Summary
Samuel George Frederick Brandon (1907 – 21 October 1971) was a British Anglican priest and scholar of comparative religion. He became professor of comparative religion at the University of Manchester in 1951.
S. G. F. Brandon | |
|---|---|
| Born | Samuel George Frederick Brandon 1907 Devon, England |
| Died | 21 October 1971 (aged 63–64) |
| Ecclesiastical career | |
| Religion | Christianity (Anglican) |
| Church | Church of England[1] |
| Ordained | 1932 (priest) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Leeds |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Religious studies |
| Sub-discipline | Comparative religion |
| Institutions | University of Manchester |
| Notable works | Jesus and the Zealots (1967) |
| Influenced | |
Biography edit
Born in Devon in 1907,[2] Brandon was a graduate of the University of Leeds.[3] He was ordained as a priest in 1932 after Anglican training at Mirfield,[4] and then spent seven years as a parish priest before enrolling as an army chaplain in the Second World War, after which he began a successful academic career in 1951 as an historian of religion.[5] Brandon's most influential work, Jesus and the Zealots, was published in 1967, wherein he advanced the claim that Jesus fitted well within the ideology of the anti-Roman Zealot group.[6]
He was elected general secretary of the International Association for the History of Religions in 1970.[7]
As he flew over the Mediterranean Sea on 21 October 1971, he died of an infection he had contracted while working in Egypt.[8]
Ideas edit
His thinking on New Testament themes grew out of The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (1951). His most celebrated position is a controversial one that echoes the works of Hermann Reimarus,[9] that the historical Jesus was a political revolutionary figure, influenced in that by the Zealots; this he argued in the 1967 book Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity.[10]
The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth (1968) raises again, amongst other matters, the question of how the Fall of the Temple in 70 CE shaped the emerging Christian faith, and in particular the Gospel of Mark.
He was a critic of the myth-ritual theory, writing a 1958 essay "The Myth and Ritual Position Critically Examined" attacking its assumptions.[11]
Brandon also claimed that the Pauline epistles and the accounts of Jesus Christ found in the Gospels represented two opposing factions of Christianity, a view first proposed by 19th century Hegelian theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur.[12]
Selected works edit
- The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (1951)
- Time and Mankind: An Historical and Philosophical Study of Mankind's Attitude to the Phenomena of Change (1954)
- Man and His Destiny in the Great Religions: An Historical and Comparative Study (1962)
- Creation Legends of the Ancient Near East (1963)
- History, Time, and Deity (1965)
- The Judgment of the Dead: The Idea of Life After Death in the Major Religions (1967)
- Jesus and the Zealots: A Study of the Political Factor in Primitive Christianity (1967)
- The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth (1968)
- Religion in Ancient History: Studies in Ideas, Men, and Events (1969)
- Ancient Empires (1970)
As editor edit
- The Saviour God: Comparative Studies in the Concept of Salvation (1963)
- A Dictionary of Comparative Religion (1970)
See also edit
- Foundations of Christianity (German: Der Ursprung des Christentums), a 1908 book by Marxist philosopher Karl Kautsky which contended that Christianity was born out of a group of Jewish proletarians who sought to defeat the Romans through a violent insurrection.
- The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, despite its seriousness, the hypothesis of Brandon is a key figure in the content of this pseudohistorical book.
- Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, a 2013 New York Times best seller which follows Brandon in his general thesis but written by a non-biblical scholar.
Scholars who have advanced the same ideas:
- Shmuley Boteach[13]
- Bruce Chilton[14]
- Robert Eisler[15]
- Zev Garber[16]
- Hyam Maccoby[17]
- Zhu Weizhi[18]
- Bouck White[19]
Scholars who have advanced related ideas:
- Obery M. Hendricks Jr.[20]
- Richard Horsley[21]
- David Kaylor[22]
- Antonio Piñero[23]
- Douglas E. Oakman[24]
Archaeologists who have advanced the same ideas:
Archaeologists who have advanced related ideas:
References edit
Footnotes edit
- ^ Sharpe 1972, p. 71; Sharpe 2005, p. 1039.
- ^ Sharpe 2005, p. 1039; Simon 1972, p. 84.
- ^ Sharpe 1972, p. 71.
- ^ Simon 1972, p. 84.
- ^ Hengel 1967, p. 5.
- ^ Brandon 1967.
- ^ Sharpe 2005, p. 1040; Simon 1972, p. 84.
- ^ Sharpe & Hinnells 1973, p. ix.
- ^ "Reimarus, Hermann Samuel." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
- ^ "The Bible: A Political, Patriotic Jesus". Time. Vol. 93, no. 1. New York. 3 January 1969. Archived from the original on 14 December 2008. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
Brandon pictures Jesus as a politically aware activist vigorously working against the Palestinian 'Establishment' – the Roman occupying forces and Jerusalem's collaborationist Jewish aristocracy.
- ^ In Myth, Ritual and Kingship edited by S. H. Hooke. Reprinted in The Myth and Ritual Theory (1998) edited by Robert A. Segal. Segal refers to the Sharpe and Hinnells volume for biography.
- ^ Brandon 1970.
- ^ Boteach, Shmuley (2012). Kosher Jesus. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House. p. 47. ISBN 978-9652295781.
- ^ Chilton, Bruce D. (2000). Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-49793-0. OCLC 44019167.
- ^ Eisler, Robert (17 April 1926). "The Russian Josephus: Recent Studies of the Text". The Times.
- ^ Garber, Zev (2011). The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. ISBN 9781557535795. OCLC 670480801.
- ^ "Review – Hyam Maccoby, Jesus the Pharisee reviewed by Robert M. Price". www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com.
- ^ Wang, Zhixi (19 September 2019). "The Gospel According to Marxism: Zhu Weizhi and the Making of Jesus the Proletarian (1950)". Religions. 10 (9): 535. doi:10.3390/rel10090535.
- ^ Boxer, Sarah. "Word for Word/The Flag Bulletin;Two Centuries of Burning Flags, A Few Years of Blowing Smoke." The New York Times. December 17, 1995. Web. May 31, 2009. [1]
- ^ "Jesus of Nazareth, Revolutionary Socialist: An Interview with Obery Hendricks". 11 February 2020.
- ^ Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine, University of South Carolina Press, retrieved 17 March 2017
- ^ Andreas J. Köstenberger et al., The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament, p. 120.
- ^ Rodriguez Gervasios, Manuel (2019). "Piñero, Antonio. Aproximación al Jesús histórico, Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2018, 342 pp. [ISBN: 978-84-9879-761-9]". Studia Historica: Historia Antigua (in Spanish) (37): 357–360. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
- ^ Oakman, Douglas E., The Political Aims of Jesus Minneapolis: Fortress Pres, 2012.
- ^ Faulkner, Neil, Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt Against Rome (2002) Tempus, first edition; (2012) Amberley Publishing, second edition
- ^ Kettmann, Matt (20 December 2012). "Christ the Activist: New Book Traces Jesus of Nazareth's Life, from Possible Slave to Social-Justice Militant". Santa Barbara Independent.
- ^ Pam Kirsch, "Here are good books to curl up with during 2013", The Vincennes Sun-Commercial (19 January 2013), p. A6.
- ^ Horsley, Richard A; Silberman, Neil Asher, The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World. New York: Grossett/Putnam. Reprint, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002.
- ^ Tabor, James D. (2006). The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-8723-1.
Bibliography edit
- Brandon, S. G. F. (1967). Jesus and the Zealots. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
- ——— , ed. (1970). A Dictionary of Comparative Religion. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
- Hengel, Martin (1967). Was Jesus a Revolutionist?. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
- Sharpe, Eric J. (1972). "S. G. F. Brandon (1907–1971)". History of Religions. 12 (1): 71–74. doi:10.1086/462667. ISSN 1545-6935. JSTOR 1061830. S2CID 162348242.
- ——— (2005). "Brandon, S. G. F.". In Jones, Lindsay (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion. Vol. 2 (2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, Michigan: Macmillan Reference. pp. 1039–1040. ISBN 978-0-02-865735-6.
- Sharpe, Eric J.; Hinnells, John R., eds. (1973). Man and His Salvation: Studies in Memory of S. G. F. Brandon. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-0537-4.
- Simon, Marcel (1972). "S. G. F. Brandon (1907–1971)". Numen (in French). 19 (2/3): 84–90. doi:10.1163/156852772X00089. ISSN 1568-5276. JSTOR 3269739.
Further reading edit
- "The Rise & Fall of Heaven". Time. Vol. 80, no. 10. New York. 7 September 1962. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 10 November 2019.