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Was ancient Galilee prosperous?

church mouse guy

church mouse guy

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
"A number of New Testament scholars who came into prominent in the 1980s created a picture of Galilee (where Jesus spent the formative years after the return from Egypt and before His public career) as a zone of mass poverty, a kind of Mideast Appalachia, with large numbers of dispossessed peasants roaming the countryside, ready for revolution. This makes way for a Jesus as revolutionary leader of a classic political revolt, a kind of 1st century Che Guevarra (or since this stuff came to the fore in the 1980s, perhaps Jesus as Sandinista)….

"In this short video, Dr. David Fiensy, author of Christian Origins and the Ancient Economy and experienced (with eight digging sites under his belt-almost all of them in Galilee) talks in the following video about how revolutionary ideologies from the 60s and 70s pushed academic New Testament scholarship towards a romantic revolutionary view of Jesus' homeland despite a lack of actual physical or textual evidence of this."

https://finance.townhall.com/column...economy-did-galilee-have-was-it-poor-n2497903

Watch short video:

 
D

Deadworm

Member
Your video reflects real scholarship and the issue you raise is important for our understanding of Jesus' ministry and the group that founds and comprises the Jerusalem church. Here are my 3 most pressing questions about the issue you raise:

(1) How does Jesus support His 3 1/2 year plus ministry financially? Our only hint of His financial support is unexpected. Some of His female disciples offer Him financial support (Luke 8:2-3). Are their other means of support to fill the disciples' purse managed by Judas (John 12:6)? Jesus demands that His 12 disciples forsake their careers to follow Him. That seems to rule out their income as fishermen as a continuing means of support. And Jesus warns wannabe followers that He is homeless (Luke 9:58). . Apparently He and His disciples couldn't afford to stay at the many inns throughout Galilee and Judea and during Holy Week they sleep out in the Garden of Gethsemane. Early Jewish tradition reports that Jesus "made His living shamefully as a beggar."

(2) Was Jewish poverty a key reason why Jesus cleansed the Jerusalem Temple? The Temple court needed to market the various sacrifices that needed to be purchased by pilgrims to Jerusalem during major Jewish feasts. But Galilean Jews were also required to pay a Temple tax. If famine ruined their crops on a given year, they often felt like they couldn't afford this tax on top of the required Roman tax. 40% of their income went to these 2 taxes. Temple police often came and confiscated what they wanted to force truant Jews to pay the equivalent of their tax and were often beaten up in the process. Is this injustice a reason for Jesus' cleansing act?

(3) After Jesus' resurrection, the Galilean Christian pilgrims remain in Jerusalem and form the Jerusalem church. How could they afford to forfeit family sources of income back in Galilee? The early church fathers refer to the Jerusalem church in whole or in part as Ebionites, a term derived from the Hebrew word for "the poor." One of the earliest noncanonical Gospels is called the Gospel of the Ebionites (= the Poor). And leaders of the Jerusalem church insist that Paul's mission among Gentiles must not prevent him from supporting the Jerusalem poor (Galatians 1:10). And of course deacons like Stephen are assigned to ensure that the early Christian poor widows get their basic needs met (Acts 6). The "Communism" of early church life may have been necessitated by poverty.
 
church mouse guy

church mouse guy

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Deadworm said:
Your video reflects real scholarship and the issue you raise is important for our understanding of Jesus' ministry and the group that founds and comprises the Jerusalem church. Here are my 3 most pressing questions about the issue you raise:

(1) How does Jesus support His 3 1/2 year plus ministry financially? Our only hint of His financial support is unexpected. Some of His female disciples offer Him financial support (Luke 8:2-3). Are their other means of support to fill the disciples' purse managed by Judas (John 12:6)? Jesus demands that His 12 disciples forsake their careers to follow Him. That seems to rule out their income as fishermen as a continuing means of support. And Jesus warns wannabe followers that He is homeless (Luke 9:58). . Apparently He and His disciples couldn't afford to stay at the many inns throughout Galilee and Judea and during Holy Week they sleep out in the Garden of Gethsemane. Early Jewish tradition reports that Jesus "made His living shamefully as a beggar."

(2) Was Jewish poverty a key reason why Jesus cleansed the Jerusalem Temple? The Temple court needed to market the various sacrifices that needed to be purchased by pilgrims to Jerusalem during major Jewish feasts. But Galilean Jews were also required to pay a Temple tax. If famine ruined their crops on a given year, they often felt like they couldn't afford this tax on top of the required Roman tax. 40% of their income went to these 2 taxes. Temple police often came and confiscated what they wanted to force truant Jews to pay the equivalent of their tax and were often beaten up in the process. Is this injustice a reason for Jesus' cleansing act?

(3) After Jesus' resurrection, the Galilean Christian pilgrims remain in Jerusalem and form the Jerusalem church. How could they afford to forfeit family sources of income back in Galilee? The early church fathers refer to the Jerusalem church in whole or in part as Ebionites, a term derived from the Hebrew word for "the poor." One of the earliest noncanonical Gospels is called the Gospel of the Ebionites (= the Poor). And leaders of the Jerusalem church insist that Paul's mission among Gentiles must not prevent him from supporting the Jerusalem poor (Galatians 1:10). And of course deacons like Stephen are assigned to ensure that the early Christian poor widows get their basic needs met (Acts 6). The "Communism" of early church life may have been necessitated by poverty.
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You are stuck in the past on all the communist stuff that has no archeological support. Jesus was not a beggar--that must be from the pit of hell. The Temple was cleansed to get rid of the money changers who were a den of thieves so your charge there also must be from the pit of hell. Noncanonical gospels as you call them are often Gnostic and therefore are from another religion. The one that you cite has no link. The early church was not communist and that also must be from the pit of hell.
 
D

Deadworm

Member
Mouse: "You are stuck in the past on all the communist stuff that has no archeological support....
The early church was not communist and that also must be from the pit of hell..."
No, it's from God's Word: "They had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute them to all, as any had need (Acts 2:45)."

Mouse: "Jesus was not a beggar--that must be from the pit of hell."
You can't dismiss ancient Jewish tradition about Jesus on the basis of unwarranted pontification.
Jesus gave up His carpenter career to pursue His messianic mission. He was homeless, without a steady income, and dependent on the kindness of strangers. It is quite possible that He had to ask for financial support to supplement the meager financing provided by Galilean women.

Mouse: "The Temple was cleansed to get rid of the money changers who were a den of thieves so your charge there also must be from the pit of hell. "
On your reckoning, Jesus deserved to be arrested for his violent act. Again, you overlook the fact that the Temple needed to sell animals and other sacrifice materials for Temple rituals. That is why NT scholars try to find a legitimate reason for Jesus' violence by citing the coercion and theft of temple police who visit the poor who can't afford the required Temple tax and forcibly take the equlvalent of what is owed.

Mouse: "Noncanonical gospels as you call them are often Gnostic and therefore are from another religion."
You pontificate from ignorance. There is nothing Gnostic about the Gospel of the Ebionites, the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the Gospel of the Nazarenes. The early 2nd century Gospels stem from Jewish Christian groups that can ultimately trace their origin to the Jerusalem church.

Mouse: "The one that you cite has no link."
It is absurd for you to presume that advanced knowledge of the early Jewish Christian history is posted on the internet. The beginning of wisdom is to know your academic limitations.
 
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