The Biblical World of Limited Good in Cultural, Social, and Technological Perspective: In Memory of Bruce J. Malina—Pioneer, Patron, and Friend

Forty years ago, Bruce Malina led the way in applying social-scientific models and concepts to the study of the New Testament. He especially argued that respectful reading scenarios could be drawn from the cultural anthropology of the Mediterranean world, which offered the nearest contemporary analogy to biblical societies. His early work on limited good beliefs in biblical cultures is here extended to investigate links between cultural beliefs and conditions of agrarian economic production and to test several corollaries in the cases of the Jesus group in Palestine and Christ-followers in the Roman cities. It is argued that limited good beliefs in the New Testament are related to the actual conditions of the low-productive societies and social-stratification realities in which the Bible was inscribed