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The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics, by Hector Avalos
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Did Jesus ever do anything wrong? Judging by the vast majority of books on New Testament ethics, the answer is a resounding No. Writers on New Testament ethics generally view Jesus as the paradigm of human standards and behaviour. But since the his-torical Jesus was a human being, must he not have had flaws, like everyone else? The notion of a flawless human Jesus is a paradoxical oddity in New Testament ethics. According to Avalos, it shows that New Testament ethics is still primarily an apologetic enterprise de-spite its claim to rest on critical and historical scholarship. The Bad Jesus is a powerful and challenging study, presenting de-tailed case studies of fundamental ethical principles enunciated or practised by Jesus but antithetical to what would be widely deemed 'acceptable' or 'good' today. Such topics include Jesus' supposedly innovative teachings on love, along with his views on hate, violence, imperialism, animal rights, environmental ethics, Judaism, women, disabled persons and biblical hermeneutics. After closely examining arguments offered by those unwilling to find any fault with the Jesus depicted in the Gospels, Avalos concludes that current treatments of New Testament ethics are permeated by a religiocentric, ethnocentric and imperialistic orientation. But if it is to be a credible historical and critical dis-cipline in modern academia, New Testament ethics needs to discover both a Good and a Bad Jesus.
- Sales Rank: #676901 in Books
- Published on: 2015-04-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.21" h x .96" w x 6.14" l, 1.46 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 476 pages
About the Author
Hector Avalos (Ames, IA) is associate professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University, the author of four books on biblical studies and religion, the former editor of the Journal for the Critical Study of Religion, and executive director of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion.
Most helpful customer reviews
44 of 50 people found the following review helpful.
The Bad Side of Jesus: He Was a Not Always A Good Boy
By John W. Loftus
“The Bad Jesus” is a 461 page monster of a book written by the prolific and indefatigable biblical scholar Dr. Hector Avalos. It's unlike any other scholarly book on the market today. It tells us the rest of the story of the Jesus we find in the four gospels, the dark side, the raw side that biblical scholars try to whitewash over because they think Jesus deserves special treatment.
Dr. Avalos, a giant of a man, a scholar's scholar, challenges readers to see what Jesus was really like. My guess is that people won't like Jesus after reading his book. I don't. He's not a guy I would want living next to me, or being around my children, or writing a column in a magazine, or politically involved in America that's for sure. No one should. Let's even have done with the notion Jesus was an over-all good person. I would want little to do with him. You might too after reading this wonderfully researched, one-of-a-kind book on an essential issue for Christianity.
In this book Avalos continues with a main theme of two of his previous books, the theological, ethical and political irrelevance of the Bible for the modern world. In The End of Biblical Studies (2007), he masterfully showed how biblical scholars are preoccupied with maintaining the relevance of the Bible for the modern world, even though their own research actually shows the opposite. In Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship (2011), he expertly showed how modern biblical scholars are still unjustifiably defending the indefensible ethics of biblical slavery. In this new book Avalos takes on the over-all ethics of Jesus himself---Oh My---as represented in the four canonical gospels (irrespective of whether Jesus existed or not, which he remains an agnostic about). Avalos skillfully shows how the Jesus depicted in the New Testament has a bad side, a side permeated by a “religiocentric, ethnocentric and imperialistic orientation.” He reveals the bad side of Jesus that modern biblical scholars try to hide from view.
Here is how he states it:
“If one relied on most modern treatises of New Testament ethics, Jesus had no bad ideas, and never committed any bad deed. This cannot possibly be sustained if Jesus is viewed as a real historical human figure. If Jesus was a human being, he must have had some ideas that are ethically objectionable, or, at least, morally questionable. If Jesus was a human being, he must have had flaws, inconsistencies and hypocrisy in his moral system, just as does every other human being. If his followers, ancient or modern, believe that those ideas are applicable to their lives and to the lives of others, then it also raises the question of whether any of Jesus’ bad ideas also had bad consequences. If Jesus had some bad ideas, then imitating Jesus’ bad ideas could be a bad practice today. Given how much time historically has been spent on lauding the Good Jesus, this book centers on illuminating ‘the Bad Jesus’.” (pp. 29-30)
So why don’t most modern scholars consider Jesus to have done anything wrong or evil? Avalos:
“The answer, of course, is that most biblical scholars, whether in secular academia or in seminaries, still see Jesus as divine, and not as a human being with faults. Their Christology is high enough to exempt Jesus from any evil sentiments or ethical malpractice...Most New Testament scholars are affiliated with religious institutions and are part of what I have called an ecclesial-academic complex that has no counterpart in any other areas of the humanities. For example, most, if not all, scholars of Greek religion are not part of some Greek religious movement or organization. Despite biases that always exist in the study of the classics, it is fair to say that few have any personal stake in whether Zeus or Tiberius was good or bad because those entities don’t constitute any sort of authority for their actions. That is not the case with Jesus, who is still viewed as the paradigmatic authority for most Christian scholars. Such scholars are still studying Jesus through the confessional lenses of Nicea or Chalcedon rather than through an historical approach that we would use with other human beings.” (p.7)
Dr. Avalos is attempting to change how biblical scholars study the Bible by advocating a secular understanding of the biblical texts. Modern biblical scholars “do not treat the Bible as another ancient document such as Homer’s Iliad or The Epic of Gilgamesh.” (p. 23) But they should. They should do this to see what they get. It’s the only respectable way to study historical documents if we want to know the truth about them.
Hector's broader argument in his particular book contains several elements:
“1. Biblical scholarship is still primarily a religionist apologetic enterprise despite claims to be engaging in historico-critical and descriptive scholarship.
2. A more specific Christian orientation is clearly revealed in the manner in which the ethics of Jesus are predominantly viewed as benign and paradigmatic, even among supposedly secular academic scholars.
3. However, many of the fundamental ethical principles announced or practiced by Jesus actually would be antithetical to those we otherwise describe as ‘acceptable’ or ‘good’ by some of the most widely accepted standards of ethics today.
4. Accordingly, such a predominantly benign view of Jesus’ ethics signals a continuing acceptance of Jesus as divine or as morally supra-human, and not as the flawed human being who should be the real subject of historico-critical study.”(pp. 8-9)
His goal in the case studies he presents is to illustrate "the extent to which religionism, and more particularly a Christian bias, still permeates what are otherwise supposed to be historical-critical descriptive studies of the ethics of Jesus." (p. 27).
This book should change how biblical scholars view Jesus--many of whom are already liberals. We shouldn't give Jesus a free pass. There's a bad Jesus we need to see. Look and see for yourselves. It could be shocking. In the future when someone says Jesus was sinless, respond by saying "Bad Jesus." If someone holds up Jesus as an example of a good life, hold up Hector's book "Bad Jesus" in response. If someone asks, "What would Jesus do?," respond by asking them to read "Bad Jesus." It is the antidote to people who indefensibly think Jesus was a perfect human being. It is the corrective to believers who think we need a red-letter edition of the New Testament. It tells us the rest of the story, a story that most people and most Christians have never heard before.
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Contents
1. Introduction
Basic Elements of the Argument
2. The Unloving Jesus: What’s New Is Old
Loving the Enemy in the Ancient Near East
Love Can Entail Violence
The Golden Rule: Love as Tactical
The Parochialism of New Testament Ethics
3. The Hateful Jesus: Luke 14.26
Jesus Commands Hate
Expressing Preference
Hate as a Motive for Divorce
The Statistics of Hate and Love
The Semantic Logic of Love and Hate
4. The Violent Jesus
Matthew 10.34-37: Jesus’ Violent Purpose
Matthew 5.38-42: Don’t Victimize Me, Please
Matthew. 26.48-56: Non-Interference with Planned Violence
John 2.15: Whipping up Pacifism
Acts 9: Jesus Assaults Saul
5. The Suicidal Jesus: The Violent Atonement
Jesus as a Willing Sacrificial Victim
Mark 10.45: Self-Sacrifice as a Ransom
Sacrifice as Service: Transformation or Denial?
2 Corinthians 5.18: Anselm Unrefuted
René Girard: Sacrificing Apologetics
6. The Imperialist Jesus: We’re All God’s Slaves
Rethinking ‘Anti-Imperialism’
Selective Anti-Imperialism
The Benign Rhetoric of Imperialism
Christ as Emperor
The Kingdom of God as an Empire
7. The Anti-Jewish Jesus: Socio-Rhetorical Criticism as Apologetics
Abuse Me, Please: Luke T. Johnson’s Apologetics
When is Anti-Judaism not Anti-Judaism?
When Did Christian Anti-Judaism Begin?
8. The Uneconomic Jesus as Enemy of the Poor
Jesus as Radical Egalitarian
The Fragrance of Poverty
Sermon on the Mount of Debts and Merits
9. The Misogynistic Jesus: Christian Feminism as Male Ancestor Worship
Mark 7//Matthew 15: The Misogynistic Jesus
Mark 10//Matthew 19: Divorcing Equality
The Womanless Twelve Apostles
The Last Supper: Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner
The Egalitarian Golden Age under Jesus
10. The Anti-Disabled Jesus: Less than Fully Human
Disability Studies
John 5 and 9: Redeeming Jesus
The Ethics of Punctuation
Paralyzed by Sin
11. The Magically Anti-Medical Jesus
Miracles, Not Magic?
The Naturalistic Jesus
Psychosomatic Ethics
12. The Eco-Hostile Jesus
Mark 5: Animal Rights and Deviled Ham
Luke 22 and Matthew 8: Sacrificing Animal Rights
Matthew 21: Fig-uratively Speaking
Mark 13: Eschatological Eco-Destruction
13. The Anti-Biblical Jesus: Missed Interpretations
Mel and Jesus: The Hypocrisy of New Testament Ethics
Mark 2:23-28: Jesus as Biblically Illiterate
Matthew 19: Jesus Adds his Own Twist on Divorce
Isaiah 6:9-10: Integrating Extrabiblical Materials
14. Conclusion
The Ethics of New Testament Ethics
40 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
Honest and unflinching
By Dan Barker
This is a wonderful book! Unflinching in its courage, "deep and wide" in its scholarship.
The western world is suffering from a huge blind spot -- the unquestioned myth that Jesus was all good. Where does that idea come from? I even know atheists who, while denying his divinity, still believe that the Christ was a great moral leader. After reading The Bad Jesus, they won't make that error any more.
Avalos' incisive research heals us of our cultural blind spot. Whether he was historical or merely legendary, the Jesus of the New Testament was, after all, a man, and men make mistakes. (And why is that not a compliment?) And some of the biggest mistakes are the ones made by the adoring scholars themselves, who have huge beams in their eyes as they fail to examine his purported words and actions objectively, like they do with other writers and literary characters.
I especially liked chapter 13, The Anti-Biblical Jesus. Since he got it so wrong with his own scriptures, how can we possibly trust Jesus with advice on how to live our lives? And I was impressed with Hector's demonstration in chapter 2, The Unloving Jesus, that the words "peace" and "love" do not mean in the New Testament what we take them to mean today. Shockingly, those are words of imperialism and violence. (Don't believe that? Read the book.)
If you read The Bad Jesus with a critical and demanding eye, you will be rewarded with a feast of facts. I LOVE this kind of book!
Avalos's writing is not destructive--it is actually brimming with ethical concern. The world deserves better than what Christianity has put on our tables. The emperor has no clothes, and Jesus has no shame. And neither do his cheerleaders.
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Jesus was a moral lunatic.
By Ben
As Dr. Avalos defiantly points out, if New Testament historians commenting on the ethics of Jesus are doing real history, then why can’t they find a single thing wrong with Jesus as even a historical figure? That glaring omission on their part is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is “second wave” New Atheism (as Dr. Avalos calls it) at its finest. For those of us genuinely concerned about a reality based secular apocalypticism where Big Religion needs to die in order for humanity to collectively advance, I’d rate this book as an important contribution.
Dr. Avalos on a Freethought Radio podcast with Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, suggested that he’s done the hard work of the research and that it’s up to others to promote the message. I heartily agree!
My main complaint is that I just wanted more of it.
Since I’ve done two public presentations on the immorality of Jesus, I was greatly excited to learn that Dr. Hector Avalos had tackled the same topic at the scholarly level. From my standpoint I certainly did the best I could at my own self-educated level (and I got my presentations approved by Dr. Richard Carrier just to make sure), but having Dr. Avalos do a thorough treatment on a number of case studies was educational and empowering. I was prepared to have gotten some things wrong of course which is inevitable, but I was delighted to see that we largely agree on the issues. Anyone that liked my presentations will find Dr. Avalos drilling deep to show that it just gets worse for Jesus.
Dr. Avalos has done a great service in cleaning house as far as Biblical studies go and he rigorously shows the rampant bias from even the more secular scholars on the topic of Jesus’ morality. If Jesus were portrayed as smoking pot in the New Testament, scholars would insist that he smoked, but didn’t inhale and that there is some incredible grammatical nuance baked into the text to “clearly” demonstrate this. It takes a very patient and diligent mind to unravel the scholarly sophistry and Dr. Avalos was clearly up to the job.
The real scandal of course is that canonical gospel Jesus, as is, is not only “flawed,” but most prominently presented as what modern ethical and educated people would call a superstitious, misogynistic, imperialistic cult leader and an apocalyptic moral lunatic. Jesus’ popularly apparent “pacifism” (what Dr. Avalos describes accurately as “deferred violence”) was merely the eye of the storm of endorsing Mosaic theocratic tyranny and the warm up act for (an albeit mythological) everlasting violence against most of humanity. You can’t just sweep Jesus’ persistent psychotic revenge fantasies under the rug and take the nice sounding bits out of that overall context. Jesus isn’t your nice grandma that is only technically on the hook for Biblical evils but has no personal stake in them. Jesus is THE guy who wants to lead the charge on his Judgment Day to set the majority of humanity on fire for all eternity. A disempowered earthly Jesus may be shown to have unleashed just a smidgen of that fury in the episode of making a whip and assaulting the moneychangers in the temple court (prominently shown on the cover of Dr. Avalos’ book).
In general, nothing repudiates the dubious and questionable ethics of Jesus more than substituting in different more ethical views on his behalf. And Dr. Avalos skewers the endless parade of motivated scholarship desperate to whitewash Jesus for the sake of their modern theological agendas or whatever other reason. When those biases are checked the end result, any reasonable person should agree that the literary product Jesus (what I would call “reading comprehension Jesus”) that the world is stuck with is the kind of street preaching nutjob that even most modern Christians wouldn’t want to hang out with and wouldn’t listen to. No doubt, still, many Christians will be eager and willing to come out against the U. N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ethical stances of various other modern organizations that Dr. Avalos appeals to in ethical comparison (not to mention the same standards Jesus’ defenders will use on anyone else other than Jesus), but it will definitely be an uphill task for them to argue the modern world back into the Dark Ages.
Like every other influential person there ever was, Dr. Avalos points out that Jesus was a remix of what came before and a reflection of his given culture. A mix of mostly more of the same, some progress, and some regress. Dr. Avalos gives continual shout outs to the cultures that either got it right before Jesus or got it right instead of Jesus (or got it right in the ways disingenuous scholarship wants to *believe* Jesus got it rightest ever).
I will eagerly be blogging about each chapter and argument mapping any substantial debate that I can find. Come find me. Anyone that wants to contribute their reasoned perspective could be most appreciated. You will have to check your “Jesus is good no matter what” goggles at the door though.
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