Jesus Was Not an Egalitarian. A Critique of an Anachronistic and Idealist Theory

Abstract

The currently-advanced theory that Jesus was an egalitarian who founded a "community of equals" is devoid of social and political plausibility and, more importantly, of textual and historical evidence. Moreover, it distorts the actual historical and social nature of the nascent Jesus movement and constitutes a graphic example of an "idealist fallacy." The biblical texts to which proponents of the egalitarian theory appeal show Jesus and his followers engaged not in social revolution, democratic institutions, equality, and the eradication of the traditional family, but in establishing a form of community modelled on the family as redefined by Jesus and united by familial values, norms, and modes of conduct. I dedicate this study to the memory of Leland J. White, visionary co-editor of this journal since 1984. The topic of the essay involves the intersection of issues (historical, social, cultural, and theological) dear to his heart. I offer these rather un-PC remarks as homage to an esteemed friend and scrupulously honest colleague.Te Declaration of Inde P endence adopted b Y the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776 contained the revolutionary concept that &dquo;all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.&dquo; Across the Atlantic in the same period, a revolution in France likewise was fueled by a call for libert6, egalité, et fraternite. While the notion of equality or egalitarianism eventually required further clarification and specification, especially in respect to the question of whether the term &dquo;men&dquo; included slaves and women, for example, this conviction concerning human equality even, tually was to animate and shape the governmental polities of all states and the social policies of all institutions of the modern world. The quest for equality eventually also was felt in religious bodies resulting not only in the restructuring of admission and leadership policies but also in religious movements supportive of the abolition of slavery, the affirmation of women's suffrage, and the active support of civil rights movements attempting to make the equality of all persons a reality in the ecclesiastical as well as the civil sphere.One interesting feature of some recent studies on the historical Jesus and the Jesus movement is the claim that already two thousand years ago Jesus was an &dquo;egalitarian&dquo; and that the group affiliated with the social reformer from Nazareth put into practice a &dquo;discipleship of equals.&dquo; This is a view argued forcefully by

God of Justice and Reconciliation?

“…29 As Elliott puts it, "The empire as such is never [Paul's] direct target: his goal is to lay a claim on the allegiance of his listeners with which the rival claims of empire inevitably interfered", but this did not mean Paul could untie him from his own context, "Paul's own thinking and rhetoric also was shaped by the ideological constraints of his age" (Elliott 2008:15). 30 Claiming the political significance of justice and reconciliation in the NT impinge also on debates about topics like the radical Jesus (Oakman 2004) or whether Jesus was an egalitarian (J. H. Elliott 2002).…”

What Is a Woman Created For? The Image of Women in Russia through the Lens of the Russian Orthodox Church

“…Although Jesus highlighted an important role and value of women and recognized them as fellow human beings, he however did not make any criticism or rejection of the patriarchal structure that oppressed women at his time – all his criticism can be understood through his actions (Borland, 1991; Franzmann, 2000). Whereas some New Testament theorists interpret Jesus injunction’s to his followers to leave their families as a rejection of the patriarchal family structure, other scholars emphasize that while criticizing some aspects of behaviour in the household, Jesus did not challenge the family as an institution and a conventional male-dominated family model, which was known to him as the only model of the household (Elliott, 2002). This model presumed a patriarchal rather than egalitarian structure with a strictly hierarchical order for all household members and was grounded on a model of the Kingdom, where God symbolized the royal monarchy and was a guarantor of sustainability because if the Kingdom lost its king, it would be destroyed (Lk.…”

“…Jesus emphasized to his followers the importance of their presence in their families as 'a master' or a head of the household (similar to God in the Kingdom) to maintain the household. Thus, he did not reject the principle of the patriarchal family but instead supported the Jewish family lifestyle concept and emphasized male leadership (Carmody, 1989;Elliott, 2002). Some feminist writers argue that Paul is the one responsible for the installment of preexisting ideas of sexism into Christianity (Carmody, 1989;Ferguson, 1995).…”

Weapons of the (Christian) weak: pedagogy of trickery in Early Christian texts

“…6 However mimetic its language, and however symmetrically authoritarian its ideology might appear (Pippin 1992;Royalty 1998;Moore 2006), there are still reasons to credit apocalyptic literature with discomforting the welladjusted (Maier 2002), capitalizing on "relative deprivation" (Collins 1984), 7 and, eventually, calling for (more) justice against differently interpreted forms of oppression. 8 On the one hand, a religious script does not have to harbor feminism and preach social egalitarianism (Elliott 2002) to be deemed subversive by power-holders; on the other, doomsayers and millenarian authors are fairly unambiguous in claiming that Christ religion must have no part in the conventionally customized Mediterranean culture. No matter their interested use of apocalyptic literature to gain authorityfor instance, by advertising a persecuted self as a "viable identity" and writing "relatively elite literary product[s]" (Rollens 2019)the fundamental idea is that being Christian is being dissident while being insurgent is not an option.…”