Journal Articles by Stephen Young
Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 2020
Mainstream New Testament Studies is often a space of repeating, elaborating on, identifying with,... more Mainstream New Testament Studies is often a space of repeating, elaborating on, identifying with, or valorizing the voices of NT writings. These common features of NT Studies resemble what scholars in Religious Studies refer to as protectionism: the privileging of a source's own claims to such an extent that interpreters let them dictate academic analysis. Through examining debates about NT sources and both Greco-Roman ethnic rhetorics and Hellenistic philosophy, this article argues that protectionism structures the doxa of mainstream NT Studies-the commonsense that shapes what is thinkable and what questions / categories feel the most obvious. The field's protectionism often manifests itself in confused rhetoric about "taking the text seriously" and in the invalidating of scholarship that does something other than describe (i.e., "exegesis") or elaborate upon NT writings. Protectionism thus helps explain the gendered hierarchies of knowledge in NT Studies: "exegesis" and supposedly "objective Historical-Criticism" are dominant norms that reproduce the field as a masculine dominated space. As a result, critical and redescriptive research-especially by or about women-gets passed over since it seems "niche" or "political / agenda" driven by comparison. Interrogating the protectionism of NT Studies thus permits rethinking the politics of what kinds of scholarship seem the most obvious.
Journal of Early Christian History, 2016
The Marcosian ‘redemption’ afterlife practice, described by Irenaeus (Haer. 1.21.5; see also, 1.1... more The Marcosian ‘redemption’ afterlife practice, described by Irenaeus (Haer. 1.21.5; see also, 1.13.6), exhibits striking similarities with the Bacchic Gold Tablets. This article exploits this largely neglected comparative opportunity to interrogate how the Marcosian redemption would have been recognisable to people in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, thus bypassing the common focus in our field on ‘origins’ or ‘influences’. The Christians who participated in the Marcosian redemption emerge as people engaged in a broader genre of Greco-Roman religiosity that is associated with independent experts who adapted known mythic resources and offered access to afterlife benefits. This article thus pursues a level of social analysis we often take for granted in Early Christian Studies by attending to the constituent practices of the Marcosian redemption as well as to the social conditions within which it could have been intelligible or compelling. It furthermore leverages this analysis to suggest the fruitfulness of similarly redescribing other, more familiar early Christian materials in terms of practices.
Biblical Interpretation, 2015
Evangelical Christian inerrantist scholars consistently maximize the extent of literary reading a... more Evangelical Christian inerrantist scholars consistently maximize the extent of literary reading and writing abilities in ancient Israel, especially beyond scribes, priests, and other elites or professionals. How they frame the issues, handle the data, represent their work as academic historical research, and engage in certain recurring patterns of argumentation invites analysis. This article analyzes the publications of inerrantist scholars on Israelite literacy, in particular Alan Millard and Richard Hess, as examples of inerrantist discourse and argues that their scholarship on Israelite literacy is characterized by protective strategies that privilege biblical claims. The article thus aims to explore part of the historiography of scholarship on Israelite literacy, to provide an accurate account of what precisely inerrantist scholars are doing in their publications on the topic, and to reframe inerrantist scholarship on Israelite literacy as data for the study of religion.
Harvard Theological Review, Jan 2015
In this article I pursue two interrelated goals. First, and more narrowly, I argue that the ἐκ πί... more In this article I pursue two interrelated goals. First, and more narrowly, I argue that the ἐκ πίστεως in Rom 5:1 plausibly refers to Christ’s πίστις and not to the πίστις of Christ followers; and certainly not to the πίστις of Christ followers that is specifically “in Christ.” Second, and more broadly, I exploit this exegetical issue and the associated rereading of Rom 3:21–4:25 as opportunities to re-place Paul’s discourse about Christ’s πίστις within his fundamentally ethnic rhetoric in Rom 3:21–4:25. As I will illustrate, in this passage Paul strategically explains how Gentiles have access to the power and blessings of a foreign deity, the Judean god. The mechanics of this access turn on the πίστις of Christ himself, as well as on the prior and related πίστις of Abraham, which establishes a lineage that can include Gentiles without them having to adopt the divinely appointed ancestral customs of the Judeans (i.e., the law). As such, in Rom 3:21–5:1 Paul represents his Christ-cult as offering Abrahamic descent to Gentiles and thus an inheritance in the Judean god’s promises and blessings. While not a main point of the article, I briefly discuss how clarifying the ethnic contours and mechanics of Christ’s πίστις within Paul’s discourse sets the table for examining how he configures the relationship between Christ’s and his followers’ πίστις.
Biblical Interpretation, 2015
This article examines how Evangelical Christian inerrantist scholars theorize their biblical scho... more This article examines how Evangelical Christian inerrantist scholars theorize their biblical scholarship and its relation to the broader academy, highlighting (1) their self-representation as true academics and (2) the ways they modulate historical methods to prefer interpretive options that keep the Bible inerrant. Using these characteristics of inerrantist theorizing, the article redescribes their scholarship in terms of the religious studies rubrics of “protective strategies” and “privileging” insider claims. It then exploits this redescription to explore various characteristics of inerrantist religiosity from a Practice Theory vantage point, noting especially inerrantist religiosity’s highly intellectualized nature as well as features of its fields of discourse production and consumption, and their participants, that differentiate them from broader academic fields focused on the Bible. Overall the article thus provides a detailed positive account of inerrantist scholarship and introduces scholars to the utility of this data set for studying contemporary religiosity and religious “protectionism.”
Journal of Biblical Literature, 2014
A recent trend in NT scholarship is to see Jesus’ participation in actions or attributes allegedl... more A recent trend in NT scholarship is to see Jesus’ participation in actions or attributes allegedly reserved for God as indications that a writer depicts Jesus as divine. One set of texts to which such an argument has been applied is that in which Jesus exercises authority over the seas (Mark 4:35–41; 6:45–52). Our study uses the portrayal of the idealized Davidic king in Ps 88:26 as one whose “hand is set to the sea” to call this specific argument into question. In the psalm, the human king participates in God’s rule over the sea without being represented as God. Ancillary support for the plausibility of a human ruling the waters comes from (1) other Judean stories of people exercising control over waters, (2) the coherence of Ps 88 with the manner Jesus is depicted more broadly in Mark, and (3) evidence that other early readers of Judean ("Jewish") scripture interpreted Psalm 88’s language about the Davidic king eschatologically.
Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 2012
Romans 1.1-5 provides contextual evidence that Paul cites Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17 as a reference to... more Romans 1.1-5 provides contextual evidence that Paul cites Hab. 2.4 in Rom. 1.17 as a reference to Christ. Within the rhetorically and epistolographically significant expansion of the letter opening, Rom. 1.1-5 introduces the εὐαγγέλιον θεου̑ as being about Christ and, more specifically, his resurrection – as promised beforehand ‘through the prophets in the holy writings’. Given certain recognizable correspondences between 1.1-5 and 1.16-17 and Paul’s continued association of Christ with the gospel in 1.9, Rom. 1.1-5 prepares the reader to hear ὁ δὲ δίκαιοϛ ἐκ πίστεωϛ ζήσεται in 1.17 as a prophetic reference to Christ, the Righteous One who will live because of his faithfulness.
Essays and Book Chapters by Stephen Young
The Museum of the Bible: A Critical Introduction, 2019
Christian Tourist Attractions, Mythmaking, and Identity Formation, 2019
Theory in a Time of Excess, 2017
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Journal Articles by Stephen Young
Essays and Book Chapters by Stephen Young