Jesus the Radical

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My views on the historical Jesus have shifted over time, most notably in the sense that I am increasingly skeptical of the feasibility of detangling the historical man from the literary portrayal of Jesus in the contradictory textual evidence that remains. That is, the techniques used to separate “historical” from “legendary” material in the Gospels does not strike me as particularly objective or conclusive. That being the case, the historical Jesus remains as elusive as ever, from my point of view as a historical minimalist. I certainly know that Jesus existed (to think otherwise is simply a ridiculous position). However, to claim to know many details about his life is something that is out of reach, from my current point of view. Moreover, the individual texts themselves do not necessarily portray a unified vision of exactly who Jesus was.

As a sample presentation of the point I’ve just made, I would like to examine the Jesus portrayed by Mark, our earliest surviving textual witness to the ministry of Jesus in the late 20s CE. For a variety of reasons (which I have explored elsewhere), the death of Jesus can either be dated in 27 CE or 30 CE (and as late as 34 CE), by examining archaeological and textual evidence. That being the case, what can be said about the year (or years?) of his ministry in the latter part of that decade?

Unfortunately, not much, because Mark himself is not necessarily consistent in his portrayal of Jesus, suggesting either conflicting reports that he was trying to reconcile or an attempt to cover-up certain aspects of Jesus’ life in the Galilee of the early first century. I do not think the evidence is substantial enough to arrive at a conclusion vis-a-vis that dichotomy just mentioned. However, for the sake of simplification, I will refer to the two portraits of Jesus in Mark, as either the revolutionary Jesus or the pacifist Jesus. This centers around the question of Jesus’ relationship to the growing resistance movements to Roman rule that began in the early years of the first century and climaxed in the first war with Rome.

Let us examine a broad outline of the ministry of Jesus according to Mark. While Jesus begins with a seemingly apocalyptic proclamation that the Kingdom of God was at hand and that the people should repent, the immediate aftermath of said proclamation is non-apocalyptic, and in fact, continues in such manner throughout the Gospel. Jesus spends his first moments in public ministry in the desert alone. The first episodes of his ministry are stories of healing and the note of how his teaching was unique in authority, without providing examples of said teaching. Throughout the first half of the Gospel, there are religious disputes about Jesus’ identity, the observance of the Sabbath, the washing of hands and the role of the Pharisees’ traditions of the elders, as well as the calling of the disciples and their mission to the towns of Galilee. However, none of this seems overly apocalyptic. Perhaps it could be painted as realized eschatology such as Crossan, Borg, Funk, and others associated with the Jesus Seminar have pointed out but it does not read as overtly apocalyptic like the sign prophets in Josephus.

However, there are moments throughout the Gospel that seem to mark a change in tone in the ministry of Jesus. The first of them is the death of John in chapter six. Yet, this might be ahistorical as well, as there are good reasons to suspect that John began his ministry after Jesus, or at least that his arrest and execution occurred after Jesus (see my post on that here). In any case, the literary portrayal of the event by Mark suggests that the death of John had some profound effect upon Jesus, as it is after John’s death that we see the first prediction of Jesus’ death, which was most likely mythological and not historical. It is also after John’s death that we see the Transfiguration, which might suggest some internal transformation in the degree to which Jesus understood his own mission (from Mark’s perspective). 

On the other hand, Jesus continues to reject overly apocalyptic thinking after said event. For example, Jesus rejects his disciples’ attempts to establish a messianic hierarchy among themselves in chapter nine of the text. The very much this-worldly religious conflicts about matters of Jewish law continue as well, such as the disagreement with the Pharisees about the permissibility of divorce. Jesus’ blessing of the children could also be read as an example of realized eschatology over an overt apocalypticism. Such is the case of the rich young man, who seeks guidance on inheriting the kingdom and is told to sell all he has to follow Jesus, certainly not practical advice, but evident of Jesus’ Kingdom values. 

The Gospel climaxes with Jesus’ final week and the messianic entrance into Jerusalem and the subsequent cleansing of the Temple. This is followed by a change in tone, suggesting this as one of the other transformative events in Jesus’ life according to Mark. Jesus curses the Jewish people through the image of the fig tree. There is also increased conflict with the Sadducees and Pharisees. Most notably, the Olivet Discourse of chapter thirteen, shows overt apocalyptic thinking, which was absent from the earlier sections of Mark’s Gospel. This, of course, results in Jesus’ final Passover with his disciples and his arrest in Gethsemane and subsequent trial, next to two lestai, revolutionaries. 

We can summarize the contradictory presentation of Jesus in Mark in the following manner. There are certainly elements of his life that point to a concealed identity as an insurrectionist, such as his association with Zealots (Simon the “Canaanite” his disciple, the identification of his disciples with Hasmonean names, etc.) and his execution with other insurrectionists. The only other charge that could have merited execution by crucifixion would have been practicing black magic, certainly a possibility, or Jesus might have been thought of preaching insurrection through his realized eschatological discourse. Long after the composition of the Gospel, Jesus’ family, the Desposyni, were known as claimants to the Davidic throne and executed as such. Still, why were Jesus’ disciples not crucified along with him? Perhaps they were. This is what Bermejo-Rubio argues, i.e. that the lestai were some of Jesus’ original disciples, the others escaped and survived in the Jacobite Caliphate in Jerusalem. 

On the other hand, Jesus’ message seems antithetical to insurrectionist ideology. He shuns earthly power and messianic hierarchy. He advocates for non-violent principles (such as “turn the other cheek”), paying taxes to Rome, and does not resist arrest by the Romans at the end of the Gospels. He is concerned with internal Jewish religious debate throughout the Gospel that suggests an engagement with this-worldly matters that do not pertain to any apocalyptic change of the nature of things that would come at any sudden point during his life. 

Finally, the escalatory nature of Jesus’ life trajectory in Mark suggests a further possibility. Perhaps we are witnessing the portrayal of the radicalization of a young man. Consider it, before the final week, this is when we see the majority of Jesus’ pacifistic teaching and action that suggests he lived at peace, at least, with Roman rule. However, as the Gospel progresses, Jesus becomes increasingly more hostile towards the powers-that-be. Could it be that Jesus was radicalized at some point prior to his arrival in Judea? Perhaps his movement to Judea for the Passover was fueled, in some sense, by some external event that prompted his change of views towards Rome? If such a case were true, one could look to Josephus to find something that might have incited this type of response. An example of a possible external event might be the offense that Pilate caused to Jews by using Temple treasury funds to finance the construction of a new aqueduct in Jerusalem, variously dated between 26-30 CE, during the time frame of Jesus’ execution (Antiquities 18.3.2). 

I am not saying that this is what happened or that I even believe this is what happened. I am only suggesting that the textual evidence that exists is complicated and trying to detangle the various threads of the final tapestry is a difficult task and one that I find, ultimately, is impossible to do with any degree of accuracy. That is, we cannot separate the religious vision of Mark as portraying Jesus as a prophet and messiah when reading his completed text.