{"id":4076,"date":"2021-11-10T15:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/socialjesus\/?p=4076"},"modified":"2021-11-11T08:00:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T12:00:56","slug":"declaring-war-against-poverty-part2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/socialjesus\/2021\/11\/declaring-war-against-poverty-part2\/","title":{"rendered":"Declaring War Against Poverty (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Welcome readers! Please subscribe through the button on the right.<\/i><\/p>\n

(Read this series from its beginning here<\/span><\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\"sunset<\/p>\n

The Temple was the heart of Judaism during the time of Jesus, but let\u2019s look at this week\u2019s passage in more than its religious context. As the seat of the Jewish Temple State, the Temple was also the heart of the banking system and the food industry (both meat and grain), and the seat of political power for Judea under Rome.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 criticisms should not be interpreted as anti-Jewish or anti-Judaism. Jesus was a faithful Jewish man debating within his own society, and his voice was one of many at the time arguing about what it meant to be a faithful Jewish follower of the Torah given the Torah\u2019s teachings on the poor and eliminating poverty. Seen through this lens and given Jesus\u2019 love for the poor of his own society, Jesus\u2019s criticism of the state was a criticism of a system that had both created poverty and then further exploited those forced to live in that poverty.<\/p>\n

Those living after the Jewish-Roman War of 66-70 C.E. would have recognized the events described in this week\u2019s passage. As we\u2019ve discussed, the Jewish-Roman War began an initial uprising of the poor against rich Temple elites who served as conduits of the Roman Empire. The poor people\u2019s revolt began with their overrunning the Temple and burning all the debt records held against the poor, and each stage of the takeover escalated. Once the Jewish rebels gained control and Rome was brought in, a war broke out between the rebels and Rome while the Jewish elites futilely endeavored to maintain allegiance to Rome as violent uprising erupted all around them.<\/p>\n

Josephus corroborates Mark\u2019s descriptions of this era. In The War of the Jews, <\/i>he describes \u201ca great number of false prophets\u201d who with \u201csigns and wonders\u201d promised \u201cdeliverance\u201d or liberation. But in the end, their movements only resulted in masses of the \u201cmiserable people\u201d who followed them being slaughtered by Rome (Book 6.285-309). Josephus also writes of the famine in Jerusalem that resulted when the grain storehouses \u201cwhich would have been sufficient for a siege of many years\u201d were burned by various \u201ctreacherous faction in the city\u201d (5.21-26).Finally, he describes the burning the Temple itself (6.249-266).<\/p>\n

Many more than Jesus called the people to address the plight of the poor and to end a system that financially benefited wealthy families at the poor\u2019s expense. The rich got richer and the poor only got poorer.<\/p>\n

So Mark\u2019s gospel called its audience to see the overthrowing of such economically exploitative systems not as \u201cthe end,\u201d but as the \u201cbeginnings of birth pains\u201d for a new world.<\/p>\n

This makes me think of some things we face today in our own societal contexts.\u00a0 We\u2019ll consider a few of those next.<\/p>\n

(Read Part 3<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeing the overthrowing of such economically exploitative systems not as \u201cthe end,\u201d but as the \u201cbeginnings of birth pains\u201d for a new world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[732,729],"tags":[1212,528,2611,1056,73,1842,2720,2049,284,25,1626,185,777,58,2894,2134,70],"class_list":["post-4076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-liberation-theology","tag-anti-semitism","tag-community","tag-ecological-justice","tag-economic-justice","tag-feminism","tag-immigration-justice","tag-lectionary-reading","tag-lgbtq-justice","tag-liberation-theology","tag-love","tag-militarism","tag-poverty","tag-racial-justice","tag-social-justice","tag-temple","tag-wealth-disparity","tag-womanism"],"yoast_head":"\nDeclaring War Against Poverty (Part 2 of 3) | Social 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