Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict

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James is one of the academic directors of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM). 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. One of the ways James connects his interest in these two periods is through his focus on how people understand and negotiate historical change. His work on political rhetoric, for instance, looks at how the social, economic, and geopolitical upheavals have led to distinctive ways of constructing what the Bible and religion "really means" Similarly, his work on first-century Palestine looks at how socio-economic changes in Galilee and Judea intersected with traditions associated with Jesus and how these were then interpreted, ignored, rethought, modified, adapted, and so on.

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. At a time when Marxists and people of faith continue to treat each other’s core texts with contempt or suspicion, Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict is a timely and welcome study. May it be the first of a revived genre. 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.

I think that this volume is, perhaps, going to go down as one of the most notable biographies of Jesus to have been published. I consider it a strong corrective to the works of past scholars like Sanders, who consistently framed Jesus as this special and unique individual. 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” – Fernando F. Segovia, Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Vanderbilt University 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. It is often the message rather than the details of the story which is important and, therefore, inspired. Several times, Watson uses as an example the hat worn by Napoleon at Waterloo. 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 27.52) rather than the message that this conveys. 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 .

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 Crossley and Myles have recaptured the mind-blowing excitement generated by the original quest to distinguish the Jesus of history behind the myth. Although Jesus scholarship has struggled to let go of the fantasy of a man who dropped from the sky, this book places Jesus firmly on his feet, a product of his agrarian class and imperial repression. Crossley and Myles have found Jesus: in the Galilean dirt under his fingernails. I will admit to being inordinately skeptical, so there are of course lots of points where I simply don't think much (read 99%) of the Gospels are historical (sorry, not even John the Baptist's baptism of Jesus). I also don't think Q existed or similar. So, of course, Crossley and Myles come to rather radically different conclusions than I would, but that is irrelevant to the quality of the volume ultimately. Even where I firmly disagree with them, their cases are still well argued and entirely plausible. I have always been partial to historical materialist understandings of Jesus, and this one as a millenarian prophet, and a failed revolution (which did not bring about the theocratic dictatorship of God, or the systemic economic changes it wished) is, I will say, the most convincing I have read.

Crossley, J. (2022). Towards a Vulgar Marxist Reading of Christian Origins Today, Critical Theory and Early Christianity,, s. 252 - 267. Equinox Publishing, ISBN: 9781781794135 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).

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) 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 and Myles locate Jesus’s class position as that of a tektōn, an ancient Greek noun meaning craftsman or carpenter. 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. Fernando F. Segovia , Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Vanderbilt University This combination produced a millenarianism that was both ideologically focused on right behaviours, and adroitly pragmatic enough to embark on a sustained “mission to the rich” to swell its numbers and financing. 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.” – Joan E. Taylor, Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, Kings College London To my knowledge, this book will be the first major contemporary biography on Jesus from a historical materialist perspective and written by respected experts in the field. 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. In doing so, it distils the main findings of historical Jesus research in a way that will be of interest and relevance to a wide variety of readers on the Left and in the academy.

Fr Henry Wansbrough OSB is a monk of Ampleforth, emeritus Master of St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, and a former member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. Some readers may be irritated by the retro-fitting of 19th and 20th 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). Others may find this is one of the work’s greatest achievements in that it shatters a number of lazy liberal assumptions about Jesus which strive anachronistically to restrict him to the role of a soixante-huitard hippy. From the outset, this book seeks to place the “Jesus Movement” within its wider economic and social context. 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 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 by the prevailing Jewish religious expectations and practices.Firstly the excellent things about this book, of which there are many. Its the most realistic portrait of the earthly Jesus I have read, its factual, concise and to the point. It portrays a realistic man of his time, not a godly type great man you get from the overly theological US & German seminarys and NT Wright, or a hippy itinerant preacher you get from liberal US universities. From the outset, this book seeks to place the “Jesus Movement” within its wider economic and social context. 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. 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. With Crossley and Myles, the difficulty is that too often supposition turns into certainty. There is too much of “it is not out of the question to suppose . . .”. To mention just two detailed points: the presentation of the movement as “tough, muscular, hard, and manly” hardly fits Peter’s reaction to Caiaphas’s servant-girl. Nor does the “preferential option for death” accord well with the persistent and emphasised failure of the disciples to accept the message of suffering. This 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.