Jesus against the Scribal Elite by Chris Keith
Finalist for the Biblical Foundations Book Award 2021
How did the controversy between Jesus and the scribal elite begin? We know that it ended on a cross, but what put Jesus on the radar of established religious and political leaders in the first place? Chris Keith argues that an answer to these questions must go beyond typical explanations such as Jesus's alternative views on Torah or his miracle working and consider his status as a teacher.
Keith examines Jesus' own likely educational background, and situates Jesus within his first-century context, showing readers that some of the tensions between Jesus and the scribal authorities may have originated in Jesus' own lack of formal education. Keith builds on his earlier work on Jesus' literacy and uses insights from memory theory and ancient media studies to consider how Jesus' actions and teachings may have specifically been seen to challenge an elitist scribal culture.
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Rome after Sulla
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Arms, Men and Society in Roman Judaea
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Image-Making-India
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A Return to the Object
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Qur'anic Hermeneutics
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Planning Enforcement
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John's Transformation of Mark
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Why the World Needs Anthropologists
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Modernist Magazines and the Social Ideal
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Gustave Caillebotte as Worker, Collector, Painter
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Personal Injury Limitation Law
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The UK and EMEA Corporate Counsel Handbook
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Stylistic Deceptions in Online News
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Global Animation Theory
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The Most Beautiful Job in the World
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Orbital Poetics
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Making Dinner
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Jesus as Mirrored in John
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The Pseudepigraphal Letters to the Thessalonians
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Proteins, Pathologies and Politics
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Reassembling Democracy
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Poverty in the Early Church and Today
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Food Justice and Narrative Ethics
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August Strindberg and Visual Culture
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Postcolonial Commentary and the Old Testament
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A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies
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Making Taste Public
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Lineages and Advancements in Material Culture Studies
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Women Warriors and National Heroes
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The Material Subject
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What are Exhibitions for? An Anthropological Approach
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The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus
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Jesus' Literacy
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Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity
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Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity
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The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries: Volume 3
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The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries: Volume 1
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The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries: Volume 2
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The Gospel as Manuscript
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Jesus among Friends and Enemies A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospels
Keith’s investigation is informative, readable and engaging... Recommended! * Journal for the Study of the New Testament *
Professor Keith’s book commendably combines comprehensiveness with concision: in less than two hundred pages, he covers literacy in Jesus’ time, Jesus’ own literacy and an overview of historical Jesus studies, all to bolster his argument about the origins of the conflict between Jesus and the scribal elites. It is an excellent, insightful and thorough work of scholarship, on which the author is to be congratulated. * Biblische Notizen *
In this updated version of his instant classic, Chris Keith, one of the foremost and most exciting New Testament scholars working today, creatively weaves together piercing historical analysis, sensitive social analysis, and insights from the broader ancient world to answer the question ‘how literate was Jesus?’ Though informed by rigorous scholarship, this important book is accessible to and indispensable for anyone who wants to know more about Jesus, his preaching, and the circumstances that led to his death. * CANDIDA MOSS, University of Birmingham, UK *
In this book, as lucid and accessible as it is compelling, Chris Keith exposes the issues that lay at the very heart of Jesus’s engagement with the scribal elite. This is written for upper-level students, but scholars too will find much to consider in this excellent treatment. * HELEN BOND, Centre for the Study of Christian Origins, University of Edinburgh, UK *
This well-written study by Chris Keith puts Jesus as a public teacher into new light. The attention this book devotes to Jesus in relation to the social context of his day not only challenges assumptions about what it means for Jesus to be God’s Messiah and Son of God but also offers a fresh way to understand what it meant for Jesus to have given instructions at all and to have debated them with his Jewish contemporaries. Readers with any interest in the historical Jesus will have a hard time putting the book down. * LOREN STUCKENBRUCK, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany *
Chris Keith is one of the leading scholars of literacy in Christian antiquity, especially as it relates to the historical Jesus. In this new contribution, he makes his views accessible to the nonspecialist who is interested in knowing, was Jesus a well-educated teacher who could read and write? And if not, why did he fall afoul of the powerful scribes—the readers, writers, and teachers of his world—leading to his demise? Clearly written and coherently argued, this will be a book for scholar and layperson alike. * BART D. EHRMAN, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA *
Professor Keith’s book commendably combines comprehensiveness with concision: in less than two hundred pages, he covers literacy in Jesus’ time, Jesus’ own literacy and an overview of historical Jesus studies, all to bolster his argument about the origins of the conflict between Jesus and the scribal elites. It is an excellent, insightful and thorough work of scholarship, on which the author is to be congratulated. * Biblische Notizen *
In this updated version of his instant classic, Chris Keith, one of the foremost and most exciting New Testament scholars working today, creatively weaves together piercing historical analysis, sensitive social analysis, and insights from the broader ancient world to answer the question ‘how literate was Jesus?’ Though informed by rigorous scholarship, this important book is accessible to and indispensable for anyone who wants to know more about Jesus, his preaching, and the circumstances that led to his death. * CANDIDA MOSS, University of Birmingham, UK *
In this book, as lucid and accessible as it is compelling, Chris Keith exposes the issues that lay at the very heart of Jesus’s engagement with the scribal elite. This is written for upper-level students, but scholars too will find much to consider in this excellent treatment. * HELEN BOND, Centre for the Study of Christian Origins, University of Edinburgh, UK *
This well-written study by Chris Keith puts Jesus as a public teacher into new light. The attention this book devotes to Jesus in relation to the social context of his day not only challenges assumptions about what it means for Jesus to be God’s Messiah and Son of God but also offers a fresh way to understand what it meant for Jesus to have given instructions at all and to have debated them with his Jewish contemporaries. Readers with any interest in the historical Jesus will have a hard time putting the book down. * LOREN STUCKENBRUCK, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany *
Chris Keith is one of the leading scholars of literacy in Christian antiquity, especially as it relates to the historical Jesus. In this new contribution, he makes his views accessible to the nonspecialist who is interested in knowing, was Jesus a well-educated teacher who could read and write? And if not, why did he fall afoul of the powerful scribes—the readers, writers, and teachers of his world—leading to his demise? Clearly written and coherently argued, this will be a book for scholar and layperson alike. * BART D. EHRMAN, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA *
Chris Keith is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity and Directory of the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary's University Twickenham, UK.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780567687098 |
| ISBN 10 | 0567687090 |
| Title | Jesus against the Scribal Elite |
| Author | Chris Keith |
| Series | Criminal Practice Ser |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Year published | 2020-09-17 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Biblical Foundations Book Award 2021 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |