Thread by @ProfPaulPoast

People around the world will reflect today on the meaning of empire, rivalry, COIN tactics, and buffer states.

I'm of course referring to hearing the Passion account during Good Friday services.

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Just to make sure we're on the same page, the Passion account is the narrative in the New Testament Gospels (such as Mark, linked below) describing the trial and execution of Jesus of Nazareth.

quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv/rsv-…

For Christians, it (and the aftermath -- i.e. Easter) is central to their faith. How central? A New Testament scholar once said something to the effect of "The gospels are just passion accounts with prologues"

(maybe @BartEhrman can help me recall the exact quote)

How can the Passion accounts speak to the various international relations concepts I highlighted above?

To see why, let's turn to historical critical scholarship on the New Testament: i.e. treating scripture as historical documents to explore the times they were written.

It's the type of scholarship explored at, for example, @UChiDivinity.

divinity.uchicago.edu/academics/area…

One particular strand of scholarship is the "Quest for the historical Jesus", meaning using the Gospels to understand exactly who was the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth.

This is an important line of research because, regardless of your religious beliefs (or non-beliefs), one should recognized his historical significance.

Examples of this work include...

...John Meier's multi volume work...

amazon.com/Marginal-Jew-R…

...@BartEhrman's book...

amazon.com/Jesus-Apocalyp…

...the "Jesus Seminar"...

westarinstitute.org/projects/the-j…

...and the seminal work of Albert Schweitzer.
google.com/books/edition/…

Like any historical study, there are points of agreement and disagreement. But one aspect of Jesus' life is pretty much unanimously held by scholars: he was crucified by the Roman Empire.

That matters, because his crucifixion tells us A LOT about what was going on in the Eastern Mediterranean region of the Roman Empire (specifically, the region of Judaea) during that time.

Crucifixion had a very specific meaning within the Roman Empire: it was punishment reserved for insurrectionists.

In the context of IR and conflict studies scholarship, it was a form of Counter-insurgency (COIN) by intimidation & coercion...rather than, say, appealing to "hearts and minds" (see Shapiro et al in @JPolEcon )

journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…

Does that mean Jesus was actually an insurrectionist?

John Dominic Crossan says that while Jesus wasn't a militant rebel, he was revolutionary in his teachings...
amazon.com/Historical-Jes…

...and you can't separate his message from the presence of Roman Imperial occupation (we'll come back to that)

amazon.com/God-Empire-Jes…

Others argue that Jesus was indeed a militant rebel seeking to stoke an insurrection against Roman occupation. Dale Martin summarizes some of that literature in his review of @rezaaslan's book "Zealot"

nytimes.com/2013/08/06/boo…

But regardless of whether he was actually a rebel, he was crucified. That means the Roman state at least perceived him as an insurrectionist.

That's not to say that Rome never used a "hearts and minds" approach. Frank Russell shows in this piece the wide variation across the Empire, and specifically in Judaea, in how insurrection (and the potential for insurrection) was managed

brill.com/view/book/edco…

But Pontius Pilate, the Roman Prefect of Judaea at the time of Jesus execution, was someone known to be more heavy handed in his approach
cambridge.org/core/books/pon…

Why was insurrection feared by the Romans in Judaea?

Because Judaea was occupied territory.

In the context of IR and conflict studies scholarship, we know that occupation can drive rebel attacks, including suicide bombings.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

Why was Judaea occupied? One can think of it was a buffer state, meaning a state located between two rival international powers. As @tanishafazal showed, such states are prone to invasion and occupation

press.princeton.edu/books/paperbac…

Judaea and several other small states in the region (such as Armenia), were buffers between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire.

Rome and Parthia had a long running rivalry that ran between being "hot" (i.e. actual war) and "cold" (i.e. stand offs). In other words, they were international rivals
amazon.com/Rome-Persia-La…

For an excellent recent overview of Judaea's role in overall Roman security (be it a buffer between Rome and Parthia or as a `client state' that absorbed low-intensity threats), highly recommend @zeichman in @CbrJournal.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117…

In sum, the New Testament sheds light on important international relations concepts, and these concepts, in turn, shed light on the New Testament.

Not saying that is what folks SHOULD reflect on during Good Friday services. But IR-concepts are hard to ignore.

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