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JEROME H. NEYREY, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998). Pp. viii + 287. Paper $26.
In the wake of Professor Jerome H. Neyrey's energetic and prolific studies of the social-scientific bases of early Christianity and its biblical texts, a synthetic study of the Gospel of Matthew using the anthropological model of honor and shame challenges the current perceptions of Matthew as well as the operation of historical-critical scholarship. This is now the most thorough examination of Matthew from a socialscientific model, surpassing even N.'s earlier contribution with Bruce J. Malina (Calling Jesus Names: The Social Value of Labels in Matthew [FF, Social Facets; Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1998] as well as the important study of Anthony J. Saldarini (Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community [CSHJ; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994D. Risk, however, accompanies innovation, since the combination invites "shame" from its public viewers.
Neyrey's model is clear: he combines contemporary anthropological models of honor and shame (emic models) with native informants, like Aristotle, Quintilian, and the pervasive progymnasmata (etic models). This combination is not only innovative but is exciting, since it correlates suggestively the concepts of honor and praise, the latter drawn from the ancient tradition of encomia and the former from a core value of the Mediterranean world (N. rightly dismisses a cavalier criticism of the typification of the "Mediterranean," pp. 8-9). His conclusions are just as clear: although he begins rather bashfully suggesting that our understanding of Matthew's genre might be enlightened by our considering the ancient...