Name Bruce Malina | ||
Books The New Testament World: Ins, On the genre and message, Portraits of Paul, Social Science Comment, The social world of Jesus an | ||
Bruce John Malina (Brooklyn, New York, 9 October 1933 - 17 August 2017) was an American biblical scholar associated with The Context Group. Among Bruce Malina's studies are gender roles in the New Testament world. Malina is most noted for his application of social-scientific approaches to the Bible, and was at the forefront of bringing in insights from anthropology to bear on understanding ancient religious and social concepts found in the Bible. Malina stands as one of the primary initiators of and major contributors to the deployment of terms such as "honor," "shame," "benefactor," "patronage," and "social boundaries" in analyzing the Bible.
Recent criticism
Malina has recently come under fire for his controversial views on the Israel/Palestine conflict and how this has influenced his scholarship. On the one hand, it is claimed that he takes a firm stance against the modern state of Israel, going as far as to deny the Semitic ancestry of modern Israelis; on the other hand, critics say that Malina often ends up buying into Zionist discourses on the meaning of the term ‘Jew’ or ‘Judean’ (hoi ioudaioi), arguing that it refers to 'the land'.