of a biblical Jubilee by Jesus are my own. If their somewhat unusual character can stimulate the curiosity of the specialists and provoke further inquiry into the social ethics and nonviolence of Jesus, I will have attained my goal.
André Trocmé
PART I
Jesus and His Revolution
CHAPTER ONE
Jesus the Jew
In Jesus’ time Galilee was a place in transition. Three languages – Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek – were used. Dualistic doctrines from the east on the devil, angels, and demons threatened belief in strict Jewish monotheism. Hellenistic civilization was invading the last strongholds of Judaism. Raised in this complex environment,1 Jesus could have laid the foundations of his movement by simply borrowing from all the surrounding sources. But he didn’t.
We need merely to read the synoptic Gospels2 to discover that Jesus was, at the very least, a Jewish prophet, the last in a line that had begun with Amos and ended with John the Baptist. Matthew in particular had one obvious intention: to demonstrate that Jesus was truly the Messiah whom the prophets had announced. Hence his generous use of Old Testament quotations.
The Gospels in general had no trouble showing the Jewish character of Jesus’ thought. And this is for good reason. Jesus, as a Jew, had only one library at his disposal, namely the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. These scriptures inspired his teachings and parables. Jesus’ contemporaries made no mistake on this score. Even the ones who refused to recognize him as the Messiah saw him as an authentic prophet.3 The theology and moral teaching of Jesus was nothing less than Jewish theology and Jewish moral teaching without the ritual elements. “You diligently study the Scriptures…These are the Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:39). “I have not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them,” he affirmed. “What did Moses command you?” he asked his questioners. When he gave the Golden Rule, “Do to others what you would have them do to you,” still considered the supreme lay expression of morality, he justified it with a peculiarly Jewish expression, “for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).
The Law of Moses, enlarged and commented upon by the prophets, was the law of the Jewish people. It mixed together religious, moral, social, and political prescriptions. When the prophets sounded their calls they addressed themselves to Israel – the people of God. They thought of Judah and Jerusalem as corporate personalities. They thus called the entire people of God to repentance. Justice had to be restored, religion purified, customs transformed, and the Torah put into practice at all levels. Similarly, Jesus addressed his reproaches and his appeals to the entire Jewish people. When he proclaimed metanoia, that is, a radical change of heart and mind, he was not addressing himself to pagan “nations,” per se, but to the Israelite community. Jesus traveled up and down Galilee preaching the good news of the kingdom, the reign of God: “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). When he commissioned the twelve apostles, he instructed them: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel” (Matt. 10:5–6).4
Keeping in mind that the Jewish faith was a national religion, it is worth noting that Jesus accepted and taught without hesitation several typically Jewish notions. For instance, Jesus’ universalism did not spring from Greek rationalism, or from Roman law, or from some Enlightenment conception of individual rights. It was also certainly not the offspring of a happy marriage between Judaism and Neoplatonism. It grew out of a Judaism that “exploded” under the pressure and dynamism of the messianism borne within it. Greek and Roman ideals were simply too well balanced, too symmetrical to inspire action. Jesus’ universalism, rooted as it was in Judaism’s understanding of redemptive history was, on the contrary, asymmetrical. It contained a creative impulse that continuously renewed itself. How so? Consider the following.
The Chosen People
The Old Testament recounts how God chose Abraham of Ur. “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you…I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:1–3). This sense of election, which pious Jews still believe in today, continues to cause suffering for the Jews and to be a scandal for non-Jews. Yet precisely because of its scandalous character and the disequilibrium it inspires, the notion of election generates movement and energy. This helps explain why the Jewish people has survived centuries of persecution intact, while other civilizations have come and gone.
Following in Israel’s footsteps, the church also understands itself as divinely chosen. It affirms that there is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ, and it undertakes in his name the conquest of the world through its reforming and charitable missions. This conviction of having been chosen by God has sadly and unnecessarily created tragic tensions between the Christian faith and other religions. Yet every time the church doubts its election, every time it plays down the “scandal of particularity,” its capacity to witness to the gospel also diminishes.
Whereas the Western church has lost much of its conquering dynamism, many in the proletariat, or working class, now consider themselves heirs of Christianity’s chosenness. Perhaps because they are “free from the sin of exploitation,” the poor have increasingly felt called to guide humanity in the “movement of history.” The oppressed thus compel the Christian West to arouse itself from the rationalistic torpor that it so much enjoys.5
But let us return to Israel’s election. It is the result of a divine choice as inexplicable as love, because Israel is “the least of the nations.” Strangely enough, even though God’s choice is arbitrary, it binds the responsibility of the elect. For if God makes a covenant with Israel to which he will be faithful, Israel is in return required to uphold its part of the agreement. Israel must be “holy,” or “set apart,” because it is to be a witness among the nations, with God as its light. As a result of this witness, all nations will eventually recognize that Israel’s God is the only one worthy of worship. But if Israel breaks the stipulations of the covenant and becomes unfaithful to Yahweh, terrible punishments will come. God’s people will be devastated, carried off in bondage, and destroyed. Only a small remnant will escape. And with this remnant God will again rebuild a faithful people.6
Jesus obviously shared this belief in Israel’s election. Precisely because of his Jewishness he addresses his prophetic call to the people of Israel. And having drawn the consequences of the Jews’ disobedience, he dared to announce the rejection of this stiff-necked people, while also envisioning the birth of a “remnant,” of a “small flock,” to which the Father would give the kingdom and to which the nations would be drawn.7
The Moral Bias
Perhaps even more important than the belief in election is Israel’s moral sense, or what we shall call the “moral bias of the Old Testament.” Like the Greek philosophies, Oriental cosmogonies try to explain the creation of the world and the origin of evil and death. Yet humanity always comes out as the victim of fate. Some refer to the Fall as a cosmic catastrophe; others explain evil as the necessary shadow cast by the good. For some, creation is subjected to the perpetual cycle of death and new beginnings. For others, the problem of evil is resolved by successive reincarnations of the human soul until its final absorption into God. The majority find consolation for the world’s injustices in the hope for a celestial paradise where sin and death will be abolished.8
The Old Testament, on the other hand, dares to attribute evil and death to a strictly moral cause. Death enters history because of humanity’s fault. And it is man who drags the other creatures with him into death.9 At first glance, such notions seem revolting. How can Genesis be reconciled with modern paleontology and evolutionary views that tell us that disease and death affected plants and animals long before man ever appeared on earth? Moreover, if the Old Testament is right, the righteous should be rewarded for their virtues.