Was the historical Jesus an anarchist?^171the arrival of the kingdom (Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 239).
Peabody’s criticisms of Schweitzer remain pertinent: “it is difficult
to see in it [Jesus’ ethics] a predominating quality of indifference to
the world’s affairs or of complete preoccupation with a supernat-
ural catastrophe” (Francis Peabody, ‘New Testament Eschatology
and New Testament Ethics’, Harvard Theological Review, 2 [1909],
50–57 [p. 54]).
- Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament:
Community, Cross, New Creation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996),
p. 163. For the theme of reversal in the ethics of Jesus see Allen
Verhey, The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament (Exeter:
Paternoster, 1984). - The theme of reversal is not solely concerned with things that
can be reasonably categorized in this way. See, for example, Luke
6.21, 25. - For a general guide to the cultural context of the data relating
to the historical Jesus see The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily
Life in Roman Palestine, ed. by Catherine Hezser (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010). See also The Historical Jesus in Context,
ed. by Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison and John Dominic Crossan
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). - See Luke 6.20, 24 (cf. Matthew 5.3). See also Matthew 19.16–
24; Mark 10:17–25; Luke 18.18–25. - Luke 6.21; see also Matthew 6.11, Luke 11.3; Matthew 15.32,
Mark 8.3; - Matthew 21.31–32 (Matthew 9.9, Mark 2.14, Luke 5.28; Luke
18.10, 19.2). The elders were a non-priestly group who, with the
scribes and chief priests, made up the Sanhedrin. They were the lo-
cal aristocracy and consisted of “the heads of the most influential
lay families” (Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: an
Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions During the New
Testament Period [London: SCM Press, 1969], p. 223). - Matthew 18.3, 19.14; Mark 10.14; Luke 10.21, 18.16.
- See Luke 15.11–32; Matthew 18.10–14, Luke 15.3–7; Matthew
10.6; Matthew 15.24. The term “sinner” can have a range of mean-
ings but is best understood, in this period, as including those “who