Bakke, O.M. 1962–

(Odd Magne Bakke)

PERSONAL:

Born 1962. Education: University of Oslo, Norway, D.Th., 1998.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Misjonshøgskolen, Misjonsveien 34, 4024 Stavanger, Norway. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Theologian, educator, and author. School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, Norway, associate professor, 1998-2005, professor, 2005—.

WRITINGS:

(As Odd Magne Bakke) "Concord and Peace": A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Letter of Clement with an Emphasis on the Language of Unity and Sedition, Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen, Germany), 2001.

When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity, translated by Brian McNeil, Fortress Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2005.

Also contributor of chapters to scholarly books and contributor of articles to journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

A professor of theology in Norway, O.M. Bakke is the author of two works of ecclesiastical history. His 2001 title "Concord and Peace": A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Letter of Clement with an Emphasis on the Language of Unity and Sedition is a reworking of his doctoral dissertation, an elucidation of what is known, in Christian doctrine, as 1 Clement, or the first epistle of Saint Clement, the fourth pope and bishop of Rome. The letter, one of the earliest Christian documents known, was likely written in the first century or early second, and was intended for the early church in Corinth. The letter concerns an argument among Christians in that city that led to the removal from office of several leaders of the Christian congregations, or presbyters. Clement wrote to protest these actions, referring repeatedly to the Old Testament and to the writings of Paul. Because of its call for order and its assumption of authority for the Church of Rome, Clement's letter was thereafter read publicly as a piece of canonical literature in Corinth; by the fourth century its use had spread to other Christian churches. Though known of historically, a copy of the actual letter was not rediscovered until the late nineteenth century. Both the authorship as well as the time of writing of 1 Clement have been long disputed.

Bakke tackled a difficult and puzzling piece of church literature for his dissertation. Using textual analysis of the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition, he presents in his book an in-depth study of both the letter and its author, contending that Clement saw the Corinthian dispute not as one over doctrine, but one over social status. Writing in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, James Carleton Paget explained: "The essential claim of this lengthy and carefully presented monograph is that 1 Clement is best understood as a piece of deliberative rhetoric centered around the concept of concord." Bakke also attempts to demonstrate, as Paget observed, that the "author of the letter … [was] possibly a well-educated slave in the service of a Roman aristocrat, possibly Flavius Clemens, and writing in the first decade of the second century." For Bakke, the prominent theme of the first section of the epistle is the idea of concord in the Christian community. Bakke's interpretation of the situation at Corinth was that the poorer among the congregation were attempting to gain power as well as honor for their class by installing one of their number as a presbyter. Paget further noted of Bakke's work: "This is a helpful book which argues its case with clarity and rigour." However, Paget went on to conclude that Bakke's promise "of an elucidation of the origins and purpose of the letter by means of a rhetorical analysis remains, in the opinion of this reviewer at least, unfulfilled."

Bakke engages in another bit of historical reexamination in his 2005 book When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity. Here he examines the early Christian church and its attitude toward children, and how that differed from societies that came before. Bakke thus compares Christian and Greco-Roman beliefs and customs toward abortion and child prostitution, educational and ethical/moral instruction, as well as inclusion of children in church life. As Randy Wood noted in the Christian Century, Bakke "invites us to look back into childhood as it was experienced in the ancient world and to explore what Christians thought about the nature of children and the treatment of them in families and society." Wood felt that When Children Became People "should be appreciated as both a work of church history and a major contribution to the growing field of family history."

Bakke's central argument is that Christianity elevated the role of children in family, as well as religious, life over what it had been in Greek and Roman times. To aid his argument, Bakke cites three main facts: first, that in the New Testament children were held to be examples of Christian virtues because of their purity; second, that early church leaders believed that children gained a sense of right and wrong at an early age, and that by the time they were teenagers they were already fully capable of moral choices; and third, church fathers saw children created in the image of God, as were adults, and therefore every bit as worthy of respect as adults were. Thus, as Bakke goes on to show, early Christianity quickly rejected such Greek and Roman practices as abortion, pederasty, abandonment, and infanticide. At the same time, Christianity recognized that the proper and moral upbringing of children was of paramount importance in order to prepare them for the kingdom of God.

Some of the traditions of the Greco-Roman world regarding children were maintained, however, as Bakke notes. These included the sense of obedience to parents and the participation of children in religious activities, though Christian children, unlike their pagan counterparts, were more deeply engaged. As Wood commented: "Central to Bakke's argument … is the contention that children were not just involved in singing and reading during worship but were also included in the core mysteries of the faith by means of infant baptism and participation in the Eucharist." Wood went on to observe: "Perhaps it is too much to say that childhood was born in early Christianity, but Bakke's account is ultimately satisfying." Other reviewers also had praise for When Children Became People. Interpretation contributor John Wall, for example, termed the work a "lively and groundbreaking study [that] argues that early Christianity, from about 100-450 C.E., developed distinctively new understandings of children as fellow human beings." Wall further wrote: "The resources plumbed for this inquiry are impressive for their comprehensiveness and depth…. The signal accomplishment of the book is its demonstration of the remarkably high regard early Christianity paid to children in relation to its time and the central importance of notions of childhood in the development of early Christian thought." Writing in the National Catholic Reporter, Susan De George found fault with Bakke's sources, which were mostly "written by upper-strata, elite male Christians, and these letters, treatises and church orders are prescriptive rather than descriptive material." In other words, the church fathers Bakke quotes may have been describing how Christian families actually lived at the time, or they may have just been prescribing how they should be living. Nevertheless, De George commented that Bakke is "a clear writer who provides lots of guidance and summaries throughout the text." Higher praise came from Journal for the Study of the New Testament reviewer Nicholas H. Taylor, who called When Children Became People "a very comprehensive treatment of a much neglected issue," and from Review of Biblical Literature critic Carolyn Osiek, who found the work "an important contribution to a field of inquiry whose life is still in its early stages."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Catholic Biblical Quarterly, April 1, 2004, Barbara E. Bowe, review of "Concord and Peace": A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Letter of Clement with an Emphasis on the Language of Unity and Sedition, p. 312.

Choice, November 1, 2005, W.J. Hyndman, review of When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity, p. 500.

Christian Century, August 9, 2005, Randy Wood, review of When Children Became People, p. 37.

Interpretation, July 1, 2006, John Wall, review of When Children Became People, p. 338.

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, September, 2006, Nicholas H. Taylor, review of When Children Became People, p. 139.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, January 1, 2004, James Carleton Paget, review of "Concord and Peace," p. 127.

Journal of Religion, October 1, 2003, Michael W. Holmes, review of "Concord and Peace," p. 689; October 1, 2003, review of "Concord and Peace," p. 689.

National Catholic Reporter, October 7, 2005, Susan De George, "The Making of a Christian Child," p. 13.

Review of Biblical Literature, Volume 8, 2006, Carolyn Osiek, review of When Children Became People, p. 556.

Theology, September 1, 2006, James Francis, review of When Children Became People.

ONLINE

Misjonshøgskolen Web site,http://www.mhs.no/ (April 22, 2005), "New Professor in Church History"; (September 4, 2004), Arne B. Samuelsen, "New Book on the Position and Theology of Child in the Early Church"; (April 12, 2008), author profile.