Jesus, the Crowds, and Historical Agency

Abstract

Abstract Crossley and Myles’s Jesus: A Life in Class Struggle offers an innovative and accessible reading of the movement around Jesus in terms of class struggle. The authors combine a breadth of knowledge about first-century realities, acumen in exegesis of the Gospel texts, and contemporary crowd theory to reach new conclusions regarding Jesus and his disciples, especially in his last days, and regarding the ‘failure’ of their movement. This review examines their understanding of the ‘Jesus movement’ and its relationship to the Galilean peasantry and their methodology in extrapolating from the Gospels; and proposes a more thorough Marxist theorization of the Gospels’ role in producing the ‘failure’ they describe.