s more serious place for apocalyptic Christianity seems to me a definite
gain on Theissen whilst Theissen seems a little more consistent in parts to the
integrity of the New Testament documents as we have received them in the canon.

Fifth, note the mature features which are evident in it.

Towards the end of his work he seeks to systematize the motifs of early Christianity
where ‘a change of position’39 has occurred with regard to the basic axioms of
Judaism, namely, monotheism and covenantal nomism. These form ‘a canon within
a canon.’ 40 He accepts that there is a certain incompleteness and tentativeness
about the list41 but nominates the following as important: creation, wisdom, miracle,
alienation, renewal, representation, indwelling, faith, agape, change of position
(status), judgement,42 Their chief value, for Theissen’s present purpose, is to
demonstrate how primitive Christianity’s development are consistent with its Jewish
parent but nonetheless a separation from her. They also draw the boundaries of
what is acceptably ‘Christian’ and thus exclude certain Gnostic and pagan
positions.
The list provides much illumination but two criticisms are perhaps permissible.
The motifs seem somewhat arbitrarily introduced rather than a logical outcome
of what has gone before. Little has prepared the way for them in the earlier
exposition of the theory. And the absence of any real concentration on motif of
atonement weakens the scheme.

Sixth, note the evaluation he gives to the cathedral: the question of
plausibility

The cathedral may be very enterprising but might it be nothing but a Disney-like
fantasy? How does the semiotic cathedral relate to objective reality? The question
can be answered from a variety of angles, such as from the perspective of historical
accuracy. Our concern, however, is with its integrity as a social construction. How
far does it succeed in expressing the ‘objective’ world we experience?
Theissen’s approach falls within the school of Berger and Luckmann and those
who have argued for ‘the social construction of reality.’45 In it he focuses on the
question of plausibility which he develops in a different way to Berger and
Luckman. He develops three theses46 which, to summarize, are:
1. It is basic axioms and motifs rather than specific statement which create
plausibility.
2. Three sources of evidence help construct plausibility, namely, the world to
which our interpretation must correspond; the self to which plausiblility must
give coherence and other people with whom it must reach a consensus.
3. The plausibility is shaped by a process of trial and error and is eventually
based on ‘the concentrated ~xperiences of many generation.

Each of these is then examined in depth against the evidence and using the dimensions
of the motifs to which we referred in the last section. His conclusions is that ‘in the
framework of a theory of primitive Christian religion it is possible to explain how these
heightened convictions were arrived at: the first Christians were deeply convinced of
the superiority of their sign world to all other rival worlds of convictions.’48
He makes the interesting observation that when the plausibility of the religious
axioms reach their limits of explanation believers often turn to ‘a strict theology
of revelation which says that God can be understood only through himself.’49 One
recognizes how many an exasperated youth leader or church pastor, having reached
the end of their tether, or their skill, in seeking to provide an apologetic for some
aspect of the faith or other, resorts in the end to 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 by way of
asserting their authority. It is a pity he does not develop that thought more fully
and test out its historical accuracy.

There are several elements of the plausibility structure to which he gives little
attention such as those of the defence against alternative explanations, 50 the
therapeutic practices of plausibility structures, the numerical strength and political
power of one plausibility structure against another, why some should have become
‘significant others’ and so on. Furthermore, some of his earlier work in terms of
myths, rites and ethics would have been more helpfully handled if a more general
framework about plausibility structures had been used right from the beginning.
His ‘ps’ about plausibility is not really sufficient to be useful within the approach
h~ has chosen and suffers from a failure to really ground his theory in the social
world of real people.

Seventh, let me offer some comments by way of evaluation of the tour
we have undertaken

The construction of any cathedral is a courageous, visionary and awe-inspiring act.
The construction of Theissen’s semiotic cathedral is no less courageous. It is a vast
and complex building which brings into a coherent structure disparate and diverse
elements at many different levels. It assumes a pattern of historical development
which, once granted, makes sense of the construction. But whether it assumes too
much by way of an evolutionary theology – a theology being worked out and
modified on the hoof – is perhaps debatable. He adopts the current fashion which
emphasizes diversity and leaves all too little room for unity in our understanding
of New Testament Christianity. Some of the earlier criticisms of his interpretation
of the evidence about Christianity as a Jewish renewal movement dependent on
itinerant charismatics still apply here.

But my concerns would be to raise questions about its adequacy at a number
of levels. ·

As a theory, what does it explain? Is it any more than expressing in different
terms, using the discipline of semiotics, what was known and believed by many
all along? Certainly the theory applies a new grammar to an old story but is there
anything desperately new and insightful in total picture as a result? There are
certainly many helpful detailed insights built into the construction. But, to a
sociologist at least, one is left at the end saying yes, and …

As an apologetic, it does not seem ultimately persuasive. Theissen’s hope is that
it will provide a two-fold reading of the text – from outside and from within. To
some extent it does this and, particularly in regard to its discussion of the ethics
of Christianity it provides a fresh way of looking. But it is doubtful that it will lead
many to a fresh appreciation of the ancient Christian story in and of itself. What
is the purpose of someone admiring the aesthetics of the cathedral unless they
are led to the God of the cathedral to whose glory it is built?

As an argument it perhaps does not sufficiently keep in mind its original
definition of religion where the ‘promise of a gain in life’ is a vital element. Rational
choice theories of religion, which also aim to provide a comprehensive theory of
religion, akin to the grand schemes of Durkheim and Weber, for all their numerous
limitations, seem to work this element through in a much more satisfactory way.
Stark’s more adventurous approach to the early church from a rational choice
perspective seems to me to open many more windows of understanding to the
real lives of early Christians than Theissen’s.

As a sociological interpretation it seems to lack the presence of real people. It
portrays his basically functionalist approach to religion but lacks anything of the
more convincing interpretive social action approach of Weber or even the ‘earthrelatedness’
of those who posit a social construction of reality approach. 52 It reflects
much more a reversion to the ‘history of ideas’ approach to early Christianity to
some of the more innovative work which has come hitherto from the pen of
Theissen.

If Theissen is building a cathedral it seems to me he’s building one more like
Coventry rather than one like Durham. Like Coventry it has many positive features
and enriching aspects. It tries to be innovative. Yet, overall its effect is to be
curiously modern, somewhat utilitarian and it domesticates rather than enlarges
the vision. Durham, by comparison is built on the solid rock of the peninsula, can
be seen for miles, lifts the eyes heavenwards and fills the visitor with the sense of
grandeur and awe. It leads into the presence of God. Attention to the sign language
and grammar of faith is worthwhile but ultimately somewhat reducing. It is more
of a ‘technological’ approach than one which ‘re-enchants’ the world. With time,
the theory may grow to merit the respect of a vast and ancient cathedral. But for
the present, in spite of its interesting features, it seems to lack the compelling
majesty which resonates with either the human spirit or the divine revelation.