After a week of media buzz circa Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, a few friends have asked me what I think about Jesus' militant uprising. I imagine that readers of The Jesus Blog are more informed than most about such matters (emphasis on the word *imagine*).
So I put it to you: did Jesus literally advocate militancy?
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A prize fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in his hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteUgh.
DeleteIf so, his disciples and the early church surely misunderstood the message...Good thing Constantine set them straight. Double UGH!
ReplyDeletethat's the real jesus myth
ReplyDeleteAccording to the accounts, Jesus went and chucked the moneychangers' tables in the Temple about; in John's version of the story, he took a whip to them. That surely amounts to militancy, though we can argue about what form of militancy it was. These days we'd call it direct action.
ReplyDeletemil·i·tant (ml-tnt)
ReplyDeleteadj.
1. Fighting or warring.
2. Having a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause.
It's not hard to imagine Jesus in terms of the second meaning of "militant".
As for the first meaning ... well, you yourself wrote that "Jesus was convinced that he was establishing God's heavenly kingdom on earth by defeating the spiritual armies of Satan."
So, I can construe Jesus as "militant". The more difficult question is whether he "literally advocated militancy". THAT question has me stumped, particularly since (after virtually hanging around with you and Chris) I've come to doubt my ability to see behind the Gospel text to anything Jesus "literally" said. That is, if by "literally" you mean "word for word", and you're not employing the word as an "intensifier".
If I seem a little annoyed, well, I'm only a LITTLE annoyed. But has anyone here actually read Aslan's book?
Working through it now Larry.
DeleteAs for your other point. It is quite possible to arrive at a reconstruction of a historical figure's intentions without being able to quote that person word for word.
I.e. I'm pretty derned sure that General Lee (Robert, not the Dukes of Hazard car) intended to win the war for the confederacy. While others might be able to quote him, I cannot. In fact, I doubt that any direct quote attributed to Lee would change my mind of this point.
-anthony
p.s. chill out, Larry.
Hah! Did Lee intend to "win" the war, in the sense of conquering the North? Or to "win" the war, in the sense of a negotiated truce where the South would have some kind of independence? Would Lee had won his intended victory if the Confederate States had returned to the Union with some recognition of their power to sanction slavery?
DeleteBesides ... few things intention-wise are as clear-cut as war, in the sense of intending to win or lose. Once you conclude that Mr. X has been given a job to do, it's not controversial to assume that Mr. X intends to do that job. If Mr. X is a homebuilder, we can assume that he intends to build homes. If Dr. Y is a medical doctor, we can assume that she intends (in one way or another) to help heal people.
This is where things get difficult, because I don't know what the human Jesus thought his job was. If we conclude that Jesus was an itinerant teacher, then we can assume that Jesus intended to teach in an itinerant fashion (i.e., he wasn't seeking a tenure track). But if this is what Jesus intended, it's probably not the only thing he intended.
But this is where your General Lee analogy gets strained. I'll agree that General Lee intended to "win", whatever that might have meant to him. Was that the sole intention of his life? Might he have intended to win the war AND be a good family man? Of course. We have many intentions. Was Lee being a good family man when he took command of the army of the Confederacy? It gets worse if we try to say that Lee did NOT intend such-and-such. If Lee wanted to win the war, does that mean that he did not intend to make peace?
As a general matter, there are few things more difficult than sussing out someone's intentions. To gauge someone's intentions requires interpretation. It's a highly creative and subjective business. Comparatively speaking, it's much easier to know what someone "literally" said than what he intended.
Besides ... what does the word "literally" have to do with intent?
P.S.: Calmer than you are.
Maybe when you're asleep.
DeleteI suppose that my question could have clarified my intention better if I had rendered it:
Did Jesus advocate literal militancy?
My bad.
acld
Sorry ... I was meditating, and the incense smoke obscured your reply post. What is "literal militancy"? Is that in contrast to "figurative militancy"? Does "literal militancy" mean fighting Rome, as opposed to fighting Satan?
ReplyDeleteE.g. Mother Teresa fought tooth and nail against poverty in Calcutta. I would take such violence language as figurative or metaphorical.
DeleteNo doubt, there is a difference between violent symbolism and literal violence.
-anthony
He was certainly vehemently opposed to the existing order, but his expectation seems to have been that God, not people, would be doing the overthrowing. Beyond the table-level, I mean. It seems possible that some of his followers were more literally militant (Simon Zelotes, and that weird bit with the ear-severing), but based on the gospel evidence, it's hard to make the case that Jesus was.
ReplyDeleteWhen relating to anti-theist atheists, one approach I often hear is that Jesus was militant, advocated fighting, his triumphal entry was an attempt to bring a war about (following the more warfare aspects of Zechariah's prophecy) and that he was a nasty dude. I haven't read Aslan's book yet, but it would be interesting to note if he, as a Muslim writer, is taking up that approach.
ReplyDeleteDid Jesus advocate militant literacy?
ReplyDeleteThe cleansing of the temple episode in Mark looks to me like a militant action. After all, Jesus drives out the money changers, then (presumably with the help of his followers) prevents people from carrying vessels through the temple.
ReplyDeleteIf the Occupy movement had entered the New York Stock Exchange, stopped trading, and prevented people from entering or leaving the building, it would have been (rightly, I think) viewed as a militant action by the U.S. government.
That being said, I tend to prefer Maccoby's idea that Jesus only intended a token resistance as a demonstration of faith. He might have expected that God would intervene in a miraculous way, as He did in the story of Gideon.
Matthew, the Temple episode is probably the best place for an affirmative answer to the question. But I should point out that your statement "presumably with the help of his followers" is where we must stop and consider the matter carefully. To commit a violent act is one thing... to advocate such action is another thing. In order to take Jesus' action as an intended example (or trigger) for his disciples is a precarious move.
DeleteIt is also worth noting that early Jewish Christianity continued to worship in the Jerusalem Temple. But I will leave it to others to connect the dots on that one.
-anthony
Anthony,
DeleteThank you for your thoughtful reply. You are clearly taking a more nuanced view of this than I have done. I will give the issue some more thought.
Keep up the good work with this blog!
Matt
I think you are asking about a modern concept, something that came out of a split in the civil rights movement if memory serves, which itself claimed inspiration from Jesus. Militancy in its Sixties form, which is the way I understand it, was part of a very different social and historical context than that of Jesus. It followed from the pioneering work of MLK, John Lewis, and the other brave souls who took their inspiration from "go the extra mile" and "turn the other cheek." Their sacrifices led to profoundly changed social and historical circumstances that made militancy, which would previously have seemed suicidal, appear to be a plausible next step or alternative -- "by any means necessary," etc. I associate Jesus with the non-militant MLK approach, not Malcolm X. The same goes for Christian militancy, which not only failed to improve upon the original, it became a lasting source of criticism and shame. First Century Jewish militancy, while it produced pride rather than shame, led to the end of the Second Temple. I don't think militancy is what he was talking about at all.
ReplyDelete