Jesus was not an egalitarian. A critique of an anachronistic and idealist theory

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Summer, 2002 by John H. Elliott

Whereas Matthew (10:37) speaks of "hating" (i.e. being indifferent to) one's family, the more likely original formulation of Luke (14:26) speaks not of "hating" one's family but of loving Jesus "more than" one's family members. Priority of loyalty was thus the original point of this saying, not elimination of loyalty to one's biological family altogether. A temporary leaving of family, occupations and possessions in order to accompany Jesus did not entail or even imply a permanent condition or a lasting desertion of family, let alone a wholesale transformation of social structures. Some disciples who had left their occupations are latter reported as having returned to their homes and families (Peter, Mark 1:29; Levi, Mark 2:15; perhaps also James and John, Matt 20:20). Jesus' call, moreover, was directed to a select group who as itinerants could accompany Jesus. The support and success of their efforts, as Theissen (1978) has shown, were dependent on the hospitality offered by "sympathizers" located in stable, conventional households. Thus not all members of the Jesus faction were itinerant missionaries. Many, if not most, did not renounce their homes, property, and possessions, but rather put them at the disposal of those on the move. The fact that some followers abandoned their homes and households whereas others did not is evidence not of a general equality among Jesus followers but of continuing social and economic disparity in the Jesus faction.

Jesus' position on the abandoning of familial ties must be understood, Theissen (1978, 1992) has aptly noted, as a response to worsening conditions of social tension and anomie in first century Palestine. It must also be understood within a larger pattern of his call for repentence and a radical reorientation of priorities which included the severing of former alliances and alllegiances so as to be free for new loyalties and new commitments. These renunciation sayings illustrate Jesus' call for exclusive allegiance to and unconditional trust in God and a prioritizing of commitments given the urgency of the time and of Jesus' mission. They involve no explicit critique of the family as such. Jesus' saying about his true family (Mark 3:31-35 par.), which we shall consider shortly, clearly indicates that he was not against the family as such but in fact embraced the family as a model of both commitment to God and life in community. This surrogate family which Jesus established, as Bruce Malina has pointed out (114), would have been absolutely necessary in this collectivist, group-oriented culture where "survival in society after the negation of family integrity would require that a person move into some other actual or fictive kin group." In Matt 10:37 Crossan (1994b: 159) detects a polemic "against familial hierarchies." However, Jesus' claim of ultimate or exclusive allegiance is not the same as criticizing familal hierarchies in the name of some egalitarian principle. Priority of loyalty is Jesus' point here, as in other sayings, and not inequities of family structure. Crossan's comment is an inference unsupported by the text.