The first book to explore New Testament literature from the perspective of cultural anthropology. Not a description of what and how New Testament people interacted but a description of why. A new model for understanding the New Testament.

Malina's writing demonstrates the value of his new approach to New Testament studies. The cultural anthropological context examines honor and shame, dyadic personality, limited good, marriage and kinship, the rules of clean and unclean. These aspects of life in the New Testament world serve as guides to understanding law, economics, healing, sin, and forgiveness. Malina offers students and teachers a set of tools and models highly useful in understanding the Bible. Includes charts, bibliography, index.