Burton L. Mack

Burton L. Mack (1931 – March 9, 2022) was an American author and scholar of early Christian history and the New Testament. He was John Wesley Professor emeritus in early Christianity at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California.^[1] Mack was primarily a scholar of Christian origins, approaching it from the angle of social group formation. Mack's approach was skeptical, and he saw traditional Christian documents like the Gospels as myth as opposed to history. He viewed the gospels more as charter documents of the early Christian movements, not as reliable accounts of the life of Jesus.

In the field of religious studies more generally, Mack was known for popularizing the term "Social Formation," originally coming from the work of Louis Althusser, as a descriptive category for religion. This stems from his development of a theory of religion as "social interests." Along with his close friend Jonathan Z. Smith, Mack was active in the Redescribing Christian Origins Group of the Society of Biblical Literature.^[1]

Mack died on March 9, 2022, at the age of 90.^[2]