Studies in the Historical Jesus: Anarchy, Miracles, and Madness, 2023
Studies in the Historical Jesus: Anarchy, Miracles, and Madness is a selection of key essays on t... more Studies in the Historical Jesus: Anarchy, Miracles, and Madness is a selection of key essays on the historical figure of Jesus published over the last fifteen years by Justin J. Meggitt. Each addresses a central question in the study of Jesus and his context, from the role of myth in the creation of traditions about him and the historicity of his miracles, to the problem of his politics and the reasons for his execution. The collection brings fresh perspectives and new data to bear on enduring debates, and demonstrates the value of "history from below" in making sense of the historical Jesus and the world that made him.
The essays included are: 1. Popular mythology in the early Roman Empire and the multiplicity of Jesus traditions; 2. The historical Jesus and healing: Jesus' miracles in psychosocial context; 3. Psychology and the historical Jesus; 4. Was the historical Jesus an anarchist? Anachronism, anarchism and the historical Jesus; 5. The madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus put to death, but his followers were not?; 6. "More ingenious than learned"? Examining the quest for the non-historical Jesus; 7. Did magic matter? The saliency of magic in the early Roman Empire.
Early Quakers and Islam: Slavery, Apocalyptic and Christian-Muslim Encounters in the Seventeenth Century, 2013
Early Quaker encounters with Muslims in the seventeenth century helped to generate some of the mo... more Early Quaker encounters with Muslims in the seventeenth century helped to generate some of the most distinctive and, at times, sympathetic Christian responses to Islam found in the early modern era. Texts such as George Fox's epistle To The Great Turk (1680), in which he engaged in extensive, constructive exegesis of the Qur'an, demonstrate a conception of Islam and Muslims that disrupts many prevailing assumptions of the period. Some responses are all the more striking as they came about as a reaction to the enslavement of a number of Quakers by Muslims in North Africa, where, paradoxically, they often experienced religious freedom denied them at home.
This study seeks to understand how and why this heterodox Christian sect created such unusual interpretations of Islam by analysing the experience of these slaves, and scrutinising the distinctive, oppositional culture of the movement to which they belonged. The work has implications that go beyond the specific subject of study and raises questions about the role that such things as apocalypticism and sectarianism can play in inter-religious encounter, and the analytical limitations of Orientalism in characterising Christian representations of Islam in the early modern period.
The claim that the historical Jesus was a violent revolutionary has seen a revival in recent year... more The claim that the historical Jesus was a violent revolutionary has seen a revival in recent years with the work of Dale Martin and Fernando Bermejo-Rubio. Central to their case is the datum that Jesus's disciples were armed at the time of his arrest in anticipation of their active participation in an end-time battle. However, whilst it can be established that it is likely that the disciples did carry bladed implements that could be used as weapons, when the literary and material-cultural evidence is scrutinised more closely, it is unreasonable to infer that these were intended to be used for apocalyptic ends or that the disciples or anyone else would see them as evidence of military intent.
Der Alexamenos Graffito aus dem späten 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. wurde 1856 in Rom in den Trümmern e... more Der Alexamenos Graffito aus dem späten 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. wurde 1856 in Rom in den Trümmern einer Wachstube des Kaiserpalastes entdeckt. Mit dem in den Wandputz geritzten Bild sollten offensichtlich sowohl die Christen als auch die Figur von Jesus verspottet werden. Das Bild zeigt eine Gestalt, die einen Christen darstellen soll, sowie einen ans Kreuz geschlagenen Mann mit einem Eselskopf. Darunter findet sich die Inschrift: "Alexamenos verehrt seinen Gott". Quelle der vektorisierten Reproduktion des Originals: Wikimedia (online).
The claim that Jesus was an anarchist has been made by a variety of individuals and movements thr... more The claim that Jesus was an anarchist has been made by a variety of individuals and movements throughout history. Although there have been significant differences in what has been meant, it is possible to determine the validity of such a judgement. Once initial questions about historicity, methodology, and definition have been addressed, it is apparent that there are a number of recurrent, dominant , motifs within our earliest sources about the figure of Jesus that can legitimately be judged anarchist. The 'Kingdom of God' for example, a concept that pervades the earliest data, includes the active identification and critique of coercive relations of power, and the enactment of new, egalitarian and prefigurative modes of social life, as well as a reflexive, undetermined, and self-creative praxis. The pedagogy of the historical Jesus also appears to have been predominately prefigurative and non-coercive. Although the picture certainly is not uniform, and there are early motifs that can be judged authoritarian and hierarchical, claims that the historical Jesus was an anarchist are legitimate, defensible and valuable. It is true that if we could follow the precepts of the Nazarene this would be a different world to live in. There would then be no murder and no war; no cheating and lying and profit-making. There would be neither slave nor master, and we should all live like brothers, in peace and harmony. There would be neither poor nor rich, neither crime nor prison, but that would not be what the church wants. It would be what the Anarchists want. 1
Magic is usually assumed to have been ubiquitous and culturally significant in the early Roman Em... more Magic is usually assumed to have been ubiquitous and culturally significant in the early Roman Empire, something exemplified by Pliny the Elder's claim that "there is no one who does not fear to be spellbound by curse tablets". 1 A variety of written and material evidence is commonly taken to be indicative of both the regular use of magic and widespread anxiety about its deployment. However, this paper argues that if we attempt, having determined a contextually appropriate definition of magic, to gauge the prevalence and significance of magic in this period, it can be seen to have had little cultural salience. Not only is evidence for its presence more equivocal than usually presumed, but magic is found to be strikingly absent from major popular cultural sources that shed light on the presuppositions and preoccupations of most of the empire's inhabitants, and to have had little explanatory or symbolic utility. The paper then proceeds to suggest possible reasons for magic's lack of salience in the early Empire, including the role of various sceptical discourses concerned with the supernatural in general and magic in particular, and the consequence of the largely agonistic context of its use on the limited occasions that it was employed.
‘More Ingenious than Learned’? Examining the Quest for the Non-Historical Jesus
New Testament Studies, 2019
This paper seeks to scrutinise the debate about the historicity of Jesus and identify aspects tha... more This paper seeks to scrutinise the debate about the historicity of Jesus and identify aspects that merit critical reflection by New Testament scholars. Although the question is regularly dismissed, it is a salient one that was formative in the development of the discipline, and has become increasingly visible since the turn of the century. However, the terminology employed by the protagonists is problematic, and the conventional historiography of the debate misleading. The characteristic tropes evident in the contributions are also indicative of substantive issues within the discipline of New Testament studies itself.
To argue that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by the Roman authorities because they believed h... more To argue that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by the Roman authorities because they believed him to be a royal pretender of some kind, fails to explain satisfactorily why he was killed but his followers were not. A possible solution to this conundrum, which is supported by neglected contextual data, is that the Romans thought Jesus of Nazareth to be a deranged and deluded lunatic.
The 'Epistle Dedicatory' is a manuscript letter in English that prefaces a collection of three La... more The 'Epistle Dedicatory' is a manuscript letter in English that prefaces a collection of three Latin papers that Nöel Aubert de Versé attempted to deliver on behalf of Unitarians in England to the Moroccan ambassador, Muhammad ben Haddu, as he was about to leave London, sometime in August 1682. The letter was subsequently published and became a key text in the definition of English Unitarianism, and its reception by its critics. It is a unique document in the history of Christian-Muslim relations.
A Turke turn’d Quaker: conversion from Islam to radical dissent in early modern England
The Seventeenth Century , 2017
The study of the relationship between the anglophone and Islamic
worlds in the seventeenth centur... more The study of the relationship between the anglophone and Islamic worlds in the seventeenth century has been the subject of increas- ing interest in recent years, and much attention has been given to the cultural anxiety surrounding “Turning Turke”, conversion from Christianity to Islam, especially by English captives on the Barbary coast. Conversion in the other direction has attracted far less scrutiny, not least because it appears to have been far less com- mon. Conversion from Islam to any form of radical dissent has attracted no scholarship whatsoever, probably because it has been assumed to be non-existent. However, the case of Bartholomew Cole provides evidence that such conversions did take place, and examining the life of this “Turke turn’d Quaker” provides an insight into the dynamics of cross-cultural conversion of an exceptional kind.
The concept of "apocalyptic terrorism" has become common in the study of terrorism since the turn... more The concept of "apocalyptic terrorism" has become common in the study of terrorism since the turn of the millennium and some have made considerable claims about its analytical and practical utility. However, it raises substantial problems. Following a brief survey of the way that the idea has been employed, this paper identifies difficulties inherent in its current use. In addition to those of a definitional kind, these include the treatment of "apocalyptic" as a synonym for "religious"; the assumption that apocalyptic is always primary and totalizing; homogenizing claims about the character of apocalyptic radi-calism; mistaken assumptions about the causes and character of apocalyptic violence; problematic cross-cultural and non-religious applications of the term "apocalyptic"; the neglect of hermeneutics; and the dearth of contributions by specialists in the study of religion. The argument concludes that there are good grounds for abandoning the notion of "apocalyptic terrorism" entirely, but given that this is unlikely, it should be employed far more cautiously, and a narrower, more tightly defined understanding of the concept should be advocated by those engaged in the study of terrorism.
Terrorism: Its Past, Present & Future Study - A Special Issue to Commemorate CSTPV at 25. Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations, 2020
It would be hard not to agree with most of what Professor Juergensmeyer has said in his contribut... more It would be hard not to agree with most of what Professor Juergensmeyer has said in his contribution, not least because, unlike many who write on the subject of religion and terrorism, he has spent much of his professional life talking to religious terrorists, rather than solely talking about them. And his nuanced conclusion, that religion is neither the cause nor the victim of terrorism, is a difficult one from which to dissent. Many critics of religion, and its apologists, have added little to our understanding by treating the question as though it can only be answered by "yes" or "no". It is also extremely helpful to be reminded by Juergensmeyer of the variety of ways that religion and violence may be related, and the mixed motivations of religious terrorists, but above all, of his own definitive contribution to the subject, his notion of 'cosmic war', something that has, over the years, proven its explanatory value.
Interdisciplinarity in Learning and Teaching in Religious Studies
This chapter examines interdisciplinarity in teaching and learning in religious studies today. Wi... more This chapter examines interdisciplinarity in teaching and learning in religious studies today. With reference to case studies and examples, it considers the institutional and other frameworks within which interdisciplinarity happens, and difficulties that can be associated with the blurring or dismantling of intellectual boundaries in this field.
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Books by Justin Meggitt
The essays included are: 1. Popular mythology in the early Roman Empire and the multiplicity of Jesus traditions; 2. The historical Jesus and healing: Jesus' miracles in psychosocial context; 3. Psychology and the historical Jesus; 4. Was the historical Jesus an anarchist? Anachronism, anarchism and the historical Jesus; 5. The madness of King Jesus: Why was Jesus put to death, but his followers were not?; 6. "More ingenious than learned"? Examining the quest for the non-historical Jesus; 7. Did magic matter? The saliency of magic in the early Roman Empire.
This study seeks to understand how and why this heterodox Christian sect created such unusual interpretations of Islam by analysing the experience of these slaves, and scrutinising the distinctive, oppositional culture of the movement to which they belonged. The work has implications that go beyond the specific subject of study and raises questions about the role that such things as apocalypticism and sectarianism can play in inter-religious encounter, and the analytical limitations of Orientalism in characterising Christian representations of Islam in the early modern period.
Papers by Justin Meggitt
worlds in the seventeenth century has been the subject of increas-
ing interest in recent years, and much attention has been given to
the cultural anxiety surrounding “Turning Turke”, conversion from
Christianity to Islam, especially by English captives on the Barbary
coast. Conversion in the other direction has attracted far less
scrutiny, not least because it appears to have been far less com-
mon. Conversion from Islam to any form of radical dissent has
attracted no scholarship whatsoever, probably because it has been
assumed to be non-existent. However, the case of Bartholomew
Cole provides evidence that such conversions did take place, and
examining the life of this “Turke turn’d Quaker” provides an insight
into the dynamics of cross-cultural conversion of an exceptional
kind.