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Papers by Richard Horsley

Studying the Historical Jesus, 1994

Choice Reviews Online, 2014

The authors present their investigation as one that follows four steps: Step One: 'sketch the fun... more The authors present their investigation as one that follows four steps: Step One: 'sketch the fundamental political, economic-religious structure and dynamics of Roman Palestine' (chapters  and ). Step Two: make the case for the 'recognition' of the Gospels as 'historical stories', not as 'individual sayings', that need to be approached as 'whole stories' produced by different communications media compared with the modern post-printing world (chapters  and ). Step Three: 'focus on the Gospel of John as a story about Jesus' mission' and assess how this 'fits the historical context' noted in step one (chapters  and ). Step Four: 'explore the fuller portrayal of Jesus in John's story, presenting Jesus' mission as the generation of a renewal of Israel' (chapter ) 'in opposition to and by the rulers of Israel' (chapter ).

any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by means of any inf... more any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by means of any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed

Vigiliae Christianae, 1979

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2003

... I have learned a great deal from both of them. I am also grateful to Marlyn Miller, Audrey Pi... more ... I have learned a great deal from both of them. I am also grateful to Marlyn Miller, Audrey Pitts, Maureen Worth, and Gabriel Gottlieb for their research assistance on the various subjects of this article. Journal of the American Academy of Religion March 2003, Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. ...

Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 1986

... Richard A. Horsley ... as Blenkinsopp and others have noted, Josephus otherwise avoids the us... more ... Richard A. Horsley ... as Blenkinsopp and others have noted, Josephus otherwise avoids the use of the term 'prophet', apparently out of the conviction, shared with the scribes/Pharisees, that the succession of truly inspired prophets had ceased with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi ...

Page 1. Richard A. Horsley ESUS AND EMPIRE The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder Page 2. ... more Page 1. Richard A. Horsley ESUS AND EMPIRE The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder Page 2. Page 3. JESUS AND EMPIRE This On» 9YA4-LAX-JZ8W Page 4. Page 5. JESUS AND EMPIRE The Kingdom of God ...

The Middle Eastern peasants who formed the first movement that focused on Yeshua bar Yosef (whom ... more The Middle Eastern peasants who formed the first movement that focused on Yeshua bar Yosef (whom we know as Jesus) eked out a living farming and fishing in a remote region of the Roman Empire. At the outset their movement was similar in form and circumstances to many others that arose among people of Israelite heritage. Their families and village communities were steadily disintegrating under the increasing pressures of offerings to the Jerusalem Temple, taxes to Herodian kings, and tribute to their Roman conquerors. Large numbers of Galilean, Samaritan, and Judean peasants eagerly responded to the pronouncements of peasant prophets that God was again about to liberate them from their oppressive rulers and restore cooperative community life under the traditional divine principles of justice. The other movements ended abruptly when the Roman governors sent out the military and slaughtered them. The movements that formed around Yeshua bar Yosef, however, survived the Roman crucifixion...

cannot be my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." "You cannot serve both God and... more cannot be my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." "You cannot serve both God and Mammon."

If Blake could have surveyed the scene a century later, he might well have included biblical stud... more If Blake could have surveyed the scene a century later, he might well have included biblical studies in 'Art and Science/' For a student of "Christian Origins" who had become aware of the United States' role as an imperial power—overthrowing elected governments and installing dictators in Iran and Guatemala, escalating war in Vietnam, supporting military regimes in Central America—it was not difficult to discern that the ancient Roman imperial order constituted the historical conditions of Jesus, the Gospels, Paul and other New Testament history and literature. Accordingly, in my first four books I attempted to set popular Judean and Galilean resistance movements and the historical Jesus in the context of the Roman empire, indeed as resistance to it. Yet it was not until I became acquainted with several "third world" students in my courses at Harvard Divinity School that it really hit me how much biblical studies as well as the Bible itself play a rol...

Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, 2015

In the context of our modern global economy in which the richest one percent of the population be... more In the context of our modern global economy in which the richest one percent of the population becomes richer, while the poor grow ever poorer, this essay draws attention to the many biblical texts that announce God’s concern for economic justice. From teachings that govern community life in the torah of Moses, to the indictments of injustice made by the prophets, and to the good news proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospels, the Bible contains a radical message of God’s favor for the poor and God’s condemnation for those who exploit the poor and sustain systems of economic injustice. Society today tends to compartmentalize “religion” and “real life” in order conveniently to ignore these biblical imperatives.1

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 2006

This article investigates the origins and development of the earliest Jesus movements within the ... more This article investigates the origins and development of the earliest Jesus movements within the context of persistent conflict between the Judean and Galilean peasantry and their Jerusalem and Roman rulers. It explores the prominence of popular prophetic and messianic movements and shows how the earliest movements that formed in response to Jesus’ mission exhibit similar features and patterns. Jesus is not treated as separate from social roles and political-economic relationships. Viewing Jesus against the background of village communities in which people lived, the Gospels are understood as genuine communication with other people in historical social contexts. The article argues that the net effect of these interrelated factors of theologically determined New Testament interpretation is a combination of assumptions and procedures that would be unacceptable in the regular investigation of history. Another version of the essay was published in Horsley, Richard A (ed), A people’s his...

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 1996

Adopting a perspective of class awareness, this study proposes that Jesus and his movements in Pa... more Adopting a perspective of class awareness, this study proposes that Jesus and his movements in Palestine did not simply have political implications but were engaged in social-political organising that brought them into political conflict with the Jerusalem and Roman rulers. This disposition has its roots in the distinctiveness of Galilee/Galileans as setting for Jesus and his followers.

Oral Tradition, 2010

Jewish and Christian, and especially Protestant Christian, emphasis upon the sacred book and its ... more Jewish and Christian, and especially Protestant Christian, emphasis upon the sacred book and its authority have combined with scholarly interests and techniques, as well as the broader developments in the modern West. .. to fix in our minds today a rather narrow concept of scripture, a concept even more sharply culture-bound than that of "book" itself.-William Graham (1987) Mark's Gospel. .. was composed at a desk in a scholar's study lined with texts.. .. In Mark's study were chains of miracle stories, collections of pronouncement stories in various states of elaboration, some form of Q, memos on parables and proof texts, the scriptures, including the prophets, written materials from the Christ cult, and other literature representative of Hellenistic Judaism.-Burton Mack (1988) It was not necessary that the Gospel performer know how to read. The performer could learn the Gospel from hearing oral performance.. .. It is quite possible, and indeed even likely, that many Gospel performers were themselves illiterate.. .. It was certainly possible for an oral performer to develop a narrative with this level of structural complexity.. .. In Mark the number of interconnections between parts of the narrative are quite extraordinary.-Whitney Shiner (2003) The procedures and concepts of Christian biblical studies are often teleological. The results of the historical process are assumed in study of its early stages. Until recently critical study of the books of the New Testament focused on establishing the scriptural text and its meaning in the context of historical origins. Ironically that was before the texts became distinctively authoritative for communities that used them and were recognized as Scripture by Oral Tradition, 25/1 (2010): 93-114 established ecclesial authorities. Such teleological concepts and procedures obscure what turn out to be genuine historical problems once we take a closer look. How the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of Mark, came to be included in the Scriptures of established Christianity offers a striking example. On the earlier Christian theological assumption that Christianity as the religion of the Gospel made a dramatic break with Judaism as the religion of the Law, one of the principal questions was how the Christian church came to include the Jewish Scriptures in its Bible. We now see much more clearly the continuity of what became Christianity with Israel. The Gospels, especially Matthew and Mark, portray Jesus as engaged in a renewal of Israel. The Gospel of Matthew is now generally seen as addressed to communities of Israel, not "Gentiles" (Saldarini 1994). And while Mark was formerly taken as addressed to a "Gentile" community in Rome, it is increasingly taken as addressed to communities in Syria that understand themselves as the renewal of Israel (Horsley 2001). Far more problematic than the inclusion of the Jewish Scripture (in Greek) is inclusion of the Gospels in the Christian Bible. The ecclesial authorities who defined the New Testament canon in the fourth and fifth centuries were men of high culture. The Gospels, however, especially the Gospel of Mark, did not meet the standards of high culture in the Hellenistic and Roman cultural world. Once the Gospels became known to cultural elite, opponents of the Christians such as Celsus, in the late second century, mocked them for their lack of literary distinction and their composers as ignorant people who lacked "even a primary education" (Contra Celsum 1.62). Fifty years later, the "church father" Origen proudly admitted that the apostles possessed "no power of speaking or of giving an ordered narrative by the standards of Greek dialectical or rhetorical arts" (Contra Celsum 1.62). Luke had asserted, somewhat presumptuously perhaps, that he and his predecessors as "evangelists" had, in the standard Hellenistic-Roman ideology of historiography, set down an "orderly account" of events in the Gospels. Origen, who knew better, had to agree with Celsus that the evangelists were, as the Jerusalem "rulers, elders, and scribes" in the second volume of Luke's "orderly account" said about Peter and John, "illiterate and ignorant" (agrammatoi kai idiotai, Acts 4:13). Nor would the Gospels, again especially Mark, have measured up as Scripture on the model of previous Jewish scriptural texts. The Gospels stand in strong continuity with Israelite-Jewish cultural tradition; indeed they portray Jesus and his followers as its fulfillment. Yet they do not resemble any of the kinds of texts included in the Jewish Scriptures or other Jewish scribal compositions, whether books of Torah (Deuteronomy), books of history (Judges; 1-2 Kings), collections of prophecies (Isaiah, Amos), collections of instructional wisdom (Proverbs 1-9; Sirach), or apocalypses (Daniel). Rather the Gospels tell the story of a popular leader they compare to Moses and Elijah who focused on the concerns of villagers in opposition to the political and cultural elite and who was gruesomely executed by the Roman governor. Consideration of the oral and written aspects of scripture may be one of the keys to addressing the question of how the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of Mark, became included in the Bible by the ecclesial authorities of established Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries. Only contemporary with or after the Gospel's official recognition as part of Scripture do we find Christian intellectuals producing commentaries that are more than spiritualizing allegories or moralistic homilies on Gospel passages. Research in a number of interrelated (but often separate) areas is coalescing to suggest that the Gospel of Mark developed in a largely oral communication 94 RICHARD A. HORSLEY

Critical Research on Religion, 2014