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Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine
From this engrossing portrait of first-century Palestine, Jesus emerges as the catalyst of nonviolent social revolution that anticipates the renewal of Israel. This fascinating analysis opens up a new perspective of the Roman-dominated Jewish Palestine of Jesus' time, viewing it as an "imperial situation" in which individual acts of violence were responses to institutionalized repression and injustice. Richard A. Horsley reveals the fiercely nationalistic Zealots as largely the fabrication of historians and exposes the erroneous view of Jesus as the sober prophet of nonviolence. In claiming the presence of the kingdom of God, Jesus aimed at catalyzing the renewal of the people of Israel, calling them to loving cooperation amid difficult circumstances of debt and despair and to organized resistance to the violence of an imperial situation.
368 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1986
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May 29, 2024
AN INQUIRY INTO THE “POLITICAL” IMPLICATIONS OF JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS
Author and former professor of religion and liberal studies Richard A. Horsley wrote in the Introduction to this 1987 book, “‘the Zealots’ as a movement of rebellion against Roman rule did not come into existence until the winter of 67-68 CE… until the middle of the great revolt… there is simply no evidence for an organized movement of violent resistance that agitated for armed revolt from 6 to 66 CE. … The whole debate of ‘Jesus and the Zealots’ was thus misconceived… Once the ‘Zealots’ or any other ‘resistance movement’ is removed from the discussion of Jesus and the question of violence, however, we must begin a fresh analysis of Jesus’ ministry as well as of the situation in which he worked.” (Pg. x-xi)
He explains, “Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife in northeastern Brazil, pointed to a three-stage ‘spiral of violence.’ … Many historical cases… appear to have developed according to the following four stage sequence. The first stage is … INJUSTICE or structural violence… The second stage, the reaction against injustice or structural violence, is that of PROTEST AND RESISTANCE. In fact, such resistance to institutionalized violence is often not itself violent… The third stage… involves REPRESSION by the established holders of power… Repression thus drives the spiral of violence to its fourth stage, that of REVOLT, where a large number of people will no longer passively bear the violence of injustice and/or repression.” (Pg. 22-26)
He suggests, “A form of violent protest and resistance to the oppression of the Jewish people under Rome was the endemic social banditry… We should not overemphasize the effectiveness and seriousness for the imperial regime of the resistance offered by active social banditry and peasant collaboration. Social bandits constitute at most a modest protest against an established order.” (Pg. 37-38) Later, he adds, “the Sicarii did not attack the Romans directly but instead attacked their own Jewish aristocratic leaders who were collaborating in the imperial rule of Judea.” (Pg. 48)
He observes, “the [Zealots] stopped short of active rebellion. There is no indication … that Judas and Saddok organized or left behind an organized, longer-lasting movement of armed resistance to Rome. Fifty years later some other intellectuals, probably in utter frustration at the deteriorating circumstances of the people, inaugurated terrorist activities against their own collaborationist high priests… the Fourth Philosophy of 6 CE was a nonviolent, nonrevolutionary resistance to enrolling for the Roman tribute.” (Pg. 89)
He states, “Pilate himself was surely not the indecisive figure portrayed in the Christian Gospel tradition who let himself be manipulated by the Jewish high-priestly leaders and who washed hi hands of important decisions.” (Pg. 100)
He points out, “Paul’s zeal focused on the internal affairs of the Jewish community. In short, those with an unusually intense of zeal were obsessed with sin and sinners… if there is any implication here for comparisons with the ministry of Jesus, the conflict between Jesus and the zealous ones would not have been over the issue of armed revolt against the Romans, but over ostracism of sinners vs. forgiveness of sinners.” (Pg. 128)
He states, “the synoptic Gospels do not portray Jesus as ‘innocent’ and innocuous. In fact they indicate rather clearly that Jesus had threatened the Temple, that he was understood as an anointed king, and that he had ‘stirred up’ the people. Given their clear apologetic concerns vis-à-vis the Romans, it is difficult to imagine that the evangelists would have created such elements themselves. They must rather be presenting, with various adaptations and twists of their own, fundamental features of the ministry of Jesus... even our apologetic Gospels present a Jesus whose actions as well as perspective appear to have been revolutionary. Apparently he did not simply protest against or resist the oppressive features of the established order in Jewish Palestine; he… acted upon his anticipation that God was not bringing an end to that order with the coming of the kingdom.” (Pg. 163-164)
He notes, “Once we recognize that the kingdom of God in Jesus’ preaching does not refer to a particular action or event, much less to the final act or the End, the whole convoluted debate about whether the kingdom as preached by Jesus was already present and ‘realized,’ or was still future but imminent, or somehow both present and future, appears to be a subordinate issue. No longer diverted to that debate, we are free to explore the special liberating or saving activities involved in the ‘kingdom of God.’” (Pg. 169)
He suggests, “the response called for by Jesus’ announcement of the presence of the kingdom of God might well mean a break with one’s family and… that this would entail a challenge to the traditional authority of the patriarchal family… One clear indication that Jesus and his following were not antifamily is his declaration about marriage and his prohibition of man unilaterally putting away their wives. The three passages concerning marriage and/or divorce in the gospel tradition all reject the patriarchal form of marriage, and two of them solidly undergird marriage, the basis of the family.” (Pg. 235)
He argues, “Having established in principle that Jews were not OBLIGATED to pay the half-shekel tax to the Temple, however, did Jesus then turn around and instruct his followers to pay the tax anyhow, but voluntarily…? … the payment instructed here by Jesus obviously was made only on an ad hoc basis and by a remarkably coincidental means… the coincidental means … was made in this instance only … served to emphasize the absence of obligation, the freedom from the Temple tax.” (Pg. 282)
He states, “we could … pose the possibility that in the action in the Temple [Jesus] was attempting a direct takeover of the religious-political-economic center of society. It is not … [a] valid objection … to argue that the Temple police or the Roman garrison on duty for the Passover festival would have intervened almost immediately if there had been any such serious challenge or commotion in the Temple area. The events in the Temple area at Passover time under Archelaus and Cumanus provide no evidence for such an argument.” (Pg. 297)
He summarizes, “Was Jesus a pacifist? We have no evidence that he ever directly or explicitly addressed the issue of violence. Certainly nonviolence was not a principal theme in his preaching and practice… Further arguments for an apolitical Jesus such as his being declared
‘innocent’ in the crucifixion scene in Luke prove to be unfounded even at the level of the politically apologetic evangelists. However likely or attractive the claim may seem, we do not know that Jesus advocated nonviolence.” (Pg. 318)
He continues, “Jesus’ actions and prophecies, especially those directed against the ruling institutions of his society, suggest that he was indeed mounting a more serious opposition than a mere protest. It is certain that Jesus was executed as a rebel against the Roman order… from the viewpoint of the rulers the crucifixion of Jesus was not a mistake.” (Pg. 320) But “there is no evidence that Jesus himself advocate, let alone organized, the kind of armed rebellion that would have been necessary to free the society from the military-political power of the Roman empire.” (Pg. 321)
This book will be of great interest to those studying the “political” implications of the historical Jesus.
Author and former professor of religion and liberal studies Richard A. Horsley wrote in the Introduction to this 1987 book, “‘the Zealots’ as a movement of rebellion against Roman rule did not come into existence until the winter of 67-68 CE… until the middle of the great revolt… there is simply no evidence for an organized movement of violent resistance that agitated for armed revolt from 6 to 66 CE. … The whole debate of ‘Jesus and the Zealots’ was thus misconceived… Once the ‘Zealots’ or any other ‘resistance movement’ is removed from the discussion of Jesus and the question of violence, however, we must begin a fresh analysis of Jesus’ ministry as well as of the situation in which he worked.” (Pg. x-xi)
He explains, “Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife in northeastern Brazil, pointed to a three-stage ‘spiral of violence.’ … Many historical cases… appear to have developed according to the following four stage sequence. The first stage is … INJUSTICE or structural violence… The second stage, the reaction against injustice or structural violence, is that of PROTEST AND RESISTANCE. In fact, such resistance to institutionalized violence is often not itself violent… The third stage… involves REPRESSION by the established holders of power… Repression thus drives the spiral of violence to its fourth stage, that of REVOLT, where a large number of people will no longer passively bear the violence of injustice and/or repression.” (Pg. 22-26)
He suggests, “A form of violent protest and resistance to the oppression of the Jewish people under Rome was the endemic social banditry… We should not overemphasize the effectiveness and seriousness for the imperial regime of the resistance offered by active social banditry and peasant collaboration. Social bandits constitute at most a modest protest against an established order.” (Pg. 37-38) Later, he adds, “the Sicarii did not attack the Romans directly but instead attacked their own Jewish aristocratic leaders who were collaborating in the imperial rule of Judea.” (Pg. 48)
He observes, “the [Zealots] stopped short of active rebellion. There is no indication … that Judas and Saddok organized or left behind an organized, longer-lasting movement of armed resistance to Rome. Fifty years later some other intellectuals, probably in utter frustration at the deteriorating circumstances of the people, inaugurated terrorist activities against their own collaborationist high priests… the Fourth Philosophy of 6 CE was a nonviolent, nonrevolutionary resistance to enrolling for the Roman tribute.” (Pg. 89)
He states, “Pilate himself was surely not the indecisive figure portrayed in the Christian Gospel tradition who let himself be manipulated by the Jewish high-priestly leaders and who washed hi hands of important decisions.” (Pg. 100)
He points out, “Paul’s zeal focused on the internal affairs of the Jewish community. In short, those with an unusually intense of zeal were obsessed with sin and sinners… if there is any implication here for comparisons with the ministry of Jesus, the conflict between Jesus and the zealous ones would not have been over the issue of armed revolt against the Romans, but over ostracism of sinners vs. forgiveness of sinners.” (Pg. 128)
He states, “the synoptic Gospels do not portray Jesus as ‘innocent’ and innocuous. In fact they indicate rather clearly that Jesus had threatened the Temple, that he was understood as an anointed king, and that he had ‘stirred up’ the people. Given their clear apologetic concerns vis-à-vis the Romans, it is difficult to imagine that the evangelists would have created such elements themselves. They must rather be presenting, with various adaptations and twists of their own, fundamental features of the ministry of Jesus... even our apologetic Gospels present a Jesus whose actions as well as perspective appear to have been revolutionary. Apparently he did not simply protest against or resist the oppressive features of the established order in Jewish Palestine; he… acted upon his anticipation that God was not bringing an end to that order with the coming of the kingdom.” (Pg. 163-164)
He notes, “Once we recognize that the kingdom of God in Jesus’ preaching does not refer to a particular action or event, much less to the final act or the End, the whole convoluted debate about whether the kingdom as preached by Jesus was already present and ‘realized,’ or was still future but imminent, or somehow both present and future, appears to be a subordinate issue. No longer diverted to that debate, we are free to explore the special liberating or saving activities involved in the ‘kingdom of God.’” (Pg. 169)
He suggests, “the response called for by Jesus’ announcement of the presence of the kingdom of God might well mean a break with one’s family and… that this would entail a challenge to the traditional authority of the patriarchal family… One clear indication that Jesus and his following were not antifamily is his declaration about marriage and his prohibition of man unilaterally putting away their wives. The three passages concerning marriage and/or divorce in the gospel tradition all reject the patriarchal form of marriage, and two of them solidly undergird marriage, the basis of the family.” (Pg. 235)
He argues, “Having established in principle that Jews were not OBLIGATED to pay the half-shekel tax to the Temple, however, did Jesus then turn around and instruct his followers to pay the tax anyhow, but voluntarily…? … the payment instructed here by Jesus obviously was made only on an ad hoc basis and by a remarkably coincidental means… the coincidental means … was made in this instance only … served to emphasize the absence of obligation, the freedom from the Temple tax.” (Pg. 282)
He states, “we could … pose the possibility that in the action in the Temple [Jesus] was attempting a direct takeover of the religious-political-economic center of society. It is not … [a] valid objection … to argue that the Temple police or the Roman garrison on duty for the Passover festival would have intervened almost immediately if there had been any such serious challenge or commotion in the Temple area. The events in the Temple area at Passover time under Archelaus and Cumanus provide no evidence for such an argument.” (Pg. 297)
He summarizes, “Was Jesus a pacifist? We have no evidence that he ever directly or explicitly addressed the issue of violence. Certainly nonviolence was not a principal theme in his preaching and practice… Further arguments for an apolitical Jesus such as his being declared
‘innocent’ in the crucifixion scene in Luke prove to be unfounded even at the level of the politically apologetic evangelists. However likely or attractive the claim may seem, we do not know that Jesus advocated nonviolence.” (Pg. 318)
He continues, “Jesus’ actions and prophecies, especially those directed against the ruling institutions of his society, suggest that he was indeed mounting a more serious opposition than a mere protest. It is certain that Jesus was executed as a rebel against the Roman order… from the viewpoint of the rulers the crucifixion of Jesus was not a mistake.” (Pg. 320) But “there is no evidence that Jesus himself advocate, let alone organized, the kind of armed rebellion that would have been necessary to free the society from the military-political power of the Roman empire.” (Pg. 321)
This book will be of great interest to those studying the “political” implications of the historical Jesus.
April 22, 2020
One of Horsley’s most important theses in this book is that religion was a much wider concept in Jesus’ time than it is nowadays. The social-economic, the political and the cultural-religious aspects of life were all part of a broad religious vision on man and society. This thesis alone makes ‘Jesus and the Spiral of Violence’ an important book that sheds a new light on numerous gospel pericopes. ‘Give us today our daily bread’ for example is the sigh of poor peasants who suffered from deteriorating social-economic conditions and increasing poverty under Roman exploitation. Every day the poor struggled for the fulfillment of their most urgent basic needs.
But there is more. Horsley analyses Jewish society as dominated by foreign empires for centuries (since the exile in the 6th century BCE). Oppression grew worse with pronounced cultural colonization under Alexander and the subsequent Seleucids. The latter were followed by the Romans (and Herodians), and the Jews of first century Roman Palestine are depicted not only as a people struggling with the effects of long-term foreign domination but also as a society that lived under the ever increasing structural violence of Roman occupation and economic exploitation. Horsley also firmly states – firmer than I have ever read – that the Jewish (Temple) aristocracy collaborated with the Romans and so drove the predominantly peasant population to desperation. Although the focus is different, this book frequently reminded me of Scott’s masterly ‘Domination and the Arts of Resistance’.
Horsley clearly shows the omnipresence of violence in first century Palestine and points to numerous cases of non-violent and (later on) violent Jewish resistance.
Unfortunately Horsley does not place Jesus in the culminating period of the spiral of violence – the war of the Jews against the Romans in 66-70 CE – where in my opinion he belongs.
But there is more. Horsley analyses Jewish society as dominated by foreign empires for centuries (since the exile in the 6th century BCE). Oppression grew worse with pronounced cultural colonization under Alexander and the subsequent Seleucids. The latter were followed by the Romans (and Herodians), and the Jews of first century Roman Palestine are depicted not only as a people struggling with the effects of long-term foreign domination but also as a society that lived under the ever increasing structural violence of Roman occupation and economic exploitation. Horsley also firmly states – firmer than I have ever read – that the Jewish (Temple) aristocracy collaborated with the Romans and so drove the predominantly peasant population to desperation. Although the focus is different, this book frequently reminded me of Scott’s masterly ‘Domination and the Arts of Resistance’.
Horsley clearly shows the omnipresence of violence in first century Palestine and points to numerous cases of non-violent and (later on) violent Jewish resistance.
Unfortunately Horsley does not place Jesus in the culminating period of the spiral of violence – the war of the Jews against the Romans in 66-70 CE – where in my opinion he belongs.
August 16, 2015
Despite the following criticism I'm about to give, I still thought Horsley's work was very good and a good corrective to misunderstandings concerning the 'apolitical' Jesus and apocalypticism. The methodology was very shaky in some areas, I disagree with his position on Jesus' associations with tax-collectors- for even in his own schema, the tax-collectors would have to be part of village life renewal- as well as how he seems to exclude the possibility of Jesus being non-violent toward foreign enemies because Jesus' teachings were focused on inter-communal conflicts. Horsely in desiring to not exclude the possibility of revolutionary violence toward foreign occupation from Jesus' worldview in effect employs a very 'conservative' hermeneutic when it comes to passages about Jesus' 'non-violence' by arguing that Jesus had an individual or inner-communal focus and not a standard general ethic.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews