Jesus And Empire Book

A book both interesting and littered with poor reasoning and suspect methodology. Much of Horsley's historical reconstructions are apt, and helpful for the general reader, but I think he gets into a lot of trouble when he tries to fuse those reconstructions into arguments regarding an anti-Imperial outlook in the Gospels and in Jesus' teaching. I'll say, before a few criticisms, that I actually agree with Horsley's endgame: I agree that Jesus' teachings would direct his followers away from complicity, accommodation, and compromise with "the State." But, contra Horsley, I do not think this is because Jesus was explicitly anti-Rome, but because he found anything aside from his own kingdom to be a distraction from his greater goals.

A few issues:

1. Horsley relies upon Q far too much. To be honest, I actually agree that something like Q was, along with Mark, and early source for the Jesus movement and for Matthew and Luke. But I do not think we can be nearly as precise regarding Q (if it existed) as Horsley argues, so his reliance on a very precise construction of Q leaves a lot of holes and open questions.

2. Horsley's interpretations often angle towards confirming his aims, despite the fact that other, better interpretive options are available. For example, if I want to convince you that eating lots of red meat is good for you, but I only compare the health benefits with eating the same weight in sugar cookies, then of course my red meat will look good in comparison. Horsley presents certain aspects of Roman history, and a few examples of Second Temple Jewish texts that have some relevance, and attempts to paint a picture that is easily called into question when other relevant data is introduced.

3. Horsley often presents data from "around" Jesus, and assumes, without proper analysis of Jesus' actions and teachings, that those texts and events from "around" Jesus are relevant "to" Jesus. I think a lot of these assumptions are faulty and can be easily countered. For example, he presents data from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple material that shows that the Jews had certain expectations, and then assumes that those are relevant, without taking into account the large amount of material from the Gospels that demonstrates that Jesus may very well have been purposefully subverting those expectations, not trying to confirm them.

4. Horsley often brings up Jesus' attacks on Jewish leaders, and then assumes, without strong evidence, that Jesus must have also lumped Rome into those critiques. There is evidence to the contrary. The Gospels seem to often go out of their way to actually absolve a lot of the roman complicity in his death while placing Jesus' critiques squarely on the Jewish leaders. It is the Jewish leaders who knew better, and those leaders who Jesus goes after strongly; it is the romans who "know not what they do."

I could go on. My critiques get quite lengthy and specific (I marked up the book extensively). Ultimately, I think the anti-Imperial interpretations of the Bible are half-baked, and I think that Jesus, and the other NT writers, were largely ambivalent to Empire(s). I agree with McKnight and Modica, when they wrote that to say "Jesus is Lord" is not really to say "Caesar is not," it's only to confirm that we cannot say "Caesar is lord." In other words, Jesus wasn't opposed to Rome because it was Rome, he just opposed anything that wasn't the kingdom he proclaimed, and if Rome gets wrapped into that, it's relatively incidental. I do not think Horsley proved otherwise.