Goat for Yahweh, Goat for Azazel: The Impact of Yom Kippur on the Gospels by Hans M. Moscicke (review)

Abstract

political economy ruled by the demands and coercion of the empire. Likewise, prior sociological research—influenced by anti-Marxist sociological models in the 1970s—presented Roman society as a coherent system in which different socioeconomic roles and occupations all fit into a cohesive whole. The reality, however, was far more governed by inequality, poverty, and the exploitation of the many by an extremely wealthy few. Building on this foundation, H.’s next chapters present the early Christ movement as an alternative to the domination and exploitation of the Roman imperial order, turning first to Acts (chap, 7) and then to economic solidarity in the letters of Paul (chap, 8). Horsley’s final section addresses contemporary implications. This section frames global capitalism as a new form of empire, the Bible as a tool of empire, and the field of biblical studies as complicit in empire (chap. 9). H. contrasts this with the biblical texts themselves. He traces the critique of empire and the call to political-economic-religious solidarity through the Hebrew Bible (chap. 10) and NT (chap. 11) and concludes in the latter half of chap. 11 with a call to create alternative communities in resistance to the empire of global capitalism. Not all will agree with the interpretive decisions that H. makes. One example is the use of Acts, where H. takes the lack of apocalyptic expectation in the apostles’ speeches as reflecting historical reality rather than indicating a late date for Acts itself. H.’s portrait of Jesus follows similar lines: Jesus eschews apocalyptic speculation and mocks the search for eternal life, preaching economic solidarity and support for families instead. Finally, H.’s sweeping critique of the field of biblical studies at times treads on shaky ground—namely, his claim that racial, ethnic, gender, and postcolonial readings of Scripture are an extension of bourgeois interests and neglect the political-economic concerns of the biblical text. What H. has truly offered here, however, is a distillation of a robust career of fifty years of scholarship, which builds on his prior works, constructs a compelling and provocative narrative of both Jesus and Paul, and calls the reader to resist the domination of global capitalism just as their early followers resisted Rome.