Karl Polanyi, Marshall Sahlins, and the Study of Ancient Social Relations

Questions arise whenever social-scientific models are used in analysis of ancient texts, particularly regarding the feasibility of their application to social and cultural milieux different from those from which they were derived. An essay I authored that assessed the command in Luke 6 to "love your enemies" from the perspective of ancient reciprocity ethics, and that invoked Marshall Sahlins's taxonomy of reciprocity relations (general, balanced, and negative reciprocity), was queried by Zeba Crook on precisely this point, namely, whether it applied Sahlins's taxonomy to Greco-Roman reciprocity relations without adequate attention to the distinctions between kinship organized tribal societies (the focus of Sahlins's analysis) and the socially stratified agrarian societies characteristic of the ancient Mediterranean world.1 Crook's piece was more than just a critique on that point; it raised questions about the extent to which Sahlins's model has applicability to the Roman world. This essay will focus on this key point and, it is hoped, will also contribute to the discussion on the use of social-scientific research in biblical studies.