Judy Redman Assesses the So-Called Blowup in Baltimore--Chris Keith

Judy Redman wasn't able to make it to annual SBL this year, but has been blogging her way through the audio that's now available here.  Her two blog post thus far are worth the read as another perspective on the conversation that unfolded.

Memory and the Historical Jesus part 1
Memory and the Historical Jesus part 2

Merry Christmas!

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

by Denise Levertov

It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

Three Dominant Lines of Argument for Jesus' Execution

In his first post, Brian Pounds pointed out a fallacy at the heart of Reza Aslan’s logic concerning Jesus’
political agenda and the telos of his career.  Today he concludes by reviewing how the Criterion of Crucifiability has been applied (with varying degrees of success) among scholars established within the field of Jesus research.

Yesterday, I discussed the misuse of crucifixion as a criterion in the so-called Zealot theory. Aside from the insurrectionist theory, three other dominant theses have been used to explain Jesus' execution. Some scholars (hearkening back to the 'New Quest') have proposed that Jesus' execution validates the thesis that he was perceived as a violator of Torah (e.g. Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 97; cf. J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 2:627). However, Jesus' death on a Roman cross – rather than by stoning, a punishment with which Jesus was possibly threatened and by which Stephen and James were put to death as law-breakers (John 10:31-33; 11:8; Acts 6:12-14; 7:58-59; Ant. 20.200)– directs us away from understanding this as a central issue that led to his execution. 

 Another line of argument is that Jesus' manner of death validates the thesis that he was a non-violent anti-imperialist (e.g. Richard Horsley, Jesus and Empire, 7, 132). This is a more plausible thesis than the violent insurrectionist theory. A convincing emphasis of this type of thesis is its incorporation of the recurrently attested theme of Jesus' economic critique of elites (e.g. Mark 10:21-25, 31; 12:1-12, 40; Matthew 11:7-10=Luke 7:24-27; Luke 6:24-26). In my judgment, this is an important set of conflicts most often left out of 'apocalyptic' Jesus portraits but with explanatory value for understanding one of the causes for Jesus' crucifixion. It fits especially well with Jesus' climactic Temple Action (which itself carries a dimension of economic critique within the gospels–Mark 11:15-17; John 2:15-16). Yet, many of those who advocate the updated anti-imperial thesis fail to connect Jesus' crucifixion with the probable charge on which he was executed (see below). 

Finally, the cross is sometimes used to validate messianic (re)constructions of Jesus. According to this avenue of explanation, Jesus was crucified for styling himself as a royal Messiah (cf. N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 86, 106-08). One of the primary supports for this view is found in the gospel narrations of a titulus on the cross including the inscription “King of the Jews” (Mark 15:26; John 19:19). Its lack of use as a christological title elsewhere and its inconvenient seditious connotations tell in favor of its historical origin in the life of Jesus. Moreover, analogies exist for the advertisement of offense accompanying the executed (e.g. Suetonius, Caligula 32.2; Cassius Dio, Roman History 54.3.7). The greatest evidence against the straightforward view that Jesus was crucified for putting himself forward as Messiah is his lack of use of the title in self-reference and his general reticence for unequivocally accepting either the title Messiah or king within the Gospels (Mark 8:30-33; 15:2; Matt 26:64). 

Nevertheless, in my judgment and in the judgment of many scholars with diverse presuppositional backgrounds (e.g. Paula Fredriksen, Gerd Theissen, James Dunn) a royal messianic acclamation of Jesus by others, best explains how he came to be crucified specifically as “King of the Jews”. How one goes about explaining why some of Jesus' contemporaries saw him in this light and the degree to which he inspired, accepted, or modified the acclamation is open here to further debate and discussion. 

Thank you again, Brian.

The Misapplication of Crucifixion as a Criterion in 'Jesus the Zealot' Theories

It is my great pleasure to introduce you, gentle reader, to Brian Pounds. Brian is a Ph.D. candidate at Cambridge. His dissertation “The Criterion of Crucifiability in the Quest for the Historical Jesus” relates (as you might have guessed) to Jesus’ crucifixion, among other upbeat topics. I invited Brian to pound out a few thoughts on what can and cannot be inferred from the fact of Jesus’ execution. Here is the first of his two-parter:

Piggybacking off of Anthony's recent post concerning his lively discussion with Reza Aslan, it is noteworthy that Aslan attempts to validate his thesis of Jesus the ‘zealot’ (an anachronistic label for a rebel in Jesus' historical context, as Aslan acknowledges – begging the question of the book’s title) with the 'fact' of Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus' life is made to fit his end. He was executed in the manner reserved for violent insurrectionists; therefore, he was a violent insurrectionist. This is a basic shared line of argument for theses similar to Aslan's reaching all the way back to H. S. Reimarus. Consequently, Jesus' crucifixion is used as a criterion for eliminating 'inauthentic' gospel material that portrays Jesus as fundamentally nonviolent (e.g. Mark 14:48; Matt 5:9, 26:52; Matt 5:39-44= Luke 6:29-6:35).

This move ignores the breadth of offenses for which individuals were crucified. Not only was crucifixion carried out as a form of punishment and deterrence for violent offenses such as insurrection, banditry, and murder but also for nonviolent forms of sedition such as defamation of the emperor (e.g. Suetonius, Domitian 10.1; Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria 9.2.65), “stirring up the people” (e.g. Paulus, Sententiae 5.22.1), and military desertion (e.g. Livy, Ab urbe condita 30.43.13). Moreover, some victims were crucified for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time as was the case with those captured while foraging for food during Titus' siege of Jerusalem (J.W. 5.447-49). One can thus imagine a number of ways that an individual may have met his or her end on a Roman cross, and there is simply too much counter-evidence and too little positive evidence to consider that participation in violent insurrection was a probable reason why Jesus was put to death.

My thanks to Brian for his time and expertise. Tune in tomorrow for more.

-anthony

Ducks, Gays, and the Pope - Le Donne

Disclaimers: (1) I do not watch reality television. (2) I tend to like "both/and" solutions, so I am biased toward this sort of peace-making centrism. (3) I don't think that all readers of this blog should shun reality television or take centrist positions concerning civil rights issues.

That said, I really resonate with this response to the Duck Dynasty rhetoric:

https://benirwin.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/phil-robertson-and-pope-francis/

-anthony

Rafael Rodriguez's Oral Tradition and the New Testament--Chris Keith

I recently received a copy of Rafael Rodriguez's new book, Oral Tradition and the New Testament (T&T Clark, 2014).  I had the honor to read this work in pre-publication form and now want to underscore what a great study it is.  Rodriguez represents a fresh voice in orality studies because he makes the important shift away from trying to identify traces of orality in written texts and toward understanding the roles of texts within cultural environments characterized by majority illiteracy.  In other words, in rightly asserting that early Christianity was an "oral" culture, he does not make the subsequent and erroneous claim that it was, in some way, anti-textual, which has been a shortcoming of some (but not all) previous research in orality.  In successive chapters, he describes the what, who, how, and why of oral tradition and New Testament studies.  He discusses all the important topics and names, and even provides examples of how the understanding of orality that he forwards impacts exegesis.  It's a quick read and I recommend it highly.  Although things are far from certain right now, it looks like Rafael and this book will be featured in a special panel discussion at the 2014 British New Testament Conference in the Jesus and Gospels seminar, which will also feature Eric Eve and Larry Hurtado.

An Alternative Christmas Nativity

For Christians who attend large churches, Christmas plays and live nativities are an amalgam of angels, stars, kings, shepherds, farm animals... even more farm animals. And depending on how many actors need parts, still more farm animals! No joke: I was at a Living Nativity two years ago that included live pigs. Yeah. Any student of the New Testament will know that this "traditional" scene is a modern harmonization of multiple narratives, misreadings of these narratives, and modern inventions. I will not detail the many, many bizarre additions to the biblical infancy narratives here, but consider this: the famous "magi" from the East are not in the same story as shepherds, are not kings, and are not three in number. Modern plays and nativities have distorted the magi (=astrologers?) about as much as the Christian West has distorted Santa Claus. We might as well depict them smoking rubber cigars.

Was Crucifixion Just? - A Very Odd Statement from Reza Aslan

Last weekend Premier Radio in the UK aired a lively discussion between me and Reza Aslan (author of Zealot).  If you've read the book and listened to the podcast, you'll notice that Dr. Aslan's thesis seems to be improving post-publication. My friend, the brilliant Ryan Hemmer, summed it up well with this comment, "It was pretty frustrating to listen to. His thesis is whatever it needs to be to deflect criticism."

Today (upon the news that his book might be turned into a film), I would like to highlight a very odd statement by Dr. Aslan. In our exchange, he said:

“If Rome deems you worthy of crucifixion, you probably were worthy of crucifixion.”

At this point I'm less concerned with the thesis that Jesus was a zealot. What is troubling here is the assumption that Rome was generally right about who was an enemy of the state. What is even more troubling is the assumption that the Roman practice of crucifixion (cruel and torturous by any standard) was justified at all! Can this be said with integrity about any regime?

thoughts?

-anthony

In My Zeal, I Corrected Reza Aslan Incorrectly - Le Donne

I need to correct an error I made when discussing the concept of "zeal" with Reza Aslan. In this exchange I claim that there is no example of Jewish zeal directed outward and against a foreigner. I would like to apologize to Dr. Aslan and the listeners of Premier Christian Radio.  This is obviously incorrect.  Indeed, the example that I give (a story that I tell in the podcast) of Josephus' "zealous" Jews who stage a nonviolent demonstration against Pilate's adornment of Jerusalem (J.W., book 2.169-174) would be an obvious counter example. I misspoke.

What I meant to say was that zealous acts as manifested violently are indicative of internal Jewish conflict about devotion to God and against idolatry. Indeed, my comments do not make sense without this important qualification.

Jesus was White? - Le Donne

My thanks to James McGrath for this image.
Nobody does Xmas anachronism better than
Dr. McGrath.

Megyn Kelly of FOXNews created a bit of buzz last week when she told the kids of America that Santa is white. There are things that I will get pugilistic about and Santa’s race is… okay… I almost dozed off there.

Kelly then referred to Jesus’ whiteness.

Two quick points about this one. (1) “White” is a modern category. Like most racial labels, this is a post-Enlightenment development.  So it’s anachronistic (that’s a real word, Mr. O'Reilly) to call Jesus white. (2) As I discuss in this essay, Jesus did indeed become an Aryan in many post-Enlightenment imaginations. In fact, folks like Ernst Renan expended a great deal of effort trying to prove that Jesus was Aryan. Renan's work was picked up by several theologians with National Socialist tendencies. This was about the same time that Jews were labeled non-Aryan.

For a network that is preoccupied with drawing comparisons between the Nazis and contemporary politics, one would expect a bit more knowledge about Nazi ideology. One would be disappointed.

Winner of the Two Powers in Heaven Giveaway--Chris Keith

The true random number generator has magically produced "52" as the winning comment (for some reason 100 keeps showing up in the "Max" category but I promise I entered 70, the number of comments we had):

True Random Number GeneratorMin:Max:Result:52

That comment comes from John Walker, who, to his utter shame and my utter shame as someone responsible for the content of this blog, identified Taylor Swift as the most underrated country singer:

John WalkerDecember 4, 2013 at 5:47 PM

Taylor Swift - she's the bomb!

 

John, if you could write me at chris.keith@smuc.ac.uk, I'll arrange for you to receive your free copy of Alan Segal's classic Two Powers in Heaven.

Richard Burridge and Jesus: The Burridge Fest 2013--Chris Keith

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I spent most the day last Friday in the beautiful chapel of King's College, London sitting next to Chris Tilling and my PhD student, David Smith, for a special day honoring the work of Rev. Prof. Richard Burridge upon his winning of the Ratzinger Prize from the Vatican.  Burridge is the first non-Catholic to win the prize, so it was quite the accomplishment.  We at the Jesus Blog tip our caps to Rev. Prof. Burridge.

The day broke into four basic sections.  First, Steve Walton and Andrew Lincoln discussed Burridge's seminal What are the Gospels? (Eerdmans new rev. ed., 2004).  Second, Francis Watson and Loveday Alexander discussed Burridge's popular-level textbook Four Gospels, One Jesus? (SPCK Classic ed., 2013), though Alexander also addressed at length his popular-level commentary John (Bible Reading Fellowship, 1998).  Third, David Horrell and Jan van der Watt discussed Burridge's Imitating Jesus (Eerdmans, 2007), which was shortlisted for the Ramsey Prize in 2009.  Fourth, Rev. Prof. Burridge was finally allowed to respond to the discussion of his work after being silent almost all day!

There were several themes that kept coming up throughout the day.  One was Burridge's commitment to making scholarship accessible to the average reader, particularly the average Christian reader.  This included both his publications and his work as a clergyman.  The second big theme was the impact of Burridge's What are the Gospels?, which was originally his PhD thesis at Nottingham.  The discussion surrounding this work was one of the three highlights of the day for me.  Steve Walton (now my colleague at St Mary's University College!!) did a great job of setting the background for Burridge's contribution in the first paper of the day.  Some readers of the blog might not be aware of this background, so it would be useful to offer some brief comments.  In short, if you've ever read an introduction to the Gospels or an introduction to the NT or a commentary on one of the Gospels in the past twenty or so years that said something like, "Scholars now think that the Gospels are a form of ancient biography," you are reading the direct impact of this book.  Prior to Burridge, scholars still tended to see the Gospels as a sui generis, and a not-too-high-cultured one at that.  This assessment was a result of form criticism, which identified the Gospels as Kleinliteratur instead of Hochliteratur, and also identified them as primarily reflections of the communities in which they circulated, not Jesus himself.  This opinion was as "consensus" as anything could have been at the time, and Burridge effectively demolished it and persuasively made the case that the Gospels may be innovative in many respects, but they are a form of ancient bioi ("lives"; i.e., biography) and thus--lo and behold--primarily about Jesus.  It's the type of contribution that every PhD student thinks he or she will make upon admission and only about 1% ever do make.  This isn't to say that everyone agrees with Burridge, but his is the prevailing opinion now; no doubt about that.  As a side note, if you're wondering, "You mean to tell me that NT scholarship is so messed up that it took a groundbreaking, painstakingly-detailed PhD thesis in order to convince scholars that the Gospels are about Jesus?" the answer is, "Well, yes, except that some still aren't convinced."

The second highlight of the day for me was Francis Watson's presentation on Burridge's Four Gospels, One Jesus?  He compared Burridge's book to Wright's Simply Jesus and seemed to favor the former.  Watson highlights that, for Burridge, if readers want to understand "Jesus," they must access the one Jesus through the pluriformity of the fourfold canon; i.e., "Jesus" is found in those four portraits of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  In contrast, for Wright, if readers want to understand "Jesus," they must access the historical Jesus in his sociohistorical context; i.e., "Jesus" is the historical Jesus behind the Gospels.  Anyone who has read Watson's recent tome Gospel Writing will not be surprised by this argument, though it would be interesting to hear Wright's response.  Watson clarified that he is indeed interested in the historical Jesus and finds that scholarship significant, but that for NT and early Christian Christology, we must start with the pluriform image of Jesus in the four Gospels, not the historical Jesus.  In this context, he mentioned that Burridge started Imitating Jesus with the historical Jesus.  He said no more, but in the questions, Andrew Lincoln pushed him and asked him whether he considered Burridge's appeal to the historical Jesus in the later text to be a step backward from his approach in Four Gospels, One Jesus?  Watson acknowledged that he did.

Of course, this discussion was interesting to me because it concerned the role of the historical Jesus in Christological and theological discussion.  I was very disappointed to miss the final session when Burridge responded.  Perhaps we can talk him into a comment here on this post!

In light of "memory" being such a hot topic on this blog of late, I should probably add that I think that many of Burridge's original arguments against the form critics prefigured some of the arguments that other scholars eventually made on the basis of media and memory studies.  What Burridge primarily argued against was this idea that Gospels being influenced by their local contexts (which he never denies and, in fact, assumes) meant that they were simply mirrors of those contexts with no concern for the past of Jesus.  I think he's right about this and later research has buttressed his original work on the genre of the Gospels.

The third highlight of the day for me was hearing Jan van der Watt, a well-known South African Johannine scholar who now works in the Netherlands, speak about Burridge's role in the fight against apartheid in South Africa.  I had no idea that Burridge played such an important role in moderating and contributing to those discussions.  These filtered into his final chapter in Imitating Jesus, which deals specifically with apartheid.  Clearly, Burridge is not someone who could be accused of never leaving the ivory tower.

As you can tell, there was much to consider in the day, and there were many excellent NT scholars there to partake in the festivities.  In light of the influence of What are the Gospels? I thought it might be interesting to hear from some of the readers of the blog about when they first encountered the book.  I'm pretty sure I first read it during MA/MDiv coursework.

UPDATE (Dec. 17): Chris Tilling gives his summary and some further thoughts at Chrisendom.

"Memory Studies in Historical Jesus Research" - audio

Thanks to the miracle of modern technology and ears, you can listen in on the recent SBL panel on the topic of "Memory Studies in Historical Jesus Research".

[Two unfortunate caveats: the first paper is missing the first four minutes (sorry Chris); and the sound quality is somewhat poor throughout - I had better luck with headphones].

Chris Keith, "The Past Approaching and Approaching the Past: The Contribution of Memory Studies to Historical Jesus Research"

Zeba Crook, "Memory Distortion and the Historical Jesus"

Rafael Rodríguez, "An Uneasy Concord: Memory and History in Contemporary Jesus Research"

Paul Foster, "Memory: Help or Hindrance in Historical Jesus Research?"

Discussion of panelists moderated militantly by James Crossley

I am just now listening to these. I will probably have some reflections once I've had a chance to digest.

-anthony