Wayne Meeks presented a brilliant work on the development of the earliest Christian communities during the apostolic and post-apostolic period, as Christianity took root in the ancient city setting of the Roman Empire, in his work 'The First Urban Christians' (my review will be coming soon!). In this, the follow-up volume, 'The Origins of Christian Morality' explores the deepening development of community and identity of these early Christians as they worked to remain a faithful remnant in a sometimes-hostile world. Meeks is the Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies at Yale University, with a great deal of scholarly experience that he brings to the questions of the origins of Christian morality.

In this book, Meeks has presented 'an ecology of moral notions'. This is not a guidebook to state in unambiguous terms questions of present-day moral questions. For reasons explained early, Meeks avoids that kind of question because the question can usually be framed by parameters that pre-suppose the answer.

Also, Meeks avoids the term 'New Testament ethics' for some particular reasons. Firstly, the early church did not have a New Testament -- the collection of writings we have come to accept as the New Testament had not been collected and recognised as a single body of writings during the first, second and third centuries after the time of Christ, the time during which Christian views of morality were being formed.

Morality is also discussed, rather than ethics, because ethics tends to be a second-order reflection on morality. This is not what was occurring generally or primarily at this time.

In a unique feature, Meeks gives a brief summary, an almost Cliff-notes-lite, of each of the chapters in his Introduction. He traces his development chapter by chapter, highlighting each main point and its connection to the overall theme of the origins of Christian morality as well as the progression through sociology, politics, philosophy, and theology. Meeks admits to being less than systematic in approach, yet this is reflective of the subject. Christian morality did not evolve in a coherent and orderly fashion. It continues to be polyphonic to this day, with varying degrees of acceptance and intolerance by individuals and communities in the name of a 'purer' morality.

'Obviously there can be no community and no tradition if everything is permitted ('All things are lawful, but not all things build up'), and therefore there can be no community without some degree of coercion. Yet unity coerced is unstable ('For why is my freedom judged by a conscience not mine?')'

Unlike today, early Christianity was primarily a religion of converts. Today, most Christians of most denominations are born into the community of people and of thought. This was untrue in the time of the apostles, and continued to be untrue for several hundred years, even after Christianity became the religion of the establishment. Conversion was usually a social act, something done in public, and something that would have public consequences.

How the public Christian world-view intersects and coincides with the outside (some might say, secular) world has always been a problem, from these earliest times to the present (Augustine works with the idea, but only briefly, in his massive description of the City of God centuries after the period Meeks, investigates; H. Richard Niebuhr was still wrestling with the problem in the twentieth century).

There is a tendency to continue ancient heresies today without realising they are such. In his chapter 'Loving and Hating the World', Meeks investigates some of the gnostic divisions (the material world is evil inherently, once declared a heresy but which continues to pop up in practical theology of various Catholic and Protestant thinkers). In the following chapter, 'The Language of Obligation', Meeks presents lists of vices and virtues, commands, actions, and the way in which these concepts are dealt with, in the attribution of authority (or lack thereof) and the desirability/requirement of deliberate practice. Meeks states that no list is present as exhaustive in the positive or the negative -- even the sum total leaves important things out on both listing of virtue and vice. There is no definitive list for all early Christians. This made formulating a way of discovering right belief and practice all the more important.

In the chapter 'History, Pluralism and Morality', Meeks outlines particular theses toward understanding the original concepts of Christian morality:

Thesis 1 -- Making morals and making community are one, dialectical process.
Thesis 2 -- A Christian moral community must be grounded in the past
Thesis 3 -- The church's rootage in Israel is a privileged dimension of its past.
Thesis 4 -- Faithfulness ought not be confused with nostalgia.
Thesis 5 -- Christian ethics must be polyphonic.
Thesis 6 -- Moral confidence, not moral certainty, is what we require.
Thesis 7 -- God tends to surprise.

There is no definitive ending to this book -- just as Christian belief and practice has continued to evolve, so to is it impossible to come to a definitive statement about all-encompassing Christian normative standards at any given point even near the beginnings of the religion, and particularly before the canon of the scriptures have been determined.

Perhaps Meeks' Theses 6 and 7 are the most important for us today. The determination of moral confidence with the understanding that God continues to act in our lives and in our world can both reassure and comfort us in the knowledge of God's love and protection, as well as the recognition that in a world in which people have been given freedom of action, God's own freedom can occasionally (or perhaps even frequently) surprise us.

I read this cover to cover a few months ago. It felt like a highly interesting book about the Christian mystery-religion, rather than a study of morality. Don't pass this book by thinking it's about the narrow topic of morality. I'm only somewhat interested in the topic of the origins of Christian morality, but I didn't feel like this book was about morality.

Meeks' style of approach is not at all devotional, but rather, is an engaging and straightforward type of scholarship portraying the early mystic form of Christianity including social aspects.

Meeks takes a look at the first Christians from a perspective rarely found in typical Christian Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, and commentaries. The strength of this work lies in the fact that Meeks is specifically unveiling the social customs and mores of the first century. Especially helpful are his discussions on the living and working conditions of the first Christians.

Since we are nearly 2000 years removed from the social context on the early church, a book such as this helps us to see what we have been missing.

Shaye Cohen has written an interesting book covering a turbulent period of Jewish history. He discusses the sects of Judaism that existed during this time, beginning with the Maccabean revolt, and working through the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Christian movement, and Jewish people scattered throughout the Mediterranean world. He shows how Judaism was always a religion that emphasized practice and tradition over doctrine, while not denying that Judaism had a theology. Sometimes, the reader will want to argue strenuously with Cohen's conclusions, such as his contention that circumcision did not play an important role in the Torah, or that Job, Daniel, Esther, and many of the Psalms were written just a couple of hundred years before the common era. One may also question his conclusion that the dialogues betwen Jesus and the Pharisees reflected more of a post 70AD situation than something that really happened in the life of Jesus.

Despite these and other contentious points, the book is well written, engaging, and refreshing in the sense that you get to look at these years of Jewish history from a Jewish perspective.

A good read, a jewish history that is not written to justify christianity, nor, zionism. A must read for those with a penchant for Jewish history....

This study Bible is an excellent resource for serious, critically-minded students of the Bible. The scholarship is excellent, and the notes provide excellent and objective historical, cultural, and literary background and context. This is not, however, a devotional or life application Bible. The notes do an excellent job of making the text understandable to a modern reader, but the reader is left on his or her own to work out the implications and applications of the text. Generally, I consider that a good thing. But like other reviewers, I like to balance the HarperCollins with more devotional or evangelical Bibles. Of these, I prefer the somewhat liberal-leaning Access Study Bible published by Oxford, but the NIV Study Bible and NIV Life Application Bible are excellent resources from a more conservative perspective.

Back to the HarperCollins, the format is beautiful and very easy on the eyes. But this comes at the cost of having no margin notes for cross references(contrary to the NIV Bibles). Because of this, all the cross referneces are contained along with the substantive notes at the bottom of each page, which can make these notes rather tedious. Still, the notes are well worth the effort they require.

The text itself is the New Revised Standard Version, an accurate translation that uses modern, inclusive language. I consider it the best translation available for the modern world.

The HarperCollins Study Bible is one of the best study bibles for students and scholars of biblical criticism. Its best feature is the complete Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, a must for serious, historical Old Testament studies. On the down side, it lacks an extensive reading guide found in the Catholic Study Bible: New American Bible for gaining a better historical perspective on all books of the bible. Still, the New Revised Standard Version Translation, introductions and footnotes are easy to grasp and understand. This study bible is recommended mainly for those in serious critical bible study, rather than the mainstream Christian.

Positives: Detailed, informative notes stressing literary and historical background. Beautifully rendered color maps. Includes the apocryphal books. The NRSV is generally a fine translation.

Negatives: No concordance. No side notes (cross references are included in the annotations). NRSV's gender-neutral rendering of the text sometimes departs too much from literalness. I found that the light typeface and slightly glossy paper contributed to eyestrain.

For content, I prefer this Bible to the rival NIV Study Bible from Zondervan. For presentation, I like the Zondervan edition better -- the Zondervan's font, though smaller, is darker and easier to read, and the Zondervan has side notes and a concordance. Hey, why not buy both?