In this magnum opus Richard Horsley brings together multiple lines of research – historical Jesus studies, medical anthropology and oral performance theory – to illustrate the deep connection between Jesus’ mission of healing and exorcism as described in the Gospels and the historical context of Roman-dominated Palestine. Specifically, he argues that the Gospel narratives reflect the conflict between the people and their rulers in Palestine and the increased exploitation, poverty and indebtedness resulting from that in the population. Through his healings and exorcisms (deeds of power – dynameis) and speeches, Jesus empowered and renewed the people of Palestine to face and oppose these rulers.
First, Horsley highlights, as many Jesus scholars have acknowledged in the past decade or so, the culturally constructed nature of illness/healing and spirit possession/exorcism, and the importance of distinguishing between our modern biomedical definition of ‘disease’ (malfunctioning of biological or psychological processes) and ‘illness’ (psychosocial responses and meaning assigned to the sickness). He notes further that diagnosing and curing disease are phenomena of modern biomedicine, meaning that Jesus did not cure disease, but as a first-century figure, healed a broad range of human suffering, such as sickness, distress, anguish and madness. New Testament scholars, Horsley argues, need to set to one side the biomedical paradigm in order to understand the way illness and healing were perceived in first-century Galilee and Judea.
Horsley also notes the further connection (noted by anthropologists) between an increase in spirit possession and illness as a consequence of external imperial rule. In the context of first-century Palestine, the violence, destruction and oppressive policies by both the Romans and the Jewish elite caused significant trauma for the population. The evidence of this is the many resistance movements that emerged (as reported by Josephus) in the mid-first century, which were then brutally suppressed. This larger social–economic–political conflict is mirrored in the main plot, setting and characters of the Gospels, beginning with Mark.
An example of this is the exorcism of the Gerasene/Gadarene demoniac, where the ‘legion’ that possesses the man represents the conquering forces, which are destroyed in the drowning of the pigs. The exorcism exposes what had been cloaked by the man's condition – that is, the spirits were manifestations of the ‘people's concrete political-economic-social situation’, demystifying it (pp. 420–21). The spirits also act as a self-protective buffer between subject people and their invasive rulers, by providing another mechanism of resistance.
Drawing on oral performance theory (John Miles Foley), Horsley further argues that Jesus’ empowering of the people was nurtured through oral performance in communities of ‘Jesus-Loyalists’ (pp. 338–39). The performance of the text (Jesus’ mission), in the context of gathered communities of Jesus’ followers, combined with the tradition (how Jesus’ mission was understood within Israelite popular tradition) created new collective social memory, which was continually shaped and reshaped for new generations of hearers, and which also shaped the formation of the Gospels. Additionally, rather than see the Gospels as fragments to be studied individually, as has been the case over the past several decades, Horsley maintains that we should understand them as continuous narratives and speeches (more stable than individual sayings or episodes), that reveal the historical Jesus in his interactions with people. While details changed, the overall story remained stable.
Modern scholars have also tended to see the Gospels through the lens of print culture, where texts are composed, and individual readers decipher them alone. However, in the ancient world, where only about 3% of the population was literate, cultures were predominantly oral, writing was limited to the political and cultural elite, and texts were almost always read out in public gatherings. Texts in the ancient world continued to be shaped and reshaped as they were used orally by communities, which explains why they existed in multiple versions, as we know from the different versions of the Hebrew Bible found at Qumran.
This was true even after written copies of the Gospels were available, into the second and third centuries. In fact, as Papias’ well-known statement (‘from a living and abiding voice’ – zoēs phonēs kai menousēs) implies, an encounter with a living witness was preferred to reading a text; but Mark's written account, drawing on Peter's verbal recounting of Jesus’ mission, came as close as was possible to the living voice. Standardised texts did not appear until the fourth century. Horsley notes that the Latin term texere means ‘to weave’, as in weaving a story (p. 218), and even in the modern context, the idea of a text encompasses more than printed text: it also includes culturally significant stories, hymns, poems and ballads which are still recited and likely always have been. We know that recitation and performance were practiced at Qumran as they acted out their beliefs in resistance (ritual warfare), even though they did not engage in warfare against the powers in charge at that time. Similarly, while scribes were literate, they too memorised and recited texts orally, internalising them through repeated recitation.
Horsley's newest book is thorough, clearly conveyed and well structured. It was enjoyable to read, and the arguments and evidence are well-supported. As I see it, there are really only two main critiques, one related to the overall argument and one to the presentation. First, while the basic argument is strong, and the evidence is suggestive around the connection between social and political trauma and spirit possession and illness (I have argued the same in my own work), the question of whether this is always the cause of spirit possession and illness is still not fully demonstrated, to my mind. There are also intra-familial and other personal issues, for example, that can bring about these kinds of experiences. In terms of presentation, the book is longer than it needs to be. There is a lot of repetition of concepts and arguments. While this is helpful to some degree for keeping the reader on track, there is room for tightening up some of this to reduce the length of the book by perhaps as much as a hundred pages. The length is a bit unwieldly.
