Nazareth's Rebellious Son: Deviance and Downward Mobility in the Galilean Jesus Movement

Abstract

Using social—scientific criticism, I imagine that Jesus' family and village elders labeled him a “rebellious son” because his kingdom of God agenda threatened their domestic economy and the patriarchal power relations that sustained it. Consequently, Jesus left Nazareth and initiated a movement among Galilean fishing villages that had marked economic impact on a variety of Galileans. The Jesus movement fostered several economic dynamics including exacerbating the downward mobility of peasants alienated from their families, these very families, and even some “wealthy” persons associated with the movement. Passages from Q suggest that new fictive-kin groups quickly emerged and developed their own patron-client economy. By meeting the basic needs of its members, this household-based domestic economy also created a safety-net for its disenfranchised and honored poor. The Jesus movement represented one of the many sub-systems within first-century Galilee, and—with some modification—it resembled later urban Christian households, especially those characteristic of Paul and Luke—Acts.