Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict

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This account of the life of Jesus is neither a historical novel nor a scholarly monograph. It represents an excellent fusion of these approaches: copious and informed material information by way of well-wrought and well-written biographical narrative. The book conveys a sharp sense of the times and places, the issues and discussions, the difficulties and possibilities. A marvelous idea on the part of Crossley and Myles—altogether well done! As of yesterday, my co-author James Crossley and I submitted the final author-approved manuscript of Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict to our publisher Zer0 Books . Crossley, J. (2022). Mary Magdalene and the Life of Judith in Life of Brian, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, s. 156 - 169. Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, ISSN: 1476-8690

Both books start with a review of the classic three quests for the historical Jesus, the first emerging from the European Enlightenment and culminating in Albert Schweitzer (1906); the second (between the two World Wars) pioneered by the studies of Bultmann and Dibelius and characterised by the attempt to establish criteria for the historical Jesus; the third led by Géza Vermes’s insistence on the Jewishness of Jesus and bolstered by new archaeological discoveries, such as that of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Precise, clear, accessible, and important. I can think of no better introduction to the historical Jesus for the general reader, no clearer statement on the legacy of the Jesus movement in the sweep of subsequent history, or a more worthy challenge to contemporary scholarship on Jesus and the rise of Christianity.” – Neil Elliott, author of Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the ApostleThis volume greatly accomplishes such a task, and does so in a thoroughly compelling way. Of all the Marxist works I have read on the origins of Christianity and on Jesus (Machovec, Kautsky, Kalthoff, Lenzman, Kryvelev, Robertson, Mongar, Chiakulas, etc.) this is perhaps the most fully engrained, and truly Marxist (historical materialist) analysis of Jesus and his life, and, personally, I think that as far as biographies of Jesus are concerned this is probably the best they can get. The authors maintain that Jesus’s actions and teachings, even after being given a considerable makeover by the Gospel writers, were informed as much by this agrarian realism, as the prevailing Jewish religious expectations and practices.

For many young men of the time, there were only two realistic responses: banditry or hitching themselves to a prophetic itinerant movement. This book moves on from the Third Quest for the historical Jesus, so focused on seeing Jesus as a great innovator within a particular cultural, religious and societal context. Seeing such portraits as romanticized and overly idealized, the interest here is on the social and economic forces that produced the Jesus movement, so that Jesus and his associates are seen as responding to the material upheavals of the time. Watson then proceeds on the basis of two historical principles: first, the grant of the benefit of the doubt, that evidence should be accepted unless there is reason for disbelief; and, second, the uniqueness of historical events. Most sciences aim to establish general laws, but the science of history accepts that historical events are unique. She writes in a delightfully down-to-earth style, with plenty of crisp examples. We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, please support great working-class and pro-people journalism by donating to People’s World. Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict provides an important refocusing and reprioritizing of earlier Scriptural studies as seen through the lens of historical materialist analysis.Precise, clear, accessible, and important. I can think of no better introduction to the historical Jesus for the general reader, no clearer statement on the legacy of the Jesus movement in the sweep of subsequent history, or a more worthy challenge to contemporary scholarship on Jesus and the rise of Christianity.' Neil Elliott, author of Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle Dr Robert Myles of Wollaston Theological College in the University of Divinity, together with Professor James Crossley of MF Oslo, have co-authored a new book: Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict. The book, published by Zer0 Books, was officially released on 24 th February 2023. For some in Galilee, these grandiose projects, constructed in part to solidify the status of the comprador bourgeoisie of their day, resulted in great wealth and an enhanced social standing.

That said, the authors do reinforce more traditional interpretations in other regards, including the self-awareness of Jesus that the trajectory of his life would lead to a challenge to the religious and military authorities in Jerusalem. We are not neutral. Our mission is to be a voice for truth, democracy, the environment, and socialism. We believe in people before profits. So, we take sides. Yours! This combination produced a millenarianism that was both ideologically focused on right behaviors, and adroitly pragmatic enough to embark on a sustained “mission to the rich” to swell its numbers and financing. Fernando F. Segovia , Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Vanderbilt University

Two of our most capable Marxist biblical interpreters offer a historical materialist life of Jesus, grounded in the social and material forces of Jesus’ age rather than on efforts to read Jesus’ mind. Precise, clear, accessible, and important. I can think of no better introduction to the historical Jesus for the general reader, no clearer statement on the legacy of the Jesus movement in the sweep of subsequent history, or a more worthy challenge to contemporary scholarship on Jesus and the rise of Christianity. Crossley and Myles locate Jesus’s class position as that of a tekton. Being born and raised in this artisan rural working stratum, Jesus and his immediate family would have felt the full force of the economic dislocations and displacements caused by the massive Herodian building schemes at Sepphoris and Tiberias.

Some readers may be irritated by the retro-fitting of 19th century language to a first century setting (the Twelve Disciples are referred to as the Jesus Movement’s Politburo, and the desired millenarian outcome as a Dictatorship of the Peasantry, for instance). JESUS: A Life in Class Conflict provides an important refocusing and reprioritising of earlier Scriptural studies as seen through the lens of historical materialist analysis.

Although containing little original research, authors James Crossley and Robert J. Myles have painstakingly examined many of the mainstream interpretations of the life, teachings, and execution of Jesus. Crossley, J. (2022). Towards a Vulgar Marxist Reading of Christian Origins Today, Critical Theory and Early Christianity,, s. 252 - 267. Equinox Publishing, ISBN: 9781781794135 James Crossley (MF Norwegian School of Theology and Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements) will present his new book co-authored with Robert J. Myles (Wollaston Theological College, Perth, Australia) More generally, if the Jewish historian Josephus is the chief witness for the Galilean world of “excessive taxation, discontent, banditry, warfare and violent reprisals”, his own motives for painting this picture for the Romans should be more closely examined. Without such testing, it remains unclear that the Jesus movement was a product of class-conflict and agrarian unrest. When John’s shorthand term for the Jewish authorities in the Passion narrative as “the Jews” is described as a “chilling ‘fascist-like’ tendency”, the reader may be forgiven for assuming that the authors slip too readily into a Marxist perspective. Sometimes, Crossley and Myles try too hard in their debunking mission. The claims of hyper or “servant” masculinity and the downgrading of the Movement’s radical inclusion of women needs far more substance to stand up than they provide here.