Was the historical Jesus an anarchist?^173- Luke 12.16–21; Thomas 63.
- For example: Mark 2.4, 15–17; Luke 7.36–48, 8.2; 19.2–10;
John 7.53–8.11. - The theme of conflict is so pervasive that “conflict stories” con-
stitute a distinctive and widely distributed form of the traditions asso-
ciated with the historical Jesus. See, for example, Arland J. Hultgren,
Jesus and His Adversaries: The Form and Function of the Conflict
Stories in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1979). - There is a pervasive theme of hostility to wealth in the Jesus
tradition (see, for example, Matthew 6.24, Luke 16.13; Luke 12.13–
21; Matthew 6.29, Luke 12.27; Matthew 19.24, Mark 10.25, Luke
18.25; Matthew 24.17, Mark 13.15; Luke 17.31; cf. Luke 16:14–
15). Real treasure is said to be located in heaven (Matthew 6.20;
Luke 12.33; Matthew 19.21, Mark 10.21, Luke 18.22; Matthew 6.2,
Luke 16.13; Luke 12.13–14, cf. Thomas 72). The recurrent attacks
on the rich show that this hostility to wealth is not motivated by
asceticism but an assumed relationship between poverty and wealth
(see Luke 19.1–9; Matthew 19.21, Mark 10.21, Luke 18.22). An in-
dication of such thinking might be visible in Mark 10.19 where the
command not to defraud is added to a series of commandments oth-
erwise taken from the Ten Commandments cf. Luke 19.8; James 5.4;
Deuteronomy 5.6–11, Exodus 20.1–17. - Matthew 5.40, Luke 6.29 cf. Luke 18.2–6.
- Matthew 15.5, Mark 7.11; Matthew 23.1–36, Mark 12.37b-40,
Luke 20.45–47; Mark 12.41–13.4, 21.1–7. - See Matthew 5:41.
- Note, for example, the destitution that resulted from illness:
“She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all
that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse” (Mark
5.26, Luke 8.43); “I was a mason, earning a living with my hands; I
beg you, Jesus, restore my health to me, so that I need not beg for my
food in shame.” (Gospel of the Nazareans in Jerome, Commentary on
Matthew 12.13). The free nature of the healing offered by Jesus and
his followers was clearly significant (Matthew 10.5). - Davies and Allison, Matthew. Volume I, pp. 546–47. Cf. Mark
15.21; Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.79.