Jesus Beyond Nationalism: Constructing the Historical Jesus in a Period of Cultural Complexity (BibleWorld)

188 Pages·2009·1.544 MB·English

by  Halvor Moxnes, Ward Blanton, James G. Crossley

Jesus beyond Nationalism
BibleWorld
Series Editor: Philip R. Davies and James G. Crossley, University of Sheffield
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JESUS BEYOND
NATIONALISM
Constructing the Historical Jesus in a Period of
Cultural Complexity
Edited by
Halvor Moxnes, Ward Blanton and
James G. Crossley
First published 2009 by Equinox, an imprint of Acumen
iv Jesus beyond Nationalism

Published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© Halvor Moxnes, Ward Blanton, James G. Crossley and contributors 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13 978 1 84553 410 3 (hardback)
978 1 84553 411 0 (paperback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jesus beyond nationalism : constructing the historical Jesus in a period
of cultural complexity / edited by Halvor Moxnes, Ward Blanton, and
James G. Crossley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84553-410-3 (hb) — ISBN 978-1-84553-411-0 (pb) 1. Jesus
Christ—Historicity—Congresses. 2. Christianity and
culture—History—Congresses. 3. Jesus Christ—Biography—History and
criticism—Congresses. I. Moxnes, Halvor. II. Blanton, Ward. III.
Crossley, James G.
BT303.2.J4552 2009
232.9’08—dc22
2008023975
Typeset by S.J.I. Services, New Delhi
CONTENTS
List of Contributors vii
Introduction 1
Halvor Moxnes, Ward Blanton and James G. Crossley
Chapter 1
What Is Cultural Complexity? 9
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Part I
Nineteenth-century Beginnings: Jesus, Nationalism and Modernism
Chapter 2
What Is It to Write a Biography of Jesus?
Schleiermacher’s Life of Jesus and Nineteenth-century Nationalism 27
Halvor Moxnes
Chapter 3
Dostoevsky and the Russian Christ 43
Peter Normann Waage
Chapter 4
Albert Schweitzer’s Apocalyptic Jesus and the End of Modernity 57
Ward Blanton
Chapter 5
Beyond Nationalism: Jesus the “Holy Anarchist”?
The Cynic Jesus as Eternal Recurrence of the Repressed 79
Leif E. Vaage
vi Jesus beyond Nationalism
Part II
Contemporary Complexities: Jesus and Opposing Identity Claims
Chapter 6
Jesus as Battleground in a Period of Cultural Complexity 99
William E. Arnal
Chapter 7
Jesus the Jew since 1967 119
James G. Crossley
Chapter 8
Jesus in Modern Muslim Thought: From Anti-colonial
Polemics to Post-colonial Dialogue? 139
Oddbjørn Leirvik
References 159
Author Index 171
Subject Index 174
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
William Arnal is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the
University of Regina. He is the author of The Symbolic Jesus (2005) and
Jesus and the Village Scribes (2001). His main research interests include
theories of religion, and political and ethnic identity-formation in antiquity.
Arnal is currently working on a book on the Gospel of Thomas.
Ward Blanton is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theology and
Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is author of Displacing
Christian Origins: Philosophy, Secularity, and the New Testament (2007),
and has been shortlisted for the American Academy of Religion Prize for
Best First Book in the History of Religions. His research interests include
New Testament studies in relation to questions of religion, secularity and
the political, particularly as these have been understood by continental
philosophy and critical theory.
James G. Crossley is Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies in the
Department of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield. His publications
include Why Christianity Happened: A Sociohistorical Account of Christian
Origins (2006) and Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New
American Century (2008). His research interests include Jewish law,
historical Jesus, the role of scholarship in political and cultural contexts,
and the Bible in popular culture.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen is Professor of Social Anthropology and Research
Director of the interdisciplinary research programme “Cultural complexity
in the new Norway” at the University of Oslo. His academic work mainly
deals with cultural dynamics and issues of identity in complex societies,
and his most recent books in English are Engaging Anthropology (2006)
and Globalization: The Key Issues (2007).
viii Jesus beyond Nationalism
Oddbjørn Leirvik is Professor in Interreligious Studies at the Faculty of
Theology, University of Oslo. His main field of specialization is Islam and
Christian-Muslim relations. Both internationally and on the national scene
he is involved in numerous organizations and projects on interreligious
dialogue. His books in English include Human Conscience and Muslim-
Christian Relations (2006), The Power of Faiths in Global Politics (co-
edited, 1994) and Images of Jesus Christ in Islam (1999). He has also
published several books in Norwegian on Islam and Christian-Muslim
dialogue.
Halvor Moxnes is Professor of New Testament in the Faculty of Theology at
the University of Oslo. He is active in international scholarly collaboration
and organizations. Among his publications in English are Putting Jesus in
his Place: A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom (2003) and
Constructing Early Christian Families (edited, 1997). His main research
interests include the New Testament and Early Christianity in the cultural
context of the Mediterranean in Antiquity, the history of interpretation of
the historical Jesus in modern societies, and gender and masculinity studies
in religion.
Leif E. Vaage teaches New Testament literature and exegesis at Emmanuel
College of Victoria University and the Toronto School of Theology in the
University of Toronto. Most recently editor of Religious Rivalries in the
Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity (2006) and, previously,
author of Galilean Upstarts: Jesus’ First Followers According to Q (1994),
he is presently at work on another book about Q and the Gospel of Mark,
and a second one concerning alternate social subjectivities in earliest
Christianity.
Peter Normann Waage has studied Russian, Philosophy and History of
Ideas. He worked for many years as a commentator and journalist, and is
now a freelance journalist, lecturer and writer based in Oslo. He has
published books about Islam, the history of nationalism and on different
Russian topics. His biography on Fedor Dostoevsky (1997) was translated
into Russian and honoured with an award in St Petersburg.
INTRODUCTION
Halvor Moxnes, Ward Blanton and James G. Crossley
Many of the major political, social and intellectual crises that confront the
world today are related to questions of identity. Recent wars both in Europe
and Africa are described by participants and observers alike as struggles for
identity, and the powers of nationality, ethnicity and race have been used
to generate and strengthen a multitude of divisions and conflicts. On an
even larger scale, it has been suggested that conflicts between the US and
other Western countries, on the one hand, and some Middle Eastern and
Muslim countries, on the other, can be explained by a grandiose scheme
of “clashes of civilizations.” At the same moment, many previously
homogenous societies are now experiencing a development toward
situations of cultural complexity, due in large part to international
migrations of labour, political asylum seekers and immigrants from a large
diversity of societies, cultures and religions.
Thus, the apparently simple act of understanding ourselves may yet
become more and more difficult in the changing and increasingly complex
situation in which we now find ourselves. It is in such a situation that this
book analyses important attempts at such self-understanding by studying
interpretations of (the historical) Jesus. Jesus has been and remains a central
cultural icon in all of the cultures just mentioned, which is to say along all
those fault lines of conflict or togetherness in terms of which we must
attempt to understand ourselves and others today. Scholarship on the
historical Jesus, therefore, necessarily revolves around questions of identity
and its construction both historically and within today’s ideological and
intellectual debates about identity politics.
This claim is not self-evident. In many societies there is an immense
popular interest in books, films and other media for presentations of
the historical Jesus. Films like The Passion of the Christ or books like