Wednesday, September 24, 2014

A Reply to Dale Martin's JSNT Essay (Part 2)

Yesterday (soon-to-be) Dr. Pounds offered part one of his two-part response to Dale Martin's recent JSNT essay. Here is the second installment:


Yesterday I briefly outlined Martin's hypothesis that Jesus was crucified because he was the leader of a group of illegally armed disciples. Today I focus on Martin's answer to the question of why Jesus' disciples were armed in the first place. He considers the best answer to be that Jesus intended to participate in an armed battle accompanied by a heavenly army (p 15). His supporting evidences for this hypothesis are the episode of the so-called temple cleansing (p 9), the against-the-grain saying in which 'false-witnesses' indicate Jesus own intended participation in the destruction of the temple (p 10; Mark 14:58); Mark's lack of mention of sacrificing or eating lamb at the last supper indicating rejection of the Passover rite at the temple (p 16; 14:18–25), and indications of Jesus' inclusion of Samaritans (who as a group were also hostile toward the Jerusalem temple; p 15; Luke 10: 25–37; John 4:4–42). As I argued yesterday, I propose that the arm(s) carried by Jesus' disciple(s) belonged to the accoutrements of a traveller and were used spontaneously in resistance to Jesus' arrest (as Mark narrates). I view Martin's proposal as a considerably weaker hypothesis.

If Jesus and his armed band had attempted to enact a battle within the temple, they almost certainly would have been killed on the spot (the Temple police was present and a Roman cohort stood watch in the Antonia Tower during Jewish festivals just in case of seditious activity; cf. Acts 4:1–3; 5:23–24; 21:31; J.W. 2.224; 5.243–45; M. Middoth 10.1.1-2, 9). Martin offers no explanation for the escape of Jesus and the disciples .

On a side note, Martin also does not offer a plausible explanation as to why only Jesus was executed. He suggests that it was typical Roman practice to kill an insurrectionary ringleader but not his followers. Yet, this was clearly not the case in most analogous episodes narrated by Josephus. Roman forces were not hesitant in killing the followers of royal pretenders or the so-called sign prophets (J.W. 2.59, 64, 263; Ant. 17.276, 284; 20.98, 171). Martin does not discuss these examples. From Pilate's tenure, he emphasises that only the chief instigators within the Samaritan prophet's movement were executed (Ant. 18.87)– as though disciples attempting armed revolt would not have been considered instigators as well (p 18). Martin also cites the example of John the Baptist, whose followers were not executed despite Antipas' fear that his charisma might inspire insurrection ( p 18; Ant. 18.113–19). However, one must acknowledge that John did not attempt to participate in an armed revolt, and this probably indicates the same for Jesus.

Martin's other points are open to alternate interpretations and do not overcome the major problems posed above. The claim that Jesus would personally destroy the temple is easily understood as a garbled form of his prophecy and symbolic action indicating divine destruction (Mark 11:12–21; 13:2). One can easily read Mark' s narrative as implying that Jesus and his disciples participated in a typical Passover (cf. Mark 14:12, 14, 16). The possible presence of Samaritans among Jesus' followers does not conclusively determine Jesus' attitude toward the temple any more than the presence of tax-collectors determines his stance toward the Roman Empire. Moreover, even if Jesus did lead a counter-temple movement (as a sizeable group of scholars conclude), this does not necessitate that he attempted to use force of arms to bring about its downfall. In sum, Martin's proposal that Jesus and his armed disciples attempted to participate in an apocalyptic battle suffers from the same fundamental improbabilities as previous attempts to construct Jesus as a rebel. His subsidiary arguments are not conclusive enough to overturn these improbabilities. Space does not permit discussion of the problem posed to Martin's hypothesis by the non-violent Jesus of the double tradition (Matt 5:39–42; Luke 6:29–30). 

My thanks to Brian Pounds for his critical and timely posts.
-anthony

9 comments:

  1. Brian,

    One of Martin's bits of supporting evidence is that Jesus' following included Samaritans. Do you think this holds water? And (assuming that Martin is right) doesn't this typecast Samaritans? ...what am I missing here?

    -anthony

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  2. Isn't Mk 14.12-14 enough to indicate that they did eat Passover?

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  3. Thanks for these questions Anthony. I answer assuming a popular reading audience. Before the time of Jesus, the Samaritans had the own temple on Mt. Gerizim (cf. Ant. 18.34). It was destroyed by the Hasmonean John Hyrcanus in 128 BCE (Ant. 13.255-56). Josephus narrates episodes illustrating hostility between Jews and Samaritans- including one where Samaritans scatter human bones in the temple in order to defile it (Ant. 18.30). So the Samaritans as a group rejected the Jerusalem temple. If Jesus had Samaritan followers then Martin's argument would be of the “birds of a feather flock together” variety. (Interestingly, Gerd Theissen identifies Jesus' movement as counter-temple and in that respect locates it alongside the activities of John the Baptist and the Samaritan prophet killed by Pilate near Mt Gerizim.)

    In the gospels, representations of Jesus' statements about and interactions with Samaritans are a mixed bag: In Matthew, Jesus prohibits his disciples from entering any town of the Samaritans (10:5); Luke pictures Jesus being rejected by a Samaritan village (9:52–53). Nevertheless, Luke and John generally picture Jesus as having positive interactions with Samaritans (John 4:1–33; Luke 17:16–19; cf. 10:30–37); the closest thing to an indication of Samaritan followers of Jesus is the statement in the Fourth Gospel that certain Samaritans “believed” (4:41). There is however no narration in any gospel of Samaritans traveling with or following Jesus. Therefore, in my opinion there were probably no close disciples of Jesus who were Samaritans but there may have been some Samaritans who were 'sympathisers'.

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  4. These last two posts sound like a pretty convincing critique of the article to me. Anthony or Brian, have either of you read Justin Meggitt's "The Madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus Put to Death, but his Followers were Not" JSNT 29 (2007): 379-413. The evidence that Jesus was not leading a violent revolution in that only he was crucified rather than his followers is a strong point, but it still seems odd that the Romans were so threatened by an apocalyptic preacher announcing a coming kingdom where he would be king while his followers could lead a messianic movement in Jerusalem for decades, so perhaps Meggitt's thesis that the Romans perceived Jesus as an isolated deluded person could help to explain why he alone was mocked, tortured and executed?

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  5. Thanks Mike K, I have read Meggitt's article. I think the two cases that Meggitt uses to build his argument do not actually work in his favor. In the case of Carabas (who according to Philo suffered from 'mania'), he is an unintentional actor used by others to mock Agrippa I, and he is obviously not crucified (In Flaccum 37–39). In the case of Jesus Son of Ananias (who according to Josephus also suffered from 'mania'), the governor Albinus lets him go after a flogging precisely because he deems him insane (J.W. 6.305). The other stuff you mention about a royal acclamation of Jesus would have been potentially 'disproved' and thus dealt with conclusively- from a Roman point of view- by the crucifixion itself (cf. Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth).

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  6. Recently, Fernando Bermejo tried to show that the lestai (= rebels) crucified alongside Jesus were members of his band, but I don't find it persuasive. Iowever, think that for the sake of the argument this possibility should be discussed in the post (and refuted if appropiate).

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  7. Good afternoon
    I agree with the blogger J.P.
    Bermejo-Rubio has several articles related to this issue and it would be very interesting to enlarge the debate. I also remeber that it is almost impossible for a common reader to acess Dale Martin's text: 30 dollars is a totally absurd price!
    https://www.academia.edu/8139537/_Why_Was_Jesus_the_Galilean_Crucified_Alone_Solving_a_False_Conundrum_Journal_for_the_Study_of_the_New_Testament_36.2_2013_127-154

    https://www.academia.edu/8156663/_Has_the_Hypothesis_of_a_Seditionist_Jesus_Been_Dealt_a_Fatal_Blow_A_Systematic_Answer_to_the_Doubters_Bandue_7_2013_19-57.

    Best regards, João

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  8. Thanks for sharing your post. Just a tip, always end your essay writing with an interesting conclusion. But make sure that the conclusion will sum up your whole essay.

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