Jesus the "material jew"

To speak today of "Jesus the Jew" is commonplace. Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, residents of Nazareth, was born a Jew, lived as a Jew and died as one. But what kind of Jew was he? During the course of the years, scholarship has helped us understand much about his life and his basic teachings and not a small amount of work has been done on the Jewish context of his life and teachings. However, much less attention has been paid to the physical and material realities surrounding the everyday life and teachings of Jesus. The "academic" Judaism of Jesus is often a "literary" Judaism, short on material culture and archaeology, although attempts have been made recently to focus on "Jesus archaeology."1 Less work, however, has been devoted to material culture and realia, or in the words of Marianne Sawicki: "Until recently, studies of Jesus have paid surprisingly little attention to the land, regarding it merely as a kind of stage or neutral platform supporting the events told in the Gospels⋯. Anyone who wants to know about Jesus must seek him on his native turf, in his own land and landscape." This is easier said than done, however, or as stated by Peter Richardson: "It is difficult to use realia in Galilee, Judea, and South Syria in descriptions of the rising of the Jesus movement, in part because no realia can certainly be associated with it in these early stages." "Christian archaeology" is still very monument oriented and still expends much energy on actively seeking archaeological confirmation of the New Testament, focusing on the "big" issues, and not the micro issues of everyday life. Tus, the material life and culture of Jesus is perforce the material life of Jesus the Jew.