The Parable of Jesus by Prof. Velunta

How does one get crucified for telling Parables?Introduction

Two very important reminders: First, If there is one fact we are perfectly sure about Jesus of Nazareth, it is that he was crucified by order of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate, in the mid-30's CE for allegedly being "King of the Jews." And we don't need the Bible to confirm this. Two historians, the Jewish Josephus and the Roman Tacitus, attest to the “pernicious” superstition called Christianity and its crucified and supposedly risen leader. Second, if there is one thing most scholars agree about Jesus is that he was a storyteller; that he taught in parables (like the many rabbis of his time). And his followers remembered and we have many of his stories in the gospels we now call Mark, Matthew and Luke.The key question we hope to answer this term is one which has bothered many for centuries: If Jesus were a teacher of heavenly, spiritual truths then why was he executed as a political subversive between two social bandits or freedom fighters (lestes in Greek)? It appears that Jerusalem elites collaborated with their Roman overlords to get rid of Jesus because he was a threat to their political and economic Interests? How do we reconcile the teacher with the subversive? How does one get crucified for telling stories? To answer this question, we need to try to construct the context of those so-called stories that may have gotten Jesus killed. If parables offer glimpses of everyday life in first-century Palestine, they also infer the larger whole of which those glimpses are part. We cannot understand the parables without first attending to the social reality they imply. For this task, we have Josephus, rabbinic and Roman sources. We also have anthropologists who do peasant studies. Then we have macro-sociologists' work on agrarian societies and aristocratic and bureaucratic empires.The World of Jesus’ ParablesSocial scientists map the contours of antiquity. These maps (like the maps we have in our cars) are but representations of reality. They help us understand the world of Jesus’ parables. Many of these scientists agree that the introduction of the plow (yes, the lowly “araro”) ushered the dawn of the domestication of animals for agricultural use, the eventual settlement of cultivators in villages, and the rise of an exploiter class. Agrarian societies dominated human life from about 3000 BCE to the advent of the industrial revolution in 1800 CE. One consequence of this social evolution was institutionalized bureaucracy. In the beginning there were cultivators and armed nomads who preyed on the cultivators by destroying their settlements and plundering their goods. Eventually, in order to save their settlements, the cultivators—instead of fighting—offered a portion of their produce to the nomads as bribe. The bribe eventually became tribute. The nomads soon discover they could live off the produce of villages. Warfare and plunder became their way of life and bureaucracy is its legitimization. Financial bureaucrats made sure that wealth remained in the hands of the few and the military made sure more not less came in. The elite had to legitimize exploitation through education, record-keeping (of debts particularly) and religion. The economy was based on redistribution of wealth through tribute and other forms of enforced obligations whose effect was to leave peasants at subsistence levels while urban elites lived in luxury. Sociologists also have remarked that agrarian societies have no history. Trans-historically or cross-culturally, if you see one, you've seen them all.The world of ancient Palestine may be represented by the following levels (and one can argue that these tiers are as true today as they were then).High-level elite, power players-1-2%Retainers (agents of control), 5-7%Merchants, peddlers, barter, 5%Artisans, manual-skilled laborers, 3-7%Peasants, 70-80%Unclean, despised trade, nothing to sell but bodies,5%Expendables, excess children of peasant farmers sent away asDay laborers and beggars, 10-15%This is the world of Jesus' parables. Jesus’ parables were not earthly stories about heavenly things; rather, they were earthy stories about heavy things: the reality of empire, of colonial rule, the violence of poverty and oppression, and the dispossessed’s collective longing for God’s intervention.Jesus’ parables—stories that disclosed the structures of empire, evil and greed during his time and offered glimpses of God’s reign breaking through via the struggles of the dispossessed—were, most probably, the reason he got executed. Yes, telling parables can get one killed.