Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict

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If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. What is important from the biblical point of view is not which hat he wore, but what the author wishes to convey by mentioning it, nor whether skeletons rose from their tombs at the death of Jesus (Matthew 27. Seeing such portraits as romanticized and overly idealized, the interest here is on the social and economic forces that produced the Jesus movement. The movement’s popular appeal was due in part to a desire to represent the values of ordinary rural workers, and its vision meant that the rich would have to give up their wealth, while the poor would be afforded a life of heavenly luxury. 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 .

Copious and informed material information by way of well-wrought and well-written biographical narrative. There needs to be more study, not of history as a science, but of the genres of historical writing and their way of asserting the truth, or, rather what truth they mean to assert. 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. 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.

An expert panel discusses the introduction of Prayers of Love and Faith and blessings for same-sex couples.

What impresses the most, though, is in how by demystifying an epic class struggle of the past lessons of strategic relevance to struggles for liberation in the present can be drawn. Written for a broad audience, it understands the Jesus movement and rise of Christianity without resorting to the usual Great Man view of history and instead pursues a history from below.From the outset, this book seeks to place the “Jesus Movement” within its wider economic and social context. Crossley and Myles locate Jesus’s class position as that of a tektōn, an ancient Greek noun meaning craftsman or carpenter. Before you go, please support great working-class and pro-people journalism by donating to People’s World. Despite being written from a perspective that questions many of the traditions of the Christian faith, it is respectful in its approach, reasonable in most of its assessments, and simply enjoyable to read. 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.