CAPITULO 4. CARACTERIZACIÓN DE LA SUBCUENCA DEL RÍO PATRIA
4.4 Características climáticas
4.4.1 Precipitación
At the outset of this survey mention was made of the ways in which historical Jesus research and Galilean studies have mutually influenced each other over the past two centuries, to the point at which the one was in danger of being collapsed into the other. Interest in the social and cultural life of Galilee has far outweighed that of other regions (for example, Samaria, Judaea or Idumea) because, following the Syn- optic outline, Jesus’ ministry has been perceived as Galilean for the most part. At various points in the foregoing account certain details of that ministry were alluded to in passing, but it now seems incumbent to outline the implications of the social and cultural milieu just described for Jesus’ whole career. This is not to adopt a deterministic view of history, as though individual creativity has no part to play in shaping one’s contribution in the public sphere. Some accommodation and adapta- tion to the context is, however, essential for any reformer to make an impact, no matter how charismatic one may be.
The different accounts of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee in recent discussions can be reduced to four main types: (a) Jesus the leader of a zealot revolutionary group (Brandon 1967); (b) Jesus the Cynic counter-culturalist (Crossan 1991); (c) Jesus the radical social reformer (Horsley 1987); (d) Jesus the Jewish prophetic Messiah (Meyer 1979). Each of these portraits is based both on certain judgements about the historical reliability of the canonical and non-canonical gospels and on varying accounts of the Galilean social and religious ethos. On the basis of the account presented here (a) and (b) can be ruled out as not providing the overall setting within which such portrayals appear likely or plausible. In the first century ce Galilee was neither a hot-bed of violent revolutionaries bent on the overthrow of Rome, nor a region dominated by pagan influences emanating from the Greek cities. On the other hand (c) and (d) are not mutually exclusive in that Jewish Messianic hopes have typically a strong concern for justice, peace and renewal of Israel. The issue then becomes one of the extent to which Jesus’ vision was fired by Jewish religious hopes in the same way that these found expression at the levels of both popular Messianisms and in dissident groups which were unhappy with the prevail- ing ruling elites, Jewish and Roman alike (Horsley and Hanson 1985; Collins 1995; Oegma 1998). In this regard the relationship between Galilee and Jerusalem appears to be of crucial importance since it determines whether Jesus’ critique of the temple and its institution was a principled one based on long-established regional opposi- tions, or was, rather, the result of deep dissatisfaction with the existing ruling priestly elite.
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It has been argued that the Galilean ethos of the first century was Jewish in that the dominant strand in the population originated in the Hasmonean period in Judea and that they continued to see themselves attached to the cultic centre of Jerusalem and its temple. That attachment was expressed concretely through pil- grimage, offerings and the observance of purity, emanating from the temple and the priestly views of holiness. The Hasmonean expansion was at least partly grounded in the notion of an ideal holy land as described in Ezekiel’s prophecy of restoration, comprising also the return to their traditional territories of the twelve tribes (Ezek. 47:13–48:39). Galilee was part of that restoration, and any reformer who based his vision on the notion of the return of the tribes, as Jesus did in the constitution of his permanent retinue as the Twelve (Mark 3:13–19; Matt. 19:28), while at the same time asserting the centrality and holiness of Jerusalem within the restored Israel, might expect a ready and enthusiastic reception among Galilean Jews (Sanders 1985).
The Hasmonean ruling elite had been replaced in the first century by the Herodi- ans, but only after Herod the Great had overcome their stout resistance. Herod the Great went on to pursue an ambitious building policy, which included the erection of a huge new platform in Jerusalem to serve as the base for a rebuilt Temple (see Figure 5.6) and smaller, but still impressive structures, such as his hanging palace at Masada (see Figure 5.7). Antipas, Herod’s son, sought to follow the policy of his father by honouring the Romans through the dedication of his newly built cities of Sepphoris and Tiberias to his imperial patrons. Thus, a new element was introduced into the social world of Galilee, so that traditional kinship values were in danger of being eroded and economic hardship greatly increased. This situation of rapid change, it was suggested, provided the immediate context for Jesus’ ministry, and may even have prompted a different awareness of and strategy for his own mission from that in which, as a disciple of John the Baptist, he had been previously engaged. Faced with the increasing marginalization of Galilean village com- munities, Jesus proposed a radical alternative that might be described as purely utopian, were it not for the fact that he and his immediate followers embarked on a lifestyle that embodied the values he was now espousing; namely, homelessness, rejection of property and family, based on a total dependence on God’s care for all. Following him constituted a new form of kinship arising from shared ideals rather than blood ties or traditional ownership of property, ideals that were grounded in the prophetic vision for a renewed Israel in which all might share equally in the resources that Yahweh had provided.
Jesus and his followers may indeed have appeared to some contemporaries as counter-cultural extremists of the Cynic variety, yet the theological grounding of his ‘values revolution’ in an unconditional trust in the God of Israel must be attributed rather to the notion of the Jubilee (Lev. 25:8–17), especially as this found expression in such prophets of restoration as Trito-Isaiah (Isa. 58:6; 61:1–6). The levitical legislation for the Jubilee was grounded in the idea of the land of Israel being Yahweh’s land, so that the Israelites were merely sojourners there (Sloan 1977). Every fiftieth year all Israel was to be reminded of this reality of its existence, of which the tribe of Levi, to whom no allotment was apportioned, was a permanent sign. Thus the Jubilee was a temple-based institution; honoured more in the ideal
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than the real, it would appear in the period of the Second Temple – when social and economic factors proved too influential to allow for its implementation. However, in the hands of the later prophets it entered the repertoire of hopes for an ideal Israel in which the emphasis was placed on the ethical rather than the cultic dimension of her life, and it is no surprise to find that in the first century it also found a lively expression among the temple dissident Essenes, associated with the priesthood of Melchizedek, not the ruling one which claimed ancestry from Aaron (11Q Melch.)
Viewed in this light it is possible to construe a highly plausible picture of the Galilean ministry of Jesus which sees the particular shape of his message and ministry within the parameters of these two powerful institutions of Jewish political life – namely, temple religion and Roman power mediated by the Herodi- ans. His religious concerns eventually brought him to Jerusalem, like every other Jewish country prophet, including Jesus, son of Ananias, his near contemporary and look-a-like – at least in Josephus’ portrayal ( JW 6.301–9). It was there that real opposition to him was mounted by the agents of both institutions, prepared to form a coalition when faced with a common threat of a possible revolt in the countryside. Even though the temple priestly aristocracy, the Herodians and the Roman provin- cial administration represented competing, even rival constituencies and vied with each other for control of the complex social network that was Roman Palestine of the first century, they were, like all elites, prepared to collaborate when faced with a
Figure 5.6 The east wall of the Herodian Temple platform in Jerusalem. Photo J. C. N. Coulston.
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challenge to their positions of status. Jesus and his movement represented such a threat, not because he was proposing a violent revolution such as the Zealots were to do thirty years later, nor because he was espousing a counter-cultural detachment so beloved of the Cynics, but rather because his movement represented a serious attack on the value system on which their status was based. It is an ironic fact of history that this movement which emerged within a thoroughly Jewish matrix and which was inspired by the Jewish prophetic ideal was to achieve its aims not within Palestine, but rather in the cities of the Mediterranean world, something that Luke, perceptive historian and shrewd apologist that he was, has so subtly documented in his two-volume work. Two centuries later, another Christian historian/apologist, Eusebius, saw the relationship between church and empire rather differently. But that is another story!
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