Archive for August, 2006

One question I am often asked when I speak and teach is whether and how Jesus might have been related to the Essenes, and/or the Dead Sea Scroll Community. Now that becomes one question or two depending on whether one equates the group know to us from Classical sources (Pliny, Josephus, Philo) as the “Essenes” with the sect that produced the Scrolls. And what about the site of Qumran? To put things succinctly:

1. Are the scrolls connected to the site of Qumran?
2. Is the group that wrote the scrolls the one known to us in Classical sources by the name “Essene”?

I would say YES, absolutely, to each question, despite those who have argued, even recently, to the contrary.

On the 1st question the archaeology is absolutely clear, see the magisterial work by Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the introduction to the Scrolls as a whole by James Vanderkam and Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is also a nice opening essay on this subject by James Charlesworth in his edited volume, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The second question I think is equally clear. If you read the basic Classical sources, namely Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 13 & 18; Jewish War 2; Philo, Every Good Man is Free 75-91; Hypothetica 11; Pliny Natural History 5, the parallel between the Qumran sect and the “Essenes” as they are therein described are overwhelming. I lean very strongly toward the view that the Greek word ’essaioi or ’ossaioi= the Hebrew ‘ossim, meaning the “Doers,” referring to the ‘ossim haTorah, that is the “Doers of the Torah (1QpHab 8:1). It is most interesting that Paul uses this very phrase in Romans 2, as does James in his letter.

The Qumran group considered as apostate those they called the “Seekers of smooth things” (haChalqot), taken from Dan 11:32. In other words those who gave a “light” interpretation of Torah.

When it comes to Jesus and his movement there are some rather amazing parallels with the Qumran/Essene community. Here are some of the more striking elements that both movements shared:

1) Apocalyptic: “This the time for the preparation of the way into the wilderness” (1QS 9) “From the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the end of all the men of war who deserted to the Liar there shall pass about 40 years” (CD(B) 2)

2) Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: “They shall separate from the habitation of unjust men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare there the way of Him” (1QS 8)

3) Messianic in Hope and Orientation: “They shall be ruled by the primitive precepts in which the men of the Community were first instructed until there shall come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS 9)

4) Community of the New Covenant: “None of the men who enter the New Covenant in the land of Damascus and betray it shall be inscribed in its Book from the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the coming of the Messiah(s) of Aaron and Israel” (CD 8)

5) Water Initiation Rites: “And when his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God” (1QS 3) “They shall not enter the water to partake of the pure Meal of the saints unless they turn from their wickedness” (1 QS 5) (Josephus)

6) Spiritual Temple is the Community: “He has commanded that a Sanctuary of men be built for Himself, that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense, the works of the Torah” (4Q174) “They shall atone for sins without the flesh of holocausts and the fat of sacrifice and prayer shall be an acceptable fragrance of righteousness” (1QS 9) (Josephus, Philo)

7) Communal Sharing of Property and Wealth: “All those who freely devote themselves to His truth shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions into the Community of God” (1QS 1) (Josephus? Philo)

8) Forbidding of Divorce: Fornication is “taking a second wife while the first is alive, whereas the principle of creation is ‘male and female’ he created them.” Two not three or more…(CD 4:20)

What makes these eight all the more noteworthy is that they are characteristic tags of identity, that is matters that define the entire essence and orientation of a group, not peripheral details. And further, as far as we know, neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducess shared a single one of these characteristics.

From this material alone I think we can say that Jesus and his movement fit best against the background or the kind of apocalyptic/Messianic Judaism that we see reflected in the Scrolls. But that is not to say that Jesus or his followers were “card carrying” members of the Essenes. I rather think they were not. There are also sharp and strong differences. The Essenes, at least as we know them in the Scrolls, would have likely considered Jesus a teacher of “smooth things.” His relations with women, Gentiles, even Roman soldiers, and his attitude toward Sabbath observance and ritual purity, as well as other Halachic matters would have seen to them as lax and lacking. I do not think that he violated such things with a “high hand,” but that he interpreted the Torah on the principle that “Laws are for people, not people for laws.” One good example is the Scrolls forbid helping an animal that has fallen into a pit or well on Shabbat, whereas Jesus, agreeing with the Pharisees, asks, “Which of you would not help such a creature on the Shabbat?”

We also have to remember that the Essene community known from the Scrolls tends to be a reflection of the group in the 1st century BCE–nearer to its founding and before it profound disappointment with apocalyptic expectations “Dead Messiahs Who Don’t Return“). Who is to say that all those even loosely associated with the group, a hundred years after the death of the Teacher, would have maintained that original strictness in terms of observing the Torah? I think it likely that scores of “Essenes” and “Essene types” or sympathizers were drawn to John the Baptizer and Jesus and James. That is why I am so fond of Robert Eisenman’s designation: The Messianic movement in Palestine…He does not get caught up on labels and modern disputes about who calls whom what. What links the groups is the language, the core ideas, the vocabulary, and the key concepts they shared. I do indeed think we can best understand Jesus and his movement, before and after his life, in that wider context we see reflected in the Scrolls.

Few English readers of the New Testament are aware that the familiar name “James,” as it is translated in English, is actually the name “Jacob,” or Yaaqov in Hebrew. In other words James=Jacob. It is the same name. In Greek it remains Yakobos, which makes this point quite clear. The name itself occurs about 60 times in the New Testament and according to John Painter, in his worthwhile book, Just James, these occurrences break down into as many as eight different Jameses (or Jacobs): (1) Jacob the patriarch (Abraham’s grandson) in the Hebrew Bible; (2) Jacob the father of Joseph (husband of Mary, Matthew 1:16); (3) James the son of Zebedee, brother of John the fisherman; (4) James the son of Alphaeus (one of the Twelve); (5) James the less, son of Mary and Clophas; (6) James the brother of Joses/Joseph; (7) James, the brother (or father) of Judas (one of the Twelve Luke 6:16); and finally (8) James the brother of Jesus. This can all become rather confusing but I think we can bring some clarity to the data with a bit of examination.

The first three are without question different persons, and #3 is the well known Gospel character, James son of Zebedee, the fisherman. The possible overlap occurs with numbers 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8. Each seemingly separate reference to a different person could well be the same person, and I am convinced this is quite likely. Number four and five agree with the Clophas/Alphaeus scenario which I cover in chapter 4 of my book (possibly a wink to the reader, sons of Clophas/Alphaeus – “oh yeah him”). Number six fits in because the brothers of Jesus were James and Joses. Number seven is also the “other” James of the Twelve, and brother of Judas (and Jesus!), and number eight is clearly a representation of the brother of Jesus. Therefore, each of the Jameses listed here as #s 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 are presented as being one individual represented in five contexts. It is confusing to readers today, but once the identification of this “second” or “other” James is made, these texts fit together rather well. If we leave out the Patriarch Jacob, and Jacob/James the father of Joseph, husband of Mary, that leave only TWO Jameses–James the fisherman and James the brother of Jesus. And that is indeed what we find in the letters of Paul as well as in the book of Acts–two Jameses not six. I not only find the economy of this interpretation convincing, it just makes the best sense to me of the various passages where these “Jameses” are mentioned.

James the fisherman apparently dies quite early on, beheaded by Herod (Acts 12). But what about the “other” James, the brother of Jesus, about which there is so much confusion. Two theories come to dominate in Christian theology, one being the eastern view and the other being the western. The eastern view holds Mary to be a virgin not only at the time of the birth of Jesus, but throughout her entire life. It goes on to portray Joseph as father of four sons and two daughters with another woman prior to his marriage to Mary. He becomes a widower, remarries, and thus brings these six children to the marriage. The western view is stricter in that it holds not only Mary, but Joseph also were strict virgins throughout their entire lives and neither of them ever had any children. These “brothers” and “sisters” are merely cousins, children of Joseph’s brother Clophas, but through another woman named Mary, not Mary the mother of Jesus. In The Jesus Dynasty I present an alternative view.

Jesus was the son of Mary, father unknown, but possibly one named Pantera. Joseph marries Mary but dies early leaving no sons behind. Joseph’s brother (possibly called James for his father), but nicknamed Clophas/Alphaeus, stepped in, as required by Jewish law, married Mary, Jesus’ mother, and they had six children–the four boys, James, Joses, Simon, and Jude, as well as two sisters, Mary and Salome (Mark 6:3). I am convinced, though some argue otherwise, that Clophas/Alphaeus comes from the Hebrew word Chalaf = replacer, to replace, to step in, one who replaces. I am further convinced that at least three of these brothers, and possibly all four, were part of the Twelve. In my thinking this particular theory makes the best sense of all the evidence we have, concerning the James, Alphaeus, Clophas, and the “two” Marys, whom I take to be one–the mother of Jesus.

Spectrum Publishers in the Netherlands has announced that The Jesus Dynasty in Dutch will be released in early October. The publisher has invited me to come for interviews in both Holland and Belgium in early November. If you would like a peek at the cover it is featured on the home page of the publisher and at De Jezus Dynastie.

The Portuguese edition, A Dinastia de Jesus was released over the summer and is apparently causing some bit of stir. I have had just this past week inteviews with the two major newsmagazines in Portugal: Focus and Sabado.

Something of which I am more and more convinced is the paramount importance of James the brother of Jesus to the survival of the Messianic movement in the critical years following the tragic and brutal murders of both John the Baptist and Jesus. Of course, as readers of The Jesus Dynasty know, I am convinced that James was the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” the one who became head of family, leader of the movement, and dynastic successor to Jesus as next in line of the royal lineage of King David. Jesus died in the year 30 AD and the earliest written records we have of the movement come from the apostle Paul in the early 50s AD–twenty years later. The historian John Dominic Crossan called these twenty years the “dark age” of the Jesus movement in that we have no surviving records from those crucial years. What little we know is based on attempts to try to read back what we might possibly construct from later materials–the Q source, Mark and the Synoptic sources, the gospel of John, the book of Acts, the Didache, the letters of Paul, the letter of James, the gospel of Thomas, and other fragmented “Jewish Christian” sources (Hebrew gospels, the Pseudo-Clementines, Ebionite traditions, etc.). James is pretty much written out of the story and it becomes difficult to even imagine how vital he was to the survival and development of the movement in those first critical decades.

One speculation I find appealing is the idea that James and Jesus were very similar in looks, voice, outlook, and personality. In other words, after Jesus was gone the community found solace in the physical presence of James and in gathering around James it was as if the spirit of Jesus was still among them in the person of his brother. I have wondered whether the original idea now embedded in latter part of the gospel of John, about the “Comforter” coming, was originally referring to be James. The Greek word is Paraklete and refers to one who represents or advocates. Later Christians personified this one as the “Holy Spirit” but in the various passages found in the Gospel of John “he” is spoken of in a very personal way, in the masculine gender, very much as one would speak of a person. Jesus says of this one that he will be “sent in my name,” and that he will be a Teacher who will remind the community of all that Jesus has taught them. The Ebionites had this idea of the “Christ Spirit” that “hastened through the ages” and rested upon various ones in a successive way. In other words, the spirit of Truth, that was passed on from John to Jesus, was now being passed on from Jesus to James. Jesus tells them that this one “abides with” them and will be “among” them. This one will “not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

I am convinced that the earliest followers of Jesus and John regained their faith and resolve following Jesus’ crucifixion not by a spirit of ghost of Jesus appearing to them, nor by experiences of the resuscitated corpse of Jesus coming to life and living among them, passing through walls, and finally rising up bodily into the clouds into heaven, but by the living presence of James the beloved brother of Jesus and the spirit that he reflected and exhibited in those dark days of danger and disappointment when the scattered followers migrated back to Galilee after the Passover week ended. To have James with them was akin to having Jesus with them. In terms of historical explanations I think this one makes the most sense and it was James who led the group back to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost or Shavuot, 50 days after Jesus’ death, where they really began to consolidate things and found a new direction and hope for the expectation of the Kingdom of God to which they had dedicated their lives.

Paul does not show up with his version of the “visionary Christ” in heaven until at least seven years later and the story of how that version of things eventually dominated the story that was passed on down to us is one I will cover in the book on Paul upon which I am currently working.

I suspect this Blog will become more and more interesting as The Jesus Dynasty goes into more and more languages and draws responses from around the world, upon which I am sure I will want to comment.

I just heard this week from the editor of the Portuguese magazine SABATO, which I am told is the TIME magazine of Portugal. They want to do a feature story on the book. The Jesus Dynasty was actually published in Portuguese in April (in Europe, the Brazilian is yet to come) and I had helped the translator along with way with many difficult points of interpretation from one culture to another–quite a fascinating subject in itself.

I also was able to view on DVD the German program Aspekte that aired July 14th on nationwide TV all over Europe, in fact friends of mine in Vienna watched it live. Since German is probably my best spoken language I was able to follow it easily and I felt the editor did an absolutely superb job in presenting a fair and balanced treatment of the book. A second segment is due to air the same week the book is released in German in late September with a national ad campaign that will rival what we had here in the US. It is being published by Bertlesmann, a name almost unknown to Americans. Bertlesmann is a media giant and among other things owns Random House, the world’s largest general interest trade publisher. I received a copy of the Fall book catalogue and Die Jesus Dynastie is given a lovely two page spread and it comes up first on their Web site. If any of you want to order a copy of the German edition is you can easily get it via Amazon’s German site.
More to come…

It looks like the verdict is in and most who have responded to the post below (see July 27th) are of the view that this particular Blog, without comments, is the preferred way to go. I appreciate all the input and it seems that the question more or less answered itself by some of the more hostile and testy responses…I will continue the free and open “give and take” dialogue at the Yahoo Jesus Dynasty site and not worry about duplicating it here…

Thanks for your responses, both here and privately to me. One think that has become clear to me is there is an incredibly well informed, kind, and balanced group of folk out there who have read and benefited from The Jesus Dynasty without either slavishly lining up behind all I say or think or becoming nasty and bitter with any disagreements.

This decision is not to preclude comments on individual posts where it might be appropriate…I will indicate such as we move along.

I recently received the following e-mail message from a reader of my book in Germany. I thought his research and comments were worth passing along. Some of the issues he raises I have addressed in previous posts at this site, but I pass it on as is, unedited, for what it might contribute to the discussion:

A similar ‘pun theory’ like that discussed in your blog was proposed by Samuel Krauss in his award-winning work “Griechische und lateinische Lehnwoerter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum” (2 voll., Berlin, 1898–1899, reprr. Hildesheim, 1964, 1984). He explained the name Pandera as a malapropism of pornos (paramour) which was insistantly rebutted by Immanuel Loew, with whose commentaries Krauss’ work was published (vol. 2, pp. 464, 614). Their terse arguments in a dictionary of greek loanwords in Aramaic texts seem to draw upon philological reasons like the other, the ‘parthenos-pun-theory’. Krauss later wrote that the Jewish anti-Christian polemic had made a pornogeneia (fornication birth) out of the parthenogeneia (virgin birth) (Das Leben Jesu nach jüdischen Quellen. Berlin, 1902; Ndr. Hildesheim, 1994). This brings the anti-Christian polemic of the Panthera-story to the point but does not support the philological reasoning in the ‘pun-theory’.

However philology in my view provides as weak an argument against the ‘pun theory’ as it does in support of it. Satirical playing on words does not care about philological accuracy. The only persuasive argument against the ‘pun theories’ remains the frequent occurrence of the name Pantera in Latin, mainly epigraphical, sources as cited by Deissmann. He repeated his arguments in another work (“Licht vom Osten. Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der hellenistisch-römischen Welt“, Tübingen, 4th ed., 1923, p. 57) and added, relying on a postcard message by W.W. Baudissin, an explanation of the name Abdes which he reads as ’BD-’S, meaning “servant of Isis”. The cult of Isis, Deissmann adds, had been widespread among the Phoenecians (to which the Sidonians belonged). If this is plausible (and here strictly philological/onomastic reasoning would apply) Tib. Iul. Abdes Pantera hardly was a Jew. But at the same time there is no proof of him being a non-Jew. He might well have ‘converted’ to Judaism like many of his contemporaries, the so-called “God-fearers”. (I admittedly don’t know whether it is likely that a God-fearer keeps his gentile name after the ‘conversion’.)

An important aspect of the ‘Abdes Pantera story’, namely the history of his unit, the cohors I sagittariorum seems to be somewhat disregarded in your book but this lack occurs in all the other works I read about the Panthera-story as well. I was not yet able to trace back the claim that this cohort had been transfered from Syria to the Rhine. Deissmann only quotes an oral communication of Alfred von Domaszewski (who told him that the unit had been stationed in Syria, transfered in 6 CE. to Dalmatia and 3 years later to Bingerbrueck). This information is time and again repeated in the literature without giving any reference to sources. Obviously it would be crucial for the claim that Abdes Pantera was Jesus’ father to prove that his unit had indeed been stationed somewhere in Palestine, or, better in Galilee around Jesus’ date of birth. Lutz Greisiger

I think I have to agree with Mr. Greisiger that philological arguments are not decisive against the use of a “pun” per se, and that Deissmann’s citations of the name are more decisive. However, as I have pointed out in several posts, I still think the strongest argument against the “pun theory” for the origin of the name Pantera for Jesus’ father, and the designation “Jesus son of Pantera,” is that Christian apologists such as Origen and Epiphanius, in countering the charge took it seriously as a name, even arguing it was part of the genuine geneaological record of Jesus’ ancestors. And I also pointed out in my book that we now know of a Jewish ossuary, found in Jerusalem, with the name Pantera. This gets even closer to “home” than Deissmann’s Latin epigraphs.

On the history of the Cohort of our Sidonian Pantera I know little beyond what Deissmann reports though I too have noticed that everyone just passes on what he had by oral communcation without documentation. I am not at all convinced that Deissmann’s postcard message that Abdes=Servant of Isis is valid. I have discussed some other possibilities in various Blog posts here. Likewise I don’t think we should assume in speculating about the Sidonian Pantera is that he was necessarily already in the army around the time of Jesus’ birth. What we need to determine, and I think it can be done from evidence related to the cemetery “excavation” in 1859, such as it was, is the dating of the tombstones and thus the approximate date of Abdes Pantera’s death. I hope to be able to write something about that in future posts.

As some of you know, and as I mention in my book, The Jesus Dynasty, the most commonly accepted explanation for the tradition that Jesus is “son of Pantera” is that the word pantera is a pun for the Greek word parthenos or “virgin” in Greek and not a “real name.” In other words, the Jewish enemies of Jesus were making fun of the idea of Jesus being the “son of a virgin” by called him the “son of a panther,” or a lusty animal.

I am amazed at how this explanation, which I consider to be wholly without any historical or linguistic basis, has become so widespread. I can’t tell you the number of reviewers of my book who have matter-of-factly pointed out, apparently Dr. Tabor is not even aware of the origin of this term and mistakenly thinks it might refer to an historical person! Even major scholars pass on the explanation as if the matter is settled. I think many of them have been influenced by Joseph Klausner, the Israeli/Jewish scholar whose book Jesus of Nazareth (published in Hebrew in 1929) was one of the earliest treatments of Jesus in the light of Jewish sources. As I have pointed out in previous posts on this Blog, as well as in my book, Adolf Diessmann in 1906 showed conclusively that the name “Pantera” is a real name, and further, that it was favored by Roman soldiers.

So the question arises–where did the pantera=parthenos explanation originate? I knew it was not ancient but I was not sure how far it went back since no one who uses it ever gives a source, but just passes it on as if it is self-evident. Recently one of my graduate students, Chad Day, who is independently working on Jewish traditions about Jesus in antiquity, passed on the following to me. I want to thank him for his good sleuthing work, though we are not sure we have yet arrived at the one person who first came up with the “pun” explanation. Here is what Chad Day sent on to me:

The Parthenos pun explanation seems to go back at least to Nitzsch and Bleek (Nitzsch, K. I. “Appendix to Bleek.” Page 116 in Studien und Kritiken zur Theologie und Philosophie. Edited by J. Frauenstadt. Berlin: Voss, 1840). Nitzsch (Nitzsch, Karl Immanuel, 1787-1868) seems to be the one that influenced Joseph Klausner.I found this in Heinrich Laible’s “Jesus Christus im Talmud,” 1893. Interestingly, as one of the most rabid Christian apologists (as well as cunningly anti-Semitic) of the bunch of turn-of-the-century scholars commenting on Pantera, Laible finds Nitzsch’s argument about the Parthenos pun totally unconvincing, primarily on philological grounds. However, he does not mention whether this pun business was initiated by Nitzsch. I seem to recall in my recent reading that they did in fact receive this “explanation” from another source (and one which was probably apologetic in some modern fashion). You are quite right that such explanations do often become consensus overnight without any serious investigation, or in this case, perhaps philological logic.

Klausner does indeed take this “pun explanation” right from Nitszch and Bleek (see p. 24, Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth), thus propagating the idea even more widely, because his work was published in English in 1957, whereas the important work of Krauss and Strack on this issue was not available to the English-speaking world. Strack (Die Haretiker, 1913) is still only in German. Part of the Krauss volume of course was presented by Horbury just a few years ago, but the consensus explanation is now firmly implanted, especially since Klausner offhandedly remarks that Herford’s (1903) argument against this pun is unconvincing.

Another interesting aspect of this consensus has to do with the intended audience (and thus this speaks to bias) of Klausner’s now famous treatment of Jesus, namely that he wrote for a “Hebrew” audience. I would argue that this gave his formulations a certain credibility over against Herford’s lenghty (and sometimes anti-Semitic) treatment and conclusions. This business of “overnight” consensuses on some issues is grounded in decidedly unscientific (as well as unscholarly) assertions. Apparently Nitasch attempted to read the Greek panthera as the equivalent of Latin lupa–which means “she-wolf” or “prostitute,” thus making the epithet (or what we are calling the “pun”) “Son of the Prostitute.” Now Nitzsch (and later Klausner) wants to understand this pun as an anti-Christian slogan in response to the early Christian practice of calling Jesus by the title, “Son of the Virgin.” The problem is that we have not even one example of this practice in order to give warrant to the notion that such an experssion became the basis for punning a counter-slogan? This “pun” seems to be thoroughly modern, and frankly, quite apologetic, from those who want to dismiss the “Jesus son of Pantera” designations as having any possible historical basis. Nonetheless, from Celsus through Epiphanius as well as the Rabbis (i.e., second through the fifth century), Panthera was understood as a name of a person, not merely a noun or adjective. In fact, some of the Church Fathers go to great lengths to “explain away” this name as it concerns the historical figure of Jesus. And Deissman, just 100 years ago, should have effectively laid to rest the notion that the name Pantera is a made-up pun.

Thanks to Chad Day for this information.

One of the features that stands out in the teachings of Jesus, even at our earliest layers of tradition, are the notions of “love of enemies,” “bless those who curse you,” “turning the other cheek,” “going the second mile” and being “wise as serpents, harmless as doves.” One of the very few teachings of Jesus that Paul knows or at least quotes is “Repay no one evil for evil…never avenge yourselves…if your enemy is hungry feed him…overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21).

Although some have argued that the historical Jesus was in truth a Zealot type who advocated the violent and revolutionary overthrow of the Roman and Jewish establishments (Brandon, Jesus the Zealot; Carmichael, Death of Jesus; Maccoby, Revolution in Judea) it remains the case that there is no evidence that Jesus gathered arms or raised a band of militants in order to threaten the authorities of his day, be they Jewish or Roman.

On the other hand he did indeed expect the sudden, violent, decisive, and bloody overthrow of the political powers of his day and the absolute overturn of the fortunes of the poor, the meek, the downtrodden, and the persecuted. Woe to you rich! Woe to you who laugh now! Woe to you that are full now!

I think there is a sense in which both perspectives have some important validity. Brandon, Maccoby, Eisenman and others have rightly emphasized that the image of the Jesus/James movement as a quietist, meditative, pacifist, “spiritual way” can be cast in a way that neglects the dynamic political and social contexts and implications of a proclamation that the Kingdom of God has drawn near. The focus of the apocalyptic message of the Kingdom of God was not that all things would be resolved in some afterlife or world beyond–but that the powers that be, the corrupt social, economic, and political forces that ran the country, and the world, were to be dramatically brought down. There is every reason to think that Jesus and his followers expected that overthrow and would have greatly rejoiced to see it come. There are lots of texts in the teachings of Jesus that deal with this dramatic time of judgment when what is up will be down, and what is down will be up.

The question then is one of how that overthrow is to come about, not whether it was expected, hoped for, and fervently desired. In the case of Jesus and his followers I think that the evidence does indeed indicate that they are not in the process of gathering weapons and making plans for a military coup against the Roman forces. But this is not to say that they were accommodating and quietist. Their sympathies would certainly have been with those who had tried, however unsuccessfully, to oppose the oppression and military occupation of the country. It came down to a matter of method–what did they think would lead to the desired results. What I argue in my book is that Jesus and his followers expected a dramatic intervention by God, and only with that could their hopes and dreams be finally realized. But that intervention was certainly not seen as a pacifist one–to the contrary heads would roll, governments would be overthrown, and the faithful followers of the Messiah/s would be put in charge of things through an overwhelming show of divine power.

The difference between MLK, Gandhi, and others who have practiced “passive resistence” in our own day is that Jesus and his movement expected and welcomed a very “violent” apocalypse in which heads would topple. These “Woes” that Jesus pronounced upon the rich, the persecutors, and those “laughing now” in the Q source (Luke 3:24-25) capture the flavor of this way of thinking quite well, as do lots of the parables that predict a sudden and abrupt calling of the wicked to judgment and a casting out of those wicked ones in power. John, Jesus, and James all believed fervently that there was to be a great reversal and God will imminently and swiftly bring it about. All the apocalyptic literature that we have from this period is violent to the extreme. Think of the “body count” in the book of Revelation alone. There is also a strong element of “rejoicing” on the part of the “saints” who see the Beast/Babylon go down. This is what Eisenman has rightly objected to in his insistence that the Jesus/James movement was not some quietist movement that had withdrawn from society into a contemplative Pythagorean or Buddhist-like aversion to this world. They were very much in this world and keen to see the “will of God done on earth as it is in heaven,” which would mean some very powerful forces of oppression and evil would have to be overthrown. The question is how this was to come about?

More to come on this topic and also the related idea of what Schweitzer called “interim ethics.”