The Radical Jesus, the Bible, and the Great Transformation

“Oakman brokers for us many conversations. He hears and responds to the conversations of his professional peers, who are often monochromatic in focus: only agriculture, numismatics, pottery, taxes, etc. Taking them honorably into account, he advances the conversation by drawing their data together by means of overarching social science models, thus making their data say much more. . . . Oakman never fails to engage my settled opinions with fresh data and unavoidable invitations to think again, to fill out the picture, and to take seriously scholarship speaking a different language. But Oakman is a gracious, enlightened, fair, trustworthy, and competent conversational partner, well worthy of our close reading. For traditional scholarship, this opens a new dimension.”


—Jerome H. Neyrey, SJ, Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies, University of Notre Dame





“Doug Oakman is highly respected for his social-science studies of Jesus as a radical critic with a vision of economic justice. With this book, Oakman takes his studies of Jesus from the historical past to the political present. A strong critic of parochial and literalist Bible readings, Oakman engages in a fruitful dialogue with contemporary philosophy and politics to make the Bible speak to the essentially human in today’s world.”


—Halvor Moxnes, Professor Emeritus in Theology, University of Oslo





“The Radical Jesus distills the profound wisdom of Doug Oakman’s career-long engagement with the Bible, the Jesus tradition in particular. It integrates his unique grasp of the material, especially economic, dimensions of the biblical context, his penetrating social-scientific insights, his meticulous engagement with textual detail, and the overall framework of Lutheran Christianity that he embodies to an exemplary degree. For understanding what Jesus meant and what he still means, this book merits our closest attention.”


—Philip F. Esler, Portland Chair in New Testament Studies, University of Gloucestershire





“A powerful demonstration of why the estrangement of the Bible and its world from modern America cannot be overcome by unconsciously reading ourselves into its pages . . . or by removing it from the real world of the struggling 95 percent in its own time whose voices are never heard.”


—Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Paul S. Wright Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon





“For more than three decades Douglas Oakman has taught us how to read the Bible using the social sciences as our guide. Always creative and sometimes provocative, this current collection continues in that endeavor. Both the academic guild and the faith communities need to hear this voice.”


—David A. Fiensy, author of The Archaeology of Daily Life: Ordinary Persons in Late Second Temple Israel





“Oakman’s sharp analysis of Jesus and Paul’s views on the economic issues of their days is a breath of fresh air in a world dominated by greed and profit. This book will show believers and non-believers alike that there is a more humane way to manage the economy.”


—Santiago Guijarro, Theology Faculty Member, Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain





“Douglas E. Oakman’s decades-long research on Jesus traditions in their original Galilean social, economic, and political setting comes to mature expression in this engaging collection of essays. The essays represent rigorous historically oriented social-scientific study combined with perceptive discussion of the present relevance of biblical traditions. The author’s interest in the meaning of Scriptures is rooted in his Lutheran background but grows to break all doctrinal and confessional boundaries by challenging readers, regardless of their confession or lack of it, to ponder ‘what does it mean’ to take seriously the economic implications of biblical traditions and especially of the original message of Jesus.”


—Petri Luomanen, Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Culture and Literature, University of Helsinki





“No one better articulates the economic and cultural impact of the Roman imperium on ancient Palestine, and no one makes a stronger case for understanding Jesus’s message as a response to it. As he has done in the past, Oakman once again displays mastery of both interpretive theory and the literary and material records of first-century Palestine. He also shows the contemporary relevance of Jesus’s message in the building of a more just and humane world.”


—Richard E. DeMaris, Senior Research Professor, Valparaiso University





“This is an essential guide for anyone who is interested in the politics of the historical Jesus and wonders how to adapt the biblical message to times of great inequality and strife. The clarity of his sociological method and critical attention to textual and archaeological detail encourage readers to pursue their own questions and discover for themselves what the Bible and Christian tradition, including Paul and others, might mean for us today.”


—Gildas Hamel, Senior Lecturer Emeritus in History, University of California, Santa Cruz





“This important new collection of articles from Doug Oakman makes accessible his provocative and stimulating insights into Jesus’s aims and how Jesus’s kingdom message was appropriated subsequently. For some it may come as a shock. The first-century challenge to social, economic, and political life presented by Jesus of Nazareth is set out sharply and with scholarly skill. The implications for modern values that Oakman draws may well prove unsettling rather than comforting!”


—Ronald A. Piper, Professor Emeritus of Christian Origins, University of St Andrews





“This book is strongly commended. The Radical Jesus is an appeal for transformation in the past and present, densely and clearly articulated. It is a book about a call for a ‘new kind of leadership.’ It is about Jesus, killed by imperial power long before his crucifixion. Nowhere else have I learned more in such a condensed way than in this book about the economical and political context of Jesus. . . . Douglas Oakman records Jesus’s transformative ethos of radical grace, words ‘that might be still be taken seriously.’”


—Andries Van Aarde, Emeritus Professor, University of Pretoria





“The Radical Jesus, a follow-up to Jesus and the Peasants, again showcases the immense contribution Oakman has made to understand the social meanings of the historical Jesus in his Galilean context. Topics such as Galilee as an advanced agrarian society, Jesus and politics, peasant values, debt and taxes in Roman Palestine, the ancient political economy in the time of Jesus, and many more, have become synonymous to the work and legacy of Oakman. The Radical Jesus yet again provides essential information to understand the world of Jesus, but also addresses the question whether Christianity and the Bible has something to say to a society embedded within a market capitalist economy that is detrimental to social relations and is driven by greed. The Radical Jesus, yet again, is Oakman at his best.”


—Ernest van Eck, Head of Department of New Testament and Related Literature, University of Pretoria





“In the spirit of Michael Polanyi, who demonstrated the radical difference between pre- and post-industrial/capitalist societies, Douglas Oakman’s studies deftly combine advanced agrarian society models, work on Judean resistance to political/economic oppression by the Romans and their collaborators, Galilean archaeology, gospel criticism, and historical Jesus research. He shows that despite societal contrasts the radical Jesus’s moral imperative is highly relevant for present-day American society: ‘You cannot serve God and Mammon.’ A very impressive collection!”


—Dennis Duling, Professor Emeritus, Canisius College, Buffalo, New York





“The Radical Jesus contains the mature reflections of a leading historical Jesus scholar. Oakman’s employment of social theory, big history, archaeology, and careful readings of early Christian writings crafts a convincing case for reading Jesus as a radical, embracing a vision of humanity challenging to those who controlled the economic resources of his time. In the second part of this book, Oakman crafts a compelling argument for why critical biblical scholarship matters today.”


—Eric Stewart, Associate Professor of Religion, Augustana College





“With its careful attention to the economic dimensions of early Christianity, as well as its deliberate use of social-scientific modeling to better comprehend the world of Jesus’s first followers, this book is vintage Douglas Oakman. The essays are guided by Oakman’s longstanding interest in social justice and, as such, they will pique the curiosity of both scholars of early Christianity and theologians interested in using the New Testament to grapple with the modern condition.”


—Sarah E. Rollens, R. A. Webb Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College