Bowdoin College
Rel233: Portraits of Jesus
Lecture Outline: Jesus the Revolutionary
"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress.  Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation."
                                                                                                                                           -Karl Marx

1. Portraits of Jesus from Modern Scholarship
 Jesus the Cynic (Burton Mack, Gerald Downing)
 Jesus the Jew (Geza Vermes, Shaye Cohen)
now:  Jesus the Revolutionary (Richard Horsley)
 
2. First-Century Palestine: Revisiting Historical Context
 a) three violent revolts against Rome which frame the activities of the gospels:
  i) Maccabean revolt, 168-167 BCE
  ii) The Jewish War, 66-70 CE
  iii) Bar Kochba revolt, 132-135 CE
 
b) Horsleyís ěSpiral of Violenceî
  i) injustice
  ii) protest and resistance
  iii) repression
  iv) revolt
 
c) Some groups representing the aims of Empire
  Procurator
  Client (or ěPuppetî) King
  Priestly Aristocracy (Sadducees)
  Interpreters of the Law (Pharisees)
 
d) Some groups opposed to Empire:
  intellectuals
  Zealots
  Sicarii
  Essenes
  peasants

3. Impact of political oppression on religious expression of Jesusí day:
 a) development in the concept of sin
 b) development of the concept of demonic possession
 c) development of cosmic dualism
 d) ritual commemoration of oppression and community
 e) rise of prophetic movements
 
4. Jesus the Revolutionary
 a) a Jesus of peace and love? (cf. Matt 10:34 and Luke 12:51)
 b) gospels as documents of class conflict
 c) restoration of Israel (Matt 19:28; Luke 22:28-30; see also Q):
 d) preaching to the lost sheep of israel (Matt 15:24 and 10:6)
  -goes only to the small cities; no mention of him preaching to gentiles in  nearby Hellenized communities such as Sepphoris
 e) advocates repentance