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 scenario of the Mediterranean challenge and riposte game and in the context of other possible reactions to negative labeling.

The Devil in the Details: A Survey of Research on Satan in Biblical Studies

“…Two subjects related to the figure of Satan in the Synoptics, which have received enough treatment that they probably warrant a survey of their own, are the Beelzebub controversy and the exorcisms of Jesus. Although we do not have space to cover the history of scholarship on these topics, it is still worthwhile to point to a handful of references of the more recent contributions: on Beelzebub, see MacLaurin 1978;Robbins 1991;Syx 1992;Guijarro 1999;Emmrich 2000. On the exorcisms of Jesus, see the extensive works of Twelftree (1985Twelftree ( , 1993Twelftree ( , 2007…”