Authors: Karen Armstrong
12.
Gerhard E. Lenski,
Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification
(Chapel Hill, NC, and London, 1966), pp. 243–48.
13.
John H. Kautsky,
The Politics of Aristocratic Empires,
2nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ, and London, 1997), p. 81.
14.
Horsley, “Historical Context of Q,” p. 154.
15.
Josephus,
The Life,
10–12, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray (Cambridge, MA, 1926); Alan Mason, “Was Josephus a Pharisee?: A Re-Examination of
Life
10–12,”
Journal of Jewish Studies
40 (1989); Alan F. Segal,
Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee
(New Haven, CT, and London, 1990), pp. 81–82.
16.
Josephus,
The Jewish War,
trans. G. A. Williamson (Harmondsworth, UK, 1967), 6:51–55.
17.
Josephus,
The Antiquities of the Jews
(
AJ
) 17:157, cited in Richard A. Horsley,
Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine
(New York, 1987), p. 76.
18.
Josephus,
The Jewish War
(
JW
) 1:650.
19.
JW
2:3.
20.
JW
2:11–13.
21.
JW
2:57, cited in Horsley,
Spiral of Violence,
p. 53.
22.
JW
2:66–75.
23.
John Dominic Crossan,
God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now
(San Francisco, 2007), pp. 91–94.
24.
AJ
18:4–9, cited in Horsley,
Spiral of Violence,
p. 81;
JW
2:117.
25.
JW
2:169–74.
26.
Philo,
On the Embassy to Gaius,
trans. E. H. Colson (Cambridge, MA, 1962), pp. 223–24.
27.
AJ
18:292, cited in Horsley,
Spiral of Violence,
p. 111.
28.
AJ
18:284, cited ibid.
29.
JW
2.260.
30.
JW
261–62.
31.
AJ
18:36–38, cited in Horsley, “Historical Context of Q,” p. 58.
32.
John Dominic Crossan,
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography
(New York, 1994), pp. 26–28.
33.
A. N. Sherwin-White,
Roman Law and Roman Society in the New Testament
(Oxford, 1963), p. 139. Matthew 18:22–33, 20:1–15; Luke 16:1–13; Mark 12:1–9.
34.
Matthew 2:16.
35.
Matthew 14:3–12.
36.
Matthew 10:17–18.
37.
Marcus Borg,
Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
(San Francisco, 2006), pp. 67–68.
38.
Matthew 4:1–11; Mark 12–13; Luke 4:1–13.
39.
Luke 10:17–18.
40.
M. Lewis,
Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism
(Baltimore, 1971), pp. 31, 32, 35, 127.
41.
Mark 5:1–17; Crossan,
Jesus,
pp. 99–106.
42.
Luke 13:31–33.
43.
Matthew 21:1–11; Mark, 11:1–11; Luke 19:28–38.
44.
Matthew 21:12–13.
45.
Horsley,
Spiral of Violence,
pp. 286–89; Sean Frayne,
Galilee: From Alexander the Great to Hadrian, 323 BCE to 135 CE: A Study of Second Temple Judaism
(Notre Dame, IN, 1980), pp. 283–86.
46.
Matthew 5:39, 44.
47.
Matthew 26:63.
48.
Luke 6:20–24.
49.
Matthew 12:1–23.
50.
Luke 13:13.
51.
Luke 9:23–24.
52.
Luke 1:51–54.
53.
Mark 12:13–17; Horsley,
Spiral of Violence,
pp. 306–16.
54.
F. F. Bruce, “Render to Caesar,” in F. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule, eds.,
Jesus and the Politics of His Day
(Cambridge, UK, 1981), p. 258.
55.
Mark 12:38–40.
56.
Horsley,
Spiral of Violence,
pp. 167–68.
57.
A. E. Harvey,
Strenuous Commands: The Ethic of Jesus
(London and Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 162, 209.
58.
Luke 14:14, 23–24; Crossan,
Jesus
, pp. 74–82.
59.
Luke 6:20–21; translation amended in Crossan,
Jesus,
p. 68. The gospel does not use the Greek
penes
(“poor”), describing people making a bare living, but
ptochos,
“destitute, beggars.”
60.
Crossan,
Jesus,
pp. 68–70.
61.
Luke 6:24–25.
62.
Matthew 20:16.
63.
Matthew 6:11–13.
64.
Gerd Theissen,
The First Followers of Jesus: A Sociological Analysis of the Earliest Christians,
trans. John Bowden (London, 1978), pp. 8–14.
65.
Mark 1:14–15, my translation.
66.
Matthew 9:36.
67.
Warren Carter, “Construction of Violence and Identities in Matthew’s Gospel,” in Shelly Matthews and E. Leigh Gibson, eds.,
Violence in the New Testament
(New York and London, 2005), pp. 93–94.
68.
John Pairman Brown, “Techniques of Imperial Control: The Background of the Gospel Event,” in Norman Gottwald, ed.,
The Bible of Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics
(Maryknoll, NY, 1983), pp. 357–77; Gerd Theissen,
The Miracle Stories: Early Christian Tradition
(Philadelphia, 1982), pp. 231–44; Warren Carter,
Matthew and the Margins: A Socio-Political and Religious Reading
(Sheffield, UK, 2000), pp. 17–29, 36–43, 123–27, 196–98.
69.
Matthew 6:10.
70.
Luke 6:28–30.
71.
Luke 6:31–38.
72.
Acts 2:23, 32–35; Philippians 2:9.
73.
Matthew 10:5–6.
74.
James B. Rives,
Religion in the Roman Empire
(Oxford, 2007), pp. 13–20, 104–14.
75.
Jonathan Z. Smith, “Fences and Neighbours: Some Contours of Early Judaism,” in Smith,
Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown
(Chicago and London, 1982), pp. 1–18; John W. Marshall, “Collateral Damage: Jesus and Jezebel in the Jewish War,” in Matthews and Gibson,
Violence in the New Testament,
pp. 38–39; Julia Galambush,
The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book
(San Francisco, 2005), pp. 291–92.
76.
Acts of the Apostles 5:54–42.
77.
Acts of the Apostles, 13:44, 14:19, 17:10–15.
78.
I Corinthians 11:2–15.
79.
I Corinthians 14:21–25.
80.
Romans 13:1–2, 4.
81.
Romans 13:6.
82.
I Corinthians 7:31.
83.
Acts of the Apostles 4:32, 34.
84.
I Corinthians 12:12–27.
85.
Luke 24:13–32.
86.
Philippians 2:3–5.
87.
Philippians 2:6–11, in
The English Revised Bible
(Oxford and Cambridge, UK, 1989).
88.
Philippians 2:2–4.
89.
I John 1.
90.
I John 7:42–47.
91.
I John 2:18–19.
92.
Tacitus,
History,
1:11, cited in Marshall, “Collateral Damage,” pp. 37–38.
93.
Reuven Firestone,
Holy War in Judaism: The Fall and Rise of a Controversial Idea
(Oxford and New York, 2012), pp. 46–47.
94.
Michael S. Berger, “Taming the Beast: Rabbinic Pacification of Second Century Jewish Nationalism,” in James K. Wellman, Jr., ed.,
Belief and Bloodshed: Religion and Violence Across Time and Tradition
(Lanham, MD, 2007), pp. 54–55.
95.
Jerusalem Talmud (J), Taanit 4.5 and Lamentations Rabbah 2.4, cited in C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, eds.,
A Rabbinic Anthology
(New York, 1974).
96.
Dio Cassius,
History
69.12; Mireille Hadas-Lebel,
Jerusalem Against Rome,
trans. Robyn Freshat (Leuven, 2006), pp. 398–409.
97.
Berger, “Taming the Beast,” pp. 50–52.
98.
B. Berakhot 58a; Shabbat 34a; Baba Batra 75a; Sanhedrin 100a; Firestone,
Holy War,
p. 73.
99.
Firestone,
Holy War,
pp. 52–61.
100.
Berger, “Taming the Beast,” p. 48.
101.
Avot de Rabbi Nathan B.31, cited in Robert Eisen,
The Peace and Violence of Judaism: From the Bible to Modern Zionism
(Oxford, 2011), p. 86.
102.
B. Pesahim 118a, cited ibid.
103.
Ibid.; Hadas-Lebel,
Jerusalem Against Rome,
pp. 265–95.
104.
Mekhilta de Rabbi Yishmael 13; B. Avodah Zarah 18a, in Montefiore and Loewe,
Rabbinic Anthology
.
105.
B. Shabbat 336b; B. Berakhot 58a, ibid.
106.
Wilfred Cantwell Smith,
What Is Scripture? A Comparative Approach
(London, 1993), p. 290; Gerald L. Bruns, “Midrash and Allegory: The Beginnings of Scriptural Interpretation,” in Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, eds.,
A Literary Guide to the Bible
(London 1987), pp. 629–30; Nahum S. Glatzer, “The Concept of Peace in Classical Judaism,”
Essays on Jewish Thought
(University, AL, 1978), pp. 37–38; Eisen,
Peace and Violence,
p. 90.
107.
Michael Fishbane,
Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics
(Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1989), pp. 22–32.
108.
B. Shabbat 63a; B. Sanhedrin 82a; B. Shabbat 133b; Tanhuman 10; Eisen,
Peace and Violence,
pp. 88–89; Reuven Kimelman, “Non-violence in the Talmud,”
Judaism
17 (1968).
109.
Avot de Rabbi Nathan A. 23, cited in Eisen,
Peace and Violence,
p. 88.
110.
Mishnah (M), Avot 4:1, in Montefiore and Loewe,
Rabbinic Anthology.
111.
Eisen,
Peace and Violence,
p. 89.
112.
B. Berakhot 4a; Megillah 3a; Tamua 16a.
113.
Exodus 14; B. Megillah 10b, in Montefiore and Loewe,
Rabbinic Anthology.
114.
M. Sotah 8:7; M. Yadayin 4:4; Tosefta Kiddushim 5:4; Firestone,
Holy War,
p. 74.
115.
J. Sotah 8.1.
116.
Song of Songs 2:7, 3:5, 8:4; B. Ketubot 110b—111a; Song of Songs Rabbah 2:7.
117.
Firestone,
Holy War,
pp. 74–75.
118.
Aviezer Ravitsky,
Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism,
trans. Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chapman (Chicago, 1997), pp. 211–34.
119.
Peter Brown,
The World of Late Antiquity, AD 150–750
(London, 1989), pp. 20–24; Brown,
The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200–1000
(Oxford and Malden, MA, 1996), pp. 18–19.
120.
Brown,
World of Late Antiquity,
pp. 24–27.
121.
Peter Brown,
The Making of Late Antiquity
(Cambridge, MA, and London, 1978), p. 48; Brown,
Rise of Western Christendom,
pp. 19–20.
122.
Revelation 3:21;
Tacitus,
Annals
15:44. Tacitus, however, was writing decades after the event, and it seems unlikely that at this early date Christians were recognized as a distinct body. Candida R. Moss,
The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom
(New York, 2013), pp. 138–39.
123.
Tertullian,
Apology
20, cited in Moss,
Myth of Persecution,
p. 128.
124.
W. H. C. Frend,
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of the Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus
(Oxford, 1965), p. 331.
125.
Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Temple and the Magician,” in Smith,
Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions
(Chicago and London, 1978), p. 187; Peter Brown, “The Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,”
Journal of Roman Studies
61 (1971).
126.
Rives,
Religion in the Roman Empire,
pp. 207–8.
127.
Ibid., pp. 68, 82.
128.
Moss,
Myth of Persecution,
pp. 127–62; G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, “Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?” in Ste. Croix,
Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy,
ed. Michael Whitby and Joseph Streeter (Oxford, 2006).
129.
James B. Rives, “The Decree of Decius and the Religion of Empire,”
Journal of Roman Studies
89 (1999); Robin Lane Fox,
Pagans and Christians
(New York, 1987), pp. 455–56.
130.
B. Baba Metziah 59b, Montefiore and Loewe,
Rabbinic Anthology.
131.
Collatio Legum Romanarum et Mosaicarum
15:3, cited in Brown,
Rise of Western Christendom,
p. 22.
132.
Ramsay MacMullen,
The Second Church: Popular
Christianity A.D. 200
— 400
(Atlanta, 2009). Christians had traditionally worshipped in private houses. Churches like the offending basilica were a recent innovation.
133.
Moss,
Myth of Persecution,
pp. 154–58.
134.
Candida R. Moss,
The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom
(Oxford, 2010).