Was Judea Occupied?
Okay, so this is pretty specific to my context, but I think it bears wider consideration. I have now heard in two consecutive sermons that Rome was an occupying force, were “occupiers,” and/or first-century Judea was “occupied.” While this idea is certainly discernable in the Gospels, it reflects a lack of engagement with real history.
I’m no expert, but I do have a little experience with occupations. I participated in one in 2004 as an American soldier in Iraq. The thing about occupations is that the foreign occupying force maintains tight control over most aspects of daily life. If that’s an agreeable working definition, then Jesus did not live under occupation.
Rome was unashamedly imperial in their ambition, don’t get me wrong, but the confusion is a result of insufficient popular attention given to the revolt of 66 CE. Before then, including all of Jesus’ earthly ministry and most of Paul’s, most Italian-born soldiers were in Caesarea Maritima. There might have been a few in the fortress town of Sebaste, known to Jews as the capital of the ancient northern kingdom until Herod renamed it, but they would have been a minority among indigenous forces and Syrian recruits. Jesus never went to either place and therefore encountered few, if any, “Roman” soldiers. Not much of an occupation.
During the revolt, there were plenty of occupying forces, including a few legions. This is when Mark’s gospel is believed to have been first put to pen. Matthew and Luke don’t originate until after the worst fighting had ceased, in 70 CE, at which time just one legion was stationed in Judea; Legio X Fretensis. The Jewish homeland, including Jesus’ homeland of Galilee, would have been crawling with light-skinned infidels when John’s gospel was being composed, in the 90s CE. In other words, the evangelists were reflecting on a political situation Jesus did not encounter.
American Christianity cannot fathom an historical Jesus until anti-imperialism releases its stranglehold on political theology. Rome was not Jesus’ primary focus, it was the clerical class and intelligentsia of the Judean Temple economy, whose corruption excluded and demeaned devout rural Jews like himself. It’s no coincidence that the two consecutive sermons I mentioned above were preached by an ordained priest in an ornate church. I have nothing against clergy, I’m married to one, but it’s not hard to imagine the spiritual alienation Jesus must have felt at the hands of the demeaning purists controlling Jerusalem.
If you have been an occupier, like me, then you’re not alone. If Christians try to sell you on the idea that the violent imperialists were the problem, don’t buy it. Jesus’ Judea was occupied by condescending religious opportunists, not Roman soldiers. The truth is, Jesus didn’t have a problem with soldiers. Christians who do, aren’t.
