Jesus Christ: Historical Materialism, Class Conflict, and the Jesus Movement

[@b.a-RebelWorker]

Great book and dialogue

[@ikengaspirit3063]

But I have to say, what I like the most about this is the initial emphasis of not erasing non-elite people out of history and using different levels of assurity for events instead of did or didn't, just percentages of did/didn't.

[@ikengaspirit3063]

17:00 It is a distinction that apriori assumes that the people that actually most care about finding out what the Jesus figure actually did are just stupid or something. So it is not only bad but fundamentally insulting. 24:28 All the issues you mention here either are issues also present in modern and the better ancient primary sources or actually increase the reliability of the Gospels. Tell me would a post-humous historical biographical text written by one person, in one sitting with one set of sources really be argued by anyone to be more reliable than that reconstructed from numerous post-humous historical biographical texts written by several people, who weren't in a hurry and could reflect on their memory and using multiple sources?. The minor inconsistencies as well prove reliability. Seven eye witness reporting the exact same thing about a crime scene is evidence of collusion, extreme inconsistencies is evidence of making things up, mid level differences in the story like variation in the order of closely timed events or variation in physical descriptions is what you actually expect from real witnesses and is what we see in the narratives of Jesus' grown up life and death in the Gospels. 25:28 Or driven by actually taking Early and Apostolic church fathers description of the purpose and nature of the Gospels seriously. John's Gospel was an intentional re-arranged and somewhat summary gospel after the Synoptics were written. It is like a diatessaron in some ways, tho with its own unique traditions as well. 26:03 They were there just less explicit. Jesus is sinless and forgives sins something that only God is and can do according to Jewish Lore in the prostitute story. Jesus calms the waves, something that is attributed to God in Psalms. Of course it won't be as explicit in Matthew written to recruit Jews, Luke wasn't a Jew or someone from a direct tradition of the 11 so he won't get the references and Mark is short. Even if you don't buy my explanation for why more explicit claims are missing the fact that these were clearly Jesus claiming the as Orthodox could call it, essence of God(and as such is God) is as clear as "My God why have you forsaken me" referring to Psalm 22. 30:50 While yes, it is important to note the Gospels aren't like a science book or something and has several purposes, the main purpose is still to pass on truth so most of what it is doing is communicating literal and emotional truths. 32:20 At best, only John is written when Christianity was a thing the other 3 were written during the Jesus movement era. If anything, the later Gnostic gospels better fit your bill. I know Rome was quite the slave economy but most tertiary history I read always limit the extent of use of slavery and later of serfdom to at best 1/4th to 1/3rd of the economy. 47:44 *completely independent 1:14:49 Calling people in ur extended environment "brother" also exists in other societies. Even in the near east we see similar family identities extended outside the actual family with dependants of a household and vassals to the same king being called brothers no different than christians as co-vassals to Christ being called siblings. As such, this is most likely evidence of an extended social network like your nation now is no longer greek, your community is no longer galilee but they're both Christian. Not that ur actual family is now replaced with the Church. 1:15:48 Sure, but this conversation isn't concluded without bringing up what the Jesus movement considered masculine in its rebuttals. You are not to dominate the external world in conflict but the internal, not to strike out against those mocking you but to dominate your urge to retaliate, that is true masculinity, here. 1:25:10 Why are they attributing this later development to the earlier movement?. It is only stated to have been formed in acts. Why won't the people writing acts include such information when it would further legitimize their own claims?. This is made up bullshit. 1:24:50 Be clearer about what you mean by rewriting. Do you mean they are telling a different story from what actually happened?.

[@Muzzlepaint]

It is somewhat disingenuous to claim that Crossley & Myles' book is the first to seriously apply a Historical Materialist reading of the life of Jesus. In fact I think it is a bit of an imperialist mindset to discount or ignore the rich history of Liberation Theology that absolutely depends on Historical Materialism and Marxist Dialectics as the foundation of Biblical interpretation and exegesis. I will concede their book might be the first within the Jesus Seminar 'cloister' but this conversation has been active for decades. Check out Fernando Belo's "A Materialist Reading of the Gospel of Mark" published 1981 Orbis books. Then consider Jacques Ellul's responses to Belo in his book "Jesus and Marx: from Gospel to Ideology" published by Eerdmans 1988. This interview seems like the Jesus Seminar 2.0