Interpretation http://int.sagepub.

com/

Book Review: The Rise of Normative Christianity

Dale C. Allison, Jr. Interpretation 1996 50: 204 DOI: 10.1177/002096439605000221 The online version of this article can be found at: http://int.sagepub.com/content/50/2/204.citation

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Union Presbyterian Seminary

Additional services and information for Interpretation can be found at: Email Alerts: http://int.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://int.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> Version of Record - Apr 1, 1996 What is This?

Downloaded from int.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

yet anything better, and there will not be anything better before the eschaton because the kingdom comes from God and not from us." As valid as Girard's theory of sacred violence is for a psycho-social interpretation of h u m a n societies and their history, as well as of aspects of Mark's narrative world, its comprehensive application here does violence to the Gospel. Theory and text simply do not coalesce! Because there is no close reading of the text, the forced employment of Girard's theory often results in allegorization. The undertaking, as interesting as it is, does not succeed in generating a more adequate understanding of Mark's Gospel. H e r m a n C. Waetjen San Francisco Theological Seminary San Anselmo, California

significant differences but also significant commonalities: belief in the God of Israel as the Creator, the Father of Jesus, and the Father of humanity; belief in God's redemptive activity through the man Jesus of Nazareth (including his crucifixion and resurrection/exaltation); belief in a new advent and the gift of the Spirit for the faithful; and belief in an ethos in which individuals, inspired by Jesus' example, give themselves to others in love and service. Hultgren argues that the so-called heresiesGnostics, for example, and Marcionitesbecame known as such because they failed to uphold one or more of these particulars. Among the many areas of possible controversy, someI do not include myselfwill find Hultgren's evaluation of Q unconvincing. He argues that Q is not evidence for a community whose christology was distinctively different from those communities founded on the proclamation of Jesus' death and resurrection. Equally provocative, given the current scholarly climate in which the diversity of earliest Christianity is taken for granted and so many remain skeptical of knowledge about the historical Jesus, is Hultgren's attempt to show that "normative Christianity" stands in essential continuity with the historical Jesus. His arguments cannot be easily dismissed, and I hope they gain a hearing. Dale C.Allison, Jr. Fnends University Wichita, Kansas

The Rise of Normative Christianity, by Ariana], Hultgren. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1994. 210pp. $16.00 (paper). ISBN 0-8006-2645-1.
SMALL BOOKS ON BIG TOPICS are dangerous;

there are so many ways to go wrong. Hultgren's little volume is, however, a successful exercise. The thesis is that during the first decades of the church certain matters of faith and practice encouraged the survival and development of what Hultgren calls "normative Christianity." By this last is meant not the orthodoxy of the fourth century but its precursor, which Hultgren traces to apostolic times. An examination of the churches of Palestine (as known from Acts and Paul), the hypothetical document known as Q, Paul's epistles, Matthew, the pastoral epistles, and the Johannine literature reveals not only

204
Downloaded from int.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013