Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine

1. Getting the Whole Story

1. Getting the Whole story Persistent tension seems to be inherent in study of the historical Jesus, a tension between the Gospel sources’ portrayal of Jesus and the pictures of Jesus presented by scholarly interpreters. Three conflicts with the Gospels are particularly prominent in the main lines of interpretation by American scholars in the recent “growth industry” of Jesus books. The feature of the Gospels’ presentation of Jesus of which we are most confident is that he was crucified by order of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Insofar as crucifixion was the form of execution that the Romans used for political agitators in the provinces, Jesus must have been executed because he was at least thought to be a rebel against the Roman imperial order. That is, he was executed as a political actor. The Gospels also portray Jesus as proclaiming the presence of God’s (direct) rule, as well as healing illnesses in villages and village assemblies (synagogai) and sending his disciples into village communities to expand this program. Followed by ever-larger crowds, he marches up to Jerusalem, where he confronts the high priestly rules of Judea. The Gospels further present Jesus as delivering many speeches, both long and short, to the crowds and/or to his disciples. The longest and most famous of these, of course, is the “Sermon on the Mount,” a renewal and intensification of the Mosaic covenantal commandments as a sort of charter for community life. Despite their dramatically different (even diametrically opposite) reconstructions of Jesus, the main lines of recent interpretation of Jesus seemingly ignore or dismiss these aspects of the Gospels’ portrayals. The liberal interpreters in “the Jesus Seminar,” rejecting Albert Schweitzer’s “end of the world” Jesus, dismissed the judgmental or “apocalyptic” sayings in the Gospels as later formulations by his followers and constructed Jesus as a Cynic-like wisdom teacher.1 In reaction, other interpreters reasserted Schweitzer’s view of a century earlier, that Jesus was proclaiming an apocalyptic scenario of the end of the world.2 Also in reaction to the liberals’ wisdom teacher, more theologically conservative interpreters focused on aspects of Jesus that correspond to the later creedal statements of faith.3 Despite the sharp differences among them, however, all of these lines of interpretation share the same three key differences from the Gospel portrayals. 2 JeSUS and The PoliTiCS of roman PaleSTine First, they all present Jesus as a religious figure, with little or no engagement with politics. It is impossible to discern why the Romans would have crucified either a teacher of a carefree individual lifestyle or a fanatical preacher of the end of the world. Second, the liberals’ wisdom teacher, the neo-Schweitzerians’ isolated figure proclaiming the end of the world, and the crucified-and-risen savior are all strikingly individualistic. None of these Jesuses engages in social interaction, much less organizes a movement. Third, both the liberal scholars and the neoSchweitzerians (and to an extent the more traditional theologians) simply assume that they should start with and focus on the individual sayings of Jesus isolated from their literary context. They all evidently assume that Jesus uttered individual sayings one at a time. moving beyond The ConfineS of modern WeSTern aSSUmPTionS and ConSTrUCTionS That these three sharply divergent lines of Jesus interpretation all share the same significant differences from the Gospel sources suggests that they have much to do with the New Testament studies in which they are rooted. It does not take much critical distance to recognize that these three scholarly differences from the Gospel sources—the separation of religion from politics, the individualism, and the focus on separate sayings—are also deeply rooted in Western culture more broadly and that these features of Western culture are all the more intense in American culture. The separation of religion from politics, individualism, and the focus on separate sayings of Jesus, however, are inappropriate for the Gospels and for the people and society that the Gospels portray. beyond the Separation between religion and Political-economic life Investigation and interpretation of the historical Jesus has developed largely within the field of New Testament studies, which has traditionally been a branch of theology in Western universities. Jesus is classified and understood as a religions figure, whether in academic and ecclesial circles or in the culture at large. The assumption that religion is separate from politics and economics, moreover, is deeply rooted in Western culture. That separation is reinforced in the United States and many other Western societies by...