This book gives a clearly written, authoritative introduction to social-scientific criticism of the New Testament, including the rise of this method, its practitioners and the focal points of their work, how the method is applied to the interpretation of the biblical text, and the presuppositions and procedures of the method. Four appendices; glossary; two bibliographies.
In the past twenty-five years, New Testament scholars have drawn on the social sciences, especially anthropology and sociology, to develop a variety of new perspectives on early Christianity. David Horrell here gathers together the classic works in this field, including essays by, for example, John Barclay, Philip Esler, Wayne Meeks, Luise Schottroff and Gerd Theissen. For each selection, David Horrell provides a short introduction and suggestions for further reading. He also provides an introduction outlining the development and future prospects of the discipline.An excellent reference and textbook for scholars and students.
"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.
In succinct and engaging fashion Michael Walzer demystifies the activity of the social critic, providing a philosophical framework for understanding social criticism as social practice.
Provides: an historical overview of the development of the narrative approach; a guide to how narrative methods can be applied in fieldwork; how to incorporate a narrative approach within a field project; guidelines for interpreting collected or produced narratives; and useful guides for further reading.
This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.
This is a collection of pivotal essays by E. A. Judge, who initiated many important discus?sions in the establishment of social scientific criticism of the Bible.
The Bible was not written and received in a historical vacuum--in fact, the social and historical context of the Bible illuminates key understandings that may have been otherwise missed. Biblical scholars use many different approaches to uncover this context, each engaging various aspects of the social and historical world of the Bible--from religious ritual to scribal practice to historical event. In Social & Historical Approaches to the Bible, you will learn how these methods developed and see how they have been used. You will be introduced to the strengths and weaknesses of each method, so you may understand its benefits as well as see its limitations. Many of these approaches are still in use by biblical scholars today, though often much changed from their earliest form as ideas were revised in light of the challenges and questions posed by further research.
For the last forty years, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the traditional arguments as well as building on these new ideas, Miriam Solomon constructs a new epistemology of science. After discussions of the nature of empirical success and its relation to truth, Solomon offers a new, social account of scientific rationality. She shows that the pursuit of empirical success and truth can be consistent with both dissent and consensus, and that the distinction between dissent and consensus is of little epistemic significance. In building this social epistemology of science, she shows that scientific communities are not merely the locus of distributed expert knowledge and a resource for criticism but also the site of distributed decision making. Throughout, she illustrates her ideas with case studies from late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century physical and life sciences. Replacing the traditional focus on methods and heuristics to be applied by individual scientists, Solomon emphasizes science funding, administration, and policy. One of her goals is to have a positive influence on scientific decision making through practical social recommendations.
