Bermejo-Rubio has a new article on the Bible and Interpretation website:
https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/article ... h-and-life
In answer to a question by Giuseppe, Bermejo-Rubio wrote this:
As to why we can confidently say that this apocalyptic preacher was somehow involved in anti-Roman ideology and practice (I prefer this more nuanced definition than "seditionist"), my arguments -which I deem indeed very solid and compelling- have been set forth, as you know, in many works,...
Must admit I was somewhat taken aback. Yes, I know, from his article featured in this thread, Bermejo-Rubio has complained that critics of his theory, like Jesse Nickel, focus on the use of sedition in his theory. In the article responding to Jesse Nickel, Bermejo-Rubio, labels Nickel's criticism as SJH (seditious Jesus hypothesis). But has not Bermejo-Rubio, in his articles, opened himself to 'distorting and caricaturing' of his hypothesis ?
A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interest of sedition. Wikipedia
Methinks, that the use of sedition in regard to the historical Jesus assumption was always going to get a backlash. Not simply because of the use of this word - but as I've posted a number of times - under Tiberius all was quite Relatively quite perhaps - but quite nevertheless in Judaea. Hence, arguments for a seditious Jesus during these years is a hard sell. (seditious elements in the gospel Jesus story are more likely to be elements of a much earlier sedition against Rome prior to Tiberius)
It does seem, from the new quote from Bermejo-Rubio, that he now wants to quieten the critics of his theory. He wants a more
'nuanced definition' of what he considers the seditionist elements in the gospel story.
''... apocalyptic preacher was somehow involved in anti-Roman ideology and practice..''
No serious scholar has ever labeled Jesus of Nazareth ‘a politically seditious
… revolutionary’, as if it were a precise definition. Since the works of Seidel
and Reimarus, every proponent of a historical reconstruction in which the
political dimension has been seriously taken into account has made clear that
the Galilean was a pious Jew and a religiously-inspired preacher, and has not
denied the fact that, according to the available sources, he was more than a
mere seditionist. But, alas, the opponents of the hypothesis have usually
preferred to offer a cheap caricature, thereby projecting onto it the blatant
one-sidedness which characterizes the standard theological portrayal. The Nickle article linked to in this thread:
Jesus - '
'more than a seditionist'. OK - but that still leave the word
sedition, the concept, hanging in the air. Perhaps Bermejo-Rubio needs to look back further than the time of Tiberius and Pilate - that's if, of course, he allows history the final say on sedition under Rome and not the gospel Jesus story. The historian needs to do history. The historian should not allow assumptions of a historical Jesus under Tiberius and Pilate to hold him back from the wider historical framework in which that gospel story is just a reflection.
