A ‘Very Jewish’ Jesus: Perpetuating the Myth of Superiority
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusThis article looks at arguably the most dominant rhetorical move in contemporary historical Jesus scholarship, namely the ‘Jewishness’ of Jesus or a ‘very Jewish’ Jesus, and how this superficially but credibly positive rhetoric subtly maintains the older myth of superiority over against Judaism. This scholarly trend is located in contemporary ideological discourses concerning Israel and Judaism and liberal multiculturalism and is shown to be deeply embedded in scholarly historical practice. Some consideration is also given to the ideological locations of the ‘Judean’ and ‘Jesus the Israelite’ debate.
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2)
J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 260.
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3)
J.H. Charlesworth, ‘The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?’ JSHJ 8 (2010), pp. 3-46 (45).
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5)
G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London: SCM, 1973).
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6)
E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress; London: SCM, 1977).
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7)
W. Arnal, The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity (London and Oakville: Equinox, 2005).
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9)
P. Novick, The Holocaust and Collective Memory (London: Bloomsbury, 1999); N. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London and New York: Verso, 2nd edn, 2003).
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12)
N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), p. 79 n. 233.
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14)
R. Rohrbaugh, The New Testament in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2007), p. 91 n. 8; cf. H. Räisänen, ‘Jesus and the Food Laws: Reflections on Mark 7:15’, JSNT 6 (1982), pp. 79-100.
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15)
B. Mack, The Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 375-76.
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16)
J.D. Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995).
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17)
Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Terror, pp. 173-94; Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism, pp. 105-132.
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21)
H. Lindsey, Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), p. 111.
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25)
G. Theissen and D. Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002) and D. Winter, ‘Saving the Quest for Authenticity from the Criterion of Dissimilarity: History and Plausibility’, in C. Keith and A. Le Donne (eds.), Jesus, Criteria and the Demise of Authenticity (London: T&T Clark, 2012), pp. 115-31.
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26)
M.D. Hooker, ‘Christology and Methodology’, NTS 17 (1970–71), pp. 480-87; M.D. Hooker, ‘On Using the Wrong Tool’, Theology 75 (1972), pp. 570-81.
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29)
J.G. Crossley, ‘Everybody’s Happy Nowadays? A Critical Engagement with Key Events and Contemporary Quests for the Historical Jesus’, JSHJ (forthcoming).
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30)
R. Deines, ‘Jesus and the Jewish Traditions of His Time’, Early Christianity 1 (2010), pp. 344-71 (350-51, 369-70).
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34)
Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, p. 17. Cf. E.P. Sanders and M. Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity, 1989), p. 317.
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36)
Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 252, 254; M. Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981), p. 12. Cf. Sanders and Davies, Studying, p. 317.
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40)
Hengel, Charismatic, p. 14. See further the comments in Bockmuehl, Jewish Law, p. 25.
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45)
J.H. Elliott, ‘Jesus the Israelite was Neither a “Jew” nor a “Christian”: On Correcting Misleading Nomenclature’, JSHJ 5 (2007), pp. 119-54. For further analysis of this trend see Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism, pp. 175-84.
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47)
K. Marx, Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capital Production: Volume 1 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1974), pp. 78-79.
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49)
B.J. Malina and R.L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), p. 44.
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A ‘Very Jewish’ Jesus: Perpetuating the Myth of Superiority
In: Journal for the Study of the Historical JesusThis article looks at arguably the most dominant rhetorical move in contemporary historical Jesus scholarship, namely the ‘Jewishness’ of Jesus or a ‘very Jewish’ Jesus, and how this superficially but credibly positive rhetoric subtly maintains the older myth of superiority over against Judaism. This scholarly trend is located in contemporary ideological discourses concerning Israel and Judaism and liberal multiculturalism and is shown to be deeply embedded in scholarly historical practice. Some consideration is also given to the ideological locations of the ‘Judean’ and ‘Jesus the Israelite’ debate.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 734 | 185 | 7 |
| Full Text Views | 217 | 19 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 129 | 51 | 0 |