Wandering radicalism
Wandering radicalism describes a radical ethos of homelessness, family distance, criticism of property and non-violence. This term was decisively coined by New Testament scholar Gerd Theißen in his work Sociology of the Jesus Movement (1977), in which he assumes that not only Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples represented this way of life, but also other uprooted groups in Palestine that were marked by misery.
According to Theißen, the specific wandering radicalism of the Jesus movement was shaped by three structural roles . On the one hand there were the wandering charismatics who wandered around according to the ethos of wandering radicalism. As a rule, they came from rural local churches that were formed by sympathizers of the Jesus movement. The local congregations functioned as the material basis for the wandering charismatics who lived without possessions. There they were recognized as spiritual authorities. Wandering charismatics and local churches focused on Jesus as the “revealer”.
The basis of Theissen's analyzes is the criterion of contextual plausibility in the Jewish world for the interpretation of Christian tradition: only those contents can be considered historical that can be explained by the roots of the Jesus movement in the Jewish culture of the first century. In doing so, he contradicted the double criterion of difference used by Ernst Käsemann , for example , which states that “real” words of Jesus cannot be explained either from the Jewish environment or from the life and teaching of early Christianity . On its sociological basis, Theißen explains, for example, the early emergence of the presumed logia source .
Theissen's thesis has been criticized on various occasions. Thus Lk 10.2 to 11 EU also because many in day trips to coped with distances in lower Galilee understood as a temporary release to the mission. According to RA Horsley, Jesus' ethics were not primarily aimed at wandering disciples, but the goal of the Jesus movement was a reorganization of village society. KE Corley points out that leaving the extended family permanently would have harmed socially dependent people, especially women and children. The journeys of the Logienquelle rather reflected the everyday life of the lower class. For example, women often traveled from town to town to do business. Behind the family-critical Jesus words Lk 12.52f., 14.26 and 9.59 she suspects conflicts between parents and children about traditional funeral rites.
literature
- Gerd Theißen: Sociology of the Jesus Movement. A contribution to the genesis of early Christianity. 7th edition Chr. Kaiser, Gütersloh 1997 (1. A. 1977) ISBN 3-579-05035-4 . Excerpts ( Memento from May 3, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) ( RTF ; 87 kB)
- Gerd Theißen: The New Testament. Beck'sche series 2192. CH Beck knowledge. Beck, Munich 2002 ISBN 3-406-47992-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Stegemann: Jesus and his time. Biblical Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 260-262. ISBN 978-3-17-012339-7 .