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Why was Jesus, who said 'I judge no one', put to death for a
political crime? Of course, this is a historical question-but it is
not only historical. Jesus's life became a philosophical theme in
the first centuries of our era, when 'pagan' and Christian
philosophers clashed over the meaning of his sayings and the
significance of his death. Modern philosophers, too, such as
Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, have tried to retrace the
arc of Jesus's life and death. I Judge No One is a philosophical
reading of the four memoirs, or 'gospels', that were fashioned by
early Christ-believers and collected in the New Testament. It
offers original ways of seeing a deeply enigmatic figure who calls
himself the Son of Man. David Lloyd Dusenbury suggests that Jesus
offered his contemporaries a scandalous double claim. First, that
human judgements are pervasive and deceptive; and second, that even
divine laws can only be fulfilled in the human experience of love.
Though his life led inexorably to a grim political death, what
Jesus's sayings revealed-and still reveal-is that our highest
desires lie beyond the political.
The gospels and ancient historians agree: Jesus was sentenced to
death by Pontius Pilate, the Roman imperial prefect in Jerusalem.
To this day, Christians of all churches confess that Jesus died
'under Pontius Pilate'. But what exactly does that mean? Within
decades of Jesus' death, Christians began suggesting that it was
the Judaean authorities who had crucified Jesus--a notion later
echoed in the Qur'an. In the third century, one philosopher raised
the notion that, although Pilate had condemned Jesus, he'd done so
justly; this idea survives in one of the main strands of modern New
Testament criticism. So what is the truth of the matter? And what
is the history of that truth? David Lloyd Dusenbury reveals
Pilate's 'innocence' as not only a neglected theological question,
but a recurring theme in the history of European political thought.
He argues that Jesus' interrogation by Pilate, and Augustine of
Hippo's North African sermon on that trial, led to the concept of
secularity and the logic of tolerance emerging in early modern
Europe. Without the Roman trial of Jesus, and the arguments over
Pilate's innocence, the history of empire--from the first century
to the twenty-first--would have been radically different.
The gospels and ancient historians agree: Jesus was sentenced to
death by Pontius Pilate, the Roman imperial prefect in Jerusalem.
To this day, Christians of all churches confess that Jesus died
'under Pontius Pilate'. But what exactly does that mean? Within
decades of Jesus' death, Christians began suggesting that it was
the Judaean authorities who had crucified Jesus--a notion later
echoed in the Qur'an. In the third century, one philosopher raised
the notion that, although Pilate had condemned Jesus, he'd done so
justly; this idea survives in one of the main strands of modern New
Testament criticism. So what is the truth of the matter? And what
is the history of that truth? David Lloyd Dusenbury reveals
Pilate's 'innocence' as not only a neglected theological question,
but a recurring theme in the history of European political thought.
He argues that Jesus' interrogation by Pilate, and Augustine of
Hippo's North African sermon on that trial, led to the concept of
secularity and the logic of tolerance emerging in early modern
Europe. Without the Roman trial of Jesus, and the arguments over
Pilate's innocence, the history of empire--from the first century
to the twenty-first--would have been radically different.
This book discusses how Plato, one the fiercest legal critics in
ancient Greece, became - in the longue duree - its most influential
legislator. Making use of a vast scholarly literature, and offering
original readings of a number of dialogues, it argues that the need
for legal critique and the desire for legal permanence set the long
arc of Plato's corpus-from the Apology to the Laws. Modern
philosophers and legal historians have tended to overlook the fact
that Plato was the most prolific legislator in ancient Greece. In
the pages of his Republic and Laws, he drafted more than 700
statutes. This is more legal material than can be credited to the
archetypal Greek legislators-Lycurgus, Draco, and Solon. The status
of Plato's laws is unique, since he composed them for purely
hypothetical cities. And remarkably, he introduced this new genre
by writing hard-hitting critiques of the Greek ideal of the
sovereignty of law. Writing in the milieu in which immutable divine
law vied for the first time with volatile democratic law, Plato
rejected both sources of law, and sought to derive his laws from
what he called 'political technique' (politike techne). At the core
of this technique is the question of how the idea of justice
relates to legal and institutional change. Filled with sharp
observations and bold claims, Platonic Legislations shows that it
is possible to see Plato-and our own legal culture-in a new light
"In this provocative, intelligent, and elegant work D. L. Dusenbury
has posed crucial questions not only as regards Plato's thought in
the making, but also as regards our contemporaneity."-Giorgio
Camassa, University of Udine "There is a tension in Greek law, and
in Greek legal thinking, between an understanding of law as
unchangeable and authoritative, and a recognition that formal rules
are often insufficient for the interpretation of reality, and need
to be constantly revised to match it. Dusenbury's book illuminates
the sophistication of Plato's legal thought in its engagement with
this tension, and explores the potential of Plato's reflection for
modern legal theory."-Mirko Canevaro, The University of Edinburgh
Nemesius of Emesa's On Human Nature (De Natura Hominis) is the
first Christian anthropology. Written in Greek, circa 390 CE, it
was read in half a dozen languages-from Baghdad to Oxford-well into
the early modern period. Nemesius' text circulated in two Latin
versions in the centuries that saw the rise of European
universities, shaping scholastic theories of human nature. During
the Renaissance there were numerous print editions helping to
inspire a new discourse of human dignity. David Lloyd Dusenbury
offers the first monograph in English on Nemesius' treatise. In the
interpretation offered here, the Syrian bishop seeks to define the
human qua human. His early Christian anthropology is cosmopolitan.
He writes, 'Things that are natural are the same for all.' In his
pages, a host of texts and discourses-biblical and medical, legal
and philosophical-are made to converge upon a decisive tenet of
Christian late antiquity: humans' natural freedom. For Nemesius,
reason and choice are a divine double-strand of powers. Since he
believes that both are a natural human inheritance, he concludes
that much is 'in our power'. Nemesius defines humans as the only
living beings who are at once ruler (intellect) and ruled (body).
Because of this, the human is a 'little world', binding the
rationality of angels to the flux of elements, the tranquillity of
plants, and the impulsiveness of animals. This compelling study
traces Nemesius' reasoning through the whole of On Human Nature, as
he seeks to give a long-influential image of humankind both
philosophical and anatomical proof.
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