Robert R. BECK. Jesus and His Enemies: Narrative Conflict in the Four Gospels. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2017, pp. 237. $35.00 pb. Reviewed by Leo MADDEN, Ohio Dominican University, Columbus, OH 43219.

            This book represents a fine example of “Actualization,” that is, direct application of Biblical themes and messages to present concerns.  In the case of this book, the author, a Catholic priest and Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, probes the content of each of the four gospels in the hope of discovering therein some way to respond to the wave of violence that has gripped American culture from its founding, but especially in the past 40 years or so.  

For Beck, an important element of the central American myth is that violence meted out by a good person can thwart the imminent threat of violence or act of violence coming from an evil person.  This “good buy with a gun defeats a bad guy with a gun” myth stretches back to the American founding, but Christians need to be reminded that this myth runs contrary to God’s plan for the flourishing of individuals and societies. This plan of God for human flourishing is revealed most directly in the crucifixion, and so Beck examines how each evangelist presents the message of the crucifixion in a way to counter this American myth.

            Beck’s methodology in his study of the four Gospels is a version of narratology, with an emphasis on the elements of the story of Jesus distinctive to each Gospel that highlight the terms of the conflict: how the characters interact; how the story identifies the issues that provoke conflict; how the conflicts are resolved; and, in particular, how Jesus comes to recognize the task that he is enjoined to complete.  Each evangelist presents a story of conflict resolution that stands in contrast to expectations of that time and place. Thus Beck sees his work as an act of contextual exegesis and not historical exegesis.

            In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is presented in the model of a Galilean resistance figure who meets opposition from Jewish leadership in Jerusalem; but unlike those figures Jesus rejects the strategy of tit-for-tat violence.  The Markan Jesus employs the strategy of non-violent conflict resolution. Beck highlights many elements of Mark’s narrative craft, such as the many dualities, that draw attention to this particular message.

            In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is presented as the long-awaited ruler of Israel, the Son of David, who now claims authority over the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Jesus, the ruler of exiled Israel, is presented as the embodiment of Israel’s foundational persons and events.  But Jesus is not a returning prince who, upon regaining the throne, enacts vengeance upon the usurpers; instead, he rejects violence altogether: “All who take the sword will perish by the sword” (26:52). Jesus’s nonviolent journey to a death by violence brings salvation to the people of Israel who willingly acknowledge their complicity in the bloodshed (27:25). In decades to come, this policy of non-retaliation by the Matthean Jesus will distinguish Jewish Christians from their Jewish cousins.

            In the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles, the story of salvation to the Jews now includes Gentiles – in particular, God-fearers – who are enjoined to conversion and change of life. Luke’s story of resistance concerns not military but social and economic conditions: Luke presents the reversal of values that the Empire held as important. This act of conversion is constantly before the Christian, who must take up the cross daily (9:23).

            Finally, in the Gospel of John, the drama of Jesus amounts to a narrative sketch of the Philippians hymn (2:6-11), the emptying of the eternal Word and the willingness to reach death, even unto death on a cross. In John, the cross – the Empire’s most drastic means of intimidation – loses its power.  Jesus is not controlled by it: “He and his people are no longer under the sway of violence” (Beck, 212).

            The value of this book lies in its careful exegesis of each Gospel as narrative wholes. Thus the author’s useful reflections on the value of non-violent conflict resolution are anchored on the evidence of the Gospel texts.

            The book can serve as a supplemental text in an upper-level undergraduate course in Peace Studies and other similar disciplines.