The Things that Make for Peace

Jesus and Eschatological Violence

Jesse P. Nickel

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110703870
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This study offers fresh insight into the place of (non)violence within Jesus' ministry, by examining it in the context of the eschatologically-motivated revolutionary violence of Second Temple Judaism.

The book first explores the connection between violence and eschatology in key literary and historical sources from Second Temple Judaism. The heart of the study then focuses on demonstrating the thematic centrality of Jesus' opposition to such "eschatological violence" within the Synoptic presentations of his ministry, arguing that a proper understanding of eschatology and violence together enables appreciation of the full significance of Jesus' consistent disassociation of revolutionary violence from his words and deeds.

The book thus articulates an understanding of Jesus' nonviolence that is firmly rooted in the historical context of Second Temple Judaism, presenting a challenge to the "seditious Jesus hypothesis"—the claim that the historical Jesus was sympathetic to revolutionary ideals. Jesus' rejection of violence ought to be understood as an integral component of his eschatological vision, embodying and enacting his understanding of (i) how God's kingdom would come, and (ii) what would identify those who belonged to it.

Chapter 1 Violence, Eschatology, and the Life and Ministry of Jesus

1.1 Introduction

Within the vast historical, literary, and theological scholarship of which Jesus of Nazareth has been the focal point, a subject of sustained interest has been the question of Jesus’s relationship to violence. Scholars of different backgrounds and perspectives have explored the matter, utilising diverse methodologies. Many have been struck by the Gospels’¹ presentation of Jesus’s nonviolence, a distinct attribute of his teaching reflected in oft-quoted passages such as his command to “Love your enemies” (Matt 5:44 // Luke 6:27). Other scholars, however, have questioned the historical veracity of this aspect of the evangelists’ portrayal of Jesus, arguing that the evidence instead suggests that Jesus was sympathetic to, if not himself a participant in, the revolutionary violence that was frequent in the world of Second Temple Judaism. Although this has been a minority opinion within Jesus scholarship, the hypothesis has proved tenacious, and, whenever articulated anew, has managed to capture public attention. For example, in 2013, Reza Aslan, a scholar of sociology and religious studies, published Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, a pseudo-historical examination of Jesus aimed at a popular-level audience.² In this work, Aslan painted a picture of Jesus as a religious revolutionary freedom fighter—a “Zealot.” The book entered The New York Times’ Best Seller list at number two, and was for a time the top seller on Amazon.com.³ This is but one example of the way that this subject continues to intrigue both scholars and laypeople alike.⁴

As scholarship has come to understand better the sociopolitical context of first-century Palestinian Judaism, this has enabled a deeper appreciation of the ways that Jesus’s perspective upon violence, demonstrated in word as well as deed, was both similar to and distinct from other perspectives prevalent among his contemporaries. This topic has been examined from a variety of different angles; however, one significant aspect of the discussion that remains underrepresented in scholarship concerns the place and role of eschatology in relation to violence.

As a distinct topic, “Jesus and eschatology” has, if anything, been discussed at even greater length than “Jesus and violence,” as scholars have sought to understand Jesus’s beliefs about “the end,” and the impact these had on his teaching and action. Intriguingly, however, only very rarely have these two topics been examined together; that is, in terms of their relationship to one another. According to the Gospels’ portrayal, how did Jesus’s eschatological expectations inform his decisions regarding the role of violence in his own life and ministry? How does this compare to what we know of the eschatological expectations and violent actions of Jesus’s contemporaries? Such questions are at the heart of the present study.

The underlying inquiry of this study, therefore, is this: how does understanding eschatology and violence together—that is, in terms of the significant connections between them in the diverse world of Second Temple Judaism—enable us to make better sense of the presence and/or absence of violence in Jesus’s life and ministry?

1.1.1 The Status Quaestionis and Identification of the Problem

It is my contention that previous scholarship has not adequately considered the significance of the close connections between eschatology and violence in Second Temple Judaism for understanding certain components of the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus’s life and ministry, and that this oversight has had problematic repercussions. Those specifically to be addressed in this study are demonstrated by two recent publications.

First, in a lengthy article in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, entitled “Jesus and the Anti-Roman Resistance: A Reassessment of the Arguments,”⁵ the Spanish scholar Fernando Bermejo-Rubio argues that “Jesus the Galilean was involved in anti-Roman, rebellious thinking and activity.”⁶ To support this claim, he contends that “there is … a great amount of material which points precisely in the direction of a seditious Jesus, that this material configures a recurrent pattern, and that this pattern enjoys the highest probability of historicity.”⁷ Most importantly, Bermejo-Rubio repeatedly emphasises his belief that the “seditious Jesus” makes the most sense of otherwise incomprehensible elements of the Jesus tradition.⁸ Second, in an article in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament entitled “Jesus in Jerusalem: Armed and Not Dangerous,”⁹ Dale Martin argues that the direct cause of Jesus’s crucifixion was the fact that he and his disciples were (illegally) carrying swords within the city of Jerusalem, and that their armament was due to the fact that Jesus led them there expecting that they would “participate in a heavenly-earthly battle to overthrow the Romans and their high-priestly client rulers of Judea.”¹⁰ Martin, citing the War Scroll (1QM) as evidence for such beliefs, thus argues that Jesus expected an apocalyptic conflict between the cosmic and earthly forces of good and evil, in which he and his followers would fight on the side of the angelic heavenly hosts. Like Bermejo-Rubio, he claims that this makes sense of otherwise conflicting and confusing Gospel texts.¹¹

Both of these articles demonstrate elements of the problematic, misguided or insufficient approaches to the questions of Jesus, violence, and eschatology that are at the heart of the present study. As noted above, Bermejo-Rubio’s hypothesis is rooted in his belief that the Gospels as they now stand make no sense, and that—to quote another of his publications—“a reconstruction of Jesus in which the aspect of anti-Roman resistance is seriously and consistently contemplated is the most plausible—in fact the only plausible—view of the Galilean preacher.”¹² In this, Bermejo-Rubio’s JSHJ article represents the most thorough, recent articulation of the “seditious Jesus hypothesis” (SJH). The SJH, often associated with the work of English scholar S. G. F. Brandon,¹³ is based on three fundamental claims: (i) the Synoptic portrayal of Jesus as a nonviolent proclaimer of the “eschatological” (understood as “other-worldly”) kingdom of God is a fabrication, developed by the early church on the basis of its theological commitments and apologetic needs; (ii) the truly historical Jesus—whose identity the evangelists sought to conceal—was a politically seditious, and potentially violent Jewish revolutionary; and finally, (iii) the fabricated portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels is incoherent, since the texts themselves contain elements betraying hints of Jesus’s “true” nature, which are inconsistent with the apolitical, nonviolent Jesus they depict elsewhere.

One of the main problems with Bermejo-Rubio’s reading of the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus is the almost complete lack of attention paid in the article to the eschatological character of Jesus’s ministry. As will be argued more thoroughly in what follows, I suggest that this is caused in part by the long-standing conception of eschatology as “other-worldly,” which generates the assumption that it is irrelevant to “this-worldly” matters. Although much scholarship of the past few decades has demonstrated the inaccuracy of conceiving of Second Temple Jewish eschatology in such terms, this approach remains prevalent in the work of numerous scholars, Bermejo-Rubio among them. As a result, he considers neither the possibility that the revolutionary violence with which he seeks to associate Jesus might have itself been eschatologically-motivated, nor the ways in which this might suggest a means by which to investigate its relationship to Jesus’s ministry—which, as will be argued, was inherently eschatological in nature.

Martin’s JSNT article also represents the SJH, but in a different and less explicit manner. To Martin’s credit, he acknowledges that eschatological expectations could (i) influence decisions and actions, and (ii) be conceptually associated with violence. Nevertheless, his approach to the intersection of violence and eschatology in Jesus’s ministry is problematic, largely by virtue of its limitation. By making reference only to one expression of Second Temple Jewish eschatological expectations among many (that found in 1QM), Martin implies that if Jesus were to have acted on the basis of such expectations, then an “apocalyptic” heavenly/earthly battle would have been its necessary result. However, although this may indeed explain why Jesus’s followers carried μάχαιραι, Martin does not thoroughly consider the implications of the fact that his claim that Jesus himself held such an eschatological vision runs deeply counter to the consistent disassociation between Jesus and violence elsewhere in the Gospels. In other words, Martin does not adequately address the fact that his hypothesis runs counter to the eschatological vision that, according to the evangelists, Jesus proclaimed and enacted throughout his entire ministry. If his hypothesis is correct, how do we explain the fact that our earliest and best sources present a figure who far more frequently spoke and acted in very different ways?

Therefore, behind the arguments made by both Bermejo-Rubio and Martin lies the assumption that the Gospels present an inconsistent portrayal of Jesus. Both scholars claim that (i) certain passages suggest that Jesus expected—perhaps even eagerly anticipated—that violent conflict would attend the climax of his ministry, and (ii) such passages contradict other texts which portray Jesus as one who taught his followers to love their enemies and to be peacemakers. Both scholars offer solutions to this alleged inconsistency that (i) endorse the suggestion that the Jesus of history engaged (or expected at some point to engage) in violence against the Romans and their collaborators; and thus (ii) suggest the illegitimacy of Gospel texts that depict Jesus’s rejection of such action. In both cases, therefore, we end up having to admit that the Gospels are ultimately unreliable, presenting an incoherent and inconsistent portrayal of this historical figure.

As I have briefly argued above, and will demonstrate more fully as this study progresses, the arguments of both Bermejo-Rubio and Martin fail sufficiently to consider the significance of the interconnectedness of violence and eschatology in the diverse world of Second Temple Judaism: Bermejo-Rubio largely ignores the role eschatology plays in the violence with which he seeks to associate Jesus, while Martin’s approach is limited by its consideration of the source material. Therefore, these two recent articles demonstrate the problem to be addressed in this study: previous scholarship has not adequately considered how the close connection between eschatology and violence within the worldview of Second Temple Judaism can inform our understanding of Jesus’s life and ministry. This has contributed to the belief that, particularly on the topic of his approach to violence, the Gospels present a...