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Catholic

2023-12-04T22:28:58-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

‘Render to Caesar’ – or Not. The Speech of Oppressed People

Last updated on: December 4, 2023 at 10:28 pm By Jack Hartjes

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One of the charges against Jesus during his trial is that he forbade payment of the tax to the empire. William R. Herzog II says it’s one of the two charges that probably were true. (The other is threatening to destroy the temple.) But the gospels give us Jesus’ famous statement that seems to endorse paying taxes: “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Ched Myers (see this earlier post) says a Judean theologian would... Read more

Bible

Herzog

Social Justice

2023-12-04T22:39:18-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Personal Morality: Jesus’ Village Politics Can’t be Without It

Last updated on: December 4, 2023 at 10:39 pm By Jack Hartjes

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These essays on William R. Herzog’s Jesus Justice and the Reign of God have delved into Jesus’ politics and economics. They showed Jesus taking the side of peasants and landless laborers in their struggles under economic, political, and religious oppressors. Jesus castigated these latter groups for not acting justly toward the poor. But what about personal morality? Surely Jesus also expected peasants to act justly in their village lives even as pressures from power centers made that life difficult. Did... Read more

Bible

Herzog

Social Justice

2023-02-13T08:07:15-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Dangerous Thoughts: Three Parables in Dissembling Villager Speak

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 8:07 am By Jack Hartjes

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For some time I’ve been working with the conviction that many, if not most, of Jesus’ parables are not what tradition, as I first learned it, has made of them. Jesus did not code heavenly meanings in earthy stories that his peasant listeners could relate to most easily. It was an entirely different kind of coding – of dangerous thoughts that poor subjects of an oppressive system would have loved to say openly but didn’t dare. Oppressed peoples are often... Read more

2023-02-13T08:07:38-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Jesus Reinterprets the Sabbath and Subverts the Social Order

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 8:07 am By Jack Hartjes

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Many times in the Gospels and, presumably, many times in historical reality Jesus gets in trouble with authorities over Sabbath rules. Rather, perhaps, than getting in trouble like an inattentive schoolboy, Jesus seems to jump at any chance to stir things up. That, at any rate, is the hypothesis of this post. Jesus courts controversy over the Sabbath and subverts an oppressive social order in the process. This is the seventh post on William R. Herzog II’s Jesus, Justice and... Read more

Bible

Herzog

Social Justice

2023-02-13T08:08:25-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Tradition of the Elders or the Mercy of God

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 8:08 am By Jack Hartjes

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In a section of Mark’s Gospel that my Bible calls “The Tradition of the Elders,” Jesus argues Sacred Scripture with some Scribes and Pharisees. To argue Scripture is to take a stand in a larger polemic about the nature of God. Often it also envisages divine support for one side or another on a hot-button political issue. Both of these factors animate to Jesus’ harsh criticism of the tradition of the elders. This is the sixth post on William R.... Read more

Bible

Herzog

Social Justice

2023-02-13T08:08:42-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Rich Man Follows All the Old Rules. Or Does He?

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 8:08 am By Jack Hartjes

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A rich man asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. It would seem to be a time for Jesus to come up with some new rules. The laws that the man claims to have followed “since my youth” don’t satisfy. But Jesus didn’t need new laws to support his vision of the God he recognized as Father of the poor. Jesus didn’t replace the old Law, the Torah, with a new one or even upgrade the old Law. What Jesus... Read more

Politics and Religion

2025-02-20T10:58:11-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Temple, Jesus, and the Little Traditions of Village Life

Last updated on: February 20, 2025 at 10:58 am By Jack Hartjes

“Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.” (John 2:19) Could Jesus, once a village handyman, have meant that literally? What would the temple that he built in three days be like? This is the fourth post on William R. Herzog II’s Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God. Earlier posts in the series are: The Historical Jesus and the Transcendent God in the Work of William Herzog Context Group Continues the Long History of Witnessing to... Read more

2023-02-13T08:09:04-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Jesus Heals a Paralytic and Opens a Temple-Free Zone of Grace

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 8:09 am By Jack Hartjes

The Healing of the Paralytic (Gospel of Mark 2:1-12) is Jesus’ challenge to the oppressive ways of the temple and its officials. This is the third in a series on William R. Herzog II’s Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God. It considers the first half of Chapter 6, “Something Greater than the Temple is Here.” (Pages 111-132) Previous posts in this series are: The Historical Jesus and the Transcendent God in the Work of William Herzog Context Groups Continues... Read more

Bible

Herzog

Social Justice

2023-02-13T08:09:21-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Context Group Continues the Long History of Witnessing to Jesus

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 8:09 am By Jack Hartjes

A group of scholars called the Context Group has added to the number of people having their say about Jesus and the Bible. Since the 1990’s their special contribution has been to take seriously studies of Jesus’ social, economic, and political environment. (At Patheos’ Messy Inspirations “Fellow Dying Inmate” often refers to context group scholars; e.g. here and here.) William R. Herzog II says the contest group’s work is one of many stages in the search for a usable Jesus of history, a search that... Read more

Herzog

Uncategorized

2023-02-13T08:09:30-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Historical Jesus and the Transcendent God in the Work of William Herzog

Last updated on: February 13, 2023 at 8:09 am By Jack Hartjes

William T. Herzog’s book Parables as Subversive Speech uses historical-critical methods to unveil a “historical Jesus” behind the texts of the Gospels. He analyzes the parables as Jesus probably spoke them in the political, economic, and religious context of his world. That work lent plausibility to his beginning hypothesis, which described Jesus as “pedagogue of the poor.” In concluding a series of posts on that book (here), I referred to a common criticism. Herzog strengthens our perception of a Jesus... Read more

Herzog

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