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University of Sheffield Jesus And UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD JESUS AND THE POOR: WESTERN BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP, STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE, AND POSTCOLONIALISM SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR JAMES G. CROSSLEY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF PHD BIBLICAL STUDIES BY MICHAEL J. SANDFORD 03/07/12 CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………...…........iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………...…….......vi INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..……………1 PART 1 – JESUS AND THE POOR IN WESTERN SCHOLARSHIP 1. SOCIETY AND ECONOMY IN ROMAN PALESTINE: A BRIEF BACKGROUND……………………………………………………………..……..……..23 2. POVERTY, WEALTH AND SOCIAL CHANGE: RESISTANCE AND CONSERVATISM IN JESUS’ WORLD………………………………......……………..56 3. INTERPRETING THE POOR IN WESTERN BIBLICAL STUDIES ………………118 PART 2 – JESUS, POSTCOLONIALISM, AND STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE 4. THE NAZARETH SYNAGOGUE EPISODE (LUKE 4:16-30): ANTI-JUDAISM, MISSION, AND SCHOLARSHIP, OR, GOOD NEWS FOR THE POOR BECOMES BAD NEWS FOR JEWS…………………………………………….………................159 5. CHANTING DOWN BABYLON: JESUS, EMPIRE, AND CULTURAL RESISTANCE, OR, WHAT THE RASTAFARI MOVEMENT CAN TELL US ABOUT THE JESUS MOVEMENT……………………………………………………………...196 ii 6. ‘FEAR HIM WHO, AFTER HE HAS KILLED, HAS THE POWER TO CAST INTO HELL’: STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE, DIVINE WRATH, AND THE PARADOX OF THE NONVIOLENT JESUS………………………….…………….…………………………236 CONCLUSION…………………………………….…….………………………...…….272 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………...................................….…....279 iii ABBREVIATIONS AASOR Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary AJS Association for Jewish Studies Review ASQ Arab Studies Quarterly Bib Int Biblical Interpretation BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CBR Currents in Biblical Research Cross Curr. Cross Currrents Crit. Inquiry Critical Inquiry EHR Economic History Review ExpTim The Expository Times HLS Holy Land Studies IEJ Israel Exploration Journal JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JES Journal of Ecumenical Studies JCR Journal of Conflict Resolution JPR Journal of Peace Research JPS Journal of the Polynesian Society JRCP Journal of Religion, Conflict and Peace iv Journeys Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing J Rel Journal of Religion JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus JSJ Journal of Jewish Studies JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JTS Journal of Theological Studies NTS New Testament Studies PR Politics and Religion RBL Review of Biblical Literature ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The trajectory of this work, my decision to undertake it, and my ability to see it through has been influenced by a number of people. To begin I should thank Cheryl Exum who first encouraged me to look into postgraduate biblical studies, having convinced me – in the course of a couple of her undergraduate modules at Sheffield – of the value of looking at the Bible not only critically but creatively. In the same vein I should acknowledge Hugh Pyper, who also persuaded me of the potential joys of undertaking a big research project such as a doctorate. It was John Vincent who first suggested that I should look into the MPhil course at Sheffield (I was not initially thinking about a PhD), and encouraged me to do so, as well as nurturing the idea that the Bible might have something to say about social justice. Matthew Coomber further convinced me and inspired me for similar reasons. Numerous people and gatherings have since shaped my thinking along the way. I was very excited, two and half years ago, to come across James Crossley’s work on Jesus and ‘the Damned Rich’, the influence of which will be quite clearly visible throughout this work. His more recent work exposing ideological and cultural influences behind New Testament scholarship has also been very significant. I should thank Angela Broom and Amy Hailwood for enabling me to attend the Sabeel conference in Bethlehem in February 2011, where I was fortunate to meet and benefit from conversations with, amongst many others, Ched Myers, Richard Horsley, and Naim Ateek. I would also thank Lori Shelbourn and Shivani Rajkomar for organising and involving me in an amazing conference at the Leeds Institute for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, where I learnt a lot, and was challenged vi significantly by Robert Beckford’s response to my saying that I was ‘doing a PhD on the historical Jesus’! I am grateful for criticisms, feedback and encouragement from various people at the Sheffield biblical studies postgraduate seminar, to Harry Middleton for discussing aspects of this work with me on various occasions, and to Dan Robins and Pete Rawling for providing a mixture of encouragement and outright mockery. Thanks to Robert Myles for making valuable comments on chapter 5, and to Robert Logan for comments on my introduction, and helpful comments on lots of other things in life. I would give special thanks to my parents, whose support and kindness has effectively allowed me the privilege and leisure to simply ask and pursue questions that are important to me in depth, a benefit which will undoubtedly shape the rest of my life. And finally I would like to thank Chloe Skinner – who has had to put up with my ramblings and musings more than anyone else – for being supportive, unspeakably patient, and loving throughout. vii INTRODUCTION The rich array of Historical-Jesus reconstructions calls for a critical epistemological inquiry not only into the authority but also into the rhetoricity of Historical-Jesus discourses, probing how they can say what they say and for whom and to what ends scholars produce Historical-Jesus research. - Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza1 Introduction The fundamental aim of this work is to explore the relationship between Jesus and ‘the poor’, with a focus on Luke 4:18-19, and the presentation and treatment of this subject in Western scholarship in particular. Although the subject matter is close to the concerns of traditional liberation theology, as will be explained below, the perspective offered in this work is more in line with postcolonial theology than liberation theology. 1 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (London: Continuum, 2000), p.3 1 Western Jesus Scholarship and Its Critics The ‘correct’ way to read the New Testament is still often dictated by white men in the Western world, and there remains a pretention among many of these figures, known as New Testament scholars, that their exegetical and historical-‘critical’ tools will lead them – and the rest of the world – to understand these ancient texts properly and as they should be understood. In this respect, much Western New Testament scholarship appears to have a bloated sense of its own value and findings, a view which is allowed to persist because of the insularity of this discipline that appears at times to be desperately isolated, detached, and immune from any serious critique. In recent years some Western New Testament scholars have sought to address this problem, providing critiques of the discipline as a whole. R.S. Sugirtharajah’s extensive work on postcolonial biblical criticism should obviously be mentioned at this point,2 and in particular, his recent volume Still at the Margins. As Ralph Broadbent contends in his contribution to the volume, 'while lip service might occasionally be paid to the role of ideology within biblical studies, first-world scholarship is still largely configured to support the rich and powerful and to discriminate against women, the poor and the 'other'. It is not a neutral enterprise.’3 But postcolonial critics are not the only ones making such critiques. Other such critiques have also been offered by James Crossley, who has highlighted the way in which particular cultural and ideological trends – from neo-orientalism, to neoliberalism – have impacted the work of 2 See R.S. Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), R.S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), and R.S. Sugirtharajah (ed), Still at the Margins: Biblical Scholarship Fifteen Years after the Voices from the Margin (London: T&T Clark, 2008) 3 Ralph Broadbent, ‘Writing a Bestseller in Biblical Studies or All Washed UP on Dover Beach? Voices from the Margin and the Future of (British) Biblical Studies’ in Still at the Margins, pp. 139-150 (148) 2 New Testament scholars,4 and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has critiqued at length what she has called, ‘the elitist, anti-Jewish, colonialist, racist and anti-feminist tendencies of positivist Historical-Jesus scholarship.’5 Although I will not step so far back from the discipline as Crossley, Fiorenza, and Sugirtharajah have done, such works have had a significant impact on my thinking, and their critiques will be incorporated. At this stage I must make clear a fundamental contention of this work, which will be so obvious to some that it need not be said, and will be so unfamiliar to others that it will not even register: that Western New Testament scholarship – and the claims that it makes about Jesus – is nothing more than Western New Testament scholarship. Although the Western academy has professed a monopoly on knowledge in general, and especially on biblical interpretation, such a position can no longer be held in the postcolonial
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