John S. KLOPPENBORG, Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 526 + xxxii. $40.00 Pb. ISBN 0-300-21704-8. Reviewed by Daniel L. SMITH-CHRISTOPHER, Loyola Marymount University, 1 LMU Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90045.

The kind of information that Kloppenborg seeks to compare to early Christian associations of believers is best understood by citing the opening lines of the work:

In the mid-second century of the Common Era about sixty men, probably stonemasons, met in the temple of the Emperor Titus on the Campus Martius in Rome to form an association devoted to the healing god Aesculapius (Greek Asklepios) and Hygia, the goddess of Health. They inscribed the bylaws of their club on a large plaque, where they recorded their thanks for a gift of the use of a chapel on the Via Appia in which their meetings and banquets were to take place. (1)

Kloppenborg mines an impressive variety of ancient inscriptions with regard to different kinds of “clubs”, “associations”, and “groups” that were typical of the Greco-Roman context in order to make provocative comparisons with early Christian associations as we know them from both the New Testament and early Christian literature. These comparison (on many aspects of these groups – membership, rules, meals, etc.) not only highlights what we might now understand about Christian associations, but sends us back to the Christian documentation to see if there is any kind of comparative concerns (e.g. rules of meeting, financial considerations, etc.). As Kloppenborg points out, we simply know more about the Greco-Roman groups than we do about the Christian groups, and thus comparative possibilities are suggestive – though they are not definitive evidence. Still, for example, it is fascinating that the importance of banqueting – and the rules associated with association meals – allows Kloppenborg to point to the greater significance of Paul’s discussion of meals in 1 Corinthians 5:11 and the evident “policing the borders” of those who can participate in such communal meals both in the Greco-Roman and New Testament discussions (147). Notably, the Greco-Roman material allows us not only to compare these kinds of general characteristics of associations but also to see how they used known architectural spaces. In a number of interesting illustrations, Kloppenborg even speculates on the inter-personal associations (and ranks and ordering) of the relationships between the members.

The amount of material Kloppenborg draws upon is significant, and the extensive notes are detailed and voluminous. This is a very significant study not only for New Testament scholars, but for any serious student of the Bible who is interested in thinking seriously about the precise nature of early Christian gatherings in their social context in the ancient world.