De-Introducing the New Testament

Acknowledgments ix (De-)Introduction 1 Seeing Old Stones Anew 1 Introducing the New Testament as Introducing Traditional New Testament Scholarship 4 Introducing Criticisms of Traditional New Testament Scholarship 9 Introducing De-Introducing the New Testament 17 1 The Order of New Testament Things: Questioning Methods and Meanings 25 The Bone-Box of James, "the Brother of Jesus" 25 Ways of Knowing a Subject of Study 31 Ordering Principles in the Study of the New Testament 35 Ways of Knowing New Testament "Things" 62 2 Foregrounding New Testament Backgrounds: Contextualizing Interpretation 71 Jew" or "Judean"? The Present Confronts the Past 71 Introducing the New Testament: Making Meaning with the Context 76 Backgrounding the Backgrounds Approach 83 Backgrounding the Character of Early Christianity: Liberty against Tyranny 97 Contexts Matter, Ancient and Modern 110 3 Objects, Objectives, and Objectivities: Material and Visual Culture and New Testament Studies 119 Of Fragments and Forgeries 119 Archaeology and the Making of Objects 122 Excavating Discourses that Produce Ancient Objects 133 What Do We Do with Ancient Objects? 145 What Do We Want with Ancient Objects? 160 4 Brand(ish)ing Biblical Scholars(hip): New Testament Studies and Neoliberal Subjectivity 169 Who Can Be a "New Testament Scholar?" 169 Neoliberalism and the Politics of Identity 173 Branding as a Practice of Neoliberal Subjectivity 183 Branding New Testament Scholars(hip) 191 The One-Dimensional New Testament Scholar? 205 Back to the Future: Concluding Observations on History, Method, and Theory in New Testament Studies 215 Index 000