Class Struggle in the New Testament

Edited by Robert J. Myles - Contributions by Roland Boer; Alan H. Cadwallader; James G. Crossley; Neil Elliott; Deane Galbraith; Robert J. Myles; Christina Petterson; Sarah E. Rollens; Robyn Faith Walsh; Taylor Weaver; Bruce Worthington; Christopher B. Ze

Class Struggle in the New Testament engages the political and economic realities of the first century to unmask the mediation of class through several New Testament texts and traditions. Essays span a range of subfields, presenting class struggle as the motor force of history by responding to recent debates, historical data, and new evidence on the political-economic world of Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels. Chapters address collective struggles in the Gospels; the Roman military and class; the usefulness of categories like peasant, retainer, and middling groups for understanding the world of Jesus; the class basis behind the origin of archangels; the Gospels as products of elite culture; the implication of capitalist ideology upon biblical interpretation; and the New Testament's use of slavery metaphors, populist features, and gifting practices. This book will become a definitive reference point for future discussion.

1.Class Struggle in the New Testament!Robert J. Myles2.Jesus, the Temple, and the Crowd: A Way Less TraveledNeil Elliott3.Romans Go Home? The Military as a Site of Class Struggle in the Roman East and New TestamentChristopher B. Zeichmann4.Peasant Plucking in Mark: Conceptual and Material IssuesAlan H. Cadwallader5.IVDAEA DEVICTA: The Gospels as Imperial ¿Captive Literature¿Robyn Faith Walsh6.Fishing for Entrepreneurs in the Sea of Galilee? Unmasking Neoliberal Ideology in Biblical InterpretationRobert J. Myles7.Hand of the Master: Of Slaveholders and the Slave-RelationRoland Boer and Christina Petterson8.Populist Features in the Gospel of MatthewBruce Worthington9.Troubling the Retainer Class in AntiquitySarah E. Rollens10.Rethinking Pauline Gift and Social Functions: Class Struggle in Early Christianity?Taylor Weaver11.The Origin of Archangels: Ideological Mystification of NobilityDeane Galbraith12.Christian Origins and the Specter of Class: Locating Class Struggle in the New Testament TodayJames G. Crossley