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utopologist's review against another edition
3.0
I don't know that this was my best introduction to Agamben, so I'll come back and reread after I read Homo Sacer.
cinaedus's review against another edition
An interesting & entertaining discussion
mveldeivendran's review against another edition
3.0
This extended essay from the Italian Philosopher draws the parallel association and the paradoxical relations with various stand points written with various erudite references spanning several centuries as in between the drowned and the saved; the crucifier and the lucifer; the reassurer and the hard-truth seeker.
Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of the consul at the kingdom of Judea under the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was one among the council people to judge the person/ being (from another kingdom which was not from here), and flog him, crucify him out of which a religion based of reassuring judgement was made ironically.
Pontius Pilate was the Roman prefect of the consul at the kingdom of Judea under the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Pilate was one among the council people to judge the person/ being (from another kingdom which was not from here), and flog him, crucify him out of which a religion based of reassuring judgement was made ironically.
blackoxford's review against another edition
4.0
Throwing Religious Shade
The trial of Jesus in the Christian gospels is a central part of the drama of his life. It is the place and time at which the kingdom of God is most clearly confronted by the kingdom of Man. The point of collision between the two, Jesus standing before Pilate, is important enough for Pilate to be included in the Christian creed by name. It is clear that it is not just Jesus’s death but also the process, the krisis or judicial manner of his death, that is a crucial matter of Christian doctrine. To die for our sins, Jesus must be legitimately condemned by a universal earthly power according to the contemporary theory. The earthly power of the day was Rome, represented bodily by Pontius Pilate.
But therein lies a problem: None of the evangelists could possibly have been present during the key moments of Jesus trial - not during the time when his accusers from the Sanhedrin approached Pilate about their concerns; and most definitely not during the crucial moments when Jesus and Pilate are alone together (with no doubt a Roman guard or two in attendance). At best, whatever the evangelists have to say about the matter is hearsay. More likely, the stories of the trial are theological fantasy rather than historical description. The most detailed account of the proceedings is, after all, given by the latest Gospel, that of John, which was written between 50 and 70 years after the events in question. As Agamben notes, “The evangelists, who certainly could not have been present at the trial, do not concern themselves with indicating the sources of their narrative and precisely this lack of philological scruples confers on the account its incomparable epic tone.”
Moreover, from a legal perspective, there is no coherent explanation for either the trial itself or its outcome. What seems important is in fact the ambiguity of both the charges and the relative responsibilities of the Roman and Jewish authorities. “A first-rate expert in the two juridical traditions, both Jewish and Roman, has observed that the difficulty of delineating a coherent picture of the unfolding of the trial derives from the fact that the scholars seek to fit together the evangelists’ accounts procedurally, while each of them most likely followed a different presentation of the passion for theological ends.” In other words, even the legal situation was being interpreted and manipulated to fit theological intent, with no regard for juridical accuracy.*
The throwing of theological shade did not end with the four gospels. Various apocryphal documents elaborate on the gospel stories. In some Pilate is condemned by the Roman emperor for his lack of spiritual insight. In others, both Pilate and his wife are considered as saints (the feast day of Pilate’s wife in the Ethiopian Church is October 26). In more recent times, the leading theologian of the 20th century, Karl Barth, pointed out that the ‘handing over’ of Jesus by Pilate is a continuation of a similar ‘handing over’ by Judas, and the same ‘handing over’ by God himself of Jesus to the world. This handing over (tradere in Latin) is the same term as for betrayal. Jesus was therefore just that - the ultimate victim of betrayal. Not by Pilate, but by God. And this is also the literal meaning of Christian tradition (handing over) about Jesus. For Barth, the tradition of the gospel is itself a betrayal; only Jesus, not the defective writings about him, is the Word of God.
It strikes me that Agamben’s brief analysis demonstrates two important things about Christian scriptures. First, they are essentially metaphysical poetry which cannot claim factual accuracy. Yet within this poetry it is claimed that all facts - that is truth itself, and not just religious truth - are divine revelations which are only available to the followers of Jesus (“Truth is from heaven,” Jesus says to Pilate). Second, that this poetry was intended and used for a specific political purpose, namely the promotion of an ‘anti-identity’ to both its Jewish matrix and its Roman context. The followers of this man Jesus were neither Jews nor pagans. They as yet did not have a name when the gospels were written but they did have the beginnings of this negative identity. And no where was this negative identity more forcefully put forward than in the fantasy of Jesus and Pilate.
* Agamben makes clear that this is far from a new idea: “... a pagan observer, Porphyry [the 3rd century philosopher born in Roman Palestine], had observed that ‘the evangelists are inventors (epheurotas) and not historians (historas, ‘witnesses’) of the events concerning Jesus. Each of them in fact writes in disagreement and not in agreement with each other.’”
The trial of Jesus in the Christian gospels is a central part of the drama of his life. It is the place and time at which the kingdom of God is most clearly confronted by the kingdom of Man. The point of collision between the two, Jesus standing before Pilate, is important enough for Pilate to be included in the Christian creed by name. It is clear that it is not just Jesus’s death but also the process, the krisis or judicial manner of his death, that is a crucial matter of Christian doctrine. To die for our sins, Jesus must be legitimately condemned by a universal earthly power according to the contemporary theory. The earthly power of the day was Rome, represented bodily by Pontius Pilate.
But therein lies a problem: None of the evangelists could possibly have been present during the key moments of Jesus trial - not during the time when his accusers from the Sanhedrin approached Pilate about their concerns; and most definitely not during the crucial moments when Jesus and Pilate are alone together (with no doubt a Roman guard or two in attendance). At best, whatever the evangelists have to say about the matter is hearsay. More likely, the stories of the trial are theological fantasy rather than historical description. The most detailed account of the proceedings is, after all, given by the latest Gospel, that of John, which was written between 50 and 70 years after the events in question. As Agamben notes, “The evangelists, who certainly could not have been present at the trial, do not concern themselves with indicating the sources of their narrative and precisely this lack of philological scruples confers on the account its incomparable epic tone.”
Moreover, from a legal perspective, there is no coherent explanation for either the trial itself or its outcome. What seems important is in fact the ambiguity of both the charges and the relative responsibilities of the Roman and Jewish authorities. “A first-rate expert in the two juridical traditions, both Jewish and Roman, has observed that the difficulty of delineating a coherent picture of the unfolding of the trial derives from the fact that the scholars seek to fit together the evangelists’ accounts procedurally, while each of them most likely followed a different presentation of the passion for theological ends.” In other words, even the legal situation was being interpreted and manipulated to fit theological intent, with no regard for juridical accuracy.*
The throwing of theological shade did not end with the four gospels. Various apocryphal documents elaborate on the gospel stories. In some Pilate is condemned by the Roman emperor for his lack of spiritual insight. In others, both Pilate and his wife are considered as saints (the feast day of Pilate’s wife in the Ethiopian Church is October 26). In more recent times, the leading theologian of the 20th century, Karl Barth, pointed out that the ‘handing over’ of Jesus by Pilate is a continuation of a similar ‘handing over’ by Judas, and the same ‘handing over’ by God himself of Jesus to the world. This handing over (tradere in Latin) is the same term as for betrayal. Jesus was therefore just that - the ultimate victim of betrayal. Not by Pilate, but by God. And this is also the literal meaning of Christian tradition (handing over) about Jesus. For Barth, the tradition of the gospel is itself a betrayal; only Jesus, not the defective writings about him, is the Word of God.
It strikes me that Agamben’s brief analysis demonstrates two important things about Christian scriptures. First, they are essentially metaphysical poetry which cannot claim factual accuracy. Yet within this poetry it is claimed that all facts - that is truth itself, and not just religious truth - are divine revelations which are only available to the followers of Jesus (“Truth is from heaven,” Jesus says to Pilate). Second, that this poetry was intended and used for a specific political purpose, namely the promotion of an ‘anti-identity’ to both its Jewish matrix and its Roman context. The followers of this man Jesus were neither Jews nor pagans. They as yet did not have a name when the gospels were written but they did have the beginnings of this negative identity. And no where was this negative identity more forcefully put forward than in the fantasy of Jesus and Pilate.
* Agamben makes clear that this is far from a new idea: “... a pagan observer, Porphyry [the 3rd century philosopher born in Roman Palestine], had observed that ‘the evangelists are inventors (epheurotas) and not historians (historas, ‘witnesses’) of the events concerning Jesus. Each of them in fact writes in disagreement and not in agreement with each other.’”
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