(FOOTNOTES)

1 On the search for the subconscious beliefs of first-century Jews, see N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), p. 245. For an example of repressed data and a non-falsifiable hypothesis, consider Dom Crossan's explanation for Jesus' (first and only) journey to Jerusalem at Passover in Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994), pp. 135-136, "Was James a Pharisee? ... Did he come there [Jerusalem] only after the execution of Jesus, or had he been there long before it?...Above all, was he in Jerusalem long before Jesus' death, and did his presence there invite, provoke, challenge Jesus' only journey to Jerusalem?" Crossan concedes that his proposal is "tentative" and "terribly hypothetical." I think it's desperate and will say more below.

2 On the major themes of Jewish restoration theology, see E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 77-119, 222-241 (a reconstruction of Jesus' views within this perspective); E. Schurer-G. Vermes et al., History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: 1973-86), 2:514-546; and P. Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ. The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 77-86.

3 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 1-58, which includes a clear statement of the historical problems and method of proceeding; see also pp. 61-76, on Jesus and the Temple; and pp. 77-119 on the development of the context of restoration eschatology in general and traditions concerning a new or restored Temple in particular. These ideas, less programmatically, likewise contour Sanders' popular reprise of his project, The Historical Figure of Jesus (Harmondsworth: Penguin Press, 1993), chs. 6, 7, and 16. See also the excellent review essay on this latter book and Sanders' project generally by Heikki Raisanen, "Jesus in Context," Reviews in Religion and Theology (1994), pp. 9-18.

4 Mk. 11:17 and parallels; cf. Jn. 2:15-17, an elaboration on this theme.

5 Burton Mack, A Myth of Innocence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). My discussion here also draws on the work of David Seeley, "Jesus' Death in Q," New Testament Studies, 38 (1992), pp. 222-234; "Jesus' Temple Act," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 55 (1993), pp. 263-283; and Deconstructing the New Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994).

6 Seeley, Deconstructing the New Testament, p. 169.

7 Mack, Mark, p. 66.

8 This approach is most associated with the work of John Kloppenburg; see now, most recently, Burton Mack, The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993).

9 "The Cynic's self-understanding must be taken seriously as that which many must have expected of Jesus....[Jesus'] themes and topics are much closer to Cynic idiom than to those characteristic for public Jewish piety. One seeks in vain a direct engagement with specifically Jewish concerns," Mack, Mark, p. 73.

10 Ibid.

11 "The [miracle] stories were a reminder about the effect Jesus had upon people as some remembered him....They give the impression that Jesus was the source of a divine power capable of effecting radical human transformations....The stories suggest that Jesus was able to set something in motion that enabled people to "see," "talk," "walk." "eat," and function freely within a transformed ethos," Mack, Mark p. 76.

12 Seeley, "Jesus' Death in Q"; Deconstructing The New Testament, pp. 162-165.

13 Mack, Mark pp. 242f., 288-296.

14 Ibid. p. 89. He continues, "[Jesus] may, of course, have been trying out a few ideas about the Kingdom of God away from home....One dare not overly dramatize, however, thinking the spotlight must have fallen on Jesus as the gospels have it. Only his followers took note, and then, not all of them."

15 For a different cultural construal of the archaeological (and other) data, see Sean Freyne, Galilee, Jesus, and the Gospels (Fortress: Philadelphia, 1988); on the difficulty of matching social reconstruction to archaeological evidence, James F. Strange, "First-Century Galilee from Archaeology and from Texts," SBL Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 81-90; also, in the same volume, Richard A. Horsley, "The Historical Jesus and the Archaeology of Galilee: Questions from Historical Jesus Research to Archaeologists," pp. 91-135; Horsley, "Wisdom Justified by all her Children: Examining Allegedly Disparate Traditions in Q," pp. 733-751, a critical look at recent redactional theories and analytical categories applied to Q.

16 "There is a friendly joke circulating among Jesus scholars: Burton Mack's Jesus was killed in a car accident on a freeway in Los Angeles. The point: for Mack, there is no significant connection between what Jesus was like and the fact that he was executed. His death was, in an important sense, accidental," Marcus J. Borg, "Portraits of Jesus in Contemporary North American Scholarship," Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Trinity Press International: Valley Forge, 1994), pp. 18-43 at p. 38, n. 28; the chapter reprints his article by the same title for Harvard Theological Review, 84 (1991), pp. 1-22.

17 John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991).

18 See note 1 above.

19 Crossan, Historical Jesus, p. xii. He further develops this conjecture about Jesus' post-Johannine lapse from apocalyptic on pp. 237f.

20 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 196.

21 Crossan, Historical Jesus, p. 263, which moves from first-century Judaean peasants to Europe to Southeast Asia; similarly Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, pp. 71-74, which ends on a quotation, used also in the larger book, from Hobsbaum's work on nineteenth-century Sicilian bandits.

22 Crossan, Historical Jesus, p. 100.

23 See esp. ch. 12, "Kingdom and Wisdom," and ch. 13, "Miracle and Meal," in Historical Jesus, for Crossan's non-apocalyptic interpretation of the evangelical kingdom-motif.

24 Ibid., p. 323.

25 Ibid., p. 263.

26 Ibid., p. 355. See also, Ch. 14, "John and Jesus," where baptism, healing, and magic all "cast negative aspersions, be they explicit or implicit, on the Temple cult," p. 235.

27 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 133.

28 Ibid., p. 197; see also, p. 133.

29 Ibid., p. 263.

30 Ibid., p. 304.

31 Cf. Historical Jesus, p. 360, quoted above; similarly Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 133.

32 Cf., for a different construal of the same evidence, Freyne, Galilee, p. 28 (on the danger of using social models to generate sociological facts about first-century Galilee); p. 39 (the good health of the Galilean economy); pp. 155-175 (more on Galilean economics); also David Adan-Bayewitz, Common Pottery in Roman Galilee: A Study of Local Trade (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993), especially ch. 11. Jim Strange notes that "from archaeological surveys in Galilee it is possible to posit another dimension of social reality. It seems that there are more farmers on small plots of land than those plots will support. This suggests that the small land owner had to work for wages for somebody else at least part of the time, or else develop a specialty on the side which could be marketed. Thus the simple designation "peasant" for this social stratum is misleading, since these people appear to have also been artisans and small entrepreneurs as well as agricultural laborers." (my emphasis). "First-Century Galilee," p. 89. Lenski's model might not speak to this more variegated social picture.

33 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 423.

34 Ibid., p. 421.

35 Crossan seems to envisage a market competition, wherein "inclusive" Christians outsold "exclusive" Jews in the race to convert the empire: "Did Judaism give too little in failing to convert the Roman Empire? Did Christianity give too much in succeeding?" (Crossan, Historical Jesus, p. 423; for his entire discussion of missions, pp. 418-426). There is little evidence that Judaism of any sort, whether Hellenistic or not, ever established missions to Gentiles; and Crossan is led astray here in part by his dated secondary sources. See now Shaye J.D. Cohen, "Crossing the Boundary and Becoming a Jew," Harvard Theological Review 82 (1989), pp. 13-33 and "Was Judaism in Antiquity a Missionary Religion?," Jewish Assimilation, Acculturation and Accommodation: Past Traditions, Current Issues and Future Prospects, edited by M. Mor (1992), pp. 14-23; P. Fredriksen, "Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2," Journal for Theological Studies, 42(1991) pp. 532-564; E. Will and C. Orrieux, "Proselytisme juif?" L'histoire d'un erreur (Paris 1992); and Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion. Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1994).

36 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 422.

37 Ibid., p. 82.

38 Ibid., p. 91

39 Crossan, Historical Jesus, p. 394.

40 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 127.

41 Cf., On healing miracles, Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 157-173; on the relation of healing to religious authority within Judaism, Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), pp. 86-98. Ancient texts--pagan, Jewish, and Christian--depict too many miracle-workers and healers for us to reasonably conjecture that all such were actually disguised reports of social critique.

42 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 197.

43 Marcus Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1994).

44 N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).

45 Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, p. 109.

46 Ibid., p. 110

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.,p. 111.

49 Ibid., p. 123, n. 51.

50 Ibid., p. 61.

51 Ibid., p. 26.

52 Ibid., p. 113.

53 Ibid., p. 115.

54 Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, p. 225.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid., pp. 230-232.

57 Ibid., p. 274.

58 Ibid., p. 276.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid., p. 333.

61 Ibid., p. 424.

62 Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, manuscript page 182.

63 Ibid., ms. p. 295.

64 Ibid., ms. p. 254.

65 Ibid., ms. p. 282.

66 Ibid., ms. p. 284.

67 Ibid., ms. p. 282.

68 Ibid., ms. p. 279.

69 Ibid., ms. p. 267; see also ms. p. 152.

70 Ibid., ms. p. 317.

71 Ibid., ms. p. 252.

72 Ibid., ms. p. 290.

73 Ibid., ms. p. 300.

74 Ibid., ms. p. 318.

75 Ibid., ms. p. 325.

76 Ibid., ms. p. 321.

77 Ibid., ms. p. 336.

78 Ibid., ms. pp. 324, 344.

79 Ibid., ms. pp. 330.

80 The conceit is elaborate. Since the book is not yet in print, I quote a key passage in full from the typescript: "As a prophet, Jesus staked his reputation on his prediction of the Temple's fall within a generation, and when it fell he would thereby be vindicated. As the kingdom-bearer, he had constantly been acting...in a way which invited the conclusion that he thought he had the right to do and be what the Temple did and was, thereby implicitly making the Temple redundant. The story he had been telling, and by which he had ordered his life, demanded a particular ending. If, then, the Temple remained forever, and his movement fizzled out...he would be shown to be a charlatan, a false prophet--maybe even a blasphemer. But if the Temple is destroyed and the sacrifices stopped; if the pagan hordes tear it down stone by stone; and if his followers escaped the conflagration unharmed, in a re-enactment of Israel's escape from their exile in doomed Babylon-why then he is vindicated, not only as a prophet, but as Israel's representative, as (in some sense) the 'son of man'" (Wright, MS, p. 334).

81 "Living in Jerusalem, Lk. 24:52; Acts 1:12 and passim; Gal. 1:17-2:1; worshiping in the Temple, Lk. 24:53; Acts 3:1, 5:12, 42; 21:26ff. (Paul); 22:17 (again); specifically sacrificing, Mt. 5:23-24; Sabbaths, e.g., Mk 16:1 and parallels. especially Lk. 23:56b ("On the sabbath day they rested according to the commandment"); fasts, Mt. 6:16-18; festivals, Acts 2:1 (Pentecost, i.e., Shavuot); cf., perhaps, 1 Cor. 16:8; food laws, Acts passim and especially Peter's vision, 10:10-16; Gal. 2:12, and the controversy generally. For discussion, Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 245-269; on confusions resulting from conflating the evangelical portraits with the Pauline evidence, Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ, pp. 102-112.

82 See Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 182 ff; Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1992), pp. 72-77; 213-240. Wright consistently confuses sin and impurity, while resting his discussion on citations to Sanders, People of God, pp. 213, 225, and frequently comparing to Crossan, who conflates sickness, impurity, sin, and forgiveness (Historical Jesus, pp. 323f.).

83 The biblical legislation is found in Num. 9:2-11; regarding complications caused by corpse impurity at Pesach, see especially vv. 9-11. Pesach sheini was a second Passover held one month later to accommodate those who were corpse-impure for the holiday in Nisan; see also Num. 19 on the red heifer ashes and the ceremonial detergents for removing impurity. See Sanders, Historical Figure, pp. 249-252 on purification, Passover, and Jesus' last week in Jerusalem.

84 Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, p. 278.

85 Ibid., p. 120.

86 Ibid., p. 363.

87 The question, though, is complicated. See the review of the evidence and arguments by Daniel R. Schwartz, "On Sacrifice by Gentiles in the Temple of Jerusalem," Studies in the Jewish Background of Christianity (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), pp. 102-115.

88 J. Reynolds and R. Tannenbaum, Jews and God-fearers at Aphrodisias (Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1987), pp. 64-65. Tannenbaum adduces in support, in note 277, a string of citations to tractate Zebahim. These seem to refer, on the contrary, to offerings brought to the Temple. His reference in the following note, however--Sifra 83b, parasha vav--is a legal discussion on the status of Gentile sacrifices outside of Jerusalem (they were acceptable). I thank my colleague Mark Hirschman for guiding me through this rabbinic material.

89 The incident at the Temple, pp. 111-114; arrest and "trials," pp. 115-122; narrative summary, pp. 127-130.

90 SBL Seminar Papers (Atlanta 1990), pp. 293-310.

91 See also From Jesus to Christ, pp. 177-185.

92 John provides the following sequence of Jesus' trips to Jerusalem: 2:13 Passover (and the "cleansing" of the Temple); 5:1 a feast; 7:10 Sukkot (Tabernacles); 10:22 feast of Dedication (and thus a celebration of the Temple's purification!); 11:55 Passover again.

93 Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).

94 Stephen D. O'Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

95 John also knew some version of the Temple incident. He placed it early in Jesus' ministry, where its significance is mostly symbolic; it sets the tone for Jesus' relations with official Judaism, and it foreshadows the Passion (2:13-22). He may have gotten it from Mark--the issue is contested--or he may have gotten it from an independent tradition.

96 Mk. 11:1-10 and parallels.

97 See Arguing the Apocalypse on the growth of the Millerites--especially after the failure of Miller's apocalyptic prediction (also known as "The Great Disappointment") of March 1844--into the Seventh Day Adventist Church, pp. 99-133.

98 See From Jesus to Christ, pp. 16, 149-156, 165-176; for further citation to primary sources for this Jewish tradition of the eschatological inclusion (not conversion) of Gentiles, see Fredriksen, "The Circumcision of Gentiles," especially pp. 544-548.

99 Johannes Weiss, Jesus' Proclamation of the Kingdom (ET, Fortress: Philadelphia, 1971; orig. pub. Gottingen, 1892), p. 131. I would like to thank theologian Wesley Wildman for sharing with me the typescript of his forthcoming book, The Quest for a Believable Jesus. His review of the nineteenth-century roots of our century's christological dilemmas refreshed my sense of the value of Weiss' discussion and suggested the framing of the present essay. I am very grateful. See, too, Raisanen's appreciation of Weiss, "Jesus in Context," p. 18.

100 Borg, Jesus, p. 83.

101 Wright, MS 326, on Jesus' "mindset."

102 Wright, MS 88.

103 Thus, for example, Crossan, on Jesus' social program: "No importance was given to distinctions of Gentile and Jew, female and male, slave and free, poor and rich." He does not cite Galatians (Historical Jesus, p. xii); "Open commensality profoundly negates distinctions and hierarchies between female and male, poor and rich, Gentile and Jew," again without citation (p. 263).

104 See, for example, Crossan, Historical Jesus, p. 292, where his four-fold typology generates Jesus' social role and function ("My proposal is that when we cross apocalyptic and sapiential with scribes and peasants, it becomes necessary to locate Jesus in the quadrant formed by sapiential and peasant.").

105 The most notable sign of the emphasis on racial purity is, of course, the notice in the Temple that forbade non-Jews to penetrate farther than the 'court of the Gentiles,' " Wright, People of God, p. 232. See also Marcus Borg, Jesus, p. 109.

106 "The failure of wealth to bring social esteem among Jews was only partly caused by the egalitarian ideals of the Torah....Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic had a term like the Latin bonus, which equated high social standing and morality with riches....The prestige gained by many rich Greeks and Romans by paying for their city's religious cults was undermined by the uniquely Jewish and deliberately egalitarian tradition that every adult male Jew should pay a half-shekel towards the upkeep of the sacrifices, the rich being positively prohibited from contributing more (Exodus 30:15)...," Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 128ff., also pp. 51-75.

107 For example, Bellum, 2.316, trying to calm the crowds in the face of Florus' provocations; 2:320, urging the crowd to follow Florus' wishes; 2:410, attempting to persuade the younger priests in not to suspend sacrifices for Rome's wellbeing.

Paula Fredriksen is the William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. She delivered an earlier version of this essay at the 1994 Professional Meeting of the AAR/SBL as the final plenary lecture in the series "Frontiers in Biblical Scholarship," sponsored by the Endowment for Biblical Research, the American Academy of Religion, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the Society of Biblical Literature.