The politics of exorcism: Jesus' reaction to negative labels in the Beelzebul controversy

Abstract

Jesus was accused of being possessed by Beelzebul because of the exorcisms he practiced. This kind of view is characteristic of the first-century Mediterranean interpretation of deviant behavior. The purpose of this article is to determine the historical causes of this accusation and the purpose of the reaction of Jesus against it. To accomplish this we apply to the Beelzebul controversy some models developed in the study of deviant behavior. The first step is a source- and tradition-critical study of the sayings contained in it to determine which ot them can be assigned to the historical Jesus. Then the accusation of being possessed by Beelzebul is considered in the framework of societal reactions to deviant behavior. Finally, the responses of Jesus are placed in the cenario of the Mediterranean challenge and riposte game and in the context of other possible reactions to negative labeling.

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Accusations against Jesus are frequently mentioned not only in the writings of Christian apologists, but also in the earliest strata of the Gospel tradition (Q 7:34; Mark 2:7-16; 14:64; Matt 27:63; Luke 23:2.5; John 10:33-36). These accusations are a privileged starting point for the study of the historical Jesus because of their embarrassing nature and because of their close relationship to the trial and execution of Jesus, which are among the best documented facts of his biography.

In social-scientific analysis accusations can be described as negative labels, while titles of prominence can be identified as positive labels. Both negative and positive labels are social weapons whose purpose is to identify and control behavior that is outside the normal. Models derived from the sociological study of deviant behavior and of societal reaction have been applied recently by English speaking scholars in the study of some Second Testament documents (Luke: Malina & Neyrey 1991a and Richter; Matthew: Malina & Neyrey 1988; Paul's letters: Richter), as well as in the study of the relationships between Judaism and Christianity in the first century (Sanders; Barclay). German speaking scholars have used a particular perspective of this approach for the study of the historical Jesus (Ebertz 1987; Modritzer; Theissen 1996) and the early Christian movement (Theissen 1989 and 1995; Ebertz 1992).

The use of modern social-scientific models to explain the behavior of Jesus labeled deviant by his contemporaries may appear as an alien intrusion, because the culture in which they lived had its own way to understand deviance. The ancients had a broader view of the world than we do today. The inhabited world was conceived as the battleground for the cosmic forces that filled the sky and affected the world of humans. Consequently they had little difficulty in ascribing deviant behavior to the influence of evil forces (Pfohh 20). Modern social studies of deviant behavior, on the contrary, have a much narrower view of nature. Nevertheless, the application of models from these modern studies to reports of the demonic perspective like those in the Gospels has analytical advantages. It allows us to understand the Gospels in a different way by situating those documents within the social and historical context in which the events took place, and helps us to ask new and exciting questions (Pfohl: 37-40).

Following the path opened by the above mentioned studies, in this paper I will use the social study of deviant behavior to understand one negative label attached to Jesus by his adversaries, and also his own reactions to it. As a test-case I have chosen the passage describing the "Beelzebul Controversy" (Matt 12:22-30 par), because in this cluster of sayings we find one of the best attested accusations against Jesus. This accusation and the subsequent answers of Jesus to it, are the key to interpreting his exorcisms (Yates: 43). They should be understood in the framework of the activity of Jesus as an exorcist, an activity widely attested in the Gospel tradition (Twelftree). On the other hand, the study of this accusation can provide us with some clues for understanding other accusations, because it illustrates effectively the understanding of deviant behavior shared by Jesus and his accusers. The first step of our investigation will be to clarify the source- and tradition-critical problems of this passage with a view to discovering what in it can be assigned to the historical Jesus.

Pre-Easter Traditions in the Beelzebul Controversy

In the synoptic Gospels we find four versions of the Beelzebul controversy: two in Matthew (Matt 9:32-34; 12:22-30), one in Mark (Mark 3:22-27) and one in Luke (Luke 11:14-15, 17-23). All four versions are located in different narrative settings. This means that there has been some intense redactional activity, but we are not going to engage in a redactional analysis here. More interesting for our purposes is the source-critical problem raised by the great number of minor agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark in this text-segment. A quick look to a synopsis reveals an unusual complexity in the relationships among the four extant versions. The study of the verbal agreements among them, and especially the above mentioned minor agreements, have produced different proposals about the sources used by the evangelists. The common view among the scholars is that behind these four versions there were two independent sources (Mark and Q), which Matthew and Luke used with different purposes. But not all scholars agree with this view.