‘The Duty of Discontent’: Some Remarks on Pieter F. Craffert’s The Life of a Galilean Shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in Anthropological-Historical Perspective*
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusThis essay commends Pieter Craffert’s book “The Life of a Galilean shaman” as an important contribution in the field of Jesus studies. At the same time it reveals that Crafferts attempt to identify Jesus as a Galilean shaman is problematic, particularly considering the enigmatic nature of the category “shaman.” Western discourse on shamanism tends to contain an unwelcome mix of exoticism, alienation, and fascination; transferring this model to the life of Jesus is in danger of applying anachronistic and ethnocentric notions to the historical Jesus, not to mention the difficulties involved in verifying the supposed treatment of shamanic ASC-experiences in the New Testament texts. Although Crafferts new methodological approach of “anthropological historiography”, independent of the shamanism thesis, deserves scholarly attention, his employment of it shows an all too rigid, and ultimately counterproductive, rejection of classic historical-critical scholarship.
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7)
See Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 3-30.
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8)
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3rd edn; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 169.
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10)
See Ludwik Fleck, Entstehung und Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Tatsache: Einführung in die Lehre vom Denkstil und Denkkollektiv (Basel: Benno Schwabe & Co, 1935); ET, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (ed. T.J. Trenn and R.K. Merton; trans. F. Bradley and T.J. Trenn; Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1979). And see also idem, Denkstile und Tatsachen: Gesammelte Schriften und Zeugnisse (ed. S. Werner and C. Zittel; Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 1953; Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011).
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12)
See Birgit Aschmann, ‘Moderne versus Postmoderne: Gedanken zur Debatte über vergangene, gegenwärtige und zukünftige Forschungsansätze’, in Historische Debatten und Kontroversen im 19. und 20. Jahrbundert (ed. J. Elvert and S. Krauß; Historische Mitteilungen im Auftrage der Ranke-Gesellschaft, 46; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2003), pp. 256-75.
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14)
See Philipp Sarasin, Geschichtswissenschaft und Diskursanalyse (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 1639; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003).
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15)
See Christian Strecker, ‘Das Gewesene, das Fremde und die Exegese: Die jüngeren Grundlagendebatten in Geschichtswissenschaft und Kulturanthropologie und ihre Bedeutung für die biblische Wissenschaft’, in Kultur, Politik, Religion, Sprache —Text: Wolfgang Stegemann zum 60. Geburtstag (vol. II of Kontexte der Schrift; ed. C. Strecker; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005), pp. 120-31. More critical of the relevance of the recent debate on the foundations of historiography is Alexander J.M. Wedderburn, Jesus and the Historians (WUNT, 269; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).
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16)
See Clive Marsh, ‘Quests of the Historical Jesus in New Historicist Perspective’, BibInt 5 (1997): 403-37 (415).
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17)
See Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2010), pp. 1-59.
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21)
See Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), pp. 1-33.
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22)
See Dale C. Allison., Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2010), p. 22; Eckhart Rau, Jesus, Freund von Zöllnern und Sündern: Eine methodenkritische Untersuchung (Kohlhammer Theologie; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2000), p. 168.
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23)
See Uwe Wirth, ‘Abduktion und ihre Anwendungen’, Zeitschrift für Semiotik 17 (1995): 405-424; Jo Reichertz, Die Abduktion in der qualitativen Sozialforschung (Reihe Qualitative Sozialforschung, 13; Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2nd ed. 2013).
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24)
See Helge Schalk, Umberto Eco und das Problem der Interpretation: Ästhetic, Semiotik, Textpragmatik (Epistemata: Reihe Literaturwissenschaft, 276; Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 2000), p. 136.
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25)
See Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Advances in Semiotics; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984), pp. 41-43; idem, ‘Horns, Hooves, Insteps: Some Hypothesis on Three Types of Abduction’, in U. Eco and T. A. Sebeok (eds.), The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce (Advances in Semiotics; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 198-220.
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26)
Kristina Dronsch, Bedeutung als Grundbegriff neutestamentlicher Wissenschaft: Texttheoretische und semiotische Entwürfe zur Kritik der Semantik dargelegt anhand einer Analyse zu akouein in Mk 4 (Neutestamentliche Entwürfe zur Theologie, 15; Tübingen: A. Francke, 2010), p. 197f.
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29)
See Paul N. Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered (Library of New Testament Studies, 321; New York: T&T Clark, 2006); idem, Felix Just, SJ and Tom Thatcher (eds.), John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views (SBLSymS, 44; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007); Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, SJ and Tom Thatcher (eds.), John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel (Early Christianity and Its Literature, 2; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009).
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30)
See Hans-Josef Klauck, Apokryphe Evangelien: Eine Einführung (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2002), p. 105. See now also Tony Burke (ed.), De infantia Iesu Evangelium Thomae Graecae (Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum, 17; Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).
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31)
See John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press, 1995).
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32)
See Henry Rosemont Jr., ‘Against Relativism’, in Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy (ed. G.J. Larson and E. Deutsch; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 36-70.
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34)
Cited in Jane Monnig Atkinson, ‘Shamanism Today’, Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (1992): 307-30 (308).
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38)
Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Bollingen Series, 126; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964).
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49)
Hutton, Shamans, p. 67; see also Stuckrad, Schamanismus und Esoterik, p. 16f.; Christian Strecker, ‘Jesus and the Demoniacs’, in The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels (ed. W. Stegemann, B.J. Malina and G. Theissen; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002), pp. 117-33 (120-22). Robert Hutton expresses his concern ‘that ultimately the psychologizing of Siberian spirits is itself a statement of faith, resting upon no ultimate proof. It makes sense to modern westerners of otherwise uncanny or repugnant phenomena; but in its different way the native explanation made equal sense, and with as much claim to objective demonstration of faith.’
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52)
Cf. Mihály Hoppál, Sámánok: lelkek és jelképek (Budapest: Helikon Kiadó, 1994).
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53)
See Jan N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife: The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristol (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 28f.
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55)
E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Sather Classical Lectures, 25; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), pp. 135-78.
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57)
Walter Burkert, ‘ΓΟΗΣ: Zum griechischen Schamanismus’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie nf 105 (1962): 36-55; idem, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (trans. E.L. Minar, Jr.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 120-65; trans. of Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und Platon (Nürnberg: H. Carl, 1962); idem, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Sather Classical Lectures, 47; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 78-96.
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58)
Donat Margreth, Skythische Schamanen? Die Nachrichten über Enarees-Anarieis bei Herodot und Hippocrates (Schaffhausen: Meier & Cie, 1993).
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60)
Cf. Hutton, Shamans, p. 130; Stuckrad, Schamanismus und Esoterik, p. 109f.
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63)
See James H. Charlesworth (ed.), Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006); Carsten Claußen and Jörg Frey (eds.), Jesus und die Archäologie Galiläas (Biblisch-theologische Studien, 87; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008); Jens Schröter, ‘Jesus im Kontext: Die hermeneutische Relevanz der Frage nach dem historischen Jesus in der gegenwärtigen Diskussion’, TLZ 134 (2009): 905-928.
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65)
Richard E. DeMaris, ‘The Baptism of Jesus: A Ritual-Critical Approach’, in Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels, p. 151.
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‘The Duty of Discontent’: Some Remarks on Pieter F. Craffert’s The Life of a Galilean Shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in Anthropological-Historical Perspective*
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusThis essay commends Pieter Craffert’s book “The Life of a Galilean shaman” as an important contribution in the field of Jesus studies. At the same time it reveals that Crafferts attempt to identify Jesus as a Galilean shaman is problematic, particularly considering the enigmatic nature of the category “shaman.” Western discourse on shamanism tends to contain an unwelcome mix of exoticism, alienation, and fascination; transferring this model to the life of Jesus is in danger of applying anachronistic and ethnocentric notions to the historical Jesus, not to mention the difficulties involved in verifying the supposed treatment of shamanic ASC-experiences in the New Testament texts. Although Crafferts new methodological approach of “anthropological historiography”, independent of the shamanism thesis, deserves scholarly attention, his employment of it shows an all too rigid, and ultimately counterproductive, rejection of classic historical-critical scholarship.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 269 | 65 | 5 |
| Full Text Views | 214 | 5 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 24 | 10 | 3 |