Summary: Jesus and Empire
by engineeredtheology on Sep.18, 2011, under Books
American Identity and a Depoliticized Jesus
We find ourselves identifying ourselves with Rome than a people who celebrated their origins in God’s liberation. We depoliticize Jesus to remain more comfortable with our “Roman” status. We incorrectly assume Jesus had nothing to say about politics for four reasons:
1) We attempt to separate religion from other things, and since Jesus was a religious leader he could not possibly be political
2) We are strong individualists, so we see Jesus as separate from his surroundings
3) Most religious scholars are scientific, so he is easier to categorize in just one category
4) Recent interpreters have eliminated messianic Jesus quotes as authentic, so Jesus is then just a teacher
Our narrow focus of the time leads to narrow interpretations. We label Caiaphas, Herod, and the priests as Jews, but this is not descriptive. “The people of Palestine at the time of Jesus appear as a complex society full of political conflict rather than a unitary religion (Judaism)” (145). We interpret the census as a way to get Jesus to Jerusalem instead of a way for Rome to excise more taxes from the people. We see the Roman roads and structure as the foundation of Christianity instead of a structure needing to be overthrown by the Kingdom of God.
Roman Imperialism
The Greek rule was a shift from the Persian because they also pressed their culture on conquered people. Rome offered a “new world order” and “peace and prosperity” (from Octavian stopping the civil wars), but the conquered people faced terror and brutalization. Emperor worship was funded by the local wealthy who looked for favors from the empire. The solders were away from their lands, fell into debt, and the wealthy gained land by foreclosing on it.
Resistance and Rebellion in Judea and Galilee
Scribes at the time found themselves torn between upholding traditions, and their role as mediators in the imperial rule. The Israelite tradition was adamant against foreign rule, and riots against Rome were common.
Toward a Relational Approach to Jesus
In looking for the historical Jesus, scholars tried to remove the opinions of the gospel writers, leaving the sayings of Jesus without context. No one communicates in isolated sayings though, and meaning always comes from context. “Like museum curators, scholarly interpreters arrange the decontextualized artifacts by type and topic…like poetry fragments” (738). The gospels started as an oral tradition whose meaning comes from the texts impact on the context and tradition of the hearers. These individual speeches were arranged in specific ways to make a point, so the foundation unit is the entire book, not any one specific story. “Only if we as modern readers make the connection between text and metonymically signaled references to Israelite tradition can we construe the text within the range of possibilities it implies” (925).
God’s Judgement of the Roman Imperial Order
We do not find any ancient texts that attest to a belief in the coming end of the world, and it is unlikely Jesus ever preached it. There was a strong Jewish expectation that God would restore his people. Jesus brakes from tradition by including the Jewish rulers as under judgement. There was heavy taxation at the time to fund the rebuilding of the temple, and protests to the tax would not be surprising. The people Jesus preached to would have welcomed condemnation of the high priests. The fundamental conflict in Mark’s story is not between the Jews and Christians, but between the people and rulers. The parables that Jesus tells are thinly veiled references to this conflict.
Covenantal Community and Cooperation
Jesus and his followers saw God acting through the lives of themselves, instead of waiting for God’s independent action. Jesus continually affirms the family and community structure against the the forces that are disintegrating it. The Jesus prayer calls for the cancelling of debts that the community would owe each other.
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