Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine

Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice Series

by Richard A. Horsley

In Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine, Richard A. Horsley offers one of the most comprehensive critical analyses of Jesus of Nazareth's mission and how he became a significant historical figure. In his study Horsley brings a fuller historical knowledge of the context and implications of recent research to bear on the investigation of the historical Jesus. Breaking with the standard focus on isolated individual sayings of Jesus, Horsley argues that the sources for Jesus in historical interaction are the Gospels and the speeches of Jesus that they include, read critically in their historical context.

This work addresses the standard assumptions that the historical Jesus has been presented primarily as a sage or apocalyptic visionary. In contrast, based on a critical reconsideration of the Gospels and contemporary sources for Roman imperial rule in Judea and Galilee, Horsley argues that Jesus was fully involved in the conflicted politics of ancient Palestine. Learning from anthropological studies of the more subtle forms of peasant politics, Horsley discerns from these sources how Jesus, as a Moses- and Elijah-like prophet, generated a movement of renewal in Israel that was focused on village communities.

Following the traditional prophetic pattern, Jesus pronounced God's judgment against the rulers in Jerusalem and their Roman patrons. This confrontation with the Jerusalem rulers and his martyrdom at the hands of the Roman governor, however, became the breakthrough that empowered the rapid expansion of his movement in the immediately ensuing decades. In the broader context of this comprehensive historical construction of Jesus's mission, Horsley also presents a fresh new analysis of Jesus's healings and exorcisms and his conflict with the Pharisees, topics that have been generally neglected in the last several decades.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Michael Mulberry]

Richard Horsley is one of my favorite scholars and so I always enjoy his analysis and insight. This book is compromised, however, by his constant digs at the Jesus Seminar. Horsley relates a Jesus who is seeking to renew the Mosaic Covenant by reestablishing and knitting together villages that were being rent by the divisive effects of empire. In that way, Jesus is among a long line of Jewish prophets. I would strongly recommend Horsley's "Covenant Economics" and "The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context" that show off his strength and analysis as a scholar. This would be good strong overview if it were not for the need to take potshots at people who do not disagree with him all that much.

[Jake]

This book serves as a great introduction to the historiography of the historical Jesus, especially in the wake of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. You can tell that Horsley is bringing his whole career to bear here, which not only improves his argumentation but also gives the book a panoramic feeling.

Horsley advocates, and aptly justifies, an interpretation of a historical Jesus who was thoroughly engaged in local, national, and colonial politics, which is in direct contrast to interpretations that cast Jesus as apolitically preaching to isolated individuals. Horsley reminds us that the separation of religion and state is a modern invention -- the separation of Jesus from the politics of Roman Palestine is ahistorical.

Horsley gives several reasons why Jesus's political engagement has been historically obscured: lack of non-Gospel sources, obsession with the 'individual statements' of Jesus, evasion of Jesus's critique of economic exploitation, evasion of Jesus's anti-imperialist messages, and hyperfocus on Jesus's sayings on individual rights so as to flatter our modern sensibilities of individualism. Horsley gives a few examples of these, but honestly, the obfuscation of Jesus's politics deserves a few volumes itself.

I was very surprised to read Horsley say that we need to put the 'healing' stories in a new context, where we don't conceptualize the 'illnesses' and the 'healing' discussed in the Gospels the same way we conceptualize modern medicine. Instead, by using insights gleaned from medical anthropological research in colonized areas, Horsley argues that the 'possessions' and 'ailments' of the villagers were socially-constructed defense mechanisms in light of Rome's enslavement of peasants and inhuman violence. 'Possessions' have historically been a way for colonized people to express their fear, anger, and depression without engaging in suicidal rebellious activity. Horseley argues that that is what was happening in 1st Century Galilee. This argument was one of the keystones of the book, especially given the fact that people in the quest for the historical Jesus have routinely disregarded the healing stories as exaggerations and/or not real. Horseley, with his invocation of the 'possession' phenomena in colonized communities, gives us a way to address the historicity of the healing stories.

Highly recommended. Hopefully, I'll get around to reading more of Horsley's work and the work of other scholars in this field.

[Thomas]

Horsley is widely known for a empire-resistance reading of the historical Jesus, or, Jesus against empire. Here, with clarify of argumentation, rooted in primary sources, Horsley offers an account of the historical Jesus which situated him as a prophetic figure who stands against Roman empire. His work is one of historical criticism and as such a supernatural reading of Jesus is rejected. This is especially seen in his political framing of Jesus's miracles as well as his denial of the resurrection of Christ. Due to this feature, especially given the lack of engagement with scholars who seen these supernatural events as, in some sense, historically plausible, I can only give this work four-stars. But I chose not to give it three-stars or lower because it does provide a context that helps fill out the picture of the impact of Jesus, both the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith.

[John Pfund]

It's dense but not boring. A very interesting read.

[Tricia]

I found this textbook on the historical Jesus really interesting.