Goodreads Giveaway of The Wife of Jesus! - Le Donne

Interested in a free copy of my latest book? Click here:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/64999-the-wife-of-jesus-ancient-texts-and-modern-scandals

Giveaway ends today.

- anthony

The Teaching of Jesus and Fiscal Conservatism - Le Donne

In a very thoughtful reflection on the U.S. government's ineptitude and Bill O'Reilly's over-spiritualized Jesus, Chris Skinner tells us "Why “Jesus” is to Blame for the Government Shutdown". Skinner exposes the fiscal-conservative incarnation of "Jesus" and shows this construct to be at odds with the Jesus we find the pages of the New Testament.

Skinner writes:

"Even in my own personal experience, the most outspoken opponents of universal healthcare have been self-proclaimed “born again Christians” who are quick to tell you that they read the Bible literally. Mind you, they don’t generally read the parts about caring for the poor and marginalized literally...
The Jesus I read about in the New Testament and more importantly, the one I attempt to follow in my own life, wants—I believe—to be taken seriously (and literally) on things like caring for the disenfranchised among us."

Those who know me well will know that I am very sympathetic with Skinner's critique.  Indeed, Christians generally cherry pick from the New Testament and have little rhyme or reason for which passages they take literally.  Moreover, when I hear platitudes like "lower taxes" and "smaller government" I tend to think in these terms and these terms.

It should be said, however, that there is another version of fiscal conservatism that Skinner's post does not represent.  Fiscal conservatives whom I have come to respect do indeed read Jesus' message about caring for the poor literally.  These folks believe that the Church can do more to combat poverty than government programs.  And (while many don't) many of these fiscally conservative Christians put their money where their proverbial mouths are.  I know lots of bloody-do-gooder Christians who want lower taxes so that they can do more for the disenfranchised, usually giving to places in the world where poverty is perilous. Now, I don't see the dichotomy between taxes and generosity like they do; I'm with Skinner on this one. There is a troubling inconsistency among many of my coreligionists.  So this post does not negate Skinner's; it just adds a small wrinkle.  Not every fiscal conservative is greedy and/or over-spiritualized in orientation.

Skinner makes another really good point and one that bears repeating.  O'Reilly, in his vague categorization of "parable", dismisses any literal interpretation of Jesus' fiscal ethics.  Skinner correctly points out that Papa Bear does not represent most conservatives on this point.  I would extend this further: Tea Party advocates in general do not represent most Christian conservatives.  In tone and content, the average Christian conservative has very little true representation in congress at present.  In this way, O'Reilly's "apolitical Jesus" fantasy mirrors the silent majority of Christians who choose to be absent and ignorant and therefore cannot hold their congress person accountable for willful negligence. I wish it weren't so, but Skinner is absolutely correct on this point.

-anthony

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Anthony Le Donne (PhD) is the author of The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals

Jesus Was not a Romantic - Le Donne

The last book-length treatment of Jesus' marital status was written in 1970 by William E. Phipps.  In his Was Jesus Married?, Phipps imagined that Jesus and his wife were in a passionate tug-of-war between desire and commitment. Jesus’ wife turned to a life of prostitution in a tale of love lost and regained.  Phipps, of course, was projecting what has become commonplace in love stories in the western world.  In order to make Jesus' marriage seem authentic, Phipps appealed to the universality of love and marriage.

There are many problems with Phipps' book, but the assumption that first-century marriage was initiated and sustained by romance is the most problematic.

Why?  Because courtly love had not been invented yet. Here is an excerpt from my book The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals...

The Great Baylor Giveaway Part One: Schröter’s From Jesus to the New Testament—Chris Keith

To kick off our series of book giveaways sponsored by Baylor University Press, we’re giving away a copy of the recently-translated From Jesus to the New Testament by Jens Schröter.  Wayne Coppins has translated this version of Schröter’s Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament (originally published by Mohr Siebeck in the WUNT 1 monograph series).  Anthony and I have long claimed that Jens is the fountainhead of the New Historiography in Jesus studies, and this book is one of the prime places to find his work on this topic.  It also deals with many issues concerning the development of the NT canon.

You can enter to win the typical ways:  leave a comment here; sign up to follow the blog (and leave a comment saying you did); post this on Facebook (and leave a comment saying you did); tweet this (and leave a comment saying you did). 

I’m also, however, adding another means of entering the contest.  Leave in the comments here your favorite quote from The Royal Tenenbaums.  It’s ok if someone else has already done it.  I’ll start:  “Well, Wildcat was written in a kind of obsolete vernacular” (Eli Cash).  Ok, there’s too many for any one favorite. 

Regardless, have at it.  We’ll count up all the comments, take them to the true random number generator, and find a winner and announce it on the blog.  Baylor University Press will then send you a copy.

Now Available: The Wife of Jesus - Le Donne

My book The Wife of Jesus: Ancient Texts and Modern Scandals is now available in the UK and USA. This book is a critical treatment of Jesus’ marital status in historical memory and popular imagination. I incorporate research related to sociology, media, and gender studies. I discuss Mary Magdalene's evolution from "disciple" to "wife" in the Christianized West and argue against her as the literal "wife of Jesus". I examine various attempts to sexualize and desexualize Jesus in works of popular imagination. I situate my take on the recently published fragment called the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife" within this examination.

The Wife of Jesus provides what I consider the best arguments for and against a married Jesus. This book takes seriously the important role that Jesus' parents would have played in such a decision. Perhaps my most original contribution in this book relates to the connection between marriage, family honor, and economic security. I define and illustrate the concept of “civic masculinity” and demonstrate how Jesus’ economic collectivism relates to his aberrant stance on family honor.

Finally, this book is the most theologically oriented of any of my published works. I discuss Christianity's lingering asceticism and its awkward (often hostile) relationship with sexuality. I then discuss the Christian concept of the "Bride of Christ" and relate this to the symbols of food, community, and sexual intimacy.

Here are the blurbs from the back cover:

My thanks to Drs Green, Crossley, DeConick, Lerner, and Goodacre for their close reading and kind words.

-anthony

Quarterly Quote of the Month about Jesus for this Week

Paul Taylor: Does the Last Supper theme mean anything in particular to you?

Andy Warhol: No. It's a good picture.

Inaugural Lecture—Chris Keith

If you’re in or around London on October 16, you’re invited to my inaugural lecture as Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham. The press release and more information is here. The title of the lecture is “Social Memory Theory and the Gospels: Assessing the First Decade.” I’ll include the abstract below.

Formally introduced to English-speaking New Testament studies in 2005, social memory theory has quickly reached a position of prominence in New Testament scholarship. Many key questions in Gospels studies, especially with regard to the historical Jesus, the new historiography, and the transmission of the oral Jesus tradition, are now being answered in terms of this ‘memory approach.’ The lecture will assess the first decade of this interdisciplinary discussion.

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

Why Bill O'Reilly's Book Stinks (Ten Examples) - Le Donne

Having just finished Killing Jesus: A History by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, my review is now in process.  Stay tuned.

Rather than citing scholarly literature directly, this book leaves the reader to guess where the authors have gathered their data.  Not every book needs detailed footnotes and a bibliography, but this book might have been helped by a bit more attention to source material.  I read this book with a perpetual stinkface (considering the deficits of my default face, my stinkface is really not pretty), often curious where and how Dugard and O’Reilly got their information.  Here are ten of the more curious statements in Killing Jesus.

“Jesus was executed. But the incredible story behind the lethal struggle between good and evil has not been fully told. Until now. At least, that is the goal of this book.” p. 4. 

“Soon will come the Passover feast, bringing with it tens of thousands of Hebrew pilgrims from all around Herod’s kingdom, eager to pay good money to purchase those sheep for a sacrificial slaughter in the great Temple. In many ways, the slaughter of the babies in Bethlehem is no different.  They are being sacrificed for the good of Herod’s rule—which is the same as saying that they are being murdered in the name of the Roman Empire.” pp. 19-20 

“With a dark beard covering the tip of his chin and a thin mustache wreathing his mouth, Antipas resembles a true villain.” p. 88 

“Julia was a great beauty, which made it easier for her to indulge her base instincts.” p. 113 

“Holy men such as the Pharisees have filled that void by strictly interpreting the laws of Moses. They gained respect from the Jewish people by adding hundreds of new commandments and prohibitions to Moses’ original list of ten, then passing them on through an oral history known as the Tradition of the Elders. Few ever question these laws, especially not the uneducated peasants of Galilee.” p. 157 

 “But Jesus would be a fool to ride a donkey into Jerusalem. That would be a death sentence. For while the prophets have been very specific about the way the king of the Jews would be born and live his life, they are just as clear about how he will die. He will be falsely accused of crimes he did not commit. He will be beaten. He will be spat upon. He will be stripped, and soldiers will throw dice to bid for his clothing. He will be crucified, with nails driven through his hands and feet—yet not a single one of his bones will be broken. And those who love him will look on in mourning, unable to do anything to stop the agony.” [fn. “In order, these prophecies are: Psalms 27:12 and 35:11; Micah 5:1; Isaiah 50:6; Psalms 22:18; Psalms 22:16; Zechariah 12:10, and Deuteronomy 21:33; Numbers 9:12; Psalms 34:20, and Exodus 12:46; and Zechariah 12:10."] p. 177 

“In the village of Jericho, two blind men call out to Jesus, referring to him as ‘Lord, Son of David,’ a designation that could be applied only to the Christ.” p. 184 

 “Once again the group walks into Jerusalem and straight to the Temple. It has been three years since Jesus turned over the money changers’ tables, but now he plans to do it again. Only this time he has no whip, and he is no longer an unknown figure.” p. 192 

 “They are soon replaced by the Sadducees, a wealthy and more liberal Temple sect who count Caiaphas among their number.” pp. 204-205 

“Under the teachings of the Pharisees, there are 613 religious statutes. Even though each carries a designation marking it as either great or little, the fact remains that each must be followed. Asking Jesus to select one is a clever way of pushing him into a corner, making him defend his choice. But Jesus does not choose from one of the established laws. Instead, he articulates a new one: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” [fn. “Taken from Deuteronomy 6:5, which immediately follow Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema and cornerstone of Judaism.”] p. 205

Aside from these ten, there are some real problems with this book.  I’ll save these for my formal review.

-anthony

Candida Moss on The O'Reilly Factor Part Two--Chris Keith

 

For those who haven't seen Dr. Candida Moss (Notre Dame) on The O'Reilly Factor, here's the video.  In an earlier post, Anthony pointed readers of the Jesus Blog to it but refrained from comment because he's actively writing a review of O'Reilly's Killing Jesus.  I thought I'd throw out a few of my thoughts in the meantime.

First, let me say that, in contrast to my hippy tree hugger partner in crime Dr. Le Donne, I'm not a particularly political person.  I never have been.  I don't love to hate Bill O'Reilly and I don't love to support him.  I usually pay no attention whatsoever, especially since I moved to London.  Also, I haven't read Killing Jesus and don't plan to do so; again, not because I hate or love O'Reilly but because there's a pile of about ten books on my desk by actual New Testament scholars.

Nevertheless, a couple things about this interview are noteworthy.  First, O'Reilly starts off saying that Jesus "stayed out of politics."  This surprised me.  We can (and have) debate(d) for a very long time about the precise ways in which Jesus was political, but whether he was is not really up for debate.  For goodness gracious, the man died in a manner reserved for political threats to the Roman empire.  Regardless of whether he was (in some existential way) political, he was definitely regarded as political by important authories around him.  Just looking at NT scholarship, though, Jesus scholars across the board agree that Jesus occupied an important place in the sociopolitical structure of Palestinian Judaism; it's a major feature of, for example, the work of Marcus Borg and NT Wright.  (As a plug, this is also an important theme in my forthcoming Jesus against the Scribal Elite.)  Just taking a guess here, I think O'Reilly seems to mean that Jesus wasn't interested in Roman politics, presumably because of the way he answers the question about paying taxes to Caesar.  But the Roman political structure was hardly the only political structure and, arguably, not even the most important one for Jesus' life, at least for every period of his life other than that last Passover.  Publicly debating groups like Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, etc., as well as a public demonstration in the Temple during Passover were all political acts at their very core in the Jewish context.  There's really no way around this.

I was also intrigued by the way in which one of Jesus' "hard sayings" played out in this interview.  In addition to citing the Lukan beatitude "Blessed are the poor" (which differs from the Matthean "Blessed are the poor in spirt"), Dr. Moss points out that Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler to give away all his possessions in order to enter the kingdom (Mark 10//Matt. 19//Luke 18).  O'Reilly accuses her of reading this parable literally, and I couldn't help but think of the crowd listening to Jesus in Life of Brian ("What's so special about the cheesemakers?").  But the Gospels never present this story of Jesus as a parable; they present it as an event from his life.  O'Reilly responds the way almost all readers of this story tend to respond--surely that's not what he really meant.  But the text is on Dr. Moss's side here (assuming the text cares for a second about sides in this debate, which I doubt it does).  The Gospel authors sure seem to think that Jesus meant just what he said, as does the young man who walks away, regardless of how hard that is for us to swallow.  The very point is that this is impossible, which is why the disciples, who are also befuddled at who in the world, then, can be saved, get some further teaching from Jesus.  It's in this context that Jesus claims, "With God, all things are possible" (Mark 10.27//Matt. 10.26//Luke 10.27).  (So no, despite my pious expectations as a sixth-grader, it doesn't mean that if I pray hard enough I can have any girlfriend I want and will grow to 6'4" and play in the NBA.)  Any interpretation of this text that removes the impossible nature of Jesus' demand has a hard time squaring with the text itself because it was meant to point toward an impossibility.  What we do with this theologically and practically is a separate issue, and I'll be the first to own up to having a bank account and failing to give away everything I have, despite calling myself a follower.  But Jesus never said, "Well, of course, I don't really mean that."

Lastly, having watched The O'Reilly Factor who-knows-how-many-times at my parents' house, I was surprised also by how cordial the interview as a whole was.  I thought Dr. Moss did a marvelous job at keeping her cool and staying on the facts.  She represented us Neutestamentlers well and I offer my gratitude.  I think we should give credit to O'Reilly, too, for allowing her the last word.  From what I've seen, he doesn't always do that.  Hey, Jesus scholarship was on one of the most watched shows on television.  That's a good thing for all of us interested in this discussion.  Congrats, Dr. Moss!

Killing Jesus and Candida Moss - Le Donne

See the interview O'Reilly/Moss exchange here. I confess that I have not yet watched this interview nor read Moss' review. I am presently writing a review of Killing Jesus myself and have tried to confine myself from external interference.  Still, the topic deserves to be mentioned on any blog so titled.

anthony

Central Park Five and Generational Shifts - Le Donne

I'm a sucker for a good Ken Burns documentary and I've been waiting for his "Central Park Five" to be liberated by Amazon Prime from the constraints of monetary quid pro quo.  Thank you Amazon Prime! Where would I be without your quaint world domination?

"Central Park Five" is a racial justice-motivated reflection on the tragic events related to this New York rape trial.  Burns leads with the confession of Matias Reyes, whose DNA has been definitively linked to the 1989 crime vindicating the five boys convicted and imprisoned.  The five boys are interviewed throughout the documentary, telling stories of coerced confession, loss of childhood, and eventual vindication in 2002.  This is a story (as Burns tells it) of a violent crime in a racially charged city leading to public outrage.  If Burns' compelling version of this narrative wins the day, it is an illustration of how one generation can see a case with such certainty that key elements of the narrative are obscured or suppressed.

Guest Blog at Redemption Road - Le Donne

I had the great pleasure to read a remarkable work of fiction titled Codename Hannah. The author is a friend of mine and I was happy to give his draft a once over. I was not prepared at the time to be drawn into a world where meets Edward Snowden meets Breaking Bad.  After reading it, I offered to reflect a bit on the book's themes in a series of blog posts. Here is my first post.

Thank you Daniel Melligan for your wonderfully dark imagination!

-anthony