Includes bibliographical references (pages 246-266) and index.

"People's history" and Gospel studies -- Jesus movements and the renewal of Israel -- Oral performance and tradition in "Q" -- Understanding Mark as oral performance -- Social memory and Gospel traditions -- Patterns in the social memory of Jesus and friends -- Popular memory and cultural patterns in Mark -- "Hidden transcripts" and the "arts of resistance" -- Jesus and the arts of resistance -- Moral economy and renewal movement in Q -- Conclusion : Jesus and the Gospels in context -- Appendix : speeches in Q.

"Historical-critical investigations of the Gospels and of the historical Jesus have always assumed the centrality of the Gospels as written texts. Richard A. Horsley overturns that assumption, showing that the Jesus traditions were formed as popular traditions and transmitted through oral performance, not through the textual work of a scribal elite. In order to understand Jesus and the movement around him, then, we must attend to the dynamics of power, social memory, the interaction of "great" and "little traditions," and the moral economy of peasant society in Roman Judea and Galilee. In these groundbreaking chapters, Horsley provides fresh and accessible sketches of a new approach to history "from below," and offers a dramatic new picture of Jesus in context."--Jacket.