“Jesus – A Life in Class Conflict” by J. Crossley & R.J. Myles, 2023
This is a historical-materialist study of the Jesus
movement in ancient Judea and Galilee. It
closely looks at writings about the material conditions of that time, in a land
ruled by Rome and dominated by a local elite, both subsisting on taxes, tribute,
slavery and corveé labor. The authors
contend, following the work of English historian Eric Hobsbawn, that Jesus was
an artisan and leader of a movement against both Rome and the local Temple
Pharisees, based on the grievances of the Jewish peasantry. The struggle was cloaked in moralism, magic
and ‘end times’ verbiage, as was common at the time, but the real issues were
economic and political. The authors call
it ‘revolutionary millenarianism.’
Their work involves at least 28 sources, principally the 4
Gospels, the Synoptic tradition and the work of historians like Josephus. They
are acutely aware of the historical weaknesses and contradictions in the Bible,
along with the theological motivations of its various authors, none of whom
were writing until long after Jesus’ execution. They make reasonable, grounded points,
discard others and propose possible theories when they are not sure. The authors carefully note when the Gospels
insert later things into the past. In 66-73
CE there was a violent mass rebellion against Rome by the Israelites, and it is
logical that Jesus and other prophets laid the groundwork. In 70 CE Jerusalem was surrounded and the
Temple destroyed by the Roman legions. 2 other rebellions followed. It was only later in the early 300s that Emperor
Constantine adopted Christianity as the religion of Rome – turning Christianity
into an ideology of the ruling class.
If you want to understand what was going on at the time,
this book is far more level-headed than the magical nonsense dished out in a
Bible-study class at your typical church.
I myself have not read the Bible in toto, and I suspect many others have
not done so either, so it’s an excellent historical introduction. It might also
make the Christian socialists happy – all 8 of you. Yet you will have to discard the idealist and
moralistic baggage that you carry. It also
might make the Maoists happy – after all, this was a peasant movement.
The authors contradict various bourgeois historians that
paint Judean social conditions as pleasant; or picture Jesus’ followers as
passive ‘believers,’ or think that the movement was led by ‘middle-class’
fisherman. There was no real
middle-class at this time – the fisherman were not much different than local
farmer living off subsistence crops. They point out that several mega-building projects,
so beloved of those same historians, might have displaced residents, involved forced
labor, increased taxes and were resented as bad attempts at
‘modernization.’ Freeway, corporate,
mining, oil and stadium projects in our own day play the same role.
Organized
& Organizer
The authors picture the disciples as ‘The Twelve’ - a ‘central committee’ of the movement. They relate their artisanal and rural class backgrounds, with several fisherman, Jesus a carpenter, one a former tax-collector, and several women who had access to money. They came from small rural villages like Nazareth. The movement was not fully male-centric, as you can see, with Mary Magdalene most prominent, but the authors discount it as feminist. God was always a ‘Father,’ for instance, and there were strict prohibitions against divorce. There were 12 tribes of Israel so ‘12’ was a magic number. The leading members were depicted in the Da Vinci painting The Last Supper. Jesus actually aimed many of his sermons at the rich, telling them they should share their wealth or give it up, leading to repentance. The authors call this a 'mission to the rich,' sort of like Millionaires for Taxation. This allowed him to gain money to fund the movement from either guilt or threats. Left-wing groups with sugar-daddies might be familiar with this phenomenon.
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| The central committee - with Da Vinci's one woman |
The authors go on to claim this was a ‘vanguard party’ with the goal of a ‘dictatorship of the peasantry,’ but led by new moral kings, really
a moral theocracy. Jesus was the leader
of this party, a religious organizer if you will. ‘Vanguard party’ and
“dictatorship of the peasantry’ is borrowed from 19th and 20th
century Marxism and historically seems out of place, though it’s pretty clever. The movement’s millenarianism, in which God
comes down to ‘smite the wicked’ and overturn society, is absent from any Marxist
concept of revolution. Replacing one set
of kings with another is against socialism too.
Indeed, the authority of God, miracles, healing and exorcism gave this group
credibility, not just their class hostility to the monied elites, the line of
Herod or the Roman praetorians.
The present Evangelical prosperity gospelites or the
wealthy Catholic, Anglican and Mormon churches will not be happy remembering
the Biblical quotes from Jesus about camels and needles, God and Mammon, how
the last shall be first or sending the rich away empty. The fate of the
poverty-stricken Lazarus in Heaven and the ordinary wealthy man in Hades are
the divine rewards imagined by this movement. The Lazarus story explicitly
rejects wealth itself…not behavior. The authors refute the idea that this
class hostility was just the complaint of ‘out
elites’ – scribes who resented their
subservient role - as these ideas were also held by ‘crowds,’ ‘multitudes,’ 'mobs' and 'hundreds' of followers in rural areas. The authors pay special attention to the power of crowds.
Wandering,
Pacifism, Non-Jews
A curious question is why Jesus, at the age of about 30,
would quit his trade as a carpenter and begin to wander from village to
village. He certainly had no land though he spoke Aramaic and was literate. Most historians claim
it was ‘voluntary,’ a life-style choice so to speak. Yet why would former farmers and fishermen
abandon their work and families to become virtually homeless as wandering
cadre? The authors cannot say
definitely, but there might have been economic forces at work that made it the
only option left – as it is for many migrants on our own borders. To this day religious
street people accept donations as one way of surviving. Even homeless people scrawl “God Bless” on
their cardboard.
The authors refute the idea that Jesus was a pacifist. The movement’s use of non-violence was a strictly practical tactic, saving violent retribution and judgment for the end times. The Book of Revelation ending the New Testament tells you all you need to know about their ‘pacifism.’ The Jesus movement embraced the actions of prior ‘manly’ Jewish martyrs – the Maccabees, John the Baptist and the rebels executed by Herod the Great. So it is no great surprise when Jesus was also martyred.
The authors point to the movement’s strict adherence to
Jewish tradition and law on subjects like circumcision, honoring the Sabbath,
pork, purity laws and Jewish holy days so as to gain the confidence of
conservative peasants. For instance divorce
was heavily sanctioned by Jesus, perhaps to keep peasant families whole, as
children and wives where essential workers on most plots of land. Child labor is still economically useful to small businessmen on farms and in small shops, as are intact families, both providing free labor for the business.
Hence the social conservatism.
Note that all of this rhetoric was aimed at Jews, not
non-Jews like Gentiles, Samaritans, Romans and the like. Non-Jews only became important as the movement
spread out of Palestine's urban centers and began recruiting others.
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| 'Cleansing' the Temple |
Passover
Jesus’ trip to Jerusalem for Passover is a crucial event in
the Gospels. Passover itself is full of
political meaning against slavery and oppression – sort of the U.S. 4th
of July or Juneteenth; November 7 in the former USSR or the date of the
storming of the Bastille in France. Jerusalem
was packed with Jews arriving from the villages. Roman legionnaires stood guard at the Temple;
volatile and unruly crowds filled the streets.
The Jesus group was in and around the city as revolutionary
millenarians, led by a leader pursuing imminent liberation. It’s not quite Lenin at the Finland Station
but you see the setting.
The key, plausible event that got Jesus arrested and
executed was his entry into the Temple itself, where he supposedly overturned
the money-changers tables and chased away traders using it as a commercial
site, saying it had become a ‘den of bandits.’
The authors suggest that it was quite
possible that Jesus’s disciples and followers also participated in shutting
down the commercial activities in the Temple. At Jesus’ trial before Pilate
there is a mention of an ‘insurrection’ that week involving Barabbas. At any rate, this was performative politics,
but behind it was a general and historical dislike of the corruption,
wealth-seeking, idolatry and cruelty of the Temple priests and behind them, the
local Jewish elite and their Roman allies.
Jesus was later quietly arrested at Gethsemane with the
help of a traitor in his own organization, Judas. He was then quickly tried by the High Priest
and then Pilate, and condemned to be crucified between two insurrectionists –
the actual Greek translation according to the authors. The authors consider
Jesus was executed as a ‘deranged
insurrectionist’ too. The Romans supposedly
hung an insulting ethno-racialist notation ‘King
of the Jews’ above his head. Crucifixion
was the normal Roman method used to punish the lower classes, slaves and
foreigners with the most excruciating and shameful death.
Being buried in a ‘rock cut’ tomb was only for the rich – normally
a condemned criminal would be thrown into a pit grave or left for feral dogs. It is possible that his followers retrieved his body. The story that a powerful and observant Jew,
Joseph of Arimathea, asked Pilate if he could take the body to his own crypt is
analyzed by the authors, who say it is possible. At any rate, there is no reliable source as
to what happened after Jesus’ crucifixion – the claims are all over the map. The authors cite visions of Jesus after his death, which became a central element in the Jesus myth.
The Jesus class struggle revolution failed. No apocalypse appeared from on high. The 2nd Coming is still in abeyance and will be forever. Jesus didn't even denounce slavery, so his emancipatory activity only went so far. This is the real story from the authors point of view.
P.S. - Christian conservatives are now rejecting Jesus as 'too woke.' How they are going to retain the moniker 'Christian' is beyond me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1alx8lLGwrc
Prior
blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate
our 16 year archive, using these terms: “Marx on Religion,” “Nonverts,”
“Rise of the Nones,” “Libertarian Atheism and Liberal
Religionism,” “Jude the Obscure” (Hardy); “Spiritual Snake Oil” "The Dark
Side of Christian History," “The Great Evil” (Nunpa); “Godless
– 150 Years of Unbelief” and “Astrology – (both by Bufe); American
Theocracy” (Phillips); “Religulous” (Maher); “Go Tell It On The Mountain”
(Baldwin); “The Da Vinci Code” (Brown); “To Serve God and Walmart,” “Marx and
Human Nature,” "The Jesus Comics."
And I bought it at May Day Books!
June 13, 2023
Red Frog
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