The Jesus Blog: Jesus and Economic Collectivism

Friday, October 4, 2013

Jesus and Economic Collectivism - Le Donne

Bill O'Reilly maintains that "Jesus wanted to stay out of politics" in recent interviews. This is disingenuous. O'Reilly's Jesus is positively anti-government. Indeed, without the problem of big-government taxation (which is emphasized ad nauseum in Killing Jesus) he cannot explain where and how the conflict between Jesus and Rome began. In this way, the Jesus portrayed by Dugard and O'Reilly is proto-libertarian. Their portrait of Jesus marginalizes the big government of Rome which is altogether evil.

Dugard and O'Reilly play down (almost entirely omit) Jesus' central message about the "Kingdom of God" to paint him as a preacher of love and hope. This reading is understandable. It is a common mistake in the Christianized West. At the same time, it is indeed anachronistic (and "anarnistic" too, I suppose) to call Jesus a socialist. Perhaps we'd do better to use the phrase "economic collectivism" for the disciples of Jesus.

I discuss this at length in my new book, The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals.

My full review of Killing Jesus will be published soon in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

-anthony

3 comments:

LorenzoOctober 4, 2013 at 9:27 AM
“Perhaps we'd do better to use the phrase "economic collectivism" for the disciples of Jesus.” For disciples, yes (Acts, 5:1-11) but I’m not sure if that was also Jesus’ view on money. My impression is that he wasn’t much concerned of how to organize and structure disciples’ communities, as well as how to organize and structure a new religion movement. Maybe, Jesus thought that money was bad because it distracted people from loving God and love others, money leaded to wars and social injustices.
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dannyyencichOctober 4, 2013 at 6:10 PM
Anarnistic indeed.
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James Crossley (PhD, Nottingham) is Professor of Bible, Society, and Politics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, London. In addition to most things historical Jesus, his interests typically concern Jewish law and the Gospels, the social history of biblical scholarship, and the reception of the Bible in contemporary politics and culture. He is co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Christine Jacobi studied protestant theology and art history in Berlin and Heidelberg. She is research associate at the chair of exegesis and theology of the New Testament and apocryphal writings. She completed her dissertation at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. She is the author of Jesusüberlieferung bei Paulus? Analogien zwischen den echten Paulusbriefen und den synoptischen Evangelien (BZNW 213), Berlin: de Gruyter 2015. Christine Jacobi is a member of the „August-Boeckh-Antikezentrum“ and the „Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostische Schriften“.

Chris Keith (PhD, Edinburgh) is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Director of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London.

Anthony Le Donne (PhD, Durham) is Associate Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary. He is the author/editor of seven books. He is the co-founder of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue and Sacred Texts Consultation and the co-executive editor of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.

Brant Pitre (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. Among other works, he is the author of Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Mohr-Siebeck/Baker Academic, 2005), and Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015). He is particularly interested in the relationship between Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins.

Rafael Rodríguez (PhD, Sheffield) is Professor of New Testament at Johnson University. He has published a number of books and essays on social memory theory, oral tradition, the Jesus tradition, and the historical Jesus, as well as on Paul and Pauline tradition. He also serves as co-chair of the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Baker Academic

Friday, October 4, 2013

Jesus and Economic Collectivism - Le Donne

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