Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict

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From the outset, this book seeks to place the “Jesus Movement” within its wider economic and social context. The movement’s vision meant the rich would have to give up their wealth, but the poor would be afforded a life of heavenly luxury. In so doing, the authors speedily debunk the “Great Man” myth and demonstrate the large number of similar grouplets in a Palestine that was being convulsed by serious dislocations. The book conveys a sharp sense of the times and places, the issues and discussions, the difficulties and possibilities. 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.

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. This thrilling historical materialist take on the historical Jesus situates the life of Jesus of Nazareth in the turbulent troubles of first-century Palestine. For many young men of the time, there were only two realistic responses: banditry or hitching themselves to a prophetic itinerant movement.Nor does the “preferential option for death” accord well with the persistent and emphasised failure of the disciples to accept the message of suffering. 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 . We are part of the pro-democracy media contesting the vast right-wing media propaganda ecosystem brainwashing tens of millions and putting democracy at risk. Crossley and Myles offer a vivid portrait of the man and his movement and uncover the material conditions that converged to make it happen. 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.

Tensions flared up considerably when the movement marched on Jerusalem and Jesus was willingly martyred for the cause. It is often the message rather than the details of the story which is important and, therefore, inspired. Of the three last words of Jesus on the cross offered by Mark/Matthew, Luke and John which is historical or does that not matter?

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. 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. The book is sound in its scholarship, reasonable in its conclusions, yet provocative enough that it will hold an array of readers' interests. Copious and informed material information by way of well-wrought and well-written biographical narrative. We are a conservative evangelical church with a long history of faithful Bible teaching in the coastal town of Whitehaven in beautiful West Cumbria.

But is Mark’s story his way of showing that Antipas is a foolish victim of a pretty girl’s charm (Esther 5.Seeing such portraits as romanticized and overly idealized, the interest here is on the social and economic forces that produced the Jesus movement. Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict will henceforth provide an easy answer whenever friends and family request a recommendation for an accessible but reliable book about the historical Jesus. We are trusting God’s plans for St John’s and excited to discover how he might be looking to use us for His Kingdom in our community. 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. Myles have painstakingly examined many of the mainstream interpretations of the life, teachings, and execution of Jesus.