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Cognitive Science in the Study of Early Christianity: Why It Is Helpful – and How?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2017

Risto Uro*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, PO Box 4 (Vuorikatu 3), 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

In recent years, a number of New Testament and early Christian scholars have begun to use cognitive science approaches in their work. In this paper, I situate those efforts within the larger framework of the changing humanities, and the increased interest among humanistic scholars and social scientists in drawing on the growing body of knowledge on the cognitive and evolutionary roots of human thinking and behaviour. I also suggest how cognitive historiography can be helpful in shedding new light on issues discussed by New Testament scholars, by elaborating a case study: an analysis of the rite introduced by John the Baptist.

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Articles
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

1 Quoting the title of the very last paper that he wrote before his death (‘Religious Studies Alternative to New Testament Theology: Reflections on a Controversial Enterprise’), prepared for the conference held in Leipzig, 28–30 September 2015. Heikki was no longer able to attend the meeting, but the paper was read out for the participants. The paper is being published posthumously in H. Räisänen, The Bible among Scriptures and Other Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, in press).

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7 For schools and currents in CSR, see Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, 46–64.

8 Pyysiäinen, ‘Cognitive Science of Religion’, 6. For the characterisation ‘standard’ CSR, see Boyer, P., ‘A Reductionist Model of Distinct Modes of Religious Transmission’, Mind and Religion: Psychological Foundations of Religiosity (ed. Whitehouse, H. and McCauley, R. N.; Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2005) 329Google Scholar; Pyysiäinen, I., ‘Religion: From Mind to Society and Back’, Grounding Social Sciences in Cognitive Sciences (ed. Sun, R.; Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2012) 239–64, at 242–6Google Scholar; Turner, L., ‘Pluralism and Complexity in the Evolutionary Cognitive Science of Religion’, Evolution, Religion and Cognitive Science: Critical and Constructive Essays (ed. Watts, F. and Turner, L.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 1–20, at 3–4Google Scholar.

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12 Cf. Slingerland, E. and Collard, M., ‘Introduction: Creating a Consilience: Toward a Second Wave’, Creating Consilience: Integrating the Sciences and the Humanities (ed. Slingerland, E. and Collard, M.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 3–40, at 3, 10Google Scholar.

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16 Slingerland and Collard, ‘Introduction’, 3–4 (emphasis added).

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20 Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, 57.

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23 Elliott, J. H., What Is Social-scientific Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)Google Scholar; Horrell, D. G., ‘Social Sciences Studying Formative Christian Phenomena: A Creative Movement’, Handbook of Early Christianity: Social Science Approaches (ed. Blasi, A. J., Duhaime, J. and Turcotte, P.-A.; Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2002) 328Google Scholar.

24 Martin, D. B., ‘Social-Scientific Criticism’, To Each its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and their Application (ed. McKenzie, S. L. and Haynes, S. R.; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1999) 125–41Google Scholar.

25 Esler, P. F., Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003)Google Scholar; Tucker, J. B. and Baker, C. A., eds., T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament (London: Bloomsbury, 2014)Google Scholar.

26 To give one example: two basic features of SIT, categorisation and accentuation, can be investigated in the light of cognitive science; see P. Luomanen, I. Pyysiäinen and R. Uro, ‘Introduction: Social and Cognitive Perspectives in the Study of Christian Origins and Early Judaism’, Explaining Early Judaism and Christianity, 22–5. For a socio-cognitive approach integrating social psychology and cognitive science in the study of Ephesians, see R. Roitto, ‘A Socio-Cognitive Perpective on Identity and Behavioral Norms in Ephesians’, Mind, Morality and Magic, 234–50.

27 Sun, R., ed., Grounding Social Sciences in Cognitive Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turner, J. H., Machelech, R. and Maryansky, A., eds., Handbook on Evolution and Society: Toward an Evolutionary Social Science (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2015)Google Scholar.

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29 R. Sun, ‘Prolegomena to Cognitive Social Sciences’, Grounding Social Sciences, 18–23. For various approaches to culture/cognition interaction, see Geertz, A. W., ‘Brain, Body, and Culture: A Biocultural Theory of Religion’, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22 (2010) 304–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K., Norenzayan, A. and Henrich, J., ‘The Cultural Transmission of Faith: Why Innate Intuitions Are Necessary, but Insufficient, to Explain Religious Belief’, Religion 41 (2011) 389410CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pyysiäinen, ‘Religion’. For a ‘socio-cognitive approach’ to early Christian religion, see Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings.

30 For comparativism and post-modernism, see Patton, K. C. and Ray, C. B., eds., A Magic Still Dwells: Comparative Religion in the Postmodern Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

31 W. E. Paden, ‘New Patterns for Comparative Religion’, A Magic Still Dwells, 182 (emphasis original).

32 See, for example, Uro, R., ed., Thomas at the Crossroads: Essays on the Gospel of Thomas (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998)Google Scholar; Marjanen, A. and Luomanen, P., eds., A Companion to Second-Century Christian ‘Heretics’ (Leiden: Brill, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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34 Peristiany, J. G., ed., Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965)Google Scholar; Herzfeld, M., ‘Honour and Shame: Problems in the Comparative Analysis of Moral Systems’, Man 15 (1980) 339–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gilmore, D. G., ‘Anthropology of the Mediterranean Area’, Annual Review of Anthropology 11 (1982) 175205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ed., Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean (Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 1987)Google Scholar; Albera, D., ‘Anthropology of the Mediterranean: Between Crisis and Renewal’, History and Anthropology 17 (2006) 109–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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36 Grimes, R. L., The Craft of Ritual Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 169–70Google Scholar.

37 In fairness, it should be noted that the discussion of the use of models in interpreting New Testament texts has been much more nuanced than the above reference to Meeks’ brief comment would suggest. See, for example, Garrett, S. R., ‘Sociology (Early Christianity)’, Anchor Bible Dictionary (ed. Freedman, D. N.; New York: Doubleday, 1992) 8999Google Scholar; Esler, P. F., ‘Introduction’, Modelling Early Christianity (ed. Esler, P. F.; London: Routledge, 1995) 122Google Scholar; Horrell, D. G., The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence: Interests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996) 932Google Scholar; Esler, P. F., ‘Models in New Testament Interpretation: A Reply to David Horrell’, JSNT 78 (2000) 107–13Google Scholar; Horrell, D. G., ‘Models and Methods in Social-Scientific Interpretation: A Response to Philip Esler’, JSNT 78 (2000) 83105Google Scholar; Luomanen, Pyysiäinen and Uro, ‘Introduction’, 18–20.

38 Cf. L. H. Martin, ‘Past Minds: Evolution, Cognition, and Biblical Studies’, Mind, Morality and Magic, 17.

39 Martin, L. H., ‘The Future of the Past: The History of Religions and Cognitive Historiography’, Religio: revue pro religionistiku 20 (2012) 155–71Google Scholar.

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41 Czachesz, I., ‘Rewriting and Textual Fluidity in Antiquity: Exploring the Social-cultural and Psychological Context of Earliest Christian Literacy’, Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity: Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of Jan N. Bremmer (ed. Dijkstra, J. H. F., Kroesen, J. E. A. and Kuiper, Y. B.; Leiden: Brill, 2010) 425–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Uro, R., ‘Ritual, Memory and Writing in Early Christianity’, Temenos 47 (2011) 159–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levy, G., Judaic Technologies of the Word: A Cognitive Analysis of Jewish Cultural Formation (Sheffield: Equinox, 2012)Google Scholar.

42 I. Czachesz, ‘Rethinking Biblical Transmission: Insights from the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory’, Mind, Morality and Magic, 43–61; P. Luomanen, ‘How Religions Remember: Memory Theories in Biblical Studies and in the Cognitive Study of Religion’, Mind, Morality and Magic, 24–42.

43 I. Czachesz, ‘Explaining Magic: Earliest Christianity as a Test Case’, Past Minds, 141–65; idem, ‘A Cognitive Perspective on Magic in the New Testament’, Mind, Morality and Magic, 164–79.

44 R. Uro, ‘A Cognitive Approach to Gnostic Rituals’, Explaining Christian Origins, 115–37; idem, ‘Towards a Cognitive History of Early Christian Rituals’, Changing Minds, 103–21; idem, Kognitive Ritualtheorien: Neue Modelle für die Analyse urchristiliche Sakramente’, Evangelische Theologie 71 (2011) 272–88Google Scholar; idem, Ritual and Christian Beginnings; J. Jokiranta, ‘Ritual System in the Qumran Movement: Frequency, Boredom and Balance’, Mind, Morality and Magic, 144–63.

45 Kazen, Emotions in Biblical Law; Roitto, Behaving as a Christ-Believer.

46 Shantz, Paul in Ecstasy; Czachesz, I., ‘Filled with New Wine? Neuroscientific Correlates of Religious Experience in the New Testament’, Experientia, vol. ii (ed. Shantz, C. and Werline, R. A.; Atlanta: SBL, 2012) 7190Google Scholar; idem, Jesus’ Religious Experience in the Gospels: Toward a Cognitive Neuroscience Approach’, Jesus –  Gestalt und Gestaltungen: Rezeption des Galiläers in Wissenschaft, Kirche und Gesellschaft: Festschrift für Gerd Theissen zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. von Gemünden, P., Horrell, D. G. and Küchler, M.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013) 569–96Google Scholar.

47 Czachesz, I., ‘Early Christian Views on Jesus’ Resurrection’, Nederlands Theologisch Tijdscrift 61 (2007) 4759Google Scholar; Theissen, G., ‘Kontraintuitive Bilder: Eine kognitive Analyse der urchristlichen Christologie’, EvTh 71 (2011) 307–20Google Scholar; Tappenden, Resurrection in Paul.

48 John appears in a total of fifty-three passages in the Gospels and Acts. In addition, references to John occur in extra-canonical gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of the Ebionites and the Gospel of the Nazareans. See Webb, R. L., John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical Study (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991) 4791Google Scholar.

49 Adler, Y., ‘Religion, Judaism: Purity in the Roman Period’, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology (ed. Master, D.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 240–9Google Scholar; see also E. Meyers, M., ‘Aspects of Everyday Life in Roman Palestine with Special Reference to Private Domiciles and Ritual Baths’, Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities (ed. Bartlett, J. R.; London: Routledge, 2002) 193220Google Scholar and Freyne, S., ‘Jewish Immersion and Christian Baptism: Continuity on the Margins?’, Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism: Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, vol. i (ed. Hellholm, D., Vegge, T., Norderval, Ø. and Hellholm, C.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011) 221–53Google Scholar.

50 For a discussion of different interpretations of John's rite, see Webb, John the Baptizer, 183–216; Taylor, J. E., The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 49100Google Scholar; Klawans, J., Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 138–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, 80–98.

51 For example, Webb notes that the feature that John's baptism is consistently described as being administered by John is ‘quite unusual’ and may have been John's innovation (Webb, John the Baptizer, 180), but he does not draw any further conclusions from it. Freyne, in his otherwise detailed comparison between Jewish ritual washing and early Christian baptism, does not even mention the difference (Freyne, ‘Jewish Immersion’). An exception to John's being described as an agent of the baptism is the D reading of Luke 3.7, in which the baptism of the crowds is depicted as taking place before John (ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ).

52 Lawson and McCauley, Rethinking Religion; McCauley, R. N. and Lawson, E. T., Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 More specifically, they hypothesise that special agent rituals are generally understood as ones that cannot be repeated (‘when gods do things, they are done once and for all’), can be reversed (for example by defrocking priests), and involve sensory pageantry. The prediction that special agent rituals are performed only once for a single ritual patient can be challenged, however, by a significant body of contrary evidence (cf. e.g. healing rituals). See the discussion in Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, 85–7.

54 The issue of ritual innovations as catalysts for new movements has been largely neglected in ritual theory. See, however, Bell, C., Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 223–42Google Scholar.

55 For Ammachi, originally Mata Amritanandayami (born 1953), see Raj, S. J., ‘Passage to America: Ammachi on American Soil’, Gurus in America (ed. Forsthoefel, T. A. and Humes, C. A.; Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Lucia, A. J., Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, 78–80.

56 Darshan is a central ritual act in Hindu worship, in which a devotee sees and is seen by a god, represented by an idol, renouncer or guru (Humphrey, C. and Laidlaw, J., The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994) 229–30, 270Google Scholar; Raj, ‘Passage to America’, 137–8). The ritual hug performed by Amma, involving kissing and touching, is a radical new version of the traditional ritual act familiar to every Hindu worshipper.

57 Taylor, The Immerser, 15–100.

58 Taylor, The Immerser, 94.

59 Taylor, The Immerser, 99–100.

60 Humphrey and Laidlaw, Archetypal Actions, 100.

61 Bloch, M., Anthropology and the Cognitive Challenge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Whitehouse, H., Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2004)Google Scholar; Czachesz, I., ‘Long-term, Explicit Memory in Rituals’, Journal of Cognition and Culture 10 (2010) 321–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Rethinking Biblical Transmission’.

63 Pyysiäinen, I., ‘Intuitive and Explicit in Religious Thought’, Journal of Cognition and Culture 4 (2004) 123–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; T. Tremlin, ‘Divergent Religion: A Dual-Process Model of Religious Thought, Behavior, and Morphology’, Mind and Religion, 69–84.

64 Geertz, ‘Brain, Body, and Culture’; Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, 154–77.

65 Gervais, Willard, Norenzayan and Henrich, ‘Cultural Transmission of Faith’.

66 Kreinath, J., ‘Semiotics’, Theorizing Rituals: Issues, Topics, Approaches, Concepts (ed. Kreinath, J., Snoek, J. and Stausberg, M.; Leiden: Brill, 2008) 429–70Google Scholar.

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68 Biblical scholars have been particularly interested in social memory studies, and have drawn on the notion of ‘collective memory’ (or ‘cultural memory’) in the wake of the renewed interest in the work of Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945) in social and cultural studies (Kirk, A. and Thatcher, T., eds., Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Atlanta: SBL, 2005)Google Scholar; Duling, D. C., ‘Social Memory and Biblical Studies: Theory, Method, and Application’, BTB 36 (2006) 24Google Scholar). Unless anchored in the study of cognitive memory, however, the notion of ‘social memory’ remains vague. For approaches integrating cultural and cognitive memory, see Boyer, P. and Wertsch, J. V., eds., Memory in Mind and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Schacter, D. L., The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001) 164–5Google Scholar. See also Czachesz, ‘Long-term, Explicit Memory in Rituals’.

70 Symons, C. S. and Johnson, B. T., ‘The Self-reference Effect in Memory: A Meta-analysis’, Psychological Bulletin 121 (1997) 371–94CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Cloutier, J. and Macrae, C. N., ‘The Feeling of Choosing: Self-involvement and the Cognitive Status of Things Past’, Consciousness and Cognition 17 (2008) 125–35CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

71 Czachesz, ‘Long-term, Explicit Memory in Rituals’, 334.

72 Richerson, P. J. and Boyd, R., Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Gervais, Willard, Norenzayan and Henrich, ‘Cultural Transmission of Faith’.

73 Henrich, J., ‘The Evolution of Costly Displays, Cooperation and Religion: Credibility Enhancing Displays and their Implications for Cultural Evolution’, Evolution and Human Behavior 30 (2009) 244–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Mark 1.6; Matt 3.4; Mark 2.18; Matt 9.14; Luke/Q 7.33–4.

75 I thank Ismo Dunderberg for his valuable comments on an early version of the paper and Ellen Valle for revising the English of the paper.