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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.
Chapter 15-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “Reforming Temple and Society”
Content Warning: This text includes extensive discussions of antisemitism.
Andreas rushes to Jerusalem: Barabbas has been arrested, along with two other Zealots. The Zealots injured a soldier during the arrest, who later died. Andreas meets with Metilius and delivers his report on Jesus. Metilius has news of his own: Jesus is in Jerusalem, and he has recently caused a major disturbance in the temple. Jesus reacted with outrage to the presence of money-changers in the temple. Andreas tries to suggest relatively innocuous interpretations for Jesus’s actions. Metilius is not convinced. Andreas is careful to distinguish between Jesus and the Zealots, emphasizing that their movements are separate.
Andreas suggests that Metilius and the Romans do three things to defuse the current tensions. They should first pardon all Zealots (including Barabbas) if they agree to give up their rebellion. Next, they should forgive the debts of Jewish people who are struggling. Finally, they should distribute parcels of land to people who cannot grow enough food. These measures could bring peace and reduce the intensity of Jesus’s following. Metilius thinks the proposal is too radical. He suggests that Jewish people should make some changes to their religious law, if Rome is going to make such great allowances. Andreas explains that Jewish law is an entire way of living that cannot and should not be so easily changed. Metilius finds this frustrating, but he remains interested in Judaism.
In his letter, Theissen admits that he was a political radical in his youth. Certainly, his political history has informed his writing. That might mean that his writing is biased, but Theissen thinks it would be a shame to discuss religion exclusively through the lens of spirituality and abstract questions instead of placing it firmly in the real world.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Pilate Afraid”
Andreas meets with Pontius Pilate on the day before Passover, seeking ways to placate the restive Jews. Pilate refuses Andreas’s suggestions of pardons and debt remission, as only the Emperor would have the power to grant such a sweeping request. However, he is able to release a prisoner as an act of goodwill to the people. Three Zealots (including Barabbas) are currently awaiting execution, and Jesus was arrested last night. All of them will soon be crucified, but Pilate is willing to let the people choose one prisoner—Barabbas or Jesus—to be released. Andreas is horrified: Either Barabbas or Jesus will die, and Andreas feels partially responsible for the situation. Pilate hopes that this act will convince the Jewish people of Jerusalem that he is listening to their wishes. He also hopes the release and the executions will reduce the rebellious sentiment in the region.
Andreas pleads with Pilate to reconsider, trying to find any other way, but Pilate is adamant. Even if Jesus does not claim to be a king or Messiah, people treat him as though he is one, and thus he is a threat to the power of Rome. Andreas returns home, devastated. He learns that the people have pardoned Barabbas and that Jesus has been crucified. He visits the hill where Jesus and the two Zealots are now dead on their respective crosses and stands “in the shadow of the Galilean” (161), seeing Jesus in person for the first time. Back home, Andreas falls ill with a fever for three days, lamenting to God, before he recovers.
Theissen learns that Dr. Kratzinger also took part in political rebellions in the 1950s and was inspired by the Sermon on the Mount. Theissen believes that political movements can and should be an exercise in “radical discipleship” for Christians.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Who Was Guilty?”
Andreas’s time as an informant for Rome is over. He returns to his regular business. One day, he meets Metilius at a synagogue. Metilius is very interested in Jewish theology, but he does not feel that he can convert because he is a military officer, which would conflict with Jewish law. The two discuss theology. Andreas explains to Metilius that God “snatched[s]” the entire universe “out of chaos and nothingness” in each individual moment, creating it anew (168). Metilius regrets that many Roman soldiers, as well as many Syrian and Greek people who live in the region, are antisemitic. Andreas and Metilius agree that antisemitism played a part in Jesus’s death, although some Jewish priests also wanted him to be executed because of his radical ideas and his actions in the temple. In the end, Metilius is uncomfortable laying the blame for Jesus’s death on any individual or group. Some of Jesus’s followers now claim that they have seen him alive again in visions; his movement continues. Neither Metilius nor Andreas is sure whether God could or would bring someone back from the dead.
Theissen admits that he is uncomfortable making too many assumptions about who people would have blamed for Jesus’s death at the time, especially given the complexities of that question in the modern day.
Chapter 18 Summary: “The Man: A Dream”
Ultimately, Andreas concludes that responsibility for Jesus’s death lies with Pilate, the Jewish priests, and the common people: Everyone chose to sacrifice one person for what they hoped would be the greater good. He still feels guilty for the part he has played. Baruch joins a group of Jesus’s followers, who are now developing their own religious movement. He feels that he belongs once more. Barabbas writes Andreas a letter. He is grateful to be alive, and he recognizes that Jesus’s sacrifice has given him a new opportunity to live. Barabbas has a newfound respect for Jesus, though he remains committed to the Zealot cause. Baruch suggests to Andreas that he join the new community of Jesus followers, but Andreas is uncertain. He feels completely at a loss and disillusioned with life. That night, he goes to sleep and has a dream.
In his dream, Andreas sees a stormy beach. A lion appears and tells a crowd of people, “The land is mine. It belongs to no one else” (182). It kills anyone who resists it, all the while insisting that it is peaceful and “not a monster” (182). It disappears, and then a bear emerges from the sea. It forces some people to enslave others while insisting that it is “creating order.” Next comes an eagle, which drops what appears to be a bomb on the people while claiming it is “making space… for life, life on this earth” (183). Finally, two octopuses emerge from the sea and force everyone to give them most of their money while killing any rebels. They summon more monsters out of the sea to terrorize people. When things seem without hope, the world goes dark, and then a light appears. All the beasts are dead, and Jesus descends from the heavens with a message of salvation for all. This is the man Andreas dreamed of when he was in prison. In the morning, Andreas understands that he has had a revelation. He hears the voice of Jesus and prays, and then goes to speak to Baruch again.
Epilogue Summary: “In Place of an Epilogue”
In a last letter to Dr. Kratzinger, Theissen offers an extensive bibliography of books about Jesus as a historical figure. He also uses this letter as an opportunity to thank the people who have made his book possible. He finishes by thanking Dr. Kratzinger, whose relentless demands for scholarly objectivity have been a useful check on Theissen’s more imaginative impulses. In fact, Dr. Kratzinger is not a real person but a literary device—“a good example of the way in which fictitious figures can embody the truth” (187).
Chapter 15-Epilogue Analysis
Although Baruch is a follower of the nascent religious movement growing in the wake of Jesus’s death, he does not call himself a Christian. The word was probably first used in the New Testament; historical sources from the end of the first century CE suggest that it may initially have been a pejorative name for Jesus’s followers. Like Baruch, Andreas ultimately converts to what will become Christianity, mostly because he has religiously significant dreams. This ending reflects Theissen’s position as a Christian. According to Christian doctrine, conversion to Christianity is the only way to salvation, which means that having Andreas convert is essentially the only way for Theissen to give him a happy ending. Of course, as Andreas is fictional, Theissen is at total liberty to decide how his life will change after the events of the story. The narrative also implies that Metilius is going to convert to Christianity, as he is interested in Jewish philosophy but thinks its rules are too strict.
In the aftermath of Jesus’s death, his followers did develop a religion based on his teachings, but little changed materially for the people of Palestine. A few decades later, during the First Jewish-Roman War, the Romans destroyed the temple, ending the Second Temple period and reinforcing their control over the people of Palestine. Contrary to Andreas’s dreams, Jesus did not usher in an era of prosperity and benevolence. Christians now believe that Jesus’s death meant that he took on everyone’s sins, freeing them from Hell if they convert to Christianity. They also believe that in the end times, Jesus will return in an event known as the Second Coming of Christ. At that time, God’s kingdom will be established on Earth. Different denominations of Christianity have their own interpretations of exactly what this will look like.
As a way to resolve the increasing Political and Religious Upheaval, Andreas suggests that the Romans remit debts and essentially enact their oppression in a gentler way. For him, this is a middle ground solution that could help his people without risking the violence that often attends radical political movements. This suggestion is in keeping with Andreas’s character: Throughout the novel, he has sought ways to maintain the general peace and preserve his own safety while remaining loyal to the Jewish people. His role in the text is in part to illustrate how difficult it was for the Jewish people of this era to maintain their religious and cultural identity under Roman rule. At the end of the story, Andreas dreams of beasts rising from the sea to oppress human beings. His dream is an allegorical representation of imperial oppression. The beasts take different forms, but they uniformly refuse to recognize the harm they are doing. This is the core of Andreas’s—and Theissen’s—critique of empire: The empire always envisions itself as a benevolent force even as it destroys lives and cultures in its quest for dominance. Theissen includes some anachronistic elements in Andreas’s dream, like the eagle that drops a bomb, suggesting that the dream is a genuine religious vision that goes beyond Andreas’s own experiences of the world and has relevance for the distant future. According to the dream, political and religious upheaval will not end until Jesus finally returns.
Theissen’s inclusion of the anachronistic dream makes a clear statement about Historiography and the Ethics of Narrative—claiming that Jesus’s ideas, despite being rooted in a specific historical context, do apply to the modern political landscape. In Theissen’s view, Jesus’s political actions can provide a blueprint for “radical discipleship” among Christians in modern protest movements.
The other challenge that Theissen encounters in this section is the issue of ascribing blame for Jesus’s death. The circumstances that led to Jesus’s execution were complex, and it is unlikely that historians will ever have a complete picture of what happened and why. Theissen is careful not to blame Jewish people as a whole for Jesus’s death; antisemitic movements have drawn strength from this false claim for centuries, and continue to do so in the present day. Theissen’s anti-imperialist worldview places the blame squarely with those in power: the Roman authorities, and Pontius Pilate as their appointed representative. The issue of blame also connects to the theme of Morality and Culpability. Though the execution of Jesus is Pontius Pilate’s decision alone, Andreas feels partly responsible for Jesus’s death because of his efforts to compromise with the Romans. Theissen suggests that any such attempt at compromise with an oppressive power structure is likely to result in moral corruption.
