48 pages • 1 hour read
Gerd TheissenThe Shadow of the Galilean
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Wilderness Community”
Andreas, Timon, and another enslaved man named Malchus travel together toward the Dead Sea to look for the Essenes. Andreas has no idea how they will convince the Essenes to speak to them. Along the way, they encounter a man by the side of the road who appears to need help, though the man is reluctant to speak to Andreas. Eventually, the man introduces himself as Baruch. He was an Essene, but he was cast out, and now the rules of his community forbid him from accepting any help from other people. Doing so would ruin his only hope of one day being accepted into the Essene community again. He has been taught to distrust anyone outside the community, but Andreas eventually wins him over. They eat together, and Baruch explains why he was ousted from the Essenes.
Members of the community take a vow of poverty, but the leaders of the Essenes claim to have a stash of buried treasure. Baruch questioned why that treasure was not being used to help the poor, and that question got him exiled. Baruch agrees to travel with Andreas and the others. He tells them more about the Essenes. Andreas writes a brief report on the Essenes for Metilius, emphasizing that they pose no danger to Jerusalem and downplaying their radical religious views, including their belief in the imminent arrival of a Messiah. In Jericho, Andreas learns that John the Baptist has been executed.
Theissen admits that his depiction of the Essenes was partially inspired by modern religious youth movements, but he is careful to note that the Essenes were specific to their own philosophical and historical milieu.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Analysis of a Murder”
John the Baptist has been beheaded. Some people blame Herodias, Antipas’s wife. Their marriage is against Jewish law because Herodias was originally married to Antipas’s half-brother. Others blame Salome, Herodias’s daughter from her first marriage. They claim that Herodias pressured Antipas into granting Salome one wish, and that she then asked for John the Baptist’s head. To learn more, Andreas visits his friend Chuza, one of Antipas’s stewards. Chuza and his wife Joanna discuss the situation with Andreas. Chuza knew John the Baptist personally. He notes that the marriage between Antipas and Herodias may have been out of love, but it also suited both of their political ambitions. Antipas’s father, Herod the Great, disinherited him, while Herodias’s family is rich. He gained wealth by marrying her, and she gained status. Their marriage was scandalous because they both divorced other spouses first, because Herodias pursued Antipas, and because Herodias was first married to Antipas’s half-brother. Joanna argues in favor of gender equality in marriage laws.
John the Baptist condemned all violations of Jewish marriage law, and Joanna thinks Antipas ordered John the Baptist’s death because John’s preaching threatened Antipas’s rule. Andreas asks whether John the Baptist had disciples. Joanna knows of one whose views on marriage are even stricter than John’s; he argues that all divorce is unlawful. This man is Jesus of Nazareth, a traveling preacher in Galilee.
In a letter to Dr. Kratzinger, Theissen reflects on the usefulness of open-ended dialogue when pulling apart these complex historical debates. His protagonist, Andreas, is effectively taking part in historiographical research within the confines of the story.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Jesus – A Security Risk?”
Andreas returns to Jerusalem, hoping his report for Metilius will fulfill his duties toward Rome, especially now that John the Baptist is dead. When they meet, Metilius expresses his worry that John the Baptist’s execution will embolden resistance movements across Palestine. Metilius is uncomfortable with the violence Rome enacts on rebellious subjects. He has been reading Jewish scripture to better understand Jewish political thought. Andreas asks him about Jesus of Nazareth, but Metilius has never heard of him. Metilius asks Andreas to look into Jesus of Nazareth and learn whether he poses a security risk to Rome. Andreas is unhappy with this assignment and worries that the people he questions will not trust him. Metilius asks Andreas more questions, trying to understand why Roman rule is so poorly received in Palestine. Andreas explains that people were angered by Pilate’s idolatry when he used coins with graven images on them. Metilius points out that the Romans want to show their respect to the Jewish God by sacrificing at the temple, as they do among other subject peoples, but they cannot do so because of Jewish laws. Andreas privately wonders what impact Jesus will have on Palestine.
Theissen responds to Dr. Kratzinger’s assertion that he is making too many assumptions about history. Theissen feels confident that his assertions are backed up by historical sources as much as possible.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Researches in Nazareth”
Andreas returns to his family’s home in Sepphoris and starts researching Jesus. He meets with a couple, Tholomaeus and Susanna, who are in their fifties. He wants to buy grain from them. They tell him that they have three sons, but all of them have left home. One has gone to Alexandria in Egypt, while the other two have joined local religious movements. One has gone up into the hills and joined the Zealots, who want to use force to overthrow the Roman occupation. The other has become a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus told him that the Kingdom of God was already beginning, and that following him was “the most important thing in the world – more important than work or family, more important than father and mother” (71). Susanna and Tholomaeus are distraught. They want their sons back and see Jesus and the Zealots as similarly corrupting influences. Tholomaeus quotes one of Jesus’s sayings, which suggests that any of his true disciples must “hate his father and his mother” (72). Andreas leaves, uncertain whether Jesus poses a political threat to Rome but certain that he is hurting ordinary families.
Thiessen cites several secular sources that shed light on who Jesus might have been, what his social class was, and what happened to him and to his early followers.
Chapter 9 Summary: “In the Caves of Arbela”
Andreas, Timon, and Malchus continue their journey, hoping to find Jesus. Jesus scorns wealth, which worries the wealthy merchant Andreas. Unexpectedly, Andreas, Timon, and Malchus get kidnapped by Zealots. They are blindfolded and made to walk up an arduous path that leads them high into the mountains. Andreas thinks of the stories he has heard about the militancy of the Zealots, who are often willing to kill those closest to them to serve their political goals. Eventually, Andreas’s blindfold is removed. He is inside a mountain cave. A man comes to him and asks him to write a letter to his family: Andreas is being ransomed. In his letter, he mentions his arrest by the Romans, hoping that the Zealots will read it and reconsider the ransom. He is right: The Zealots ask him about his arrest, and he claims that he was part of the demonstration against the Romans all along. Instead of a ransom, the Zealots ask that Andreas become their informant. He realizes that this is a dangerous agreement, especially considering his current role as an informant for the Romans, but he feels he has no choice. He agrees, securing Timon’s and Malchus’s release in the bargain. The Zealots give him food and wine, and he sees Barabbas among them. Barabbas pretends that he and Andreas are not already acquainted, and Andreas, confused, goes along with the act.
In his letter, Theissen explains that while this is a story about Jesus, it is more accurate to say that it is about the historical perspectives that surrounded Jesus in his own time. This is why Andreas has not yet actually encountered Jesus; he is essentially doing his own contemporary historical research by speaking to others about him.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
The Essenes were a Jewish sect from the second century BCE to the first century CE—a period of Political and Religious Upheaval in which multiple interpretations of Jewish scripture competed for dominance. Essenes often lived in isolated communities in the desert, and several historians from the time mention them. Today, the Essenes are primarily known for having written the Dead Sea Scrolls, a range of religious texts widely considered apocryphal in modern Abrahamic religions. It is very challenging for contemporary researchers to determine anything about the ancient world with genuine certainty, a problem Theissen frequently refers to in his letters to Dr. Kratzinger. For instance, there have been ruins found near the area where some Essenes allegedly lived, but those ruins contain the remains of women and children. According to both Theissen’s book and Pliny’s historical account, the Essenes were an all-male community.
It is similarly difficult to know much for certain about the Zealots. They were a militant Jewish movement that sought to overthrow Rome’s political hegemony in Palestine. They were founded around 6 CE and had a notable role in the First Jewish-Roman War from 66 to 70 CE. Both the Essenes and the Zealots tie into the theme of Political and Religious Upheaval in Theissen’s novel, as their competing theologies can also be understood as competing responses to the problem of Roman oppression. The Essenes believed that a Messiah would soon arrive, fulfilling Jewish prophecies. In preparation for the Messiah’s arrival, they lived ascetic lives devoted to contemplation, in contrast with the political militance of the Zealots. Theissen contrasts the Zealot movement not only with the Essenes, but also with Jesus’s preaching, which has approximately the same goal but takes a very different approach. Jesus emphasizes non-violence, while the Zealots believe that a militant overthrow is the only way forward. Theissen argues that the life circumstances and beliefs that drew people to both movements were probably quite similar, even though the movements’ approaches were radically different.
Although Jesus’s philosophy is non-violent, it is still radical. As Tholomaeus says, Jesus asks his disciples to hate their parents—an enigmatic teaching that many people understand as a threat to their families and communities. Andreas likens Jesus’s command to a prophecy that states that in the end times, “the son will despise the father and the daughter will oppose the mother” (73), suggesting that Jesus represents the fulfillment of this ancient prophecy. In Theissen’s framing, Jesus’s movement responds to the Political and Religious Upheaval of the era by demanding total devotion. Part of Theissen’s project is to remind readers that, though Christianity later came to command millions of followers and immense political power, Jesus himself was just one of many religious teachers who competed for adherents in a bustling theological marketplace. In this context, Jesus and his disciples set themselves apart by refusing to make any accommodation with the surrounding culture—demanding that any potential followers give up their earthly possessions and all other bonds to follow Jesus alone. While this level of rigor likely limited the number of Jesus’s followers in his own lifetime, it ensured that he stood out among the crowd of competing religious teachers.
The challenges of Historiography and the Ethics of Narrative are very present in these chapters. Theissen’s experiences in the present unavoidably bias how he talks about the past, and he acknowledges this in his letters to Kratzinger. By recognizing his biases, he aims to mitigate their tendency to warp the historical record. Theissen is writing conversations that people could have been having around this time, without claiming that any such conversations actually took place. Theissen’s clear boundaries about what is historical and what is fiction have pushed him not to include Jesus in the story as a character. It would be controversial from a theological and historiographical standpoint to make specific claims about what Jesus said and did when so much of what is known about him comes from other people’s reports about him.
The character of Baruch introduces complex questions of Morality and Culpability. He takes his religious obligations seriously, refusing to ask for help after his exile even when he is starving. As such, he is a foil for Andreas, who prizes his personal safety over any religious conviction and even over solidarity with his people. Andreas struggles to understand how the Essenes can have such a hold over Baruch. The question of who is guilty in the case of John the Baptist’s death is also connected to this theme. The debates that characters have about culpability here foreshadow later discussions about who is responsible for Jesus’s death.
Like everything in this text, the story of John the Baptist’s death is open to interpretation. Over the years, different sources have blamed Antipas, Herodias, Salome, or some combination of them. One of the most famous interpretations of the story is Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, in which Salome is in love with John the Baptist, who rejects her. Theissen takes a very different approach, emphasizing the political motivations that Antipas might have had to remove someone like John the Baptist who had been so staunchly critical of him.
