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Rating: 
Summary: Social Reform
Review: Harsley and Silberman provide a social and economic setting of the time of Jesus and Paul (10 BCE - 70 CE) and the "Jesus Movement". Without addressing the religious truth of Christianity, they describe its social context and the impact it had on Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean.The authors draw on recent archaeological finds to present a picture of life during this time. Along with the Bible and writings of Josephus, they use non-canonical early Christian writings, and Roman documents and inscriptions. Bibliographical Notes in addition to the Bibliography make it easy to refer to more original sources in topics of interest. The book is somehat hard to read, visually. This edition uses a very light serif font, and the paragraphs are rather long. Some familiarity with Biblical accounts of Jesus and Paul would be helpful for the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Social Reform
Review: Harsley and Silberman provide a social and economic setting of the time of Jesus and Paul (10 BCE - 70 CE) and the "Jesus Movement". Without addressing the religious truth of Christianity, they describe its social context and the impact it had on Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean. The authors draw on recent archaeological finds to present a picture of life during this time. Along with the Bible and writings of Josephus, they use non-canonical early Christian writings, and Roman documents and inscriptions. Bibliographical Notes in addition to the Bibliography make it easy to refer to more original sources in topics of interest. The book is somehat hard to read, visually. This edition uses a very light serif font, and the paragraphs are rather long. Some familiarity with Biblical accounts of Jesus and Paul would be helpful for the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: Professor Horsley has repeatedly offered us books impeccably researched and annotated in great detail. Yet despite the promise of those works, Horsley has too often hidden his gifts behind an impenetrable wall of technicalities and minutia. In his attempts to demonstrate his intelligence, Horsley has sometimes made his writing obtuse and inaccessible to the average reader. This, however, is not one of his failures. Here Horsley finally gets it right. Here Horsley fulfills the promise of his other works. Examining the politics, sociology, psychology and religion of the renewal movements founded by John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, and Paul of Tarsus, Horsley and Silberman weave an exhilarating narrative that exposes the historical roots of Christianity. Thoroughly comprehendible by the lay reader, without sacrificing scholarship, this book demonstrates that the authors can strike an appropriate balance between academia and popular reading.
Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: Professor Horsley has repeatedly offered us books impeccably researched and annotated in great detail. Yet despite the promise of those works, Horsley has too often hidden his gifts behind an impenetrable wall of technicalities and minutia. In his attempts to demonstrate his intelligence, Horsley has sometimes made his writing obtuse and inaccessible to the average reader. This, however, is not one of his failures. Here Horsley finally gets it right. Here Horsley fulfills the promise of his other works. Examining the politics, sociology, psychology and religion of the renewal movements founded by John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, and Paul of Tarsus, Horsley and Silberman weave an exhilarating narrative that exposes the historical roots of Christianity. Thoroughly comprehendible by the lay reader, without sacrificing scholarship, this book demonstrates that the authors can strike an appropriate balance between academia and popular reading.
Rating:
Summary: Storming the kingdom
Review: Some academic works read like bad novels (Crossan's books and Chilton's "Rabbi Jesus" come to mind), but this one reads like a good novel, engaging the reader from start to finish. It describes first-century Palestine as a hotbed of apocalyptic protest resulting from escalating tenancy, debt, and taxation, where Galilee was especially rough going. Prophets like John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth were fiercely political, their movements aimed at restoring Israel and its traditional Torah values against the imperial ideology of Rome. Somewhat like Herzog (in "Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God"), Horsley and Silberman argue that Jesus' dictum, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's", was a veiled way of saying that everything belonged to God.
The second half is Paul's story, portraying the apostle as anti-empire as his savior. The authors argue that Paul's collection for the poor was a means of "storming the kingdom" -- fulfilling the prophecies of Isaiah which promised God's dramatic intervention after the Gentiles brought gifts to Jerusalem. Paul certainly wanted to help the poor, but he wanted even more to call down God's wrath on Caesar. And since this was imminent, the apostle advised temporary resignation to the powers-that-be: "Let everyone be subject to governing authorities; pay taxes." Nothing should be done to jeopardize the undertaking of the movement, since God's kingdom was nearer than ever before (Rom 13:11).
Paradoxically, the book downplays eschatology while running riot with apocalypticism. The authors say that Jesus and Paul's apocalyptic language was hyperbolic and pointed to a kingdom coming by social revolution. It's hard to see how anyone living in the patron-client world of the ancient Mediterranean could have believed this possible. The inverse is far more likely. Jesus and Paul's apocalyptic language was literal -- the kingdom, indeed, involved miraculous divine intervention -- though politically polemical, carrying direct social implications. In any case, most of this book adds up to a convincing story of Jesus and Paul as seen through the eyes of those who mattered most to them: low-lives at the bottom of Rome's social heap.
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