The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics
£25.00 – £60.00
Did Jesus ever do anything wrong? Judging by the vast majority of books on New Testament ethics, the answer is a resounding No. Writers on New Testament ethics generally view Jesus as the paradigm of human standards and behaviour. But since the historical Jesus was a human being, must he not have had flaws, like everyone else?
Did Jesus ever do anything wrong? Judging by the vast majority of books on New Testament ethics, the answer is a resounding No. Writers on New Testament ethics generally view Jesus as the paradigm of human standards and behaviour. But since the historical Jesus was a human being, must he not have had flaws, like everyone else?
The notion of a flawless human Jesus is a paradoxical oddity in New Testament ethics. According to Avalos, it shows that New Testament ethics is still primarily an apologetic enterprise despite its claim to rest on critical and historical scholarship.
The Bad Jesus is a powerful and challenging study, presenting detailed case studies of fundamental ethical principles enunciated or practised by Jesus but antithetical to what would be widely deemed ‘acceptable’ or ‘good’ today. Such topics include Jesus’ supposedly innovative teachings on love, along with his views on hate, violence, imperialism, animal rights, environmental ethics, Judaism, women, disabled persons and biblical hermeneutics.
After closely examining arguments offered by those unwilling to find any fault with the Jesus depicted in the Gospels, Avalos concludes that current treatments of New Testament ethics are permeated by a religiocentric, ethnocentric and imperialistic orientation. But if it is to be a credible historical and critical discipline in modern academia, New Testament ethics needs to discover both a Good and a Bad Jesus.
Additional information
| table of contents | 1. Introduction Basic Elements of the Argument 2. The Unloving Jesus: What’s New Is Old Loving the Enemy in the Ancient Near East Love Can Entail Violence The Golden Rule: Love as Tactical The Parochialism of New Testament Ethics 3. The Hateful Jesus: Luke 14.26 Jesus Commands Hate Expressing Preference Hate as a Motive for Divorce The Statistics of Hate and Love The Semantic Logic of Love and Hate 4. The Violent Jesus Matthew 10.34-37: Jesus’ Violent Purpose Matthew 5.38-42: Don’t Victimize Me, Please Matthew. 26.48-56: Non-Interference with Planned Violence John 2.15: Whipping up Pacifism Acts 9: Jesus Assaults Saul 5. The Suicidal Jesus: The Violent Atonement Jesus as a Willing Sacrificial Victim Mark 10.45: Self-Sacrifice as a Ransom Sacrifice as Service: Transformation or Denial? 2 Corinthians 5.18: Anselm Unrefuted René Girard: Sacrificing Apologetics 6. The Imperialist Jesus: We’re All God’s Slaves Rethinking ‘Anti-Imperialism’ Selective Anti-Imperialism The Benign Rhetoric of Imperialism Christ as Emperor The Kingdom of God as an Empire 7. The Anti-Jewish Jesus: Socio-Rhetorical Criticism as Apologetics Abuse Me, Please: Luke T. Johnson’s Apologetics When is Anti-Judaism not Anti-Judaism? When Did Christian Anti-Judaism Begin? 8. The Uneconomic Jesus as Enemy of the Poor Jesus as Radical Egalitarian The Fragrance of Poverty Sermon on the Mount of Debts and Merits 9. The Misogynistic Jesus: Christian Feminism as Male Ancestor Worship Mark 7//Matthew 15: The Misogynistic Jesus Mark 10//Matthew 19: Divorcing Equality The Womanless Twelve Apostles The Last Supper: Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner The Egalitarian Golden Age under Jesus 10. The Anti-Disabled Jesus: Less than Fully Human Disability Studies John 5 and 9: Redeeming Jesus The Ethics of Punctuation Paralyzed by Sin 11. The Magically Anti-Medical Jesus Miracles, Not Magic? The Naturalistic Jesus Psychosomatic Ethics 12. The Eco-Hostile Jesus Mark 5: Animal Rights and Deviled Ham Luke 22 and Matthew 8: Sacrificing Animal Rights Matthew 21: Fig-uratively Speaking Mark 13: Eschatological Eco-Destruction 13. The Anti-Biblical Jesus: Missed Interpretations Mel and Jesus: The Hypocrisy of New Testament Ethics Mark 2:23-28: Jesus as Biblically Illiterate Matthew 19: Jesus Adds his Own Twist on Divorce Isaiah 6:9-10: Integrating Extrabiblical Materials 14. Conclusion The Ethics of New Testament Ethics |
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