Nordic Interpretations of the New Testament: Challenging Texts and Perspectives [1 ed.] 9783666554568, 9783525554562

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Louise Heldgaard Bylund / René Falkenberg / Marianne Bjelland Kartzow / Kasper Bro Larsen (eds.)

Nordic Interpretations of the New Testament Challenging Texts and Perspectives Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica

Vol. 5

Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica (SANt) Edited by Eve-Marie Becker, Ole Davidsen, Jan Dochhorn, Kasper Bro Larsen and Nils Arne Pedersen

Volume 5

Louise Heldgaard Bylund / René Falkenberg / Marianne Bjelland Kartzow / Kasper Bro Larsen (eds.)

Nordic Interpretations of the New Testament Challenging Texts and Perspectives

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de. © 2020, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Göttingen All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2364-2157 ISBN 978-3-666-55456-8

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Contents

Louise Heldgaard Bylund, René Falkenberg, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow‚ and Kasper Bro Larsen What Makes New Testament Texts and Interpretations So Challenging?

7

I. Text, Translation, and Reception Gitte Buch-Hansen “Permit the Slaves to Come to Me”: Reimagining Markan Church and Household Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Halvor Moxnes Social Scientific Interpretation of the New Testament and a Hermeneutics of Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Gunnar Haaland Who Are the Pharisees of Today? Gospel Reception in Norwegian Lectionary Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Morten Beckmann Negotiating Christology: The Translation of Colossians 1:15 as a Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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II. Gender, Empire, Emotion, and Drama Martin Friis Jesus, a Wise and Courageous Man: Representations of Masculinity in the Fourth Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Maria Sturesson Voicing the Resurrection: Narrative, Authority, and Gender in Stories of the Women at the Tomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

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Contents

Niko Huttunen After Anti-Imperial Readings: Early Christians in the Empire Re-Examined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Paul Linjamaa An Early Christian View on Emotions: Stoic Thought in the Tripartite Tractate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Louise Heldgaard Bylund ΤΕΤΕΛΕΣΤΑΙ (John 19:28 and 30): A Dramatic and Eschatological Turning Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

III. Perspectives on Paul and Jesus Magnus Zetterholm From Jewish to Gentile “Christianity”: A Change of Perspective Within the Radical New Perspective on Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Samuel Tedder Children of Promise: Ishmael, Isaac and Isaiah in an Intertextual Reading of Gal 4:21–5:1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Jacob P.B. Mortensen Do We Uphold the Law for the “Weak”? Rom 3:31 and 14:1–15:6 . . . . . 225 Runar M. Thorsteinsson Jesus as Philosopher in the Gospel of Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Lauri Thurén The Jesus of the Text: Unmanipulated Parables as an Alternative to Historical and Theological Reconstructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Kari Syreeni Divine or Human Emotions? The Character of Jesus in the Gospel of John 283 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Louise Heldgaard Bylund, René Falkenberg, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow‚ and Kasper Bro Larsen

What Makes New Testament Texts and Interpretations So Challenging?

1.

Towards a Nordic Answer

This volume brings together 15 contributions from the ongoing conversation among and between New Testament scholars from the Nordic Countries, namely Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. We challenge New Testament texts and interpretations but are also challenged by these texts and by their interpretations; how to read, interpret and contextualize the impact of these texts, and how to conceptualize the power and authority attributed to them. As neighbors in the European periphery, partly sharing language and history, scholars of our region also aim at participating in the broader international discourse. Our common academic language is English, and many of the present essays could have been written anywhere else, since they do not explicitly reflect on contextual issues. Or perhaps not? What characterizes this part of the world are social democracies with relatively high standards of living, a strong protestant past but an increasing multicultural population, public welfare systems, and gender equality. Public universities still have money and can prioritize mobility and internationalization; accordingly, although few people live in the Nordic countries relatively many biblical scholars have roots here. At the Annual Meeting held by the Society of Biblical Literature each November, the Nordic University Reception fills a ballroom with international partners and networks, showing that researchers and scholarship from these countries are noticed and appreciated. What characterizes Nordic New Testament scholarship is a more complicated question to answer. As in the field in general, there is great diversity in interest, source materials, preferred theories, and methodology. In this volume, we have identified three sub-themes, all of which include numerous topics and perspectives. Part 1, Text, Translation, and Reception, describes recent trends where interpreters ask questions to not only the New Testament texts and their historical or literary context, but also to the afterlives of these texts, in scholarly convention, in interpretation, in commentaries, and in translations. Part 2,

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Gender, Empire, Emotion, and Drama, names some of the perspectives that have been characteristic for Nordic New Testament scholarship for a while now, in particular in theoretical orientation and interdisciplinary approaches. The final Part 3, Perspectives on Paul and Jesus, plays with the contested concept of “perspectives,” old, new, radical, or within Judaism, which has challenged Pauline scholarship, in particular, over the last years. In this part, also the character of Jesus is interpreted from various perspectives such as ancient philosophy and by help of additional literary tools.

2.

Text, Translation, and Reception

The four essays included here address and discuss questions like: What kinds of meaning have New Testament texts constructed? How is meaning negotiated? In what way have translations and interpretative conventions overlooked complexity and ambiguity? What are the dynamics between the cultural contexts in which these texts were written and contemporary societies, ideologies and conceptualization? In recent years, such questions have become an integrated part of the field of biblical studies. Numerous journals, handbooks, and encyclopedias from a variety of publishing houses have been introduced to the scholarly community.1 Bible and reception is also one central element and growing field in Nordic New Testament scholarship. Many of these articles reflect on the ancient context of the text and potential tensions or analogy to our contemporary context. In this part of the book in particular, it makes a difference that these contributions come from a Scandinavian or Nordic discourse, for instance by referring to a specific cultural context, language tradition, or scholarship. Translation, reception, and meaning construction based on a variety of ancient texts are categorized as theology in the making. Gitte Buch-Hansen’s “‘Permit the Slaves to Come to Me’: Reimagining Markan Church and Household Ethics” reinterprets one of the best-known passages of the New Testament among lay people, Mark 10:13–16 on the blessing by Jesus of τὰ παιδία, where Buch-Hansen suggests the translation “the slaves” instead of the classic reading of “the children.” With the growing field of slavery studies in New

1 See, for instance, The Centre for the Study of the Bible in Theology and Culture in Copenhagen; De Gruyter’s Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception as well as Journal of the Bible and its Reception (https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jbr), The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-thereception-history-of-the-bible-9780199204540?cc=no&lang=en&), and also the growing number of program units related to bible and reception at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual and International Meetings.

What Makes New Testament Texts and Interpretations So Challenging?

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Testament scholarship and various theoretical tools, she makes a convincing argument placing this well-known text in a new social and rhetorical context. Halvor Moxnes suggests a new hermetical approach to New Testament studies in his article, “Social Scientific Interpretation of the New Testament and a Hermeneutics of Dialogue.” Theories and perspectives from social science criticism have since the 1970s contributed to the study of the New Testament. For Moxnes, social science criticism has implications for the hermeneutics as it points at the foreignness of the texts opening for a hermeneutics of dialogue and democratization. Gunnar Haaland has analyzed the concept of “Pharisees” in recent homiletic commentaries within a Nordic context in his contribution, “Who are the Pharisees of Today? Gospel Reception in Norwegian Lectionary Resources.” He observes that the level of knowledge about ancient Judaism is surprisingly low and demonstrates how stereotypes about “the Jew” function as a foil for Christian self-definition. Morten Beckmann looks at a concrete case of translation in his article, “Negotiating Christology: The Translation of Colossians 1:15 as a Case Study,” and discusses the impact of ideology and theology in the process of translating Greek terms and concepts into a contemporary language, in his case Norwegian. He shows that a Bible translation is an important tool in shaping theological discourse.

3.

Gender, Empire, Emotion, and Drama

In the second section of this volume, five essays are included, highlighting dimensions of ancient texts that are not normally connected. Nordic scholars such as Lone Fatum and Turid Karlsen Seim have been pioneers in the application of critical gender theory to New Testament texts.2 Within masculinity studies Halvor Moxnes as well as Fredrik Ivarsson and Hanna Stenström have played important roles.3 Post-colonial and empire critical studies have also had some Nordic contributors, in particular Hans Leander and Christina Petterson.4 This section also deals with Christianity on the border of the orthodoxy/heresy divide,

2 See, for example, Fatum, Images of God; Christ Domesticated; also Seim, Double Message; Feminist Criticism. Jorunn Økland and Hanna Stenström have, as well, the last two decades published extensively on gender. 3 Moxnes, Conventional Values; Stenström, Masculine or Feminine?; Ivarsson, Vice Lists; A Man Has To Do. 4 E. g. Leander, Discourses of Empire; Petterson, Acts of Empire.

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which is a well-represented discipline in the Nordic countries as well, especially in Aarhus, Bergen, Helsinki, and Oslo.5 In the first essay, “Jesus, a Wise and Courageous Man: Representations of Masculinity in the Fourth Gospel,” deals with masculinity studies, Martin Friis examines the characterization of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Contrary to the Synoptic Gospels, the Johannine Jesus is emphasized to hold traditional masculine characteristics, such as bravery, outspokenness, and wisdom. These virtues are typical in the characterization of great ancient men outside the New Testament, leading Friis to argue that the Johannine Jesus is meant to be perceived as an ideal ancient masculine hero. In the next article, “Voicing the Resurrection: Narrative, Authority, and Gender in Stories of the Women at the Tomb,” Maria Sturesson looks at the various stories of the women at the tomb in New Testament and non-canonical sources, at the intersection of feminist theory and narrative criticism. She argues that the women solely function as receptors of the message of resurrection as the formulation of this is uttered by the authoritative narrative voices. Niko Huttunen’s contribution, “After Anti-Imperial Readings: Early Christians in the Empire Re-Examined,” goes through recent studies of Empire with a critical perspective on anti-imperalism as the sole header for early Christianity. Huttunen argues that there were pro-imperial tendencies as well, and brings two examples to the discussion: Romans 13 on civil authorities and the view of military service among the Christians. Paul Linjamaa works with a Valentinian text and its connection to Stoic thoughts, especially their theory of emotions in his article, “An Early Christian View on Emotions: Stoic Thought in the Tripartite Tractate.” Despite multiple differences between the Valentinian text and Stoic ideas, Stoic thoughts are concluded to have influenced the Tripartite Tractate in several areas: the protological system, the portrayal of an apathetic Saviour, the cosmic system associated with passions, and finally the normative statement on ethical behavior. The final essay in this section, “ΤΕΤΕΛΕΣΤΑΙ (John 19:28 and 30): A Dramatic and Eschatological Turning Point,” is by Louise Heldgaard Bylund. She works with the utterance of Jesus at the cross in John 19:30, τετέλεσται, investigating the meaning of τελέω within the biblical corpus and occurrences of τετέλεσται in ancient Greek fiction. Bylund suggests that the use of the notion underscores a dramatic as well as an eschatological turning point in the Fourth Gospel. 5 See, for example, the Biblia Manichaica project in Aarhus, led by Nils Arne Pedersen, on Manichaean Bible use, cf. Pedersen et al., Old Testament; and also the NEWCONT project in Oslo, led by Hugo Lundhaug, on the Nag Hammadi Codices in the monastic context, cf. Lied and Lundhaug, Snapshots.

What Makes New Testament Texts and Interpretations So Challenging?

4.

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Perspectives on Paul and Jesus

In the third and last section of this book, we have collected various essays that deal with Pauline and Synoptic texts. In Pauline scholarship, the debate about new, or even radical new, perspectives also has its Nordic voices.6 Magnus Zetterholm shows in “From Jewish- to Gentile ‘Christianity’: A Change of Perspective within the Radical New Perspective on Paul” how the change of perspective on the Pauline texts from the traditional into the radical new has altered the view on Paul and Judaism in the early Christianity movement. Zetterholm’s exposition concludes that the radical new perspective on Paul has caused to the insight that the dichotomy between Judaism and Christianity is anachronistic as Paul was not concerned with the Jews but the nations. Samuel Tedder also places himself and his article, “Children of Promise: Ishmael, Isaac and Isaiah in an Intertextual Reading of Gal 4:21–5:1,” in the framework of the radical new perspective on Paul as he agrees with the importance of locating Paul within a Jewish context. Nevertheless, Tedder’s intertextual reading of Galatians challenges the radical new perspective’s emphasis on a stable and secure identity of the Jews as the people of God. Jacob P.B. Mortensen’s article, “Do We Uphold the Law for the ‘Weak’?: Rom 3:31 and 14:1–15:6,” investigates Paul’s view on the law in Romans, taking his starting point in the hypothesis that the assembly, divided in two segments, is completely Gentile. Mortensen’s reading of Romans 3:31 leads to the conclusion that Paul upholds the law but insists on a different relationship for Jews and Gentiles to the law. Mortensen defines the two groups in Romans 14:1–15:6 as “strong” and “weak” respectively concluding that Paul in identifying himself with the strong position upholds the law for the weak. We end with three essays that read gospel texts and reflect different perspectives on the character of Jesus. Runar M. Thorsteinsson’s article, “Jesus as Philosopher in the Gospel of Mark,” explores the character of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark in the context of ancient philosophical schools and figures, especially the Stoics and Cynics. Thorsteinsson finds points on which Jesus is parallel to a philosophical sage such as an ascetic appearance and the understanding of family. When it comes to display of emotions, the resemblance is more complex. Thorsteinsson concludes that across the various topics there are ideological ties

6 The study of Paul in the context of his Jewish heritage (the new perspective) is often viewed as instigated by Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, though with significant Nordic precursors: Munck, Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte; Stendahl, Apostle Paul; Dahl, Rettferdiggjørelseslærens sosiologiske funksjon. Concerning Nordic voices in recent discussions on Paul within Judaism (the radical new perspective), cf. Zetterholm, Approaches to Paul; and also Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism.

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that suggest that Mark intended to attribute Jesus with classic philosophical characteristics. The second article dealing with the character of Jesus is “The Jesus of the Text: Unmanipulated Parables as an Alternative to Historical and Theological Reconstructions” by Lauri Thurén. In the quest for the historical Jesus, Thurén suggests that the synoptic parables can be used as a new source in that search. Jesus as a literary protagonist in the Lukan parables may help to reveal reliable information about the historical Jesus when read in respect of the integrity of each text that Thurén believes they deserve. In the final essay, “Divine or Human Emotions? The Character of Jesus in the Gospel of John,” Kari Syreeni examines the character of Jesus and emotions as well. In his redaction critical study, Syreeni focuses on the Johannine Jesus and the balance between divine and human attributes. Through redactional layers, the complexity of the characterization of Jesus unfolds, resulting in a Johannine Jesus characterized as a master of destiny but mixed with vulnerability and an intimate relationship with his disciples.

5.

Current Nordic Suggestions and Answers

We view this book as an invitation for others to join the conversation of our northern European neighborhood. As all neighbors around the globe, we are not only part of our region but also part of the global community. Instead of offering final answers to the challenges with which New Testament scholars struggle, we invite others to continue the conversation. Most essays in this volume started out as work-in-progress papers at the Nordic New Testament Conference at Aarhus University on 29 May–2 June 2015, but have been reworked for the purpose of this book. The Conference was organized by Mogens Müller (Denmark), Kari Syreeni (Finland), Runar M. Thorsteinsson (Iceland), Ole Jakob Filtvedt (Norway), Cecilia Wassen (Sweden), Jacob P.B. Mortensen and Dan Nässelqvist (doctoral students’ representatives), René Falkenberg (local organizer), and Kasper Bro Larsen (chair, local organizer). Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to PhD Candidate Erich Pracht (Aarhus University) who did a marvelous and most helpful task when proofreading the entire manuscript. We also wish to thank the staff at Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Miriam Espenhain, Elisabeth Hernitscheck, Elisabeth Müller, and Renate Rehkopf, who helped preparing the finalized manuscript for publication, and, of course, the series editors for including this volume in the SANt series.

What Makes New Testament Texts and Interpretations So Challenging?

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Bibliography Dahl, N.A., Rettferdiggjørelseslærens sosiologiske funksjon og konsekvenser, NTT 65 (1964) 284–310 [= The Doctrine of Justification: Its Social Function and Implication, in: N.A. Dahl (ass. by P. Donahue), Studies in Paul: Theology for the Early Christian Mission, Augsburg 1977, 95–120]. Fatum, L., Christ Domesticated: The Household Theology of the Pastorals as Political Strategy, in: J. Ådna, ed., The Formation of the Early Church, Tübingen 2005, 175–207. –, Images of God and Glory of Man: Women in the Pauline Congregations, in: K.E. Børresen, ed., Image of God and Gender Models in Judaeo-Christian Tradition, Solum 1991, 56–137. Ivarsson, F., Vice Lists and Deviant Masculinity: The Rhetorical Function of 1 Corinthians 5:10–11 and 6:9–0, in: C. Penner and C.V. Stichele, Mapping Gender, Leiden 2006, 163– 184. –, A Man Has To Do What A Man Has To Do. Protocols of Masculine Sexual Behaviour and 1 Corinthians 5–7, in: B. Holmberg and M. Winninge, eds., Identity Formation in the New Testament (WUNT I 227), Tübingen 2008, 183–198. Lied, L.I., and H. Lundhaug, eds., Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology (TU 175), Berlin 2017. Moxnes, H., Conventional Values in the Hellenistic World: Masculinity, in P. Bilde et al. eds., Conventional Values of the Hellenistic Greeks (Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 8), Aarhus 1997, 263–84. Munck, J., Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte (Acta Jutl 26,1, TS 6), Aarhus 1954 [= Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (transl. by F. Clarke), Atlanta 1959]. Nanos, M.D., and M. Zetterholm, eds., Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, Minneapolis 2015. Pedersen, N.A., et al., eds., The Old Testament in Manichaean Tradition: The Sources in Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, New Persian, and Arabic. With an Appendix on General References to the Bible (CFM, Biblia Manichaica I), Turnhout 2017. Petterson, C., Acts of Empire: The Acts of the Apostles and Imperial Ideology (SCS Suppl 4), Chung Li 2012. Sanders, E.P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion, Minneapolis 1977. Seim, T.K., The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke-Acts. Studies of the New Testament and Its World, New York 1994. –, Feminist Criticism, in: J.B. Green, ed., Methods for Luke, Cambridge 2010, 42–73. Stendahl, K., The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West, HTR 56 (1963) 199–215. Stenström, H., Masculine or Feminine? Male Virgins in Joseph and Aseneth and the Book of Revelation, in: B. Holmberg and M. Winninge, eds., Identity Formation in the New Testament (WUNT I 227), Tübingen 2008, 199–222. Zetterholm, M., Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship, Minneapolis 2009.

I. Text, Translation, and Reception

Gitte Buch-Hansen

“Permit the Slaves to Come to Me” Reimagining Markan Church and Household Ethics

1.

Introduction: Mark’s παιδία: Children or Slaves? The fact remains, however, that slavery caused no one in antiquity a crisis of conscience or an agony of the soul as it did abolitionists in later history, and as it still does some modern historians today. For a thousand years and more slavery was not a problem in classical culture.1

1.1

Mark 10:13–16: A Baptismal Text?

Especially in a Protestant context, the wording of Mark 10:13–16 is one of the best-known passages of the entire New Testament among lay people. The episode, in which Jesus is asked to lay his hands upon a group of παιδία, forms part of the mosaic of texts accompanying baptism in Protestant denominations. However, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples object to his blessing of τὰ παιδία. Their reaction angers Jesus, who corrects their attitude: No one should hinder τὰ παιδία from coming to him because the Kingdom of God belongs to them. In addition, only the person who receives the Kingdom of God ὡς παιδίον will enter it. I have refrained from translating the semantically flexible phrases, to which we shall soon return. In itself, Mark 10:13–16 mentions nothing about baptism, but when read aloud in conjunction with Matthew’s command to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19 NRSV), it can serve as the liturgical text that legitimizes the baptism of children.

1 Bradley, Problem of Slavery, 282.

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However, apart from Jesus’ own baptism, we have no direct – or even indirect – references to baptism in Mark’s Gospel. This stands in contrast with Paul’s letters, where the theological arguments repeatedly refer to the baptismal experience, and with John’s Gospel, where the baptismal medium trickles through the chapters in order to finally be recirculated through Jesus’ crucified body (John 19:34). Instead, Mark discusses questions about access to the community and its rituals in terms relating to eating and table fellowship. Consequently, scholars focus exclusively on Mark’s inclusion of the Gentiles in the table fellowship. They draw attention to Jesus’ repeated crossings of “the sea of Galilee,” which weave Gentiles and Jews into one community (Mark 4:35–8:26). Nevertheless, I shall argue that, in addition to the discussion of ethnicity, Mark addresses questions about the inclusion and status of slaves in the Christian community. This is where Mark’s παιδία enter the picture. It is well-known that according to dictionaries well-versed in the classical Greek corpus – as e. g. the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ-Online) – the Greek term παιδίον, which is used in the Markan ‘baptism text’ (10:13–15), also denotes (young) slaves. Yet Bible translations unequivocally translate the Markan phrase as ‘young children’ (KJV), ‘children’ (NAU/NRSV), ‘små børn’ (DO), or ‘små barn’ (NO). Perhaps the parallel text from Luke’s Gospel has influenced the translations. After all, Luke 18:15 closes down Mark’s semantic uncertainty by changing τὰ παιδία in Mark 10:13 with τὰ βρέφη – a word which, according to LSJ-Online, unambiguously refers to new-born babes. A series of texts from the Markan Jesus’ teaching on proper leadership, which he gives on his, his disciples’, and their female followers’ way to Jerusalem, will be key to my discussion. In addition to Mark 10:13–16, there are thematically parallel texts in Mark 9:33–37, in which Jesus also uses a παιδίον to illustrate his point, and in Mark 9:42–50, in which the reader is warned against behavior that may cause apostasy among οἱ μικροί. I shall argue that both of these passages concern slaves. In addition, in the teaching on leadership and status given in Mark 10:42– 45, Jesus unequivocally addresses the issue of slavery in his metaphorical use of δοῦλος as an indication of the attitude with which the disciple who aspires to be the first (πρῶτος) among the members of the congregation must serve the rest (Mark 10:44). However, we must immediately address two obvious objections against these readings. First, the attentive reader may point to the fact that Mark uses the phrase παιδίον in passages in which the term clearly refers to freeborn children. The question is now whether this well-defined use of the term also determines the meaning of παιδίον throughout the Markan Gospel. Second, although an overlap between παιδίον and δοῦλος exists, the two nouns represent different semantic fields. Consequently, we are required to inquire into the intersection between the two terms.

“Permit the Slaves to Come to Me”

1.2

19

Markan παιδία: Children or Slaves?

It is in no way obvious that Mark’s Gospel should be linked with antiquity’s discourse on slavery. Since Mark employs the term παιδία as a reference to children several times in his gospel, when used in Mark 9:33–37 and in 10:13–16 the same term may simply refer to the children in the households that Jesus visits. In the narrative about Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:21–24, 35–43), τὸ παιδίον (5:39– 41) is used synonymously with τὸ θυγάτριόν (5:23, 35) and τὸ κοράσιον (5:41–42). In the story concerning Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24–30), Mark uses τὸ θυγάτριόν (7:25–26) in parallel with τὸ παιδίον (7:30), and in the exchange of words between Jesus and the woman, τὰ τέκνα (7:27) is used as a synonym for τὰ παιδία (7:28). In the narrative about the boy with an unclean spirit (Mark 9:14–29), ὁ υἱός (9:17) is used synonymously with τὸ παιδίον (9:24), and when the father explains to Jesus that the demon has tormented his son since childhood, the wording used is ἐκ παιδιόθεν (9:21). However, we also find a single case that unequivocally points in the other direction, which complicates the conclusion of our word analysis. In the narrative concerning Jesus’ trial (Mark 14:53–72), we hear about Peter’s repeated denials of his discipleship when confronted with the accusations of one of the high priest’s παιδισκῶν (Mark 14:66, 69). Obviously, ἡ παιδίσκη – as the female diminutive of παῖς – must be a reference to the presence of young female slaves in the Jewish high priest’s residence. Apparently, Mark imagined the presence of slaves to be a matter of fact, at least, in large Jewish households.2 After all, the analysis of παῖς and its various diminutives documents a sematic ambiguity in Markan language. When modern New Testament exegetes – including scholars acquainted with the discourse of slavery and the social world of Early Christianity, such as Jennifer Glancy – do not consider slavery as a possible topic for Jesus’ admonition in Mark 9:33–37, 42–50; 10:13–16, it may be due to a word analysis like this. In spite of the fact that new commentaries on Mark’s Gospel likewise unanimously translate παιδία as ‘children,’ I shall argue that if we take the ecclesiological context of these texts into consideration and situate them within the ideology and social history of Greco-Roman slavery, ‘slaves’ becomes a possible translation – and maybe even the better one. Let us therefore throw a quick glance upon the ideology.

2 Cf. Glancy, Slavery, 457.

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1.3

The Intersection between παιδίον and δοῦλος in Aristotle’s Politics

The semantic overlap between ‘child’ and ‘slave’ refers to the fact that, in Antiquity, we find a strong tradition for seeing slaves as mentally immature by nature or as bodies with no (legitimate) will of their own. Since the discourse of slavery that we find in Aristotle’s Politics characterized the Greco-Roman world from the inception of chattel slavery as a social and economic institution in Alexander the Great’s empire (356–323 BC) and long into the Constantine Era (306–337 CE), it is worth dwelling a bit on the argument in the Politics.3 According to Aristotle, slaves were as different from freeborn men as the human body was from the soul. This is more than just a comparison. Whereas the slave was to be identified with his physical body, the freeborn man’s identity was determined by the rationality of his soul. Accordingly, the designation of slaves could simply be σώματα.4 Since the primary function of slaves was the use of their bodies, they might also be compared to beasts of burden, though unlike animals, slaves were capable of understanding and learning. Still, when compared to freeborn men, the slave’s intellect was passive; slaves did not themselves possess reason. They were a kind of intermediary beings situated between real – that is, freeborn – humans and animals. Consequently, so Aristotle argues, it was only natural and advantageous for the slave to have a master, who had the capacity to think for both of them. Aristotle’s description of the slave’s ontology deserves quotation: Therefore all men that differ as widely as the soul does from the body and the human being from the lower animal (and this is the condition of those whose function is the use of the body and from whom this is the best that is forthcoming) – these are by nature slaves (οὗτοι μέν ει᾿σι φύσει δοῦλοι), for whom to be governed by this kind of authority is advantageous […]. For he is by nature a slave who is capable of belonging to another (and that is why he does so belong), and who participates in reason so far as to apprehend it but not to possess it (Aristotle, Pol. 1.1254a18–24).5

Moreover, when Aristotle defines the role of the slave within the household, he argues that the slave belongs to the category of commodities. Within this category, the slave again makes up his own class. The slave is a special kind of ‘thing’ because, despite being an instrument, he or she is capable of action even when separated from his/her/its owner. Aristotle’s (in)famous reduction of slaves to an article of property runs as follows: These considerations therefore make clear the nature of the slave and his essential quality: one who is a human being belonging by nature not to himself but to another is 3 Cf. Brandley, Slavery in the Roman Republic. 4 Kyrtatas, Slavery and Economy, 95. 5 Unless mentioned otherwise, all translations of Classical texts are from the LOEB editions.

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by nature a slave, and a person is a human being belonging to another if being a man he is an article of property, and an article of property is an instrument for action separable from its owner (κτῆμα δὲ ὄργανον πρακτικὸν καὶ χωριστόν) (Aristotle, Pol. 1.1254a.15–19).

In her book Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy, Kathleen McCarthy draws attention to “the crux of slavery,” which is related to Aristotle’s definition of the slave as an intermediary being. As a mere tool, the slave is worthless, but as a thinking human being, he challenges Aristotelian ideology: Slaves become useful only when they can combine two contradictory attributes: being as much as possible an extension of the master’s persona and yet exercising judgment and skills of their own. In other words, a slave who can merely carry out explicit orders is useless, and a slave who goes his or her own way is useless.6

Due to this tension between human agency and chattel fungibility, antiquity had to reinvent the symbolic world of slavery repeatedly. The tension also marks the extremes in the debate on slavery. Critics of Aristotle’s ideology – e. g. the Stoics – emphasized slaves’ humanity. However, no group in antiquity challenged the institution as such.7 As we shall see, Mark’s Gospel also belongs among the critics. Yet our analysis will demonstrate that, in an intriguing way, the Gospel also contributes to the preservation of the criticized ideology. Apparently, the use of Mark 10:13–16 in the Protestant baptism ritual has provided this particular text with a strong hermeneutical lead in the reading of the aforementioned cluster of texts, even among scholars. In my analysis, I shall argue that we should instead assign this role to Mark 10:42–45. In order to sharpen our awareness of the pre-understanding with which we encounter these Markan texts, we must first – I am quoting Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s famous address as president of the Society of Biblical Literature – scrutinize “the rhetorical interests emerging in the history of interpretation or in contemporary scholarship.”8 In other words, we must turn to the reception history of Mark 10:13–16. First, we will glance briefly at the interpretations of the text in recent German, English, and Scandinavian commentaries on Mark’s Gospel – that is, books published after 2005. These commentaries are written after the publication of some seminal books on the New Testament and slavery: above all, Dale B. Martin’s Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity and Jennifer Glancy’s Slavery in Early Christianity. Some are even written after the first African-American president of the Society of Biblical Literature, Vincent L. Wimbush, addressed the Society in 2010 on the theme of “Interpreters: En6 McCarthy, Slaves, 22. 7 Bradley, Problem of Slavery, 282. 8 Fiorenza, Ethics of Biblical Interpretation, 28.

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slaving/Enslaved/Runagate.” Thus, we can expect an awareness of the fact that the Bible was written in a slaveholding society to be reflected in the exegetes’ imagination and interpretation. Anticipating the result of my analysis, I shall reveal that this is not the case. In order to offer an explanation for this interpretive situation, we will then turn toward an analysis of the representation of Mark 10:13–16 in visual media from the Reformation to today.

2.

The Reception History of Mark 10:13–16 Students of the Bible must learn how to examine both the rhetorical aims of biblical texts and the rhetorical interests emerging in the history of interpretation or in contemporary scholarship in terms of the vision of justice and well-being for all. This requires that we revive a responsible ethical and political criticism that recognizes the ideological distortions of great works of religion.9

2.1

Mark 10:13–16 in Recent Exegesis

As mentioned above, Markan scholars unanimously agree that Mark 10:13–16 addresses the presence and role of children in early Christian congregations. Their arguments typically draw attention to the narrative context in which the text appears. Apparently, the scene is staged in the house to which Jesus and his disciples have had recourse after Jesus’ dispute with the Pharisees concerning divorce (Mark 10:1–12). R. Alan Culpepper explains: “The transition from speaking of marriage in the preceding verses to speaking of children is also a natural connection, as is the connection between women and children as powerless persons.”10 Jesus admonishes his disciples to be especially attentive to weak members of the family, and to Culpepper that implies “women and children.”11 However, scholars also agree that the role and treatment of children in the early Christian communities is not the primary function of the text and point instead to Mark’s treatment of Christology. Culpepper’s remark is emblematic of the strong focus on Jesus’ role and identity in Markan scholarship: “The fact that children were being brought so that Jesus might touch them indicates that people

9 Ibid., 28. 10 Culpepper, Mark, 332. 11 Ibid., 332.

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recognized Jesus as a distinguished person, a prophet, or a teacher whose touch could confer a blessing or heal.”12 In general, it is the exegetical discussion of Jesus’ statement in Mark 10:15 – “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God ὡς παιδίον will not enter it at all” – that fills the pages of the commentaries.13 According to the interpreters, the tumultuous scene staged in Mark 10:13–14 serves as the backdrop for Jesus’ statement in v. 15 on the kind of faith, which provides access to the Kingdom of God. Most scholars understand the phrase ὡς παιδίον as an adverbial modification of the ‘reception’ and, accordingly, as a qualification of the required faith. Lars Hartman’s description is representative (here in Swedish): “En enkel berättelse bildar ram kring de Jesusord som är textens kärna och belyser det som Jesus sager.”14 In other words, the scene’s social set up (Mark 10:13–14, 16) functions as the vehicle that transmits meaning to the tenor of faith (v. 15), but apart from that, there is no connection between the scene and the statement. Consequently, we must inquire into the kind of qualities that scholars associate with this essential state of ‘childishness’ (ὡς παιδίον). According to Volker Stolle, it is not a special childish mode of being to which the Markan text draws attention but instead the fact that small children are not able to bring themselves to Jesus; someone must carry them. Thus, it is human beings’ passivity coram Deo that Mark wishes to communicate: “Die damit angesprochene Spezifizierung spielt nicht auf irgendeine kindliche Eigenart auf, sondern verweist auf den Umstand, dass sie [die Kinder] zu Jesus gebracht sind.”15 Geert Hallbäck likewise draws attention to the child’s powerlessness and dependency on others: It is flawed to believe that human beings themselves can do anything to gain access to the Kingdom of God.16 Thus Jesus’ admonition does not concern the children’s situation; instead, the children serve as a metaphor for the human condition coram Deo. Yet we must recall that Mark’s text does not speak about babies (βρέφος); this is only true for the Lukan version of the passage (Luke 18:15). Culpepper’s interpretation of the eschatologically qualifying ‘childishness’ points in a more emotional direction: “One must receive the Kingdom with the same delight and humility that a child shows when given a gift.”17 Thus, according to Culpepper, Mark has the child’s spontaneity, immediacy, and unreservedness in mind. Hartman also emphasizes the gift-like character of God’s Kingdom: “Att 12 Ibid., 332. Cf. Hallbäck and Engberg-Pedersen, Første evangelium, 150; Collins, Mark, 471. 13 Unless otherwise mentioned, translations of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece 28 are my own. 14 Hartman, Markusevangeliet, 389. 15 Stolle, Markusevangelium, 238; emphasis added. 16 Hallbäck and Engberg-Pedersen, Første evangelium, 151. 17 Culpepper, Mark, 333.

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skaker är och/eller blir som Gud will (= Gud’s rike) är alltså då nogot i nuet, och det ges som en gåva åt människor.”18 As an already-present reality, the Kingdom opens itself up to the person, who in order to enter it surrenders with no hesitation. Hartman thus contrasts the child’s unreserved, emotional, and naïve response with the adult’s maturity and reflection, which may prevent the reception of – and then, entry into the Kingdom. Collins takes her understanding of Mark 10:13–16 in a third direction. She sees the episode as a prelude to the story about the rich man, whose opportunity of “entering the Kingdom is very low” due to his negative response to Jesus’ invitation.19 When Collins seeks to explain what is implied by ‘childishness’ as a qualification of faith, she points to Jesus’ teaching on serving in Mark 9:33–37: “The connection between the two passages suggests that receiving the Kingdom as a child means receiving it without the ambition to be a figure of authority, but being content to be ‘last of all and servant of all’.”20 In addition, Collins makes us aware that Matthew, who is keen on filling in Mark’s gaps, is explicit about the expected attitude. According to Matt 18:3–4 NRSV, it is humility we need: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children (τὰ παιδία), you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child (τὸ παιδίον) is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”21 For my part, I find that the scholarly tradition surrounding Mark 10:13–16 raises as many questions as it attempts to resolve. First, it is remarkable that although exegetes are aware that the text is part of the section in which Mark discusses various matters related to family life, they do not address the fact that larger households – as we may presume those that were prepared to accept the housing of Jesus and his sizable group of followers to be – also included slaves. Second, scholars generally emphasize the Markan Jesus’ care for vulnerable members of the household, yet they ignore the most exposed group of people in the house: the slaves. Scholars thus appear to have adopted the hegemonic ideology of slavery in antiquity: As commodities, slaves were a matter of fact – not to be addressed. Third, with regard to the humility, which the requested childishness is meant, according to Collins, to represent, this attitude would fit better if the exemplary virtue of the Markan παιδία referred to slaves instead of kids. Although children were expected to obey the head of the family (Eph 6:1–3), humility was, above all, the virtue of slaves (1 Pet 2:18–25; 1 Tim 6:1–2; Tit 2:9–10). Moreover, the Christological hymn in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians explicitly links slavery with humility (2:7–8). Fourth, if we accept that Mark’s παιδία are 18 19 20 21

Hartman, Markusevangeliet, 390. Collins, Mark, 471. Ibid., 471. Ibid., 473.

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household slaves, we will see a displacement from a soteriological understanding of the text to an ecclesiological interpretation. Moreover, we will also face a shift in focus from individual faith to the social history of early Christianity. Both changes fit perfectly with Jesus’ teaching on leadership and discipleship, which constitutes the context of our text cluster. If Mark 10:13–16 is read in this way, then we have a scene that features slaves and a Jesus who speaks about slavery as a Christian virtue in the manner that he explicitly does in Mark 10:42–45. This takes us to the fifth and final point. We must add: Jesus’ statement in Mark 10:15 does not concern ‘faith’ at all; the word is not mentioned! Thus, the focus on ‘faith’ in the commentaries must be ascribed to the interpreters themselves. The tour de force analysis of the Protestant reception history of Mark 10:13–16 from the Reformation and onward, which follows in the next paragraph, will demonstrate how many scholars’ interpretations of the Markan text appear to be very good Pietistic interpretations.

2.2

Visual Reception History of Mark 10:13–16

With the Reformation, Jesus’ blessing of children became a popular motif in European fine art. During the 1540s, Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop painted a whole series of pictures illustrating Mark 10:13–16 – we know fifteen exemples of the motif – with pushy mothers bringing their well-nourished babies to Jesus for his blessing.22 These pictures formed part of the reformers’ debate with the Catholic Church about the relationship between sola fides and the sacraments. Only God saves, and child baptism, on which the schismatic churches agreed, became an argument in favor of this. In addition, Cranach’s paintings mirror the bourgeoning modern family as the new and secular place in which, according to the reformers, the Protestant was now to perform his Christian duties. With the Reformation, the raising of the children became the mother’s Christian calling and civic responsibility. The distribution of light in the paintings highlights the women’s fertility, shining on their many children and their prosperous breasts, almost bursting with milk. In this way, the images communicate that childrearing is invested with divine meaning. Still, it takes a century before – as an effect of the new Protestant ethics – the bourgeois family becomes visible, though by this point, Dutch and Flemish painters had altered 22 See e. g. Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472–1553). 1546. Johanniterkirche, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Lucas_Cranach_d._ J._-_Christ_Blessing_the_Children_-_WGA05732.jpg. See also Cranach the Elder. Mid-1540s. Wawel Royal Castle, Krakow, Polan: https://upload. wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Cranach_the_Elder_Christ_blessing_the_chil dren.jpg.

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Cranach’s motif and used Mark 10:13–16 to portray pious (and wealthy) families – e. g. Jan Salomonsz de Bray (1627–1697).23 During the late 18th century and the 19th century, we see a tendency to focus more on the relationship between Jesus and the children, whereas the disciples as well as the – no longer pushy – mothers are displaced to the margins of the paintings. Yet the emotional relationship appears rather one-sided.24 The children are interested in Jesus: They reach out for contact, cling to his body/breast, and gaze expectantly at his face. Jesus, for his part, seems rather unaffected by the situation. In fact, he appears too absent and too lofty to engage with the children. Moreover, in the 19th century, we see an inclination to displace the babies with young children. The dogmatism exposed in Cranach’s paintings lies centuries in the past and no longer regulates faith. With Pietism, the child’s naïve and trustful approach to the world has become the new standard of faith – precisely, as it is argued, in even the most recent commentaries. In a world formed by Darwin (1809–1882), by incipient historical criticism and the early discoveries of science, faith must change from fides quae to fides qua – from the objective, unchanging deposit of dogmatism to the subjective act of emotional assent. The paintings thus demonstrate a new Jesus, who appears more feminine, even by the standards of the time. Now he has become the mother, whose body nurtures the believer’s life and faith. At the same time as this emotional contact shapes the idea of faith in the era of Pietism, Jesus’ recognition of the individual child shapes childhood as an important and valuable phase of life. Consequently, during the 19th century, we see images from which the mothers have completely disappeared, and the contact between Jesus and the children constitutes the whole motif. In Carl Bloch’s famous altarpiece (1873) from St. Nikolai’s Church (Holbæk, Denmark), the painter has portrayed Jesus with one single boy, to whom Jesus draws the audience’s attention.25 Mark 10:13–16 seems to disappear from the repertoire of fine art during the th 20 century. However, we may recognize a new and quite recent tendency, a representative example of which is Journey with the Messiah: Religious Coffee Table Book by Michael Belk, an American fashion photographer, who has worked with Vogue, Elle, GQ, and Vanity Fair. In Belk’s work, the male gender and male 23 See Jan Salomonsz de Bray (Dutch, 1627–1697). Family Portrait Braems-Van der Laen. 1663. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem: http://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/zoeken-de-col lectie/laat-de-kindekens-tot-mij-komen-pieter-braems-en-zijn-gezin-308/#. 24 See e. g. Charles Lock Eastlake (English painter, 1793–1865). 1839. Manchester Galleries. http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/images/paintings/mcag/large/gmiii_mcag_1886_ 1_large.jpg. 25 Carl Bloch (Danish, 1834–1890). Sankt Nikolai Kirke, Denmark: https://upload.wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Nikolai_Kirke_%2806%29.jpg/220px-Nikolai_Kirke_ %2806%29.jpg.

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religious identity are renegotiated. When modern representations of the Markan scene such as Belk’s leave the divine paraphernalia behind, Jesus becomes a model of contemporary fatherhood. Focus is no longer on the children’s emotional response to Jesus but on his joy of being with the kids.26 This brief analysis helps us recognize the impact of the reception history of Mark 10:13–16 on modern interpreters’ imagination. It demonstrates how a consciousness marked by Pietism and its focus on and particular understanding of faith has filled the gaps and uncertainties of the Markan text. First, as mentioned above, Mark 10:13–16 is not about baptism but features a request for the blessing of τὰ παιδία – whoever they may be. Second, Mark’s text mentions nothing about mothers carrying their newborn babies to Jesus. The text does not even indicate that τὰ παιδία were pushed forward by their parents. The ‘pushy’ persons’ gender and family status are uncertain since the identity of the indirect object of the disciples’ threatening is ambiguous. In addition, grammatically αὐτοῖς may also refer to τὰ παιδία, which only is meaningful if τὰ παιδία possess intentionality and are able to walk themselves. Moreover, the basic meaning of the verb προσφέρω is, according to LSJ-Online, “to bring or to present something to someone.” Whether τὰ παιδία are carried or pushed forward depends on their size.27 Third, I have already drawn attention to the fact that Mark 10:13–16 makes no mention of faith. Fourth and finally, the text gives us no hints concerning the disciples’ motives for preventing contact of τὰ παιδία with Jesus. It seems that the explanation was so obvious that Mark did not need to spell it out for his intended audience. We have touched upon the first three uncertainties above, but the fourth is still in need of contemplation.

3.

The Enigma of the Disciples’ Reaction (Mark 10:14) Associate with your slave on kindly, even on affable, terms; let him talk with you, plan with you, live with you. I know that at this point all the exquisites will cry out against me in a body; they will say: ‘There is nothing more debasing, more disgraceful, than this’ (Seneca, On Masters and Slaves, Ep. 47.13).

26 https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b4/b6/24/b4b624cc19af3c8565da9093870408e4. jpg. 27 In addition, Mark 10:16 – καὶ ἐναγκαλισάμενος αὐτὰ κατευλόγει τιθεὶς τὰς χεῖρας ἐπ᾽ αὐτά – makes better sense if τὰ παιδία are able to walk themselves: they get a hug and are then blessed. If they were babies, they had to be delivered back to their parents, before Jesus could put his hands on them.

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Threatening Children?

But why do the disciples act so aggressively toward those people who push τὰ παιδία toward Jesus (Mark 10:13–14)? Adela Y. Collins draws attention to the fact that no motivation is given for the rebuke.28 Maybe this explains why many exegetes feel no obligation to explain it. R. Alan Culpepper argues that the disciples act “as brokers, protecting Jesus from unworthy clients.”29 But why should parents and children in the households that provide Jesus and his followers with food and shelter be seen as “unworthy clients”? Volker Stolle explains the disciples’ reaction on the basis of their reluctance to accept other candidates into their midst: “Sie wollen die Jüngerschaft in engen, kontrollierbaren Grenzen halten, wie sie es auch schon den fremden Exorzisten gegenüber versucht hatten (9,38f).”30 But how can a group of children be seen as a threat to the disciples’ circle and status? I find that the exegetes must qualify their explanations of the disciples’ reaction historically, with reference to early Christian, Jewish, and Greco-Roman material. Here, I shall examine two scenarios: Would it at all be historically plausible for the disciples to have resisted the baptism of τὰ παιδία? Or should we instead see their reaction as opposition to the access of τὰ παιδία to the table fellowship? In both cases, I address the situation twice: with τὰ παιδία as children and as slaves.

3.2

Baptism and τὰ παιδία: Any Obstacles?

Baptism of children seems not to have been a matter of debate in the earliest centuries of Christianity. The opposite was, in fact, the case. Although the New Testament refers to various practices, the salvation of the family’s children appears to have been important. In First Corinthians, Paul addresses the situation of couples with mixed beliefs and argues that their children are also holy because the Christ-believing husband or wife sanctifies his or her partner (1 Cor 7:14). According to Luke-Acts, the practice seems to have been that the household in its entirety followed the head of the house – be it a man or a woman – in his or her conversion to Christianity. In the narrative of Cornelius’ conversion (Acts 10), we hear how the whole house is awaiting Peter’s revelation of the Lord’s decision concerning their acceptance into the new faith (Acts 10:33). Peter concludes his account with the rhetorical question as to whether someone present may “refuse 28 Collins, Mark, 472. 29 Culpepper, Mark, 333. 30 Stolle, Markusevangelium, 238.

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the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” (Acts 10:47). Since the Holy Spirit came over everyone present (Acts 10:44), the whole household is baptized (Acts 10:48). Also in the case of the seller of purple fabrics, Lydia, a worshiper of God, probably a proselyte affiliated with the Jewish synagogue (Acts 16:14), her household is baptized (Acts 16:15: ὡς δὲ ἐβαπτίσθη καὶ ὁ οἶκος αὐτῆς). As a woman with her own house and business, she may be a widow or an unmarried woman. Consequently, we do not know whether Lydia’s household included children or simply consisted of her staff of slaves and servants. In either case, the story confirms the practice: the household follows the master. The narrative that follows the account of the baptism of Lydia’s household confirms the principle – albeit, in a negative way – by indirectly addressing the baptism of slaves. The slave girl with a divinatory spirit (Acts 16:16: ἡ παιδίσκη), who annoys Paul with her disclosure of his and his companion’s identity as “slaves of the highest God” (Acts 16:17: δοῦλοι τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ὑψίστου), is not offered baptism when healed by Paul. In reaction to the girl’s healing, her masters – several masters share her (Acts 16:16–19) – sue Paul for their loss of income: he has damaged their property. But what will happen to the slave girl now? In spite of the girl’s vulnerable situation (she has lost the spiritual skills that made her a valuable object), the author of Luke-Acts does not care about her fate – neither do standard commentaries. As in the case with Cornelius’ and Lydia’ households, it is the master’s decision as to whether his slave should be baptized.31 In considering the Church Fathers’ discussion of baptism of children and slaves, the practices with which we became acquainted in the New Testament texts seem to continue. Baptism of children as part of the household is taken for granted. In his article “More Than Initiation? Baptism According to Origen of Alexandria,” Gunnar af Hällström explains how Origen treats infant baptism as a simple matter of fact in his homilies: “baptizantur et parvuli, ‘also small children are baptized.’ It is not in the process of being introduced, it is there. But there was a debate concerning the theology of infant baptism going on.”32 However, with regard to the baptism of slaves, the situation was more complex. In her article “Slavery and the Rise of Christianity,” Jennifer Glancy explains how: [M]anuals of church order from the third and fourth centuries mandated that church authorities should inquire whether potential catechumens were slaves. A slave of a believing owner could not join the catechumenate until the slaveholder certified the slave’s worthiness for baptism. Those who were the property of non-believing slave-

31 Cf. Glancy, Slavery, 462; Kartzow, Destabilizing, 122–23. 32 Hällström, More than Initiation, 1002; emphasis added. Cf. Löhr, Kindertaufe im frühen Christentum.

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holders were adjured to please their owners in order to safeguard the reputation of the gospel (Apostolic Constitutions 8.32.3; Hippolytus, The Apostolic Tradition 15:3–5).33

Again, the practice documented in the New Testament appears to continue: slaves are in their masters’ hands – even with regard to their salvation.

3.3

Eucharist and τὰ παιδία: Any Obstacles?

However, if children and slaves were baptized as part of a household, we should expect both categories to have access to the table fellowship celebrating the Lord’s meal. With regard to children, Mark appears to let them participate at the Table – at least those who have reached adolescence, as is the case with Jairus’ 12-year-old daughter. After the girl has been restored to life, Jesus, in a slightly out-of-context manner, commands that she be given something to eat (Mark 5:43). Given Mark’s focus on the Eucharist as the ritual gathering that replaces the temple, scholars agree about the meaning of the command: she is invited to the Table. But what about the slaves? Were they also invited to the Table? In 1 Cor 11:17– 34, Paul draws attention to the problems that social differences around the Lord’s Table occasioned in Corinth. Perhaps some of those who were left hungry were slaves who either had nothing to bring to the shared table or who arrived too late to receive any food (1 Cor 11:21).34 The socially vulnerable thus appear to participate at the Table, though it might have been a quite denigrating experience. In his epistle on “Master and Slaves” (Epistulae Morales XLVII), written to his friend Lucilius, the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger (circa 4 BC – 65 AD) depicts the behavior expected of slaves at a dinner party. Although the description refers to the upper social strata in the Roman Empire, it may still be indicative of the kind of problems that Paul addressed in his Corinthian congregation. In the epistle, Seneca takes issue with the Aristotelian understanding of slavery, which may explain “why some people may find it degrading for a man to dine with his slave.” Seneca continues: But why should they think it degrading? It is only because purse-proud etiquette surrounds a householder at his dinner with a mob of standing slaves. The master eats more than he can hold, and with monstrous greed loads his belly until it is stretched and at length ceases to do the work of a belly; so that he is at greater pains to discharge all the food than he was to stuff it down. All this time the poor slaves may not move their lips, even to speak. The slightest murmur is repressed by the rod; even a chance sound – a cough, a sneeze, or a hiccup – is visited with the lash. There is a grievous penalty for the slightest breach of silence. All night long they must stand about, hungry and dumb. (Seneca, Ep. 47.2–3) 33 Glancy, Slavery, 465. 34 Cf. Martin, Corinthian Body.

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Instead, Seneca argues that the master should live on friendly terms with his slaves since Fortune may also turn him into a slave: “Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies. It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave” (Ep. 47.10). According to the Stoics, slaves as well as freeborn people were children of Zeus, born with the same abilities for rational and emotional growth if subjected to the right kind of training, and the master should – for his own sake – take care to supply such training. It is often argued that Jews treated their slaves differently from others in the Greco-Roman world. However, in her article “Slavery and the Jews” (2011), Catherine Hezser challenges this perspective. On the one hand, the Hebrew Bible “stresses that slaves, in contrast to hired labourers, may eat from the Passover sacrifice as soon as they are circumcised (Exod. 12:44). Slaves were considered part of the household and could therefore participate in the ritual.”35 On the other hand, she warns against taking the Bible’s ideological writings for social reality. In her analysis, Hezser compares the Jewish Passover with the Roman Saturnalia, the annual festival that celebrated Saturn. The Saturnalia was a kind of carnival that turned everything upside-down: “Roman slaves were served at table by their masters. The reversal of roles was what mattered. Passover lacked the element of role reversal.”36 Thus, the two traditions differed. Nevertheless, so Hezser argues, the Jewish Passover meal was – just like the Saturnalia – a carnivalesque practice that distinguished the extraordinary from everyday practice. The Jews did not eat their daily meals together with their slaves, neither in the Greco-Roman world, nor in the Jewish diaspora, nor in colonized Palestine. However, a common meal could be tolerated once a year, albeit conducted within a strongly ritualized framework. After all, in both the Jewish and Roman cases, the meals confirmed the difference instead of challenged it. Ultimately, the exception proved the rule. If the early Christian Eucharist was practiced as an integral form of the ordinary meal, as 1 Cor 11 indicates, we can imagine that at least some Jews who celebrated the Passover and some Gentiles who had grown up with the Saturnalia might have objected to the participation of slaves in the shared meal. Yet the Markan Jesus goes even further, suggesting that the principle of the Saturnalia defines Christian ethics and Christian leadership. As Jesus explains to his disciples, “The Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). Consequently, we may conclude that we reach the historically best explanation for the disciples’ motives in preventing τὰ παιδία from coming to Jesus when we identify τὰ παιδία with slaves. Like most free people in the Roman Empire, the 35 Hezser, Slavery and the Jews, 452. 36 Ibid., 452.

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disciples appear reluctant to allow slaves a baptism without their masters’ consent or to share the table with them.

4.

Re-Reading Mark 10:13–16 in Context 13

And they brought some slave lads to him in order that he should touch them, but his disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he became angry and said to them: “Permit the slaves to come to me. You must not hinder them, because the Kingdom of God belongs to them. 15 Indeed, I tell you: He who do not receive the Kingdom of God in the manner of a slave, shall not enter it.” 16 Having embraced the lads, he laid his hands on them and blessed them (translation, Buch-Hansen).

4.1

Introduction

In this final take on Mark 10:13–16, we shall read the text in its Markan context. However, we shall not do so in its immediate framework, which is made up of the discourses on divorce and wealth, but as already foreshadowed, we shall consider it in the light of Mark 9:33–37, 42–50 and 10:42–45. The Markan scholars mentioned above see Mark 9:33–37 as parallel to Mark 10:13–16 and, again, Mark 10:42–45 as parallel to Mark 9:33–37. Although few include Mark 9:41–45 in this web of meaning, I shall argue that the latter text, with its warning against provoking οἱ μικροί to apostasy, also belongs to the cluster of texts linking the discourse on proper leadership with the discussion of the weakest people’s (τὰ παιδία) status within the community. Of the four texts considered here, Mark 10:42–45 is of crucial significance because this passage uses the term δοῦλος (Mark 10:44). This is the only text that explicitly ‘thinks’ by the aid of the social category of slavery. Consequently, the ethical principle introduced in Mark 10:42–45 may throw light on the ambiguity of the two texts that employ the semantically flexible term παιδίον (Mark 9:36–37; 10:13–15). Before looking at Mark 9:33–37 and Mark 10:42–45 and then returning to Mark 10:13–16, we must activate our historical imagination in order to visualize the households visited by the Markan Jesus together with his many followers. As indicated above, the group of sympathizers, who accompany Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, consists of the twelve named apostles, a sizable group of unknown disciples, the three named female followers, who served him while he was still in Galilee (Mark 15:40); plus many more women (Mark 15:41). This

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group – some of them former fishermen (Mark 1:16–20) – have given up their work and income and left their family homes and fields (Mark 10:29) in order to follow Jesus. As a result, someone else must feed them. While still in Galilee, the disciples’ households appear to have offered food and shelter for the group (e. g. Mark 1:31, 15:41). However, we also hear about larger households in which Jesus and his followers were offered a meal. The tax collector, Levi, who was called to follow Jesus (Mark 2:14) without being counted among the apostles (Mark 3:16– 19), hosted a dinner at which many tax collectors and sinners as well as Jesus’ disciples, now many, were present (Mark 2:15). Households like Levi’s and those that Jesus visited on his way to Jerusalem must have been large enough to provide space for this sizable group and rich enough to feed the numerous guests. Slaves would probably have been employed in these kinds of houses. The census on property, which we hear about in Luke’s Gospel (2:1), has preserved important information about slave holding in the eastern provinces of the Empire. In fact, slave holding was quite common – especially in urban areas – even though the employment of slaves was relatively low when compared to Rome. Whereas in Italy, slaves made up 20–40 % of the population, depending on the region, the percentage of slaves in the eastern part of the Empire was 13 % in the cities and 8 % in the villages. The low employment of slaves in rural areas is explained by the fact that, in the eastern regions of the Empire, the tenant-system appeared a more rational mode of production than did the Roman villas with their many slaves.37 The parables in the New Testament confirm that information (e. g. the parable about the wicked tenants in the three Synoptic Gospels: Mark 12:1–12; Matt 21:33–46; Luke 20:9–19). It would thus have been reasonable for Mark to have imagined the presence of slaves in the households that provided food and shelter to Jesus and his many followers. Busy serving the guests, they would have been easy to seize if needed to illustrate a rhetorical point.

4.2

Mark 9:33–37

On their way back to Capernaum, probably to the household that hosts Jesus and his group of followers, Jesus asks what the apostles have been discussing. Although the twelve remain silent, Jesus is aware of their sensitive subject. He gathers the group of chosen disciples around him (Mark 9:35), sits down as a rabbi, and answers their question about their rank in the Kingdom to come. Explaining how status works within the Kingdom, Jesus turns the power structure of the Roman Empire upside-down (Mark 9:35): “If a person wishes to be the first (πρῶτος), he must also be the last of all (πάντων ἔσχατος) and be ready to serve 37 Morley, Slaves Under the Principate, 267.

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(διάκονος).” To illustrate his claim, Jesus seizes (Mark 9:36: λαβὼν) a παιδίον present among them and places him in their midst. He puts his arms around the παιδίον and then explains to the twelve candidates for future leadership how the person who receives one of these παιδία in his name, receives him, and how he who receives him receives not him but he who sent him – that is, God (Mark 9:37). Due to the Markan Jesus’ identification with τὰ παιδία, which takes place here, future leadership will be determined by the willingness to treat these παιδία in the same manner, as the leaders-to-be relate to Jesus – or even to God. By using the Greek term παιδίον, I have until now kept the referent undetermined. Yet when we let this text interact with Mark 10:42–45, we may begin to glimpse the social reality behind the words.

4.3

Mark 10:42–45

As in Mark 9:33–37, some disciples – this time, the sons of Zebedee (Mark 10:35) – provoke Jesus with their obsession concerning their future rank in the Kingdom. Again, Jesus’ reply plays with the paradoxical asymmetry between social status and serving. In the chiasm in Mark 10:42–45, the power structure in the Empire is set up against the status reversal in the Kingdom. Schematically, the chiasm is structured as below: A142a οἴδατε ὅτι οἱ δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν τῶν ἐθνῶν “Don’t you know, that those who claim to rule the nations, κατακυριεύουσιν αὐτῶν subdue them, B142b καὶ οἱ μεγάλοι αὐτῶν and that their mighty men κατεξουσιάζουσιν αὐτῶν misuse their power. C43a B243b

A244

The emperors

Highest social status

Highest performance of power Their gover- High social status nors High performance of power

οὐχ οὕτως δέ ἐστιν ἐν ὑμῖν Change of Among you, it must not be like this, values ἀλλ᾽ ὃς ἂν θέλῃ μέγας γενέσθαι ἐν ὑμῖν High social status instead he, who wishes to be great among you, ἔσται ὑμῶν διάκονος Your servant Low performance of must be your servant. power καὶ ὃς ἂν θέλῃ ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι πρῶτος and he, who wishes to be first among you, ἔσται πάντων δοῦλος· must be everyone’s slave.

Highest social status Everyone’s slave

Lowest performance of power

In the chiasm, A1 mirrors and contrasts A2 as B1 does B2 – C constitutes the centerline. Above the centerline, we have the worldly, imperial reality, in which

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high status is associated with the power to subdue nations. The two cases are presented in declining order. First, we get the worst case, which appears to be associated with the emperors (Mark 10:42a). According to LSJ-Online, the term κατακυριεύω, which is used in Mark 10:42, has very strong connotations with the total gain of power or the exercise of complete dominion over everything. Next, we get the bad case, which is connected with the emperors’ governors and perhaps their vassal kings (Mark 10:42b). The center of the chiasm draws attention to the demanded reversal of social values: “Among you, it must not be like this” (Mark 10:43a). Below the centerline, the Markan Jesus introduces the ethical standards that are to characterize the Kingdom, this time in ascending order. First, high status is ascribed to the person who is willing to act as a servant among ‘you’ (Mark 10:43: ὑμῶν διάκονος). Next, we are confronted with the demand, which Jesus places on this person, who wishes to be recognized as the principal among them (Mark 10:44: ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι πρῶτος): He must be everyone’s slave (πάντων δοῦλος). Thus, we have an amplification from the ‘serving’, which suits a free(d) man, to the willingness to put aside all personal desires and replace them with the needs of others. As we saw in Aristotle’s treatment of the institution of slavery in his Politics, the slave is a person whose body serves as instrument for another person’s intentionality. In Mark 10:45, the Son of Man figure embodies the new paradigm: καὶ γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἦλθεν διακονηθῆναι Because the Son of Man has not come in order to be served, ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι Low but in order to serve καὶ δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν Lowest and to give his life as ransom for many.

Here Jesus explains how the Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve (διακονῆσαι, cf. 10:43) and “to give his life as ransom for many.” The term λύτρον has different lexical meanings. It may refer to the sum paid for the manumission of slaves or to the blood money paid for acquired guilt (LSJ-Online). Yet we need not choose between the different denotations: In either case, the Son of Man – or Christ – serves the community with his life. In addition, we must be aware that the idea of vicarious suffering had its place in the institution of slavery. A slave could serve as a ‘surrogate body’ for punishment to be inflicted on his master.38 Apparently, the Son of Man has not only come to serve but also to be enslaved. As the Son of Man, Jesus embodies the ethical principle for Christian life in general and for Christian leadership in particular.

38 Cf. Glancy, Slavery.

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By now it should be clear that if we understand the παιδίον who Jesus brings into the disciples’ circle in Mark 9:33–37 as a slave lad, the two texts – Mark 9:33– 37 and 10:42–45 – feature two parallel discourses about the person who wishes to be “the principal/first (πρῶτος) among you” (Mark 9:35; 10:44). Yet the demand in Mark 10:44 – the willingness to be everyone’s slave (ἔσται πάντων δοῦλος) – seems more radical than the request for communal service (ἔσται πάντων ἔσχατος καὶ πάντων διάκονος) in Mark 9:35. However, when Jesus’ action and statement in Mark 9:36–37 is taken into account, the parallel is complete: The leaders must serve the slave as if the παιδίον were the Lord himself. Mark 10:13–16 stands between these two texts. Consequently, it is obvious to bring the text into the web of significance strung between Mark 9:33–37 and 10:42–45. In full awareness that my argument may be caught in the hermeneutical circle, I wish to draw attention to the way in which Mark 10:13–16 – if we translate τὰ παιδία as ‘slaves’ – fits this context perfectly. We must then reconsider the adverbial phrase ὡς παιδίον in Mark 10:15: “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive (δέξηται) the Kingdom of God ὡς παιδίον will not enter it at all” in the light of this suggestion. The traditional translation of ὡς παιδίον as “as a little child” (KJV/NRSV) meant that the adverbial phrase could both modify the verb δέξηται and serve as a comparison that predicated and characterized the Kingdom of God. In the first case, entrance into the Kingdom depended on the ‘childish’ faith, which – as we saw in the above analysis – was the cherished interpretation of Pietism. In the latter case, the disciples must receive the Kingdom as if it were a precious child. Yet this idea presupposes the invention and valorization of childhood, which must also be attributed to Pietism’s merits. However, if we translate παιδίον as ‘slave’ or ‘slave lad,’ only the modification of the verb δέξηται by ὡς παιδίον appears meaningful. In that case, entrance into the Kingdom of God depends on willingness to serve in the Kingdom as a slave. This claim parallels the litmus test in Mark 10:45 of a disciple’s aptness for leadership: the willingness to be everyone’s slave – that is, even the slaves’ slave.

4.4

Mark 9:42–48

In Mark 9:42–48, Jesus continues his teaching on community ethics. He warns against behavior that may insult οἱ μικροί in such a way that it leads to their ‘stumbling’ (Mark 9:42). Most exegetes understand the reference to οἱ μικροί in continuity with their interpretation of Mark 9:33–37. They thus see οἱ μικροί as children, whose confidence or faith in God or Jesus is weak and vulnerable. However, this interpretation presupposes that children possessed a religious sensibility, which could be damaged. Yet this idea seemed foreign to antiquity. In general, children just followed the religion of the head of the household and

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participated in the worship of the household’s gods and guardian spirits. Consequently, R. Alan Culpepper and Troels Engberg-Pedersen perceive οἱ μικροί more generally as weak members of the community.39 Lars Hartman, for his part, relates οἱ μικροί to Paul’s discourse about ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ members in the community in 1 Cor 8 and Rom 14.40 With regard to the offences that the various parts of the body may produce, Culpepper’s interpretation is representative of the scholarly understanding: In a typically Semitic fashion, Jesus concretizes the temptations, speaking of them in terms of the parts of the body with which they are associated. With one’s hand one may steal or do violence. With one’s foot one may be led into temptation, trespass, or stumble, and with one’s eye one may lust or covet.41

Consequently, many exegetes see no link between the offence of οἱ μικροί and the following offences caused by the body. However, Adela Collins takes our understanding of Mark 9:42–48 in another – and for our purpose – very interesting direction. She agrees that the description of the situation of οἱ μικροί resumes the discussion in Mark 9:33–37 about children’s situation in the congregation. Yet she sees Mark 9:42–48 as one continuous line of thoughts, which “have sexuality as their primary referent” (2007, 450). Collins points to the morphological fact that οἱ μικροί are masculine and suggests that the text may refer to the Greek tradition of pederasty. However, while it is easy to understand how the eye and the hand may cause an offence here, a degree of imagination is required to decipher how the foot might be involved. In line with Collins’ explanation, I too suggest that the discussion of οἱ μικροί picks up on the teaching given in Mark 9:33–37. However, where Collins sees an assault against young men, I suggest that the sexual and physical violence is directed against slaves. After all, slaves were the weakest and most vulnerable individuals in the household. In addition, the relation of v. 42 to vv. 43–47 is strengthened if we have the household slaves in mind: Slaves may be beaten by a hand, kicked by a foot, and exploited sexually because the younger of them may appear pleasing to the eye. Seneca’s epistle on “Master and Slaves” documents the beatings as well as the sexual exploitation. We may substantiate this interpretation by analyzing the representation of slaves in Roman visual art. The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, which covered Pompeii with lava and ash, preserved for posterity a series of frescos depicting life and culture in ancient Italy. However, when the task is a reading of Mark’s Gospel, the use of representations of slaves in Roman art to stimulate our historical imagination is problematic on a number of grounds. Only households of a 39 Culpepper, Mark, 315; Hallbäck and Engberg-Pedersen, Det første evangelium, 141. 40 Hartman, Markusevangeliet, 369. 41 Culpepper, Mark, 316.

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certain social standing had the interest and means to advertise their lifestyle on the walls of their semi-public dining rooms. Although some of the preserved frescos in Pompeii also come from smaller households, the distance from their social standing to the Palestinian households capable of housing Jesus and his followers probably remains immense. Yet I shall argue that if we take a close look at the Pompeiian frescos, we may glean some important information about the ideology involved in the slave system as well as its social history, which may in turn shed light on the identity of οἱ μικροί. In her article “Slavery and Roman Material Culture,” Michele George raises a methodological problem involved in the identification of slaves in Roman art. Slaves could not be distinguished from the free people by appearance alone. It seems that this problem also bothered imperial Rome.42 George draws attention to Seneca’s ironic reference to a discussion that once took place in the senate: “A proposal was once made in the senate to distinguish slaves from free men by their dress; it then became apparent how great would be the impending danger if our slaves should begin to count our number” (Seneca, Clem. 1.24.1). Yet Roman artists had their means. In his article “Slavery and the Roman Family,” Jonathan Edmondson draws attention to a fresco that decorated a dining room (triclinium) in what he describes as a relatively modest house in Pompeii:43 It shows four slaves and just six diners. One slave takes off a late-arriving guest’s shoes, while another offers him a drink; a third props up a diner who is bent over vomiting; a fourth, a black slave, gazes up at his master, who has his arm around him in a gesture hinting that he might be one of the master’s special pet slaves (deliciae). Even though the slaves are depicted at a smaller scale than the freeborn diners, they were patently important to the image of his hospitality that the person who commissioned this painting to decorate his own dining-room wished to convey.44

Both Edmundson and George address the methodological problem that the representations of banquets raise since we know that male adolescent slaves were preferred as waiters at banquets. Seneca’s (again) ironic aside on the Roman triclinium in his essay on “Masters and Slaves” demonstrates how these cherished ‘boys’ were not allowed to become adults: Another, who serves the wine, must dress like a woman and wrestle with his advancing years; he cannot get away from his boyhood; he is dragged back to it; and though he has already acquired a soldier’s figure, he is kept beardless by having his hair smoothed away or plucked out by the roots, and he must remain awake throughout the night,

42 George, Slavery, 399. 43 Painting of a banquet, from The House of the Triclinium, Pompeii. National Museum, Naples: http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/banquetfresco_replica.jpg. 44 Edmundson, Slavery, 355; emphasis added.

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dividing his time between his master’s drunkenness and his lust; in the chamber he must be a man, at the feast a boy. (Seneca, Ep. 47.6–7)

Consequently, it may be difficult to distinguish the depiction of adolescence from the representation of slavery. Yet in one of Pompeii’s most famous, luxurious residences, the House of the Vettii, we find a fresco that helps us solve the problem. It depicts a mythological motif that the Romans cherished, at least according to the popularity of motifs from the narrative: the goddess Pasiphae’s love for Poseidon’s bull, of which the artist Daedalus made a wooden representation with which she could copulate. Again, the central motif is of no interest to us; instead, we should direct our attention to the small, scaled-down figure placed at the bottom of the image.45 Daedalus seems to have had a slave carpenter to do the woodwork. The Vettii fresco thus indicates that when minor figures at the banquets are smaller in size, it is not because they are young but because they are slaves. The representation of slaves as the scaled-down ‘little ones’ mirrors the ideology of slavery that we find in Aristotle’s Politics. As mentioned in the beginning of the essay, slaves were childish humans who lacked the ability to mature into adults. This was indicated by semantic flexibility of the terms παῖς and παιδίον. With regard to the social identity of Mark’s οἱ μικροί, it would, of course, be more convincing if I had managed to come up with some texts that explicitly refer to slaves as ‘the little ones,’ but that work is still to be done. For the time being, we must root our argument in these visual indications.

5.

Conclusion

If this reading is accepted, the disciples featured in Mark 9:33–37, 42–48 and 10:13–16 represent the ideology of slavery described in Aristotle’s Politics. Against them, the Markan Jesus represents a position that is more in line with Seneca’s Stoic ideology: As children of God, slaves are also to be received at the congregation’s table since they too belong to the Kingdom of God. Yet the reality is more complex. The Markan Jesus is repeatedly caught in Aristotle’s symbolic web. In spite of his radical demands, we must also draw attention to the different ways in which Jesus addresses his apostles and τὰ παιδία. Whereas he calls the apostles and speaks to them (Mark 9:35), he simply seizes the παιδίον and speaks about him (Mark 9:36). In spite of his good intensions, Mark’s staging of the behavior of his protagonist reveals Jesus as someone who also 45 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasipha%C3%AB#/media/File:Pompeii_-_Casa_dei_Vettii_-_ Pasiphae.jpg.

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treats τὰ παιδία as objects – that is, as (rhetorical) instruments at hand. On the one hand, the use of a slave as an illustration or metaphor for Christian community ethics gives Mark’s Gospel a radical social edge. On the other hand, the metaphorical deployment of slavery both presupposes and contributes to the preservation of the ideology. The same can be said of the use of the slave’s surrogate body as a metaphor for salvation. Metaphors matter. With the Stoics, the slave system was humanized but not challenged. I think we may conclude the same regarding Mark’s Gospel.

Bibliography Aristotle, Politics (translated by H. Rackham, LCL 264), Harvard University Press 1932. Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales. Volume I (translated by Richard M. Gummere, LCL 75), Harvard University Press 1917. Seneca, Moral Essays. Volume I. De Providentia. De Constantia. De Ira. De Clementia (translated by John W. Basore, LCL 214), Harvard University Press 1928. Bradley, K./P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011. Bradley, K., Slavery in the Roman Republic, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011, 241–264. –, The Problem of Slavery in Classical Culture: Review of J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity, 1995, and Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine, 1996, CP 92 1997, 273–82. Collins, A., Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia), Fortress Press 2007. Culpepper, R. A., Mark (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary), Smyth & Helwys Publishers 2007. Edmondson, J., Slavery and the Roman Family, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011, 337–361. Fiorenza, E.S., The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship, JBL 107 (1988) 3–17. George, M., Slavery and Roman Material Culture, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011, 385–413. Glancy, J., Slavery in Early Christianity, Oxford University Press 2002. –, Slavery and the Rise of Christianity, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011, 456–81. Hallbäck, G./T. Engberg-Pedersen, Det første evangelium: En samtale om Markusevangeliet, Anis 2014. Hartman, L., Markusevangeliet 8:27–16:20: Kommentar till Nya Testamentet 2 A–2B. EFSforläget 2005.

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Hällström, Gunnar af. More than Initiation? Baptism According to Origen of Alexandria, in D. Hellholm/C. Hellholm/Ø. Norderval, and T. Vegge (eds.), Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism, Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (BZNW 176), Walter de Gruyter 2011, 989–1010. Hellholm, D./C. Hellholm/Ø. Norderval, and T. Vegge (eds.), Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism, Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (BZNW 176), Walter de Gruyter 2011. Hezser, C., Slavery and the Jews, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011, 438–55. Kartzow, M.B., Destabilizing the Margins: An Intersectional Approach to Early Christian Memory, Pickwick Publications 2012. Kyrtatas, D., Slavery and Economy in the Greek World, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011, 91–111. Löhr, H., Kindertaufe im frühen Christentum: Beobachtungen an den neutestamentlichen Apokryphen, in D. Hellholm/C. Hellholm/Ø. Norderval, and T. Vegge (eds.), Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism, Late Antiquity, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (BZNW 176), Walter de Gruyter 2011, 1531–52. Martin, D.B., Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity, Yale University Press 1990. –, The Corinthian Body, Yale University Press, 1995. McCarthy, K., Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy, Princeton University Press 2000. Morley, N., Slavery under the Principate, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Volume I: The Ancient Mediterranean World, Cambridge University Press 2011, 265–286. Stolle, V., Das Markusevangelium: Text, Übersetzung und Kommentierung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erzähltechnik, Edition Ruprecht 2015. Wimbush, V., Interpreters – Enslaving/Enslaved/Runagate, JBL 130 (2011) 5–24.

Halvor Moxnes

Social Scientific Interpretation of the New Testament and a Hermeneutics of Dialogue

1.

Introduction1

In the introduction to his What is Social-Scientific Criticism?, John H. Elliott says that in the interpretation of the New Testament “we are faced with … particular problems of meaning and broader questions about the bigger social and cultural picture that shapes meaning.”2 Elliott is particularly concerned with how social sciences may help overcome the ethnocentricism of New Testament studies and make better sense of the meanings communicated in ancient texts. In an earlier study, John G. Gager spoke of how the sociological and anthropological theories “held the promise of a genuinely new understanding of that particular religion” (i. e., early Christianity).3 Gager was speaking of an alternative to the theological, cultural and historical factors that had separated the study of Early Christianity from that of other religions. Both Elliott and Gager point to how theories and perspectives from sociology, social anthropology and other social sciences can break through the limitations of previous studies and provide new understanding and meaning, by offering access to “the bigger social and cultural picture that shapes meaning.” Thus, there is a double issue here: the modern reader must use theories from sociology, anthropology etc., to shape his/her understanding, and with the help of these new theories it may be possible to unfold the meanings of the New Testament texts or of early Christianity. These two sides cannot be separated: making meaning of ancient texts depends on the theories and presuppositions that we apply in the process. Therefore, there is no such thing as a meaning that is objectively inherent 1 This is a substantially rewritten version of an earlier essay published in Spanish, “Intrepretatión socio-científica del Nuovo Testamento y una hermenéutica del diálogo,” in Carmen Bernabé and Carlos Gil, eds., Reimanginando los orígenes del cristianismo (Estella: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2008), 81–99. 2 Elliott, What is, 5. 3 Gager, Kingdom, xi.

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in the text, it is always shaped by perspective of the reader. In that sense hermeneutics is involved in the process of interpretation, and it is not something that is added on afterwards. We construct the historical meaning of a text through questions that are based on what we consider contemporary relevant. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to explore how the use of social sciences contributes to the “meaning making” perspectives of the study of New Testament texts. I shall start out with the origin of the new start of the use of social sciences in New Testament interpretation from the 1970s, consider their historical focus, then continue with characteristic aspects of the way social science interpretation constructs history. Moving to hermeneutics, I point out the importance of personal histories and theologies. The most important insight is that social science interpretations represent a “hermeneutics of dialogue,” which I will explore through the ways Philip Esler sees his work in continuity with the hermeneutics of Friedrich Schleiermacher.

2.

Purpose and Origin of Social Science Criticism

Gager said that the theories from sociology and anthropology made possible “new beginnings in the study of early Christianity,” and even a brief overview will show how they helped establish a larger social and cultural picture, and thereby a larger diversity of meanings of New Testament texts. The first sustained and innovative use of sociology in recent times was undertaken by Gerd Theissen in the 1970s. Theissen used sociology to raise new questions regarding early Christianity and interpretation of texts, e. g., of the interrelations between the ethos of Early Christianity (“homelessness”) and the social structures of the Jesus followers (wandering charismatics).4 He followed these beginnings with larger studies of the sociology of the Jesus movement and of the social structures and composition of Pauline groups.5 In A Home for the Homeless John H. Elliott (1981) used sociological studies of sectarian groups to identify a relationship between the ethos of 1 Peter and the precarious social situation of its addressees.6 In The First Urban Christians, Wayne Meeks (1983) applied the sociological perspective of structural functionalism to describe Pauline communities in terms of social stratification, forms of governance, patterns of behavior and belief.7

4 5 6 7

Theissen, Soziologie. Theissen, Studien. Elliott, Home. Meeks, First.

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Whereas the previously mentioned studies used sociology for their theoretical approach, Bruce Malina utilized the methods of anthropology with his The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (1981).8 This book was nothing like a traditional introductory book about the background of the New Testament in Jewish faith, institutions and politics. Instead, Malina provided a presentation of the central social institutions (kinship and marriage), values (honor and shame, limited goods), mentalities and boundaries (clean and unclean) in Mediterranean societies as the context for biblical texts. In hindsight it is possible to see that in spite of their diverse methodologies these books shared a common perspective: they contributed to a larger picture of “early Christianity as a social world in the making.”9 Among these books, however, we may notice at least two different approaches: one with a broad, but eclectic use of social science perspectives, represented by Wayne A. Meeks, and another with a strong focus on methods and models, represented by Bruce Malina. It is especially the latter approach that has been identified with the term “social science criticism,” and where a large group of scholars have collaborated for many years in the Context Group.10 Typical of this group is a number of collaborative works, for instance Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in its Context.11 These studies typically employ different perspectives to grasp what characterized ancient Mediterranean societies, like collectivism, kinship, ethnicity, honour/shame, patron/client, economy. More recent studies have used other perspectives and theories, such as memory theories, space theories, rituals and especially cognitive sciences. Here we also find strong Nordic contributions. Bengt Holmberg was one of the first to use sociology in a study of authority in the primitive church.12 Halvor Moxnes has used peasant and ancient economics in the study of Luke’s Gospel, and space and gender theories in studies of the historical Jesus.13 Recently, Helsinki has been a centre of studies of ritual, utilizing especially the cognitive sciences, with Risto Uro, Petri Luomanen and Istvan Czachesz as the main participants.14 In Sweden Thomas Kazen and Rikard Roitto have contributed to cognitive science with many publications.15 There seems to be a bewildering array of approaches and methods in the studies mentioned above. But taken together it is possible to see that they all 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Malina, New Testament. Gager, Kingdom, 2. See http://www.contextgroup.org/MemberBibliographies.html, accessed 07. 01. 2016. Esler, Modelling. Holmberg, Paul. Moxnes, Economy; Putting. See e. g. Luomanen/Pyysiäinen/Uro, Explaining; Czachesz/Uro, Mind. Roitto, Behaving; Kazen, Emotions.

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contribute to a new understanding of the texts of early Christianity, one that goes beyond literary or dogmatic readings. Gager speaks of understanding “early Christianity as a social world in the making.”16 He takes that phrase from modern studies of “new religions,” such as Millenarian movements. Their activities may have been seen earlier as oddities or very strange, but it is more appropriate to understand them as “a new culture or social order coming into being.” To treat early Christianity as a social world in the making, says Gager, represents “a paradigm shift in a highly traditional field of scholarship.”17

3.

The Engaged Scholar: Biographies of Hermeneutics

Paradigm shifts in academic studies are most often the results of intellectual movements and impulses, but they are also influenced by personal experiences. Furthermore, the emergence of methods and not least questions from sociology and social anthropology in the 1970s had their bases in personal involvement in some of the events and movements that changed social and political paradigms of the time. The protest movements of the 1960’s, especially in the US, shaped people who were or became biblical scholars. Wayne Meeks participated in the Civil Rights movement, John H. Elliott in the anti-Vietnam War movement. These are only examples of a much larger group of colleagues who participated in or were influenced by these and similar movements. These movements were paradigmatic for many of the changes that shaped the last part of the 20th century, and their relevance for biblical studies is apparent. In the San Francisco area some biblical scholars participated in the protests against the Vietnam War. They realized that to protest against the war they needed to understand the historical, economic, political and social backgrounds of it. In the social sciences they found adequate analytical tools. This experience led to the insight that these sciences could also be useful to understand conflicts in the ancient societies found in biblical texts. The works produced by such scholars were among the seminal studies for social scientific readings of the Bible.18 There was here a potential for hermeneutics: their protests were breaking with the ideal of the objective exegete. Instead, they learned to consider their own “place,” that is, their being situated in specific social and cultural contexts, and they became aware that they were speaking from particular values and interests. In their study of the texts of the New Testament they could learn from anthropologists, who were aware of coming from one’s own cultural vantage point, 16 Gager, Kingdom, xi. 17 Gager, Kingdom, 2. 18 E. g. Gottwald, Tribes; Elliott, Home.

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which was different from that of the “natives.” Such an approach created an awareness of interpreting from an “etic” perspective (the perspective of the observer), versus the “emic” perspective of the texts (from the perspective of the subject). John Elliott observes: “Social science criticism creates awareness of differences between ancient and modern context. That creates a better position for considering and assessing the relevance of the biblical writings and their context for today’s scene.”19 Their personal biographies linked the experiences of their own political lives with their scholarly lives, and as a result, their studies of the New Testament have inspired their work for social change in contemporary societies. Some of these scholars, e. g., Norman Gottwald and John H. Elliott have established The Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, and have donated relevant parts of their libraries to this center.20

4.

Reconstructing Historical Societies: Social Worlds and Models

The very term “constructing” or “reconstructing” historical societies suggests that the goal of history is not to find historical “facts,” but to construct a picture. One of the most influential books for early social science critics was Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality.21 Its main thesis was that knowledge of the world is not given, it is constructed in a dialectic between society and humans. This perspective has become part of the intellectual repertoire and is reflected in the concept “social world,”22 a standard term in many social science studies of the Bible. The term “social world” suggests more than “background,” a term traditionally used in books presenting material important to understand the New Testament. The term “social world” indicates the religious, cultural and political contexts with which the New Testament texts actively interact. Berger and Luckmann showed that the world was not given, it was constructed. This became an important insight for the 1968 generation: if the world was constructed, it could also be deconstructed and changed. In this insight and in the protests against the world as it looked at the time of the protest generation, we find some of the roots of the social science in biblical interpretation and also of the hermeneutical interests. 19 Elliott, What is, 11. 20 Dykstra/Myers, Liberating. An example of the activities of the centre was a 2015 seminar on “Telling the Stories of Jesus as a Strategy for Social Justice & Peacemaking in the Global Community.” See also Elliott, Refugees, 197–212 on the Sanctuary movement. 21 Berger/Luckmann, Social. 22 Neyrey, Social; Neyrey/Stewart, Social; Neufeld/DeMaris, Understanding.

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Scholars who use the terms “social science reading” or “criticism” explicitly emphasize that their goal is a historical reconstruction. It provides “an interpretative framework that enables the reader to understand the world in which the text is written.”23 Since “the modern world is very different from the ancient one,” it is necessary to have “tools” to understand and to explain that historical world; these “tools” are “interpretive models from the social sciences … to bridge the gap between these two worlds.”24 Models have played an important part in interpretation, especially by Context Group members,25 but the use of models in social science readings has caused much controversy and discussion. The main initiator of the Context Group, Bruce Malina, speaks of a model as an “abstract, simplified representation of some real world object, event or interaction, constructed for the purpose of understanding, control or prediction.”26 The idea behind the use of models from social sciences is that they will help to solve the difficulties we encounter when we try to make sense of the foreign nature of the Bible in terms of culture, values, social structures, etc. It is for this purpose that models are needed; they move from the experience of people to the theoretical level, they make explicit that which is implicit and taken for granted.27 This last point can also be expressed with less technical terminology. This seems to be what the philosopher Charles Taylor is concerned with when he speaks of “social imaginaries”: “the way people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others … and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.”28 These social imaginaries represent that which is regarded as self-evident and taken for granted in a culture.

5.

Bridging the Gap

Some of the first studies using social anthropology were explicitly aiming at presenting that which was taken for granted in New Testament texts. Malina’s The New Testament World is a good example of that, with chapters on values in the first-century Mediterranean world (honour and shame), understandings of the personality (the individual and the group) and purity rules. Such attempts to find 23 24 25 26 27

Neufeld/Demaris, Understanding, 1. Neufeld/Demaris, Understanding, 1. Cf. an early example of collaborative work, Esler, Modelling. Malina, New Testament, 14. For a theoretical discussion of models, see Elliott, What is, 40–8. Malina, New Testament, rev. ed. 1993, xiii: “The purpose for using anthropological models in NT study is precisely to get to the heart of the meaning of the text in terms of the cultural contexts in which they were originally proclaimed.” 28 Taylor, Modern, 23.

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the self-evident in a distant culture by necessity brings the interpreter to reflect on what is taken for granted in our modern cultures. It is in this sense that Neufeld and DeMaris can say that the models that are used in the historical reconstruction of the ancient world of early Christianity also serve to “bridge the gap between these two worlds,”29 i. e., they have also a hermeneutical task in that they encourage similar reflections in our contemporary world. John H. Elliott makes a similar point about linking history and the present when he speaks of similarities between the processes going on in biblical texts and in our situation. The texts are a result of “the relation of religious experience and social situation,” and this represents “an analogy for the contemporary contextualization of theology and spirituality.”30 Thus, studying the biblical texts with the social sciences helps the readers (“contemporary believers”) to understand “how their own faith and spirituality are shaped by social structures, social experience, and cultural values.”31 The important word here is “analogy” between two similar processes of interaction between religious experience and faith, and social experiences and structures, one in the past, the other in the present time. Thus, although it has not been often explicitly discussed, a conscious use of modern theories and models on the interpretation of early Christian texts must result in a similar conscious reflection on values and mentalities in our own social world.

6.

From a Hermeneutics of Application to a Hermeneutics of Dialogue

One of the earliest explicit statements on the hermeneutics of social science criticism was made by the Spanish exegete Rafael Aguirre in a presentation and discussion of the use of sociological methods in Biblical studies.32 Aguirre emphasized that a sociological study of the Bible had theological consequences; it showed that the revelation of God did not happen in a “pure” or “abstract” form, but was historically conditioned. In his 1985 essay Aguirre distinguishes between two types of hermeneutics; he says that “the believer does not apply the text to his/her reality, but discerns his/her reality with help of the text.”33 Aguirre’s use of the term “apply” (aplica) does not seem to be used in a technical way, as a term in 29 30 31 32 33

Neufeld/Demaris, Understanding, 1. Elliott, What is, 105. Elliott, What is, 105. Aguirre, Método sociológico, 330–1. Aguirre, Método sociológico, 330.

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the theoretical reflection on hermeneutics,34 but more in a common sense: The reader views the text as an authority that can be immediately applied to “reality” as a given condition. In contrast, when Aguirre says that the believer can discern his/her existence with the help of the text, it implies a dialogical relationship between a text understood in its historical sense and the reader or hearer. Apart from Aguirre, not many scholars who have worked with social science criticism have explicitly discussed hermeneutics.35 The most extensive discussion of social-science criticism and hermeneutics is undertaken by Philip Esler in several of his works, starting in the introduction to his edited volume, Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in its Context from 1995.36 Esler observes that “by and large, the essays which follow emphasize context rather than kerygma. Moving to a kerygmatic focus means shifting from the historical question of what the texts meant to their original audience, to the contemporary one of what they might mean today.”37 Like Elliott, he emphasizes that this process can only happen with an appreciation of the historical dimension of the text, undertaken by social-science criticism. Esler starts from Gadamer’s notion of the fusion of the horizons of the past and the present and their mutual co-existence in a creative tension. Esler speaks of this tension in terms of “the dynamic nature of the dialogue” which is fostered, again “by the strangeness of the biblical world as revealed by Mediterranean anthropology which emerges in so many of the essays below”38 Social-science insight in the historical interpretation reveals how the texts were written from and for Early Christian communities in the process of creating new social worlds. It is only with this insight that it is possible to grasp the social dimension of early Christianity and to realize how the texts integrate context and kerygma. Also, it is only this process of integration of context and text, and the creation of new social worlds, that can serve as an analogy to the present Christian situation, which undergoes a similar process. The “believing community” today, says Esler, also integrates the texts within their contexts, and creates their own social worlds.39 We may here see a double process of dialogue at work: there is a dialogue between context and text both in the early Christian groups and in the present Christian communities, as well as a dialogue between the foreignness of early 34 In Truth and Method Gadamer’s notion of application is much more akin to that of “translation,” which plays a prominent part in his hermeneutics. The meaning (of an event, person or monument) that is to be understood is always one that needs to be translated, so that understanding, application and translation become almost equivalent terms for Gadamer. See Grondin, Gadamer’s. 35 But see Elliott, What is, 105–6. 36 Esler, Modelling, 1–20. 37 Esler, Modelling, 3. 38 Esler, Modelling, 14. 39 Esler, Modelling, 4.

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Christianity and the contemporary experience of a Christian community. This is a perspective that is elaborated by Esler in his New Testament Theology: Communion and Community.40 Esler has made a hermeneutics of dialogue the basis for his presentation of New Testament theology. The book is based on his many studies of New Testament scriptures in their socio-cultural setting, investigated by rigorous application of methods from social sciences.41 It is the historical meaning of these texts as expressions of communication between authors and recipients that is his main concern. He claims that a theology based on these studies, reflecting interpersonal relations in a distant Mediterranean setting, can be brought into direct contact with modern readers through a dialogical interaction. Esler draws his model for this form of hermeneutics from his reading of Schleiermacher. His use of Schleiermacher points to the implicit relationship between history and hermeneutics in social science criticism and in Schleiermacher’s combination of hermeneutics and historical criticism.

7.

Schleiermacher as a Model for Social Science Criticism and Hermeneutics

It is my suggestion that today’s interpretation, employing methods and models from the social sciences, stands in the tradition of the methodological and theological position of Friedrich Schleiermacher at the beginning of the 19th century.42 Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is generally recognized as the founder of modern, Protestant theology and, beyond confessional divides, as the founder of hermeneutics. Schleiermacher also made important contributions to the historical study of Early Christianity. His works influenced biblical scholarship and hermeneutics for several generations, especially within liberal Protestantism in 19th and early 20th century. His influence was eclipsed by dialectic and kerygmatic theology in the 20th century, but his works have now received renewed interest.43 Schleiermacher is credited with (or accused of) shifting the emphasis from a theology based on supernatural revelation to one based on the religious experience of the individual.44 However, Schleiermacher’s position is not only that religion has its own specific place in human subjectivity. Equally significant is his emphasis that the individual religious experience has its basis in religions as 40 41 42 43 44

Esler, New Testament. E. g. Esler, First Christians; Conflict. For a broader discussion, see Moxnes, Schleiermacher. See Mariña, Cambridge Companion. In Speeches on Religion (1799) Schleiermacher understands religion as an experience of utter dependency, and in his Christian Faith (1821–22, rev.ed. 1830) he presents theology as a reflection on that experience.

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historical phenomena.45 His starting point was a combination of the individual experience with the historical experience of Jesus as the redeemer. In this way history, and especially the history of Jesus and of early forms of Christianity was of ultimate importance. It is this emphasis on the constitutive role of the founder of a religion that makes Schleiermacher’s lectures on the historical Jesus from 1819, and several times later, so interesting.46 They present an example of the importance of history in Schleiermacher’s theology. Moreover, his methodological approaches point forward to the modern use of social-scientific methods.47 In the summary of his second lecture, dealing with the presuppositions for the presentation of Jesus in terms of general anthropology; the topic is the interdependence between a person and his environment. Schleiermacher says: However, one cannot think of an individual without at the same time thinking of him in connection with the general conditions that determine his existence … The individual comes into being only in and through the common life, and that is a fixed and unalterable relation, and every individual in his development is at the same time a result of a common life.48

How has the human person been formed, what is the relationship between a person and his or her surroundings, between the individual and the collectivity? These were questions discussed in philosophy, history and in the new academic fields that developed in the 19th century: sociology, anthropology and psychology. Two hundred years after Schleiermacher many of the issues are the same, but we use modern methods and models to study and understand human societies. Philip Esler takes a unique position among New Testament scholars who use social science criticism in that he places the methodological and historical achievements in the context of theological questions and hermeneutics similar to those of Schleiermacher. Esler’s primary model for this form of hermeneutics is drawn from his reading of Schleiermacher. In an engagement with Schleiermacher’s writings on hermeneutics Esler finds that his most significant contribution was his emphasis on the dialogical and oral aspects of hermeneutics.49 According to Esler, Schleiermacher was concerned with understanding communication as a universal phenomenon, and especially with dialogical communication and conversation. This focus on interpersonal communication in 45 In Speeches on Religion as well as in Christian Faith, Schleiermacher understood Christianity fundamentally as historical; Schröder, Kritische Identität, 1–11. 46 Moxnes, Jesus. 47 Nowak, Theorie. 48 Schleiermacher, Life, 9. 49 Esler, New Testament, 119–147.

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Esler’s theories of hermeneutics corresponds to Schleiermacher’s emphasis on the interdependence between a person and his environment in the lectures on the historical Jesus. In fact, there are many similarities between Schleiermacher’s discussion of what it is to write a biography of a person in these lectures that he gave for the first time in 1819, and his lecture notes on hermeneutics on how to grasp the distinctiveness of an author, also from 1819.50 In order to write a biography of a person it was necessary to understand the totality of a person, to grasp his inner unity. Likewise, when Schleiermacher speaks of understanding an author, he speaks of the possibility of knowing “the whole personality “of an author.51 In both instances Schleiermacher speaks of the need of gaining insight into the person or author as an individual. This must be complemented by comparative methods that places the person or author under a general type, for instance when he makes Jesus an example of “big man.”52 Thus, Schleiermacher describes writing a biography of a person and interpreting an author in similar terms: both are processes of understanding persons in interpersonal relationships or engaged in communication. Esler’s approach stakes out a position for the theological relevance of historical and socio-cultural readings of Biblical texts that stands in contrast to many dominant scholarly paradigms. First, he emphasizes the historical meaning of texts, and thereby the hard work of historical interpretation, against approaches like reader-response that minimizes the relevance of history. Second, he rejects an approach that focuses on isolating theological topics and ideas within the texts. Esler wants to return to “the ordinary person’s ‘religion,’” which encompasses “not just ideas, but also beliefs, values, aspirations, roles and practices (in day-to-day or liturgical settings), emotions, experience and identity.”53 This approach is very similar to that of Wayne A. Meeks in The First Urban Christians. Meeks says that the goal is “to try to discern the texture of life in particular times and particular places,” and that “the task of a social historian of early Christianity is to describe the life of the ordinary Christian within that environment.”54 Third, Esler’s approach breaks with a practice that makes theologians the main recipients of the theological meaning of texts, to be “applied” to a contemporary audience. If the goal of interpretation is to find “the ordinary person’s religion,” ordinary persons today can engage with historical texts and their meaning on the 50 51 52 53 54

Esler, New Testament, 127. Esler, New Testament, 130. Moxnes, Jesus, 136–139. Esler, New Testament, 274. Meeks, First, 5–6. However, Esler represents an approach that puts more emphasize on a strict use of models in the reconstruction of early Christian groups than does Meeks, who is more eclectic in his use of social sciences.

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basis of their own experiences. Esler provides an example of such a dialogical communication in his interpretation of Paul’s letter to the Romans, in Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter (2003).55 Esler starts from the desire to increase the impact that New Testament writings “might have on contemporary Christian identity and experience.”56 His concern is whether Biblical theology might contribute to the question of how to respond to interethnic hatred and violence in the world today. In the 1990s the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the killings of 800.000 Tutsies by Hutus in Rwanda were horrible examples of ethnic conflicts. Moreover, the conflicts and wars due to ethnonationalism, ethnic conflicts and ethnic cleansings have continued, so Esler’s concern should be very alive today as well. To raise such a specific question about the usefulness of New Testament texts necessitates a specific answer with regard to methods of investigation. First, such an investigation needs a theoretical framework of the study of texts that corresponds to issues in the conflicts of today, especially with regard to identity, ethnicity and ethnic conflicts. Furthermore, it requires close studies of historical texts to find out whether they really discussed similar problems. For Esler, exploring Romans with a view to identity and ethnicity makes it necessary to go beyond a reading that reduces its content to a few theological topics. Paul’s letter must be studied within the cultural context of the Mediterranean world of the 1st century. In terms of the perspective Esler had chosen for his study, it meant to explore questions like the ethnic composition of the Christ-believing communities in Rome, cultural definitions of ethnicity, and patterns of social relations and conflicts. By employing social science theories in his reading of Romans, Esler was able to recognize patterns of solutions to ethnic conflicts that can be recommended today also. He found that the main purpose in the letter was to bring conflicting groups, consisting of Jewish and non-Jewish Christ believers, together in a new group and to establish “a new common in-group identity.”57 Paul “re-categorizes” the two competing groups as believers in Christ. But first, in Rom 1:18– 3:20, he sets out separately the plights of Greeks and Judeans, before he elaborates the new identity they have attained in Christ. Finally, in chapter 4 he develops the image of Abraham as prototype of the new group identity. Abraham was an important figure in Paul’s efforts since the shaping of identity must embrace a temporal continuity across past, present and future times. But Esler also recognizes that Paul in Romans fulfils another requirement that modern scholars have identified as necessary for bringing conflicting (sub) 55 Esler, Conflict. 56 Esler, New Testament, 273. 57 Esler, Conflict, 360–361.

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groups together under a “superordinate identity:” they must respect the preexisting subgroup identities. Esler says that, even if Paul creates one common identity, he also recognized the ethnic identities of the old sub-groups and did not attempt to eliminate them.58 In this way both contemporary experiences and modern theoretical perspectives are brought into dialogue with Paul’s texts. Paul’s Letter to the Romans is read not as an absolute authority, but as an expression of dialogue in its own time. This approach contextualizes passages that have previously been studied as dealing with general issues. For instance, it makes it possible to see Paul’s exhortations to love in Romans (e. g. 13:8–11) not as expressions of an abstract ideal, but as related directly to the crises over identities and conflicts among the different ethnic groups of Christ believers in Rome.

8.

Conclusion

We can now return to the question wherewith we started: What is the contribution of social science criticism to hermeneutics as “meaning making”? The main point of interpreting historical texts with social science approaches is to focus on the foreignness of the biblical world, to avoid anachronism and ethnocentricity. This emphasis on the foreignness is a choice with implications for hermeneutics. It represents a contrast to much hermeneutics that is based on presupposed similarities in the experiences of human life between antiquity and today. This appears to be a very popular opinion, for instance as it was expressed by the Norwegian Nobel prize laureate in literature, Sigrid Undset: “Customs and usage change …. But the heart of man never changes through all his days.”59 For Rudolf Bultmann, the task of hermeneutics was to find the similarities in the understanding of human life between the New Testament and modern readers. Therefore it was necessary to de-mythologize the ancient myths to find the inner truth that corresponded to a modern perception of life. This type of hermeneutics represents a transportation of content from the ancient texts that is applied to the modern situation. The hermeneutical model underlying social science criticism is different, in that it is the process of interaction between religious experience and faith that provides the similarity between the past and the present. Contemporary studies employing social science methods and models represent a renewal of Schleiermacher and the way he understood Jesus in his historical and social context as paradigmatic for Christians in the nineteenth cen58 Esler, Conflict, 365. 59 From 1915, quoted after Kringlen, Heredity, 19.

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tury. Social science methods make possible more disciplined and analytical studies of how Christian identities were expressed in interactions with their environments. This approach challenges us to understand our own situation in a similar way, as one of interaction with a social and religious context. There are several aspects of such a challenge. First, there must be a focus on persons in their social contexts of community, class and gender. With its focus on social groups, social science criticism is interested not just in individuals or in the elite, but in “ordinary believers” as partners in the process of communication. Such historical studies challenge us to show a similar awareness of the context of modern interpreters and readers. It opens for a democratization of the hermeneutical process so that it includes also popular readings of the Bible.60 To be true to its own perspectives a social science criticism must engage in a dialogue with ordinary, engaged readers. Second, the historical model represented by social science criticism suggests that we respond to a pluralistic situation with a hermeneutics of dialogue, instead of with one of confrontation and closure. This form of hermeneutics is even more required now than in 1985, when Aguirre pointed out that a dialogical interpretation must include the participation of people from different cultures and social experiences.61 This opens up for intercultural dialogue between readers from different contexts, sharing their experience of reading from diverse places. If Aguirre had written his essay today, he most certainly would have elaborated on the need to include also Jews and Muslims into this dialogue. Philip Esler makes a beginning in this direction.62 He suggests that reading Romans from the perspective of the Christians as a minority in the Roman Empire may help Christians to identify with the situation of ethnic and religious minorities in Europe today, and thereby make possible a dialogue on a more equal basis. So far there has been little discussion of hermeneutics among practitioners of social science criticism; maybe because it has been presupposed that it was primarily a historical method that did not have hermeneutical consequences. In this essay I have attempted find some examples that suggest that social science criticism does have implications for hermeneutics, and that it suggests a new way to think about the relations between the past and the present. In my view, the methods and perspectives of social science criticism should result in a hermeneutics in terms of an analogy between the past and the present based on process instead of content, and with a democratisation of the hermeneutical process itself, involving the not only experts but also groups of “ordinary Christians.” At

60 Aguirre, Método Sociológico, 312. 61 Aguirre, Método Sociológico, 330. 62 Esler, New Testament, 279–282.

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the very least this small essay shows the need for more discussion of social science criticism and hermeneutics.

Bibliography Aguirre, R.M., El Método Sociológico en los Estudios Bíblicos, Estudios Eclesiásticos 60, 234 (1985) 305–331. Berger, P.L/T. Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Doubleday 1967. Czachesz, I./R.U. Mind. Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies. Acumen 2013. Dykstra, L./C. Myers (eds.), Liberating Biblical Study: Scholarship, Art and Action in Honor of the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, Wipf and Stock 2011. Elliott, J.H., Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of 1 Peter, its Situation and Strategy, Fortress 1981. –, Refugees, Resident Aliens, and the Church as Counter-Culture, in: L. Dykstra/C. Myers (eds.), Liberating Biblical Study: Scholarship, Art and Action in Honor of the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, Wipf and Stock 2011, 197–212. –, What is Social-Scientific Criticism? Fortress 1993. Esler, P.F., The First Christians in their Social World: Social-Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation. Routledge 1994. – (ed.), Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in its Context, Routledge 1995. –, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter, Fortress 2003. –, New Testament Theology. Communion and Community, Fortress 2005. Gager, J.G., Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity, PrenticeHall 1975. Gottwald, N., Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE, Orbis 1979. Grondin, J., Gadamer’s Basic Understanding of Understanding, in R. Dostal (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer, Cambridge University Press (2002) 36–51. Holmberg, B., Paul and Power: The Structure of Authority in the Primitive Church as Reflected in the Pauline Epistles (ConBNT 11), Gleerup 1978. Kazen, T., Emotions in Biblical Law: A Cognitive Science Approach (Hebrew Bible Monographs 26), Sheffield Phoenix Press 2011. Kringlen, E., Heredity and Environment in the Functional Psychoses: An Epidemiological Clinical Twin Study, Elzevier Scientific 1967. Luomanen, P./I. Pyysiäinen/R. Uro (eds.), Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science, (BibIntSer 89), Brill 2007. Malina, B.J., The New Testament World: Insights from the Cultural Anthropology, Westminster John Knox 1981. Mariña, J. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher, Cambridge University Press 2005.

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Meeks, W.A., The First Urban Christians. The Social World of the Apostle Paul, Yale University Press 1983. Moxnes, H., The Economy of the Kingdom. Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel, Fortress 1988. –, Putting Jesus in his Place: The Historical Jesus in the Context of Household and Kingdom, Westminster John Knox 2003. –, Schleiermacher and the Interdisciplinarity of ‘the Quest for the Historical Jesus,’ in G. Wilhelm/N. Slenczka (eds.), Universität, Theologie, Kirche: Deutungsanbote zum Verhaltnis von Kultur und Religion im Gespräch mit Schleiermacher, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2011, 128–44. –, Jesus and the Rise of Nationalism: A New Quest for the Nineteenth-Century Historical Jesus, I. B. Tauris 2012. Neufeld, D./R.E. DeMaris (eds.), Understanding the Social World of the New Testament, Routledge 2010. Neyrey, J.H. (ed.), The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation, Hendrickson 1991. Neyrey, J.H./E.C. Stewart (eds.), The Social World of the New Testament: Insights and Models, Hendrickson 2008. Nowak, K., Theorie der Geschichte. Schleiermachers Abhandlung ‘Über den Geschichtsunterricht’ von 1793, in G. Meckenstock et al (eds.), Schleiermacher und die wissenschaftliche Kultur des Christentums (Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann 51), de Gruyter 1991, 419–39. Roitto, R., Behaving as a Christ-Believer: A Cognitive Perspective on Identity and Behavior Norms in Ephesians, (Linköping Studies in Identity and Pluralism 9), Linköpings Universitet 2011. Schleiermacher, F., The Life of Jesus (Edited by J.C. Verheyden), Sigler 1997. Schröder, M., Die Kritische Identität des Neuzeitlichen Christentums, (Beitrage zur Historischen Theologie 96), Mohr 1996. Slenczka, N., Arbeiten zur Systematischen Theologie 4, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2011. Taylor, C., Modern Social Imaginaries, Duke University Press 2004. Theissen, G., Soziologie der Jesusbewegung: Ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Urchristentums, (Theologische Existenz heute 194), Kaiser 1977. –, Studien zur Soziologie des Urchristentums, (WUNT 19), Mohr 1979. –, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth, Fortress 1982.

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Who Are the Pharisees of Today? Gospel Reception in Norwegian Lectionary Resources

1.

Introduction

If you travel by boat from Aarhus in Denmark eastwards across the bay, then you come to the rural district of Mols. The people of Mols (called molboer) have for centuries been ridiculed by the townsfolk of Aarhus and Ebeltoft as being silly and naïve. Satiric stories about the people of Mols (so-called molbohistorier) were collected as early as the late 18th century and have travelled far beyond eastern Jutland.1 The word molbo was, when I was growing up in Oslo, synonymous with “stupid” or “idiot”. Our awareness that the term refers to people from a part of Denmark was, however, limited at best. The stereotyped molbo had taken on a life of his own, just like a number of other group labels. Similarly, it was only when I visited the Czech Republic that I learned that a Bohemian originally designates a person from Bohemia. The area was previously only known to me through its German name Böhmen. I also, moreover, remember from history classes at school that the Vandals were one of the Germanic tribes of the age of migration. This, however, hardly strikes my mind when I speak of vandals or vandalism. Only about 2,000 Jews live in Norway. Nevertheless, “Jew” is a common term of abuse in Norwegian schoolyards, the term maintaining its primary reference even though this abusive language flourishes independently of any Jewish presence. This is arguably the reason why most people consider the disparaging use of “Jew” and other group labels such as “Fag”, “Gypsy” or “Paki” improper and unacceptable.2

1 See e. g. Mangor, Beretning. 2 For antisemitism in Norway, see Antisemittisme i Norge? and Holdninger til jøder og muslimer (both with English summaries). For attitudes towards the use of “Jew” as a term of abuse, see Antisemittisme i Norge?, 27.

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This chapter examines the use of the group label “Pharisee” and the cognates “Pharisaic” and “Pharisaism.”3 These labels, as they usually emerge within a theological discourse, preserve a specific reference to the Jewish school of thought known to us from the Gospels and other ancient sources. They may emerge, however, as we will see below, in different contexts and be attributed to different people, often with little or no concern for historical accuracy. Jesper Svartvik has demonstrated in his analysis of Hugo Odeberg’s Fariseism och kristendom how a learned New Testament scholar may have his historical record of the Pharisees fundamentally distorted by an ideological agenda, in this case antisemitism.4 Christian preachers similarly come regularly across the Pharisees while preparing their sermons. They, in this, bring with them knowledge and frameworks acquired from their theological studies, including even from reading Odeberg’s book, and from common, theological assumptions or prejudices (maybe inherited from others that read Odeberg’s book). Their portrayal of the Pharisees from the pulpit will almost inevitably be guided by theological concerns and inherited patterns rather than historical concerns. Even if the Pharisees (like the Germanic Vandals) are long gone, they live on as a kind of “model Jew” to the Christian preacher and audience. Current Christian constructions of the Pharisees of antiquity therefore enter into the construction of the Jewish “other” of today. I will in the below analyze three different examples of lectionary resources to Gospel readings that deal with the Pharisees, to study the picture of the Pharisees in current Christian preaching in Norway. My research questions more specifically are: a) To what extent are lectionary resources based upon traditional (antiJewish) conceptions of the Pharisees and/or informed by recent scholarship? b) What kind of contextualization and homiletic appropriation takes place? Who are the Pharisees of today?

3 I observe that “Pharisaism” in English is far less frequent than fariseisme is in Norwegian. The recurrence of “Pharisaism” in this chapter reflects the Norwegian usage. 4 Svartvik, Bibeltolkningens bakgator, 108–145. Odeberg, Fariseism och kristendom first appeared in Swedish in 1943, is translated into Norwegian, Danish, Finnish and English and is published in several editions and reprints until the 1980s. Its impact upon generations of theologians and theologically interested laypeople in Scandinavia can hardly be underestimated.

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Theoretical Perspectives

Christian constructions of the Pharisees can be analyzed using perspectives and notions from postcolonial theory. Examples include Edward Said’s notion of “Orientalism”5 and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s more general notion of “othering”.6 Such constructions are, in a Norwegian or the more general Western context, crafted within a highly uneven power relation by representatives of the dominant religious tradition. The term “Pharisee” has, furthermore, taken on a life of its own within Christian discourses, reflecting stereotypes and prejudices rather than current scholarship. Such constructions may thus tell us more about Christian theology in Norway today than about First Century CE Pharisees in the land of Israel. The Pharisees therefore act as a foil for Christian self-definition, identity being construed by contrasting oneself with the image of the Pharisaic “other.” The Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth highlights the importance of the “other” in identity formation. Ethnicity is, according to Barth, not primarily defined by basic characteristics and core attributes, but by the creation of social boundaries. Ethnic identity is shaped by confrontation with “the others,” we understand and define ourselves through pointing out what differentiates us from “them.”7 Other group identities (cultural, social, religious) emerge from a similar dynamics. Theological constructions of the Pharisees as “religious others” therefore represents an integrated element of Christian identity formation and self-definition. This could be the forming of a Christian identity in the context of Judaism, as represented by the Pharisees. However, the Pharisees are more frequently appropriated to bring combat between different Christian group identities. The construction of the Pharisaic “other” therefore becomes a vehicle of inner-Christian debate and polemics, as indicated by the recurrence in the material of the question “Who are the Pharisees of today?” To summarize, the perspective of Said and Spivak reveals the artificial nature of the Pharisees construction within Christian discourses. The perspective of Barth, however, highlights the function of these constructions in Christian identity formation and self-definition. “Liberals” can, in heated, non-academic, theological debates, accuse “conservatives” of being “Pharisees,” based on their reliance upon literalist readings and minute details rather than focusing on the double love commandment and the liberating power of the Gospel. The tables are however sometimes turned, “liberals” being accused by “conservatives” of being Pharisees due to their reli5 Said, Orientalism. 6 See e. g. Spivak, The Rani of Simur. 7 Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries; Barth, Enduring and Emerging Issues.

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ance on human traditions rather than solely on the word of God.8 The label “Pharisee” thus possesses the kind of rhetorical flexibility that signifies classical, antisemitic agitation. The Jews were accused of both being agents of Communism and of Capitalism and of threatening established, majority society through both their poverty and their prosperity. These accusations are, from a rational point of view, mutually exclusive. History even so demonstrates that antisemitism has been able to ride different horses in opposite directions. I, when considering the portrayal of the Pharisees within the context of antiJewish, Christian thinking, apply the three main motives of Christian anti-Jewish discourse in Katharina von Kellenbach’s typology. The motives are Jews as scapegoats, that Judaism is the antithesis of Christianity and that Judaism was a prelude to Christianity.9 In the context of this paper, these three motives can be reformulated to be: Pharisees as scapegoats, Pharisaic Judaism as the antithesis of the teaching of Jesus and early Christianity, and the Pharisees as representatives of a Judaism that has become obsolete and superseded by the emerging Christianity. I also refer to the “Ten Points of Seelisberg,” a landmark statement on Jewish– Christian relations issued in 1947.10 Point 5, which is “Avoid distorting or misrepresenting biblical or post-biblical Judaism with the object of extolling Christianity,” is particularly relevant. Van Kellenbach’s typology and the “Ten Points of Seelisberg” on one level represent heuristic tools that merely illuminate how current discourses on Jews in general and the Pharisees in particular are informed by the theological reorientation that has occurred after World War II. I am, at the same time, committed to the normative concerns that these perspectives represent. Finally, this chapter represents the recent inclusion of reception history and “real readers” within the field of Biblical studies. I, building on the many critical discussions of the anti-Jewish legacy of academic theology,11 turn towards biblical reception as it emerges from lectionary resources.

8 I intend to examine the rhetorical (ab)use of “the Pharisees” in theological and political polemics in a separate study. 9 Katharina von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism. Whereas von Kellenbach’s work focuses on feminist biblical scholarship, her typology has general relevance. See, e. g., Svartvik, Bibeltolkningens bakgator, 84–87. 10 An Address to the Churches. The Seelisberg conference in 1947 led to the formation of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ). 11 Within the Scandinavian context, see e. g. Svartvik, Bibeltolkningens bakgator; Gerdmar, Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism; Zetterholm, Approaches to Paul; Kartzow, Anti-jødiske elementer.

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Lectionary resources

Ministers every week in their preparation for the upcoming Sunday’s sermon and service, consult lectionary resources for homiletic expositions that provide exegetical insights, ideas and food for thought. Lectionary resources therefore can be said to “aim to help preachers with their preaching.”12 I would add to this that lectionary resources may also aim to help Bible readers and worshippers prepare for the upcoming service and sermon. Lectionary resources bring us to the intersection between Biblical studies and practical theology, between exegesis and preaching and therefore provide a window into regular Sunday morning preaching. They are at the same time and as published texts, easily accessible and suitable for critical examination. This literature has, despite this, mostly escaped the attention of scholars.13 In Norway, lectionary resources include the regular publication in each issue of the professional journals Luthersk kirketidende (“Lutheran Church Times”), which has a conservative-centrist profile and is affiliated to MF Norwegian School of Theology and in the more liberal-progressive Nytt norsk kirkeblad (“New Norwegian Church Bulletin”) affiliated to the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo. Three multi-volume homiletic commentaries covering the entire lectionary have also been published after the introduction of a new lectionary by the Church of Norway in Advent 2011.14 A third resource is the weekly preparation columns for the upcoming Sunday published in the Christian newspapers Vårt Land (“Our Country”) and Dagen (“The Day”). A fourth resource is the web forums that have emerged, most notably Det norske prekeskap (“The Norwegian Preachhood”)15 on Facebook. The two professional journals (and the Facebook group) are primarily intended for the clergy. The target audience of the homiletic commentaries however includes laypeople.16 The lectionary resources published in the newspapers have by far the broadest readership. 12 Evertsson, Liknelser och läsningar, 27 (my translation): “syfter til att hjälpa predikanter med deras predikouppgift.” 13 See Evertsson, Liknelser och läsningar, 23–24, for the importance of homiletic expositions (in Swedish: “predikoutkast”) to clergy; 24–25, 30–31 and 36 for an overveiw of the sparse scholarship devoted to this literature. I am aware of only two previous studies of lectionary resources in Norwegian: Saga, Theology for the Dogs? (unpublished thesis in English and journal article in Norwegian) and my own Othering the Jews. 14 Isaksen, Ordet gjennom året (3 volumes with different subtitles); Skjevesland (5 volumes with different titles); Wirgenes and Wirgenes, Fra søndag til søndag (3 volumes with different subtitles). 15 The neologism prekeskap phonetically resembles presteskap (“clergy,” “priesthood”). 16 See. e. g. the preface of Isaksen, Ordet gjennom året (vol. 1), 9: “to people who wish to prepare themselves for the service, as preachers or listeners.” All translations from the lectionary resources are mine.

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I will, in the remainder of this chapter, examine three lectionary resource texts, all with different formats and from different sources. One is from the journal Nytt norsk kirkeblad, one from a homiletic commentary and one from a newspaper that applies a journalistic approach to the Gospel reading and includes a brief text reflection. The authors (and interviewees) come from different church traditions and approach the Gospel readings in different ways. I have also included the homiletic reflections of both women and men. The most crucial aspect is, however, the inclusion of conspicuous and illuminating examples of different but related approaches to the Pharisees. I have included author and interviewee biographical information to contextualize each example and to highlight the theological and churchly diversity. The intention is, however, not to focus the attention of the reader upon these, which would be unfortunate. The intention is to illuminate how their constructions of the Pharisees represent prevalent practices of othering.

4.

Queering the Pharisees

The first lectionary resource text was published in Nytt norsk kirkeblad in 2007 under the title “Four Texts about Encounters: Jesus and the Pharisees in the Gospel of Mark.”17 The author, Gyrid Gunnes, was at the time a young parish minister in Tromsø, today a PhD student at VID Specialized University. She became, as a student of theology at the University of Oslo, a prominent, radical voice within the Church of Norway. Gunnes, as the title indicates, discusses four different pericopes from Mark. She starts, however, with a general, historical record. The Pharisees emerged during the time of the Maccabees. They aimed to protect Jewish culture and religion from foreign influences, including from people from different social classes and professions. They treasured the Law and emphasized purity, fasting and tithing. In this context, she notes: It is also important to emphasize that the Pharisees were concerned about making the prescriptions and prohibitions of the Law practicable. For example, they allowed adjustments to the prohibition against work on the Sabbath when someone was in need or danger.18

This highlighting of a humane aspect of the Pharisaic teaching is significant, Pharisees often emerging within Christian discourses as merciless religious 17 Gunnes, Fire tekster. 18 Gunnes, Fire tekster, 25.

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fundamentalists. This account may, however, expose the Pharisees to Lutheran criticism. It is, according to the Lutheran understanding, impossible to keep the Law. Gunnes further records that the Pharisees had limited political influence, that there is disagreement among scholars on their standing within the Sanhedrin and that, according to Bultmann, relevant Gospel narratives do not reflect historical realities. She therefore consciously focuses on the literary and theological function of the Pharisees in the Gospel of Mark. Gunnes, in this historical introduction, uses Siegfrid Pedersen’s Den nytestamentlige tids historie from 1994 and Eduard Lohse’s The New Testament Environment from 1976. She could, however, have chosen more recent sources. An expert within the field may also have phrased things differently, and the historical record contributes little to her subsequent reading of the texts. It will, however, become evident below that other commentators are far less committed to historical issues and scholarly literature. Gunnes’ readings of the four Gospel texts (Mk 2:1–12; 2:18–28; 10:2–9; 12:28– 34) follow the historical introduction. Two of these texts (Mk 2:1–12; 12:28–34) do not, however, mention the Pharisees, only the Scribes. A third text (Mk 2:18– 28) does not account for an encounter or dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees. Her exposition furthermore mostly addresses other concerns than this (alleged) encounter. Gunnes interprets Mk 2:18–28 as an allegory about “the old and the new” and concludes: “the old structures cannot contain the new without breaking apart.”19 This traditional reading clearly represents von Kellenbach’s prelude motive, arguably also the antithesis motive. To put it plainly: The old Judaism cannot contain the new Gospel. The two are mutually exclusive, the Gospel ultimately destroying Judaism. She sharply criticizes Jesus’ argument on the issue of divorce (“According to my own experience, […], Jesus is simply wrong”) without mentioning that she thereby sides with his Pharisaic antagonist. Gunnes recognizes that a “conflict and replacement” model (or in von Kellenbach’s diction, the antithesis and prelude motives) does not work in the last text on the double love commandment: The text in Mk 12 has a particular sound because it, unlike the three other texts, tells about a Scribe who sympathized with Jesus. Unlike the other texts, Jesus’ concern is not to emphasize the difference between the old (forgiveness for sin only in the form of sin offerings in the temple, old wineskins, fasting and relativizing of the order of creation) and the new (new wineskins, no fasting, a marriage ethics that protects the weakest), but

19 Gunnes, Fire tekster, 26.

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to emphasize the connection between the old and the new. There is no contradiction in Jesus’ answer between the God of the Torah and the God of the Gospel.20

For Gunnes, the “connection and continuity” model that emerges from this text remains an exception and not a challenge to a reading based on conflict and replacement. When paraphrasing the three other texts inside the two parentheses, these texts are clearly (far more clearly than in the previous discussion) framed by a “conflict and replacement” model. Gunnes, however, at the same time applies a “Jesus within Judaism” model, noting that the text is indeed an example of “internal discussions within Judaism (of which Jesus was himself a part).” She then moves to the similar discussion in Lk 10 and claims that the latter, more conflict oriented account might be more realistic. The “Jesus within Judaism” model therefore remains at the surface level; it does not inform the interpretation. The antithesis and prelude motives prevail as default.21 The subheading of the final part of Gunnes’ article asks: “Who are the Pharisees of Today?” She firstly states that preachers should address how these texts have been the source of antisemitism. She stresses that the Jews of today are not the Pharisees of today. “Even if this appears as a far-fetched answer, it is important to consider that this was not always so.”22 She also acknowledges that the historical Pharisees were only one among several Jewish groups towards the end of the Second Temple period and should hence not be made representatives of all Jews. Next, she turns to Mary Ann Talbert’s Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective. According to Gunnes, Talbert suggests that the Pharisees represent the rocky ground in the parable of the four soils, that is: “those that cannot understand Jesus’ message.” Gunnes dismisses this suggestion because it represents a “reductionist anthropology.” She explains: “as the soil is either bad or good, this reading considers people to be either receptive to the message of Jesus or not.” Finally, she arrives at her own suggestion: I, to answer the question of who are the Pharisees of today, prefer to suggest a queer perspective: The Pharisees of today are everyone who, like the historical Pharisees, cannot theologically embrace that God can reveal himself in the unexpected, in the surprising, outside the straight lines of the Law. In a queer perspective, one can say that Jesus is the one that questions the exclusive rights of the Law to mediate the will of God with his people. Jesus “queers” the Law, hence opening it for debate and new interpretations. […] The Gospel of Mark is the story about the arrival of a new expression of

20 Gunnes, Fire tekster, 28–29. 21 Gunnes, Fire tekster, 29. Gunnes’ discussion of Lk 10:25–37 is fundamentally flawed as she wrongly asserts that the Jewish Law prohibits touching a corpse. 22 Gunnes, Fire tekster, 29.

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the will of God, namely Jesus himself and the Kingdom that he in words and deeds has spread. The traditional interpretations of the Pharisees are, through this, sidelined. […] The words of the Torah are not replaced by the words of the Bible, but by the vulnerable and wounded body, the mild and critical words and healing deeds of Jesus.23

The prelude motive therefore prevails, the Pharisees of today being fellow Christians who disagree with the author’s theological vision.

5.

Pharisaism and “Tax Collector Pharisaism”

We now move to a lectionary resource text by Sjur Isaksen, parish minister and former Associate Professor of Practical Theology at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Oslo and part-time chaplain of the Norwegian Parliament. His threevolume homiletic commentary Ordet gjennom året (“The Word throughout the Year”), which was published by Verbum (owned by the Norwegian Bible Society), has received good reviews. Each chapter has a threefold structure: the Gospel reading from the 2011 translation of the Norwegian Bible Society, the main homiletic exposition that usually takes a common human experience as its point of departure and a shorter text (a kind of an appendix) that addresses a particular Greek term from the text. The resource text scrutinized here explores the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Lk 18:9–14. The title is “Self-perception and prayer” and the point of departure is the experience of many that church services are boring. Isaksen however suggests that with the right attitude, no one comes to church in vain. He then moves to the parable and the Pharisee becomes a representation of those who unfortunately do come to church in vain. The Jewish temple is thereby decontextualized and becomes equivalent to a Christian church. This is followed by a paragraph on the prayer and the self-perception of the Pharisee: The Pharisee saw himself as self-righteous. He had a seemingly positive but unrealistic image of himself, which caused him to despise others. He maintained his self-image by comparing himself with obvious sinners. […] His prayer, which was founded on his perception of a god that was like himself, is clear evidence of his arrogant self-importance. Moral and distanced. He in truth had nothing to ask for, which was precisely what he received.24

Isaksen addresses the psychology of the Pharisee. But, he makes no attempt to situate the Pharisee within his historical setting of First Century CE Judaism of the Land of Israel. The focus of the exposition is upon the Pharisee as a character 23 Gunnes, Fire tekster, 30. 24 Isaksen, Ordet gjennom året (2011), 195.

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in the narrative and not as a representative of a social group or class. The subsequent treatment of the tax collector follows the same path. The final section is, however, different and more complex. The point of departure is the passive participle dedikaiomenos. Isaksen stresses that God is the implicit subject, the one who declares the tax collector righteous, righteousness not being a result of or a reward for the right attitude: The righteousness of the tax collector on his return home was granted to him by God. God has not rewarded him for a nice, humble prayer, an idea that has tended to replace the original Pharisaism. Self-righteousness is, however, unpopular in our culture. It is therefore easy to resort to some sort of “tax collector Pharisaism” as a substitute.25

The exposition seems to imply, by referring to “the original Pharisaism” and not simply to the Pharisee as a narrative character within the parable, a historiographical claim that self-praising arrogance was a characteristic of the First Century CE Pharisaic movement. No attempt is made to justify this claim by historical argument. The historical setting is also beyond the focus. It therefore seems more plausible to interpret this as a claim about the Pharisees as they emerge within the New Testament writings, without considering the polemical nature of these writings. This would of course be, from a historical point of view, indefensible. Even from the homiletic point of view, one arguably needs to consider and address the polemical nature of the New Testament account of the Pharisees. By introducing “tax collector Pharisaism” as a modern counterpart of “the original Pharisaism,” the Pharisees are not solely acting as a negative foil from the past, but become a present reality within the Christian community. The selfpraising humility of the “tax collector Pharisee” is essentially similar to the plain arrogance of the “original Pharisee.” This construction of the Pharisees serves to underline a central concern within Lutheran theology, namely justification by faith alone, without works. It therefore exemplifies how Christianity may be extoled by distorting and misrepresenting Judaism, as discouraged by point 5 of “The Ten Points of Seelisberg.”

6.

Pharisee, I?

The final example is from the mainstream Christian daily newspaper Vårt Land. This newspaper has, for more than two decades (1992–2014), developed a distinctive type of lectionary resource – a creative and often surprising journalistic approach to an aspect within the upcoming Sunday’s gospel reading combined 25 Isaksen, Ordet gjennom året (2011), 196.

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with a brief text reflection by an intelligent and articulate columnist, usually a minister. Our example once again deals with the Lukan parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The journalist’s approach was to ask three Christian leaders what signifies a Pharisee and whether they have ever behaved in a Pharisaic manner. The heading was brief and succinct: “Pharisee, I?”26 The first interviewee was Kari Foss, at that time director of the Oase (“Oasis”) charismatic movement, a quite significant movement within the Church of Norway in the 1980s and 1990s but less so today. She explains: Pharisaism is to me to replace true faith with a faith based upon some sort of fear that makes us build different religious frames around us. Frames which, unfortunately, all too often exclude people from fellowship with God.

She laments the lack of growth within churches and suggests that “we […] dare ask what […] is the work of humans and what is grounded in true faith.” She admits, when asked about her own behavior, that she has acted “with good intentions, but without building upon the foundation of Jesus and upon his promise that he will truly build his church. That is Pharisaism in my own life, and it is grave.” Pharisaism quite clearly here becomes the negative foil for a charismatic ideal of a faithful and intimate relation to God and a skepticism of human structures and judgments. The second interviewee was Anne Margrethe Mandt, who was at that time the editor of the journal of the Mission Covenant Church of Norway and a much sought-after preacher. Her understanding of Pharisaism clearly relates to her reflections upon and ambivalence towards her role as a preacher: The first thing that I think of when I hear the word Pharisee is a person who is not willing to listen […]. A person who prefers monolog and with limited communication skills. I associate Pharisaism with nitpicking. Preferring theory and neglecting practice. […] I am a preacher. However, I think there is too much emphasis upon preaching from the pulpit. Conversations about God may be more important than preaching. […] It is great that people speak out and express clearly what they stand for. However, not being able to meet others and listen to their opinions and not being willing to change your ways may be Pharisaism.

Mandt, somewhat surprisingly, connects Pharisaism not just with religious life and thought but also with politics: Many want our wealth and welfare to increase. This may, however, be at the expense of maintaining and increasing grants to development work. This may smack of Pharisaism.

26 Gosner, Fariseer. All quotations in this section are from the same newspaper article.

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The third interviewee, unlike the previous two, is a theologian. Nils Terje Andersen was the pastor of the Normisjon Oslo congregation, a mission organization within the Church of Norway.27 Andersen’s answer reflects, fortunately one may say, his academic and theological training. He betrays a hermeneutical awareness of the polemical nature of the New Testament writings and clearly distinguishes between Pharisees as a historical phenomenon and the current usage of the term: Many of us have a poor opinion of the Pharisees because we only know them from their confrontations with Jesus. I am sure that there were many fine people among them. […] However, the word Pharisee today is a term of abuse.

Andersen also comments critically upon the adoption of the term for polemical ends: “Some people are ridiculed and called Pharisees because of the opinions they hold. The word, however, does in fact backfire on those who use it.” He at the same time reiterates common, theologically loaded usages. He notes that a “Pharisee is someone that places himself in a positive light, someone who is selfrighteous and conceited,” and observes the inclination to “reduce God’s commandments to a level that most of us believe that we can fulfill. That is Pharisaic.” He furthermore elaborates on what seems to be his own particular concern: “Selfreliance is also a Pharisaic trait. In the Bible, Jesus confronts the people about their self-reliance, those that do not need any help from Jesus or others. […] Many of us feel the need to emerge as being stronger than we really are. We believe that others will trust us when we present ourselves in this way. Self-reliance, that we always will manage on our own, is probably one of the greatest challenges for many Christians.” All three interviewees quite clearly employ Pharisees as an “other” in their Christian self-definition. For Foss, the charismatic leader, the Pharisee is the proponent of an outwardly, manmade religiosity. For Mandt, the popular preacher, the Pharisee represents a type of preacher that she feels the need to distance herself from. For Andersen, the pastor of a large and attractive congregation, the Pharisee signifies an attractive but destructive self-reliance. Their Pharisee is not a Jewish other but a Christian other, either in the form of a distinctly different other, an opponent (similar to Gunnes’ approach) or as an “inner other,” an imminent stumbling block (similar to Isaksen’s approach). “The Pharisee” remains, in both, a negative symbol. This kind of reasoning will arguably influence perceptions of current Jews, even though the historical Jewish

27 Once again, we encounter a conservative, evangelical interviewee. This limited span in profile may be explained by the preferences and/or personal network of the journalist Ellen Lande Gossner (by the way, the daughter of a prominent figure within this landscape) or by an attempt in that period by the newspaper to reach out to this kind of audience.

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Pharisee is not in focus in the interviews. The Pharisee, however, remains a Jewish figure, as I argued in the introduction.

7.

A Kind of People Described in Old Books

At first glance, there seems to be a tension between the journalistic piece “Pharisee, I?” and the accompanying text reflection “A Kind of People Described in Old Books.”28 The accompanying text is, however, a subtly ironical piece. It appears to portray the Pharisees as a social phenomenon from the past but, nonetheless and quite clearly, employs them in a cleverly self-critical address to fellow, dedicated Christians: Once there was a group of people who believed their relationship with God was perfect and so tended to look down on others. They did not wish to look down on others, as humbleness was a virtue they cherished. It just was such that people felt inferior in their company.

The text reflection further describes the moral uprightness and sincere piety of these people. “They often gave thanks to God for not being like most people, as they knew this was not due to their own merit.” The last half of the sentence departs strikingly from the stereotyped Christian image of Jewish self-justification. It therefore betrays that this group of people from the past are modelled on contemporary, devoted Christians. They were called Pharisees. And strangely enough, when Jesus came, he did not value their company. Not that they did anything wrong. They simply made others feel excluded. That is why Jesus would rather spend time with society’s derelicts. I do not know why. Maybe he experienced greater honesty and authentic living among them? Maybe it was easier for them to really understand what mercy is? This was, however, a long time ago. And, fortunately, the Pharisees are a type of people that we today only encounter in old books.

The moral is clear. The Pharisees are certainly not a group of people that we only encounter in old books. They are present among the most dedicated Christians, as the shadow side. The author Per Eriksen has a conservative, evangelical, Low Church background.29 His text reflection therefore invites critical self-reflection, just like the parable itself does. However, the choice of the Pharisee as a foil works very differently today than within the original context of the parable.

28 Eriksen, En mennesketype. All quotations in this section are from the same newspaper article. 29 At the time of writing, he was the editor of the weekly newspaper of The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway and a columnist for Vårt Land. He later became a prominent journalist and commentator in Vårt Land. Currently he works as a pastor and columnist.

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Comparisons and Conclusions

Within the material that I have analyzed in this chapter, only Gunnes provides a homiletic exposition that addresses Jesus and the Pharisees in their historical setting. The three main motives of von Kellenbach’s are therefore most easily applicable to Gunnes’ discussion. The antithesis and prelude motives represent the main matrix for her reading, even though she at times applies a “Jesus within Judaism” model. Gunnes is furthermore the only one to address the fact that Jews are still found in modern society and that the Christian preacher should be aware of this and respond homiletically to their continued existence, as recommended by “The Ten Points of Seelisberg.” The other texts, however, represent an implicit replacement theology or, in von Kellenbach’s terminology, a veiled expression of the prelude motive, where Jews and Judaism are firmly left in the past. One can argue that Gunnes’ queering of the Pharisees by identifying them with her own theological opponents does not solve the problem. Negative attitudes towards Jews will prevail and reproduce as long as “the Pharisee” is as a clearly negative symbol. The self-critical interpretative strategy of Isaksen, Eriksen and the three interviewees suggests that Pharisaism represents “our challenge” or “an inner challenge.” This may to some be more appealing than the attribution of Pharisaism to a competing, Christian movement or ideology. However, transforming a distinct branch of ancient Judaism into a common, Christian vice not only distorts the historical picture, but also causes stereotypes and prejudices about the ancient Pharisees and current Jews and Judaism to prevail and reproduce. The “inner Pharisee” approach is thus just as problematic as Ernst Käsemann’s infamous “hidden Jew in all of us.”30 If I may end this chapter in a prescriptive mode, I suggest that the question posed in the title “Who are the Pharisees of Today?” should be left unanswered. Or rather, it should not be asked. It is wrong and a potentially destructive question, one that can only lead to wrong and potentially destructive answers. The Pharisees lived two thousand years ago. There are no Pharisees today and no Pharisaism. There are certainly people in modern life that trust that they are righteous and regard others with contempt (cf. Lk 18:9). They are not, however, Pharisees. Self-praise and arrogance (as well as outwardly religiosity, inability to listen and self-reliance) should be addressed by their proper names, particularly when preaching about Jesus and the Pharisees. I have stopped using molbo as a derogatory label and believe that we, being aware of the anti-Jewish legacy of Christianity, should similarly leave the Pharisees in peace. 30 Käsemann, Paul and Israel, 186. See criticism in e. g. Pollefeyt and Bolton, Paul, Deicide, 243.

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Bibliography An Address to the Churches: The Ten Points of Seelisberg. Statement produced by the Christian participants at the International Emergency Conference on Anti-Semitism (the Seelisberg Conference), Seelisberg, Switzerland, July 30–August 5, 1947 (online: http://www.jcrelations.net/An_Address_to_the_Churches__Seelisberg__Switzer land__1947.2370.0.html?id=960; June 12, 2020). See e. g. J.K. Aitken, Seelisberg Conference, in: E. Kessler and N. Wenborn (eds.), A Dictionary of Jewish–Christian Relations, Cambridge University Press 2005, 399. Antisemittisme i Norge: Den norske befolkningens holdning til jøder og andre minoriteter, Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities 2012. (online: https://www. hlsenteret.no/forskning/jodisk-historie-og-antisemittisme/holdningsundersokelse/ HL_Rapport_2012_web.pdf; June 12, 2020). Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, Universitetsforlaget 1969. –, Enduring and Emerging Issues in the Analysis of Ethnicity, in: H. Vermeulen and C. Govers (eds.), The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries”, Het Spinhuis 1994, 11–32. Eriksen, P., En mennesketype som beskrives i gamle bøker, Vårt Land, 24 August 2001: 20– 21. Evertsson, M., Liknelser och läsningar: Reception av liknelseberättelser ur Lukasevangeliet, kapitel 10–15, i predikoutkast för Svenska kyrkan 1985–2013, Artos 2014. Gerdmar, A., Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann, Brill, 2009. Gossner, E.L., Fariseer, jeg?, Vårt Land, 24 August 2001: 20–21. Gunnes, G. Fire tekster om møter: Jesus og fariseerne i Markusevangeliet, Nytt norsk kirkeblad (6/2007) 25–31 (online: https://www.tf.uio.no/forskning/publikasjoner/nyttnorsk-kirkeblad/nnk-i-pdf/nnk-2007-06.pdf; June 12, 2020). Haaland, G., Othering the Jews from the Church Pulpit, in J. Svartvik og J. Wirén (eds.), Religious Stereotyping and Interreligious Relations, Palgrave Macmillan 2013, 171–181. Holdninger til jøder og muslimer i Norge: Befolkningsundersøkelse og minoritetsstudie, Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities 2017 (online: https://www. hlsenteret.no/aktuelt/nyheter/2017/hl-rapport_29mai-web-%282%29.pdf; June 12, 2020). Isaksen, S., Ordet gjennom året: Evangeliebetraktninger over andre tekstrekke, Verbum 2011. –, Ordet gjennom året: Evangeliebetraktninger over tredje tekstrekke, Verbum 2012. –, Ordet gjennom året: Evangeliebetraktninger over første tekstrekke, Verbum 2013. Lohse, E., The New Testament Environment, SCM 1976. Kartzow, M.B., Anti-jødiske elementer i feministiske NT-studier, Norsk teologisk tidsskrift 105 (3/2004), 149–162. Käsemann, E., Paul and Israel, in: in New Testament Questions of Today, Fortress 1969, 183–187. Kellenbach, K.v., Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings, Scholars Press 1994.

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Mangor, C.E. (ed.), Beretning om de vidtbekiendte Molboers vise Gierninger og tapre Bedrifter, (2nd expanded and improved edition), 1780. Odeberg, H., Fariseism och kristendom, 1943; multiple later editions; in English: Pharisaism and Christianity, Concordia 1964. Pedersen, S., Den nytestamentlige tids historie, (Dansk kommentar til Det nye Testamente 2), Aarhus Universitetsforlag 1994. Pollefeyt, D. and D.J. Bolton, Paul, Deicide and the Wrath of God: Towards a Hermeneutical Reading of 1 Thess 2:14–16, in: T.G. Casey and J. Taylor (eds.), Paul’s Jewish Matrix (Bible in Dialogue: Studies in Judaism and Christianity 2), Gregorian and Biblical Press 2011, 229–258. Saga, S. K., Theology for the Dogs? An Intersectional and Contextual Analysis of Matthew 15, 21–28 “The Canaanite Woman” in Luthersk Kirketidende and Nytt Norsk Kirkeblad, (unpublished thesis), Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo 2009. –, Teologi for hundene? Norske presteblikk på Jesu møte med en fremmed kvinne, Kirke og kultur 116 (3/2011) 229–40. Said, E., Orientalism, Routledge 1978. Skjevesland, O., Ord til tro: Søndagens evangelietekster til studium og forkynnelse: 2. rekke, fra advent til pinse, Verbum 2011. –, Ord til vekst: Søndagens evangelietekster til studium og forkynnelse: 2. rekke, treenighetstiden, Verbum 2012. –, Det levende vannet: Søndagens evangelietekster til studium og forkynnelse: 3. rekke, fra advent til pinse, Verbum 2012. –, En åpnet dør: Søndagens evangelietekster til studium og forkynnelse: 3. rekke, treenighetstiden, Verbum 2013. –, Den gode jord: Søndagens evangelietekster til studium og forkynnelse: 1. rekke, Verbum 2013. Spivak, G.C., The Rani of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives, History and Theory 24 (3/1985) 247–272. Svartvik, J., Bibeltolkningens bakgator: Synen på judar, slavar och homosexuella i historia och nutid, Verbum 2006. Wirgenes, M. and P.E. Wirgenes, Fra søndag til søndag: Et møte med kirkeårets tekster, 2. rekke, Verbum 2011. –, Fra søndag til søndag: Et møte med kirkeårets tekster, 3. rekke, Verbum 2012. –, Fra søndag til søndag: Et møte med kirkeårets tekster, 1. rekke, Verbum 2013. Zetterholm, M., Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship, Fortress 2009.

Morten Beckmann

Negotiating Christology The Translation of Colossians 1:15 as a Case Study

Common ground for more recent approaches to biblical studies (liberationist, feminist, postcolonial, ideological-critical) lies in “the awareness that there are various vested interests concealed in the institutions and practices of biblical exegesis.”1 As institutions of biblical exegesis with vast power in the translation of the holy text for believers and for the broader public, Bible societies are no exception. Any translation is highly influential precisely because it is commonly read as an unmediated work.2 In the case of Bible translation, the translation is, therefore read as no less than the unmediated word of God. Most readers have to trust the translation since they are in no position to tell what actually has happened in the translation of the source text. In this article, I will focus on the ideological impact of translation choices, that is, “the extent to which translators intervene in the transfer process, feeding their own knowledge and beliefs into their processing of a text.”3 The driving question follows: how does ideology affect the translation of Col 1:15 in the translations by the Norwegian Bible Society (hereby NBS) 1978–2011? To understand what seems to be at stake in the translation of this verse, we need to look at the text’s controversial reception history. Today, the large Christian denominations (Roman-Catholic, Orthodox and the main Protestant denominations) agree unanimously on the Christological significance of the original Nicene Creed of 325 CE.4 The creed affirms the full divinity of the Son (“true God of true God”) and that the Son is begotten, not made. He is consubstantial with the Father. Although Christology today is among the elements that unite the main Christian denominations, it was a contested issue within the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, and winners and losers 1 2 3 4

Wilt, Bible Translation, 177. Munday, Translation and Ideology, 197. Hatim and Mason, Translator, 147. Although not relevant for the issue discussed here, it must be noted that the later filioque addition to the Nicene Creed is contested.

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emerged. The losing party of the Arian controversy comprised the proponents of Arian Christology, i. e., the view that Christ was part of creation though unique within it. Besides Prov 8:22, Col 1:15 was one of the important proof-texts for the proponents of Arian Christology.5 Below, I cite the Greek text and supply the NRSV translation of the verse. Col 1:15 ὅς ἐστιν ει᾿κὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου, He is the image of the invisible God, πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως the firstborn of all creation.

The decisive words, which are central for our purposes, are πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως. As Dunn puts it, “These three words … have been among the most contested in the history of NT interpretation.”6 The reason for this is of course their controversial reception history and the questions at stake in the Arian (318– 325 CE) and Nicene controversies (325–381 CE). The Arian interpretation holds that πρωτότοκος indicates temporal priority (cf. v. 18b), meaning that Christ is the first(-created) of all creation.7 By rendering the genitive expression more or less as a partitive genitive, the translation in the NRSV is open to such interpretations. However, this does not automatically imply that “the firstborn” is part of “all creation.” That must be established within the context of Col 1:15–20. For our purposes, it is important that the NRSV retains the ambiguity of the verse and is open to potentially problematic interpretations from the perspective of “orthodox” Christology. In the Bible translations by the NBS (1978–2011), however, the translation processes entailed great vigour to avoid renderings that are open to “heretical” interpretations. I will show this through an analysis of the translation processes behind the making of the two translations from this period, NO1978 and Bibel 2011. That is to say, I will trace the development of the text from the first draft to the final text to see which rendering was prioritised and to assess how certain ideological positions in the process affected the translation.8 Subsequently, I will evaluate the relevant alternatives and the reasoning behind them, and then compare them to the source text.9 To determine the literal translation(s) of πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, I will bring exegetical commentaries and Greek grammars into the discussion. This action will shed light on the renderings 5 6 7 8

Hockel, Christus der Erstgeborene, 55–56. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 189. Ibid. See also Hockel, Christus der Erstgeborene, 54–55. This is made possible through access to the archives of the NBS. References from the records will be provided throughout the article. References with “NBS” refer to the physical archive in the office of the NBS in Oslo. Unless otherwise stated, all quotes from the description of Bibel 2011 are gathered from the digital archive. 9 See Beckmann and Justnes, Tekst og Teologi, 63–74.

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discussed in the translation processes and will decide whether there is agreement between what they (the NBS) say they do and what they actually do. Since working with modern empirical data in combination with ancient texts is relatively uncommon in biblical scholarship, I will describe the material and the method applied closely below.

1.

The Material

I gathered the sources for this analysis from the archives of the NBS with permission. They consist of notes and translation drafts from the translators (handwritten and digital), translation guidelines, published articles about the translations, remarks and written statements from different participants in the translation processes (translators, theological consultants, poets), minutes of the meetings of different committees and boards, and correspondence between different actors. In some instances, I have cited material from interviews or correspondence where the translation participants say they remember information relevant to the analysis.10 In these cases, I have cross-checked the information with the written archive material and found that the two sources coincide. The main sources for this article are, however, the written documents from the archives of the NBS. Before turning to the case, I will define my use of the term “ideology” and discuss the ideological influence of the dominant translation methods today.

2.

Ideology and Translation

In his article “Is It ‘And’ or ‘But’? Ideology and Translation,” Graham S. Ogden uses the definition of “ideology” from Webster’s Dictionary as a point of departure and discusses whether it is fruitful for the field of Bible translation. Webster’s Dictionary defines ideology as a “body of doctrine, myth, symbol of a social movement, institution, class, or large group” and as “a body of doctrine with reference to some political and cultural plan … along with the devices for putting it into operation.”11 This definition limits ideology to a system of values “consciously applied,” which also presupposes that the interpreter is fully aware of his “system of values.” As Ogden puts it, this “does not cover the less conscious 10 The gathering of data for this study has been approved by the NSD (Norwegian Centre for Research Data) and all the informants have given their permission to cite from the interviews. 11 Ogden, Is It “And” or “But”?, 328.

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and unconscious application to a translation of any set of values.”12 However, even if the goal is to ascertain the original meaning of a text in its historical setting, effective history is always at work, and it is not possible to be completely aware of its effect on our understanding.13 Thus, we should allow for a more flexible use that is open to both options without having to distinguish one from the other. The perspective in this article considers how ideology is conveyed and presented textually in the translation process.

3.

Translation Methods and Ideology

Although any translation and reading of the Bible is ideological, one might say that some translation methods and theories are more susceptible than others to the impact of particular ideologies. Today, we may distinguish between the two main approaches in Bible translation: (1) literal translation and (2) meaning translation. Notably, the two translations under analysis represent the two approaches, indicating a transition from meaning translation (NO1978/85) to literal and literary translation (Bibel 2011). (1) Literal (also called formal equivalence) and literary translation has the main goal of translating the form of the source text (e. g., lexical details and grammatical structure) and giving priority to the source language. Normally, this approach leaves room for the reader to interpret the text since it refrains from explaining it–unlike the subsequent approach. (2) Meaning-based translation: Since NO1978/85 was based on Eugene A. Nida’s dynamic equivalence program, a version of the meaning translation approach, I will primarily address this. Dynamic equivalence has the goal of reproducing the meaning of the text and giving priority to the receptor language as well as the response of the receptor. Nida’s theory sees a weak connection between the form of the text and its content (meaning): “to preserve the content of the message, the form must be changed.”14 It, thus, considers style to be secondary to content.15 The main priority in Nida’s theory is communication, with the response of the average receptor at the centre. For Nida and Taber, “meaning” is also a pragmatic concern for the translator, who must adjust the text so that it will be understood properly. The question, “Is this a correct translation?” must, according to Nida and Taber 12 13 14 15

Ibid., 335. Cf. also Munday, Translation and Ideology, 213. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 301. Nida and Taber, Theory and Practice, 5. Ibid., 8:13.

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be answered in terms of another question, namely: For whom? Correctness must be determined by the extent to which the average reader for which a translation is intended will be likely to understand it correctly. […] In other words, we are not content merely to translate so that the average receptor is likely to understand the message; rather we aim to make certain that such a person is very unlikely to misunderstand it.16

The criticism of Nida’s theory has been that “meaning” is often derived from Christian dogma,17 which becomes the guiding principle, the regula fidei (“rule of faith”), that fills the content of meaning and on which meaning is based. “Understanding” and “misunderstanding” (cf. the quote above) thus become intelligible through the canonized meaning of Christian dogma. This seems inevitable in meaning-based translations with Christian translators and in translations targeted for a distinct Christian denomination. Insofar as ambiguity is involved in translation, literal translations probably leave more room for ambiguity. By contrast, meaning-based translations are based on a principle that leaves expressions and their (presumed) implications open to explanation rather than rendering words and expressions literally and, thereby, retaining the form of the text.18 Although the literal translation approach is also based on certain ideological premises, we might say that the dynamic equivalence approach is more open to particular ideological influence since it allows the translators to explain the text for the reader and, thereby, apply a “system of values” on behalf of the text. If we look at English Bible translations based on these two different approaches, a distinct pattern in their rendering of Col 1:15 emerges. Most English Bible translations (literal and other) tend to render πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως as a partitive genitive, “the firstborn/first-born of all creation” (e. g., ASV, RSV, NSAB, REV, NRSV, ESV) or “the firstborn of every creature” (KJV, DouayRheims). In Bible translations that are based on dynamic equivalence or a more moderate form of meaning translation, there is a tendency to translate the verse in such a way as to eliminate any sense of ambiguity. These translations distinguish Christ from all creation by ranking him over it or making him superior to it–thus, NIV’s and NET Bible’s “the firstborn over all creation,” TEV’s “the firstborn Son, superior to all created things,” NEB’s “his is the primacy over all 16 Ibid., 1. 17 The critique has been posed by Venuti: “Nida’s concept of dynamic equivalence in Bible translation goes hand in hand with an evangelical zeal that seeks to impose on Englishlanguage readers a specific dialect of English as well as a distinctly Christian understanding of the Bible” (Translator’s Invisibility, 23). 18 Cf. Brenner and van Henten, Bible Translation, 51: “But in so far as several intended meanings are involved, it is probably true that a translation with a high degree of formal correspondence to the source text will leave more room for finding some of these different meanings and interpretations in the same text.”

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created things,” and CEV’s “the first-born Son, superior to all creation.” Yet some meaning translations render the expression partitively: e. g., NAB (“the first-born of all creatures”) and JB, NJB and the Amplified Bible (“the firstborn of all creation”/“the first-born of all creation”). The overall tendency in English Bible translations is to render the expression partitively although some meaning translations avoid any ambiguity by ranking the firstborn as “superior to” or “over” all creation.19 I will now turn to the translations of the NBS from 1978/85 and 2011 respectively, using them as practical illustrations of the problematics mentioned above.20 Norwegian has two official written languages. Bokmål is the dominant written language, which 85 %–90 % of the population use, while the remaining 10 %–15 % use Nynorsk. I will primarily focus on the Bokmål version since it has been predominant in the translation processes. The source text for the translations in the given period is the text of the Nestle(-Aland) 25.–27. editions. The text of Col 1:15 has remained the same in these editions, and, thus, coincides with the previously cited text.

4.

Colossians 1:15 in NO1978

In 1978, the NBS translated the complete Bible into Norwegian for the second time. The NO1978 was published afresh as a new translation and not a revision of the former translation. It was based on the dynamic equivalence approach and marked a radical break from the literal translation approach, which had been dominant in Denmark and Norway since the 17th century. The New Testament translation was published in 1975 and was included (with some minor changes) in the complete Bible translation, NO1978. NO1978 was lightly revised in the years after the publication, and the adjustment was completed in 1985. As a consequence, NO1978 became NO1978/85. A brief, simplified overview of the translation process is in order: A translator with expertise in New Testament Studies made the first draft. His draft was discussed and evaluated in the Translation Committee (hereby TC) in his pres19 Beside Scandinavian translations, English translations were also used as reference tools in the process. The following parallel version were put on the list for the translators and consultants: The Complete Parallel Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/ Deuterocanonical Books: New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible; Kohlenberger, Precise Parallel New Testament containing KJV, NASB, NIV, NAB, NRSV, Amplified Bible and Rheims New Testament. NBS, digital archive, “Oversikt over hjelpemidler og bibeloversettelser.doc”. 20 Since the translations are in Norwegian, I will provide an English translation for the relevant renderings. I will supply the Norwegian rendering in the text or a footnote, but a rendering will only be translated into English the first time.

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ence. The draft was then revised in line with the resolutions of the TC. Then it was sent to the Central Committee (“sentralkomitéen”), which treated it further and/ or sent it directly to the last stage: assessment by the National Committee (“landsstyret”). The National Committee authorised the translation and had the final say regarding translation matters. In reality, however, most of the work was done in the TC as the National Committee normally only met once a year.21 Bjørn Sandvik, who was one of the main translators, delivered his first draft on Colossians by the end of 1972.22 In his first draft, he rendered πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως as a partitive expression (“the firstborn of all creatures”/“den førstefødte av alle skapninger”) and gave no alternative translation for the expression. Comparison with other Bible translations was an important tool for the translators, and, according to Sandvik, the translators were supposed to engage in extensive comparison then to present alternatives (which they deemed possible solutions) in the margin.23 His rendering (“the firstborn of all creatures”) is quite similar to several literal translations and several meaning translations to which he compared his translation.24 Sandvik’s first draft offered no alternatives in the margin, which seems to indicate that he did not think of other possible renderings in this instance. As a consequence, he discarded renderings that unambiguously separated “the firstborn” from “all creation.” These were mainly evident in the meaning translations to which he compared his translation.25 The draft was further treated in the TC in Sandvik’s presence. The treatment of Colossians started in January 1973.26 The remarks of the people present at the meeting were preserved, and, among them, there was only one remark regarding the rendering of πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως.27 The chairman of the New Testament TC, Sverre Aalen, made a decisive comment: “The firstborn Son over all creation”

21 The translation procedure is carefully described by Dagfinn Rian, one of the Old Testament translators in the process, Norske bibeloversettelser, 27–30. 22 NBS, 066/4–64. 23 Interview 3 September 2013. The extensive comparison with other Bible translations is thoroughly witnessed in his early drafts. NBS, 075. 24 Cf. KJV (“the firstborn of every creature”); DO48 (“al Skabnings førstefødte”); RSV (“the first-born of all creation”); Jérusalem (“Premier-Né de toute créature”); JB (“the first-born of all creation”; Zürcher (“der Ertstgeborne der ganzen Schöpfung”); Einheitsübersetzung NT (“der Erstgeborene der ganzen Schöpfung”); TOB NT (“Premier-né de toute créature”). 25 SVE17 (“förstfödd före allt skapat”); NEB NT (“his is the primacy over all created things”); Luther (“der Erstgeborne vor allen Kreaturen”); Hedegård (“förstefödd före hela skapelsen”); TEV NT (“He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things”); Wilckens (“der Erstgeborene vor aller Schöpfung”); Gute Nachricht (“Er ist der Erstgeborene des Vaters; vor allem Geschaffenen war er schon da”); Bonnes Nouvelles (“Il est le Fils premier-né, supérieur à tout ce qui a été créé”) 26 NBS, 066/4–64. 27 NBS, 066/4–64.

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(underlining in original).28 This suggestion is a clear alternative to Sandvik’s translation and is, theologically speaking, certainly more explicit with regard to the potential meaning. In Aalen’s suggestion, there is emphasis on the “firstborn” as being qualitatively different from “all creation.” While the partitive rendering is ambiguous and open to several interpretations, the potential of meaning is confined in Aalen’s suggestion. This safeguards the meaning in the direction of orthodox Christology. A modified form of Aalen’s suggestion was chosen, and it was reflected in the new formulation, which became the final version of Col 1:15 in NO1978.29 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn, who stands over all creation. What exactly motivated the change? Aalen obviously felt the need to change Sandvik’s partitive rendering, and, looking at the two alternatives, it is easy to see which theology was preferred. In Eugene Nida’s dynamic equivalence programme, on which the translation was based, it is imperative that the receptor does not misunderstand the message. The reception history shows that Col 1:15 has indeed been read in entirely different ways. From the point of view of the Christian Nicene ideology, a partitive rendering could certainly be “misunderstood.” The chosen rendering, however, leaves no room for such “misunderstandings.” Nida’s Translator’s Handbook on Colossians, which was published four years later, in 1977, shares this concern: The first-born Son, superior to all created things represents a three-word phrase in Greek, “the first-born of all creation.” Translated literally (as RSV), it implies that Christ is included in the created universe, which is inconsistent with the context of the whole passage.30

For Nida and Bratcher, the unambiguous implication of the literal translation is that Christ is included in creation, as a creature. Since the literal rendering (for Nida & Bratcher) is so strongly connected to the “wrong” meaning, there is an obvious need to explain the expression. As is also evident, the form of the text is not integral to the meaning (content) of the text. According to Nida and Bratcher, the term “‘[first]born’ or ‘begotten’ refers […] to the relation of Jesus to God, as the eternal Son and heir of the heavenly Father.”31 The connection to Jesus as the

28 NBS, 066/4–64. “Den førstefødte Sönn over alt det skapte”. 29 NBS, 066/4–64. “Den førstefødte, som står over alt det skapte.” We also notice that πάσης κτίσεως is separated from πρωτότοκος and is now being rendered as a relative clause. 30 Bratcher and Nida, Translator’s Handbook, 22. 31 Ibid.

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“eternal Son” quite clearly illuminates the fact that meaning is not just derived from the context of Col 1:15–20, but also from Nicene ideology.32 In the translation of the parallel expression in Col 1:18, the translation in the first draft was also changed from the partitive rendering (“the firstborn of the dead”/“den førstefødte av de døde”) to “the first who rose from the dead”/“den første som stod opp fra de døde.” This rendering was also made more explicit with regard to meaning potential. In the end, we may conclude that both the renderings of verses 15 and 18 were unambiguous and quite explicit in meaning. There is no hint in the material that the changes from the first draft to the final text were made because of a different understanding of the Greek grammar. In both instances, it seems there was no debate regarding the form of the text, but as the translation method prioritised meaning over “form,” the chosen renderings would be legitimate choices. In the revision of NO1978 in 1985, Col 1:18 was changed back to the rendering in the first draft, “the firstborn of the dead,” making the expression more open to interpretation. Given that verses 18 and 15 are quite similar with regard to syntax and structure, one might wonder whether making verse 15 more open to interpretation was also considered. The revision, however, left the rendering of Col 1:15 unaltered.

5.

Colossians 1:15 in Bibel 2011

Bibel 2011 started out in 1999 as a revision of the former translation, NO1978/85, but it was later presented and marketed as a new translation. As the project leader, Hans-Olav Mørk, puts it, “We […] became conscious of the fact that the revision mandate was so comprehensive that we were actually making a completely new translation.”33 The guidelines of Bibel 2011 made it clear that the translation was supposed to take a leap towards a more literal translation rather than the strongly idiomatic NO1978/85. This principle was reinforced by the adopted literary approach to Bible translation, with its focus on translating the

32 By this, I mean that the writers are presupposing concepts and terminology from the later Christological debates for the historical context of Colossians. That is anachronistic, to say the least. Their comment also smooths over the difficulty of the expression, as witnessed in the Arian and Nicene controversy. The Arian interpretation of the verse seems to have caused difficulties for the inclusion of πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως in the Nicene Creed. Eusebius’ creed, which was presented at the Nicene Council, did, after all, include the formula. Hockel believes the omission in the final creed was due to “the dogmatical and exegetical difficulties of the expression” (my translation). Hockel, Christus der Erstgeborene, 54. 33 Mørk, Hearing, 153, footnote 7.

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form of the text, rather than the presumed implications of the text. Mørk describes the objectives of the translation as follows: • To re-create the literary structures of the source text where a meaning-based translation had led to a disregard of literary form and structure […] • To create a stylistically more pointed and less redundant target-language text.34 Mørk also points out that, in many respects, Bibel 2011 was a reaction to Nida’s view on the relation between form and content, i. e., the view that the form of the text was secondary to (and thus not significant for) its content.35 This point is illustrated in the words of Karl Ove Knausgård, who participated in the project as a literary consultant: The language in the Bible is not “a container carrying untouched content to us from distant times.”36 Hanne Ørstavik, also a literary consultant in the project, describes a similar point: “Language does not convey content. Language IS this content.”37 Thus, “language” (the form of the text) is seen as significant and meaningful to content and not just as a means for communicating content. This different understanding of meaning will have implications for the reader’s role as interpreter. As Mørk puts it: “If the text is presented with its ambiguities intact, then all who hear and read it must become interpreters.”38 This presupposes, of course, that theory is put into practice. Before turning to the case, I will give a brief, simplified overview of the translation procedure.39 A translator made the first draft (named “1T”). A consultant in the Norwegian language and a theological consultant (a biblical scholar) then commented on the draft. They either gave their responses electronically or personally. After this, the Translation Group met (the translators of Bokmål and Nynorsk, the consultant in the Norwegian language, the theological consultant and a secretary). They discussed the draft(s) and the translator then created a second draft (2T). Afterwards, the draft was sent to different consultation groups. The Redaction Committee (hereby RC) went through the response and made a third draft (3T), which was sent to the TC. The TC, which consisted of both biblical scholars and experts in the Norwegian language, then made resolutions. The RC was obliged to follow these resolutions when making a fourth draft (4T). This draft was then sent to the board of the NBS for preliminary approval so that the text could be published as a trial translation. The board authorised the translation and had the final say on translation matters. In almost 34 35 36 37 38 39

The rest of the objectives are also described at ibid., 153. Mørk, Gjendikte Gud, 43. My translation of Knausgård, Hjelpemann, 45–46. Capitalisation original. My translation of Ørstavik, Hvor i språket, 83. Ibid., 154. NBS, digital archive.

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every instance, though, they followed the recommendations of the TC. After the preliminary approval, the trial versions of the New Testament were sent to two literary consultants (poets), who read through all the trial versions and give their response with a special note regarding the stylistic features of the text. After this, the text ended up in the hands of the RC. They decided which remarks should be followed up on and received the authority to change the stylistic features of the text. They were, however, not authorised to change the exegesis of the text and were obliged to follow the resolutions of the TC. If the stylistic changes had implications for the text’s exegesis, the TC also had to treat and approve them. Finally, the text was sent to the board for final acceptance. The Norwegian Bibel 2011 is an interesting case for our purposes. Both the literal and literary approach of Bibel 2011 might have involved making the rendering of Col 1:15 more ambiguous. If so, that would have left the Christological implications more open to interpretation. As we shall see, some participants in the process seemed to have strongly opposed such a move. In the translation process, it is possible to document at least four situations where the partitive translation was avoided with great vigour. I will now turn to the first of these instances.

5.1

Avoiding the Solutions in the Translator’s First Draft

The first occurrence took place when the Bokmål translator, Reidar Aasgaard, made his first draft in June 2001. The rendering of Col 1:15b in the first draft (named version “1T”) was as follows: Col 1:15 1T “All creation’s firstborn”/ “hele skaperverkets førstefødte”. Comment “Or: the firstborn in all creation, or as before.” /“Eller: den førstefødte i hele skaperverket, eller som før.” Col 1:18 “the firstborn of the dead”/ “den førstefødte av de døde” (no comment)

In an interview with Aasgaard about his translation, he states: “I remember that I considered the rendering in NO1978/85 almost a paraphrase. So my goal was to tighten it up and basically make it more ambiguous, more open.”40 Given that he considered the rendering to be “almost a paraphrase,” he clearly did not think Greek grammar justified the rendering. In line with the guidelines for the translation, there would be no reason to keep such a rendering. In his draft, the translator stuck quite close to the Greek form of the text, using no preposition in his rendering. Instead, he attached a genitive “-s” to the noun to denote the genitival relation between “firstborn” and “all creation.” In Norwegian (Bokmål), 40 Personal interview 30 April 2015; personal correspondence (email) 29 March 2016.

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this type of rendering is open to a partitive reading. However, in modern Bokmål, using a preposition is becoming increasingly common. An example is the use of “of”/“av”–as was the case in his partitive rendering of verse 18 (“among”/“blant” could also be used).41 The alternative (“the firstborn in all creation”) came quite close to the rendering (“den förstfödde i hela skapelsen”) in the translation Bibel 2000 (SO2000) in the Swedish translation, which the translators and committees often used for comparison.42 When the translators had finished the first draft, it was sent to the consultants. Gunnar Johnstad was the theological consultant for Bibel 2011 and followed the text from start to finish. Johnstad made the following remarks on Aasgaard’s translation: V. 15 gen. πάσης κτίσεως can be a gen. comparationis–as it is understood in NO1978/85– or a temporal genitive. In such cases, where the argument for one solution seems just as good as the other, I’m of the opinion that we should stick to the current interpretation [NO1978/85].43

It is interesting to note that Johnstad does not even mention the partitive genitive as an alternative, while Aasgaard’s first draft and alternative were open to this possibility. Johnstad is clearly avoiding the partitive renderings. Instead, he proposes two other alternatives, none of which are consistent with the alternatives that the translator gave. Furthermore, the question at hand is presented as though it is a question of grammar, with only two alternatives (genitive of comparison and temporal genitive). Johnstad connects the former grammatical category to the rendering in NO1978/85 and, thereby, legitimates this rendering as literal. In this way, it veils its status as an explanatory meaning translation, which would justify keeping it in line with the guidelines of Bibel 2011. It may, of course, be that the theological consultant deemed the two genitive categories appropriate for the genitive expression in verse 15, but the avoidance of all the partitive renderings is conspicuous. As pointed out in the translation process for NO1978, however, there is no indication that grammatical reasoning motivated the change from the first draft (“the firstborn of all creatures”) to the final text (“the firstborn, who stands over all creation”). Rather, the changes in both verses 15 and 18 seemed to be based on a concern to explain the assumed meaning of these phrases. This is in line with the adapted translation approach.

41 It is also rendered without a preposition in the Danish DO92 (“al Skabnings førstefødte”). The translators and the committees in the process used this translation extensively for comparison. This translation is mentioned in the unpublished guidelines as an important resource. NBS, digital archive. 42 This translation is also mentioned in the unpublished guidelines as an important resource. NBS, digital archive. 43 NBS, digital archive.

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By offering two other alternatives, the consultant implicitly argued against the translator’s alternatives and, in effect, for another theology. Although the alternatives were wrapped up in grammar, it is hard to separate them from the theology they represent. As we shall see, both of the consultant’s alternatives represent a theology that emphasises Christ as being qualitatively different from “all creation,” leaving no room for ambiguity regarding this question. Johnstad’s remarks went to Aasgaard, who created a new version. In the new version (named “1T 2. version”), several of his comments were in dialogue with Johnstad’s remarks. With regard to verse 15, Aasgaard did not take the consultant’s comments into account but made the partitive rendering even more emphatic by inserting the preposition “among”/“blant.” Aasgaard also made a critical remark about the rendering in NO1978/85, which the consultant meant for them to stand by. It is obvious that Aasgaard disagreed with the consultant and indicated why he wanted a different rendering from that of NO1978/85: Col 1:15 1T 2. version Comment

“The firstborn among all creation”/ “Den førstefødte blant alt det skapte” “Or: the firstborn in all creation, or as before (but this is too wordy and interpretative)”

In this version, “the firstborn” was placed “among all creation” in the way that “the firstborn” (Christ) in Rom 8:29 is placed “among many brothers”. The meeting in the Translation Group would have been the next arena for a discussion of the choices.

5.2

Avoiding the Solutions in the Translator’s Second Draft

The text (“1T 2. version”) was presented and discussed at the meetings of the Translation Group, from 8–10 November, 2001.44 After the meeting, a change in the rendering of Col 1:15 was evident. The new version (2T) attests to this: Col 1:15 “the firstborn, born/begotten before all creation” 2T /“den førstefødte, født før alt det skapte” Comment “Or: or as before (but this is too wordy and interpretative). Footnote: Both time (before) and rank (foremost) can be indicated in ‘first-’”

The formulation is a paraphrase, and it is not too far from the Nicene Creed’s “begotten, not created” (“født, ikke skapt”), especially in Norwegian, where the same word (“født”/“begotten”) is used in this rendering and in the translation of the Nicene Creed. 44 Minutes of meeting. NBS, digital archive.

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Given that none of Aasgaard’s alternatives reflected a temporal understanding, it is natural to draw a connection to Johnstad’s earlier comments, which suggested that πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως might be a temporal genitive. Aasgaard was critical of the solution in NO1978/85 (cf. “too wordy and interpretative”), which might explain why this rendering was not chosen. However, he seemed not to achieve any breakthrough for his translation as the translation then moved towards a temporal solution. The chosen rendering did not adopt the consultant’s view, which focused on the genitive expression (cf. “temporal genitive”). The subsequent rendering seemed to emphasise and explain πρωτότοκος, which it stressed redundantly (“the firstborn, born/begotten before”/“den førstefødte, født før”). The guidelines made it quite clear, however, that the goal was to remove such redundancy. Moreover, such redundancy had not even been present in the rendering of the text in NO1978. The chosen wording pointed to a strong emphasis on the origin of the firstborn, which was also the battleground on which the Arian and the Nicene controversy was fought. Aasgaard’s earlier version of the text (“1T 2. version”) certainly underwent a radical transformation during the meeting. The text was transformed into a temporal expression, a solution that was not even considered to be an alternative in Aasgaard’s earlier drafts. In this version, both the partitive renderings (the text and the alternative) were deleted from the text, and neither survived as alternatives in the “comment area” that followed the text. That both were missing in this version suggests that there must have been someone who wanted the text to take another direction. Unlike the Bokmål version, the Nynorsk version was not discussed in the Translation Group. When the text was supposed to go the TC, the Nynorsk translator had taken all of Johnstad’s remarks into consideration and verse 15 was identical to the rendering in NO1978/85. There was, however, a new alternative: “All creation’s firstborn”/“all skapningens førstefødde,” which he understood as a “literal translation” of the passage, as will be clear below. Both the Bokmål and the Nynorsk versions were then sent to the TC, which neither of the translators (Aasgaard and Sagrusten) were part of. This was unlike the process for NO1978, which involved the translators also attending the meetings of the TC. However, Sagrusten wrote an exposition called “Important Choices in Ephesians and Colossians,”45 which went together with the translation drafts to the members of the committee as preparation for the meeting.46 His preparatory proceedings launched the third round of the avoidance of the partitive translation. 45 NBS, 119/1–1. 46 The TC had the authority to change the text as they saw fit and could ignore the requests and advice from the translators.

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89

Avoiding Mention of the Partitive Suggestions

In his comment about verse 15, Sagrusten listed the rendering in NO1978/85 (Bokmål and Nynorsk: “the firstborn, who stands over all creation”), his own translation into Nynorsk (his 1T-version: “framfor alt det skapte”/above all creation”) and the Bokmål 2T version (the firstborn, born/begotten before all creation (italics in original)). He then noted, “The Greek genitive πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως literally translates as the whole of/all creation’s firstborn. The question is how this should be solved with a meaningful preposition in Norwegian. Above, over, before are three suggestions.”47 It is conspicuous that the partitive solution was omitted in the presentation, especially when Sagrusten himself suggested “the whole of/all creation’s firstborn” as the literal translation of the genitive expression. As was previously mentioned, this rendering has a partitive potential in Norwegian. However, in modern Norwegian, using a preposition is becoming increasingly common. Certainly, a dissonance exists between the literal translation and the subsequent prepositions (“above”, “over” or “before”). With the literal translation, one would also have expected prepositions such as “among,” “of” or “in.”48 All the suggested prepositions, however, are in accordance with the suggestions of the theological consultant (cf. his earlier comments). Sagrusten was part of the Translation Group (not TC!) and had followed the discussions,49 which is reflected in his comment wherehe omitted mention of the alternatives that were reflected in Aasgaard’s two first drafts. The TC chose the Nynorsk version, which was identical to NO1978/85. The minutes of the meeting also attest to the decision: “the firstborn, who stands over all creation. + alternative translation in a footnote.”50 One would naturally think that the “alternative translation in a footnote” would be the temporal rendering from the Bokmål version. As was indicated earlier, the members of the TC received the translation drafts before the meeting. If any of the committee members looked at the “comment area” of the Bokmål version, they would have noticed Aasgaard’s critical remark about this solution in NO1978/85 (“too wordy and interpretative”). The return to this rendering indicates that they must have ignored his remark once more. The critical remark would have lost some of its force when the rendering in the Bokmål version (“the firstborn, born/begotten before all creation”) turned out to be wordy and interpretative. Moreover, this temporal rendering seems not to have had any support in other Bible translations 47 NBS, 119/1–1. 48 As reflected in Aasgaard’s alternative (“the firstborn in creation”) in his first two drafts. 49 In all the sources in the digital archive Sagrusten seems to have been present in the Translation Group at the time period when the draft was treated. NBS, digital archive. 50 NBS, digital archive, SakOU11/2002.

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that the committee used for comparison. The chosen solution had little support in the Bible translations that they used for comparison and no support at all in the literal Bible translations.51 As noted, the Swedish and Danish translations have partitive renderings, as do the French TOB (“Premier-né de toute créature”) and several of the German translations (Zürcher 1966, Schlachter, Einheitsübersetzung, Elberfelder). The Luther (“der Erstgeborne vor allen Kreaturen”) is an exception. Many of the English translations used for comparison had partitive renderings (KJV, JB, Zürcher, NASB, Amplified, Rheims, NAB, NJB, NRSV). Hallvard Hagelia, who was a member of the TC at that time and was present at the meeting where the text was treated, remembers that they spent a lot of time on Col 1:15–20.52 One would then have expected them to notice the difference between their version and the other translations they used for comparison. It appears that they ignored this difference. There were only two New Testament scholars at the meeting: the TC leader, Hans Kvalbein, and theological consultant, Johnstad. It is likely that Kvalbein and Johnstad were of one mind on the matter; their joint opinion must have been decisive.

5.4

Avoiding a Poet’s Suggestion

After the changes in the TC, the rendering of Col 1:15 seems to have remained unaltered right until the last process of editing. The translation of Colossians received preliminary approval from the board on 2 April, 2003, and was published as a trial text of the translation to come.53 The version of Col 1:15 in the trial publication (“the firstborn, who stands over all creation”) did not, however, end up in the final official translation. The case was yet to take an interesting turn. In the last process of editing, the Norwegian poets, Paal-Helge Haugen and Hanne Ørstavik, read through all the drafts of the NT texts. Ørstavik did not comment on this verse, but Haugen’s comment is notable. Although Haugen did not know Greek, he familiarised himself with exegetical literature and used Bible software so that he could follow the syntax of the Greek text.54 Sagrusten and Mørk read through Haugen’s remarks in November 2004 and determined which 51 Hallvard Hagelia, who was member of the committee at that time, informs that they particularly looked at NO1978/85, the Swedish SO2000 and the Danish DO92. They also compared with the French TOB and other English, German and Norwegian translations (correspondence 2 April 2015). 52 Correspondance 8 April, 2015. 53 Det Norske Bibelselskap, NTR – Det nye testamente revidert : Matteusevangeliet, Efeserbrevet, Kolosserbrevet. 54 Confirmed through telephone interview 22 February, 2017.

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comments warranted follow-up.55 Haugen wrote an interesting comment about the translation of verse 15. He put a question mark above the rendering “who stands over all creation” and commented, “Shouldn’t it simply be ‘the firstborn in creation’? (cf. the source text).”56 It seems clear that he was wondering about the chosen rendering, which he contrasted with the source text. This was the only place in the draft where Haugen challenged the exegesis. The normal procedure at this stage of the process would have been for Mørk and Sagrusten to sit with the text, evaluate Haugen’s suggestions, and change the text if they felt his comments were good. If Haugen’s comments had pertained to larger theological topics, such as this one, they would have contacted the leader of the TC (Hans Kvalbein), who would have had a strong mandate regarding such questions.57 It is also likely that they consulted with the theological consultant (Johnstad) regarding a question like this one. After they discussed Haugen’s comment on Col 1:15, the verse changed from “the firstborn, who stands over all creation” to “the firstborn before all creation.” Once more, Haugen’s comment brought up the question of whether the expression should be rendered as a partitive expression. In his explicit comment, Haugen seemed to wonder what had happened to the rendering in a translation that was supposed to be literal and to translate the form of the text. One would naturally think that his comment provoked a discussion of the theological and, thereby, Christological implications of such a rendering. The fact that the group changed the text at such a late stage in the process seems to support this.58 There exists no comment about this change in the meeting minutes available in the archive. However, after this discussion, the text changed from “the firstborn, who stands over all creation”/“den førstefødte, som står over alt det skapte” to a temporal solution, “the firstborn before all creation”/“den førstefødte før alt det skapte.” Now, what about Haugen’s comment? The drastic change did not relate to Haugen’s comment at all. Hence, it clearly distanced the group theologically from the comment. It is obvious that RC had a strong opinion against a partitive rendering as one was not apparent in the text or in a footnote. The RC was authorised to make stylistic changes but not exegetical changes such as this one. Yet they did it anyhow, in conflict with the resolutions from the TC. Moreover, the change was not brought up at future TC meetings.59 The RC did, however, give

55 56 57 58

NBS. Written on the draft. Uncategorised in a folder named “Paal-Helge Haugen”. Ibid. NBS, digital archive, “Til sluttred.-OU-utvalg – kommenterte tekster fa PHH.doc.” This was late in the process for the translation of the New Testament, as it was published in 2005 and later included (with some adjustment) together with the translation of Old Testament in 2011 (hence Bibel 2011). 59 NBS, digital archive, TC minutes of meetings.

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the board an explanation of the change. It appears in the minutes of the board meeting of 31 March, 2005: New text: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn⌐before all creation. • Why before? Temporal genitive refers to an earlier stage in the course of events, and before is interpreted as the most likely interpretation.60 The board was, however, not in a position to follow the discussion of the translation process and had no opportunity to consider this rationale. Also of importance was the fact that the board mainly comprised non-theologians. This question was presented as a grammatical question, and, in such instances, they would have to trust the competence of the experts. In correspondence between the theological consultant and the project leader, the theological consultant argued for a more open formulation in the translation of the genitive phrase in 2 Tim 1:8 and then noted,61 “We have in the NTR [the trial publication series of the texts, cf. above] consciously reduced the use of interpretative genitives.”62 The conscious reduction of interpretative solutions reflected the guidelines of Bibel 2011, in which one of the objectives was (as noted) “to recreate the literary structures of the source text where a meaning-based translation had led to a disregard of literary form and structure.”63 Overall, through the process described, this principle was pushed aside so that a certain meaning could assert itself: Christ is qualitatively different from “all creation.” Consequently, renderings that might have been open to other interpretations were avoided not only in the text but also in its footnote, where the suggested interpretations reflected the same tendency.64 The translation chosen did not have any support in the various literal translations used for comparison, and, as we have seen, the partitive rendering was also present in many meaning translations. This was quite surprising given that comparison with other translations was an important tool in the process. In this regard, the rendering was quite unique. 60 NBS, digital archive, Sak S12/2005. 61 Correspondence between Mørk and Johnstad, 18 January, 2005. NBS, digital archive. 62 All the texts were published (5 vols.) in a series called “The New Testament Revised” (NTR) These had received a preliminary approval from the board of the NBS. 63 Mørk, Engaging, 153. 64 The note reads, “‘first-’ can mean ‘first in time’ or ‘foremost in rank’ (translated from ‘første’ kan bety ‘først i tid’ eller ‘fremst i rang’).” This is not, however, pointed out in other texts in the New Testament where Jesus is depicted as “firstborn,” cf. Rom 8:29; Heb 1:6; 12:23; Rev 1:5. They have only specified this in the footnote of Col 1:15, and this might suggest the importance of this verse.

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To be fair, we need to raise the question as to whether there are any other legitimate literal renderings for the expression in Col 1:15. We also need to ask whether the form of the text is a controversial issue in the exegetical literature on Col 1:15.

6.

Form and Meaning in Exegetical Commentaries on Colossians

In the exegetical literature, the distinction between the form and the meaning of a text is not always clear. This may be due to the convention of the commentary genre as a result of which the commentators are especially interested in the meaning and theological implications of the text. Here, it is customary for the commentators to develop different interpretations and then choose the one that they deem most credible. This exposition often takes place when they are commenting on the text. When the commentator has offered an ambiguous translation, it becomes clear that he or she distinguishes between the form and the meaning of the text. In the commentaries on Colossians, many commentators employ partitive renderings of the expression in Col 1:15.65 The translation may be ambiguous, but the exposition provides a clearer explanation of the given expression. This practice probably illustrates that they distinguish between the form and meaning of the text and that they consider the partitive rendering to be a literal translation of the form of the text. However, when commentators render the presumed meaning of the text as translation, the distinction between the form and meaning of the text can become more blurred. Yet many of the scholars who employ a meaning translation simultaneously emphasise the literal rendering of the text’s form. This is, for instance, the case in the commentaries by Barth and Blanke, Lindemann, Lohmeyer, Schweizer, O’Brien and Bruce and Wright.66 In all these instances, the 65 Dunn, Epistles, 83; 89–90; Sumney, Colossians, 62; 65: (“the firstborn of all creation”); Wilson, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 123; 135: (“the first-born of all creation”); Talbert, Ephesians and Colossians, 184; 187: (“firstborn of all creation”); Bird, Colossians and Philemon, 47; 52: (“the firstborn of all creation”); Thompson, Colossians & Philemon, 27; 32: (“the firstborn of all creation”); Schweizer, Letter to the Colossians, (“first-born of all creation”); “Erstgeborener aller Schöpfung” in Schweizers’ original, Schweizer, Brief an Die Kolosser, 58. N. T. Wright, Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon, 65. 66 Barth and Blanke, Colossians, 194: “He is the image of God, who is not seen, First-born over all creation (literally: first-born of all creation).” Lindemann uses the translation “der Erstgeborene gegenüber aller Schöpfung,” but in his comment he renders the expression literally, in a way that corresponds with the use of partitive genitive in German: “Christus heißt ‘der Erstgeborene aller Schöpfung.’” Lindemann, Kolosserbrief, 24–26. Similarly with Lohmeyer, who operates with the translation “Erstgeborener vor allem was geschaffen wird,” while at the same time specifying the literal rendering: “Die zweite Wendung [verse 15b] bestimmt den Gendanken des ebenbildlichen Seins näher: ‘Erstgeborener aller Schöpfung.’” Lohmeyer,

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literal form of the text is always rendered as a partitive expression. Thus, there is consensus in the commentaries regarding the literal translation of the form of the text. It is never discussed as a grammatical question. The matter in dispute relates, however, to the Christological implication of the expression. Compared to this, the translation process of Bibel 2011 appears to be striking since the genitive of comparison and the temporal genitive were presented as two clear alternatives. The final rendering in Bibel 2011 (“the firstborn before all creation”) was also legitimised before the board as a temporal genitive. In addition, the description of a temporal genitive in Greek grammars and its use in Greek literature did not correspond to its use in our text. Smyth describes “genitive of time” as follows: “The genitive denotes the time within which, or at a certain point of which, an action takes place.”67 It is therefore hard to see that a “temporal genitive refers to an earlier stage in the course of events,” which was stated as the reason for the change before the board in the NBS. This reasoning also falls short of the syntax of the sentence. Syntactically, the expression πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως stands as an apposition of ει᾿κὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου (“the image of the invisible God”). This makes it even more difficult to consider verse 15b as referring to “an earlier stage in the course of events.” There are no parallels in the NTor the LXX that involve a genitive expression being used in such a manner, nor are there other examples in NO1978/85 or Bibel 2011 where a genitive expression is similarly translated. The same applies to the genitive of comparison, which could justify viewing the rendering in NO1978/85 (“the firstborn, who stands over all creation”) as a literal rendering. As noted in Smyth’s grammar, “Adjectives of the comparative degree or implying comparison take the genitive.”68

Briefe an die Kolosser und an Philemon, 41; 55. Schweizer, Brief an die Kolosser, 58; 186. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, 32; 44. Wright translates the expression as “firstborn of all creation” and then comments on the rendering in the NIV, from which he usually quotes: “Christ is the firstborn over all creation. […] The title ‘firstborn’ […] conveys the idea of priority in both time and rank, and we should not foreclose on either of these options (NIV, in its paraphrase, allows only for the idea of rank),” Wright, Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon, 65; 71. Bruce employs two renderings but specifies the relationship between the literal rendering and the “clarifying” meaning translation: “Christ […] is the ‘firstborn of all creation,’ –or, as it is rendered above, ‘firstborn before all creation.’ The latter rendering is designed to clarify the force of the genitive phrase, ‘of all creation.’” Bruce, Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, 58–59. 67 Smyth, Greek Grammar, 336. This corresponds with other grammars as well. Blass and Debrunner, Greek Grammar, 99–100; Mayser, Grammatik Der Griechischen Papyri., vol. 2, 224, (§87); Leivestad and Sandvei, Nytestamentlig gresk grammatikk, 183; Blomqvist and Jastrup, Grekisk – Græsk grammatik, 185. 68 Smyth, Greek Grammar, 334. Cf. also Schwyzer and Debrunner, Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 2, 8; Leivestad and Sandvei, Nytestamentlig gresk grammatikk, 184; Blomqvist and Jastrup, Grekisk – Græsk grammatik, 182–84.

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This occurs quite often in the NT.69 In Col 1:15, however, there is neither an adjective in the comparative degree nor an adjective that implies comparison. The word πρωτότοκος cannot be compared in this way. Being a firstborn is something that one is or is not, and it is not something that one can be more than others or to a greater extent than somebody else. The adjective πρωτότοκος is also used as a noun in the verse, something that further eliminates the possibility of a match with this type of genitive. In the reception history, there is no trace of an interpretation of this expression as a comparison. None of the Church Fathers interpreted the expression in this way, and none of the Latin translations has rendered the expression similarly. By contrast, the Latin translations have rendered the expression in the genitive (Vulgate: primogenitus omnis creaturae) and not in the ablative, which would have been the case if it was understood as a comparison.70 Ultimately, then, it seems that we are stuck with the partitive genitive as the only possible solution–if the goal is to render the form of the text. Thus, Bibel 2011 is violating its own principles, and the rendering of Col 1:15 can be characterised as being no less than a meaning translation. In other cases in the New Testament, it is commonplace for the firstborn (Jesus) to be (at least linguistically) included in and connected to the group that he is firstborn of/among (Rom 8:29; Col 1:18; Rev 1:5). This inclusive sense also occurs frequently in the LXX. In 33 instances, πρωτότοκος introduces a partitive expression (in the genitive).71 This means that the partitive use of πρωτότοκος has close parallels. The partitive genitive is otherwise very common in the NT.

7.

Ideology: Consciously or Unconsciously Applied?

Let us go back to one of the initial questions. Was ideology consciously or unconsciously applied here? The ideological effect is the same, regardless of the intentions. The systematic avoidance of the literal rendering suggests, however, that the result was not accidental. In the last instance,particularly with the poet’s critical question, it is extremely unlikely that the actors did not speak about the possible Christological implications of the suggested rendering. The end result was somewhat surprising given that Bibel 2011 was supposed to leap away from 69 Matt 3:11; 6:25; 11:1x2; 12:42; 45; 13:32x2; 21:36; 27:64; Mark 1:7; 4:31; 32; 12:31, 33; Luke 3:16; 7.28x2; 11:26x2; 11:31, 32; 12:23; 14:8; 21:3; John 1:50; 4:12; 5:20, 36; 7:31; 8:53; 10:29; 13:16; 14:12, 28; 15:13; 20; Acts 4:22; 1 Cor 1:25x2; 10:22; Heb 1:4; 3:3; 2 Pet 2:20; 1 John 3:20; 3 John 4; Rev 2:19. 70 Hockel, Christus der Erstgeborene, 33. 71 A total of 33 instances in: Gen 4:4; Ex 11:5; 12:29; 13:13, 15; 22:28; 34:19, 20; Num 3:41, 45–46, 50; 18:15, 17; Deut 12:6, 17; 14:23; 15:19; 33:17; Neh 10:37; Tob 5:14; Ezek 44:30.

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the explanatory tendency in NO1978. The result was also notable as Bibel 2011 was supposed be a translation that respected the historical context of the text and the creeds should have had no say in that context.72 I believe this principle can explain why the ideological choices are so hidden and implicit in the material. They are hidden because the alternative renderings are wrapped up in grammar (genitive of comparison and temporal genitive). The material had to take this form in order to get through the process and gain acceptance. The solution would not have obtained the scholarly legitimacy it needed if someone had argued for it using a theological argument. This practical case sheds light on an interesting question: “How does our preconception affect our understanding?” Based on these cases, it is safe to conclude that predisposition governed the meanings chosen.73 In this case, the preconceptions and ideological orientation of some of the participants seem to have predisposed them to avoidance of the partitive renderings and consideration of other options. I believe that at least some of the actors thought of the temporal genitive as a possible interpretation, but, as is evident, such an interpretation is nowhere to be found in the exegetical commentaries on Colossians. Closely related is the fact that the temporal genitive is not used in this way in New Testament Greek, nor is it used similarly in Classical Greek for that matter. In an ideological-critical study, a self-critical comment is warranted. In order to adjust my understanding of the translation process, I have spoken to and corresponded with all the living actors mentioned in this paper. The theological consultant of Bibel 2011 was also present at and responded to the conference presentation of an earlier draft of this article.74 I have taken their responses into consideration in this article. In addition, I have consulted a wide range of exegetical commentaries and many Bible translations to ensure that I view the chosen renderings in a larger context. I have also done extensive searches in biblical software for genitive phrases that could correspond to “temporal genitive” and “genitive of comparison.” The lack of linguistic parallels and parallel renderings in other literal Bible translations and the tendencies in the overall translation process have left me convinced that theology was the driving force for the translation of Col 1:15 in NO1978 and Bibel 2011. I have refrained from commenting on the meaning of πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως. My analysis has, however, reached the conclusion that the ambiguity of the Greek expression is far 72 Johnstad has also confirmed this in a telephone interview, 28 March, 2014. Aasgaard says that this premise was stated loud and clear on several occasions during the translation process. Telephone interview, 25 March, 2014. 73 Cosgrove, Introduction, 3: “Not only do interpreters necessarily bring a preunderstanding to the text that enables them to understand at all, they also bring commitments, a stake in the outcome of interpretation, a will to interpret in a certain direction.” 74 Nordic New Testament Conference, Aarhus University, 31 May, 2015.

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greater than what the translations of the NBS present. Bible translation is a complex issue, and it would be unfair to say that I have dealt with all of the associated complexities in this article. However, my dissertation undertakes a more thorough investigation.75

8.

Last Remarks

The impact of the reception history of Col 1:15 and the Arian and Nicene controversy must be seen as the backdrop for the translation process of both NO1978/85 and Bibel 2011. Ideology is the reason why the partitive alternative was omitted and avoided several times in these translations and other alternatives were preferred. This may be legitimate in a meaning translation such as NO1978/ 85, but it is problematic in a literal and literary translation such as Bibel 2011, which promises the reader a translation that is “closer to the source text.”76 The avoidance of a partitive genitive here seems to come from the fear that such a translation would imply that Christ is part of creation. This implication cannot, however, be established on the basis of Col 1:15 alone. Meaning is based on context, and verse 15 needs to be interpreted in light of the context of Col 1:15–20. However, that presupposes that the reader is allowed to interpret.

9.

Outlook

As this article suggests, theology is an important factor in Bible translations. This is increasingly being recognised.77 As Porter puts it, “The notion of theology having an impact on translation has always cast its shadow on the enterprise.”78 Surprisingly, very little research has been done on exactly how this happens in the making of a translation.79 This could very well open up a new area of research that combines empirically based research with traditional disciplines within Biblical Studies. Such an undertaking could fill the gap in research on reception history 75 The dissertation is entitled “The Christology of the Norwegian Bible Society: Ideology and Translation.” In Norwegian: “Bibelselskapets kristologi. Ideologi og oversettelse.” For the revised and updated published version, see Beckmann, Jesus i oversettelse. 76 The slogan “closer to the source text and closer to the target language,” and was used in the marketing of Bibel 2011. Mørk, Engaging, 153. 77 Porter, Translating, 6. 78 Ibid. 79 The only possible study I have been able to trace is Richard Pleijel’s PhD thesis (University of Uppsala, Sweden) on the Swedish translation Bibel 2000. Pleijel has analyzed the translation process of key anthropological terms in the Old Testament translation, and has examined the archive material that documents this process.

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with “historical-critical attention to the cultural and socio-economic process of production, marketing, and consumption of Bibles and the biblical,” as Timothy Beal has indicated.80 Such a focus would be fruitful for the study of reception history on the Bible as the Bible is “not only received through the centuries in different cultural contexts but is also variously made and remade with these contexts, driven as much by more or less conscious ideological struggles as by commercial competition.”81 For the field of Bible translation, such an approach would take into account the context in which translations were created and analyse how the contextual factors influenced the end result, that is, the Bible, which many read as the unmediated word of God. Seeing the Bible as a cultural product is a crucial insight. The Bible is always culturally defined, and Bible translations have always been an important tool in shaping theological discourse. In this way, a Bible translation is always a piece of theology in the making. I thank Prof. Årstein Justnes and Prof. Tor Vegge for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Bibliography Barth, M./H. Blanke., Colossians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. (translated by A. B. Beck. AB) Doubleday 1995. Beal, T., Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures, BibInt 19 (2011) 357–72. Beckmann, M., Jesus i oversettelse. Kristologiske tekster i Bibelselskapets oversettelser 1959–2011, Cappelen Damm Akademisk 2019. Beckmann, M.K./Å. Justnes., Når tekst og teologi konkurrerer. Kolosserne 1,15, Kolosserne 1,18 og Åpenbaringen 3,14 i Bibelselskapets oversettelser, in: Å. Justnes; H. Hagelia and T. Vegge (eds.), Ny Bibel, nye perspektiver. Grunntekster, oversettelse og teologi. Portal Akademisk (2013) 63–74 Bird, M.F., Colossians and Philemon. (NCCS), Cascade Books 2009. Blass, F.W./A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. (translated by R.W. Funk) University of Chicago Press 1961. Blomqvist, J./P.O. Jastrup, Grekisk – græsk grammatik. Akademisk Forlag 1991. Bratcher, R. G./E. A. Nida, A Translator’s Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians and to Philemon (Helps for translators 20), United Bible Societies 1977. Brenner, A./J.W. van Henten., Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion, (JSOT), Sheffield Academic 2002. Bruce, F. F. The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, (NICNT), Eerdmans 1984. 80 Beal, Reception History, 366. 81 Ibid., 369. Italics in original.

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Cosgrove, C.H., Introduction, in: ed. C.H. Cosgrove (ed.), The Meanings We Choose: Hermeneutical Ethics, Indeterminacy and the Conflict of Interpretations, T&T Clark, (2004). Dunn, J.D.G., Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, (2. ed.), SCM 1989. –, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon: A Commentary on the Greek Text, (NIGTC) Eerdmans 1996. Gadamer, H.G., Truth and Method, (translated by J. Weinsheimer, 2. rev. Ed), Sheed & Ward 1989. Hatim, B./I. Mason, The Translator as Communicator, Routledge 1997. Hockel, A., Christus der Erstgeborene: Zur Geschichte der Exegese von Kol 1,15, PatmosVerlag 1965. Knausgård, K.O. Hjelpemann på Bibelen, in: C. Amadou and A. Aschim (eds.), Bibelsk, Verbum 2011, 33–58. Kohlenberger, J.R., The Precise Parallel New Testament, Oxford University Press 1996. Leivestad, R./B.H. Sandvei, Nytestamentlig gresk grammatikk. Universitetsforlaget 1996. Lindemann, A., Der Kolosserbrief, (ZBK), Theologischer Verlag 1983. Lohmeyer, E. Die Briefe an die Kolosser und an Philemon, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1930. Mayser, E., Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemäerzeit, (vol. 2–Satzlehre. Analytischer Teil), De Gruyter 1934. Munday, J., Translation and Ideology, The Translator 13, no. 2 (2007) 195–217. Mørk, H., Å gjendikte Gud. Bibeloversettelse som skjønnlitterær kunst, Mellom 1, no. 1, (2015) 42–50. –, Hearing the Voice of the Other: Engaging Poets and Writers as Bible Translators, with a Case Study on Isaiah 7.14, BT 63, no. 3 (2012) 152–68. Nida, A./C. R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation. Helps for Translators 8, United Bible Societies 1969. O’Brien, P.T., Colossians, Philemon. WBC 44, Word Books 1982. Ogden, G.S., Is It “And” or “But”? Ideology and Translation, BT 52, no. 3 (2001) 327–35. Porter, S.E., Translating the New Testament: An Introduction to Issues of Text, Translation, and Theology, in Translating the New Testament: Text, Translation, Theology, (McMaster New Testament studies), Eerdmans 2009, 1–12. Porter, S.E./M.J. Boda, Translating the New Testament: Text, Translation, Theology, (McMaster New Testament studies), Eerdmans 2009. Rian, D., Norske bibeloversettelser – sett på bakgrunn av dansk-norsk bibeloversettelsestradisjon, in D Rian (ed.), Bibel og bibeloversettelse, Tapir Forlag 1995, 9–42. Schweizer, E., Der Brief an die Kolosser, Benziger 1976. –, The Letter to the Colossians : A Commentary, (translated by A. Chester), SPCK 1982. Schwyzer, E./A. Debrunner, Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft: Griechische Grammatik: Auf der Grundlage von Karl Brugmanns griechischer Grammatik, (vol. 2–Syntax und syntaktische Stilistik. 3. ed.), C.H. Beck 1966. Smyth, H.W., Greek Grammar, Harvard University Press 1956. Sumney, J.L., Colossians: A Commentary, (NTL), Westminster John Knox 2008. Talbert, C.H., Ephesians and Colossians, (Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament), Baker Academic 2007.

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The Complete Parallel Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/ Deuterocanonical Books: New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Oxford University Press 1993. Thompson, M.M., Colossians & Philemon, (Two Horizons New Testament Commentary), Eerdmans 2005. Venuti, L., The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, (Translation Studies), Routledge 1995. Wilson, R.M., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Colossians and Philemon, (The International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments), T&T Clark 2005. Wilt, T., Bible Translation: Frames of Reference, St. Jerome Publishing 2003. Wright, N.T. The Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary, (TNTC), InterVarsity 1986. Ørstavik, H., Hvor i språket er det Gud når fram?, in C. Amadou and A. Aschim(eds.), Bibelsk, Verbum 2011, 79–84.

Bible translations Bibel 2000, Verbum 1999. [SO2000] Bibelen. Den hellige Skrifts kanoniske Bøger. Autoriseret af Hendes Majestæt Dronning Margrethe II, Det Danske Bibelselskab 1992. [DO92] Bibelen. Den hellige Skrifts kanoniske Bøger, P. Haase & Søn 1948. [DO48] Bibeln eller Den Heliga Skrift. Av Konungen gillad och stadfäst, Norstedts 1917. [SVE17] Bonnes Nouvelles Aujourd’hui: le Nouveau Testament traduit en francais courant d’après ’ le texte grec, Les Sociétés Bibliques 1971. [Bonnes Nouvelles] Den hellige skrift. Bibelen. Det gamle og Det nye testamente, Bibelselskapet 1978, rev. 1985. [NO1978(/85)] Den hellige skrift. Bibelen. Det gamle og Det nye testamentet, Bibelselskapet 2011. Die Bibel oder die ganze Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments. Nach der deutschen Übersetzung Martin Luthers, Württembergische Bibelanstalt 1964; 1984. [Luther] Die Gute Nachricht. Das Neue Testament in heutigem Deutsch, Württembergische Bibelanstalt 1971. [Gute Nachricht] Die Heilige Schrift: aus dem Grundtext übersetzt: revidierte Elberfelder Bibel, Brockhaus 1985. [Elberfelder] Die Zürcher Bibel. Die Heilige Schrift des Alten und des Neuen Testaments, Verlag der Zwingli-Bibel 1942, 1966. [Zürcher] Einheitsübersetzung der Heiligen Schrift. Das Neue Testament, Katolischen Bibelanstalt 1972. [Einheitsübersetzung NT] English Standard Version Bible with Apocrypha. Oxford University Press 2001. [ESV] Good News Bible. The Bible in Today’s English Version, American Bible Society 1976. [TEV] Good News for Modern Man: The New Testament in Today’s English Version, American Bible Society 1966. [TEV NT]

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Hedegård, D. Nya testamentet på vår tids språk. Del 2. Apostelgärningarna, breven, Uppenbarelsesboken. Ny översättning med forklarende notater, Evangeliska-FosterlandsStiftelsen Bokförlag 1965. [Hedegård] Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version, American Bible Society 1995. [CEV] La Sainte Bible traduite en francais sous la direction de l’École biblique de Jérusalem, Cerf ’ 1955. [Jérusalem] Matt. NTR – Det nye testamente revidert med oversetternes kommentarer. Bind 3: Matteusevangeliet, Efeserbrevet og Kolosserbrevet, Det Norske Bibelselskap 2004. New American Standard Bible, A. J. Holman 1977. [NASB] NET Bible. New English Translation, Biblical Studies Press 2001. [NET Bible] Revised English Version, Spirit & Truth Fellowship International 2013. [REV] The Amplified New Testament, Zondervan 1987. [Amplified] The Bible: Authorized King James Version, Oxford University Press 1997. [KJV] The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, T. Nelson 1901. [ASV] The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version Containing the Old and New Testaments, T. Nelson 1952. [RSV] The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books: New Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press 1989. [NRSV] The Holy Bible: New International Version, Zondervan 1978, 1984. [NIV] The Holy Bible, the Catholic Bible, Douay-Rheims version, Benziger Bros. 1941. [DouayRheims] The Jerusalem Bible, Darton, Longman & Todd 1966. [JB] The New American Bible: Translated from the Original Languages with Critical Use of All the Ancient Sources, P.J. Kenedy & Sons 1970. [NAB] The New English Bible, Oxford University Press 1970. [NEB] The New English Bible: New Testament, Oxford University Press 1961. [NEB NT] The New Jerusalem Bible, Darton, Longman & Todd 1985. [NJB] The Revised English Bible, Oxford University Press 1989. [REB] Traduction œcuménique de la Bible: comprenant l’Ancien el le Nouveau Testament, Alliance Biblique Universelle 1975. [TOB] Traduction œcuménique de la Bible. Noveau Testament, Cerf 1972. [TOB NT] Wilckens, U., Das Neue Testament. Übersetzt und kommentiert von Ulrich Wilckens, Furche-Verlag and Benziger Verlag 1970. [Wilkens]

Correspondence Aasgaard, Reidar, Personal correspondence (email) 29 March, 2016. Hagelia, Hallvard, Personal correspondence (email) 8 April, 2015.

Interviews Aasgaard, Reidar, Telephone interview 25 March, 2014; personal interview 30 April, 2015.

102 Haugen, Paal-Helge, Telephone interview 22 February, 2017. Johnstad, Gunnar, Telephone interview 28 March, 2014. Sandvik, Bjørn, Telephone interview 3 September, 2013.

Archive The physical archives of the NBS at their offices in Oslo, Norway. The digital archive of the NBS.

Morten Beckmann

II. Gender, Empire, Emotion, and Drama

Martin Friis

Jesus, a Wise and Courageous Man Representations of Masculinity in the Fourth Gospel1

The portraits of Jesus in the four canonical Gospels are highly variable and at times even contradictory. Nowhere is this more apparent than in their depictions of Jesus’ perceived masculinity. This article demonstrates how the Johannine Jesus consistently embodies a set of masculine character traits that are more pronounced in this Gospel than in the synoptic Gospels. Particular emphasis is placed on John’s depictions of Jesus’ bravery, outspokenness, wisdom and (fore)knowledge. These traits serve as means for this evangelist to flesh out the personality and virtuous nature of his main protagonist. In doing so, John includes in his narrative various features that also abound throughout the works of other ancient authors. This article therefore seeks to illustrate how John’s portrait of Jesus is easily comparable to representations of mighty men in the writings of a number of prominent Greek authors, including Xenophon, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch and Josephus. Throughout their works, these authors all disclose their own understanding of masculinity and male identity. I argue that John’s portrayal of Jesus reveals his attitude towards the prevailing perceptions of masculinity and proper masculine behaviour in the Greco-Roman world. As such, the article serves to further the understanding of ancient masculinity, a topic, which is also explored by other scholars in the field of gender studies.

1 This article is an updated and revised version of a paper, entitled “A Wise and Courageous Man: The Depiction of Jesus in John,” presented at the Nordic New Testament Conference 2015 in the session: Jesus and the Gospels. My thanks to the chair, Prof. Mogens Müller, for accepting my paper, and to my co-presenters and the other participants in the session for a highly fruitful discussion. I should also like to thank my peer-reviewer for his/her many insightful comments and suggestions. The translations from the Fourth Gospel are all my own. Translations from the writings of other Greek authors follow those in the respective editions of the Loeb Classical Library.

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Jesus, a Masculine Man

What does it take to be a real man? What does he look like? What must he say and do? The masculine ideals of our modern age are disseminated in various forms of cultural discourse, including on television and in the cinema. For instance, some of the highest-grossing movies in recent years are centred on the deeds of great and manly men and often of outright super-men. In their actions and words, these men embody a certain (more or less, conventional) set of defining character traits, which we have now come to associate with masculinity and ideal male behaviour. The depictions and configurations of these traits have all been explored and heavily debated in recent years by scholars in the field of masculinity studies.2 Depictions of manly and heroic men are, however, by no means a new phenomenon. Ancient works too are replete with accounts of the words and deeds of famous men (the so-called res gestae). In their depictions of such manly men, the ancient authors provide extensive examples of (un)manly behaviour. They typically single out those characteristics and personality traits that they consider worthy of imitation or avoidance by others (i. e. men). For examples of this, one need look no further than to the Homeric poems and their (much later) Latin counterpart in Virgil’s Aeneid, both of which contain vivid portraits of men who exude courage and/or deceit. Similar traits also abound in the writings of ancient biographers including Xenophon, Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch. Similarly, in their accounts of great events of the past, the ancient historians also frequently highlight the deeds and words of mighty men such as Pericles (in Thucydides), the emperors and Seneca (in Tacitus) and the heroes and villains of the Old Testament (in Josephus). Thus, many ancient authors display an interest in the adventures of mighty men – of men who in their bodies and minds personify certain masculine ideals and defining male character traits. In this respect, the author of the Fourth Gospel is certainly no exception. The Johannine Jesus too embodies several masculine virtues that in antiquity were commonly attributed to manly men. In the following, I shall analyse some of these defining male characteristics, and compare them to similar masculine qualities that abound throughout the works of Xenophon, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch and Josephus.3 In particular, I shall 2 For general introductions to the field of masculinity studies, see the works of R.W. Connell (Gender and Power; Masculinities). See also H. Brod, ed., The Making of Masculinities; S. Kimmel, ed., Changing Men; and idem with R.W. Connell and J. Hearn, eds., Handbook of Studies in Men & Masculinities. 3 Other examples could of course be cited, including Philo’s On the Life of Moses and the depictions of Peter and Paul in Acts. The former has already been touched upon by Coleen M. Conway (mentioned below). For an extensive analysis of masculinity in Acts, see the recent

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focus on three central behavioural characteristics through which the Johannine Jesus displays his own masculinity, namely his bravery, outspokenness and wisdom.4 I approach my analysis of the Johannine Jesus from the point of view of masculinity studies, a subgroup within the larger interdisciplinary field of gender studies. As the name suggests, scholars engaged in this sub-discipline focus on depictions and configurations of masculinity and male identity in society and various types of social discourse. In recent years, the perceptions of masculinity (or alternatively, masculinities) in antiquity and representations of masculine ideals in Greco-Roman literature have been explored in various anthologies and monographs.5 Similarly, the concept of masculinity and its depiction in the New Testament have also seen a rise in popularity.6 Of particular interest for my present study is David Clines’ article “Ecce Vir, or, Gendering the Son of Man” (1998) and Coleen M. Conway’s monograph Behold the Man: Jesus and GrecoRoman Masculinity (2008).7 Clines and Conway both argue that Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is depicted as a decidedly masculine figure. Conway for instance notes that the Fourth Gospel “presents an image of Jesus as one who ranks above all others and models the traits that defined ideal masculinity in the first-century Greco-Roman world.”8

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monograph by B.E. Wilson (Unmanly Men) and several articles in Stephen D. Moore and Janice. C. Anderson, eds., New Testament Masculinities. Other character traits could be mentioned and analysed such as Jesus’ physical appearance (see however below in the second section) and his behaviour around other men (and women), including the relationship with his disciples (see however below on Jesus’ exemplary behaviour at the end of the second section and on his teaching capabilities as explored in the fourth section) and with the Jewish and Roman authorities. For the sake of conciseness, however, I limit my analysis to the aforementioned three male attributes. For recent anthologies on perceptions and configurations of masculinity in the Greco-Roman world, see Lin Foxhall and John Salmon, eds., Thinking Men; Ralph M. Rosen and Ineke Sluiter, eds., Andreia. For a general introduction to the concept of masculinity in ancient Greece, see Thomas van Nortwick, Imagining Men. For recent anthologies on masculinity in the New Testament (and the Bible in general), see Moore and Anderson, New Testament Masculinities; O. Creangã, ed., Men and Masculinity; and idem and P.-B. Smit, eds., Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded. For extensive bibliographies on ancient masculinities in New Testament studies, see Clines, Ecce Vir, 354–55, n. 6, and J. C. Anderson, S. D. Moore and S. H. Kim, Masculinity Studies. In a Nordic context, the many contributions by Halvor Moxnes have contributed significantly to the study of masculinity in the New Testament, e. g. “Det moderne gjennombrudd”; Making Jesus Masculine; and Placing Men. The various articles by Fredrik Ivarsson also deserve recognition in this context, e. g. A Man Has To Do; Vice Lists. D. Clines, Ecce Vir; Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man. The latter work is comprised of a series of chapters on the various depictions of the figure of Jesus in the New Testament writings from the Pauline letters and through to the Book of Revelation. Conway analyses the Johannine Jesus in the eighth chapter (142–57), which is based upon her previous article,“‘Behold the Man!’, Masculine Christology and the Fourth Gospel” in Moore and Anderson, New Testament Masculinities, 163–80. Conway, Behold the Man, 143.

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This notion of Jesus as the ideal man is for Conway intrinsically linked to his function as the incarnated word of God; for, as she notes, in the Fourth Gospel “the divine Logos becomes incarnate, necessarily, as the ideal man.”9 This of course also has an immense impact on Conway’s understanding of the Christology contained in the Gospel. She argues that the evangelist’s desire “to show the true divinity of Jesus (…) results in a particularly masculine Christology.”10 Throughout her analysis, she focuses primarily on Jesus’ self-control, authority and wisdom. These topics will all be touched upon in the following. In his article, Clines sets out with a similar purpose as that of Conway, namely “to analyse the way masculinity is constructed in the figure of Jesus in the Gospels.”11 Unlike Conway, however, Clines does not provide four separate readings of the varying depictions of Jesus in the Gospels. Instead, he aims to measure their collected impact; or, as he himself puts it, “my concern with the figure of Jesus is not with the differing representations of the character devised by the evangelists but with the effects of the composite portrait.”12 Although our modern perceptions of masculinity differ greatly from those in antiquity, Clines nonetheless finds that Jesus in the four Gospels is “a man’s man, by any standard, ancient or modern.”13 Clines, however, admits that it is worth exploring further, “for example, whether there is anything in the characterization of Jesus that breaches the typical masculinity of his period.”14 I too recognize that the depictions of Jesus in the Gospels, including that in the Fourth Gospel, may very well be at odds with the traditional values and virtues associated with maleness and masculinity in the ancient world.15 This article builds upon the insights provided by these scholars and argues that the Johannine Jesus is consistently presented as an ideal and proper man. I share the interest of Clines and Conway in John’s representation of Jesus and the ramifications of this portrayal for our understanding of Johannine masculinity. My manner of argumentation and (in particular) my choice of examples, however, differ significantly from theirs. Furthermore, I aim to demonstrate how John’s depictions of Jesus’ male virtues are easily comparable to those in the 9 Conway, Behold the Man, 149, her emphasis. 10 Conway, Behold the Man, 143; 149. 11 Clines, Ecce Vir, 354. Throughout his analysis, Clines does refer to specific passages in the Fourth Gospel, including those that depict Jesus’ relationship with various women (e. g. the woman at the well in John 4, the adulterous woman in John 8 and Martha and her sister in John 11) and men (e. g. Lazarus and the beloved disciple in John 11 and 19ff., respectively). The bulk of Clines’ examples are, however, drawn from the Synoptic Gospels. 12 Clines, Ecce Vir, 354. 13 Clines, Ecce Vir, 374. 14 Clines, Ecce Vir, 373. 15 This topic is further explored below, and especially in the fourth section on the wisdom of the Johannine Jesus.

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works of other Greek authors. I find that this apparent literary relationship is closer than Clines and Conway suggest. In sum: I intend to demonstrate that John’s portrait of Jesus is an amalgamation of the evangelist’s awareness of, and attitude towards, the prevailing perceptions of masculinity in his own time.

2.

Jesus, a Brave Man

By his deeds shall a man be known. A real man must dare to act. He must not waver in the face of danger. Ancient Greco-Roman authors provide ample examples of such personal bravery.16 Some men are praised for their bravery on the battlefield, such as for instance Achilles in the Iliad and Leonidas and his Spartans in Herodotus’ Histories 7.204–224 and in Plutarch’s Sayings of the Spartans 225 A-E. Other men are lauded for their courage in the face of unforeseeable dangers such as Ulysses on his long journey home in the Odyssey. Others again are commended for their political prowess and boldness, as is the case for Pericles in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and in Plutarch’s biographies. The Johannine Jesus too is a man of action. He has much to do (and say) throughout his lifetime. He is a highly assertive individual who claims to have special powers and authority (ἐξουσία) over life and death17 and “over all flesh (πάσης σαρκός)” (John 17:2). He also lays claim to a particular glory (δόξα) provided to him by the Father.18 So strong and powerful is the Johannine Jesus that he is capable of performing great miracles by a few words or short phrases alone, as is evident in his command to the servants at the wedding in Cana19 or to the recently deceased Lazarus.20 On other occasions, he makes use of a combination of deeds and words such as in the cleansing of the Temple,21 the feeding of the multitude22 and in his healing of the blind man.23 John further highlights the physicality of Jesus’ deeds through his repeated use of the term ‘signs’ (σημεῖα) as

16 A wealth of such examples is cited in the collection by Valerius Maximus (fl. First Century CE), Morgan, Popular, 137–138. 17 E. g. John 5:21–29. 18 E. g. John 5:41–44. 19 Cf. John 2:7. 20 Cf. John 11:43. Other examples of such short commands include Jesus’ words to the royal servant in Capernaum ’Go (πορεύου), your son lives’ (4:50) and his brief instruction to the ’Rise (ἔγειρε), grab (ἆρον) your mat and go (περιπάτει)’ (5:8). 21 Cf. John 2:14–17, compare Matt 21:12–13/Mark 11:15–17 and Luke 19:45–46. 22 Cf. John 6:10–12, compare Matt 14:18–19/Mark 6:41 and Luke 9:16. 23 Cf. John 9:6–7.

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a designation for an apparently rather well-defined subset of actions.24 Clines argues that although Jesus’ strength “is never described in the Gospels in physical terms”’, it “is never far from sight, and it is never of course said to be spiritual or moral.”25 I agree with Clines on his first point. Yet, I do find that there is a spiritual side to Jesus’ strength as well. To be sure, Jesus is a warrior. But he is no Achilles. He does not wage war by way of swords or bows and arrows, but rather through his deeds and in particular through his words. So much so that in his conversation with Pilate, he argues that had he been an earthly king, his followers – or literally, officers (ὑπηρέται) – surely would have fought (ἠγωνίζοντο) to prevent him from being given over to the Jews.26 Yet, in spite of his apparent interest in Jesus’ physical deeds, the author of the Fourth Gospel displays a remarkable lack of interest in Jesus’ physical body, including his appearance and lack of wounds in the passion narrative.27 Another physical aspect significantly underplayed in the Fourth Gospel (in comparison with the Synoptic Gospels) is that of Jesus’ earthly family. To be sure, Jesus is depicted as having a mother (John 2:1–5 and 19:25b–27), an earthly father (1:45 and 6:42) and brothers (7:3–8). Yet, Jesus’ relationship with his heavenly Father of course takes precedence over any and all of his earthly ties.28 Any true warrior must of course have a suitable opponent. The courage of a real man, of a true hero, is measured by the strength and size of his mortal enemy. Achilles has his Hector, and David his Goliath. So too does the Johannine Jesus have a fitting foil, the very world itself (ὁ κόσμος).29 In the Fourth Gospel, what ensues is a battle of (literally) cosmic proportions. And it is a battle that Jesus, by 24 E. g. John 2:11; 4:54; 6:2, 14, 26; 7:31; 9:16; 11:47, and 12:18, 37. For more on the signs in the Fourth Gospel, including their prevalence and importance, see Barrett, Gospel, 75–78. In a Nordic context, Bent Noack’s monograph Tegnene i Johannesevangeliet. Tydning og brug af Jesu undere is highly recommendable. Bultmann famously argued that these signs all originally originated in separate so-called “σημεῖα-Quelle” (signs source), Bultmann, Evangelium des Johannes, 78. For more on this hypothesis, see Fortna, The Gospel of Signs. 25 Clines, Ecce Vir, 355. That the Fourth Gospel displays a greater interest in Jesus’ heavenly descent over against that of his earthly family has for instance been emphasized by Adele Reinhartz in her article “And the Word Was Begotten”; consider also Conway, Behold the Man, 144–5. 26 Cf. John 18:36. The presence of anti-Semitic thought in the Fourth Gospel has been heavily debated and discussed in recent scholarship. For more on this issue, see Culpepper, AntiJudaism, 73–74 in particular, and McHugh, In him was life. For an introduction to the comparable issue in Luke-Acts, see Sanders, The Jews in Luke-Acts. 27 Cf. Conway, Behold the Man, 149–50. More on the Johannine Jesus’ body (and bodily harm) below in this section. 28 More on Jesus’ relationship to, and understanding of God, below in fourth section on the wisdom and knowledge of the Johannine Jesus. 29 Compare this to the somewhat peculiar appearance of Satan (or better still, the Devil – literally, ὁ διάβολος) and his relations to Judas (John 6:70 and 13:2) and the Jews (8:44). For more on this issue, see Culpepper, Anti-Judaism, 73–75.

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own admission no less, has already won. For as he triumphantly proclaims: “I have conquered the world” (John 16:33). He wins this battle not through brute force but through the ultimate self-sacrifice, his own death on the cross.30 John may here be attempting to subvert, and ultimately renegotiate, the classical trope of ‘the heroic warrior’: The courage of such great heroes as Achilles and Ajax was measured in their physical prowess and fighting capabilities. The bravery of the Johannine Jesus, however, is measured not in his abilities to inflict suffering on others, but rather in his willingness to endure suffering himself. Jesus’ prowess is equally as corporeal as that of the Greek heroes – and his opponent is just as dangerous as the greatest Trojan warriors. Yet, his fight is a spiritual one; and one involving his own body, which is just as broken and battered as that of Hector in the last songs of the Iliad. Another hallmark of a brave man is his composure under pressure.31 He must not waver nor give way to vivid displays of emotions. The Johannine Jesus too embodies this particular trait. In the words of Conway, “he [sc. Jesus] displays his ideal masculinity, as one would expect, through a complete control of the passions.”32 In certain situations, the masculine man is of course allowed (or even, expected) to become angry and to show a righteous wrath (e. g. Achilles in the Iliad, compare Eph. 4:26–27). Although he is not quick to anger, the Johannine Jesus does display aggressive tendencies on certain occasions such as in the cleansing of the Temple.33 In particular, in his speeches, he does not pull any punches. His words are often both severe and highly condemnatory.34 Yet, although he does display some emotions,35 the Johannine Jesus manages for the most part to keep them in check. Other ancient Greek authors also praised the manly virtues of self-composure and self-control. One illustrative example of this can be found in Xenophon’s biography on his teacher and mentor, Socrates. The former for instance recalls how the latter at one point remarked on sensual passion (ἀφροδισίων (…) τῶν καλῶν): “Avoid it resolutely (ι᾿σχυρῶς ἀπέχεσθαι): it is not easy to control yourself (σωφρονεῖν) once you meddle with that sort of thing” (Mem. 1.3.8). Similarly, Xenophon quotes Socrates for having asked his pupils if not every man (πᾶς ἀνήρ) “(s)hould (…) hold self-control (τὴν ἐγκράτειαν) to be the foundation of all virtue 30 For more on this notion of self-sacrifice, see below in the fourth section. 31 For examples of on the virtue of self-control as notes by Valerius Maximus, see Morgan, Popular, 145–47. On the general issue of self-control in, and around, the New Testament, see Wilson, Unmanly Men, 58–75. 32 Conway, Behold the Man, 146. 33 Cf. John 2:14–17. This example is also cited by Conway in Behold the Man, 146–47. On the issue of anger in ancient Greco-Roman literature, see Malherbe, Moral Exhortation. 34 E. g. John 4:17–18; 6:26; 8:39–47; 16:32 and 19:11. 35 E. g. John 11:33–35, 38 and 12:27.

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(ἀρετῆς εἶναι κρηπῖδα), and first lay this foundation firmly in his soul (ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ)?” (1.5.4). Socrates of course practised what he preached.36 Indeed, again according to Xenophon, so self-controlled (ἐγκρατής) was he “that he never chose the more agreeable (τὸ ἥδιον) over the better course (ἀντὶ τοῦ βελτίονος)” (4.8.11). In keeping with his unique sense of premonition, the self-composure of the Johannine Jesus is evident in his expressed awareness of the importance of selfsacrifice. This is particularly apparent in his words concerning ‘the hour (ἡ ὥρα)’ for the glorification of the Son of Man subsequent to his entry into Jerusalem in John 12. Although he recognizes that his soul is now troubled (τετάρακται), he sees no reason to ask of the Father that he might save him from this hour, for it is for that particular hour that he has come.37 He knows what awaits him at the end of the line. This notion of self-sacrifice also features heavily in the works of several ancient Greek authors. I shall limit my comparative analysis to two examples from Josephus’ Antiquities: As in the Old Testament, so too in the Antiquities, King Saul is painted in a bad light. According to Josephus, Saul does however possess a single redeeming quality, namely his willingness to look death straight in the face. For “although he knew of what was to come (τὰ συμβησόμενα) and his impending death (τὸν ἐπικείμενον θάνατον), which the prophet [sc. Samuel] had foretold, (…) he thought it noble (καλὸν ἡγήσατο εἶναι) to expose himself, his house and his children to these perils, and along with them, to fall fighting for his subjects” (Ant. 6.344–345). Another example of a valour in the face of certain death can be seen in Josephus’ depiction of Uriah the Hittite whom David’s commander-in–chief Joab (at David’s bidding of course) stations “at the place where he knew the enemy had been most troublesome (χαλεποὺς (…) γενομένους) to himself” (7.137). In 2 Sam 11, it is merely described how Uriah is then killed by the enemy.38 By comparison, Josephus’ account is much more fleshed out He notes that Uriah “eagerly (προθύμως) undertook the work” (7.138) and that he (unlike his compatriots) “was ashamed to flee and abandon his post,” wherefore he “remained to face the foe (ὑπέμεινε τοὺς πολεμίους), and met (ἐκδεξάμενος) their charge, slaying not a few (οὐκ ὀλίγους)” (7.140) until he was finally surrounded and slain by a far superior force. The Johannine Jesus puts forth a similar display of courage in the face of certain death on his long way to the cross. His self-sacrificial path to Golgotha has been laid out ahead of him – and ahead of time. To him there are no surprises. After all: Everything is proceeding according 36 E. g. Mem. 1.3.5–8 and 14–15. 37 Cf. John 12:27, compare Matt 26:38–39/Mark 14:34–36/Luke 22:31–44. A similar point has been made by Conway who notes that “(r)ather than expressing anguish, the Johannine Jesus faces death with the strength and courage of a superhero” (Conway, Behold the Man, 147), referencing John 10:17–18; 12:27–28 and 15:13. Worth considering are also the following passages: 2:19; 3:14 and 6:51–58. 38 Cf. 2 Sam 11:17 (also 11:21 and 24).

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to (divine) plan.39 For this reason alone, he remains completely undisturbed and undeterred. His foreknowledge thus manifests itself in a true display of personal bravery and willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater cause. Connected to the virtues of bravery and self-composure are the notions of authority and leadership. The man who is in full control of his body and mind (and his passions) might instil the same qualities in his followers.40 Like Xenophon’s Socrates, so the Johannine Jesus too leads by example.41 For instance, having washed the feet of his disciples, he urges them to imitate what he has done.42 For, as he is quick to point out, “I have given you an example (ὑπόδειγμα) in order that you may do as I have done to you” (John 13:15).43 The authority of the Johannine Jesus is also evident both in his outspokenness (see the following section) and in his function as teacher and revealer of secrets (see section 4 below).

3.

Jesus, an Outspoken Man

The deeds of a true man must be bold and daring. So too must his words be spoken with confidence and courage. A man’s man must be both frank and outspoken.44 He must dare to talk where others remain silent. Quintilian says so outright: “Speech indeed is very commonly an index of character (mores), and reveals the secrets of the heart (animi secreta detegit). There is good ground for the Greek saying that a man speaks as he lives (ut vivat quemque etiam dicere)” (Inst. 11.1.30).45 The Johannine Jesus too is a highly assertive and talkative man. As in the Synoptic Gospels, so too in the Fourth Gospel he takes seriously his role 39 That the Johannine Jesus considered his own death and resurrection to be by divine design is made abundantly clear as early as in his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, in which he remarks that “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15). 40 For further examples of personal exemplarity as set forth by ancient Greco-Roman authors, see Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 135–38. 41 E. g. John 13:15–17; 15:16, 20–21 and 17:19. 42 Cf. John 13:14. 43 More on this passage below (p. 119, note 77). 44 In his analysis of the perceived masculine of Paul, Clines points to the importance of speech and power of persuasion throughout the letters. He argues that Paul considered persuasive and effect speech a sign of (masculine) strength, cf. David Clines, Paul, the Invisible Man, 181– 92 (esp. 186–88). Jennifer Glancy also touches on the power of speech in her article on masculinity in the Pastoral Epistles, cf. Glancy, Protocols of Masculinity, 235–64 (esp. 250–52 and 255). 45 Other ancient authors, however, caution the wise man to remain silent rather than resort to foolish talk; for as (Pseudo-)Plutarch argues “timely silence is a wise thing, and better than any speech” (Lib. Ed. 10E, cf. Sir 20:7–8). For more on depictions and configurations of gender identity in Quintilian, see Connolly, Mastering Corruption.

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as teacher and is often depicted as teaching in temples and synagogues.46 He remains a highly visible and a vocal member of society. As a man, he is both highly censorious and outspoken. The Greek term for such outspokenness is παρρησία. In the Synoptic Gospels, it only occurs one time, namely in Jesus’ prediction in Mark 8 that the Son of Man must suffer many things. As the evangelist notes, “he [sc. Jesus] said these words [literally, ‘this word’] openly (παρρησίᾳ), after which Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him” (Mark 8:32). By comparison, the term occurs no less than eight times in the Fourth Gospel. In some instances, it is used as the antithesis of “figures of speech” (παροιμίαι).47 In other instances, it is used to emphasize the occasional inability of Jesus or others to speak out openly.48 Finally (and for our analysis, most importantly), it is used a number of times to underline how Jesus in his teaching dared to talk openly and with no hesitation. The best example of this occurs in the account of the high priest Annas’ interrogation of Jesus in John 18. The evangelist describes how the high priest “questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching (περὶ τῆς διδαχῆς αὐτοῦ)” (John 18:19). The exact content and nature of these questions are not reported. But Jesus’ reply is – and that in great detail. He answers that he has “spoken openly (παρρησίᾳ) to the world (τῷ κόσμῳ),” for he has taught everywhere in both synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews gather. Jesus finally hammers home his point by noting that “I have said nothing in secret (ἐν κρυπτῷ)” (18:20, compare 7:3 and 26).49 In what follows, we shall see that the outspokenness of the Johannine Jesus is easily comparable to that of a range of other individuals as depicted in the works of Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch and Josephus: Diogenes Laertius praises the outspokenness of several ancient philosophers.50 The fourth century BCE philosopher Diogenes of Sinope is even quoted as having declared παρρησία to be “the most beautiful thing (κάλλιστος) in the world (ἐν ἀνθρώποις)” (Diog. Laert, 6.69).51 Plutarch is similarly fond of this character trait and makes repeated use of it in his biographies.52 In his speech at his election to his second consulship, the Roman consul and general Aemilius Paullus (c. 229–160 BCE) is depicted as 46 E. g. John 6:59; 7:14, 28; 8:2, 20, and 9:34. More on Jesus’ teaching capabilities below in the fourth section. 47 Cf. John 16:25 and 29, consider also 11:14. 48 Cf. John 7:4, 13 and 11:54. 49 Worth considering is also the use of παρρησία in the Book of Acts, e. g. Acts 2:29; 4:13, 29, 31 and 28:31. 50 E. g. Diog. Laert. 2.123 and 129. 51 On Diogenes’ work (including his encomiastic tendencies), see Hope, Book of Diogenes Laertius, 98–143. 52 On Plutarch’s lives in general, see Hägg, The Art of Ancient Biography, 239–81; Pelling, Plutarch and History; Russell, Plutarch; and Wardman, Plutarch’s Lives.

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having “inspired the citizens with great reverence for himself (αἴδω πρὸς αὑτόν),” so much so that they all in turn “were glad that they had passed by the flatterers (τοὺς κολακεύοντας) and chosen a general who had resolution (φρόνημα) and frankness of speech (παρρησίαν ἔχοντα)” (Aem. 11.3, emphasis mine).53 Similarly, Plutarch reports how Julius Caesar, when he, as a young man, was held prisoner by pirates, wrote poems and speeches. These he would then read aloud for his captors, some of whom would admire them – and those who did not “he would call to their faces (ἄντικρυς) illiterate Barbarians (ἀπαιδεύτους καὶ βαρβάρους), and often laughingly (σὺν γέλωτι) threatened to hang them all” (Caes. 2.2).54 His captors, however, made nothing of his threats and “attributed his boldness of speech (τὴν παρρίαν ταύτην) to a certain simplicity (ἀφελείᾳ τινί) and boyish mirth (παιδιᾷ)” (2.3, emphasis mine). Finally, the perhaps greatest example of an outspoken individual in Plutarch’s biographies is that of Cato the Younger who on more than one occasion dared to speak up against consuls and tyrants. For instance, when Caesar in 59 BCE introduced a major agrarian law, no one except for Cato dared to oppose it.55 Caesar reacted by ordering Cato to be dragged to prison. This, however, did not deter him from speaking up. For Cato “did not any the more remit his bold utterances (τῆς παρρησίας), but as he walked along discoursed about the law and advised the people to put a stop to such legislation” (Cat. Min. 33.1, emphasis mine).56 Several individuals in the writings of Josephus also display a keen sense of frankness and outspokenness. As in 1 Sam 12, so too in the Antiquities, the prophet Samuel censures the people for their demand for a king. He does so by way of a lengthy diatribe in which he recounts the many helpful deeds done to them by God himself. Like so many other great speakers (including the Johannine Jesus), Samuel does not hold anything back. At the outset of his speech, he even invites his addresses to pay heed to the outspokenness (μετὰ παρρησίας) with which he will now proceed to rebuke them.57 Another example of an outspoken individual in the sixth book of the Antiquities is the figure of the high priest Abimelech in the city of Nob. As in 1 Sam 21, Josephus depicts how this high priest was immensely helpful to David during his flight from King Saul. When news of the high priest’s assistance reaches the king, he sends for him and all of his family and proceeds to harangue him for having provided “food and arms to him who is a plotter against my realm” (Ant. 6.255). Abimelech however “did not resort to a denial of what had taken place, but frankly confessed (μετὰ παρρησίας 53 54 55 56

See also Wardman, Plutarch’s Lives, 224. See also Pelling, Plutarch and History, 76–77. Cf. Cat. Min. 33.1, compare Dio Cassius 38.2–3. On Plutarch’s general attitude towards frankness of speech consider also his essay How to tell a flatterer from a friend. 57 Cf. Ant. 6.88, compare 1 Sam 12:6–7.

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(…) ὡμολόγει) that he had rendered those services, yet not to gratify David, but Saul” (6.256, emphasis mine). For he was not aware that David had become an enemy of the king. For Josephus, this notion of outspokenness not only pertains to the heroes of the Old Testament. Several members of the Herodian family exhibit similar character traits. On several occasions, Herod himself is depicted as a man who dares to speak his mind. When he as a young man was summoned by Hyrcanus II to stand trial, he went to the capital, having been advised to do so by his father and out of a sense of self-confidence granted to him by his own deeds (τῶν πραγμάτων διδόντων παρρησίαν).58 Later on, as an adult, Herod displays a similar degree of confidence in his interactions with Octavian.59 Interestingly, Josephus also provides several examples of the outspokenness of women. Alexandra, the daughter of Hyrcanus II, had contacted Mark Antony (through Cleopatra) in the hopes that he might be convinced to give the high priesthood to her son, Aristobulus.60 Unsurprisingly, Herod became suspect of the whole affair and proceeded to accuse his mother-in–law “of having secretly (κρύφα) plotted against (ἐπιβουλεῦσαι) his throne” (Ant. 15.32). Being moved to tears, Alexandra then begins her defence by assuring Herod that she certainly had not intended to usurp the throne, and she asks for forgiveness “if, through concern for her family and her usual outspokenness (τὴν οὖσαν αὐτῇ παρρησίαν), she had acted too impulsively (προπετέστερον) in the way she had expressed indignation over the treatment which she had received” (15.37, emphasis mine, compare 15.44). Alexandra seems well aware that a too loose tongue is an inappropriate trait for a woman.61 Yet due to Herod’s suspicions of her, her rage and hatred slowly begins to built, for “she had a full share of womanly pride (φρονήματος (…) ἔμπλεως οὖσα γυναικείου) and resented the supervision that came from his suspicion, and she thought anything was better than to be deprived of her freedom of action (τῆς παρρησίας στερομένη) and to live the rest of her life in slavery and fear in spite of appearing to have honour” (15.44, emphasis mine). This is a woman who simply refuses to stay silent, and she remains an annoyance for Herod until her execution in 28 BCE.62 Alexandra’s daughter Mariamne is depicted in similar terms as a highly assertive woman.63 Like mother, like daughter. The assertiveness of the latter must in turn also have rubbed off on her 58 Cf. War 1.210. 59 E. g. Ant. 15.217 and 362, compare this to the outspokenness of the Ionian Jews in their interactions with Marcus Agrippa in Ant. 16.27. 31 and 50. 60 Cf. Ant. 15.23–30. 61 For more on the issue of gossip in the New Testament (and the Pastoral Epistles in particular), see Kartzow, Gossip and Gender. 62 Cf. Ant. 15.247–251. 63 E. g. Ant. 15.238, also War 1.437.

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sons. For Alexander and Aristobulus IVare both portrayed as men who are eager to speak their mind.64 Josephus’ general attitude towards women is marked by a large degree of misogyny.65 Yet, in these particular instances he does display some interest in (or perhaps even, slight admiration for) for powerful and assertive women who dare speak their minds. They behave like men, and are therefore deserving of admiration.66 The final (and perhaps, greatest) example of an outspoken individual in the writings of Josephus is the old soldier Tiro who “boldly (τολμήσας) presented himself to the king [sc. Herod]” (War 1.545), and rebuked him for his mistreatment of his sons in a speech introduced by the phrase “Most god-forsaken of men (κακοδαιμονέστατος), that is my opinion of you” (ibid.). This epithet is entirely missing from the parallel version in the Antiquities. In his later retelling of the events, Josephus has instead opted to emphasize Tiro’s frankness. For, as the old soldier notes, “I have preferred this bold outspokenness (τὴν τολμηρὰν ταύτην παρρησίαν) to my own safety, – an outspokenness that would be necessary (ἀναγκαίαν) and advantageous (συμφέρουσαν) to you, if you should make good use (χρήσιμον) of it” (Ant. 16.379, emphasis mine). Here is an individual who dares to speak up against injustice and look his opponent straight in the eye, as the Johannine Jesus does on several occasions as well.

4.

Jesus, a Wise and Didactical man

A proper man must be both courageous and, at least fairly intelligent and rational.67 Some heroic males in Classical Greece even defeat their foes not through brute force but through cunning and wisdom (e. g. Ulysses in the Odyssey).68 The field of wisdom and knowledge is where the Johannine Jesus truly excels. Other scholars have already extensively studied the notion of wisdom in the Fourth Gospel (including its feminine aspects, i. e. σοφία, and the possible connections to 64 E. g. War 1.446 and 452, compare Ant. 16.68–72; also 16.108 and 113. For the comparable issue of male vs. female virtues in Plutarch, see McInerney, Plutarch’s Manly Women. 65 On Josephus’ general attitude towards women, see Feldman, Josephus’ Interpretation of the Bible, 188–192 and idem, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible, 564–65. 66 For more on the related issue of female speech in the Pastorals, see Glancy, Protocols of Masculinity, 255. On performative aspects of gender perception and gender configuration in general, see Butler, Gender Trouble. 67 For an in-depth analysis of the importance placed on reason and rationality in modern configurations of masculinity, see Connell, Masculinities, 164–81. For an analysis of the related discussion in Plato and Aristotle on the relationship between philosophy and manliness, see Karen Bassi, The Semantics of Manliness in Ancient Greece. 68 Several ancient Roman thinkers in First and Second Century CE also highlight the importance of reason for proper male conduct, e. g. Valerius Maximus; and Marcus Aerelius. For more on this, see Morgan, Popular Morality, 147.

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the Book of Proverbs, Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon).69 Within Johannine Christology, we must imagine a gender spectrum (or curve) ranging from the wholly masculine to the wholly feminine with God the Father, on the one end and with Wisdom and the feminine characters of the Gospel on the other – and with the Johannine Jesus somewhere in the middle as an androgynous-like being that is somehow equally masculine and feminine: As the Son of God, Son of Man and as the Logos, the Johannine Jesus partakes in his father’s masculinity. And as Wisdom incarnate, he assumes an aura of femininity. This being said, I do agree with Conway that whatever feminine aspects there are in the use of the Wisdom motif in the Fourth Gospel, they serve to underscore that Jesus (as male and more importantly, as son) is subservient “to the ultimate male, God.”70 The Johannine Jesus is manlier than other mortal men. Ultimately, however, he remains less manly than his even more manly Heavenly Father. Or, as Conway argues, “the Gospel assimilated many of the typical values ascribed to hegemonic masculinity in the Greco-Roman culture, especially the equation of superior masculinity with divinity.”71 As the Son of God, the Johannine Jesus has access to privileged information that he (on most occasions, at least) is eager to share with his followers. His wisdom serves a practical and public function throughout the Fourth Gospel as the foundation for his teaching.72 Conway only briefly touches upon this aspect of Jesus’ wisdom.73 I, however, consider it crucial for our understanding of the representation and configuration of masculinity in the Fourth Gospel. Aside from his feats of strength (his ‘signs’), it is primarily through his didactical displays of wisdom, that the Johannine Jesus develops his relationships with other men (and women). To them, he is a revealer of secrets.74 For instance, he knows (perhaps, instinctively) that Nathanael is “truly an Israelite in whom there is no treachery (δόλος)” (John 1:47). Similarly, he is well aware that the Samaritan woman has had (ἔχειν, a euphemism?) five men, and that the one whom she now 69 E. g. Conway, Behold the Man, 152–53, referencing the works of various other scholars including Martin Scott, Sophia and the Johannine Man, and Culpepper, Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, 68–72. 70 Conway, Behold the Man, 156. 71 Conway, Behold the Man, 157. 72 E. g. John 3:10–13/21; 4:13–14 and 9:6–7 (and in particular 13:13–14). Of particular interest is Jesus’ saying in 15:13–15 that the disciples, when they keep Jesus’ command, will no longer be considered servants but rather his friends (see also 13:16 and 15:20). But does this mean that they are no longer his students as well? On the notion of friendship in the Greco-Roman world, see Ferguson, Moral Values, 53–75. 73 Conway touches upon this issue in two instances: first, indirectly in her analysis of Jesus’ use of imagery of slavery and freedom, primarily in John 8 and 15); and secondly, directly in a brief passage on John’s use of a similar Sophia motif as that which also appears in Ben Sira, cf. Conway, Behold the Man, 151 and 154, respectively. 74 E. g. John 10:6 and 16:25–30.

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has is not her husband.75 Furthermore, he develops a deep rapport with Nicodemus through his willingness to engage in a lengthy dialogue with him on the very topic of heavenly wisdom (John 3). John even makes it a point of emphasizing the good-natured relationship between these two men through Nicodemus’ two subsequent appearances in the Gospel (7:50–52 and 19:39). Other male figures in Greek literature of course also serve as teachers of men (and women), including Xenophon’s Socrates and Diogenes’ philosophers. Josephus too highlights the didactic capabilities of one of his heroes, namely Abraham, whom the Egyptians considered “a man of extreme sagacity (συνετώτατος), gifted not only with high intelligence (νοῆσαι) but with power to convince (πεῖσαι) his hearers on any subject which he undertook to teach (διδάσκειν)” (Ant. 1.167). As an illustrative example of this, Josephus informs us that Abraham proceeded to teach the Egyptians arithmetic and the laws of astronomy.76 It is also through his teaching that the Johannine Jesus establishes and maintains his relationship with his disciples. Their personal connections are best described as those that exist between a teacher and his students.77 Unsurprisingly, Jesus’ teaching is highly revelatory and theological in nature, as is also the case in the Synoptic Gospels. The Johannine Jesus never resorts to outright parables in order to get his message across.78 He does, however, display a predilection for highly typologically and symbolically laden imagery, especially in his many “I am … (ἐγώ ει᾿μι …)” sayings.79 Furthermore, his teaching is certainly not devoid of riddles and (at least, potential) misunderstandings. Frequently, he even resorts to double-speak, irony and veiled speech.80 Yet, he does have much to tell his dis75 Cf. John 4:17–18. 76 For more on Josephus’ depiction of Abraham’s wisdom, see Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation, 228–34. 77 Clines devotes a separate section of his article to Jesus’ relationship with other men, including the disciples, cf. Clines, Ecce Vir, 362–66. Yet, the bulk of Clines’ examples are (again) drawn from the Synoptic Gospels, and his analysis primarily focuses on the matter of male bonding, not on the teacher-student relations. It should be pointed out here that John devotes an entire section in the early part of his passion narrative to an outline of the ideal relationship between a teacher and his students with Jesus’ washing of the feet of his disciples (John 13). 78 For more on the absence of parables in the technical sense in the Fourth Gospel, see Klyne, Stories with Intent, 22–23. 79 Cf. “I am the bread of life (ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς)” (John 6:35, 48), alternatively “… the bread that descended from heaven (ὁ ἄρτος ὁ καταβὰς ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ)” (6:41) or “… the living bread, namely that which descended from heaven (ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ζῶν ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβάς)” (6:51); “I am the light of the world (τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου)” (8:12 and 9:5); “before Abraham was born, I was” (8:58); “I am the gate for the sheep (ἡ θύρα τῶν προβάτων)” (10:7, 9); “I am the good shepherd (ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός)” (10:11–14); “I am the resurrection and the life (ἡ ἀνάστασίς καὶ ἡ ζωή)” (11:25); “I am the way, and the truth, and the life (ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή)” (14:6) and “I am the true vine (ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή)” (15:1). 80 For more on John’s use of irony, see Culpepper, Anatomy, 149–202; Neyrey, Gospel of John, 11–15, and O’Day, Revelation.

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ciples about the heavenly Father, about his own relationship to him and about his own function as the Son of God and Son of Man.81 Jesus is however far from the only teacher in ancient Greece to touch upon the issue of God and divine providence. Xenophon for instance emphasizes that Socrates “believed that the gods have a care for mankind” (Mem. 1.1.19). Unlike those who “do not believe in the omniscience of the gods, Socrates thought that they know all things (πάντα (…) θεοὺς ει᾿δέναι), our words and deeds and secret purposes; that they are present everywhere (πανταχοῦ (…) παρεῖναι), and grant signs (σημαίνειν) to men of all that concerns man” (ibid, also 4.3.13 and 4.8.11, compare Ant. 6.263 and 10.277–280). By comparison, Josephus too depicts Abraham as a man with intimate knowledge of God. Indeed, he was the first man to boldly (τολμᾷ) “declare that God, the creator of the universe (δημιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων), is one (ἕνα)” (Ant. 1.155) and that any other beings who contributed to man’s prosperity (εὐδαιμονία) did so on his bidding and not by their own accord. The Johannine Jesus is truly a wise man. He is highly intelligent and knowledgeable. His knowledge however exceeds that of the common man. He is a real man and a real know-it-all. He, quite literally, knows all things. He is just as omniscient as his heavenly Father, and he also knows ahead of time what is about to happen, as we have already seen above.82 Finally, he – out of all people – knows what lurks in the minds, hearts and thoughts of other men (and women), and he does not shy away from letting them know that, and what, he knows.83

5.

Conclusion

This article has explored the depictions of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel from the perspective of ancient perceptions of masculinity and proper male behaviour. I have explored the evangelist’s attitudes towards such (traditional) male virtues as courage, assertiveness and wisdom, and I have argued that the Johannine Jesus consistently comes across as a highly wise and courageous man: He is capable of performing great deeds (i. e. ‘signs’). He is highly courageous in the face of danger (even to point of self-sacrifice). He is in complete control of his feelings. He is a 81 For a comprehensive study of Johannine Christology, see Anderson, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel. For more on the Son of Man in the Fourth Gospel, see Burkett, The Son of Man; Davies, Rhetoric, 182–96 and Reynolds, Apocalyptic Son of Man. 82 E. g. John 6:15; 7:33–34; 8:28; 13:19; 14:29; 16:19 and 18:4. This notion of premonition is less pronounced in the works of the Greek authors. There are however at least a couple of examples of similar tendencies in the Antiquities, namely in Ant 4.24 (Moses as having foreseen Korah’s rebellion) and 6.340 (Saul as knowing beforehand that he was about to die – more on this latter passage above in the second section). 83 E. g. John 2:24–25, also 7:1 and 9:3.

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master of his domain. He dares to speak his mind openly and with no hesitation. At times, he can also be highly censorious. Furthermore, he is intelligent and wise. As the Son of God, he has access to privileged information that he willingly shares with his followers in the form of theologically laden teaching. Throughout my analysis, I have sought to lend further support for the argument put forth by Conway that John deliberately depicts Jesus in a manner that corresponds to the established notions of masculinity in antiquity. I have also heightened the emphasis placed by Clines on Jesus’ bonding with other men through my analysis of the didactical aspects of the revelatory wisdom of the Johannine Jesus. Finally, I have demonstrated how the particular masculine traits ascribed to Jesus by John all occur in portraits of great men throughout the works of other Greek authors as well, including in the writings of Xenophon, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch and Josephus. In this sense, the conduct of the Johannine Jesus can be considered emblematic of the perceived proper masculine behaviour in antiquity. It can therefore be argued that throughout his depiction of Jesus John consistently seeks to set forth, and at times even to reconfigure, what it means to be an ideal man. By his words and deeds shall a man be known. If that is true, then the Johannine Jesus truly reveals himself to be the Son of God, the Son of Man – and a real man’s man.

Bibliography Anderson, P.N., The Christology of the Fourth Gospel, (WUNT II 78), Mohr Siebeck, 1996. Barrett, C.K., The Gospel According to St John, SPCK, 1978 [1955]. Bassi, K., The Semantics of Manliness in Ancient Greece, in R.M. Rosen/I. Sluiter (eds.), Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity, Brill, 2003, 50–54. van Belle, G., The Signs Source in the Fourth Gospel: Historical Survey and Critical Evaluations of the Semeia Hypothesis, Leuven University Press, 1994. Brod, H. (ed.), The Making of Masculinities: The New Men’s Studies, Allen and Unwin, 1987. Bultmann, R., Das Evangelium des Johannes, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978. Burkett, D., The Son of Man in the Gospel of John, (JSNT Suppl. 56), Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. Butler, J., Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity, Routledge, 1990. –, Undoing Gender, Routledge, 2004. Clines, D., Ecce Vir, or, Gendering the Son of Man, in J. C. Exum and S. D. Moore (eds.), Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium, (JSOT Suppl. Series 266. Gender, Culture, Theory 7), Sheffield Academic Press, 1998, 352–375. –, Paul, the Invisible Man, in S.D. Moore and J.C. Anderson, New Testament Masculinities, SBL 2003, 181–92.

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Connell, R.W., Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics, Polity Press, 1987. –, Masculinities, Polity Press, 1995. Connell, R.W./J. Hearn (eds.), Handbook of Studies in Men & Masculinities, Sage Publications, 2005. Connolly, J., Mastering Corruption: Constructions of Identity in Roman Oratory, in S.R. Joshel and S. Murnaghan (eds.), Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Different Equations, Routledge, 1998, 130–151. Conway, C.M., Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity, OUP, 2008. Creangã, O. (ed.), Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, (The Bible in the Modern World 33), Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010. Creangã, O./P.-B Smit (eds.), Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, (Hebrew Bible Monographs 62) Sheffield Academic Press, 2014. Culpepper, A.R., Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel as a Theological Problem for Christian Interpreters, in R. Bieringer/D. Pollyfeyt and F.V. Vanneuville (eds.), AntiJudaism and the Fourth Gospel, John Knox Press, 2001, 51–82. –, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, Fortress Press, 1983. Feldman, L.H., Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible, Brill, 1998. –, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible, SBL, 1998. Davies, M. Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel, (JSNT Suppl. 69), Sheffield Academic Press, 1992. Ferguson, J., Moral Values in the Ancient World, Methuen & Co Ltd, 1958. Fortna, R.T., The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge University Press, 1970. Foxhall, L./J. Salmon (eds.), Thinking Men: Masculinity and its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition, Routledge, 1998. Glancy, J., Protocols of Masculinity in the Pastoral Epistles, in S.D. Moore/J.C. Anderson (eds.), New Testament Masculinities, SBL, 2003, 235–264. Hägg, T., The Art of Ancient Biography, CUP, 2011. Hope, R., The Book of Diogenes Laertius: Its Spirit and Its Method, Columbia University Press, 1930. Ivarsson, F.,Vice Lists and Deviant Masculinity: The Rhetorical Function of 1 Corinthians 5:10–11 and 6:9–10, in C. Penner and C.V. Stichele, Mapping Gender, Brill, 2006, 163–84. –, A Man Has To Do What A Man Has To Do: Protocols of Masculine Sexual Behaviour and 1 Corinthians 5–7, in B. Holmberg and M. Winninge (eds.), Identity Formation in the New Testament, (WUNT I 227), Mohr Siebeck, 2008, 183–98. Kartzow, M.B., Gossip and Gender, De Gruyter, 2009. Kimmel, M.S. (ed.), Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity, Sage Publications, 1987. Malherbe, A.J., Moral Exhortation: A Greco-Roman Sourcebook, The Westminster Press, 1986. McHugh, J. “In him was life”: John’s Gospel and the Parting of the Ways, in J.G. Dunn (ed.), Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways, Mohr Siebeck, 1992, 123–58. McInerney, J., Plutarch’s Manly Women, in R.M. Rosen/I. Sluiter (eds.), Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity, Brill, 2003, 319–44. Moore, S.D./J.C. Anderson (eds.), New Testament Masculinities, SBL, 2003.

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Morgan, T., Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Moxnes, H., “Det moderne gjennombrudd” og kristen maskulinitet hos borgerskapets teologer i Norge, in Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning 37 (2013), 104–22. –, Making Jesus Masculine: The Historical Jesus and the Challenges of Nineteenth-Century Politics, Neotestamentica 48 (1) (2014), 57–74. –, Placing Men in the Double Message of Luke’s Gospel, in A.H. Grung, M.B. Kartzow and A.R. Solevåg (eds.), Bodies, Borders, Believers: Ancient Texts and Present Conversations. Essays in Honor of Turid Karlsen Seim on Her 70th Birthday, Pickwick Publications, (2015), 327–341. Neyrey, J.H., The Gospel of John, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Noack, B., Tegnene i Johannesevangeliet. Tydning og brug af Jesu undere, Gads Forlag, 1974. van Nortwick, T., Imagining Men: Ideals of Masculinity in Ancient Greek Culture, Praeger, 2008. O’Day, G.R., Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Method and Theological Claim, Fortress Press, 1986. Pelling, C., Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies, The Classical Press of Wales, 2002 and 2011. Reinhartz, A., “And the Word Was Begotten”: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John, Semeia 85, 1999, 83–103. Reynolds, B.E., The Apocalyptic Son of Man in the Gospel of John, (WUNT II 249), Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Rosen, R.M./I. Sluiter (eds.), Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity, Brill, 2003. Russell, D.A., Plutarch, (Classical Life and Letters 5), Duckworth, 1972 and 1973. Sanders, J.T., The Jews in Luke-Acts, SCM Press, 1987. Scott, M., Sophia and the Johannine Man, (JSNT 71), JSOT Press, 1992. Snodgrass, K., Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, Eerdmans, 2008. Wardman, A., Plutarch’s Lives, Paul Elek, 1974. Wilson, B.E., Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts, Oxford University Press, 2015.

Maria Sturesson

Voicing the Resurrection Narrative, Authority, and Gender in Stories of the Women at the Tomb

The elusive voice of fiction, the narrator, navigates the story between places and events, shows actions and characters, and tells of the appearances and emotions of those involved. The narrator is an apparent, yet elusive part of the narrative apparatus, sometimes one of the characters and sometimes seemingly outside the dramatic events of the story.1 This text is an investigation of that voice, and more specifically an investigation of that voice in relation to a particular event surrounding the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus in gospel narratives; namely that of the women coming to Jesus’ tomb early in the morning, on the third day, discovering the empty tomb and reacting to this discovery in different ways. In various gospel narratives of the tradition,2 the stories differ in how the narrative voice presents the events of this occasion, as do the events themselves. The identity of the authoritative voice in the stories is far from clear, especially in the synoptic Gospels of the New Testament. But in other gospel narratives this voice is identified as one or several of the disciples, or described as one of the guards watching the empty tomb. Such alternate accounts raise questions concerning the who behind the telling of the women at the tomb, and these become questions about how this effects the story itself. What happens with notions of authority and gender when the voice changes and takes on differing identities? This paper aims to show that gender seems to be an integral part of the poetics of gospel narrative and that in these gospels male storytellers are preferred. The gospel stories that this study will discuss are the four canonical gospels, the Gospel of Peter, the Epistula Apostolorum, and the Gospel of Nicodemus.

1 The distinction between an intra-diegetic narrator and an extra-diegetic ditto is commonly used to describe the different positions of the narrative voice. E. g., Genette, Narrative Discourse, 228. 2 Even though the word tradition is written in singular, it is a multifaceted movement of many directions and discourses. It is also a word that is used with the prerogative of hindsight.

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What Is a Narrator?

As soon as there is language, there is a speaker who utters it; as soon as those linguistic utterances constitutes a narrative text, there is a narrator, a narrating subject.3

The narrator as a function of a literary text is a much-debated topic of narratology. And although a voice present in the text, it should not – or, at least, need not – be conflated with the authorial voice, or the author him- or herself outside the boundaries of narrative. To investigate the narrative voice of a story involves constructing a subject of narrative in charge of the utterances, and thus a voice accountable for pronouncing the story.4 As forms of ancient storytelling, the gospel narratives follow some common and generic modes of presenting a story. To this the narrative voice is no exception. Irene F. de Jong discusses, from a broad spectrum of Greek and Latin texts, the variations in narrators of ancient literature. To a large extent, differences are the same as those for modern-day literature: narrators can be external or internal, overt or covert, on different levels within the narrative and thus with different identities and roles that follow.5 De Jong also emphasizes the narrator’s authority in the context of Greek literature: “in classical antiquity narrators were often endowed with numinous authority, or claimed authority on the basis of their status as eyewitness, their research, or force of argumentation.”6 Albeit a general observation that varies in the details of differing stories, such an observation is used in understanding the genre and function of gospel narratives.7 Narrators of gospel narratives may also be viewed in light of the performative functions of these stories in which the reading of narrative enacts the narrative voice in a very explicit way.8 3 Bal, Narratology, 21. 4 Once upon a time, when this paper was a contribution to the Nordic New Testament Conference in Aarhus 2015, the discussion of the narrative voice was influenced by an ongoing debate in the cultural pages at the time. This debate concerned the Culture Man (Kulturmannen) and his position within the world and history of literature and culture as the creative genius par excellence. Women as a category of such discourse was created as difference and as a distinction in power, as well as preferential rights of interpretation. For this short analysis of texts the question became one of who can claim ownership to a story, and of the polyphonic possibilities of storytelling. The debate can be found in several papers from the spring 2015, at that time as a debate between (among others) Ebba Witt Brattström and Karl Ove Knausgård in Dagens Nyheter (DN), May 2015. 5 de Jong, Narratology, 19–28. 6 de Jong, Narratology, 42. 7 For example, the narrative voice of biography and historiography are used for comparative conclusions about the gospels. Samuel Byrskog specifically discusses the roles of eyewitnesses in relation to the women at the tomb episodes in the New Testament gospels. Byrskog, Story as History, 73–82, 190–97. 8 Rhoads/Dewey/Michie, Mark As Story, 41.

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Gender is not an immediate consequence of classic narrative analysis, but may well be used as a part of it. Susan S. Lanser argues in her article “Sexing Narratology” for gender to be an integral part of narrative inquiry, and as important as other features and functions of a story. Sexual categories, she argues, are as important to narrative meaning as person, level, order, and reliability, and indeed that they interact with these other elements in crucial ways. At the same time, the exploration of sexual codes in specific narratives calls into question the separation of text from context and grammar from culture and challenges the stability not only of sexual categories but of narratological ones as well. […] The project of sexing narratology offers a valuable limit case for a descriptive poetics by asking to what extent narratology can rely on denotative features of a text.9

Narratology, then, is a methodological field within the study of literature that traditionally sought to map out features of narratives that were to some extent universal and applicable to literature across time. When Lanser includes sex and gender as a feature of narrative, the stable units of narratology also become increasingly contextual.10 A narrator, even though still a narrator, is a voice from a time and a place. The narrators of gospel stories are part of a discourse which carries with it a history of sexed depictions of humans, of women, and of men. And what is the role of a narrator in telling such a story? Lanser continues and argues that “a narrator, as narrator, is much more able than any narrated character to operate without denoted sex.”11 This is particularly true for the so called “third-person,” anonymous narrator that is not part of the story’s dramatis personae – the covert, external narrator that at times illustrates the poet’s voice. The text that follows is one that looks into the narrative voice of gospel stories in relation to a particular event of these narratives, namely the scene where women discover the empty tomb and receive the message of the Jesus’ resurrection. In seven variant gospels, narrators present this episode in different ways and also negotiate authoritative positions differently in relation to the women. As I present and discuss these texts, I will do so in an order that suggests an evolving line of thought in and a development through these texts. However, I would like to stress that a genetic relation between the different texts is not at the center of this study. The different voices of the narrators in these stories are read as individuals and thereby in their own right. There is a change in how the

9 Lanser, Sexing Narratology, 3:124–25. 10 I use the terms sex and gender interchangeably throughout this essay, although it is the term gender that I apply most frequently. In this study, both terms denote the textual construction of sex and gender. 11 Lanser, Sexing Narratology, 127.

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narrative voice presents the event and the women, but this alteration need not be read as dependency, although a possibility, but as variation.12

2.

The Women at the Tomb and Gospel Stories

Scholars with various interests have worked with the stories of the women at the tomb and the empty tomb traditions from various points of view, and they have investigated the historical, literary, and feminist consequences of varying narrative settings within the stories.13 But while these studies focus primarily on the women and their role I want to pay attention to that anonymous yet distinct, and absent yet present voice of the gospel narratives. To begin with, we can point to the observation that the women in these episodes are not the primary narrators of the story. On some occasions they are implied secondary narrators, in that they are told to narrate to the disciples the events that have taken place. But in the command to go and tell, the telling becomes of more implicit character than actually refraining the voice of the primary narrator. The narrator is in control, attains the highest authority within the narrative, and at points contrasts the characters’ understanding and actions within the narrative.

3.

The Gospel of Mark

The synoptic Gospels vary in detail, but they all describe the women coming to the tomb early in the morning on the first day after the sabbath. These women see and they hear, and are as such receivers of the resurrection kerygma. In Mark’s Gospel these women never retell the message that they receive, and the text and story ends with their silence. This is true at least in some of the early manuscripts of the Markan text and the earliest available ending of Mark’s Gospel.14 But most

12 This point could be stressed even further through the perspective of material philology and its focus on individual recensions and manuscripts. 13 While I do not give a full appreciation of the many different studies, some might be mentioned. So, for example, the unpublished dissertation of Carson, And They Said Nothing; Setzer, Excellent Women; Osiek, The Women at the Tomb; and Kartzow, Resurrection as Gossip. 14 Although most scholars agree that the short and the longer endings are added at a later stage of transmission, not all would agree that this would be the original ending of Mark’s Gospel. See for example, Elliott, Endings of Mark’s Gospel, 121–22.

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of the written textual tradition continue the story with alternate and continuing endings to the abrupt silence of Mark 16:8.15 Mark 16:1–8 closes in on the women and their actions as they make their way to the tomb that they have observed earlier in the story (Mark 15:40, 47). The act of narration focuses the women’s vision, their intent, their concerns, and in the end of this pericope, their feelings. It is nevertheless the case that in the end of this section, the women flee from the scene, afraid. If we begin with the former part, the narrator tells a story where it is the women who act and perceive the events. They are the focalizers in this story.16 Through the words, mainly the verbs used, the narrator establishes a relation to these women, in which this voice knows and has access to their feelings and their perceptions. This narration also creates a scene where the reader, due to the information given, remains at the side of these women.17 But in this pericope it is not the women that the narrative voice and perspective align with. Rather, when the young man enters the narrative with the proclamation of the resurrection, it is him that the narrative perspective favors or, at least, prefers. As a narrative substructure, the role of the young man in telling the message is similar to that of the narrator proclaiming the gospel.18 The narrator in the Markan account therefore establishes authority in two ways: on the one hand the narrator knows the women, the narrative voice accounts for their perception of the events that takes place making us as readers come closer to the women. On the other hand, the narrator has the advantage of knowing more than the women. And siding with the perspective of the young man that delivers the message of the risen Jesus the narrative voice mirrors that proclamation. The message of the young man is told, not by the women, but by the narrative voice of Mark’s Gospel, who in effect becomes the messenger of the good news. In the longer ending of Mark (16:9–20), we leave the tomb. And I will therefore not go into much conversation with this account of events. But we can notice that in this ending it is no longer the women, and especially Mary Magdalene, that are the active characters of the story. 15 For a presentation of the manuscripts and textual evidence, see Metzger, Textual Commentary, 122–28. 16 Simply put, focalization is a narratological term that analyzes the visual perspective of a text, and ask the questions who sees, or who perceives what happens in a story. 17 The reader of narrative is a methodological as well as a theoretical issue and debate. Here, I speak mainly of an implied reader of the text and as such a function of the narrative itself as an addressee. But I would also claim that an actual reader is invited to take the place of this implied reader, and in this case walk alongside the women to the empty tomb, see what they see, and hear what they hear. 18 See discussion in Mitchell, Beyond Fear, 101.

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What role does gender play in this narrative drama then? I would suggest that it is the explicit characterization of the three female figures in this story as “women”, and the narrator’s perspective mirroring that of the young man that hints at a gendered narrative voice in this story. The narrator takes on the role of divine messenger in Mark’s gospel, which is in part a role of a young man.

4.

The Gospel of Matthew

In Matthew, the women arrive at the tomb, they see, and they hear. And as they run to tell the disciples (ἔδραμον ἀπαγγεῖλαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ, Matt 28:8), they meet the resurrected Jesus. Once again they are told to go and tell the disciples. But in the narrative they never do. As readers of the text, we never follow the women and hear them tell the disciples what they have seen and what they have heard. As the narrative unfolds, the disciples go to Galilee, they see the resurrected Jesus; they do what the women were supposed to tell them. Their retelling is therefore understood by the discourse though not explicit in the narrative.19 In Matthew’s narrative, the women are not the perceivers of the events that take place. The story is interrupted by the narrator’s ι᾿δού (Matt 28:2, 9). The narrative result is an increased distance between the women and the narrative voice. The narrator’s superior position in relation to the narrated events of the women’s visit to the tomb and the events that follow points to the act of narration itself. The women’s experience is not the primary focus of the narrative but rather the telling of the story. Instead of the women telling the disciples, we follow the guards as they tell the chief priests of the events that has taken place (28:11). The narrator thus moves freely between different settings of the narrative and has a superior knowledge of the events that take place. These events and this knowledge are then mediated to the implied reader of the text who in effect receives an overall view of the events. Matthew’s narrative is an example of a so-called omniscient narrator who knows more of the events than do the characters. And even though there are preferences of perspectives and understanding of truth and lies in this story, the narrative voice does not side with a character in this gospel, at least not in this part of the story, in the same way as in Mark. And the narrator is as a consequence seemingly genderless.

19 Byrskog, Story as History, 195.

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The Gospel of Luke

In the Lukan narrative the women do tell the disciples the news of the resurrection, although this is done with indirect speech, it is reported by the narrator. But the disciples, on hearing the news, dismiss the women’s words as empty talk, nonsense (λῆρος, 24:11).20 Turid Karlsen Seim points to the fact that in the Lukan narrative, the women are never actually commissioned to go and tell the disciples. Yet that is what they do. “Their witness is due to their own spontaneous initiative as a continuation of what they themselves have heard and remembered.”21 The retelling of the message of the resurrection, then, is an event in the Lukan story without explicit link to the message itself. Rather, within the story of Luke the message of the resurrection is linked to themes of remembering (24:8), recognition (24:31), and understanding (24:45), themes that are developed in the narrative ending of Luke’s Gospel and in relation to the followers of Jesus in this narrative. Similar to the story in Matthew, there is a narrated distance in the story related to how the women are told. The use of ι᾿δού (24:4) is again one example of this. When it comes to the message of the resurrection the narrative states that the women look away (they bowed their faces to the ground, κλινουσῶν τὰ πρόσωπα ει᾿ς τὴν γῆν, 24:5) introducing a behavior in meeting the messengers, and in hearing the words of the resurrection. In this Lukan narrative there is no apparent conflict between the narrative perspective and the women of the story. The conflict and disbelief is an intradiegetic matter, between the different characters of the story. In an attempt to verify the women’s story, Peter runs to the tomb and finds it empty. He does not receive a message from the two men proclaiming the resurrection, leaving the truth of the matter to the narrative as it continues with the appearances of the risen one.22As the narrative continues, the women’s witness is confirmed in the appearance stories. Although they are never vindicated in explicit terms by the narrative voice, the structure of the narrative serves this purpose.23 The narrative voice is not attributed to any character within the story that is presented, but there is an explicit voice in the beginning of the story that claims to present an accurate description of the events that have taken place (Luke 1:1–4). Here, it is an author that is depicted in the narrative. And even though the “I” of Luke’s prologue does not appear again until the continuing story in Acts, there is no way to differentiate between this first person voice and the rest of the nar20 This seems to be an important word for Marianne Bjelland Kartzow to discuss the story and different stories of the resurrection as gossip. Kartzow, Resurrection, 1–28. 21 Seim, Double Message, 155. 22 See Seim, Double Message, 157. 23 See Setzer, Excellent Women, 262.

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rative. And a “third-person”narrator designation is quite misleading. The Gospel of Luke then appeals to an authorial authority within the narrative itself.24 The voice that tells of the women in Luke, is that of a writer, a composer of this narrative. It is not a voice of a divine messenger as in Mark, not an omniscient voice as in Matthew, but a poet of sorts who has carefully structured the narrative to unfold the story.

6.

The Gospel of John

In the Gospel of John, there is only one woman present at the tomb, there is no narrated intention of the actions of Mary Magdalene, nor is there a divine messenger to announce the resurrection (the two angels ask Mary why she cries). What there is in this story is direct reported speech from Mary Magdalene to Simon Peter and the beloved disciple of the narrative: ἦραν τὸν κύριον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου καὶ οὐκ οἴδαμεν ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν (“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him,” John 20:2 and repeated as indirect speech to the two angels in 20:13).25 The empty tomb is simply discovered, and following this discovery is the confusion and lack of understanding of the events that has occurred. Believing and understanding are central themes of the Johannine story. And the woman, Mary Magdalene, does not know and does not understand. At points in the Gospel of John the narrator inserts comments about the narrative, and about characters in the story-world. The narrator thus appears privileged in terms of knowledge and information about Jesus, and about the events taking place in the narrative. In doing so, the narrator inserts comments concerning the course of events prior to the event itself taking place within the narrative. For example, the statement in John 20:9: οὐδέπω γὰρ ᾔδεισαν τὴν γραφὴν ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι (for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead) is a statement that surpasses the current knowledge of the characters within the story-world. This is a way of telling the story where the implied reader of the text receives information of the events through the voice of the narrator instead of through the characters’ perception of the events that takes place.26 And also, we might add, the narrative voice of the 24 See discussion in Byrskog, Story as History, 228–32. 25 The plural on the first might indicate more than one woman. The second time the verb is written in the singular. 26 An interesting difference between John and the synoptic Gospels is that in the case of John 20:9, comments concerning the resurrection of Jesus are in the synoptic Gospels put in the words of Jesus as prolepses in the narrative. On the relation between the narrator and implied reader of John, see Larsen, Recognizing, 213–17.

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Gospel of John explains the events in ways that this narrator overtakes the message of the resurrection as proclaimed by the divine messenger in other gospel narratives.27 In the Gospel of John, the message of the resurrection is given to Mary Magdalene by the appearance of the risen Jesus outside the tomb where she has seen two angels. They did not, however, communicate the resurrection of Jesus. They ask Mary why she cries whereupon she repeats the words earlier spoken to the disciples. As she turns around, she sees Jesus, though not knowing it is he. And the words that describe these events again show the narrator’s privileged position in terms of knowledge and understanding that in turn are communicated out, through the gospel to the reader of the text: θεωρεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἑστῶτα καὶ οὐκ ᾔδει ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν (she saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus, John 20:14). The narrator has a view of the events taking place in this narrative that surpasses that of Mary’s. Had the events been focalized (perceived) through the perspective of her instead, we would have followed her understanding, and we would have seen the man, the supposed gardener, through her eyes. The words supplied to the woman at the tomb overtake her understanding, and correct it. When the narrative unfolds, Mary recognizes Jesus as he calls her by name, and the recognition here serves to confirm and show what the narrator has already told.28 The narrative voice in John explains the events taking place, it is authoritative in the way that it expresses knowledge that surpass the characters’ knowledge. It is knowledge that aligns with a correct understanding of Jesus, of his actions and his identity. And this knowledge is communicated out through the gospel story in which the woman at the tomb is a character who moves from lack of understanding to possession thereof. By the end of the appearance story, Mary Magdalene has understood that Jesus has risen. What the narrator has said has also been shown, in the unfolding of the story. This narrative voice is in the end of the gospel story connected to the beloved disciple, an authoritative witness, alongside Mary in the empty tomb episode, but superior to her in understanding and as a storyteller. Both the narrative voice, then, and the attribution of this voice to the beloved disciple add confirmation and authority to the story.

27 Here, the Gospel of John is somewhat similar to the Epistula Apostolorum discussed below. 28 Larsen discusses this passage as a recognition-scene. Larsen, Recognizing, 196–208.

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The Gospel of Peter

In a manner similar to the Gospel according to Matthew, and also the Gospel of Nicodemus discussed below, the Gospel of Peter tells of other witnesses to the resurrection (Gos. Pet. 9.35–11.49). In the story these witnesses, namely the guards, report the events to Pilate who orders them not to tell anyone about what has taken place. What they have seen is the actual events of the resurrection. The story, however, continues with the women at the tomb. But in this narrative they are not the first witnesses to the empty tomb, since this has already been narrated. The Gospel of Peter is a debated text of early Christianity. Among scholars it usually dates to some time during the second century, and it is commonly considered to presuppose the canonical gospels.29 The material basis for this gospel is but one fragmentary narrative of what is believed to be a longer gospel, but the text as we have it tells of the death and resurrection of Jesus.30 The women enter the scene after the guards have left. They are not the first witnesses, and in the story they never tell anyone what they have seen.31 In the gospel story, then, the witnesses to the resurrection are embedded into an atmosphere of secret insight into the events surrounding the witnesses. Within this story-world, no one communicates the events of the resurrection and the empty tomb to the disciples. The gospel narrator nonetheless tells of the events that take place, he, who in the end of the text introduced himself as Peter, the apostle, the “I” of the story (Ἐγὼ δὲ Σίμων Πέτρος …14.60). Even though the story ends abruptly, and there might be parts missing in the narrative, the conclusion that can be drawn from this narrative and the motif of the women at the tomb is that the narrative voice in this story has a knowledge of events that surpasses that of the characters inside the story-world. And this voice is ascribed to Peter. The narrator moves freely from descriptions of what the “enemies” of Jesus witness to descriptions of the actions of friends and followers. An historical explanation may very well be that of apologetics, as Timothy P. Henderson claims in his

29 Against this view, see Crossan, Four Other Gospels, 133. 30 For a brief overview and introduction to Gos. Pet. in relation to other apocryphal gospels, see Frey, Texts about Jesus, 29–30. 31 Carolyn Osiek comments on the odd logic of this narrative: “the story of the women at the tomb is still thought important enough to keep in the narrative, even though it seems to serve no purpose, neither first witness nor medium of communication to the other disciples. It can only have been included because it was so much a part of the Easter story that the redactor could not leave it out.” Osiek, Women, 109. In the same manner Carson states that: “Whereas we would expect the Gospel of Peter to either end here or continue with the resurrection appearances, we are now surprised to read of an empty tomb story involving Mary Magdalene and her friends in 12:50f.” Carson, And They Said, 312.

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reading of the Gospel of Peter, but it also in a way ascribes the authority of the story to Peter, the male disciple of Jesus.32 The women arrive at the tomb early in the morning, on the Lord’s day, to do “what women were accustomed to do to the dead beloved by them” (Gos. Pet. 12.50). The narrated intention of the women’s visit is not that of seeing the tomb as in Matthew, nor is it to anoint Jesus as in Mark.33 They have a different purpose of going to the tomb, a purpose that might be understood in relation to the fact that the resurrection has already been witnessed within the story. In relation to this previous witness story the women see (ὁρῶσιν) the young man which supposedly is the one mentioned earlier in the narrative as a man (ἄνθρωπός τις, 11.44). Here, the women do not see the empty tomb, but they find (εὗρον) it opened. In this story, it is the guards that see and perceive these events. The women find what has already occurred, but see the young man, who tells the women of the resurrection. And as the man tells the women of the resurrection, the preceding story of the witnesses to the resurrection is confirmed, through the voice of a divine messenger. In a way, the message of the resurrection in the voice of the young man mirrors the authority of the narrative voice, similar to that of the narrative voice in Mark. But, there is also that overall knowledge of the events that takes place as in Matthew, and in the end of this text as we have it, this narrative is attributed to one of the disciples: Peter, similar to the Gospel of John. To this narrative voice, and to the male disciple, the women form a contrast, both in that they approach the tomb in the first place, and also in that they flee from the tomb in fear.

8.

The Epistula Apostolorum

In the Epistula Apostolorum, the women are presented through the words of the apostles narrating the events surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is a story that is somewhat different from the other gospel texts discussed here in that it is written in the form of a dialogue between the risen Lord and the

32 Henderson argues that the guard story in Gos. Pet. serves apologetic interests, and place the entire gospel in relation to a genre of Rewritten Bible. He thus writes: “In GP, the primary witnesses are male enemies of Jesus who have no doubts what they see, which stands in contrast to the female followers of Jesus in the NT accounts, who are skeptical of their experiences of the empty tomb and appearances.” Henderson, Gospel of Peter, 189. 33 This reference to customary practice performed by women at a burial site has led some scholars to address the question of mourning practices, and also to note the lack of such a reference in the canonical gospels. E. g. Corley, Maranatha; also Osiek, Women, 103–18; Standhartinger, What Women Were, 559–74.

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apostles.34 And this dialogue gospel is thought to be written around the middle of the second century.35 This is a story that is presented through the words of the apostles retelling the story of Jesus. In one of the versions of the text the story begins with a description of events from Jesus’ birth through events of his mission and into the events where the women come to the tomb. Another version starts shortly before the women enter the narrative. And after the women leave the narrative scene, the dialogue between the apostles and the risen Lord becomes the remaining part of the story.36 The women thus act as mediators as they introduce the risen Jesus to the apostles, and the story of the women at the tomb becomes a place of transition as the text moves from one narrative form to another. In this story, the women go to the tomb carrying ointments; they mourn and weep over what has happened. The Epistula narrates the women approaching the tomb, they find it opened and empty. In this text there is no divine messenger, but they meet the risen Jesus who tells them to go and tell the disciples. One of the women goes and tells, but is not believed by the disciples.37 The failure of the disciples to believe the message of the resurrection results in yet another woman being sent to them. When the apostles fail to believe the message again, the risen Jesus approaches them together with the women. The women’s testimony is validated, and they disappear out of the narrative. The central theme to be understood by this course of events is the faith, or lack thereof, of the apostles. This is further enhanced by the explicit link to the threefold denial of Peter in relation to this episode. The Epistula narrates a dialogue between the women at the tomb and the risen Jesus and an explicit dialogue between the women and the apostles that is not present in any of the other stories here discussed. And the women’s role in this narrative is primarily to tell, not to see. However, in the narrative, their telling is of little consequence for the disciples’ faith. Allie M. Ernst writes: The women serve merely as envoys who carry the message from the risen Lord to the eleven. The failure of the eleven to believe the message is of central interest; the women’s faith and their testimony are of no consequence. The eleven arrive at faith not through 34 As a dialogue gospel it resembles a “gnostic” dialogue text between the risen Jesus and disciples. Allie M Ernst claims that this text’s “immediate purpose is the refutation of Gnosticism, specifically a form of Gnosticism that is docetic and anti-apocalyptic. Thus the Epistula’s choice of genre, which closely matches the Gnostic dialogues between the risen Lord and various disciples, may be an attempt to combat Gnosticism with its own weapons.” Ernst, Martha, 68. 35 Frey, Texts About Jesus, 35. 36 The text of the Epistula is found in Ethiopic and Coptic. The former is complete, while the Coptic text seems to be missing some parts. In both, the women at the tomb are present. Muller, Epistula Apostolorum, 249–84. 37 The different manuscripts have different names here. And while the Coptic text writes Martha, the Ethiopic text writes Mary. This is further discussed by Ernst, Martha, 67–94.

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the testimony of the women, but rather through their own immediate encounter with the risen Lord and their own verification of his resurrection in the flesh.38

Even so, the women are part of the narrative though not immediately necessary for the events that take place. In this narrative they are characters that link the story of Jesus to the dialogue between the apostles and the risen Jesus. And here they become important tellers of the resurrection message, something that they are not in other narratives in this paper. But they only act as narrators implicitly, that is, they do not convey the message to the disciples in direct speech. But it is the narrator’s voice, that of the disciples that retell the events and states that “Mary/Martha came and told it to us.”39 The one time the direct speech appears is when Mary/Martha reports back to the risen Jesus: “None of them believed me that you are alive” (10.6). The intermediary function of the women at the tomb, and their message of the resurrection that they tell the disciples are connected to a certain ambiguity. On the one hand they are present, they speak and they act, on the other hand they are absent in the narrative from the actual conversation. In this there is no difference to the other gospel stories. Here, however, the women’s explicit mediating function in the Epistula as they link the story of the crucifixion and death of Jesus, to the subsequent appearance stories between the apostles and the resurrected Lord, is of interest. In the words of the apostles, their story, the women’s testimony of the risen Christ is affirmed, even though not believed, until the risen one himself appears to the apostles.

9.

The Gospel of Nicodemus

The Gospel of Nicodemus, or Acts of Pilate, is an apocryphal gospel that tells of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But compared to all the previous accounts, this gospel has a very different setting and in an apologetic way confirms the events of the canonical story/stories through characters of the story. When the women at the tomb appear in this narrative, it is through a retelling of the guards to the Jewish leaders of the synagogue. In this text, these leaders become intradiegetic narratees, that is receivers, of the message of the resurrection. The Gospel of Nicodemus is a text with variations in language and content that exists in many different recensions and versions. In Latin, this gospel narrative was popular and widespread during the Middle Ages, but it existed in earlier Greek versions of the text where one included the descent to Hades. Here I will 38 Ernst, Martha, 93. 39 The names differ in the two versions. I follow the translation of the different versions in Ernst, Martha, 303–04.

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follow and refer to the so-called Greek text A, without the harrowing of hell. This narrative has a complex history, and its dating seems to be quite uncertain.40 It is possible, and even probable that the traditions of the trial-like scenes had a background in early Christian apologetics, but the narrative as such is much later.41 In the beginning of the narrative there is a narrative voice in the first person with the name of Ananias. He claims to have found Roman documents, written in Hebrew by Nicodemus, whose story then begins with Jesus’ trial before Pilate and a Jewish council. It continues with the death and resurrection, and after this testimonies of various men before the same council follow. At one point in the story guards enter the scene of the synagogue, guards who had watched the tomb. And they tell the story of how the women are told the message of the resurrection by the angel: καὶ ἠκούσαμεν τῆς φωνῆς τοῦ ἀγγέλου λαλοῦντος ταῖς γυναιξίν, αἵτινες παρέμενον τῷ τάφῳ (We then heard the voice of the angel speaking to the women who were waiting at the tomb, Gos. Nic. 13:1). After the guards have retold the words of the divine messenger, the Jewish authorities question them about the women. Who were they, and why did they not seize them? Unlike the other stories of this study, the names of the women remain unknown within the story world. Also unlike the other stories in this study it is intradiegetic characters (characters within the story) that present the message of the resurrection. In this narrative the guards become storytellers of the gospel story in a way that echoes the synoptic accounts, namely that the women receive the message of the resurrection from the divine messenger. This in a way becomes what we might call a hypotext in relation to the Gospel of Nicodemus.42 In this story it also makes up a second narrative level, or hypo-diegetic level in the narrative. It is what became a story within the story as it is presented in the trial setting of this literary composition of late antiquity. Commenting on the women’s role in this narrative Mary Catherine Carson argues that “the women at the tomb are only mentioned in passing, and their position in the Gospel is only of significance in so far as they support the witness of the guards.”43 The witnesses of the two character groups in this story obviously supports each other, and it serves an apologetic purpose in that sense. But in so doing, the Gospel of Nicodemus reveals how the events of the story are rewritten 40 According to Ehrman and Plesˇe the dating of this text among scholars ranges from second to sixth century, but they also make the assertion that the narrative as we have it is related to a composition from the fourth century. Ehrman and Plesˇe, Apocryphal Gospels, 420. 41 See Frey, Texts about Jesus, 30–31. 42 Gérard Genette, who develops a structuralist approach to intertextuality, in which he defines relations between texts, applies this terminology. A hypotext is a text underlying a second text that is described as the subsequent hypertext. Genette, Palimpsests, 5. 43 Carson, They Said, 321.

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by adding new storytellers to the Gospel. In the Gospel of Nicodemus, the women at the tomb are considered to be part of the story of Jesus. But it is also a narrative where their role as “women” is singled out as their characteristic. At one point in this narrative the question of women witnesses are brought to the front of the narrative. As one woman wants to testify on behalf of Jesus during his trial, she is silenced, or at least disregarded by the addressees within the story, with a reference to the law that does not permit women to serve as witnesses (Gos. Nic. 7). Thus, gender is an explicit issue in this text. And it is thus rather convenient that the women at the tomb are not the proclaimers of the message of the resurrection. This gospel story thematizes the telling of the story of the resurrection and the women at the tomb in relation to this proclamation. Here, the narrative setting is that of trial-like scenes that bring forth witnesses and ask for testimonies. According to this narrative the Jewish authorities pay the guards for their silence, so the resurrection story should be kept a secret. This group of Jews is in the narrative portrayed as the evildoers and enemies of the truth in this story, and the anti-Jewish sentiments and structures are written into the format of this narrative. The story of the women at the tomb is put in this setting as part of the story, to receive the news of the resurrection.

10.

Concluding Words

It is with different voices that the stories of the women at the tomb and their encounter with the message of the resurrection are told. This study has looked at, described and discussed seven different gospel narratives and their narrators in relation to the event of the women at the tomb. In the last gospel we encountered, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the storytellers and messengers of the news are male, and here the women stand in contrast the authority of the male testimony even though this is put within an apologetic context. In this story it is clear why the narrator is male: because in this narrative setting, a female testimony is not carrying with it the same authority, and here it is the testimony that becomes the story. In the Gospel of Nicodemus this is an explicit statement, but the question is whether there is an underlying structure of narrative here that also might be referred to the other gospel stories? Could the women be narrators at all? This question resembles that of the status of the women as historic witnesses to the resurrection. And I would argue that here it also becomes a matter of poetics, of narrative voice and authority in gospel narrative. This may be explicit or a more subtle structure of gospel writings. That said, matters are a bit more complex. The Gospel of John endows Mary with a role that does not compare to the passive women described in the Gospel of Nicodemus. But nonetheless her story is put in the framework of the beloved

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disciple when in the end of the story the narrative voice is revealed. In the Gospel of Matthew the narrator is seemingly free from gender, but in this narrative the women at the tomb are not the only witnesses. In Mark, where they are, they run away and remain silent in fear leaving the message of the resurrection with the narrator whose position resembles that of the young man. The Epistula Apostolorum has a different form, and makes the women tellers of the message, but again it is not in direct speech. Can women be narrators? In Greek lament tradition, women do have an important role as a narrative voice in the midst of death and grief. In the early Christian gospel tradition their role seems to be different when in relation to resurrection and the good news. Now, these are only seven texts that illustrate how the gospels as narratives have taken form. Other texts could be used, such as the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Gamaliel or the Homeric centos to examine different strategies for narrating gospel story.44

Bibliography Bal, M., Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, (3rd ed.), University of Toronto Press 2009. Byrskog, S., Story as History – History as Story, Mohr Siebeck 2000. Carson, M.C., And They Said Nothing to Anyone: A Redaction-Critical Study of the Role and Status of Women in the Crucifixion, Burial and Resurrection Stories of the Canonical and Apocryphal Gospels, (PhD Diss.), University of Newcastle upon Tyne 1990. Corley, K.E.M., Women’s Funerary Rituals and Christian Origins, Fortress Press 2010. Crossan, J.D., Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contour of Canon, Wipf & Stock 1985. Ehrman, B.D./Z. Plesˇe (eds.), The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations, Oxford University Press 2011. Elliott, J.K., The Endings of Mark’s Gospel and the Presentation of the Variants in the Marc Multilingue Edition, in C.B. Amphoux/J.K. Elliott with B. Outtier, Textual Research on the Psalms and Gospels, Brill 2012. Ernst, A.M., Martha From the Margins: The Authority of Martha in Early Christian Tradition, Brill 2009. Frey, J., Texts about Jesus: Non-Canonical Gospels and Related Literature, in A.Gregory/T. Nicklas/C.M. Tuckett/J. Verheyden, The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Apocrypha, Oxford University Press 2015, 13–47. Genette, G., Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, (Translated by J.E. Lewin), Cornell University Press 1980. –, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. (Translated by C. Newman/C. Doubinsky), University of Nebraska Press 1997. 44 These gospel narratives stand in somewhat different traditions. That is interesting but not part of this study.

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Henderson, T.P., The Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics: Rewriting the Story of Jesus’ Death, Burial and Resurrection, Mohr Siebeck 2011. De Jong, I.J.F., Narratology and Classics: A Practical Guide, Oxford University Press 2014. Kartzow, M.B., Resurrection as Gossip: Representations of Women in Resurrection Stories of the Gospels, Lectio Difficilor 1 (2010): 1–28, http://www.lectio.unibe.ch/10_1/ kartzow2.html. Lanser, S.S., Sexing Narratology: Towards a Gendered Poetics of Narrative Voice, in M. Bal, Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies, (vol. 3), Routledge 2004, 123–39. Larsen, K.B., Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John, Brill 2008. Metzger, B.M., A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, (3rd ed.), United Bible Societies 1975. Mitchell, J.L., Beyond Fear and Silence: A Feminist-Literary Reading of Mark, Continuum 2001. Müller, C.D.G., Epistula Apostolorum, in W. Schneemelcher (ed.), Gospels And Related Writings, (Vol 1 of New Testament Apocrypha, translated by R.McL. Wilson, 2nd ed.), Westminster John Knox 1991. Osiek, C., The Women at the Tomb: What are They Doing There?, HTS 53 (1997), 103–18. Rhoads, D./J. Dewey/D. Michie, Mark As Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, (3rd ed.), Fortress Press 2012. Seim, T.K., The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke-Acts, T&T Clark 1994; repr., 2004. Standhartinger, A., What Women Were Accustomed to Do for the Dead Beloved by Them (Gospel of Peter 12.50): Traces of Laments and Mourning Rituals in Early Easter, Passion, and Lord’s Supper Traditions, JBL 129.3 (2010), 559–74. Setzer, C., Excellent Women: Female Witnesses to the Resurrection, JBL 116.2 (1997), 259– 72.

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After Anti-Imperial Readings Early Christians in the Empire Re-Examined

1.

Introduction

“Paul opposed Rome with Christ against Caesar, not because that empire was particularly unjust or oppressive, but because he questioned the normalcy of civilization itself, since civilization has always been imperial, that is, unjust and oppressive.”1 With these words, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed sum up the message of their book In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom. In this article, I question this view with examinations of Romans 13 and Christian soldiers. Several scholars have uttered views similar to those of Crossan and Reed, not only on Paul but also on the New Testament as a whole. The scholarly situation can be easily grasped by reading, for example, Judy Diehl’s tripartite review on recent anti-imperial readings of the New Testament.2 Diehl also shows that these studies are often tinged by an impulse for modern applications. This is also the case with Crossan and Reed. They ask: “To what extent can America be Christian? We are now the greatest post-industrial civilization as Rome was then the greatest preindustrial one. That is precisely what makes Paul’s challenge equally forceful for now and as for then, for here as for there, for Senatus Populusque Romanus as for Senatus Populusque Americanus.”3 Is the reading of the New Testament skewed by these modern political needs? In other words, is it a bit of eisegesis instead of exegesis? Joseph Verheyden notes that in the anti-imperial readings there is a risk of interpreting specific passages too exclusively “in light of the overall thesis at the cost of obscuring the immediate context in which a particular passage occurs.” Verheyden gives an elaborate 1 Crossan/Reed, Search, x–xi. 2 Diehl, Anti-Roman; Empire; Babylon. 3 Crossan/Reed, Search, xi.

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example of an anti-imperial interpretation of the yoke analogy in the Gospel of Matthew (11:28–30). He concludes that the result is “too simplistic” and that “early Christianity cannot be captured under this sole header,” namely antiimperialism.4 However, it would also be a fault to pass anti-imperial readings off as a pure eisegesis. One can find a similar overall thesis from a person with a very different background: Leopold von Ranke. He is called the “father” of “objective” history, and he was a conservative ennobled by the Prussian king. Ranke surely had no reasons to introduce any anti-imperial agenda into the New Testament texts. However, he constructed a political problem in the center of early Christianity as follows: “The invisible Kingdom of God, the realm of Messiah, ran into an undeniable conflict with the idea of unconditional obedience to Imperial authority.”5 Denying the anti-imperial potential would be meaningless, because right at the heart of Christianity lies a person executed by the Roman authorities. In his First Letter to the Corinthians Paul preferred to know nothing but “Jesus Christ, him crucified.” He continues by proclaiming that it was “the rulers of this age” who “crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:2–8). However, the power structure is changing. Paul is convinced that Christ is alive and he will give the kingdom to God after destroying “every ruler and every authority and power” (1 Cor 15:24).6 This was not only a theory. Non-Christian sources also report tensions between early Christians and Roman society. Tacitus describes Nero’s persecution in Rome in the 60’s CE. Tacitus maintains that the Emperor falsely blamed Christians for the burning of the city, but then he immediately adds that the Christians got what they deserved for their hatred of humankind (Tacitus, Ann. 15.44). Suetonius lists the same persecution among Nero’s good deeds (Nero 16). Pliny the Younger, governor of Asia Minor, reports on his measures against the local Christians (Ep. 10.96).7 Both Christian and Roman sources demonstrate the tensions between Christians and Roman society. Therefore, what is wrong in the anti-imperial readings, aside from some overly daring interpretations of single sayings exemplified by Verheyden? I claim that the overall thesis is too daring: early Christians and Roman society were not in constant tension. The picture is a “much more colourful one and cannot fully be grasped under this one per-

4 Verheyden 2014, xvi–xxi. 5 Ranke, Weltgeschichte, 182, 184; my translation. 6 It is not absolutely clear that Paul is speaking of mundane authorities; one can also see them as celestial angelic or demonic powers. Schrage (Korinter 4, 173–74; Korinther 1, 253–54) sees a double meaning in these verses. 7 Cook (Attitudes) presents a careful reading of these texts.

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spective.”8 In other words, early Christians were not only anti-imperial. There is also much evidence in favor of the pro-imperial perspectives in the early Christian sources. I will take two cases, which prove that there really were pro-imperial perspectives reflected in early Christian literature. I emphasize that my intention is not to maintain that early Christians were always and everywhere pro-imperial, but to point out that there were also these kind of tendencies. The two themes are Paul’s teaching on civil authorities in Romans 13 and early Christian soldiers. The latter theme is neglected in the anti-imperial readings while the former is treated with difficulty and embarrassment.

2.

Civil Authorities in Romans 13

Ranke paints a more colorful picture of early Christianity than many of the promoters of the anti-imperial readings. In an extolling tone, he speaks of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans as “a monument of the most important class.” The reference is, of course, Romans 13:1–7, which includes a loyal paean to the divinely instituted state. In these verses, Paul claims that God has instituted all governing authorities and that every person must be subject to them. Those who resist the authorities resist God. According to Ranke, Paul gave room for state and Emperor within the new faith, ascribing the existence of all, even the Emperor, to the monotheistic God. “Everything is united in Paul’s thinking,” Ranke extols, adding, “This is the sum of his apostleship.”9 He has clearly forgotten that the apocalyptic apostle expected the time when “every ruler and every authority and power” is destroyed (1 Cor 15:24). Paul’s thinking is more complex than just antior pro-imperial. While Ranke is delighted in Romans 13, the scholars with strong anti-imperial leanings feel more or less uncomfortable. Just look at Crossan’s and Reed’s book on Paul and the empire. They dedicate two partial pages out of 450 total pages to Romans 13:1–7. Yet, this is the only passage where Paul intentionally discusses the empire.10 Neil Elliot openly laments that Paul’s exhortation to subordinate to all the governing authorities “threatens to capsize every Christian liberative project.”11 True, Paul’s words oddly ascribe the unlimited power to the civil authorities. Generation after generation have written commentaries to ameliorate Paul’s words. 8 9 10 11

Verheyden, Introduction, xxii. Ranke, Weltgeschichte: 182, 184; my translation. Crossan/Reed, Search, 394, 409. Elliott, Liberating, 217.

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It is noteworthy that those who have accepted Paul’s words without further comment are like Thomas Hobbes, who ascribed unlimited power to the sovereign. Hobbes had no need to ameliorate what Paul says. To Hobbesian political ideology, Paul’s words suited well, although Paul is not speaking of one sovereign but several authorities (ἐξουσίαι). Paul does not establish a monarchy or republic or any other political structure, but speaks generally of power relations; and those in power have an unlimited authority over their subjects. Therefore, Hobbes and his ilk found Paul’s words suitable as such. Others, who are not so eager to promote sovereignty have often added limitations, which must have been found outside of this passage – be they clausula Petri (Acts 5:29) or legalistic re-interpretations of the authorities.12 I think that it is wise to take Paul’s words as they stand and to make sense of them. How could he claim that complying with the empire always results in good? According to Paul God has instituted the authorities who show the institution in their capacity to suppress all resistance. Rulers are terror to bad conduct, their sword generates fear and they are revengers (Rom 13:3–4). The approval for good conduct is a single exception to the violent and fearful measures. Paul is clearly speaking about “the powers that be,” not about what they should be. This is his political realism, well-known for ancient people. In her study on ancient morality, Teresa Morgan goes through different sources like fables and exemplary figures. Many fables describe the relationship between the weak and the strong. According to the morality of the fables, the weak should not put themselves in the way of the powerful, but – and this is also noteworthy – the strong should not destroy themselves by unwise treatment of their inferiors.13 Morgan shows how ancient people – she clearly speaks of the hegemonic public discourse14 – saw the whole of society as an interconnected hierarchy: everyone is bound to those above and below. The exemplary figures Morgan presents devote fides, trustworthiness, toward persons of higher rank than themselves. Moreover, civil institutions are seen as moral authorities, especially the army, censorship, the magistracies and the law courts.15 This view is not far from Paul’s views. The popular morality Morgan presents is the law of the stronger. Stoic philosopher Epictetus cites an unknown verse in hexameter as a universal and a divine law: “Let the stronger always prevail over the weaker” (Epictetus, Disc. 12 Huttunen, Fantasy. 13 Morgan, Popular, 63–67. 14 There were alternative discourses as e. g., Kartzow has shown in his study on Pastoral Epistles. Kartzow (Gossip, 207) notes that the author of the Epistles rebukes women for gossiping as “gossips” represent an alternative discourse. In this way women achieved power and influence. This single example shows that, the hierarchical structure of society is not the whole truth of power in ancient society. 15 Morgan, Popular, 136, 142.

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1.29.13, 19, slightly revised). The law of the stronger is more or less critically discussed by, for example, Hesiod (Op. 210, 274–281), Plato (Resp. 338e–339a; Gorg. 483a–484c), and Josephus who refers to it when relating his advice to Jerusalem under siege. According to Josephus, God’s will is visible as there is “an established law, as supreme among the brutes as among men, ‘Yield to the stronger’ and ‘The mastery is for those pre-eminent in arms’” (Josephus, Jewish War 5.378, 367). Paul shares this view: God is on the side of the powerful. The law of the stronger does not mean immoral power politics. As Morgan notes ancient people understood the society as a hierarchy where everyone is interconnected to those below and above. The powerful should not destroy themselves by an unwise treatment of the inferior. This is also seen in the classical description of the law of the stronger – I refer to the Melian dialogue by Thucydides. In the dialogue Athenians require a small city of Melos to comply or encounter its destruction in the hands of the Athenian army. When the Melians invoke divine justice, Athenians cynically note: ‘For the gods we hold the belief, and of men we know, that by necessity of their nature (ὑπὸ φύσεως ἀναγκαίας) wherever they have power they always rule.’ The Athenians say that they just follow this law they have found to be true and therefore believe in divine support (Thucydides 5.104–105). The Athenians and Paul agree that the divine is on the side of the power. Paul also says that complying is a necessity, ἀνάγκη (Rom 13:5). The Melian dialogue is always presented as a typical example of immoral power politics. This presentation, however, is not true. As I showed, in ancient morality the stronger was bound by certain duties toward the inferior. The Athenians advise the Melians not to consider it disgraceful to be in the inferior status, as it is most right to show moderation toward the inferior (Thucydides 5.111). As Melos did not comply, it was destroyed, but as a general procedure, the destruction of inferiors would destroy the Athenians themselves. The powerful actually need their subjects for their own might and welfare.16 This moderation toward inferiors was also part and parcel of the Roman imperial ideology. Virgil notes in Aeneid: “You, Roman, be sure to rule the world (be these your arts), to crown peace with justice, to spare the vanquished and to crush the proud (parcere subiectis et debellare superbos).” (Aen. 6.851–853). Paul’s words on civil authorities in Romans 13 become understandable in the context of ancient morality. As the stronger is bound to moderate treatment toward the complying inferior, it is understandable why Paul assumed that complying with the empire results in good. This is the realistic strand of Paul’s thought. I am ready to acknowledge that this is not the whole truth of Paul’s views

16 Crane, Thucydides, 291–93.

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on the empire, but it is another story.17 I just remind of the fact that he could put trust in Christ who will destroy “every ruler and every authority and power” (1 Cor 15:24). Paul, however, is not the sole figure to simultaneously embrace both positive and critical views of the state authorities. For example, in Disc. 4.2.10–12 Epictetus denies “the worth of state laws altogether, claiming one should not subject oneself (ὑποτεταγμένον) to the state laws. This is squarely opposed to his claim that good citizens have subordinated (ὑποτέταχεν) their wills to the state laws (Disc. 1.12.7). Epictetus’ attitude towards the state laws varies between polar opposites.”18 Paul also presented an odd unity of opposites as I remarked, but at this moment it is enough to see his strongly pro-imperial tone deeply rooted in ancient morality. The Christians in service of the empire incarnated this tone.

3.

Christian soldiers

“So far as our sources permit us to judge, this kind of career has little or no relevance for the first generations of Christians, although later on Christians in the army would constitute a problem both for the empire and for the church’s leaders.”19 This is what Wayne A. Meeks has to say about Christian soldiers in his groundbreaking study The First Urban Christians (1983). It mapped the social world of the Pauline churches, by pointing out that, for example, Philippi was a Roman colony consisting of veterans.

3.1

Soldiers and Military Discourse in the New Testament

Meeks’s claim is strange if one remembers that Luke presented the centurion Cornelius as the first baptized non-Jew (Acts 10), a paradigm for all Christians with a non-Jewish background.20 Unlike Meeks suggests, a military career does not seem to be a problem for Luke. The stumbling block Luke deals with is not Cornelius’ career but his uncircumcision. If Cornelius’ character is Luke’s invention, as it may be,21 the case is even stronger: Luke delibarately chose a soldier to be the paradigmatic first Christian with a non-Jewish past. 17 18 19 20

On the other story, see Huttunen, Fantasy. Huttunen, Paul, 92. Meeks, First, 20. One may ask, whether the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–39) is in fact the first non-Jew receiving baptism. Luke, however, clearly presents the centurion as the person whose baptism breaks the way to the mission outside of Judaism. 21 See, e. g., Haenchen, Acts, 355–62 and Barrett, Commentary, 491–97.

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Luke’s positive attitude toward Roman soldiers is eye-catching and two scholars have recently published books on the theme. Laurie Brink in her Soldiers in Luke-Acts concludes that the characterization of Roman soldiers and centurions “functions both as a parabolic exemplum of a good disciple, and as the author’s optimistic expectation of imperial benevolence.”22 Alexander Kyrychenko in turn concludes in his The Roman Army and the Expansion of the Gospel: “The Roman Empire in Luke’s narrative is a receptive mission field, and the Roman centurion, the principal representative of the Empire, exemplifies the desired response.”23 There are also some “evil” soldiers in the New Testament, mostly outside of Luke-Acts. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus advises the crowd not to resist evil, which includes the person who “forces you to go one mile” (Matt 5:41). As the Greek technical term – the verb ἀγγαρεύω – reveals, the Matthean Jesus’ words can be interpreted as a reference to requisition. In principle, it meant local help for transportation with an official permit. “Both animals and drivers, including slaves, freedmen and free persons were requisitioned for such duty. The Roman army also routinely requisitioned civilians to carry supplies.”24 In practice, it could mean sheer maltreatment and robbery. Christopher Fuhrmann notes, “The very expansion of military policing increased soldiers’ abuse of civilians, evident in several sources.” Emperors tried to limit the malpractice in vain.25 As local civilians had no opportunity to resist the requisition, it was most practical to comply. Epictetus advises his listeners to submit to the requisition of the donkey: “[I]f it be commandeered (ἂν δ’ ἀγγαρεία ᾖ) and a soldier lay hold of it, let it go, do not resist nor grumble. If you do, you will get a beating and lose your little donkey just the same” (Disc. 4.1.79). Didache seems to share Epictetus’ pessimism: “If anyone seizes what is yours, do not ask for it back, for you will not be able to get it (οὐδὲ γὰρ δύνασαι)” (1.4). The author of Didache thinks that it is impossible to resist a requisition.26 The Matthean Jesus’ advice not to resist evil is in line with these practical reasonings with the exception of developing a further compliance: do not walk only the required mile, but walk even two miles. Thus, policing soldiers were generally felt as a threat. The picture of malpracticing soldiers had a basis in everyday experience, not in a general mood of anti-imperialism, or anything like that. It is noteworthy that these malpracticing 22 23 24 25 26

Brink, Soldiers, 175. Kyrychenko, Army, 189. Roth, Logistics, 110. Fuhrmann, Policing, 11, 159–61. The meaning of the words οὐδὲ γὰρ δύνασαι is debated. Niederwimmer (Didache, 79) considers the meaning to be obvious: “Let yourself to be robbed, because you cannot really defend yourself, no matter what!” Actually, the robbery may be requisition as the textual context explicitly speaks of it.

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soldiers in the New Testament are always rank-and-file men like those mocking Jesus in the passion story (Matt 27:27–31; Mark 15:16–20) or those bribed ones guarding Jesus’ tomb (Matt 27:62–66; 28:12–15). In contrast, centurions are always favorably pictured, not only in Luke’s writings but also in Mark and Matthew: the centurion in Capernaum (Matt 8:5–13) is exemplary as well as the centurion confessing Jesus as God’s Son at the cross (Matt 27:54; Mark 15:39). It is noteworthy that when the Gospel of Peter presents the guards at Jesus’ tomb in a more positive light than Matthew, they are led by a centurion, Petronius. He is the most positive character.27 The positive picture of centurions has its counterpart in the ancient sources. Richard Alston has illustratively gathered Egyptian evidence of the confidence, which local people felt towards the centurionate. They were often asked for help in situations, which were officially not theirs.28 Sometimes centurions acted as judges.29 Their economic resources could benefit civilians. For example, a centurion in En Gedi, close to the Dead Sea, lent money to a Jewish owner of a local palm grove.30 The people in the Syrian village of Phaena honored a centurion as a “friend and benefactor.”31 There could even be religious relations. Centurions belonged to the itinerant officer corps, which actively changed posts and became acquainted with numerous deities.32 Besides the official cult, they could partake in diverse cults, including the local ones.33 In this context, Luke is at least credible in picturing a centurion who had funded a synagogue in Capernaum (Luke 7:4) or in his claim that Cornelius is a God-fearer (Acts 10:2). In sum, the images of soldiers in the New Testament are dependent on practical matters and common ancient notions. One can find no anti-imperial trait in the negative military characters. Only the Gospel of John seems to be reserved. There is no centurion of Capernaum, but a βασιλικός, which can mean anything in the service of the king.34 Neither is there a centurion at the cross to confess his faith. Instead, soldiers seem to be lumped together with Jesus’ other opponents into the anti-God category of “this world.”35 If this expresses some kind of anti-imperialism is another matter. In any case, it is clear that the military characters in the New Testament are not univocally hostile towards Jesus and his

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Huttunen, Brothers. Alston, Soldier, 86–96. Pollard, Soldiers, 94. Campbell, War, 100. Pollard, Soldiers, 88. Shean, Soldiering, 41. Helgeland/Daly/Burns, Christians, 48; Campbell, War, 100. Dunderberg, Royal, 289–95. Huttunen, Centurion’s, 310–14.

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adherents. In Luke’s case, one can suspect even pro-imperial motives, as Brink and Kyrychenko suggest.

3.2

Soldiers in Postbiblical Early Christianity

In postbiblical early Christianity, one can see a growing distance between intellectuals and common Christians. The early Christian theologians belonged to the literate elite of their time and they shared the common literate disgust toward the military. Philosophers’ “attitudes to soldiers appear to have usually been a mixture of alienation, contempt, and antipathy,” as Harry Sidebottom argues. He illustrates his point with examples: Philosophers’ dislike of soldiers found expression in unflattering comparisons. Soldiers were like sheepdogs, which were renowned for their viciousness. They were compared to sailors, and the bad company kept on ships was proverbial. They were likened to pedagogues, and they were generally thought of as being of such low status that they were like hired labour for the grape harvest. Serving on a campaign was said to be like being a convict. (Epict. 4.1.39; cf. 3.24.29)36

There was even a philosophical “flirtation with pacifism,”37 but ambiguously. In particular, the wars in the remote past could be viewed positively and fulfilling one’s military duty was a good thing.38 Otherwise soldiers were mostly “other” to these literate persons. In this respect, early Christian theologians did not differ from their social class. Justin Martyr, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus did not often discuss the military. To them, it seems to be a remote theme and the scattered references mostly express scruples without any open denial. The Old Testament wars also posed scruples. Some theologians, like Marcion, rejected the entire Old Testament, but others saved Scripture by allegorizing it or by thinking that warfare was a thing of the past. This was also the philosophers’ tactic in dealing with Homer and the Greek wars in the classical period.39 Tertullian was by no means vague but was rather an outspoken antimilitarist who—strangely enough—used an intensely militarist parlance, which was present in Latin Christianity already before him.40 This military element was possibly stronger in Western as opposed to Eastern Christendom, which also makes it more comprehensible as to why Tertullian so strongly emphasizes his antimilitarism. His writings betray Christians who stood in the ranks of the 36 37 38 39 40

Sidebottom, Philosophers’ Attitudes, 253. Sidebottom, Philosophers’ Attitudes, 262. Sidebottom, Philosophers’ Attitudes, 254–55. Huttunen, Brothers. Cancik, Religionsgeschichten, 271–73.

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Roman army. He relates the story of the so-called rain miracle, which is attested in several sources including the column of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Rome. A sudden rain rescued the thirsty and threatened Roman troops. According to Tertullian, the rain was due to the prayers of the Christian soldiers (Apol. 5.6), whom he does not blame. In other works, Tertullian openly opposes Christians in the ranks of army. A Christian man cannot engage in battle as the Lord’s disarming of Peter unbelted every soldier, Tertullian proclaims (Idol. 19). In the treatise De Corona he pictures an exemplary soldier, a Christian conscientious objector who refuses to partake in the cult of state religion. As a counter picture, he draws Christians in the ranks who “murmur that a peace so good and long is endangered for them” (Cor. 1). Tertullian reluctantly admits the possibility that a Christian soldier continues in the ranks after baptism — but only if he can “avoid offending God,” which he regarded as being very difficult if not impossible (Cor. 11). In allowing military service for those who are baptized when serving in the army, Tertullian goes along with the Apostolic Tradition 16.9. There is a single Christian intellectual who had no scruples with war: Julius Africanus. At the beginning of the 3rd century, he wrote a manual, which provided technical details supporting the Emperor’s warfare. Julius shamelessly promoted the art of war. Archeological evidence dated to the same time attests that a Christian prayer hall was situated in the immediate proximity of a Roman military camp at Megiddo. The owner of the building seems to be the army, but the inscriptions are clearly Christian as a table is dedicated to “God Jesus Christ.” Another inscription tells that “Gaianus, also called Porphyrius, centurion, our brother (ἀδελφὸς ἡμῶν), has made the pavement at his own expense as an act of liberality.”41 It seems to be clear that a military career had relevance for the first generations of Christians. It was not only a problem for the church leaders and — as the archeological evidence shows — not necessary even to the empire. At the same time one must admit that it also could be a problem, but the reason for this was not necessarily a clear anti-imperial ideology. Many writings of literate Christians fit with the broader literate context within the empire. The picture seems to be one that is more colorful than the anti-imperial readings put forward by Crossan and Reed.

41 Tepper/Di Segni, Prayer.

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Conclusion

Romans 13 is an example of an early Christian discourse with strong positive and pro-imperial ties to the ancient political discourse. One could continue by explaining the early Christian philosophy as a cultural conformity which was partially recognized by such 2nd century Roman intellectuals as the Stoic Epictetus, the satirist Lucian, the Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and most clearly, the physician and philosopher Galen.42 Yet, Romans 13 is the clearest case as it directly deals with the empire. How can we make sense of the glorification of the state in Romans 13? John S. Kloppenborg has made several useful insights based on postcolonial studies. Although his material deals with the figure of the Judge in Q, certain points shed light on Paul too. Kloppenborg notes that the imitation of the dominant discourse by the subaltern has two functions. First, “the subaltern adopts the language of the dominant culture in order to reduce alterity.” Kloppenborg presents Romans 13:1–7 as an example. As we have seen, Paul really embraced a very common and deeply rooted ancient view of the society. Second, the imitation of the dominant discourse is incomplete. By the partial imitation, the subaltern “both disguises herself as compliant, and creates room for identity in a new discursive space.”43 Romans 13:1–7 can also be seen as an example of that: at the top of society, there are not the Roman gods but the God of Israel. Robert Jewett claims that the shift from Roman gods to Israel’s God is subversive in terms of political theology.44 This is far from clear. Judaism was a religio licita in the Roman Empire and the Jewish uprising began when the sacrifices offered on behalf of the Romans and the Emperor was rejected (Josephus, Jewish War 2.409). Thus, there was a recognized Israelite political theology of the empire that Paul joined. This corroborates well Kloppenborg’s observation of multiple hegemonic discourses.45 For Paul, Jewish imperial theology was an option to legitimately avoid the Roman gods. In practice, this theological option by no means limited the duty of obedience in Romans 13:1–7. The difference in the theological level between the official Roman religion and Jewish monotheism did not create any difference in the practical level of everyday power structures. The case of Christian soldiers shows that despite the critical voices attested, for example, in Tertullian’s works and in the Apostolic Tradition, there were Christian soldiers. The New Testament is already divided on the question. While John seems to situate soldiers on the side of an anti-God “world,” Luke promotes 42 43 44 45

Huttunen, Category. Kloppenborg, Power, 181. Jewett, Romans, 789–790. Kloppenborg, Power, 180–181.

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military Christianity in a manner that I would not hesitate to call pro-imperial. In many cases, however, the views of soldiers represent purely practical and common views in antiquity: rank-and-file men are brutal, while centurions are respected. The Christian intellectuals, in turn, shared the views of their literate nonChristian contemporaries. One cannot say, for example, how the centurion Gaianus, “our brother” and other brothers in their military units, lived with the official cults. Neither can one say how they reconciled the “gospel of peace” with their military profession. Tertullian claims that they cannot be reconciled at all and praised the conscentious objector, who chooses martyrdom instead being laureled in the official cult. But Adolf Harnack addresses the most relevant question to Tertullian. He asks, why did the soldier suddenly refuse to take the crown, but has “not resisted military authority before on any of a hundred other occasions”?46 Harnack points out that the worshipers of Mithras had the liberty to be uncrowned for religious reasons and that Tertullian refers to this fact (Cor. 15). Harnack concludes that Tertullian’s hero is actually requiring the same freedom of religion as Mithraists had. “It is a symptom of the increased self-consciousness of the Christians (especially those in the army) as a religious group distinct from others. Apparently this Christian soldier did not at all want to demonstrate that Christian service and military service were irreconcilable.”47 Instead, he just wanted to be an openly Christian soldier. Thus, the conscientious objector was actually foreshadowing the future Christian empire some 100+ years from this time. If early Christianity was as antiimperial as some scholars claim, the smooth shift to a Christian empire would be inconceivable. Early Christianity must have been a more complex movement, where the anti-imperial perspectives are just one strand among many. This view relativizes the basis of modern anti-imperial applications, but is it a problem? Or does the modern anti-imperial theology require a totalizing reading of the New Testament without any deviation from this discourse?

Bibliography Alston, R., Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt: A Social History, Routledge 1995. Barrett, C.K., A Critical Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (ICC), T&T Clark 2004. Brink, L., Soldiers in Luke-Acts: Engaging, Contradicting, and Transcending the Stereotypes (WUNT, 2. Reihe 362), Mohr Siebeck 2014. 46 Harnack, Militia, 83. 47 Harnack, Militia, 83.

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Campbell, B., War and Society in Imperial Rome 31 BC – AD 284, Routledge 2002. Cancik, H., Religionsgeschichten. Römer, Juden und Christen im römischen Reich (Gesammelte Aufsätze II. Hrsg. von Hildegard Cancik-Lindemeier), Mohr Siebeck 2008. Cook, J.G., Roman Attitudes Toward the Christians: From Claudius to Hadrian (WUNT 261), Mohr Siebeck. 2010. Crane, G., Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity: The Limits of Political Realism, University of California Press 1998. Crossan, J.D./J.L. Reed, In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom. A New Vision of Paul’s Words & Worlds, SPCK 2005. Diehl, J., Anti-Roman Rhetoric in the New Testament, Currents in Biblical Research 10 (2011): 9–52. –, Empire and Epistles: Anti-Roman Rhetoric in the New Testament Epistles, Currents in Biblical Research 10 (2012): 217–63. –, ‘Babylon’: Then, Now and ‘Not Yet’: Anti-Roman Rhetoric in the Book of Revelation, Currents in Biblical Research 11 (2013): 168–95. Didache (translated by B.D. Ehrman, LCL), Harvard University Press 2003. Dunderberg, I., “The Royal Man” (βασιλικός) in John 4,46–54, in G. Van Belle/J. Verheyden (eds.), Christ and the Emperor: The Gospel Evidence (Biblical Tools and Studies 20), Peeters 2014, 279–99. Elliott, N., Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle, Sheffield Academic Press 1994. Epictetus, Discourses (translated by W.A. Oldfather, LCL), Harvard University Press, 1926. Fuhrmann, C.J., Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order, Oxford University Press, 2012. Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (translated by B. Noble/G. Shinn), Basil Blackwell 1992. Harnack, A., Militia Christi: The Christian Religion and the Military in the First Three Centuries (translated by D.M Gracie), Fortress Press 1981. Helgeland, J./R. Daly/J. Burns, Christians and the Military: The Early Experience, SCM Press 1987. Huttunen, N., Paul and Epictetus on Law: A Comparison, (LNTS 405), T&T Clark 2009. –, In the Category of Philosophy: Christians in Early Pagan Accounts, in R. Hakola/N. Nikki/U.Tervahauta (eds.), “Others” and the Construction of Early Christian Identity (PFES 106), Finnish Exegetical Society 2013, 239–81. –, The Centurion’s Faith in the Gospels and Soldiers in Early Christian Imagination, in G. Van Belle/J. Verheyden (eds.), Christ and the Emperor: The Gospel Evidence (Biblical Tools and Studies 20), Peeters 2014, 301–14. –, How Fantasy Comes True: Paul Between Political Realism and Eschatological Fantasy, Stasis 3 (2015): 90–109. –, Brothers in Arms: Soldiers in Early Christianity, in A. Marjanen, Gender, Social Roles and Occupations in Early Christianity, forthcoming. Jewett, R., Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia), Fortress Press 2007. Josephus (translated by H. St. J. Thackeray, LCL), Harvard University Press, 1926. Kartzow, M.B., Gossip and Gender: Othering of Speech in the Pastoral Epistles, (BZNW 164), Walter de Gruyter 2009.

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Kloppenborg, J.S., The Power and Surveillance of the Divine Judge in the Early Synoptic Tradition, in G. Van Belle/J. Verheyden (eds.), Christ and the Emperor: The Gospel Evidence (Biblical Tools and Studies 20), Peeters 2014, 147–84. Kyrychenko, A., The Roman Army and the Expansion of the Gospel: The Role of Centurion in Luke-Acts (BZNW 203), De Gruyter 2014. Meeks, W.A., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, Yale University Press 1983. Morgan, T., Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire, Cambridge University Press 2007. Niederwimmer, K., The Didache (translated by L.M. Maloney; ed. by H.W. Attridge, Hermeneia), Fortress Press 1998. Pollard, N., Soldiers, Cities, and Civilians in Roman Syria, The University of Michigan Press 2000. Ranke, L. von, Weltgeschichte 3: Das altrömische Kaiserthum. Mit kritischen Erörterungen zur alten Geschichte, Duncker & Humblot 1883. Roth, J.P., The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C. – A.D. 235), (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 23), Brill 1999. Schrage, W., Der Erste Brief an die Korinther 1, 1 Kor 1,1–6,11 (2. Auflage. EvangelischKatholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament VII/1), Neukirchener Verlag 2008. –, Der Erste Brief an die Korinther 4, 1 Kor 15,1–16,24 (Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament VII/4), Benziger Verlag 2001. Shean, J.F., Soldiering for God: Christianity and the Roman Army (History of Warfare 61), Brill 2010. Sidebottom, H., Philosophers’ Attitudes to Warfare Under the Principate, in J. Rich/ G. Shipley (eds.), War and Society in the Roman World, Routledge 1993, 241–64. Tepper, Y./L. Di Segni, A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kefar ’Othnay (Legio): Excavations at the Megiddo Prison 2005, With Contribution by Guy Stiebel, Israel Antiquities Authority 2006. Verheyden, J., Introduction: Christ and the Emperor – an Appetizer, in G. Van Belle/ J. Verheyden (eds.), Christ and the Emperor: The Gospel Evidence (Biblical Tools and Studies 20), Peeters 2014, ix–xxix. Virgil, Aeneid (translated by H.R. Fairclough, LCL), Harvard University Press 1918.

Paul Linjamaa

An Early Christian View on Emotions Stoic Thought in the Tripartite Tractate

1.

Introduction

The existence of a relation between Stoic philosophy and early Christianity has been documented and argued for by many prominent scholars.1 For example, Runar M. Thorsteinsson has pointed out similarities between the morality of the apostle Paul the Roman Stoics, such as Musonius Rufus.2 The aim of this paper is to develop our understanding of the connection between early Christianity and Stoicism, with focus on ancient theory of emotions. I argue that in one early Christian text in particular, the Valentinian Tripartite Tractate (henceforth Tri. Trac.), the connection to Stoic thought – especially Stoic theory of emotions – was especially strong. In a contribution to the anthology Stoicism in Early Christianity and recently in his book Gnostic Morality Revisited,3 Ismo Dunderberg charts some Stoic notions and influences on Valentinian theology. I here develop some of Dunderberg’s thoughts by focusing on the longest and most detailed extant Valentinian text: Tri. Trac.4 The most thorough work done, to the present date, on this 1 See for example Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity; Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, Sorabji, Emotion. 2 Paul, in Romans 12–15, calls for mutual love and for the strong to take care of the week, which can be compared to Musonius Rufus whose ethics were grounded in social reality, particularly concerning the less fortunate in society. See Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity, 40–54; 89– 104. 3 Rasimus/Engberg-Pedersen/Dunderberg, Stoicism; most recently in Dunderberg, Gnostic Morality. He also discusses some Stoic notions in Valentinian theology in Dunderberg, Beyond Gnosticism, 95–118. 4 Dunderberg, Stoicism, 234. Here Dunderberg discusses the Stoic theory of blending and briefly mentions Tri. Trac. in light of the scene where the two sides of the Logos’ creation battle for power (91–96). I will expand upon this below and argue that there are more examples of the Stoic notion of blending in Tri. Trac.

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fifth text in Nag Hammadi Codex I is Einar Thomassen and Louis Painchaud’s translation and commentary from 1989.5 Although Thomassen, who writes the commentary, makes notice of clear Stoic features he does not, unfortunately, elaborate on them.6 This paper aims to develop and add to Dunderberg’s and Thomassen’s initial work so that it hopefully will become clear just how important Stoic philosophy was in the formation of this early Christian text and its worldview. After a brief background survey of the text, the analysis is divided into three parts, each discussing features of Tri. Trac. that reveal similarities to Stoic thought, especially its theory of emotions: (1) the movement and motion attached to the Logos (the “Sophia figure”); (2) the description of the Savior as apathetic; (3) the admonition to teach and do good works which in turn indicates anthropological affiliation. But, first we need to discuss selected aspects of Tri. Trac. in light of the philosophical outlook of the text.

2.

A Tractate in Three Parts and Its Philosophical System

The title of Tri. Trac. derives from the fact that the manuscript is divided into three parts with decorative markings by the ancient scribe. The first part (51– 104), which is by far the longest of the three, deals with protology. We hear of the Father, the Son and the Church from where the Pleroma of Aeons emanates. The youngest of these Aeons is called “Logos” and he strays away from the highest world to commence his own creation together with the Demiurge and other lowly cosmic powers. Part two (104–108), the shortest, deals with the creation of humanity. Here we hear that humankind is split into three groups: the spiritual, psychic and material ones. The third and last part of the text (108–138) deals with the coming of the Savior and the restoration of the spiritual ones, as well as some of the psychics, into the highest world above while the material human beings are not restored at all. Even though the system of thought in Tri. Trac. appears complex, it actually aligns with popular philosophical ideas of Late Antiquity. The Father is described as “restful” (ⲙ¯ⲧⲁⲛ, 55,16–17), “unchanging” (ϣⲃⲓⲁⲓⲧ ⲉⲛ, 52,21) and “unwavering” (ϩⲁⲥⲉ ⲉⲛ, 53,16), “it is impossible for the mind to conceive him” (ⲙⲛ¯ ϭⲁⲙ ⲁⲧⲣⲉⲛⲟⲩⲥ ⲣ¯ⲛⲟⲓ¨ ⲙ¯ⲙⲁϥ, 54,15–16). The Father is here described in a typical apophatical way; it is only through the grace of the Father that one can know him. The youngest of the Aeons, Logos, steps away from the unity, stability and harmony of the 5 Thomassen/Painchaud, Le traité tripartite. 6 Thomassen does not make a study of, or expand upon, the Stoic notions in Tri. Trac., but mentions Stoicism in passing in several different contexts. For details see Thomassen, Le traité tripartite, 41, 264, 272, 294–96, 302, 305, 317, 329–31, 372, 375, 400–02, 411–13.

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Pleroma that emanated from the Father and he is throughout the text associated with motion, shaking and disturbance (77,7; 85,15–16; 115,21, 28). The inside of the Pleroma is associated with calm and rest, a motionless harmony. It is this harmony and rest that humans are to strive after and this is the reward for salvation. When the Logos moved away from highest existence he did so in order to know the unknowable Father. Accordingly, he left his immovable position in the harmony of the Pleroma and, as a result, the opposite is created: material powers associated with motion and disturbance. These are described as coming forth from the Logos through “impressions” (ⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ, 78,7).7 Thus this creation is described as beginning with the Logos acting on impressions (ⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ), being nevertheless confused, “double minded” (ϩⲏⲧⲥⲛⲉⲩ), and therefore not acting according to the unity of the Pleroma (82,19–21; 98,5). This state led Logos to selfdoubt. And his creations are described negatively as mere caricatures of the true Pleroma, “likenesses” (ⲧⲁⲛⲧⲛ¯ -), ”impressions” (ⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ) and “images” (ⲉⲓⲇⲱⲗⲟⲛ) (78,30–37). Because of his fallen state the pleromatic Aeons have mercy on the Logos in his distress and turmoil and hence send him the Son, which results in great joy for the Logos, who now is described as “returned to his stability” (92,23–24). However, the creation of the Logos has already sprung forth, a “premature production,” and later in the text these material powers are identified with passion (ⲡⲁⲑⲟⲥ), which is a sickness (ϣⲱⲛⲉ) (95,2–6).8 As the above descriptions attest, Tri. Trac. is a philosophically inclined text. Pheme Perkins even views the text as an attempt to convert philosophically trained people to this particular Valentinian stance of Christianity.9 Although her hypothesis can be criticized,10 there is nevertheless little doubt that Tri. Trac. derives from a context where Middle Platonism was popular. We recognize important and unquestionable similarities between the above protology of Tri. Trac. and the metaphysics of Numenius and Albinus, for example. Numenius 7 Attridge/Pagels and Thomassen’s translations most often use ”imagination” or ”illusion” or just ”phantasy” for ⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ but I argue here that ”impression” would be more appropriate, as something that appears in the mind because of exterior influence, and not something made up, which the English “fantasy,” “imagination” and “illusion” would imply. 8 Michael A. Williams has previously highlighted the resemblances of the protology in Tri. Trac. with Middle Platonic systems where creation is described as starting with a first movement from the state of repose. Williams compares the Logos in Tri. Trac. with Plutarch’s Isis, the movement and the creative element of nature that animates the world, and also how the creative World Soul is described by Plotinus as moving into the material realm in comparison with Sophia as she is portrayed in Ap. John where she moves “to and fro” at creation, like the spirit over the waters (cf. Gen 1:2). While Williams is surely correct in seeing the strong influence of Platonic notions on the author of Tri. Trac. I suggest that there are also Stoic influence at work, like those of Seneca and Epictetus. See Williams, Immovable Race, 115–20. 9 Perkins, Logos, 388. 10 If the purpose was to engage pagan philosophers, the condemnations of Greek philosophy and culture in Tri. Trac. 108–115 would not make much sense.

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and Albinus withheld that the highest unknowable God’s intellect produced from its own self ’s contemplation intellectual beings equivalent to his thoughts, which were connected with each other as well as integrated with and residing within god’s mind.11 This resembles very much how the highest Aeons are portrayed in Tri. Trac. Furthermore, Albinus and Numenius also did not view the highest god as the creator god but attributes material creation to a second god.12 There are also many parallels to other Christian systems, like that of Origen in his Peri Archon, where the initial creation incudes three different kinds of souls: angelic, demonic and human. These soul’s “fell” from their initial noetic state and creation is the result of bringing everything back again, the aim being apokatastasis.13 Thus, even though the system of Tri. Trac. might at a first glance look unique, it actually aligned well with other popular philosophical ideas of the second and third century AD. What has been written about the Tri. Trac.’s philosophical setting is almost entirely about its relation to the second and third century Middle Platonic systems. However, I contend that we would reach an even better understanding of the philosophical setting of Tri. Trac.’s protology as well as the text as a whole, if we also take into account Stoic thought of the first centuries of our era.14 I argue that the influence from Stoic philosophy, particularly later Roman Stoic theories on emotion, is operating prominently throughout the text. Accordingly, the Logos can be fruitfully described from the perspective of the Stoic distinction between initial passions and outright developed passions.

11 Numenius’ fragments 16, 22; Albinus Prologos, 16–37. 12 For a more detailed description of the Platonic background of Tri. Trac. see Kenney, Platonism, 187–206; Perkins, Logos, 379–396. 13 For more on Origen and the similarities to Tri. Trac., see Camplani, Per la cronologia, 171–95. 14 I have tried to confine my discussion of Stoic notions and philosophy to Roman Stoicism, chiefly to Seneca and Epictetus who cover the end of the first and the beginning of the second century. Tri. Trac. and its hypothetical Greek Vorlage was most likely composed after 160, before Valentinus was active, and could not have been composed later than the middle of the fourth century when the Nag Hammadi text were produced. During this time period Stoicism was indeed influential Platonizing Christians, such as Origen and Didymus the Blind as well as, just before this period, the Alexandrian Middle Platonists Philo. See Graver, Philo of Alexandria, 300–325; Layton, Propatheia, 262–82.

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3.

161

Passions and Impressions: First Movements and Blamelessness

In Tri. Trac. it is clear that creation occurs through the Will of the Father and that everything is governed through his Pronoia (77,10–11; 107,22; 109,7–11).15 As Thomassen has noticed, this view, to associate the Will of God with Pronoia and the view of creation as the oikonomia of the Father (77,9), is very similar to Stoic notions of Fate and the creation and organization of the world through Divine Reason.16 In Tri. Trac. it is the Father himself who causes the wish to know him in his Aeons (71,18–26), much like humans in Stoic thought were viewed to be naturally drawn to act according to their inherent reason. However, there are more similarities between Tri. Trac. and Stoic lore than the general view of the oikonomia. In Tri. Trac. the Logos, the youngest Aeon, is disassociated from blame for initiating creation. I will suggest that the portrayal of the “Sophia-figure” (i. e. the Logos) in Tri. Trac., has been influenced by later Stoic notions of “first impressions” and “proto-passions” and through this notion one could distance the “faulty Aeon” from blame and disassociate the Will to know the Father from the negative connotations of desire and passion. According to the Stoics, all animated objects were subjected to sensory impressions (φαντασία) that appeared in the mind on account of exterior influence. These impressions were a natural part of life but did not necessarily resemble reality. Humans were endowed with reason, and a wise and virtuous person followed reason (logos, the divine law permeating all existence) when choosing how to act on different impressions and identifying which impressions should be ignored.17 However, passions/emotions (πάθος) could entice humans to make wrong and un-virtuous decisions. Passions were disturbances in the mind/soul that impressions could cause, for example, the impression that one was being illtreated could cause the disturbance and motion in the mind called anger.18 Only a stable and firm mind where reason was the only judge yielded a happy and 15 Thomassen has pointed how similar this view to equated the Will of God with Pronoia and the view of creation as the oikonomia of the Father (77,9) is to Stoic notions of Fate and the creation and organization of the world for humanity’s benefit (Thomassen, Le traité tripartite, 335–36; 408–09; 411–13). 16 Thomassen, Le traité tripartite, 229; 488; 521. 17 See a summary of this Stoic thought, for example, in Aulus Gellius in his Attic Nights 19.1. 18 Zeno called emotions movements of the soul and “flutterings” (ptoia) (Stobaeus, Physical and Moral Extracts 2.39.5). Early Stoics like Chrysippus viewed emotions as judgments. A judgment that there was something good or bad at hand, for example. Fear was the judgment that there was something bad at hand while pleasure that there was something good at hand, these judgments/emotions caused the mind to either contract or expand. See Sorabji, Emotion, 17–54.

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virtuous life that did not experience the movements of the mind. However, in Seneca’s view, all humans, even the sage, experienced what he called “first movements” (primus motus), which were not passions but involuntary motions in the mind and body, caused by impression.19 First movements were without judgment and thus there was no blame attached to having them because they could not be avoided by use of reason: everyone was subjected to them.20 In Valentinian systems Sophia is often described as driven to create due to a passion and a desire to know or emulate the Father.21 Sophia reminds us much of Logos in Tri. Trac., but the fact that the youngest Aeon is here called Logos instead of Sophia shows us the plurality of so-called “Valentinian” theology and reminds us to be carful not to reify a homogenous school of thought. In Tri. Trac. the need to distance the Highest God from the lower creation is greater since the text takes a firm position for the thought that everything, even the lowest parts of creation, are sanctioned by God. Logos gets permission for his sidestep. Thus, Logos in Tri. Trac. is never actually associated with passion (πάθος) or desire (ἐπιθυμία), as Sophia often is; on the contrary, Logos’ going astray is predestined to occur. Instead, in an attempt to explain the actions of Logos, his connection to movement is emphasized. The Logos is called, “the one who moved”, “the Logos who moved” (85,15–16; 115,21; 115,28), and “the movement which is the Logos” (77,7).22 These movements, the first movement outside of the Pleroma, are not called passions. Instead, the passions seem to be created as a result of Logos acting on the impressions while in the state of movement. The actions of Logos are thus not surprising, but rather are expected considering the cognitive system set up by the Father. Logos’ actions become clear in the light of Seneca’s thoughts on “first movements,” or pre-passions. These were passionless states instigated by initial impressions. Acting on impressions in an instable state naturally lead to imperfection, and in the next step, to passions. This we see in the following creation scene. 19 Epictetus seems to agree on this point because, according to Aulus Gellius in Attic Nights 19.1 Epictetus held the view that a wise person could chose freely to ignore impressions that were not beneficial, like letting fear control one’s reason. 20 Seneca, On Anger 2.2.2; 2.2.1; 2.4.2. See also Sorabji, Emotion, 55–65. 21 Irenaeus Haer. 1.2.3; 1.4.1; 1.4.3; Clement of Alexandria Exc. Theod. 67.2; Hippolytus Haer. 6.32.5. See also Dunderberg, Beyond, 112ff.; Dunderberg, Stoicism, 225–29. 22 This description of the movement of the Logos and the sickness that is the result of his misstep is also similar to the way the Platonic and Neopytagorean Dyad, the material and formless part of creation, which is sometimes described in terms of movement. The Dyad is the moving material part of the creation, which the Soul gets entangled with (see for example Pseudo-Iambichus, Theologoumena arithmeticae 13.5). The irrational and disorderly movement of Plato’s World Soul also comes to mind (Timaeus 52D–53 A). For more on the theme of cosmological movement see Williams, Immovable, passim. What makes the description of Logos in Tri. Trac. somewhat particular is the emphasis that this movement is without blame.

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Whence the Logos initiated the creation outside the Pleroma, he started to order it and “gave each its appropriate region” (96,16–18). However, since his creation was come forth from an impression while the Logos was instable and not (like the Logos true nature) from the harmonious union, the result was called “passions, and passion is a sickness (ϣⲱⲛⲉ)” (95,2–5).23 The Logos created angels and archangels who were divided into two groups. One side was identified with “fear and desperation and oblivion and [error] and ignorance,” “love of command,” “envy,” “jealousy,”24 and “other dispositions of this sort” (103,28–29). The other part of his creation was superior, creatures are called, for example, “paradise,” “enjoyment” and “delight” (96,26–39). These superior creations were at war with the lesser creations.25 There powers sound very much like different kinds of passions. According to Stoics, humans could enjoy good emotions (εὐπάθεια), or moods, if one reached a passionless state (apatheia). These good moods were Will (βούλησις), Joy (χαρά) and Caution (εὐλάβεια).26 Tri. Trac. does not follow such divisions or terminology; the particular Christian creation myth clearly takes precedence. Nevertheless, it seems as if Tri. Trac. places good powers/emotions at war with bad powers/emotions.27 In Tri. Trac. the bad passions do not control the 23 Passion is like “a changing opinion” (ⲟⲩⲅⲛⲱⲙⲏ ⲉ[ⲛ]ⲥⲡⲁⲛⲉ) (115,20) come from a “a dis˙˙ turbance” (ⲟⲩϣⲟⲣϣⲣ¯) (118,5–6). 24 These things came into being as an imitation from a fantasy” (98,2–5), are not just created from an impression (ⲟⲩⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ) but from “a likeness from an impression” (ⲟⲩⲧⲁⲛⲧⲛ¯ ⲁⲃⲁⲗ ϩⲛ¯ ⲟⲩⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ). On page 85 ⲉⲡⲓⲑⲩⲙⲓⲁ, desire (or appetite as Richard Sorabji calls it), one of the classic four˙ Stoic passions, is counted among wrath (ⲧⲃⲗ¯ ⲕⲉ), violence (ⲧⲙⲛ̅ⲧϫⲓⲛ¯ ϭⲁⲛⲥ¯) and ˙ ignorance (ⲧⲙⲛ̅ⲧⲁⲧⲥⲁⲩⲛⲉ). Ambition (ⲛ¯ ⲥⲉⲙⲣⲣⲉ ⲡⲉⲁⲩ) (120,30–31), honor (ⲡⲧⲁⲉⲓⲟ)(121,24–25) and the “love of command” (ⲧⲙⲛ̅ⲧⲙⲁⲉⲓ ⲟⲩⲉϩ ⲥⲁϩⲛⲉ) (84,20–21; 131,23–25) are also connected to desire. The desire called “love of command” seems to be especially important in Tri. Trac. since it is mentioned, always in this same long construction ⲧⲙⲛ̅ⲧⲙⲁⲉⲓ ⲟⲩⲉϩ ⲥⲁϩⲛⲉ, at least 14 times throughout the text. The Logos is portrayed as granting this specific desire to the archons who are stricken with it because it is part of the ordered plan that each archon should have command over a region and an “activity” (ϩⲱⲃ) (99,19–33). It is the desires of the archons, especially one evil archon called “the serpent”, that leads the first humans astray (107,10–15). 25 The Logos does not let the superior creations “mix with those who originated from a direct vision of those who were with him” (97,25–27). 26 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.12–13; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.116; Ps.-Andronicus, On Emotions 6. See 3.432 in Arnim, Stoicorum. 27 The emotions listed in Tri. Trac. do not fit into the Stoic list except one. Two of the good powers in Tri. Trac. are called ⲡⲟⲩⲛⲁϥ ⲉϥⲧⲙⲏϩ ⲛ¯ ⲧⲣⲟⲫⲏ (96,30–31), the “delight of full sustenance” and just ⲟⲩⲛⲁϥ, delight, one of the Greek equivalents of ⲟⲩⲛⲁϥ is τέρψις, delight, which was one of the Stoic εὐπάθεια, in the category of Joy. See Crum, Coptic Dictionary, 485b. I argue that Joy plays an important role in Tri. Trac., not as an Aeon of Logos but as the feeling that results from the union with the Aeon. If one emends the omicron in ⲧⲣⲟⲫⲏ to an upsilon we get a meaning that fits better: “the enjoyment of complete wantonness” (ⲧⲣⲩⲫⲏ instead of ⲧⲣⲟⲫⲏ). This would however mean that we would need to disregard the clear omikrion in the

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Logos (95.2).28 We read that the Logos is moved by Love (ⲁⲅⲁⲡⲏ) and a Will (ⲟⲩⲱϩ) to know the Father (70,18–30; 76,20; 77,11–15). Love (αγάπη) and Will (βούλησις)29 belonged to the category of good Stoic emotion only found in harmonious and firm minds. Passion is what comes after the first movements caused by impressions and they are not mentioned in the first part of the text, which discusses the protology, except once, and then to denote the Logos offspring. So it would seem that there are good emotions in the Pleroma but also outside it, but then at war with bad emotions (passions). In this way, Tri. Trac. describes the very particular cognitive outlines of existence. This become clearer in the next passage of the text. In Tri. Trac. the cosmic powers are portrayed as influencing the impressions of humans, which very much reminds us of Stoic notions that passions affected the way humans chose to react to impressions. In Tri. Trac. 108–115 the text expands on the virtues of pagan philosophy and Hebrew prophesy before the time of the Savior’s appearance: The Greeks and barbarians are said to produce empty philosophy which is described as the result their movement to act on impressions that stir inside them, influenced by the powers (ⲛⲓϭⲟⲙ) that came about from an empty impression (ⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ). Next the wisdom of the Hebrews is commented upon and we read that the righteous among the Hebrews found truth, those who devoted themselves to seeking knowledge from the powers who oppose those who influence the Greeks.30 The false knowledge of the barbarians and Greeks are the result of impressions chosen under the influence of lesser powers (109–110), i. e. lower passions. The righteous Hebrews, on the other hand, were not affected by these powers and did not react on the impressions (ⲫⲁⲛⲧⲁⲥⲓⲁ) but were guided by the harmony of the true aeon above when prophesizing. They were, nevertheless guided by powers that are associated with emotions, but good emotions. I suggest that there are residues of Stoic theories of emotions integrated into the specific Christian myth of Tri. Trac. Passions, identified with cosmic powers, could influence humans to act on false impressions. Furthermore, the Logos is manuscript, but it is generally recognized that the scribe who copied Tri. Trac. was notoriously sloppy. For more on Codex I from a codicological perspective, see Linjamaa, Monks. 28 The passions in Tri. Trac. are firmly associated with the domain of the different powers and archons that the Logos sets out to order. This does not align itself with Dunderberg’s statement that Valentinian writings do not associate the passions to the archons and cosmic powers like in Ap. John, but that in Valentinian writings passions are connected to Sophia (Dunderberg, Stoicism, 226). 29 See Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.116; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.12–13. For a summary of the theory of positive emotions in Stoicism see Sorabji, Emotions, 47–51. 30 These powers are called “the unmixed ones” (ⲛⲓⲁⲧⲁϩⲧϩ¯ ). Being “mixed” is in Tri. Trac. used as symbol of being outside the harmony of the highest Pleroma and God’s Church. The state of being “mixed” (ⲧϩϯϩ/ⲧⲉϩϯϩ)(120,21; 121,22) does not occur in the first part of the text associated with the Pleroma, but is a state related to the cosmos, which humans should get away from (90,17–18; 97,25; 110,34; 120,21; 121,22).

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disassociated from passions and his actions are instead identified as movements due to initial impressions, which is very similar to the particular Stoic thought of first motions that are not associated with negative passions. Tri. Trac. is not unique in this regard. We find the same Stoic distinction between full fledge emotions and first movements also in other early Christian literature. Most often it is in the New Testament descriptions of Jesus. Jesus, who was the Son of God, should surely be above the realm of petty emotions, or so thought at least some early Christian theologians. Origen and Didymus the Blind retorted to the same Stoic distinction I argue is active in Tri. Trac. in order to distance the portrayal Jesus in Scripture from unbecoming emotional behavior. In Matthew 26:37 Jesus grief and disturbance is unmistakable. Nevertheless, Origen explains Jesus’ perdicament in Gethsemane as only a first movement. Jesus only experienced the first disturbance of grief and distress but did not succumb to the fully developed emotions. Didymus the Blind interprets the description of Jesus in John 12:27, where Jesus feels his soul being disturbed, by retorting to the same Stoic distinction.31 Jesus also occurs in Tri. Trac. but plays a much smaller role than the Logos, who is not identified with Jesus in this text. In Tri. Trac. the Logos is the youngest Aeon who steps away from the unity of the Father’s creation, while the Savior is identified with the Son, an aspect of the Father, who remedies this mistake. However, whether the Stoic theory of emotions is used to interpret the character of Jesus (as Origen and Didymus did) or the youngest Aeon (as in Tri. Trac.), the point is the same: to distance the divine from the lowly and destructive association of passions. After all, the youngest Aeon’s actions are sanctioned by the Father in Tri. Trac., and thus also potentially implied which is the reason for the utilization of the Stoic theory of proto-passions. Let us now turn to what is said about the Savior in Tri. Trac.

4.

The Savior as an Apathetic Sage

In part three of Tri. Trac. (108–138) the passions and desire of the cosmic powers are contrasted with the nature of the Savior. The Savior was born, we read, “an infant, in body and soul” (115,10). The Savior’s incarnation took place through “a passion without will” (ⲟⲩⲡⲁⲑⲟⲥ ⲛ̅ⲁⲧⲟⲩⲱϣⲉ) (114,35–36).32 According to Stoics 31 Origen, Commentary on Matthew Ser. 92; Didymus the Blind, Commentary on the Psalms 43.16–22. For a detailed analysis of Origen and Didymus use of the Stoic theory of prepassions see Layton, Propatheia, 262–82. 32 This has usually been translated as “involuntary suffering” but translated more literally as “a passion without will” and interpret the meaning from a Stoic perspective it solves the problem of the text calling the Saviors apathetic while living in a passion infested body and soul.

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like Chrysippus and later Seneca, passions resulted in a mind willfully judging to act on a certain impression without reason, an impression that turned out to be false, un-virtuous or otherwise unbeneficial. Thus, there was no passion if a will and judgment was missing.33 The Savior in Tri. Trac. was born into passion (a lower existence) and from a Stoic perspective this was by no choice (or fault) of his own. And so, the Savior is further on in the description of the incarnation called the one “who did not share in the passions” (ⲉⲧⲉⲙ̅ⲡϥⲣ̅ ⲕⲟⲓⲛⲱⲛⲓ ⲁⲛⲓⲡⲁⲑⲟⲥ) (116,26–27). The Savior is “indivisible” (ⲧⲙⲛ̅ⲧⲁⲧⲡⲱϣⲉ) which we read results in “apatheia” (ⲧⲙⲛ̅ⲧⲁⲧⲡⲁⲑⲟⲥ), a passionless state among the Stoics. Those in body and soul (ⲡⲥⲱⲙⲁ ⲙⲛ̅ ⲧⲯⲩⲭⲏ) whom the Savior comes to save linger in “passion and changing opinion” (115,20–21). We are told that the condition humans suffer under came about through “the Logos who moved” (115,20–21) while the Savior was sent down from “the unchanging thought of the Logos who returned to himself, after his movement” (115,26–28). We continue to read that those who “come forth from division and passion require healing” (116,10–13) (ⲉⲛⲧⲁⲩⲉⲓ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ϩⲛ¯ ⲛ ⲟⲩⲡⲁⲑⲟⲥ ⲙⲛ¯ ⲛ ⲟⲩⲡⲱϣⲉ ⲉⲩϣⲁⲁⲧ ⲛ¯ ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲗϭⲟ). The word used here for healing, or therapy, is ⲧⲗϭⲟ, and at another point the author uses the Greek equivalent ⲣ¯ⲑⲉⲣⲁⲡⲉⲩⲉ (116,16).34 Some humans, the “teachers” and “disciples of the Savior” (116,19), are meant to heal and teach the others. These are the ones identified with Christ. Most philosophical schools of the time saw emotions as a sickness of the soul that needed healing (θεραπεύειν)35 but Stoics were those who strived to reach apatheia though therapy (θεραπεύειν), a therapy made up of improving one’s mind and rational faculties to enable one to live in harmony with the divine law of the world. This harmonious life would ultimately lead to the substitution of passion for “good-passion” (εὐπάθεια). Tri. Trac. portrays a life of instruction/healing (or instructing) as beneficial and describes the virtuous person as living in harmony with the divine whole and Christ. This results in good emotions, especially Joy. Joy (χαρά) was for Stoics one of the three “good passions” (εὐπάθεια) and is described as a feeling reserved for the perfect sage who was void of all passion and in total control and harmony with the firmness and “indivisibility” of Nature.36 In Tri. Trac. Joy (ⲣⲉϣⲉ, the Coptic 33 Sorabji, Emotion, 29–54. Seneca would perhaps not agree fully that the Savior was passionless here. For Seneca, assenting to an impression was enough for incurring passion. 34 In the passage at 134,18 passions are not mentioned. Some characters, exactly who they are is difficult to ascertain (possibly humans or angels), are portrayed as: “serving, counseling (ⲣ¯ⲑⲉⲣⲁⲡⲉⲩⲉ) and ministering to” those whom were sent together with them from the place from where Christ also was sent. 35 See Nussbaum, Therapy, 1994. 36 For Seneca, firm and unchanging joy (gaudium) is the obvious benefit of living a life according to Stoic principles (On the Happy Life III.4, IV.4; Ad Lucilium XXIII.3). See also Nussbaum, Therapy, 398–401. Nussbaum argues that Joy for Seneca is not to be confused with an exuberant feeling but was calm, restful and sober, this principle also strikes a cord in Tri.

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equivalent of the Greek χαρά) together with Rest, is the most widely used epithet for the benefits of salvation and is connected to the Savior.37 Joy is described as the result of knowing God and being firm in the restful, unchanging harmony with the Aeons. Let us now turn to the third and final aspect of Tri. Trac. to be discussed in this paper, the anthropological depictions. I will argue that here too a comparison to Stoic thought can help us understand Tri. Trac. better.

5.

Anthropology and the Accusation of Determinism Leveled at Stoics and Valentinians

Both Stoics and Valentinians were at times accused of being determinists. Cicero criticized early Stoics for holding a worldview that did not allow for praise nor blame,38 and Irenaeus leveled critique against the Valentinians for being ethical deviants on account of their determinism.39 Irenaeus asked if moral behavior was relevant or if self-improvement was really possible if one held the view that he assumed the Valentinians did: that human life was predetermined, fully governed by Providence and the Will of God. However, many later Stoics were actually compatibilist and viewed life as subjected to both determinism and free will. Humans affected the whole they were a part of through their free will but were at the same time always subjected to Trac. where the joy of the joining with God and the harmony of the Aeons is a Joy more in tune with restfulness (ⲙ¯ⲧⲁⲛ) and gladness (ⲣⲁⲟⲩⲧ) rather than more lively emotions (92,35; 121,26; 122,15–30). 37 ⲣⲁϣⲉ (or ⲣⲉϣⲉ) occurs at 55,16 as an epithet for the Father; at 59,31 as an epithet for the Aeons emanation from the Father; and at 86,12; 86,24; 86,32–33 as the result of the reintegrating of the Logos into the unity of the other Aeons. At 88,15–20 the nature of Joy is described as the creation of the Savior who bears in him what each individual needs. At 90,23 the Logos experiences Joy when he is blended with rest and his offspring who left him return to him and pay him respect; at 93,8–29 the Logos’ thought is called “Joy of the Lord” and Joy is described as the nature of life with the Aeons above Logos creation. At 122,20–30 Joy is described as the feeling in the bridal chamber when bride and bridegroom join and when Logos joins the other Aeons; at 123,9 the return to one’s unity is described as joyful. 38 Cicero, On Fate, 40. 39 Irenaeus. Haer 1.6.2. Although Irenaeus probably did not use Tri. Trac. as model for his critique, one can easily understand how these treatises could be vulnerable for anti-determinists attacks. Irenaeus writes that the Valentinians think that it is not because of their work that they are saved but because of their inborn nature to be saved (Haer 1.6.2). We find a somewhat different view in Tri. Trac. The psychics get saved because of their good works (131,29–30) and the spirituals seem to be charged with teaching those with lesser knowledge. But perhaps this detail in Irenaeus’ portrayal of the Valentinians should be regarded as fabricated for polemical effect.

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the whole.40 Already Zeno and Chrysippus, we are told, held the opinion that human life was like being tied to a cart: one was determined to move in the direction of the cart but one chose freely to either walk or be dragged along.41 Epictetus later withheld that one should perfect one’s character (προαίρεσις) by confining one’s attention to that which was up to oneself.42 Tri. Trac. seems to have an approach similar to that of the Stoics regarding the question of determinism versus free will: play your assigned part to the best of your ability.43 Each power produced by the Logos has “the allotted activity which falls to him to have control over because of his mode of being” (99,31–33). Humans are also portrayed as possessing certain predispositions and at first glance there does not seem to be room for movement between the three human groups (spiritual, psychics and hylics). Hylics were doomed; psychics had a chance for salvation while spirituals were saved by nature. How it was in practice was probably very different, as Dunderberg has discussed: a fixed theory did not necessarily mean a fixed practice because the way you identified yourself was determined of actions, and actions change, and people come and go in a group. Furthermore, as Alexander Kocar recently argued and as Michael A Williams among others have long stressed, the determinism associated with “Valentinian” theology (and for Stoics) is only skin deep and did not negate the need and call for ethical behavior.44 40 41 42 43

See Bobzien, Determinism. Hippolytus, Haer. 1,18. Epictetus, Discourses 3.3.14–19; 3.8.1–5. See also Sorabji, Emotion, 91. There are also important differences, for example that free will seems to be rejected in the world, but reserved for the Aeons in the Pleroma. Stoics did not reject free will, but reserved it for the sages They held a very specific understanding of free will, which meant that one always acted according to the Good, because a wise person would do nothing else. I cannot, in the scope of this article, discuss Tri. Trac.’s view on free will in any detail. However, forthcoming publications of mine will engage this question further. 44 Williams, Rethinking, 189–212; Kocar, Humanity, 193–221. Kocar concludes in his article that Valentinians and Stoics have been wrongfully accused of determinism and lack of ethical paraenesis. He discusses Epictetus use of “willful choice” as a case for Stoic call for ethical behavior, however, he does not discuss the fact that this technical term of Epictetus, “willful choice” (προαίρεσις), also occurs in Tri. Trac. Stoics and Valentinians were not just accused of being determinists but also of being elitists and egoists. Their ancient contemporaries were not the only ones to level this charge at them, as similar perceptions have lived on all the way to modern scholarship. For the ancient and modern accusations against Valentinians see Williams, Rethinking, 189–212; for ancient and modern derogatory remarks of the Stoics see Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity, 190–206. This quote from the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies on Stoicism reflects the cliché that long also pertained to Valentinians: “Stoicism was a philosophy for an exclusive circle of the elect, whereas Christianity taught universal salvation.” Drobner, Christian Philosophy, 683. Engberg-Pedersen is one scholar who has questioned such assertions: “Pauline scholars regularly contrast the idea of an outward-directedness (to be found in Paul) with that of an inward-directedness (to be found in the Stoics). That is a misunderstanding” (Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 290).

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The determinism of Tri. Trac. is indeed only skin deep if one considers some details in Tri. Trac.’s anthropologic myth.45 We read several times in the Tri. Trac. that it is those of the “good dispositions” (ⲛⲓⲇⲓⲁⲑⲉⲥⲓⲥ ⲉⲧⲛⲁⲛⲟⲩⲟⲩ) who will be granted salvation.46 We also read that it is those of the good disposition who will do good works (130,23–27). This was true of Stoics as well: a virtuous person would naturally display socially beneficial qualities that reflected one’s elevated status.47 Characteristics that emerge naturally for the Stoic sage and the pneumatic in Tri. Trac. were pedagogical instincts. A person who was advanced in learning helped/healed (ⲑⲉⲣⲁⲡⲉⲩⲉ) his fellow humans. As we have seen above, Jesus comes to the cosmos and tells his disciples to teach and instruct their fellows. It is the psychics who are described as in need of instruction, they are the ones who were “instructed by voice” (ϩⲓⲧⲛ¯ ⲟⲩⲥⲙⲏ ⲉⲩϯⲥⲃⲱ) (119.3). This could be compared to how Seneca portrays the duties of the teacher and how he portrayed the wise person and people who were not wise.48

45 Valentinians were often accused of elitism but Dunderberg points out that there is in fact evidence that indicates the contrary: the pneumatics were in fact thought to be few, and since the Stoic sage was an utterly rare figure, most people needed instruction (Seneca, Epistles 94). Tri. Trac. makes it clear that instruction comes before understanding and sound knowledge, which is eternal life (108,2–3; 109,5). Exc. Theod. 55–56; Dunderberg, Stoicism, 230–31; Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 199.14–23. 46 This, however, does not mean that Tri. Trac. is not a representation of early Christian determinism, which I argue is indeed the case, considering that the other extreme, the doctrine of universal free will, which Origen supported, is rejected in Tri. Trac. This, and the ethics in light of the text’s determinism, is the topic of my forthcoming dissertation. In Tri. Trac. we read of this “good dispositions” (ⲛⲓⲇⲓⲁⲑⲉⲥⲓⲥ ⲉⲧⲛⲁⲛⲟⲩⲟⲩ) several times and that those of/from this good dispositions will be saved (120,7–8; 121,20; 131,19–20). The word only occurs 13 times in the Nag Hammadi library but 11 of those in Tri. Trac. Among Stoics, in discussions of ethics, diathesis was used to designate a firm and stabile disposition or character. For example, a person who perfectly understood a property and the whole they made up, a state not likely to be changed once acquired. Knowledge was a diathesis the wise possessed (Graver, Stoicism). In Tri. Trac. the diathesis of the Father is called “without beginning” and “without end” (58,115–16) and the Son and Church shares in the Father’s disposition (59,1–3). The disposition of the Logos is called “triple” (118,18–19) but before the fall he is merely called spiritual (63,34; 59,2–3; 59,9–10; 63,33–34; 81,4; 97,13; 118,17–18; 120,7; 121,20; 130,26–27; 131,19). 47 For Seneca the display of universal love and equal treatment of all huans reflected the status of the sage. See for example Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity, 190–92. 48 Seneca, Epistles 94.30: ”one man is lively and alert of wit, another sluggish and dull, while certainly some men have more intelligence than others.” (Seneca, Epistles 93–124.) Dunderberg briefly discusses how the difference between the classes of humans in Valentinian writings and how Stoics made a distinction between regular humans and the sage. Dunderberg, Stoicism, 230–31.

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For the wise person, according to Seneca, good actions came naturally49 as part of their constitution and it was a duty for the wise to help those less fortunate in wisdom who needed instruction and help them make good choices.50 But Seneca also points out that there are some who you should not waste your time on, that is, those whose souls are blocked and too far gone in error.51 Seneca wrote that “we are hindered from accomplishing praiseworthy deeds not only by our emotions, but also by want of practice in discovering the demands of a particular situation.”52 Tri. Trac. also stresses the need for instruction to eradicate passion and recognizes that to some this came naturally. All three kinds of humans (spirituals, psychics, materials) live in ignorance before the coming of the Savior, but the spirituals, who are like “light from light” (ⲛⲟⲩⲟⲉⲓⲛ ⲁⲃⲁⲗ ϩⲛ¯ ⲛ ⲟⲩⲟⲉⲓⲛ), immediately and naturally recognize the Savior upon his arrival and receive knowledge.53 The psychics, who are like “light from a fire” (ⲟⲩⲟⲉⲓⲛ ⲡⲉ ⲁⲃⲁⲗ ϩⲛ¯ ⲛ ⲟⲩⲕⲱϩⲧ¯ ) hesitate but “through a voice it was instructed” (ϩⲓⲧⲛ¯ ⲟⲩⲥⲙⲏ ⲉⲩϯⲥⲱⲃ ⲛⲉϥ). The material humans are those who do not even recognize the Savior, they are dark (ⲉⲩⲕⲉⲕⲉⲓ) (118,14–119,12).54 Each one “is known by its fruit” (118,15–23). 49 A similar view, that some people are granted greater spiritual gifts than others, is apparent in Pauline literature (1 Cor 2:6–3:3) and other Valentinian texts, such as Interpretation of Knowledge (see 15,10–19,37). 50 Seneca, Epistle 94: “it is our duty either to treat carefully the diseased mind and free it from faults, or to take possession of the mind when it is still unoccupied and yet inclined to what is evil” (Seneca: Epistles 93–124). 51 Seneca did not view humans as born into error: “For you are mistaken if you suppose that our faults are inborn in us” (all quotation in this note are from Epistles 94). However, he recognized that one could stray so far away that one was beyond help: “When something blinds a man’s soul and hinders it from seeing a line of duty clearly, there is no use in advising him. For precepts will be of no avail while the mind is clouded with error; only when the cloud is dispersed will it be clear what one’s duty is in each case.” And further down in the same letter we read that “not even the power of universal philosophy, though it summon all its strength for the purpose, will remove from the soul what is now a stubborn and chronic disease.”; by “the aid of precepts, it grows stronger, provided only that the chronic trouble has not corrupted or annihilated the natural man. For in such a case, not even the training that comes from philosophy, striving with all its might, will make restoration” (Seneca: Epistles 93–124). 52 Epistles 94.32. 53 Some Aeons and the psychics humans who are not yet illuminated, who do not yet know the Father, are described as being granted this through “a voice.” We read that the illuminated Aeons “need no voice or spirit, mind or word” in their present state (64,9–10) and again much later in the text we read that those integrated in the Pleroma have “no need for voice of knowing nor for forming a concept nor for illumination” (124,20–21). Much later in the text, when the tripartite division of the Logos’ Aeons and of humans is discussed, the issue of the lack of a voice appears. 54 Here the language of Stoic physics might be influential, where the divine warm mind was thought to be cooled down in air and become more substantial It become soul and ultimately matter (Philo, Somn. 1.31; Origen, Princ. 2.8.3). See Dunderberg, Stoicism, 222–25, where he discusses other Valentinian sources in light of this theory. Tri. Trac. is not mentioned here. Dunderberg argues here that we encounter this doctrine in Valentinus’ poem Summer Harvest

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Those who do not linger in passion “have been appointed to heal (ⲣ¯ⲑⲉⲣⲁⲡⲉⲩⲉ) the sick … to treat those who have fallen” (116,14–16). The spirituals in Tri. Trac. seem to have been charged with spreading the message of the Savior, tasks that come natural while the psychics can prove themselves, shape themselves and be granted salvation by learning and working good deeds.55 To be “known by one’s fruit” is an indicator that one is recognized and identified as righteous through the fruit of ones labor.56 Thus, those who are saved should act like it, pneumatics teach and psychics learn, and both should act accordingly. As Stoics like Seneca and Epictetus argued, Tri. Trac. puts forward an ethical and anthropological outlook that makes it clear that one is judged by one’s actions which determines one’s character, which in Tri. Trac. is connected to the three classes of humans.

6.

Conclusion

There are many central points where Tri. Trac. diverges from Stoic philosophy, for example in viewing matter as separate from spirit/soul and as being malign, and also the thought that the cosmic world would ultimately come to an end. It is also obvious that to the extent Stoic thought influenced Tri. Trac. it was subordinate to the specific Christian worldview proposed in it. To what extent could one then speak of Tri. Trac.’s use of Stoic ideas? Where Stoicism ends and Christianity begins is not an easy question during the Hellenistic age, nor is easy to separate a Platonic world view and early Christian cosmogony in the second and third century. This has been discussed by Troels Engberg-Pedersen among others. A Christian utilizing ideas that could be identified as Stoic, or a Stoic utilizing thoughts that was more associated with Platonism, or vice versa, did not mean that one gave up identifying oneself as a Stoic, Christian or Platonist. Rather, Engberg-Pedersen argues (via Sedley), that it is precisely when one firmly identifies oneself as belonging to a specific tradition then it enabled one to utilize, and also in the Gospel of Truth. It should not come as a surprise, then, that this theory also found its way into Tri. Trac. The hylics of earth and psychics of the Pleroma, were called “fire” and “darkness” (98,15–20). The hylic “imitations of impressions” are driven into materiality by the Logos (100), they are called dark (98,20; 119,10) and psychics fiery (99,15–17; 119,37– 38). Darkness is naturally associated to the cold, just as fire is to the warm. There is a devolution in Tri. Trac. of rougher material, the hylic, is associate with the cold just as the Stoic notion of how materialization takes form, however, the potential for condensation, from hylic cold to psychic fire, is absent. 55 See Tri. Trac. 95,33–34; 120,9–11. See also Kochar, Humanity, 221. 56 This conclusion fits well with the work of Denise Kimbel Buell, who argues that there is little that would indicate that the three “races” in Tri. Trac. were fixed categories. See Kimber Buell, Why this New, 126–28.

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or even “reclaim,” ideas belonging more firmly to another tradition.57 Thus, there is nothing strange in finding Christian texts steeped with ideas also associated with philosophical schools, while at the same time encountering passages in the same text that rejects philosophy (as we do in Tri. Trac.). Many Christian theologians held the view that Christianity was actually the culmination of all philosophy.58 Much still needs to be done before we can draw further conclusions from the inferences made above, for example, the ethical implications of these thoughts or whether the Stoic notions in Tri. Trac. can tell us something of the context(s) of the text.59 A glance at Origen’s theology or that of Philo or Didymus the Blind also demonstrates influence from “Stoic” thought, some similar to Tri. Trac.60 Tri. Trac., or the writings of Origen for that matter, might have been influenced by Stoics directly, but could just as well have been inspired by a third person without having been regarded as Stoic at all. For example, it was not uncommon that intellectuals like Origen gave and attended lectures with an eclectic curriculum, especially in third century Alexandria or Rome. We should also ask ourselves how these thoughts fit into the theological debates of 4th and 5th century Egyptian Christianity, which is the only context where we can place Tri. Trac. with relative certainty. These questions, and many others, remain to be explored.61 Let us conclude our findings. It is clear that Stoic philosophy played an important role in the formation of the Christian worldview in Tri. Trac. This becomes evident from the following: (1) from the protological system where desire and guilt are disconnected from the youngest Aeon, and the will to know the father, by employing Stoic distinctions between first motions and passions; (2) in the portrayal of the Savior as apathetic and the admonition to the disciples to 57 See Dunderberg, Stoicism, 1–14. 58 See for example, Basil, Letter 8; Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica I.6.56. 59 For Stoics, epistemology and physics were foundational for their ethics. It is not possible to act against what one genuinely thinks is good. The reason why one acts without virtue is that one is under the false impression that that is the best action in a particular time. Thus, everyone acts according to their prohairesis (free will) but only those with a pure, good and stabile prohairesis will act according to the will of God, the Logos for Stoics. This sounds very much like what is presented in Tri. Trac. also, where we also find the concept of prohairesis used in much the same way (130,23–27, 131,22–34). 60 For example, the way the theory of proto-passions is used to remove guilt from Jesus, somewhat like Logos is distanced from guilt by instead being associated to movement. There are other similarities as well, like how Origen uses the concept ἀνάκρασις to express the relationship between the true Christian and God. Origen insists that true knowledge implies participation (blending) with that which one knows and that this participation does not mean absorption or depersonalization. See Ledengang, Mysterium, 63–64. This sounds very much like the Stoic theory of κρᾶσις, which is also a distinction made in Tri. Trac. about the Pleroma of Aeons (68,32) as well as the apokatastasis in the end times (123,11–27; 133,6–7). 61 These and other questions are explored in my forthcoming dissertation on Tri. Trac. and its ethical outlook.

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administer ⲑⲉⲣⲁⲡⲉⲩⲉ and instruct those who are inflicted with passion; (3) in the portrayal of the cosmic powers, associated with passions, who influence weaker humans (Greeks and barbarians) to choose erroneous impressions; (4) in the ethical behavior demanded by the spirituals as teachers and psychics as students and the call to act according to one’s station, which resembles Stoic discussions of the sage as a teacher administering instructions so as to cultivate a good character, and the call to learn and to act to the best of one’s abilities. Taken one by one, these points may not amount to much, but taken together, one cannot ignore the formative importance that Stoicism had on Tri. Trac.

Bibliography Arnim, von H. (ed.), Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, (Stuttgart, 1903–1905. vol 4 M. Adler ed.), 1924. Bobzien, S., Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford University Press 2001. Buell, D.K., Why this New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity, Columbia University Press 2005. Camplani, A., Per la cronologia di testi valentiniani: il Trattato Tripartito e la crisi ariana, Cassiodorus 1995, 171–95. Crum, W.E., A Coptic Dictionary, Clarendon Press 1939. Drobner, H.R., Christian Philosophy, in S.A. Harvey/D.G. Hunter (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, Oxford University Press 2008, 683. Dunderberg, I., Gnostic Morality Revisited, Mohr Siebeck 2015. –, Beyond Gnosticism: Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus, Colombia University Press 2008. Engberg-Pedersen, T., Paul and the Stoics, Westminster John Knox Press 2000. Graver, M., Philo of Alexandria and the Origins of the Stoic Προπάθεια, Phronesis 44:4 (1999): 300–325. –, Stoicism and Emotion, University of Chicago Press 2008. Kenney, J.P., The Platonism of the Tripartite Tractate (NH I, 5), in R.T. Waiils & J. Bergman (eds.), Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, State University of New York Press 1992, 187– 206. Kocar, A., ‘Humanity Came to Be According to Three Essential Types’: Ethical Responsibility and Practice in the Valentinian Anthropogony of the Tripartite Tractate (NHC I, 5), in L. Jenott /S.K. Gribetz (eds.), Jewish and Christian Cosmogony in Late Antiquity, Mohr Siebeck 2013, 193–221. Layton, R., Propatheia: Origen and Didymus on the Origin of the Passions, VC 54 (2000), 262–82. Ledengang, F., Mysterium Ecclesiae, Peeters 2001. Linjamaa, P., Why Monks Read the Tripartite Tractate: A New Look at the Codicology of Nag Hammadi Codex I, in H. Lundhaug and C. Bull (eds.), The Nag Hammadi Codices as Monastic Books, Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming.

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Nussbaum, M., The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Princeton University Press 1994. Perkins, P., Logos Christologies in the Nag Hammadi Codices, VC 35 (1981): 379–96. Rasimus, T./T. Engberg-Pedersen/I. Dunderberg (eds.), Stoicism in Early Christianity, Baker Publishing Group 2010. Seneca, Epistles 93–124 (translated by R.M. Gummere, LCL 77), Harvard University Press 1925. Sorabji, R., Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, Oxford University Press 2000. Thomassen, E./L. Painchaud, Le traité tripartite: (NH I,5), Presses de l’Université Laval 1989. Thorsteinsson, R.M., Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality, Oxford University Press 2010. Williams, M.A., The Immovable Race: A Gnostic Designation and the Theme of Stability in Late Antiquity, Brill 1985. –, Rethinking ‘Gnosticism’: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category, Princeton University Press 1996.

Louise Heldgaard Bylund

ΤΕΤΕΛΕΣΤΑΙ (John 19:28 and 30) A Dramatic and Eschatological Turning Point

1.

Introduction

The ultimum verbum for the Johannine Jesus is τετέλεσται, and this word seems to sum up his entire life and work.1 Tετέλεσται in John 19:30 reflects Jesus’ knowledge and may be recounted just two verses before: John Μετὰ τοῦτο ει᾿δὼς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἤδη πάντα 19:28: τετέλεσται, ἵνα τελειωθῇ ἡ γραφή, λέγει διψῶ. John ὅτε οὖν ἔλαβεν τὸ ὄξος ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· 19:30: τετέλεσται, καὶ κλίνας τὴν κεφαλὴν παρέδωκεν τὸ πνεῦμα.

After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, so that Scripture was fulfilled, said: ‘I am thirsty.’2 Then, when Jesus had received the vinegar he said: ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up the spirit.3

In John 19:28 the reader is given information about the “fulfillment (τελειωθῇ) of Scripture”. So the two verbs, τελέω and τελειόω, seem closely interwoven in the moment of death, but still two different verbs are used. In this article I will first investigate the use of these two verbs in the biblical corpus and in ancient Greek literary texts as well. Are the verbs synonymous or can a difference in meaning be found? Second, I will uncover the function of τετέλεσται in ancient Greek epic and tragic literature and in biblical eschatological texts to study the specific use of τετέλεσται at this point in the narrative of the Gospel of John. The proximity of the two verbs has previously been explained as an example of simple variation rooted in synonymous meanings.4 Or it has been explained as 1 Gnilka, Ultima Verba, 8. 2 Researchers have discussed the connection between the main clause and the two subordinated clauses. I follow Roland Bergmeier in his arguments for a thematic and syntactical attachment between the ὅτι- and the ´ἱνα-clause (Bergmeier, ΤΕΤΕΛΕΣΤΑΙ, 285). 3 The two translations here are my own following the Nestle-Aland text. 4 Moule, Fulfilment-Words, 318.

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the result of distinct redactional layers, where τελειόω originates from a pre- or post-Johannine source.5 The combination of the verbs may be due to different sources, of course, but if editorial activity took place, the redactor has nevertheless retained both verbs in these few climactic verses, and a different sense of meaning seems therefore to have been the redactor’s intention.6

2.

Τελέω and τελειόω in John

The only two occurrences of τελέω in the Gospel of John are to be found in John 19:28 and 30. Tελειόω on the other hand occurs several times in the Gospel of John: John λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ἐμὸν βρῶμά ἐστιν ἵνα 4:34: ποιήσω τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πέμψαντός με καὶ τελειώσω αὐτοῦ τὸ ἔργον. John Ἐγὼ δὲ ἔχω τὴν μαρτυρίαν μείζω τοῦ 5:36: Ἰωάννου· τὰ γὰρ ἔργα ἃ δέδωκέν μοι ὁ πατὴρ ἵνα τελειώσω αὐτά, αὐτὰ τὰ ἔργα ἃ ποιῶ μαρτυρεῖ περὶ ἐμοῦ ὅτι ὁ πατήρ με ἀπέσταλκεν. John ἐγώ σε ἐδόξασα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς τὸ ἔργον 17:4: τελειώσας ὃ δέδωκάς μοι ἵνα ποιήσω.

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.”7 But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. I glorified you on Earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.

These three occurrences are alike in the sense that they are statements by Jesus about himself and the “work(s)” of the Father. The difference in the occurrences consists in a variation between singular and plural use of ἔργον. The singular ἔργον is to be found only in John 4:34 and 17:4. The plural uses are to be found in several verses within this inclusio in, for example, John 5:36; 6:28; 7:3; 14:10; 15:24. Thus, there seem to be a number of actions for Jesus to do according to his Father’s will, where the crucifixion and John 19:28–30 are the last action Jesus was sent to perform. Accordingly Jesus can proclaim “It is finished” (τετέλεσται) having accomplished this final part of the whole.

5 Dauer, Passionsgeschichte, 202; Mohr, Markus- und Johannespassion, 323. 6 Most manuscripts have the two verbs side by side as it is seen in Nestle-Aland’s 28th edition, but Dsup attests to variation: Instead of τετέλεσται in John 19:28–30 τελειόω is to be found: τετελείωται. Still, πληρωθῇ occurs in 19:28 to describe the status of Scripture; cf. Swanson, New Testament, 265–267. The variations in Dsup can be viewed as a normalization of John 19:28–30 compared to the rest of the Gospel, as τελειόω is used to describe the assignment of Jesus and πληρόω describes the fulfillment of the Scripture. This variation points in the direction that one scribe may have been aware of the unusual use of the verbs in these verses compared to the rest of the Gospel. 7 Here from English translations are following the NRSV translation unless stated otherwise.

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Beside the three parallel occurrences of τελειόω in John 4:34; 5:36 and 17:4, the verb is used in 17:23 as well: John ἐγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ σὺ ἐν ἐμοί, ἵνα ὦσιν 17:23: τετελειωμένοι ει᾿ς ἕν, ἵνα γινώσκῃ ὁ κόσμος ὅτι σύ με ἀπέστειλας καὶ ἠγάπησας αὐτοὺς καθὼς ἐμὲ ἠγάπησας.

I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Here τελειόω is used to describe the unity between the Father, Jesus and the believers. The verse focuses on the sending of the Son and the relationship between the Son and the Father, as seen in the three parallel occurrences of τελειόω above. But in John 17:23 the relationship and the love are extended to include the believers as well. The loving relationship between Jesus and his own is also the theme of John 13:1. Here the only occurrence of τέλος is to be found describing the love between Jesus and his believers. The noun τέλος corresponds to the verb τελέω and may possibly reveal some of the implicit meaning of the verb.8

3.

Τελειόω and πληρόω in John

The Gospel of John can be divided into two parts by looking at verbs introducing quotes from the Septuagint. In the first half of the Gospel, some form of γράφω or λέγω is used. In the second half from John 12:28 onwards, we find a consistent use of the verb πληρόω to describe a fulfillment of Scripture.9 The use of πληρόω is attested up to 19:24, as well as after the death in 19:36. Therefore the use of τελειόω is unique in 19:2810 and appears in the same context as τελέω. Researchers have presented arguments for and against actual synonymous meanings of the two verbs.11 In John 19:28 it seems to be of less relevance whether the verbs are actually synonymous in their content or not. Tελειόω reflects a 8 Udo Schnelle’s commentary on the Gospel of John sheds some light on the complexity of meaning in ει᾿ς τέλος. According to Schnelle the construction can characterize a measurement in time and mean “until the end.” In addition to this temporal meaning, it describes the way Jesus loved. This point of view will be taken further into consideration in the discussion of the different meanings of τελέω and τελειόω (Schnelle, Evangelium, 234). 9 Hengel, Schriftauslegung, 276. 10 According to the apparatus of Nestle-Aland’s 28th Edition some witnesses, including Codex Sinaiticus, have used πληρωθῇ instead of τελειωθῇ in 19:28. However, τελειωθῇ seems to be the best reading due to the principle of lectio difficilior and for thematic reasons as well. The use of πληρωθῇ would be standardization compared to the rest of the Gospel, whereas the use of τελειόω in this crucial moment of the narrative and the accumulation of the similar verbs result in wordplay, and point at a new unique situation reflected in the unique use of verbs. 11 Balz and Schneider (eds.), Wörterbuch, 3:826 (τελειόω, τελέω, τελος by H. Hübner); Moule, Fulfilment-Words, 314–318. Kraus, Alte Testament, 14–15.

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wordplay with τελέω which would not have functioned with πληρόω. And even more interestingly it draws upon the usage of τελειόω in the preceding Gospel, where the term describes the purpose of the sending of Jesus in 4:34, 5:36 and 17:4, and the unity between Jesus and the believers in 17:23. The content from these contexts is drawn into this moment of death by using τελειόω, a function πληρόω would not have had. To sum up, it should be noted that the use of τελέω and τελειόω in John 19:28– 30 implies meaning and content from the rest of the Gospel. What is said and done by Jesus prior to the moment of death is implied in the ultimum verbum. At the same time, the text expresses some uniqueness compared to the rest of the Gospel through the first and only use of the verb τελέω and the fact that τελειόω is affiliated with Scripture.

4.

Τέλειος and τέλος

The similarities between τελέω and τελειόω are to some degree obvious. G. Delling, in Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, uses the same German verbs to translate τελέω and τελειόω: “vollenden,” “verwirklichen” and “erfüllen.”12 But there seems to be a difference between the two verbs as regards both grammatical use and meaning.13 Τελειόω is a factitive verb, which means that the verb is transitively derived and describes the initiation of an action or a certain condition.14 Therefore τελειόω implies “to make τέλειος” or “to bring to τελειότης” and the meaning of τελειόω is dependent on the meaning of τέλειος and τελειότης. Since the substantive rarely occurs in the biblical corpus, focus will be on the adjective τέλειος.15 The use and meaning of τέλειος in the Septuagint are to describe something intact, undivided and whole.16 An example of this can be seen in 3 Kings 8:61 and 1 Chr 28:9, where τέλειος describes “the heart” (ἡ καρδία) as perfectly and wholly 12 Kittel and Friedrich (eds.), Wörterbuch, 8:58, 81 (τέλος, τελέω, ἐπιτελέω, συντελέω, συντέλεια, παντελής, τέλειος, τελειότης, τελειόω, τελείωσις, τελειωτής by G. Delling). Hübner refers to τελέω in his article on τελειόω: “… kaum Sinndifferenz zu → τελέω” (Balz and Schneider (eds.), Wörterbuch, 3:825). 13 Hübner and Delling (cf. preceding note) agree that the etymology and original meaning of τέλος and the verbs τελέω and τελειόω are very uncertain. Due to that, focus will here be on the use and intersection of meaning. The following is not to be viewed as an argument for the texts John may or may not have known, but rather serves to get a general idea of the use of τελέω and τελειόω within the biblical corpus as well as in ancient Greek texts. 14 Kittel and Friedrich (eds.), Wörterbuch, 8:80 (Delling). 15 Tελειότης is to be found in Wisd 6:15 and Col 3:14 with a meaning corresponding to the occurrences of τέλειος. 16 Kittel and Friedrich (eds.), Wörterbuch, 8:73 (Delling).

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turned toward God. Τέλειος has the same meaning in the New Testament and describes an intact perfection in Matt 5:48 and 19:21. 1 Cor 13:10 opposes τὸ τέλειον and τὸ ἐκ μέρους, that which is in parts. 1 John 4:18 is another example, as perfect love is described by τέλειος. The meaning of τέλειος outside the biblical corpus does not differ much from the biblical use.17 The adjective τέλειος is not used in the Gospel of John, but the use in earlier and contemporary texts shows a meaning of the word on which John’s use of τελειόω is dependent. In that case τελειόω describes the act of bringing into an undivided, perfect and complete whole or fullness. Turning to τελέω, the corresponding noun is τέλος.18 In ancient Greek texts the noun appears in the sense of accomplishment, goal, destination and end.19 In Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Maidens, Zeus is recognized as the one who brings an end to the conflict: “But it was Zeus who brought the end to pass” (Ζεὺς δʾ ἐπέκρανεν τέλος).20 And Philo uses τέλος in On Abraham to describe the final destination of Abraham’s way to Moria.21 The Septuagint use of τέλος is parallel to these Greek texts.22 The use of τέλος in the New Testament has some different nuances. It has the character of goal as the aim or purpose, which can be seen in 1 Tim 1:5. In Rev 22:13, τέλος is used in opposition to ἀρχὴ (”beginning”) in order to characterize Christ. But according to Delling the implied meaning of finality or end in τέλος is more difficult to determine definitively in the New Testament because of the eschatological ideas present throughout the texts. The end or τέλος is not absolutely final because of the expected second coming of Christ or God’s Kingdom.23 This is an important insight in relation to John 19:28–30, because the finality of τετέλεσται seems to be in tension with the fact that the narrative continues with the resurrection and apparition narratives in John 20–21. So, the use of τέλειος and τέλος opens up a spectrum of plausible meanings of τελειόω and τελέω. Both verbs are used in the sense of “to complete,” “to make real” and “to bring to perfection,” but the difference between τέλειος and τέλος 17 Kittel and Friedrich (eds.), Wörterbuch, 8:69 (Delling). Homer’s Iliad 1.66 uses τέλειος to describe perfect and unblemished animals for sacrifice. Philo asks in On the Change of Names 227 whether a father would prefer his son to be “completely good or completely evil” (ἢ τέλειον ἀγαθὸν ἢ τέλειον κακὸν). 18 F.J.M. Waanders concludes in his book, The History of ΤΕΛΟΣ and ΤΕΛΕΩ in Ancient Greek, that τέλος is derived from τελέω (Waanders, History, 18). 19 Kittel and Friedrich (eds.), Wörterbuch, 8:50–51 (Delling). 20 Aeschylus, The Suppliant Maidens, 624. English translation according to LCL unless stated otherwise. 21 Philo, On Abraham, 172. 22 In Eccl 12:13 τέλος describes the end of the matter, and Isa 19:15 opposes τέλος to ἀρχὴν (”beginning”). 23 Kittel and Friedrich (eds.), Wörterbuch, 8:56 (Delling).

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implies that τελειόω has the focus on the undivided, perfect whole whereas τελέω implies the final goal, bringing to an end as opposed to the beginning. Tελειόω focuses on the collection of parts into an undivided fullness or perfection in opposition to that which is imperfect and in parts. The implied meaning, and the difference between the verbs, can be defined in such a way that τελειόω can be understood as “to fulfill” in the sense of “to make perfect and whole,” with τελέω meaning “to finish” and “to bring to an end.”

5.

Τελέω and τελειόω in the Biblical Corpus

The distinction in meaning between τελέω and τελειόω will be examined by investigating the occurrences of the verbs in the Septuagint and in the New Testament. The examination is made knowing full well that a univocal distinction in the use of the verbs is not to be found, as they to some extent are used as synonyms. According to Delling, the use of τελέω in the Septuagint implies different meanings. First of all, τελέω is used in the sense of a religious initiation.24 Secondly, τελέω in the Septuagint is used in the meaning mentioned above, indicating that something is finished.25 This use correspond to the thesis that one meaning of τελέω, as distinct from τελειόω, is “reaching an end”; but there are some interfaces in the use of the two verbs in the Septuagint.26 Τελειόω has different meanings as well. Some of them correspond to the thesis that one meaning is to bring to a complete, undivided perfection.27 But there are a few examples of a use of τελειόω in the Septuagint focusing on the end point.28 The uses of τελέω and τελειόω in the Septuagint do not provide us with a univocal difference in meaning. There are examples of τελέω used to mean un24 Kittel and Friedrich (eds.), Wörterbuch, 8:59 (Delling). An example of this use is to be found in Num 25:3–5, as ἐτελέσθη is used negatively to describe initiation into another religious system and thereby apostasy. This meaning does not seem exhaustive for the use of τελέω in John 19:28–30. 25 The occurrences are manifold and can be seen for example in 1 Macc 4:51 to describe the end of the work of cleansing an altar, and in 1 Macc 13:10 on completing the construction of a wall. Another example is Ruth 2:21 as τελέω describes the harvest to be finished. In Sir 7:25 and 38:27 τελέω describes the completion of a great task. 26 In Ruth 3:18, Naomi comforts Ruth by saying: “… will settle the matter today” (τελέσῃ τὸ ῥῆμα σήμερον). Tελέσῃ seems to imply some kind of finishing element, but at the same time it has the meaning of Boaz fulfilling his word. 27 In Ezek 27:11, τελειόω is used to describe how beauty is made perfect, and in a similar manner Sir 7:32 on complete blessing. Tελειόω has the meaning of “absence of imperfection” when used in context of religious anointment as it can be seen for example in Ex 29:9 (and following). 28 In 2 Chr 8:16, τελειόω describes how the construction of the Lord’s House reaches an end.

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divided perfection and also the other way around, where τελειόω points to some sort of end point. An overlap in meaning does exist. Nevertheless a tendency of a differing use is to be found, since many occurrences of the verbs follow the pattern of meaning given by the nouns τέλειος and τέλος. If we turn to the New Testament, the uses of τελέω and τελειόω are similar to the impression sketched above of usage in the Septuagint. Most of the occurrences of τελέω in the New Testament imply the meaning that something is ending as opposed to beginning.29 As we saw in the Septuagint, in the New Testament τελειόω is used in the sense of perfect undividedness.30 There are occurrences though of τελέω being used to mean a state of undivided perfection, in Luke 12:50 on completed baptism, as well as τελειόω being used at a particular point in time, as in Luke 2:43, when it is used to describe the ending of the festival of the Passover. These instances of the use of τελέω and τελειόω in the New Testament leave one with the impression of some kind of synonymy between the verbs, but still allow one to argue for a differentiated use, as was the case in the Septuagint. Turning to John 19:28–30, it seems that we find a very deliberate change from τελειόω to τελέω at the very final moments of Jesus’ life. The context has to be decisive for the understanding of these verbs, and this point of change in the narrative strengthens the understanding of τελέω as an end point, as it is the final saying of Jesus. Τελειόω has been used throughout the Gospel to focus on the undivided work Jesus is sent to fulfill, but in John 19:28 τελειόω describes the fulfillment of the Scripture, which seems to strengthen the focus on fulfillment of the Scripture in its entirety as part of Jesus’ work. This work has now reached some kind of final goal, which can be emphasized with the change of the verb. The change is to a similar but different verb, which implies continuity throughout the Gospel but still insists on something special and concludes at this final stage of Jesus’ work willed by the Father.

29 In Matthew several verses (e. g. 7:28; 13:53; 26:1) mark the end of Jesus’ speech by the use of τελέω. The same meaning is implied in 2 Tim 4:7 in relation to finishing a race. More examples to be found in Revelation: 15:8 on the end of plagues; 20:3, 5, 7 on the end of thousand years. Τελέω is also used in the sense of paying taxes or dues and thereby fulfilling one’s obligations. This meaning can be seen in Matt 17:24 and Rom 13:6 but does not seem exhaustive for the use of τελέω in John 19:30. 30 In Phil 3:12 τελειόω describes the process of the believer being made perfect as well as 1 John 2:5; 4:12, 17–18 use τετελείωται to characterize the perfect love of God and Jam 2:22 on faith brought to completion. The occurrences in 1 John can have some special interest as there could be a connection between the letter and the gospel. As the conjugation of τελειόω is similar to τελέω in John 19:30, and τελειόω is chosen to describe the fullness of love, this could point in the direction of awareness of another meaning being implied by the use of τελέω in John 19:30.

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Τετέλεσται as Reversal of Fortune

As the argument for one meaning of τελέω as “to bring to an end” or “to finish” unfolds, one cannot help but question why the utterance of Jesus is to be found at this point of the narrative. The narrative about Jesus is not finished, but continues in John 20–21. An explanation for this can be found in the use of τετέλεσται in ancient Greek fictional texts, where the term seems to function as a narrative figure or motif.

6.1

Τετέλεσται in Ancient Greek Literature

Manfred Lang mentions in his book Johannes und die Synoptiker the possibility that the expression τετέλεσται implies a reversal of fortune. Lang distinguishes between τετέλεσται as used in the sense of reaching an end and in the sense of a reversal of fortune, and he gives a few examples of each use found in ancient Greek philosophical and literary texts from Homer to Aristides.31 I will investigate this sense of a reversal of fortune further by analyzing four occurrences of τετέλεσται in literary texts prior to the Gospel of John.32 For heuristic reasons the focus is on the uses of τετέλεσται and no other conjugations of τελέω. Tετέλεσται is the exact formulation found in John 19:28–30, and a search in the Greek sources on the specific formulation proves fruitful in revealing a recurring narrative motif in its use.33 In the Iliad, τετέλεσται occurs in the eighteenth book at lines 74–75: “Thy wish has verily been brought to pass for thee by Zeus” (τὰ μὲν δὴ τοι τετέλεσται ἐκ 31 Lang, Synoptiker, 235–236. 32 The fictional texts allow for the possibility of reversal of fortune as they have narrative plots as is the case with the Gospel of John. This is the reason for omitting an investigation of philosophical texts. The focus of texts prior to John is not due to a firm conviction that the author, or authors, of the Gospel knew these texts, but there is a possibility of the writers or the readers knew some of the fictional texts through current popular culture. Research on dramatic elements in the Fourth Gospel has been ongoing since F.R.M. Hitchcock in 1907 argued that the Johannine plot resembles that of a tragedy in Hitchcock, Development, and in 1911 in Hitchcock, Study. More recent contributions to the research have been delivered by Jo-Ann A. Brant, as she analyses the literary context of the Gospel in her 2004 book Brant, Dialogue; and Kasper Bro Larsen’s investigation of recognition scenes in the Gospel of John from 2012 in Larsen, Stranger. 33 According to Frey, τετέλεσται is a dynamic-resultative lexeme, and thereby it describes the condition of the result. And by the use of the passive the emphasis is even more on this new situation (Frey, Eschatologie, 112–113). The grammatical conjugation thereby substantiates the literal meaning and connotation of the verb as reaching some endpoint and pointing to the new situation initiated.

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Διὸς).34 The sentence is a part of a line spoken by Thetis, Achilles’s mother, who addresses her son after he learns that the Achaean Patroclus has been killed by the Trojans. Achilles had wished for the Achaeans to lose in battle that day and his wish was fulfilled by Zeus, but he had not expected the death of his friend. The actual exclamation of the word τετέλεσται does not herald a reversal of fortune for Achilles, but the scene marks a turning point. Achilles has his wish fulfilled but realizes in the same vein that he has to fight the Trojans. Tετέλεσται is here used to describe a relationship between humans and gods. Humans can ask for something and attain it, but they are not capable of foreseeing the consequences. If one interferes with the gods, it inevitably has some impact on one’s further fortune. Achilles realizes that it is his fate (μοῖρα) to fight and he is willing to accept his fate, even if the gods will fulfill it, τελέσαι, in such a way that the consequence will be his death.35 Achilles’s fortune is not magically reversed as τετέλεσται is uttered, but there is a connection between τετέλεσται and fate at a crucial point in the narrative as Achilles realizes his fate and the consequences of the fulfillment of his wish. The Odyssey continues the narrative of the Iliad. Tετέλεσται occurs at the very beginning of book 13. Odysseus is a guest in King Alcinous’ house and is resolved to go home, something for which he has yearned through all the years of his exile as he will be reunited with his wife. He says to Alcinous: “For now all that my heart desired has been brought to pass” (ἤδη γὰρ τετέλεσται ἅ μοι φιλος ἤθελε θυμός).36 Lang sees this use of τετέλεσται as an example of the sense of ending and not of a reversal of fortune.37 Lang is right in stating that the scene marks an end point in Odysseus’ travels, but I will argue that at the same time it is an initiation of the new chapter of the narrative, as his homecoming forms the second part of the Odyssey. As was the case in the Iliad, τετέλεσται is not a magical word that can changes a fortune simply by being spoken, but it is comes at a crucial point in the narrative, changing the protagonist from a traveling adventurer to a homecoming husband.38 Aeschylus’ tragedy The Suppliant Maidens is the third text making use of τετέλεσται. The tragedy begins with Danaus and his daughters coming on stage. They have fled Egypt and have now landed on the shores of Argos, praying for Zeus to help and protect them as their ancestor of the family: “For thence, indeed, hath grown our race that claims to have sprung from the caressing of the gnat34 35 36 37 38

Homer, Iliad 18.74–75. Homer, Iliad 18.115–120. Homer, Odyssey 13,40. Lang, Synoptiker, 237. Z. Philip Ambrose notes that most of the objects of τελέω in the Homeric texts are the content of plans, commands, prayers, promises or prophesies; τελέω thereby means ”to act in full accord with some plan, command, prayer, promise or prophecy” (Ambrose, Telos, 43–44).

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tormented heifer at the hands of Zeus” (ὅθεν δὴ γένος ἡμέτερον τῆς οι᾿στροδόνου βοὸς ἐξ ἐπαφῆς κἀξ ἐπιπνοίας Διὸς εὐχόμενον τετέλεσται).39 Tετέλεσται is here used to denote origin. The family is descended from Zeus and therefore calls for his protection. Tετέλεσται occurs in the very first lines of the tragedy. But the play begins in medias res, and the narrative is at a crucial point as the daughters and their father stand on the shore after their flight and knock on the doors of King Pelasgus, awaiting the sealing of their fate. As was the case in the two Homeric usages, τετέλεσται occurs at a point in the narrative where the protagonists are experiencing a significant change in their lives. And when a tragedy begins in medias res, this point can occur on the very first page of the drama. The final occurrence of τετέλεσται is in Euripides’ tragedy Alcestis. As was the case in The Suppliant Maidens, τετέλεσται occurs in the first part of the play and again the knowledge of a preceding plot is presupposed. Alcestis is married to King Admetus, who, according to a deal made by Death and Apollo, will die if no one volunteers to die instead of him. His beloved wife Alcestis agrees to sacrifice herself, and King Admetus accepts it. The first lines of the chorus mourn over Alcestis, who is on her deathbed. And the sentence in which τετέλεσται occurs is very similar to John 19:28: “All was already fulfilled by the rulers” (πάντα γὰρ ἤδη τετέλεσται βασιλεῦσι).40 The chorus is followed by a conversation between Admetus and Alcestis, and then the death of Alcestis. The tragedy ends with Heracles traveling to Hades to free Alcestis. He brings her to her husband, and after a scene of recognition, and three days of silence, the couple are reunited. Alcestis is in many ways an interesting tragedy in relation to the Fourth Gospel.41 In this context the focus will be on the sentence using τετέλεσται. The sentence has a very similar wording compared to John 19:28. The occurrence of the sentence in the narrative leading up to the death of a main character is parallel as well. What is different is the person who utters the line. In the Gospel of John it is the dying person, Jesus. In Alcestis it is the chorus. But in both narratives it is according to the plan of the gods or the fate that the person dies. As Jesus’ death was part of his work, it was arranged for Alcestis to die. Both characters are brought back from the dead, with the crucial difference that Alcestis’ life will eventually reach an end, as death in the tragedies is an enemy that cannot be vanquished, as opposed to the Fourth Gospel, as Brant points out.42

39 Aeschylus, The Suppliant Maidens 18. 40 Euripides, Alcestis 132 (my translation). 41 Jo-Ann A. Brant, for example, points to the relationship between life and death and the pattern of prologue and epilogue (Brant, Dialogue, 64, 261); Kasper Bro Larsen refers to the recognition scene (Larsen, Stranger, 201). 42 Brant, Dialogue, 261.

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The use of τετέλεσται in the four ancient Greek literary texts is parallel, as the verb occurs at a point in the narratives where the situation is reversing for the protagonists, whether at the beginning of the narrative or later on. Achilles’ situation reverses so that he moves from being a bystander to a warrior, Odysseus reverses his direction from wandering ever further from his course to homecoming, the Danaids move from flight to asylum, and Alcestis transitions from life to death. This supports the use of τετέλεσται as a recurring narrative figure at the point of a reversal of fate in the narratives, and thereby supplements its meaning with an expectation that the narrative will be continued in the form of a reversal of fortune.

6.2

Aristotle: Poetics

The expectation of a reversal of fortune in narratives is emphasized in Aristotle’s work on dramatic theory in his Poetics. Distinguishing between two types of plots, simple and complex, Aristotle prefers the complex plot, which is defined by two types of turning point, μετάβασις. The first type of turning point is the reversal of the situation to its opposite, περιπέτεια, and the other is the recognition scene, ἀναγνώρισις.43 It is difficult to make a clear-cut distinction between metabasis and peripeteia and the discussion among researchers has been ongoing.44 In this context we will not pursue the arguments further but note that a plot or narrative by its nature is an arrangement of incidents taking some twists and turns for the protagonists, as was seen in the four examples above. The four occurrences of τετέλεσται seem to be situated at points at which the change for the protagonists is of such a character that the situation reverses to the opposite of the point of departure, whether that is to be understood as metabasis or peripeteia. My point is to propose that the Gospel too is an arrangement of incidents into a plot in which some reversals of fortune are a necessity for the narrative to function in relation to the expectations of the reader. The moment of the death of Jesus is a turning point in the Gospel for Jesus, the believers and the readers. The Gospel has anticipated this and is constructed to reach this climax. This can be seen in the references to “the hour” (ἡ ὥρα) which has been sensed and anticipated, i. e. John 2:4, 7:30 and 8:20. John 12:23–24 reveals that the hour implies glorification as well as death, and in John 19:30 death is made a reality. The use of τετέλεσται marks the ending of Jesus’ life and work on earth, but the choice of verb and grammatical form are astonishingly parallel to the examples above and could thereby be seen as emphasizing the reversal of fortune. The meaning of 43 Aristotle, Poetics 10.1–11.3. 44 Larsen, Stranger, 27.

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τετέλεσται as “bringing to an end” is thereby supplemented with a new sense of reversed fortune, to be initiated at the point of reversal; in this case, however, it does not imply a change for the protagonist alone but for the readers and believers as well.

7.

Τετέλεσται as an Eschatological Turning Point

The ancient Greek literary texts are one source for looking into ways of explaining the use of τετέλεσται as a narrative figure meaning conclusion but at the same time marking new beginnings. Another source is the New Testament texts in general, and the Gospel of John in particular, where one can find possible supplemental explanations as well.

7.1

Τέλος in the New Testament

As mentioned above, the end or τέλος in the New Testament is a complex term because of eschatological expectations in connection with the second coming of Christ. Tέλος is used in eschatological contexts and has connotations from these as the end of this world implies the beginning of the new reality. These connotations are implied by the use of τετέλεσται. Tέλος occurs in John 13:1, but is not a part of a typical future-eschatological scene describing the second coming of Christ. I will therefore provide examples from other New Testament texts, turning to John 13:1 below.45 1 Cor 15:24 uses τὸ τέλος to describe the period of time after Christ has destroyed every authority and power as he hands over the Kingdom to God the Father. Thereby τέλος describes the end of a world, but at the same time marks the starting point of a new Kingdom in which God will be all in all, as 1 Cor 15:28 proclaims. A similar idea can be found in Matt 10:22 and 24:13–14: “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (ὁ δὲ ὑπομείνας ει᾿ς τέλος, οὗτος σωθήσεται); “And the end will come” (καὶ τότε ἥξει τὸ τέλος). These verses are followed by a description of eschatological scenes that result in the coming of the Son of Man and a division of human beings in Matt 24–25. Tέλος is the end of the present world, but it initiates a new situation of eternal life or punishment, as explained in Matt 25:46. A final example can be found in Romans 6:22: “The end is eternal life” (τὸ δὲ τέλος ζωὴν αι᾿ώνιον). As the believer has been freed from sin and received 45 The following is not to be understood as an argument for which texts John may or may not have known, but it rather serves to get a general idea of the use of τὸ τέλος in eschatological contexts within New Testament texts.

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sanctification, the end for him is eternal life, continued life in some form. The end is thereby not the end of everything, but the end of the life as it is known, and some sort of new reality is expected to follow τὸ τέλος. Tετέλεσται, connected as it is τὸ τέλος, has the meaning of a final point, but as this world’s time and life are expected to change with the second coming of Christ, the end is not the absolute end for the believers. They expect the end to be followed by eternal life and the realization of the Kingdom of God. This meaning can be discerned in the use of τετέλεσται in John 19:30, which marks an important moment heralding the coming of a new fortune. The interaction between beginnings, endings and new beginnings is not unfamiliar in the Fourth Gospel. In John 12:24, it is made clear how the grain must die in order for it to bear fruit. The dying of Jesus is thought of as an end, but an end that makes new beginnings possible, reversing future for his believers. John 13:1 may be seen as giving some indication of the conception of the new reality, as τὸ τέλος is used to describe the extent or degree of love between Jesus and his believers, exemplified by the washing of the disciple’s feet. Tὸ τέλος is not used in a future-eschatological scene, but it reveals the new presentic reality in the Gospel of John initiated by the death of Jesus and implied in his utterance of τετέλεσται: his earthly work is ended, but its fruit is borne in the form of the new reality of love and closeness between the Father, the Son and the believers.

7.2

Genesis and John: ἀρχή and τέλος

The interaction between endings and beginnings is also seen in an intertextual context. Martin Hengel calls attention to the connection between the Gospel of John and the first chapters of Genesis in his article Die Schriftauslegung des 4. Evangeliums auf dem Hintergrund der Urchristlichen Exegese. From the very beginning of the Gospel, a wordplay is to be found connecting the Gospel to Genesis, as John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 begin with the same prepositional phrase ἐν ἀρχῇ.46 There are parallels here with the beginning, but even more relevant in this context is the parallel with the end of the creation. Genesis 2:1 says: “Thus the heavens and the Earth were finished, and all their multitude” (καὶ συνετελέσθησαν ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ καὶ πᾶς ὁ κόσμος αὐτῶν). The use of συνετελέσθησαν indicates the completion of Creation. And with the use of τελέω in John 19:30 it creates a connection to the ending of the creation account in Genesis.47 The work that Jesus was sent to perform, according to John 4:34, was to complete this second or new creation and it has found its completion on the cross. John 19:30 marks a point in 46 Hengel, Schriftauslegung, 283. 47 Hengel, Schriftauslegung, 284.

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the narrative of completion of a new creation which has been created within the lifetime of Jesus, now reaching its goal and opening the way for a new fortune for the believers and their relationship to God. A further connection between Genesis and the Gospel of John is Jesus’ breathing of the Holy Spirit on the disciples in John 20:22, which could refer to the breath of life given by God to Man in Gen 2:7.48 The reception of the Holy Spirit reveals the new future for the disciples, as they are to be sent as Jesus was sent. Jesus has completed his allotted mission, but with his death and resurrection he initiates the new reality and future for the believers as his emissaries, who have life in his name, as John 20:31 proclaims.

8.

Conclusion

The ultimum verbum of the Johannine Jesus on the cross is τετέλεσται. This utterance points to the fact that Jesus’ work on earth, sent by the Father, is finished. This sense of reaching an end is emphasized by the use of τελέω, in contrast to τελειόω. Τελειόω does not seem to imply the same sense of bringing to an end, but rather bringing to undivided perfection. Tετέλεσται points forward as well as backward, as the sense of finishing is complemented by connotations of a reversal of fortune. The analysis of four occurrences of τετέλεσται in ancient literary Greek texts has shown that the verb occurs at points of reversal of fortune for the protagonists in a way that parallels the use of τετέλεσται in the Gospel of John. In this way τετέλεσται functions as a narrative figure, which may also be a part of the connotations implicit in τετέλεσται in John 19:30. Tετέλεσται may imply an initiation of new situations within the biblical corpus as well. The use of τέλος in eschatological scenes in the New Testament and of συντελέω in Genesis 2:1 seem to provide the reader with expectations of a new reality springing from the death of Jesus. The choice of the verb τελέω in John 19:30 thereby seems to show a reversal of fortunes as well as an eschatological turning point, since a new creation and a new reality have been accomplished. This reality includes a loving relationship between the Father, the Son and the believers, and a reversed fortune for the believers who now have new life in his name.

Bibliography Aeschylus (translated by H.W. Smyth, 2 vols., LCL), Harvard University Press 1922–26. Ambrose, Z.P., The Homeric Telos, Glotta 43 (1965): 38–62. Aristotle, The Poetics (translated by W.H. Fyfe, LCL), Harvard University Press 1927. 48 Hengel, Schriftauslegung, 273.

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Balz, H./G. Schneider (eds.), Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, 3 vols., W. Kohlhammer 1981–83. Bergmeier, R., ΤΕΤΕΛΕΣΤΑΙ Joh 19:30, ZNW 79 (1988): 282–290. Brant, J.-A. A., Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel, Hendrickson Publishers 2004. Dauer, A., Die Passionsgeschichte im Johannesevangelium, Kösel-Verlag 1972. Euripides (translated by A.S. Way, 4 vols., LCL), Harvard University Press 1912. Frey, J., Die johanneische Eschatologie II, Mohr Siebeck 1998. Gnilka, C., Ultima Verba, JAC 22 (1979): 5–21. Hengel, M., Die Schriftauslegung des 4. Evangeliums auf dem Hintergrund der Urchristlichen Exegese, JBTh 4 (1989): 249–288. Hitchcock, F.R.M., The Dramatic Development of the Fourth Gospel, The Expositor 4 (1907): 266–279. –, A Fresh Study of the Fourth Gospel, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 1911. Homer, The Iliad (translated by A.T. Murray, LCL), Harvard University Press 1924–25. –, The Odyssey (translated by A.T. Murray, LCL), Harvard University Press 1919. Kittel, G./G. Friedrich (eds.), Theologishes Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, 10 vols., W. Kohlhammer 1957–78. Kraus, W., Johannes und das Alte Testament, ZNW 88 (1997): 1–23. Larsen, K.B., Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John, Brill 2012. Lang, M., Johannes und die Synoptiker. Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Analyse von Joh 18– 20 vor dem markinischen und lukanischen Hintergrund, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999. Noack, B., Fra det exegetiske værksted: Artikler og notater, G.E.C. Gad 1992. Mohr, T.A., Markus- und Johannespassion, Theologischer Verlag Zürich 1982. Moule, C.F.D., Fulfilment-Words in the New Testament: Use and Abuse, NTS 14 (1968): 293–320. Philo (translated by F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker, 10 vols., LCL), Harvard University Press 1953–62. Schnelle, U., Das Evangelium nach Johannes (ThHK 4), Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2004. Swanson, R.J. (ed.), New Testament Greek Manuscripts – Variant Readings Arranged in Horizontal Lines against Codex Vaticanus – John, Sheffield Academic Press 1995. Waanders, F.M.J., The History of ΤΕΛΟΣ and ΤΕΛΕΩ in Ancient Greek, B.R. Grüner Publishing Company 1983.

III. Perspectives on Paul and Jesus

Magnus Zetterholm

From Jewish to Gentile “Christianity” A Change of Perspective Within the Radical New Perspective on Paul

1.

Introduction

The recent development within Pauline studies, the so-called “radical new perspective on Paul,”1 or “the Paul-within-Judaism” perspective,2 involves an interesting change of perspective with regard to what constituted the problems within the early Jesus movement. While it traditionally has been assumed that the main source of conflict was Paul’s rejection of Judaism, including Torah observance, leading to severe clashes between “Jewish Christians” and Paul, recent research suggests that the whole notion of “Jewish Christianity” rests on false assumptions. In this essay, I will describe the fundamental assumptions of “the traditional perspective on Paul” and “the Paul-within-Judaism perspective,” respectively, and show how a change of perspective dramatically alters the scenario.

2.

The Traditional View on Paul and Judaism

What is commonly labeled the “traditional” or “Lutheran” perspective on Paul is a scholarly tradition based on the assumption that the apostle repudiated Judaism as a result of the coming to Christ. The idea that there is an inherent conflict between Judaism and Christianity is the result of a long development beginning already in antiquity. As I have argued elsewhere, the origin of this idea is, in my view, to be found in the religio-political situation at the end of the first century. As the predominantly Jewish Jesus movement suffered from the general persecution of Jews in the aftermath of the Jewish War, non-Jewish adherents to the movement made use of anti-Jewish sentiments prevalent in society as an 1 Zetterholm, Approaches, 231–233. 2 Nanos, Introduction, 1–29.

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ideological resource in an effort to separate from Judaism and create a collegium of their own.3 While this anti-Jewish propaganda, that we find, for instance in Ignatius of Antioch,4 originally had very little to do with theology, it soon became an important part of Christian theology as is evident from Melito of Sardis’ homily Peri Pascha, in which he makes the Jews collectively responsible for having murdered God.5 During the theological disputes concerning the salvation of the individual throughout late antiquity and culminating during the Reformation, the idea of the inferiority of Judaism became firmly established. “Law” was contrasted with “grace,” “faith” with “works.” When Ferdinand Weber published his study on rabbinic Judaism in 1880,6 the antithetical relation between Judaism and Christianity even received a scientific legitimization of sorts. Weber’s reconstruction of Judaism soon became the standard work on ancient Judaism, used by generations of subsequent scholars, who included Weber’s ideas in their own works.7 Up until the 1980’s the dichotomy between Judaism and Christianity was the dominant hermeneutical key for interpreting Paul and it is still determining much Pauline scholarship. From this perspective, it is only natural that Paul, advocating the law-free gospel for all humankind, was in conflict with competing groups who still worked within a Jewish matrix. The source of conflict from Paul’s perspective was, in short, Judaism. Ernst Käsemann writes: “It has rightly been repeatedly noticed that the apostle’s message of justification is a fighting doctrine, directed against Judaism.”8

3.

A Paul within Judaism Perspective

E. P. Sanders’ seminal work, Paul and Palestinian Judaism brought about a gigantic change by snatching away the fundament for the traditional understanding of Paul. Sanders claimed that ancient Judaism was characterized by love, compassion, grace and forgiveness. Torah observance, Sanders stated, functioned in the context of the covenant between God and Israel and was an expression of the willingness of the individual to remain within the covenant: “election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather

3 4 5 6 7 8

Zetterholm, Formation. See e. g. Ign. Magn. 8–10; Phld. 6:1. Peri Pascha 96. Weber, System. For an overview of Weber’s view of Judaism, see Sanders, Paul, 36–39. Käsemann, Perspectives, 70.

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than human achievement.”9 This “religious pattern” Sanders called covenantal nomism. As a result of Sanders’ revision of the established view of Judaism, scholars began to question the traditional assumptions in Pauline scholarship. If Judaism was not based on “works-righteousness” what then did Paul find wrong with the Torah? Sanders’ answer was that Paul really found nothing wrong with the Jewish law, but since God evidently has decided to save the world through Christ, to strive for righteousness through Torah observance is wrong: “this is,” Sanders states, “what Paul finds wrong in Judaism: it is not Christianity.”10 One of the first attempts to take Sanders’s revision of Judaism seriously was James D. G. Dunn in his famous article, “The New Perspective on Paul,”11 which would lend its name to an entire scholarly tradition. Arguing from Gal 2:16, Dunn claims that all Jews believed that righteousness was connected to covenantal theology and was given by grace, through faith and not from “works of the law” (ἔργων νόμου). While Sanders understood the phrase to mean that no one will be justified by the law, Dunn argued that ἔργων νόμου referred to Jewish identity markers, such as food regulations, male circumcision, and purity regulations. The problem was, according to Dunn, that the Jewish people defined the covenant in ethnic terms thus creating a boundary between Jews and non-Jews. What Paul reacted against was not the Torah per se, but those aspects of the Torah that represented Jewish particularism. In Paul’s view, Dunn argued, the covenant had not been invalidated, but expanded to include also non-Jews, thus representing a universalistic stance. The only identity marker Paul would have recognized was belief in Jesus, and this constituted the true dividing line between believers and unbelievers, regardless of ethnicity. Dunn’s “new perspective” indeed represents a giant leap forward. The antiJewish sentiment is still there, but is significantly downplayed. It could, however, be argued that while Dunn certainly had done away with the classic opposition between “law” and “gospel,” he introduced another opposing pair: “Jewish particularism” versus “Christian universalism,” which in effect is only another way of upholding the distinction between Judaism and Christianity. It seems as Dunn’s new perspective still operates within a complex of problems that relates more to the issues of the Reformation and normative Christian theology, than to Paul’s first century Jewish context. One important step on the way to breaking up this influence of issues relevant for present-day Christian theology, was when scholars started arguing that Paul did not address mankind in general, but predominantly non-Jews, for instance in 9 Sanders, Palestinian Judaism, 422. 10 Sanders, Palestinian Judaism, 552. 11 Dunn, New Perspective, 95–122.

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Romans. This had already been suggested by Johannes Munck in 1954,12 but during the 80s and 90s several scholars followed.13 The positive effect of identifying Paul’s intended audience as non-Jewish cannot be overstated, as it naturally leads to a more complex picture. For instance, if Paul understood his calling as relating to the nations exclusively, it is fully possible that whatever Paul deals with in his letters is only pertinent to non-Jews. Consequently, if Paul believed, as seems to be the case in 1 Cor 7:18–20,14 that ethnic diversity is to be maintained within the Jesus movement, the idea of Paul representing “Christian universalism” in opposition to “Jewish particularism,” can hardly be upheld. If Paul’s vision for the Jesus movement involves two groups, Jews and non-Jews, the hypothesis that Paul imagined two groups with different behavior depending on their ethnic identity seems fully possible. The emerging Paul-within-Judaism perspective rests precisely on this assumption – Paul is the apostle to the nations and his message is accordingly directed to members of the nations. He does not deal with how Jews within the Jesus movement should relate to, for instance, the Torah. Moreover, Paul’s historical context is Second Temple Judaism, not later Christian theology (which indeed is of scholarly interest as the reception of Paul). Considering precisely the reception of Paul in a Christian context (Paul versus Judaism), it seems a better hypothesis to assume Paul’s Jewish identity – not his Jewish background – than to start from the idea of a radical break with Judaism, a notion, which clearly emerged in later Christian theology.15 Thus, from Paul’s point of view, the movement he was involved in was a Jewish movement, characterized by the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was Israel’s Messiah. For various reasons, the notion that the messianic age was now at hand seems to have triggered the idea, prevalent in various Jewish texts, that God intended to include the nations in the final salvation.16 If Paul’s “religion” was Judaism there is, in my view, no reason to doubt that Paul himself was Torah observant – at least as observant as most Jews in the Diaspora. To conclude: E. P. Sanders’s revision of the nature of first-century Judaism has gradually resulted in a shift from the idea that Paul repudiated Judaism and founded a new (and better) religion – Christianity, to the hypothesis that Paul is best understood as a representative of first-century Judaism. Paul’s “religion” was Jesus-oriented Judaism. This change of perspective has also resulted in another shift – from a concentration on Jews and Judaism, to non-Jews and the 12 13 14 15

Munck, Paul, 196. Gager, Origins; Gaston, Paul; Stowers, Rereading. See also Tucker, Remain. On the fundamental assumptions of the Paul-within-Judaism perspective, see Nanos, Introduction, 1–29. 16 Sanders, Jesus, 230.

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nations. I will continue by exploring the implications of this for the study of “Jewish Christianity” and the relations between Jews and non-Jews within the movement.

4.

The Disappearance of the “Jewish Christians”

From the traditional Protestant perspective, the main problem within the early Jesus movement was, in short, Judaism. Since Judaism, according to this view, is a religion of “works-righteousness,” Jews strove to earn their salvation through observing the Torah. This was Paul’s position as a Pharisee before his conversion on the road to Damascus. However, through a revelation of the risen Christ,17 Paul changed his mind and eventually came to realize that “the one who is righteous will live by faith” (Rom 1:17),18 which is thought to mean that there is an opposition between what is considered to be the Jewish idea of salvation, “works” (ἔργα), and “faith” (πίστις) in Christ. In the words of Günther Bornkamm: Paul’s opponent [in Romans] is not this or that section in a particular church, but the Jews and their understanding of salvation, which was still extremely influential in the early Jewish-Christian church, particularly in Jerusalem.19

According to mainstream interpretations, Paul dismisses the Torah for Jews and non-Jews alike and believes that the Sinai covenant between God and Israel has been replaced by a new covenant.20 Paul’s adversaries are often described as “Jewish Christians,” a group to which Paul obviously does not belong. The term “Jewish Christianity” is in itself problematic. No ancient text uses the expression and among scholars exists a considerable confusion on how to define “Jewish Christians.”21 However, according to Matthew Jackson-McCabe, a common model has been to define “Jewish Christianity” according to practice: [T]he use of the term “Jewish Christianity” to denote groups or texts that combine veneration of Jesus with practice of Jewish law remains very common. Some of the most significant scholarship over the last half-century has argued in favor of precisely this definition of the category, regardless of genealogical matters.22

Behind the idea that Paul represented another system of salvation for humankind than other groups, who advocated fidelity to the Torah, regardless of what they are called, lurks the influential idea rooted in Christian theology, that Paul 17 18 19 20 21 22

Acts 9:1–9; Gal 1:13–17. Biblical translations are from the NRSV. Bornkamm, Paul, 95. Luke 2:20; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6. See Paget, Definition, 22–5; Zetterholm, Jews, 242–254, esp. 245–248. Jackson-McCabe, What’s in a Name, 22.

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represents the “law-free” gospel, meaning that he himself had done away with Jewish practices and argued that others should do the same. Thus, according to Philip F. Esler, Paul had for much of his adult life, laid aside Judean aspects of his self-concept in which he had been socialized since infancy and which he still shared with his own immediate kin and with all those who were Judean by birth who claimed kinship with and through Abraham.23

Heikki Räisänen explains his view of Paul’s adversaries: While more conservative Christian Jews emphasize that humans have no right to abandon God’s decrees and that the requirements of the Torah therefore also apply to Gentile Christians, let alone to Jewish Christians in their dealing with Gentiles, Paul insists that ‘works of the law’ must not be required: ‘A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 2:16).24

To summarize: according to the traditional view, Paul abandoned Judaism because there was something inherently wrong with it. The Christ event had simply made Torah observance obsolete also for Jews. Paul’s gospel is universalistic: “Paul attacks the Torah as a rival principle of salvation … the way of the law is a dead end.”25 A new group, the Christians, emerges, made up by former Jews and non-Jews. Paul’s main adversaries were other Jewish followers of Jesus, who still believed in the validity of the Torah and argued that also non-Jews should convert to Judaism and observe the Torah in order to be saved. From the assumptions of the traditional perspective, the problems within the early Jesus movement and the reasons for conflicts are clearly Jews and Judaism. Now, if we instead apply the assumptions of the Paul-within-Judaism perspective the picture changes substantially. On the assumption that Paul did not break with Judaism but considered accepting Jesus as Israel’s Messiah as fully compatible with being Jewish, it follows that Jews within the Jesus movement were in agreement on the role of the Torah in a Jewish setting. There is no reason to assume that Jesus-oriented Jews ceased observing the Torah. It is interesting to notice that Luke knew about such accusations against Paul, but claims that they are false. Luke writes in Acts 21:18–25: When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly. 18The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present. 19After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20When they heard it, they praised God. Then they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. 21They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living

23 Esler, Conflict, 272. 24 Räisänen, Rise, 178. 25 Räisänen, Rise, 177.

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among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. 22What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. 23So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. 24Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law.

Two things are especially interesting in this text: first, Luke states without further comments, that “thousands of believers” among the Jews are Torah observant (v. 20). It may very well be a Lukan hyperbole,26 but it is still worth noticing that Luke does not find Torah observance among Jewish followers of Jesus odd or unnatural. Secondly, Luke clearly supports the view that Paul was Torah observant. While scholars generally recognize the fact that Luke presents Paul as a pious Jew, this text poses some problems and there is a clear tendency to relativize Luke’s testimony. Reidar Hvalvik believes Paul’s law observing features are presented as part of his missionary strategy, but admits that it is reasonable to assume “that he often observed Jewish customs in his daily life – as long as they did not blur the gospel.”27 Joseph F. Fitzmyer, argues along the same line: “Paul performs the Jewish ritual acts in an effort to keep peace in the Jerusalem church, because he knows that those rites do not undercut his basic allegiance to the risen Christ.”28 Ben Witherington states that “[t]he ritual law was a matter of adiaphora in Paul’s mind, and so he could either observe it or not,” if it had no “soteriological significance.”29 These scholars explain Luke’s account by implying that Paul had an adaptable nature and that his behavior was governed by the specific circumstances he was in at a given moment. If it served his purposes he could very well observe parts of the Torah, but he found no reason to do so in general, since for “the historical Paul, traditional law-observance was certainly subordinated to the preaching of the gospel and his concern for the salvation of mankind.”30 However, from a Paul-within-Judaism perspective, Luke’s testimony makes perfect sense: Jews within the Jesus movement generally observed the Torah as they had done before they were introduced to Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. One important consequence of this view is that the whole problem of “Jewish Christianity” disappears, simply because the category did not exist. Some Jews 26 Fitzmyer, Acts, 693. Cf. however, Stark, Rise, 49–71, who suggests that “a very substantial conversion of the Jews actually did take place (p. 70). See also Ps.-Clem. Rec. 1.51.4–1.53, where the author speaks of many (Jews) who, “were continually coming to the faith of the word concerning [Christ]” (1.53.2). The only difference between the group of the author and other Jews is “the eternal Christ” (1.43.1–2), which seems to indicate Torah observance. 27 Hvalvik, Paul, 153. 28 Fitzmyer, Acts, 692. 29 Witherington, Acts, 648. 30 Hvalvik, Paul, 153.

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believed that Jesus was the Messiah, other Jews did not. Some were obsessed by purity rituals, like the Qumran community, others focused on the interpretation of the Torah. But all pious Jews most likely observed the Torah according to the specific halakhah of the tradition they belonged to.31 Thus, Torah observance or Jewish practices in a Jewish setting was not the source of the problems within the Jesus movement. Torah observance indeed constituted a serious problem but it was entirely connected to non-Jews.

5.

Paul and the Salvation of the Nations

Several sources indicate that there was a substantial interest in Judaism on the part of non-Jews.32 Josephus, for instance, reports that: [T]he masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances [τῆς ἡμετέρας εὐσεβείας]; and there is not one city, Greek, or barbarian, nor a single nation, to which our custom of abstaining from work on the seventh day has not spread, and where the fasts and the lighting of lamps, and many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed. C. Ap. 2.28233

As for the situation in Antioch specifically, Josephus claims that the Jews “they were constantly attracting to their religious ceremonies multitudes of Greeks [προσαγόμενοι ταῖς θρησκείαις πολὺ πλῆθος Ἑλλήνων], and these they had in some measure incorporated with themselves” B.J. 7.4534 This might, of course, reflect a Jewish apologetic trend, but also Roman authors, who seems to have feared the influence from Jews on Romans,35 confirm that non-Jews interacted with Jews in the synagogues of the Diaspora.36 Paula Fredriksen has summarized non-Jewish involvement in Jewish life in the following way: Wherever there were Jews, it seems, there were synagogues. No less often, interestingly, where there were synagogues, there also seem to have been pagans. Some of these pagans were patrons of synagogues and major donors to Jewish activities: spelled out in mosaics and inscribed on donor plaques, their generosity was publicly proclaimed by 31 See Hedner Zetterholm, Question, 79–103, where she point to the fact that Torah observance was (and is) a much more complex phenomenon than usually assumed. That one group accuses another group of not observing the Torah can often be explained by different ideas of what Torah observance should be. 32 See M. Murray, Playing, 11–27. On Jewish attitude towards non-Jews see, Donaldson, Judaism. 33 Josephus, C. Ap. 2.282. 34 Josephus, B.J. 7.45. 35 Schäfer, Judeophobia, 192–195. 36 See e. g. Seneca, Ep. 108.22; Plutarch, Superst. 166 A.

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Jews honoring their benefactions. Interested pagans built synagogue structures or lavishly decorated their interiors; they sponsored Jewish philanthropic initiatives; they participated in Jewish prayer and study, and took part in Jewish fasts or feasts.37

I believe it is fair to conclude that the non-Jews Paul encountered, most likely in a synagogue context, to some extent were Torah observant. This does not necessarily imply that they observed the Torah in exactly the same way, or to the same extent as Jews did, only that they to various degrees had adopted a Jewish life style. It is not impossible that they believed that this behavior turned them into “righteous gentiles” of sorts. If this is the case, the probable reason is that Jews, who believed that non-Jews would benefit from observing the Torah i. e. who embraced a universalistic ideology with regard to Torah observance, had led them to believe so.38 We know, admittedly from a later period, that the question of Torah observance for non-Jews was discussed. Marc Hirshman has shown that there existed a universalistic tendency in Tannaitic literature,39 according to which nonJews could engage in Torah observance without converting to Judaism. Given the evidence of non-Jewish involvement in Jewish affairs during the first century, it seems reasonable that this was not an invention of the Rabbis. However, this universalistic ideology was challenged by an opposing ideology according to which Torah observance was only for Jews.40 This strongly implies that there existed several ideas on how to relate to non-Jews also during the first century. In my view, it is in this complex of problem that we should seek the origin of the harsh conflicts within the early Jesus movement. The problem was not whether or not the Torah had ceased to exist in the messianic age, but to what extent the Torah had any relevance for the nations. The evidence seems clear enough: Paul was not in agreement with Jewish followers of Jesus, who encouraged non-Jews to observe the Torah, or to convert to Judaism, which indicates that the ideology we notice in Tannaitic literature was operative already during the first century. Acts supports the view that the main problem concerned the status of non-Jews, since this was the main problem at the Jerusalem conference, according to Luke. Since Paul seems to confirm this view in Gal 2, I find no reason to doubt Luke’s statement that: “some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses’” (Acts 15:5). Whether or not this reflects

37 Fredriksen, Judaizing, 238. 38 Zetterholm, Will, 383–386. 39 Hirshman, Rabbinic Universalism, 101–115. See also Mekilta de R. Ishmael (Bahodesh 1); Sipra on Lev 18:1–5. 40 m. Avot 3:14; Sifre to Deuteronomy (§ 345). On Jewish attitudes to non-Jews, see also Zetterholm, Real Gentile-Christian, 378–383.

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the historical situation accurately is less important but it seems very likely that some Jewish followers of Jesus represented this position during Paul’s lifetime. Why Paul believed that non-Jews should not observe the Torah the ways Jews did, and exactly how he imagined a community of Torah observant Jews and nonobservant members of the nations, is not entirely clear. Nor is it clear exactly what Paul meant when stating that Torah observance is not for non-Jews, especially since his teaching for non-Jews is entirely based on the Torah. Perhaps he believed that non-Jews ought not observe the Torah in order to claim righteousness before the God of Israel. Non-Jews lack what Jews indeed possesses – a covenantal relation with the God of Israel, but the only way they can be brought into such a relationship is through “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,” since no one will be justified through the “works of the law” (Gal 2:16), not even Jews, who must put their trust in a merciful God, who will eventually honor his covenant with the people of Israel (Rom 9–11), the “light to the nations” (Isa 49:6). I would imagine that Paul’s peculiar way of relating to the nations is the result of a combination of the idea that the Torah is God’s precious gift only to the people of Israel, and Mark Nanos’ suggestion that Paul believed that the idea of God as the God of the whole universe would be compromised if non-Jews converted to Judaism, since God in that case would only be the God of the Jews.41 God intends to save the world, but since the world, from a Jewish perspective, consists of Jews and the nations, these categories will remain.

6.

Conclusion

To sum up: from a Paul-within-Judaism perspective it becomes clear that the problems within the early Jesus movement were not related to the nature of Judaism. The traditional dichotomy between two religious systems, Judaism and Christianity, is an anachronistic model that should be abandoned. Jewish followers of Jesus did not reject Judaism or Torah observance, but several models on how to relate to non-Jews co-existed. Some believed that non-Jews ought to observe the Torah and perhaps also convert to Judaism. Paul did not concur, since he was driven by another vision – the dream of Jews fulfilling their eschatological task as the light to the nations (Isa 42:6), thereby bringing non-Jews, who before the Christ event were beyond salvation, into a covenantal relationship with the God of Israel. From Paul’s perspective, the problem was not Judaism or the Jewish people, since their fate has always been determined by God – “for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable (Rom 11:29), and in the end “all Israel will 41 Nanos, Mystery, 181–182.

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be saved” (Rom 11:26). Thus, from Paul’s point of view, it was never about the Jews – always about the nations.

Bibliography Bornkamm, G.P., Paul, Fortress 1995 [1969 in German]. Carleton Paget, J., The Definition of the Terms Jewish Christian and Jewish Christianity in the History of Scholarship, in O. Skarsaune/R. Hvalvik (eds.), Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries, Hendrickson 2007, 22–52. Donaldson, T.L., Judaism and the Gentiles: Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE), Baylor University Press 2007. Dunn, J.D.G., The New Perspective on Paul. Bulletin of The John Rylands University Library of Manchester 65 (1983): 95–122. Esler, P.F., Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting in Paul’s Letter, Fortress 2003. Fitzmyer, J.A., The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Yale University Press 1998. Fredriksen, P., Judaizing the Nations: The Ritual Demands of Paul’s Gospel. New Testament Studies 56 (2010): 232–52. Gager, J.G., The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity, Oxford University Press 1985. Gaston, L., Paul and the Torah, University of British Columbia Press 1990. Hedner Zetterholm, K., The Question of Assumptions: Torah Observance in the First Century, in M.D Nanos/M. Zetterholm (eds.), Paul Within Judaism: Restoring the FirstCentury Context to the Apostle, Fortress Press 2015, 79–103. Hirshman, M., Rabbinic Universalism in the Second and Third Centuries. Harvard Theological Review 93 (2000): 101–115. Hvalvik, R., Paul as a Jewish Believer – According to the Book of Acts, in O. Skarsaune/R. Hvalvik (eds.), Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries, Hendrickson 2007, 121– 53. Jackson-McCabe, M.A., What’s in a Name? The Problem of “Jewish Christianity,” in M.A. Jackson-McCabe (ed.), Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts, Fortress 2007, 7–38. Jones, S.F., An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity: PseudoClemetine Recognitions 1.27–71, Scholars Press 1995. Josephus (translated by H.St.J. Thackeray et al., 10 vols., LCL), Harvard University Press 1926–65. Käsemann, E., Perspectives on Paul, Fortress 1971. Munck, J., Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, SCM Press 1959 [1954 in German]. Murray, M., Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE, Wilfred Laurier University Press 2004. Nanos, M. D., The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letter, Fortress 1996. –, Introduction, in M.D Nanos/M. Zetterholm (eds.), Paul Within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, Fortress Press 2015, 1–29.

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Pseudo-Clemetine Recognitions 1.27–71 (translated by S.F. Jones, An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity), Scholars Press 1995. Räisänen, H., The Rise of Christian Beliefs: The Thought World of Early Christians, Fortress 2010. Sanders, E.P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion, Fortress 1977. –, Jesus and Judaism, Fortress 1985. Schäfer, P., Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World, Harvard University Press 1997. Stark, R., The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, HarperCollins 1997. Stowers, S.K.A., Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles, Yale University Press 1994. Tucker, J.B., ‘Remain in Your Calling’: Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians, Pickwick 2011. Weber, F., System der altsynagogalen palästinischen Theologie aus Targum, Midrasch und Talmud, Dörffling & Franke 1880. Witherington, B., The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, Eerdmans 1998. Zetterholm, M., The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social-Scientific Approach to the Separation Between Judaism and Christianity, Routledge 2003. –, Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship, Fortress 2009. –, Jews, Christians, and Gentiles: Rethinking the Categorization within the Early Jesus Movement, in K. Ehrensperger/J.B. Tucker, Reading Paul in Context: Explorations in Identity Formation, T&T Clark 2010, 242–54. –, “Will the Real Gentile-Christian Please Stand Up!” Torah and the Crisis of Identity Formation, in M. Zetterholm/S. Byrskog (eds.), The Making of Christianity: Conflicts, Contacts, and Constructions: Essays in Honor of Bengt Holmberg, Eisenbrauns 2012, 373–93.

Samuel Tedder1

Children of Promise Ishmael, Isaac and Isaiah in an Intertextual Reading of Gal 4:21–5:1

1.

Introduction

Since the emergence of the New Perspective on Paul, Paul’s theology has been placed more firmly into his Jewish matrix. The Radical New Perspective on Paul (later abbreviated as RNPP)2 has radicalized, or taken to one extreme, some aspects of this. The RNPP portrays Paul as a Torah observant Jew – a Pharisee – before and after his encounter with the risen Jesus,3 whose only issue with the Law is its wrong application to the Gentiles, and not with the Law in relation to the Jews.4 The RNPP radicalization of the Jew-Gentile distinction is also reflected in its construction of Paul’s mission, in which Paul is solely focused on joining the Gentiles into the monotheistic worship of Israel, yet as distinctly Gentiles,5 and allows the Jews to remain in their separate and stable covenantal identity.6 This paper agrees that Paul needs to be understood within his Jewish framework, especially with reference to Israel’s scriptures, but challenges some of the moves 1 Funding for this research was provided by AHRC Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership. 2 Some proponents of the RNPP would prefer to use the term Paul within Judaism (see Nanos/ Zetterholm, Paul), but I find it problematic that the options for understanding Paul within Judaism would be restricted only to how the RNPP proponents envision it. Hence, I use the more apt title RNPP. 3 Eisenbaum, Paul, 132–49. 4 Eisenbaum, Paul, 62; Thiessen, Paul, 10. 5 There is variety of views among scholars identifying with the RNPP. One area of variance is in configuring the identity of the Gentiles vis-à-vis Israel; e.g., Eisenbaum: separate from Israel, but joined in the monotheistic worship (Paul, 96–98, 171); Johnson Hodge: adopted into the Abrahamic family by baptism into Christ, the seed of Abraham (Sons, 4); Nanos: incorporated into a newly created people of God (Irony, 99–100). I think that Nanos moves here in the right direction in capturing Paul’s emphasis on the newness in the identity of the people of God. 6 Not all within the RNPP follow the notion that Paul thought the Jews have a stable covenantal trajectory of salvation without the need to be saved by Christ, see e.g. Thiessen, Paul, 120.

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in the interpretive trajectory of the RNPP with a reading of Gal 4:21–5:1. I will argue that this passage complicates the notion of a stable identity of the covenant people, Israel, and implicates both the Jews and Gentiles in the call to align fully with the new reality brought about by the Christ-event and the giving of the Spirit in order to be included in the restored people of God – the “children of promise.”

2.

Paul’s Allegorical Practice and My Approach

At the outset of Gal 4:21–5:1, Paul challenges the Galatians’ desire to come “under the Law” (4:21a), via circumcision (5:2–12),7 with an ironic appeal to listen to the “Law” (4:21b). What follows is a schematic summary of the Abraham narrative of the birth of his two sons Ishmael and Isaac (4:22–23, 29–30), and a claim that these things are to be taken allegorically (4:24).8 Accordingly, Paul makes allegorical correspondences between the narrative and present realities (4:24–5:1). Paul understands Hagar/Ishmael to represent the Sinai covenant (the “under the Law” reality), and these to correspond with the “present Jerusalem” that is in “slavery” (4:24–25). By contrast, Sarah/Isaac represents the other covenant that corresponds with the “Jerusalem above” that is characterized by freedom (4:26– 28, 31), which is the result of the work of Christ (5:1). Hence, he calls the Galatians to stand firm in freedom, and not to take upon them the “yoke of slavery” (5:1),9 that is, to “cast out” the appeal and pressure of the competing vision that requires circumcision and Torah observance for inclusion in the “children of promise”

7 It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the social factors that could prompt such desire. Plausible scenarios have been offered (e.g. Barclay, Obeying, 36–74; Nanos, Irony, 203–83) that essentially argue that the special privileges offered by the Roman Empire to the traditional religious group of the Jews would be a strong incentive to identify with it. 8 Does the expression ἃτινά ἐστιν ἀλληγορούμενα refer to the text being allegorical or that the interpretation is allegorical? Both Sellin (Hagar, 66–67) and di Mattei (Paul, 106–09) have argued persuasively from Greek sources that the best sense of the passive participle is the former. Thus, I understand that Paul’s allegory is grounded on his view of the allegorical dimension in the text. 9 The “yoke of slavery” can refer also to the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου in Gal 4:3, 9, but as the context of 4:1–5, 8–11 indicates, also Torah observance is in some way related with this category (cf. Sellin, Hagar, 71: “Damit ist aber nicht nur das Joch der Knechtschaft unter den Forderungen der Tora gemeint, sondern die Versklavung unter die ‘Weltelemente’ insgesamt, von denen die jüdischen Ritualgesetze nur eine variante sind [4, 8–11]”). I suspect that Paul perceives the Torah as an enslaving element, because it is itself “enslaved” by the sinful condition of humanity (3:22) and does not contain the life giving power (3:21) to generate the “sons of God” (4:4–7), the “children of the promise” that inherit the “Jerusalem above” (4:26–28). Hence, the role of the Law is limited to a “guardian” (3:23–25). This is not a negative view on the role of the Law as such, but one that accepts its limitation.

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(4:28–31).10 In the midst of his argument (4:27), Paul quotes Isa 54:1 in order to ground the Galatians’ identity both as children of the “Jerusalem above” (4:26) and also as the “children of promise” like Isaac (4:28). This paper focuses on capturing the theological vision communicated by these two key identifications, and the theological logic in Paul’s resistance to constructing the identity of the “children of promise,” Jew and Gentile included, with the necessity to observe the Mosaic Law. But how should one approach the task of configuring Paul’s theological vision and logic from a passage where Paul engages Scripture allegorically? Davis has argued that Paul’s use of the allegorical device of constructing startling correspondences (e. g. Hagar and Sinai) is meant to evoke a search for a deeper meaning from the Scriptures that he points to.11 I understand that this is what Paul also intends with his initial question, in which he challenges the Galatians’ desire to come under the Law (νόμος) by calling them to listen to what the “Law” (νόμος) really says – to interpret it right (4:21).12 As we observe Paul’s interpretive moves after the question, we get a sense of his allegorical practice, which in turn shall inform my approach to reading Gal 4:21–5:1. I understand that Paul’s second mention of “Law” in 4:21 is not simply a reference to the Torah, but a reference to the “intertextual field,” or “revelatory field,” in which he constructs meaning. Initially, Paul widens the field of the “Law” to include the prophetic revelation in Isaiah (Isa 54:1 quoted in Gal 4:27). But even that is not its limit. The totality of revelation that comprises the “Law”13 is ultimately centred on the reality of Christ that is signalled in the concluding exhortation of the passage (5:1) and eventually in reference to the “Law” of Christ

10 I do not understand the scriptural exhortation in 4:30 as a literal command to, e.g., expel the “Teachers” from the midst of the Galatian congregation (pace Martyn, Galatians, 446), because 4:31–5:1 continues to explain the exhortation and the decision it demands from the Galatians (Cf. Sellin, Hagar, 72–73). Yet the rhetoric of the quotation is potent enough to imply also a practical stand against some kind of pursuing taking place by those promoting Gentile circumcision (cf. Gal 5:7–12). 11 Davis, Allegorically, 164–71. 12 Cf. Bligh, Galatians, 396; Watson: “he is inviting them to participate with him in a responsible interpretation of this [Genesis] text” (Paul, 190). Pace those who emphasize that Paul is responding or “correcting the exegesis” of his opponents (Barrett, Allegory, 1–16; also de Boer, Galatians, 286–87; Longenecker, Galatians, 199–200; Martyn, Galatians, 449–50). Whether or not there is an element of response, I understand that Paul does not go to the Genesis narrative because he is forced to deal with it, but rather that he has engaged it deeply and found resources to configure his understanding of the gospel. 13 Cf. Eisenbaum who recognizes the possibility that, for Paul, the νόμος “constitutes the sum of God’s revelation to God’s people” (Paul, 168). For a general discussion on the variety in Paul’s use of the term νόμος, see the two essays in Räisänen, Jesus, 48–68 and 69–94. For a rhetorically sensitive approach to Paul’s use of νόμος, see Thuren, Derhetorizing.

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(6:2 νόμος τοῦ Χριστοῦ; cf. 1 Cor 9:21).14 Thus, Paul’s allegorical engagement with Scripture is essentially intertextual, in which case the revelatory field (νόμος) is extended beyond the Scripture to include the revelatory experience of Christ. But why does Paul practice allegorical interpretation in the defence of his vision and logic for the new people of God? Allegorical interpretation shares with other interpretive modes (e. g. Qumran pesher, Rabbinic midrash) the pursuit to appropriate texts into new contexts, yet with its own unique features and force.15 One view of allegory understands it as a mode of conserving a text, or, as Dawson describes it, “domesticating a text,” i. e. bringing a text to line up with cultural expectations by neutralising “the culturally deviant meanings of the literal text, replacing them with culturally obvious meanings.”16 However, Dawson proposes that rather than being primarily a conservative agent, allegory functions more as a culturally revisionary force. An allegorical reading, by its definition (“other speaking”), is designed to challenge the customary reading, as the meaning it proposes to the text receives “its identity precisely by its contrast with this customary or expected meaning.”17 This revisionary reading has the potential of being a “counterhegemonic force” that aims to change prevailing cultural ideals or “reigning assumptions.”18 Dawson identifies that this kind of tension is present when “a religious community struggles with itself, as emerging forces seek to subvert or overthrow well-entrenched traditional points of view.”19 I understand that Paul’s allegory in Gal 4:21–5:1 functions primarily as a revisionary force, as it operates within a Jewish framework to challenge traditional interpretations of Scripture (“traditions of the fathers,” Gal 1:14) by utilizing the potential in Israel’s scriptures for the purpose of constructing a new social reality of the “children of promise” that comprise the “Jerusalem above” community. 14 The expression “Law of Christ” has generated multiple views for its meaning (see Barclay, Paul, 126–35; de Boer, Galatians, 378–81). In his recent work, Barclay helpfully narrows the options for understanding the relationship between the “Law of Christ” and the Torah in terms of 1) the “Law of Christ” is “an allusion to the Torah, reconfigured in Christ,” or 2) it represents a “Pauline wordplay, akin to his insistence in 1 Corinthians 9:20–21 that he is neither ‘under the Law’ (ὑπὸ νόμον) nor lawless in relation to God (ἄνομος θεοῦ), but ‘lawfully beholden to Christ’ (ἔννομος Χριστοῦ)” (Paul, 431). I see value in both views. The first rightly recognizes the hermeneutical impact of the Christ-event that maintains a level of continuity with the Torah (fulfilment). The second view rightly emphasizes the centrality of Christ in Paul’s theology and ethics. It is also possible that the concept of the “Law of Christ” has some roots in the matrix of Isaiah where it is the servant who becomes the Law for the restored people (Isa 42:4), who are taught by God the new way of life in the “Jerusalem above” (Isa 2:3; 54:13). 15 For an introduction and discussion on the difficulties of defining and distinguishing various early Jewish interpretative modes/methods, see Longenecker, Exegesis, xxiii, xxvi, 6–35. 16 Dawson, Allegorical, 10. 17 Dawson, Allegorical, 8. 18 Dawson, Allegorical, 9. 19 Dawson, Allegorical, 9–10.

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Based on the above analysis of the character of Paul’s allegorical practice, my approach is to read Gal 4:21–5:1 in conversation with the scriptural matrix that it draws from to advance its revisionary agenda. Thus, I conduct an intertextual reading that follows Paul’s signals (schematic summary, quotations and allusions) and invitation to understand his text in light of the theological potential in the Abraham narrative and Isaiah’s vision of restoration.20 My intertextual method focuses on the production rather than on the reception of Paul’s text.21 Thus, I do not take a seat as a listener among the Galatian congregations,22 but assume the position of an interpreter whose task is to probe into Paul’s line of thought in light of his most likely matrix in order to capture the vision and logic that is reflected in his text.23 Hence, my reading is not limited by what can be postulated about the ability of the recipients of Paul’s letter to appreciate the intertextual connections.24 I limit the scope of my intertextual approach to scriptural texts, and do not apply Watson’s enlarged approach that places Paul in a three-way intertextual conversation: Paul, Scripture and other interpreters of Scripture.25 Whilst I rec20 Riffaterre (Compulsory, 70) suggests that, if the intertext is signalled by a quotation or an allusion, the intertext is the key to the text’s interpretation, and the context of the intertext becomes significant. 21 For discussion on the distinction between the focus on text production and reception, see Huizenga, Old Testament, 29–30. 22 Pace Martyn, Galatians, 42. 23 Cf. Hays, Echoes, xi: “I approach the task of interpretation not by reconstructing the historical situation in the churches to which Paul wrote his letters, not by framing hypothetical accounts of the opponents against whom Paul was arguing, but by reading the letters as literary texts shaped by complex intertextual relations with Scripture.” My approach follows the general notion that attending to the original context of the intertexts is significant for the reading of Paul. I also recognise Stanley’s (Arguing) emphasis on the rhetorical dimension (function in the argument in the letter) in Paul’s use of Scripture. For me, these are complementary perspectives; both the original context of the Scripture cited or alluded to and the new context in the letter are important. 24 For a discussion on the role of the recipients in Paul’s use of Scripture, see Stanley, Arguing, 40–8; and Wagner, Heralds, 18–9. I do not think we can be certain about the readers of the letter (are the “opponents” included?). Other factors that impinge on the question about the recipients’ ability are: How have they been prepared to recognize the context of Scripture? Is Paul aiming at the lowest common denominator, or writing the letter to be explained and studied (see Wright, Christian, 1452)? I agree with Wischmeyer that it is conceivable that there were also believers of devout Jewish families among the Galatians, and that some of the Gentile believers could have been associated with the synagogue prior to Paul’s coming. These would have made them already familiar with the scriptures and contributed to the fact that Scripture could function as the shared basis for argumentation. Wischmeyer also argues that Septuagint readings, synagogue lectures, and, most importantly, Paul’s own teaching ministry had trained the recipients to follow Paul’s argumentation from Scripture. (Wischmeyer, Abraham, 147–49.) 25 Watson, Paul, 1–5. The other interpretations highlight the semantic potential of the text of Scripture that allows for different interpretations. Also, Watson’s approach satisfies the

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ognise the value of the enlarged intertextual approach, I choose to focus in this paper on a more limited “three-way conversation,” in which Paul reads the Abraham narrative together with Isaiah. I attempt to give due weight to both key intertexts, and avoid the one-sided approaches that either focus solely on the Abraham narrative,26 or elevate Isaiah above the Genesis text, perceiving the Abraham narrative as a mere “concrete visual aid” for the substance that is derived from Isaiah,27 or the “cart” that follows the Isaianic “horse.”28

3.

Jerusalem Above, Isaiah’s Vision of Restoration, and The New Creation People

The reading of Gal 4:21–5:1 in this paper follows the perception of many that it has a chiastic structure of thought.29 My own chiastic construal focuses on the part of the passage that explains the two covenants with allegorical identifications (4:24–28): A B C C′ B′ A′

Sinai, begetting to slavery (v.24) Hagar (v.24) + explanatory note (v.25a)30 Present Jerusalem (νῦν Ἰερουσαλήμ), slavery (v.25b) Jerusalem Above (ἄνω Ἰερουσαλήμ), freedom (v.26) Our mother (v.26) + explanatory quotation of Isa 54:1 (v.27) Promise, children (v.28)

The pivotal point (C & C’) places the “present Jerusalem” and the “Jerusalem above” to a crucial role in Paul’s argument. Paul’s conviction that the Gentile believers in Christ should not come “under the Law” is thus related to their identification as children of the “Jerusalem above” (4:26). This claim is grounded

26 27 28 29 30

criticism directed at Hays’ work that Paul should not be read only in direct relation to Scripture, but also in relation to interpreted Scripture (see e.g. Evans, Listening, 47–51). E.g. Hansen, Abraham, 147–50; and Thiessen, Paul, 88–117. Willitts, Isa, 192. De Boer, Galatians, 388–89. See e.g. Bachmann, Anti-Judaism, 92; Longenecker, Galatians, 213; Sellin, Hagar, 64–66; Willitts, Isa, 198. Carlson argues that the explanatory note on Hagar in 4:25a is possibly an early marginal note that was interpolated into the text. But his arguments are not convincing, since they are based on his subjective evaluation that it “sticks out like a sore thumb” structurally, and that it is “semantically superfluous” (Sinai, 95–101). My structural analysis supports 4:25a as part of the text, and the feeling of it being redundant or even contradictory is best explained with Paul’s allegorical technique that abuses the normal use of language and crafts startling correspondences (Davis, Allegorically). When taken as part of the text, I think it is only one contributing line in Paul’s allegoresis that has its deeper roots in the prefigurative potential of the Abraham narrative and its correspondence with Isaiah.

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(4:27 γέγραπται γάρ) by a verbatim quotation of LXX Isa 54:1, in which a barren woman is called to rejoice, as she is to have more children than a woman with a husband.31 In Isaiah, the barren woman represents the city of Jerusalem/Zion (cf. Isa 51:17–18; 54:2 cf. 33:20; 54:4–13), or better yet the community that comprises the city (Isa 51:16). Furthermore, the juxtaposition of the two women evokes the “tale of two cities” that is introduced in Isa 1–2 and is about Jerusalem before exile (woman with a husband) and after exile (barren woman made fruitful; the barren woman in 54:1 is pictured in 54:4–10 as being married again to the Lord as a symbol of restoration).32 I argue that it is very likely that Paul has crafted his central point in the argument of Gal 4:21–5:1 with reference to these intimately related texts and possibly with other texts that relate to the same themes in Isaiah.33 The relationship between Paul’s text and Isa 1–2 is established also by verbal and conceptual links. Paul’s designation of the “Jerusalem above” as a mother (μήτηρ) resembles the description of the promised restored Jerusalem as a mother-city (μητρόπολις) in Isa 1:26.34 Furthermore, the idea of Paul’s Jerusalem being above (ἄνω Ἰερουσαλήμ) has close correspondence with the vision of the eschatological restored Jerusalem on top of Mount Zion being far above (ὑπεράνω) any other city/mountain in Isa 2:2.35 These connections make it very likely that at least the “Jerusalem above” in Gal 4:26 is related to the idea of the restored Jerusalem – the regenerated people of God – in Isaiah. But, as the quotation of Isa 54:1 in Gal 4:27 suggests, it is also likely that an alienation-restoration paradigm that is modelled by the two women (woman/Jerusalem with a husband, before exile → exile/ alienation → barren woman/Jerusalem made fruitful, after exile) is also informing the construction of the “present Jerusalem” in slavery, which signifies

31 Cf. de Boer, Galatians, 302–03; Oepke, Brief, 151–52; Vouga, Galater, 115. 32 Cf. Willitts, Isa, 192–97; Eastman, Israel, 147; Jobes, Jerusalem, 310–11. Pace de Boer who argues that the two women in Isa 54:1 represent Jerusalem and Babylon, and thus provide for Paul a foil to make the “present” and “above” Jerusalems the “polar opposites” (Galatians, 302–04). 33 Paul’s notion of a “present” and “above” Jerusalem is usually connected with the Jewish apocalyptic tradition of a heavenly Jerusalem that is the counterpart to the earthly one (e.g. Dunn, Commentary, 253–54; Longenecker, Galatians, 212–15; Moo, Galatians, 304–05; Mußner, Galaterbrief, 325–26). This is helpful in shedding light on one aspect of the cultural milieu that Paul is located in, but is not sufficient with regard to the particular matrix of Scripture Paul draws from, or the particular way Paul is situated in relation to this tradition. 34 Noted also by Jobes, Jerusalem, 310. 35 Also Scott (Paul, 132–33) and Fredriksen (Judaism, 532–64, especially 544–45, 564) recognise Isa 2 (and // Micah 4) as part of Paul’s scriptural matrix in his general vision about Gentile inclusion in the end times. I move further from these general notions by demonstrating how Isa 1–2 relate with Isa 54:1, and how they impact Paul’s vision and logic.

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the reality outside of the restored/regenerated people of God of the “Jerusalem above.”36 The vision of the restored Jerusalem is intimately connected with the theme of new creation in Isaiah. The language used about the new restored city in Isa 54:11–17 resembles the language in Isa 60:17–19 and 65:17–18, and they, together with the vision in Isa 2:2–4,37 suggest that it is conceptualized as a “new creation” event. Hence, I argue that it is very likely that both the “Jerusalem above” in Gal 4:26 and the “new creation” in 6:15 derive their meaning from the Isaianic matrix that connects them to the vision of restoration.38 Not only are these two themes intimately connected in Isaiah, but the language Paul uses in association with the “new creation” in Gal 6:15–16 has links to Isa 54:10, which is situated in the context of both the two women in Isa 54:1 and the description of the restoration of the city with “new creation” imagery in Isa 54:11–17.39 Right after elevating the “new creation” as the new reality that relativizes the boundaries of circumcision and un-circumcision (6:15), Paul proclaims peace (ει᾿ρήνη) on those who align with the “canon” of “new creation,” and prays/hopes for mercy (ἔλεος) on the “Israel of God” (6:16 καὶ ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν, ει᾿ρήνη ἐπ᾽αὐτοὺς καὶ

36 I am not making historical claims about Paul’s, or other Jews’ perceptions of exile and return/ restoration in the first century, but I am exploring the theological potential of Isaiah’s vision of exile-restoration for Paul’s re-appropriation. Thus, I rather use the alienation-restoration paradigm when I refer to Paul’s use of the Isaianic matrix of exile-restoration. Blenkinsopp provides helpful insights for capturing the potential of this matrix: “Exile from which a few return as the core of a new people is the Isaianic concept which proved to be most productive and generative for the future. … It anticipates the creation of a new people to prepare for the final intervention of God in the affairs of Israel and human affairs in general, the final showdown. … it [the name of Isaiah’s son Shear-yashub] also connotes a physical return from the land of exile and repentance, a turning away from sinful history. It is therefore open to becoming quite explicitly an eschatological concept. As such, it provided a powerful impulse not only to the development of a sectarian and apocalyptic way of thinking, evident in the book of Isaiah itself, but also to the actual formation of eschatological and apocalyptic sects throughout the period of the Second Temple.” (Opening, 226–7.) 37 The theology conveyed by the “mythic” imagery in Isa 2 in connection with other “mythic” connotations in Zion theology are summed up by Levenson: “Zion as the place from which the world was created, as the point from which the primal ray of light emanated, and as the only mountain to stand above the deluge, is also the highest point in the highest land, the center of the center, from which all the rest of reality takes its bearings” (Sinai, 135). Childs also connects Isa 2 with creation and the function of orienting reality, and perceives that the vision of Zion’s transformation resembles ancient Canaanite mythopoetic imagery, and reflects the theme of “new creation” (Isaiah, 29–30). 38 Pace Longenecker for whom 6:15 is a “traditional maxim” taken over by Paul to sum up his message in Galatians (Galatians, 295–96). Martyn connects the idea of “new creation” to the apocalyptic tradition, but recognises that “[t]he roots of the motif lie in Isa 65:17–25” (Galatians, 565, note 64). 39 Cf. Wright, Christian, 1150–51; Beale, Peace, 204–23. I, however, do not agree with them that this indicates that the “Israel of God” refers to “the believing church” (see discussion below).

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ἔλεος καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ).40 Both peace and mercy are central in Isa 54:10 (οὐδὲ τὸ παρ᾽ἐμοῦ σοι ἔλεος ἐκλείψει οὐδὲ ἡ διαθήκη τῆς ει᾿ρήνης σου οὐ μὴ μεταστῇ). Since these two words do not occur together usually in Paul’s greetings or benedictions,41 their peculiar combination and the reference to the “Israel of God” support the view that Paul is here drawing from the language of restoration in Isaiah that is integrally related to God’s dealings with Israel that has implications also for the Gentiles. Thus, both the “Jerusalem above” and “new creation” very likely have their roots in the Isaianic matrix, and both are connected to its vision of restoration.42 Furthermore, in both Isaiah and Paul, this theological vision has implications for both Jews and the Gentiles in a way that transcends these traditional boundaries. For Paul, neither circumcision nor un-circumcision counts in the new reality of restoration (Gal 5:6; 6:15–16). In Isaiah the many children of the barren woman are so many that the tent must be enlarged (Isa 54:2) – the identity of the people of God needs reframing. The many children inherit the nations (Isa 54:3), which evokes the complex vision of the nations’ inclusion in the restored community.43 Although the book of Isaiah occasionally portrays the nations as subservient in Israel’s restoration (Isa 14:1–3; 26:10–15, 21; 49:22–26; 60:8–14; typically former oppressors are judged or made to serve restored Israel), the theological thrust is to dissolve ethnic/national priorities, since inclusion in the restored people of God is not predicated on physical lineage or prior fittingness (Isa 56:1–8; 63:16, 19; 65:1–3), but is dependent on the response to the word of 40 Views are divided whether 1) to separate the benediction of peace to the group that has aligned itself with the “canon” of “new creation,” and the prayer for mercy to another group called the “Israel of God” (Burton, Critical, 357–8; de Boer, Galatians, 403–5; Dunn, Commentary, 343–6; Eastman, Israel); or 2) to view them both as addressing one single entity that is the “new creation” people described also as the “Israel of God” (Betz, Galatians. 320–23; Longenecker, Galatians, 297–99; Wright, Christian, 1148–51). There is also a third option that views the double blessing as intended initially on the Galatians (with the hope that they will align with Paul’s “canon”) that is then extended also for Paul’s fellow Jews as a future hope (Mußner, Galaterbrief, 416–17; he emphasizes the future form of στοιχήσουσιν). I side with view 1, and sympathize with the third option. This is a minority position, but it does take full note of the peculiar syntax (third καί, and double use of ἐπί), the choice of words (ἔλεος instead of χάρις; cf. 6:18) and their ordering (peace before mercy; cf. 1:3). The separation of peace and mercy reveals to me that Paul invokes peace on those who are already in the “new creation,” i. e. restoration, and prays for mercy on those who are yet to be regenerated by it to enter the inheritance (cf. Bachman’s argument that ἔλεος is related to “the problem of Israel” and has “‘eschatological’ connotations” [Anti-Judaism, 109–10]; similarly Mußner, Galaterbrief, 416). The issue here is closely tied with the identity of the “Israel of God” (see discussion below). 41 Bachmann, Anti-Judaism, 115–16; Eastman, Israel, 155–56. 42 Cf. Horbury: “‘new creation’ in Paul should probably therefore be reckoned as another reflection of the set of interpretations and expectations concerning Zion” (Messianism, 214). 43 See Schultz (Nationalism) for a helpful introduction to the complexities in the nations’ inclusion.

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promise (Isa 1:18–19; 45:22–25; 55; 66:1–4), the revelation of the servant (Isa 50:10; 53:1), and also on the generative work of the Spirit (Isa 44:1–5) – the “how” is more important than the “who.”44 Similarly, exclusion from the community applies both to unresponsive Israelites and to obdurate Gentiles (Isa 1:20, 27–31; 66:1–6, 15–24) – no one is included by virtue of ancestry. I have now argued that when Paul claims that the “Jerusalem above” is our “mother” (Gal 4:26), and follows it by quoting Isa 54:1, he is evoking the vision of restoration in Isaiah. Thus, he is indicating at least two things. First, since the “mother” has already given birth (is our mother, i. e., has children), Paul claims that the restoration envisioned in Isaiah has begun.45 Also, as Mußner perceptively notes, living in alignment (στοιχέω) with the standard of the new creation (Gal 6:15–16) is connected to Paul’s exhortation to align (στοιχέω) with the reality of the Spirit (Gal 5:25), which has the implication that “der neue Maßstab ist das Pneuma, in dem die neue Schöpfung sich vor allem zeigt … .”46 The restoration reality – “new creation” – is already present in the Spirit. Thus, both the “Jerusalem above” and the “new creation” have a clear emphasis on the already inaugurated restoration. Second, Paul’s understanding of the implications of the gospel for all humanity is configured by the vision of the restored people of God in Isaiah. He is using the Isaianic vision of the “Jerusalem above” to define what constitutes the restored community. This is not only a vision of what makes the Gentiles count as included in the new people of God; the “our” (and the we in 4:31; 5:1) includes at least Paul himself and, most likely, other Jewish believers in Christ in the “Jerusalem above” group and no longer in the “present Jerusalem.”47 In Galatians, the 44 Cf. Williamson’s claim that the last two chapters in Isaiah signal a major transition, in which the identity of the people of God is constructed theologically rather than nationally (Variations, 194–95). 45 Cf. Cosgrove: “At this point cosmic and eschatological dualism intersect, so that the present manifestation of the future, embodied in the community itself, is understood as owing its life to the world above. Although the language of a new or restored Jerusalem is not employed, the use of Is. 54:1 suggests the thought.” (Law, 231, emphasis added.) 46 Mußner, Galaterbrief, 415–16, quotation from p. 416. 47 Paul’s use of “we” in Galatians is a well-recognized puzzle; see Barclay, Paul, 419–20, notes 70 and 71; de Boer, Galatians, 209–10, 256–61; Donaldson, Curse, 94–112; Hodge, Sons, 70–71, 123 with note 35; Martyn, Galatians, 334–36; Moo, Galatians, 211–14; Thiessen, Paul, 130. The question is whether Paul’s use of the “we/us” in Gal 3:13–14; 3:23–29; 4:1–7 refers to the Jews/ Jewish believers (Barclay and Donaldson), or is about Paul’s identification with the Gentile believers (Johnson Hodge and Thiessen), or a reference to a universal “we” (de Boer, Martyn, and Moo). It seems to be characteristic of the RNPP to exclude the Jews from Paul’s “we.” I find it a rather forced reading, and agree with Bachmann’s argument that the use of the first person plural reflects Paul’s “orientation toward the history of redemption, which maintains the priority of Judaism, even while he emphasizes the dependence of also the Jews (or Jewish Christians) on Christ and on forgiveness of sins (esp. 2:16–17, 20d, 21b)”; and “This priority remains also decisive in 3:1–4:7, because here also (with the exception only of 3:14b and 4:6b),

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“present Jerusalem” and the “Jerusalem above” reflect the frame of the letter that operates within the tension of the eschatological polarities of the “present evil age” (1:4) and the “new creation” (6:15). For Paul, both Jew and Gentile need deliverance from the “present evil age” and regeneration into “new creation” to bring them into the community of the “Jerusalem above” people (cf. Gal 2:15–22; 6:14–15). Furthermore, it is plausible that Paul’s understanding of the work of Christ (5:1) and the Spirit (4:29) in generating the children of the “Jerusalem above” (4:26) is built on the Isaianic matrix, in which both Jew and Gentile enter into the reality of restoration, the “Jerusalem above,” by virtue of the delivering work of the servant,48 and the life-giving power of the Spirit.49

4.

Children of Promise and the Identity of God’s People

The logic of Paul’s argument in Gal 4:26–28 can be discerned thus: those who belong to the “Jerusalem above” (4:26) are also “children of promise” (4:28), because of Isa 54:1 (4:27).50 In other words, the children of the mother “Jerusalem above” are described also as the “children of promise” κατὰ Ἰσαάκ (the possible sense of κατά is explored below), because they are children of the barren-madefruitful-woman of Isa 54:1. To be able to follow this logic, I first draw on the theological potential in the Abraham narrative for the designation of being children of promise κατὰ Ἰσαάκ, and then analyze how the Isaianic promise of restoration facilitates ascribing a title closely connected with the identity of Israel now also to the Gentile believers in Christ.

as in 2:15–17a, the first person plural is used of Jews (or Jewish Christians), so that in 3:1–14, in 3:15–29, and in 4:1–7 the salvation event asserted for the Jews is expressed as the prerequisite for what – for this reason – can also be effective for the Gentiles (see esp. 3:14, 26–29; 4:6–7)” (Anti-Judaism, 105). 48 The connection between Christ and the Isaianic servant in Gal 4:21–5:1 is based on the contextual correspondence between Isa 54:1, where the servant of Isa 53 is behind the many children of the barren woman, and the logic of Gal 4:2–5:1, where it is Christ who sets the people free (5:1) to the freedom of the “Jerusalem above” (4:26) that corresponds with the mother of Isa 54:1 (4:27). For the importance of the Isaianic servant for Paul’s understanding of Jesus, see Watson, Mistranslation. 49 The transformation of the woman’s barrenness (ἔρημος) into fruitfulness is connected in Isaiah to the theme of the Spirit’s generative work that is also imaged by waters transforming barren land (ἔρημος) into paradisical conditions – “new creation” (Isa 32:15 cf. 35:6–7; 41:17– 19 cf. 51:3). Moreover, the Spirit is given for the thirsty people of the barren land to generate the “seed” that receives blessing and inclusion in the newly constituted Israel (Isa 43:19–21; 44:1–5 cf. Gal 3:14). 50 Cf. Jobes, Jerusalem, 302–303, 313. Pace Schlier: “Der Zusammenhang von V. 26 und 28 ist durch V. 27 nur unterbrochen worden …” (Brief, 226).

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In Gal 4:21–5:1 Paul relies on the theological potential in the Abraham narrative, in which the birth of Abraham’s two sons is the theological nexus for understanding the promise about the “great nation” (Gen 12:2). One culmination point of this is in Gen 17,51 where the tension between Ishmael and Isaac surfaces as two alternative construals of the “great nation” – the identity of Israel.52 When the promise of the son that counts as the “seed” of the “great nation” is specified to come from Sarah (17:15–16, 19), Abraham laughs in disbelief, as this is too much for him to conceive (17:17). Hence, he asks: would Ishmael not do? (17:18). Here is the crux. Abraham thought that Ishmael could suffice for the fulfilment of the promise of the “great nation.” To drive the point home that the narrative presents Ishmael as an alternative way to construe the identity of Israel, Ishmael is also given a promise to be made into a “great nation” with twelve tribes! (17:20; cf. 16:10; 21:13).53 This alternative construal focuses on physical descent and circumcision: Ishmael is Abraham’s “seed” (21:13), and Ishmael’s circumcision is emphasized even more than Abraham’s (17:22–27). But the fact that Ishmael is excluded from inheriting the promise of the “covenant people” (17:18–19; 21:10– 12) relativizes the importance of physical descent and circumcision as the ultimate means of identifying the people of God.54 If they were not sufficient for 51 Although Paul does not quote Gen 17 in Gal 4:21–5:1, it is likely that it is informing his theological logic, because it is intimately connected to his schematic narrative summary about the two sons and two covenants, which are both key elements in Gen 17. We also know that Gen 17 is important for Paul in Rom 4:13–22 and 9:6–9. Cf. Sellin (Hagar, 72), who understands that Gen 17 is in Paul’s view in the reference to κατὰ Ἰσαάκ (Gal 4:28); similarly Watson, Paul, 187–90. 52 Cf. Syrén: “It is through the two sons of Abraham that the division will take place that is necessary for the nation of Israel to emerge” (Forsaken, 37); and: “The comparison with Israel is underlined further by the prediction in v. 20 that ‘a great nation’ will arise from Ishmael and that he will be ‘a father of twelve princes’ – just as Isaac will father a nation of twelve tribes through his son Jacob. … Ishmael will form a second and separate nation beside Israel; an ‘Israel’, as it were, without a Promised Land” (Forsaken, 37–8). I agree with Syrén that the narrative gives Ishmael the role of contrast, but do not perceive it in terms of the Land, but in terms of how the people of God are generated. 53 The LXX portrays Ishmael as a father of twelve tribes and a great nation (17:20 δώδεκα ἔθνη γεννήσει, καὶ δώσω αὐτὸν ει᾿ς ἔθνος μέγα). The MT ‫ נשׂא‬refers to a prince or tribal leader, and the same term is used of Israel’s twelve tribal leaders in Num 7, but, as Wenham notes, most likely “the narrative looks forward to the twelve tribes descended from Ishmael” that are named in Gen 25:12–16 (Genesis, 27). LXX Gen 25:13–16 uses ἔθνος to denote Ishmael’s tribes. Thus, on the concrete level, they are clearly demarcated from the 12 tribes of Israel, but on the narrative level, there seems to be intentionality to describe Ishmael in terms that provide a contrast to the identity of God’s people. 54 The fact that Ishmael is circumcised and yet excluded from the covenant is a recognized puzzle. Thiessen proposes a solution that argues that timing is what distinguishes Ishmael from Isaac: Ishmael is circumcised in his thirteenth year and Isaac at the proper eighth day (Contesting, 39). Furthermore, Thiessen argues: “[t]hrough the category of sacred time, the priestly writer solves the problem created by according covenantal significance to circumcision in a region in which Israel was confronted by the existence of non-Israelite circum-

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Ishmael to be included, they cannot be the essence, and thus are also potentially unnecessary (cf. Rom 2:25–29). What matters is to be like Isaac. Isaac represents the people generated by the power of God’s promise – the “Israel of God” (see below for my reading of Gal 6:16). This is what the narrative emphasizes with the barrenness of Sarah (Gen 11:30) and the delaying of the birth of Isaac to the point where Sarah has passed any human potential to conceive (18:11). Hence, Sarah joins in Abraham’s laughter (18:12–15). But it is the laughter that God is after. It generates dependence on God that Abraham initially expressed at the outset of the promise of a son (15:6), and more fully in his obedience at the command to sacrifice the son of promise (22:15–18). Thus, two things are essential in generating the people of God “κατὰ” – according to the pattern of Isaac: promise and faith-as-dependence on God. When Paul designates the Galatian believers as children of promise κατὰ Ἰσαάκ, he is drawing from the theological potential in the pattern of Isaac’s birth and its significance for inclusion in the people of God.55 Isaac is for Paul the paradigm for being generated by the power of God’s promise in contrast to Ishmael who represents generation by the “flesh” (4:23). This accords with the opening of Paul’s letter that underscores the divine origin of his gospel (1:1) that is not according to human pattern (1:11 οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον), i. e. it “is at odds with the normative conventions that govern human systems of value.”56 Furthermore, in light of the contrast to Ishmael that Paul highlights in Gal 4:21– 5:1, Isaac represents the essential characteristic of the people of God that has the potential to open the identity of God’s people to include un-circumcised people outside of the Abrahamic physical seed as heirs of the inheritance and blessing of Abraham.57 But it is vital at this point to follow Paul’s moves closely to avoid cision. The reference to Ishmael’s circumcision is not a mistake that unwittingly undermines the rite’s covenantal importance; rather, it serves as the author’s attempt to address the well known fact that non-Israelites, in particular those thought to be descendants of Ishmael, also practice circumcision, and to distinguish their circumcision from Israelite circumcision.” (Contesting, 35 emphasis added). This approach is problematic, since it relies on a hypothetical historical assumption about the concern of the text. The narrative does not present Ishmael’s, or better yet Abraham’s, “wrongly dated” circumcision as the reason for exclusion. Thiessen admits that without the hypothetical historical construction of the priestly writer’s concern, the narrative portrayal of Ishmael’s circumcision has the potential to “undermine the rite’s covenantal importance.” 55 Cf. Martyn, Galatians, 443–4. On this point, I agree with Martyn that Paul is not drawing a linear connection from Abraham to the Galatians, but is focused on the pattern in Isaac’s birth. 56 Barclay, Paul, 355. 57 Unfortunately, the contrast that Paul sets between Ishmael and Isaac has been applied directly to equate the Jews with Ishmael and Gentile believers in Christ with Isaac (e.g. Rohde, Brief, 203). I argue in this paper for a more nuanced approach.

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construing his logic with emphasis on inclusion in the covenant people without recognising the “rupture” that Isa 54:1 brings into the storyline. What is crucial for Paul is the connection in the pattern of Isaac’s birth and the pattern in the promise of restoration in Isa 54:1 – the barren is made fruitful. This pattern de-emphasizes natural (physical descent) or linear (undisturbed continuation of covenant) continuity, and instead emphasizes divine regenerative activity as the defining factor in the identity of the people of God. This logic is also reflected in Gal 3:26–29, where it is on the condition of being “sons” of God (3:26) that the Galatians can also be reckoned as “seed” of Abraham, that is, heirs according to the promise (3:29).58 The logic that defies linear continuity is encapsulated in Isa 54:1 in the fact that it is exactly because the woman is barren that she will have more children, than if she would have remained as the woman who always had a husband (cf. Isa 66:7–9). This is the logic in the alienationrestoration paradigm. It is Israel’s alienation and the promise of restoration that redefines her identity theologically rather than ethnically. Israel’s experience of alienation joins her with the nations – she is made in effect a non-people (Isa 63:19; 65:1). She cannot appeal to Abrahamic ancestry (Isa 63:16) as the reason for restoration, which depends on God’s mercy (Isa 54:7–10; 55:1) and on her responsiveness to God’s regenerative promise (Isa 50:10; 51:1; 53:1; 65:1–3; 66). The barrenness of the woman – the alienation of Israel – opens the possibility for other non-peoples to be generated from their “barrenness” – alienation – into the life of the restored people of God.59 The Gentile believers are “children of promise” like Isaac, because they also have experienced the re-creative power of God, as they were generated against all the odds of nature (cf. Gal 2:15; non-Jews thought of as sinners by nature, outside of the covenant people) to be part of the new social reality of the “Jerusalem above” community. Hence, the two designations of the identity of the believers – children of the “Jerusalem above” and “children of promise” – are intimately connected. Both emphasize instability in the definition of the people of God, and relativize the importance of natural descent and circumcision for inclusion in it. The theological implication of this is that Paul resists the view that Gentiles are to be joined to Israel according to the pattern of Ishmael – “according to the 58 Pace Thiessen’s prioritizing of the genealogical connection with Abraham: “those who are in Christ, and those who are thus seed and sons of Abraham, are also sons of God (Gal 3:26). Those who receive the pneuma of Christ become not only sons of Abraham, but also sons of God, since Christ is both the seed of Abraham and the son of God (Gal 4:6).” (Paul, 154–5.) 59 Starling’s (Not My People) analysis of Paul’s application of texts of Scripture that are initially addressed to the exiles of Israel to the Gentiles (he looks at Isa 54:1 in Gal 4:27, as well as the Scripture catena in 2 Cor 6:16–18; and Hos 1:10 and 2:23 in Rom 9:25–26; [also Isa 57:19 in Eph 2:17]), supports my proposal that the alienation-restoration logic reflected in Isa 54:1 facilitates for Paul the inclusion of Gentiles in the “children of promise.”

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flesh” – by the means of their circumcision and adoption of the Law from Sinai (coming “under the Law”). The Gentiles are not to join the “present Jerusalem,” which is reflected in the community that is not aligned with the reality of restoration effected in Christ and the Spirit, since what matters for Paul is inclusion in the regenerated “new creation” people that is not predicated on circumcision or physical lineage from Abraham, but on divine generation. This is why Paul also hopes/prays that his kinsmen the Jews, whose very fleshly existence is derived out of the power of God’s promise in the birth of their patriarch Isaac, would be reached by the mercy offered in Christ (6:16). Hence, Paul can designate the “natural” descendants of Abraham as the “Israel of God,”60 and simultaneously hope/pray for the mercy of restoration that would “justify” her as such, but only as his fellow Jews respond to the promissory act of God in Christ and the Spirit (cf. 2:16) that regenerates them to be, not only children of the initial promise to Abraham, but also children of the promise of restoration. Thus, Paul holds that dependence on divine promise in the offer of mercy in Christ is decisive also for the Jews in determining whether they become who they truly are (Isaac people) in their inclusion in the “new creation” people of the “Jerusalem above.” A failure to 60 The identity of the “Israel of God” is a highly debated question (for a good introduction to the alternative views, see de Boer, Galatians, 405–10). De Boer argues that the “Israel of God” is a reference to the Law-observing Jewish Christians who are also causing the trouble in Galatia. Thus, Paul’s invocation of mercy is seen as resulting from his realization “that what he has written in v. 15, which is a summary of his argument from 2:15 onward, could be construed as God’s rejection of the law-abiding church of Jerusalem and of its proper mission (to the Jews not to Gentiles) … For this church and all those who identify themselves with its present posture, Paul nevertheless invokes a blessing of mercy (eleos), which is God’s compassion toward his disobedient people (cf. Exod 34:6–7; Isa 49:13) … .” (Galatians, 408.) This is not convincing, since it implicates the Jerusalem church behind the troublemakers mission in Galatia. This would be against the picture in Gal 2:1–10. Also, Paul has earlier associated the Jewish Christians in the churches of Judea among the “churches of God” (1:13–23) reserving the designation “Israel of God” to some other entity. The majority view is to read “Israel of God” as referring to the “new creation” people of 6:15, that is, the believers in Christ of both Jews and Gentiles. This view is represented by Martyn and Wright (also e.g. Oepke, Brief, 204–5; Schlier, Brief, 283). For both, the decisive issue is the overall argument of the letter. For Martyn, the key is the addition of God, by which Paul defines what he means by Israel here; it is the Israel that is brought into being by God’s promise of the singular seed, Christ (3:16), who then defines the new people of God who are the collective seed in Christ (3:29) (Galatians, 574–7). For Wright, the decisive factor is Paul’s emphasis on relativizing the distinction between Jew and Gentile, and the creation of the one worldwide people of Abraham in Christ (Christian, 1142–51). These are plausible readings. Yet I sense that Paul’s peculiar expression and choice of words in 6:16 signal that something unexpected can be expected. I understand that Paul indicates in Gal 6:16 that he still has a special concern for his kinsmen in the flesh, which he opens up more fully in Rom 9–11 (cf. Mußner: “So deutet der Apostel in Gal 6, 16 schon an, was er dann in Röm 9–11 explizieren wird. Paulus hat sein Volk nie vergessen” [Galaterbrief, 417)]). Thus, I agree with Bachmann (Anti-Judaism, 101–123), Eastman (Israel), and Barclay (Paul, 418–421) that the Israel of God is Paul’s reference to the Jewish people (especially those still outside of Christ).

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respond to the divine revelation in the Son is a failure to live up to Israel’s true character according to the pattern of Isaac, and thus a construction of the identity of Israel (by the Jew or the Judaizing Gentile) according to the flesh (the Ishmael alternative), which results in the status of slavery – alienation – in the “present Jerusalem.”

5.

Conclusions

The configuration of Paul’s theological vision and logic in Gal 4:21–5:1 offered in this paper affirms the need to situate Paul firmly in his Jewish framework, as he has been seen to draw deeply from the resources of Israel’s scriptures. But it also challenges some of the emphases of the RNPP, especially so in relation to the emphasis on a stable identity of the people of God, to which the Gentiles are included/annexed. This view does not capture enough Paul’s revisionary reading of the scriptural foundations, in which he focuses on the instabilities (e. g. Isaiah: alienation-restoration paradigm) and incongruities (e. g. Genesis: Isaac vs. Ishmael as alternative construals of Israel) in the theology of the people of God. The pattern in the birth of Isaac is central to Paul as a paradigm for the formation of the new social reality of the “children of promise” who are comprised of Jews and Gentiles who have been generated, by Christ and the Spirit, to be the restored people of God – the “Jerusalem above” community. Thus, the RNPP’s emphasis on the separate identities of the Jew and Gentile in regard to God’s saving purposes or eschatological realities does not capture enough Paul’s revisionary construction of the identity of the restored people of God. Paul’s vision of the “Jerusalem above” people is defined by the “new creation” reality, in which neither circumcision nor un-circumcision carries determinative weight. Hence, although the RNPP aims to provide a thoroughly Jewish framework to focus Paul’s theology, it does not allow Paul to be “radical” (going to the roots) enough within the framework that is shaped by the new revelatory reality of Christ. Although the reading offered in this paper challenges the RNPP, it steers clear from hearing in Gal 4:21–5:1 the “death-knell of Judaism,”61 or perceiving a “dualistic polarity between ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’.”62 But in doing so, it does not follow the trajectory that divests Paul in Gal 4:21–5:1 from any concern towards his kinsmen the Jews either by limiting the interest of the text to two contrastive Gentile missions,63 or to be solely about resistance to “inclusion of 61 Lightfoot, Saint, 185. 62 Betz, Galatians, 246. 63 Martyn, Theological, 77–84.

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Gentiles only by way of proselyte conversion.”64 These options do not adequately account for Paul’s deep theological reflection about the identity of the people of God that is reflected in Gal 4:21–5:1. Reading this passage in conversation with the Abraham narrative and Isaiah’s vision of restoration enables a nuanced understanding of its subversive claims. Hence, I understand that, although Paul perceives that Jews outside of Christ are the “present Jerusalem” in “slavery” (i. e. people outside of the restored people of God), they are still the “Israel of God” whose own Scripture contains the resources that call for a new “Isaac moment” – a response that depends on the mercy of God offered in Christ.

Bibliography Bachmann, M., Anti-Judaism in Galatians? Exegetical Studies on a Polemical Letter and on Paul’s Theology, Eerdmans 2008. Barclay, J.M.G., Paul and the Gift. Eerdmans 2015. –, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians, Studies of the New Testament and its World, T&T Clark 1988. Barrett, C.K., The Allegory of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in the Argument of Galatians, in J. Friedrich/ E. Käsemann/W. Pöhlmann/P. Stuhlmacher (eds.), Rechtfertigung: Festschrift für Ernst Käsemann zum 70. Geburtstag. Mohr; Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1976. Beale, G.K., Peace and Mercy upon the Israel of God: The Old Testament Background of Galatians 6,16b, Biblica 80 (1999) 204–23. Betz, H.D., Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia, (Hermeneia), Fortress Press 1979. Blenkinsopp, J., Opening the Sealed Book: Interpretations of the Book of Isaiah in Late Antiquity, Eerdmans 2006. Bligh, J., Galatians: A Discussion of St. Paul’s Epistle, (Householder commentaries), St Paul Publications 1969. Burton, E.D.W., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, (ICC), T & T Clark 1921. Carlson, S.C., “For Sinai is a Mountain in Arabia”: A Note on the Text of Galatians 4,25, ZNW 105 (2014): 80–101. Childs, B.S., Isaiah: A Commentary, Westminster John Knox Press 2001. Cosgrove, C.H., The Law has Given Sarah no Children (Gal 4:21–30), Novum Testamentum 29 (1987): 219–35. Davis, A., Allegorically Speaking in Galatians 4:21–5:1, BBR 14 (2004): 161–74. Dawson, D., Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria, University of California Press 1992. De Boer, M.C., Galatians: A Commentary, (1st ed., New Testament library), Westminster John Knox Press 2011. 64 Nanos, Irony, 156.

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–, Paul’s Quotation of Isaiah 54.1 in Galatians 4.27, NTS 50 (2004): 370–89. Di Mattei, S., Paul’s Allegory of the Two Covenants (Gal 4.21–31) in Light of First-Century Hellenistic Rhetoric and Jewish Hermeneutics, NTS 52 (2006): 102–22. Donaldson, T.L., The “Curse of the Law” and the Inclusion of the Gentiles: Galatians 3.13– 14, NTS 32 (1986): 94–112. Dunn, J.D.G., A Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, (Black’s New Testament commentaries), A & C Black 1993. Eastman, S.G., Israel and the Mercy of God: A Re-Reading of Galatians 6.16 and Romans 9– 11, NTS 56 (2010): 367–95. –, S. G., Recovering Paul’s Mother Tongue: Language and Theology in Galatians, Eerdmans 2007. Eisenbaum, P., Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle, HarperOne 2010. Evans, C.A., Listening for Echoes of Interpreted Scripture, in: C.A. Evans/J.A. Sanders (eds.), Paul and the Scriptures of Israel, Sheffield Academic Press 1993. Fredriksen, P., Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2, JTS 42 (1991): 532–64. Hansen, G.W., Abraham in Galatians: Epistolary and Rhetorical Contexts (JSNT), JSOT Press 1989. Harmon, M.S., She Must and Shall Go Free: Paul’s Isaianic Gospel in Galatians, (BZNW), de Gruyter 2010. Hays, R. B., Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, Yale University Press 1989. Hodge, C.J., If Sons, then Heirs, Oxford University Press 2007. Horbury, W., Messianism among Jews and Christians: Twelve Biblical and Historical Studies, T&T Clark 2003. Huizenga, L.A., The Old Testament in the New: Intertextuality and Allegory, JSNT 38 (2015): 17–35. Jobes, K.H., Jerusalem, our Mother: Metalepsis and Intertextuality in Galatians 4:21–31, WTJ 55 (1993): 299–320. Levenson, J.D., Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible, New Voices in Biblical Studies, Winston Press 1985. Lightfoot, J.B., Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: A Revised Text, (10th ed., Epistles of St. Paul 2), Macmillan 1890. Longenecker, R.N., Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, Eerdmans / Regent College Publishing 1999. –, Galatians, (Word biblical commentary), Word Books 1990. Martyn, J.L., Galatians, (The Anchor Bible), Doubleday 1997. –, Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul, Abingdon Press 1997. Moo, D.J., Galatians (Baker exegetical commentary on the New Testament), Baker Academic 2013. Mußner, F., Der Galaterbrief, (5. Auflage, Herders Theologischer Kommentar), Herder 1988. Nanos, M.D., The Irony of Galatians: Paul’s Letter in First-Century Context, Fortress Press 2002. Nanos, M.D./Zetterholm, M. (eds.), Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, Fortress Press 2015.

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Oepke, A., Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater (4. Auflage., Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament), Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 1979. Räisänen, H., Jesus, Paul and Torah: Collected Essays, Bloomsbury Publishing 2015. Riffaterre, M., Compulsory Reader Response: The Intertextual Drive, in M. Worton/ J. Still (eds.), Intertextuality: Theories and Practices. Manchester University Press 1990. Rohde, J., Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater, (Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament), Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 1989. Schlier, H., Der Brief an die Galater, (12. Auflage., Kritisch-Exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament Begründet von Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1962. Schultz, R.L., Nationalism and Universalism in Isaiah, in D.G. Firth/H.G.M. Williamson (eds.), Interpreting Isaiah: Issues and Approaches, IVP Academic/Downers Grove 2009. Scott, J.M., Paul and the Nations: The Old Testament and Jewish Background of Paul’s Mission to the Nations with Special Reference to the Destination of Galatians, (WUNT). J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1995. Sellin, G., Hagar und Sara: Religionsgeschichtliche Hintergründe der Schriftallegorese Gal 4,21–31, in: U. Mell/U.B. Müller (eds.), Das Urchristentum in seiner literarischen Geschichte: Festschrift für Jürgen Becker zum 65. Geburtstag, (BZNW), de Gruyter 1999. Stanley, C.D., Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul, T&T Clark International 2004. Starling, D.I., Not my People: Gentiles as Exiles in Pauline Hermeneutics, de Gruyter 2011. Syrén, R., The Forsaken First-Born: A Study of a Recurrent Motif in the Patriarchal Narratives (JSOT), JSOT Press 1993. Thiessen, M., Paul and the Gentile Problem, Oxford University Press 2016. –, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity, Oxford University Press 2011. Thurén, L., Derhetorizing Paul: A Dynamic Perspective on Pauline Theology and the Law, (WUNT; 124), Mohr Siebeck 2000. Vouga, F., An die Galater, (Handbuch zum Neuen Testament), Mohr Siebeck 1998. Wagner, J.R., Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the Romans, (Supplements to Novum Testamentum), Brill 2002. Watson, F., Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (2nd ed) Bloomsbury T&T Clark 2016. –, Mistranslation and the Death of Christ: Isaiah 53 LXX and its Pauline Reception, in S.E. Porter/M.J. Boda (eds.), Translating the New Testament: Text, Translation, Theology, (McMaster New Testament Studies), Eerdmans 2009. Wenham, G.J., Genesis 16–50, (Word Biblical Commentary), Word Books 1994. Williamson, H.G.M., Variations on a Theme: King, Messiah and Servant in the Book of Isaiah, Didsbury lectures, Paternoster Press 1998. Willitts, J., Isa 54,1 in Gal 4,24b–27: Reading Genesis in Light of Isaiah. ZNW 96 (2005): 188–210. Wischmeyer, O., Wie kommt Abraham in den Galaterbrief ? Überlegungen zu Gal 3,6–29, in M. Bachmann/B. Kollmann (eds.), Umstrittener Galaterbrief: Studien zur Situierung und Theologie des Paulus-Schreiben, (Biblisch-Theologische Studien), Neukirchener Theologie 2010. Wright, N. T., Christian Origins and the Question of God [Vol. 4]: Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Fortress Press 2003.

Jacob P.B. Mortensen

Do We Uphold the Law for the “Weak”? Rom 3:31 and 14:1–15:6

1.

Background and Interpretive Foundations

In 2003, Runar Thorsteinsson made the epochal suggestion that Paul throughout Romans 2 addresses the same gentile interlocutor.1 Thosteinsson argued that we should not take the identity of the interlocutor in 2:17 to be a Jew, even though he “calls himself a Jew” (Ει᾿ δὲ σὺ Ἰουδαῖος ἐπονομάζῃ).2 Thorsteinsson pointed out the linguistic, stylistic, and structural continuity in chapter 2, and he pointed out the oddity of the claim that Paul would address a “real” (historicalethnic) Jew who calls himself a Jew about the validity of his claim. Additionally, Thorsteinsson pointed out Paul’s possible use of the well-known topos from Hellenistic moral philosophy of name versus deed.3 He also presented contextualized analyses of Seneca’s and Plutarch’s use of interlocutors in dialogues, and the change of interlocutors in the dialogues without mentioning of this on a linguistic level.4 Thorsteinsson summarized all these observations in the conclusion that Paul does not change dialogue partner in Romans 2:17; Paul argues with the same fictive gentile interlocutor from 2:1 all the way through to chapter 11. Thus, the gentile “you” Paul addresses in 2:1 through the verb and the vocative (εἶ, ὦ ἄνθρωπε) is the same gentile “you” (σύ) as the one he addresses in 2:17. Several scholars have made notice of Thorsteinsson’s suggestion, but I know only of Joshua Garroway who have accepted or redeemed the work of Thor-

1 Thorsteinsson, Paul’s interlocutor. 2 Scholars who claim that Paul addresses a “real” (historical-ethnic) Jew, cf. Jewett, Romans, 219; Fitzmyer, Romans, 314; Byrne, Romans, 95; Keck, Romans, 83; Hultgren, Romans, 124; Esler, Conflict, 152ff. 3 Cf. Epictetus, Discourses 2.9.19–21 4 Seneca, Epistles 88, 2:348–76; Plutarch, Moralia 469D, 6:194

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steinsson.5 Most notably, Robert Jewett mentions the work of Thorsteinsson in his commentary on Romans from 2007, but Jewett concludes that the suggestion made by Thorsteinsson is unlikely.6 Nevertheless, from my point of view Thorsteinsson hits the mark with the explicit focus on a gentile interlocutor taken together with the attention to gentile addressees of Romans.7 However, I want to carve out even more Thorsteinsson’s initiative that Paul continues the diatribal dialogue with the fictive Gentile interlocutor all the way through to Rom 11:36.8 Whenever Paul presents dialogical material in the first “theological” part of Romans (1–11) we should consider this part of his dialogue with the fictive gentile interlocutor initiated in 2:1 on the foundation of the description of the gentiles in 1:18–32.9 And whenever he addresses the addressees in second person plural we should take this communal/collective “you” to represent the gentile assembly. Consequently, I think we should read Romans as a letter exclusively addressed to gentiles and concerning gentile issues. This means that the “judging (gentile) you” addressed in the exhortation in 14:1ff. (σὺ τίς εἶ ὁ κρίνων) is prefigured by the “judging (gentile) you” (εἶ … πᾶς ὁ κρίνων) addressed in 2:1ff. Thus, against a traditional interpretation of Romans where Paul either addresses gentiles and Jews, or the universal human being, I take Paul to address gentiles only in Romans, and his message to be colored specifically by this purpose. Any proposition on the value or validity of the (Mosaic) law must, therefore, be evaluated against this specific setting of the Roman situation, and the specific exhortations in Rom 14:1–15:6 must, equally, be evaluated from this point of view. Consequently, in this article I will try to bring together two of the much discussed verses/passages in Romans and try to make better sense of them from the above outlined presuppositions.

5 Garroway, Paul’s Gentile-Jews. Andrew Das mentions the work of Thorsteinsson, but favors the interpretation of Stowers (Das, Solving, 89 n147) as does Mark Nanos (Nanos, Paul’s NonJews, 43). After I finished this article in 2014, several other scholars have supported the work of Thorsteinsson: Fredriksen, Paul; Rodriguez, Reappraising; and Rodriguez & Thiessen (eds.), The So-Called Jew. 6 Jewett, Romans, 219ff. 7 Thorsteinsson derives his main inspiration from Stanley Stowers (Stowers, Rereading). 8 Thorsteinsson ended his analysis of Rom 2 with the suggestion that Paul continues the diatribal dialogue with the fictive gentile interlocutor. However, he only works with two specific texts in Rom 3 apart from his major investigation of chapter 2. I regret not to have been aware of this in my dissertation (Mortensen, Paul). 9 Scholars who support this interpretation of 2:1, cf. Stowers, Rereading, 102; Esler, Conflict, 151. Scholars who perceive Paul to address a (typical) Jew, cf. Dunn, Romans, 1.78; Moo, Epistle, 125ff.

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227

Problem

If Romans was written for the purpose of intervening in an exclusively gentile assembly in Rome – that is, if 14:1–15:6 constitutes the primary purpose of the letter – it might be beneficial to relate the proposition on the legitimacy of the law in 3:31 to the specific exhortations concerning the “strong” and the “weak” in 14:1–15:6. This claim is supported by the observation that Paul in 14:1–15:6 does not tell the “weak” to stop following the prescriptions of the law, and in 3:31 he states that the law is upheld. The majority of scholars take the “strong” to reflect a non-law-observant gentile segment of the mixed Jew-gentile assembly in Rome, and the “weak” to reflect a law-observant Jewish segment of the assembly.10 Scholars have explained the problems and the specific situation of the church in Rome with reference to the expulsion of the Jews by the Emperor Claudius in 49 AD and the return of the Jews in 54 AD after the death of Claudius.11 However, it is not my purpose here to elaborate on this scenario; I want, instead, to try out the hypothesis that the “strong” and the “weak” reflect two segments of a completely gentile assembly, where one segment is more inclined to “traditional” and law-observant Judaism for gentiles/proselytes/God-fearers, whereas the other segment is more inclined to “Christ-centered” and law-free Judaism for gentiles/proselytes/God-fearers.12 Additionally, since Paul does not admonish either of the two groups within the assembly to let go of their proclivity, but instead encourages them to “welcome one another” (προσλαμβάνεσθε ἀλλήλους, 15:7, cf. 14:1) as both God and Christ have done (14:3; 15:7), it might be beneficial to take another look at the status of the law. In order to support the claim, then, that Paul exclusively addresses gentiles in Rome and does not tell any of them to give up their behavior I will take 10 For a discussion of this, cf. Das, Solving, 51–201; Larsen, Romerbrevet bagfra, 280f. Mark Nanos argues that the “strong” and the “weak” represent two Jewish sub-groups within the synagogue of Rome (Nanos, Mystery, 143ff.). Mark Reasoner argues that the “strong” and the “weak” are mixed groups of both Jews and gentiles (Reasoner, Strong). In 1923, Max Rauer was the first to argue that the “strong” and the “weak” represented two gentile groups (Rauer, “Schwachen”). Francis Watson argues that the “strong” represents gentiles while the “weak” represents Jews (Watson, Paul). Scholars who argue like Watson, cf. Shogren, Kingdom, 242; Moo, Romans, 831; Esler, Conflict, 342; Thielman, Paul, 162ff., 211; Barrett, Commentary, 235; Fitzmyer, Romans, 687; Dunn, Romans, 2.813; Keck, Romans, 335. 11 Esler, Conflict, 98ff.; Das, Solving, 149ff.; Lampe, Christen; Lohse, Brief, 373. 12 From this statement it is obvious that I do not take Paul to preach “Christianity” or “a third and universal way/religion” (for a discussion of this cf. Boyarin, Border). I take Paul to have preached Judaism, but a Judaism exclusively for gentiles centered on the work of Christ. Thus, there are no “Christians” in the Roman assembly, but, instead, gentiles who perceive themselves to be in the vicinity of or with a relation to Judaism. For further elaborations on the perspective of “Paul within Judaism” cf. Nanos/Zetterholm, Paul; Zetterholm, Approaches; Eisenbaum, Paul.

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a look at the proposition in 3:31 that the law is not overthrown by faith but, to the contrary, upheld.

3.

Rhetorical Strategy of Chapter 3

Romans 3 is structured according to four expressions by Paul: 1) Τί οὖν (3:1); 2) Τί οὖν (3:9); 3) Νυνὶ δὲ (3:21); 4) Ποῦ οὖν (3:27). The first section (Τί οὖν) (3:1–8) follows from the preceding argument made by Paul in 2:25ff.: If circumcision and Jewishness is something inward, then what advantage has the outward Jew – the historical-ethnic Jew? Paul answers that there indeed is an advantage. He will return to this and other advantages in Rom 9–11. But at this point he only mentions the value of circumcision and the oracles of God (τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ, 3:2). The second section (3:9–20) follows from Paul’s explanation of the first question in 3:1: If there really is an advantage in being a historical-ethnic Jew, what then (Τί οὖν)? Are the gentiles at a dis-advantage?13 No, for scripture has already charged that all are under sin. Consequently, Paul bolsters the claim that neither Jew nor gentile has an advantage or disadvantage before God when it comes to God’s judgment: Everyone is accountable, and God will judge everyone. Whether you are under the law or lawless (2:12–16; cf. 3:19), no flesh will be justified by works of the law (3:20). Therefore, it would be pointless to seek to be in the law, because all the law brings is knowledge of sin – at least for the gentile. The third part of chapter 3 (3:21–26) provides the answer or solution for the gentiles to the claim that all are under sin. These verses constitute the climax of the first thematic part of Romans, even though 3:27–31 should be included in this climax: Now, apart from the law, the merciful righteousness of God has been disclosed in Christ. The fact that all are accountable to God, and that all are sinners, could, potentially, lead to the conclusion that no one stands a chance on the Day of Judgment. However, God has, graciously, provided a solution. God extends his righteousness to everyone – which here means gentiles – through faith in (the faithfulness of) Jesus Christ.14 The fourth part of chapter 3 (3:27–31) 13 The passive form of προέχω renders the translation: “Are we [i. e. the gentiles] at a disadvantage, then?” If we translate προέχω thus, 3:1 and 3:9a constitute parallel questions, even though the parallel will be structurally adverse, because 3:1 concerns the advantage of historical-ethnic Jews and 3:9a concerns the disadvantage of gentiles. Stanley Stowers and Robert Jewett take προέχω to be passive, but they consider the subject of the verb to be historicalethnic Jews (Stowers, Rereading, 173f.; Jewett, Romans, 256). Jewett reports that most translators take the middle form as an active, thus meaning: “Have we an advantage?” (cf. Lohse, Römer, 120f.; Haacker, Brief, 80; Byrne, Romans, 119; Keck, Romans, 94). 14 I take the genitive πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (3:22) to be a subjective genitive, and thus to concern the faithfulness of Christ rather than the believers belief in Christ. For discussions of the subjective vs. the objective genitive cf. Bird/Sprinkle, Faith. For the classic exposition of the

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finally connects the theme of boasting (cf. 2:17, 23) with the consequences of the questions and solution from the opening of chapter 3. Without a verbatim repetition, chapter 3 forms a circular structure, because the gentile from chapter 2 has been deprived of his claim to Jewishness (cf. 2:17ff.) with which he can boast in front of other gentiles. The dispossession of the gentile boasting provokes the question of what advantage the historical-ethnic Jew has in 3:1. And in 3:27, Paul can follow up with the question of what becomes of the boasting (of God and the law, cf. 2:17, 23). Paul explains how faith works for Jews and gentiles and what part the law plays. There is no boasting in the law, but the law is not suspended. Now, let us try to work more thoroughly through 3:27–31 in order to substantiate the claim that Paul exclusively addresses gentiles.

3.1

3:27–31

In 3:27, Paul resumes the question-and-answerstyle of the diatribal dialogue initiated in 2:1 with the apostrophe to the pretentious gentile, and fully developed from 3:1 onwards.15 Paul’s use of νόμος in the passage is tricky. Especially 3:27 and the staccato-like style pose problems for commentators and translators (διὰ ποίου νόμου; τῶν ἔργων; οὐχί, ἀλλὰ διὰ νόμου πίστεως). The RSV translates νόμος as “principle” but that goes against Paul’s use in 3:19, 20, 21, 31, and throughout chapter 4.16 Furthermore, if νόμος does not refer to scripture or the (Mosaic) law, then οὐχί, ἀλλὰ διὰ νόμου πίστεως just means “faith” without νόμος actually signifying or qualifying anything.17 The meaning of νόμος must be consistent and must refer to the (Mosaic) law in both instances. Otherwise, the difference would require an unwarranted transformation in the meaning of νόμος from one verse to the next. Additionally, no matter how we translate νόμος we must assent from the structure of the argument that both Paul and the interlocutor are justified in their claims that boasting (potentially) is excluded – either through the law of works or the law of faith. Despite the fact that Paul corrects the interlocutor’s question and confirms that boasting is excluded through the law of faith, the interlocutor’s question is genuine. If it was not, it would stand out as ridiculous. Thus, the law genitive in πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ to be subjective, cf. the study by Richard Hays of Galatians 3:22 (Hays, Faith). Cf. furthermore Johnson, Rom 3:21–26, 77–90; Hultgren, Pistis, 248–63; Williams, Pistis, 431–47. 15 For confirmations of the continuance of the diatribal dialogue, cf. Stowers, Rereading, 159ff.; Song, Reading, 94ff.; Lohse, Römer, 115ff. However, none of these scholars take Paul to continue the dialogue with the fictive gentile interlocutor from 2:1. 16 Cf. Stowers, Rereading, 215. 17 This becomes a problem for Philip Esler when he writes that “one should not make too much of the word ‘law’ here …” (Conflict, 168).

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must, simultaneously, contain works and faith or, more precisely, be qualified by an approach through either works or faith.18 Consequently, what Paul specifies through the exchange in 3:27–31 is that the same (Mosaic) law can be viewed from different perspectives or contain different approaches. Paul does not hold a double concept of the law, but he asserts a difference in the way in which one perceives it (cf. 9:31–32 for a similar argument).

3.2

3:21–3:31 – Continuity Between Law and Faith

In 3:21, some scholars regard χωρὶς νόμου as a proof of the abrogation of the law, which thereby determine the interpretation of 3:27 and 3:31. However, if we read the entire verse we realize that both the law and the prophets bear witness to the righteousness of God now revealed apart from the law (μαρτυρουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν). This righteousness of God comes through the faithfulness of Christ (δικαιοσύνη δὲ θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 3:22). Consequently, the faithfulness of Christ does not abolish the (Mosaic) law but – together with the law and the prophets – affirm, maintain, and ratify the continuity and loyalty of God’s past and present righteous acts. Thus, in 3:21–31 Paul associates the law as a witness with righteousness by the faithfulness of Christ. There is no opposition between Christ and the (Mosaic) law here. The observation that Paul associates the (Mosaic) law with righteousness by the faithfulness of Christ supports Paul’s often misunderstood statement in 9:31 that there is a law of righteousness (νόμον δικαιοσύνης, 9:31). Scholars have previously interpreted the syntagma to mean “righteousness of the law” in a traditional Lutheran sense. Heiki Räisänen comments that we would expect Paul to write that Israel was striving at the righteousness of the law. Räisänen’s explanation of the actual wording is that Paul could have been careless in dictation or that the secretary failed to catch the intended meaning.19 Andrew Das also comments on the various elements of the parallelism: The Gentiles did not pursue. The Jews did pursue. The Gentiles attained where the Jews did not. Yet the parallelism is disrupted at certain key points. The Gentiles did not pursue a righteousness based on faith, whereas the Jews pursued the law of righteousness. One would have expected that Israel pursued a “righteousness based on the law” (δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ νόμου) to parallel the Gentiles’ nonpursuit of the “righteousness based on faith.” Whereas the Gentiles obtain righteousness, the Jews do not attain the

18 Cf. the discussion in Das, Paul, 192ff. and 242ff. 19 Räisänen, Paul, 53 n50. For similar conclusions cf. Lohse, Römer, 285ff.; Bell, Provoked, 188ff.; Haacker, Römer, 199; Martin, Christ, 136ff.

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law. The parallelism leads one to expect righteousness where one finds, instead, the law. Both disruptions draw attention to the law as the culprit.20

It is obvious from the final sentence in the quotation from Das that he is looking for a negative meaning of the law, even though he clearly is aware of the positive meaning ascribed to it by Paul here.21 But if we stick to the actual wording of Paul and concede that it is “righteousness” which stands in the genitive case thereby describing the (Mosaic) law, then we must affirm the positive value Paul ascribes to the law. What Paul writes in 9:31 is that there is a law of righteousness or a righteous law. And this law of righteousness must bespeak the law of faith in 3:27– 31 (and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus in 8:2).22 Consequently, if we want to understand the relation of (Christ’s) faith (fullness) to the law we must include the righteousness of God to the equation. Thus, what Paul has put forward is a claim that the law has a positive value and that it in unison with the prophets bears witness to the righteousness of God. And this righteousness of God comes through the faithfulness of Christ (3:21–22). In 3:24–25, Paul states that gentiles are justified by the grace of God. God put forward Christ as expiation to show his own righteousness. God did that, because he had passed over the gentiles’ former sins (διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων). The Jews do not need Christ because they have the opportunity of atonement in the law. This is plain and simple “covenantal nomism” as E.P. Sanders described it.23 But in 2:4–6, Paul explained to the gentile interlocutor that he “stored up wrath for himself” (θησαυρίζεις σεαυτῷ ὀργὴν) on the day of wrath. The reason for this is that the gentiles are outside the covenant and, thus, do not have the means of expiation in the law as the Jews do. Therefore, they store up wrath for themselves every time they sin. But that does not mean that the law is annulled or that the validity of the law is annulled; it is just not part of God’s plan to save the gentiles, whereas Christ is. This means that for the gentiles to experience the righteousness of God they need Christ, not the law. That is what 3:26 explains: God proves himself to be righteous when he justifies the ones who live out of the faithfulness of Christ (ει᾿ς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ). However, God will judge everyone according to their deeds – Jews as well as gentiles – but the Jews can get expiation for their sins through the law, and will, thus, not be judged severely.24 The gentiles, however, are without that opportunity, so they keep on storing up wrath for themselves. But now, God has 20 21 22 23 24

Das, Covenant, 244, italics in original. Cf. furthermore Jewett, Romans, 609ff.; Dunn, Romans, 2.581; Byrne, Romans, 309. Paul can also refer to this law of righteousness as a new law of Christ, cf. Gal 6:2; 1 Cor 9:21. Sanders, Paul. Cf. the brilliant article by Klyne R. Snodgrass, Justification, where he discusses and connects the theme of justification with the theme of doing works of the law.

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proved himself righteous by providing an opportunity for the gentiles (through Christ) to expiate their sins if they live out of the faithfulness of Christ. And if they do that they will have nothing to boast about – as Paul continues the dialogue in 3:27: “Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law – by the law of works? No, but by the law of faith.” This law of faith, then, is what the law and prophets bear witness to (3:21), and what Paul can describe as the “law of righteousness” (νόμον δικαιοσύνης, 9:31). Consequently, Paul assumes similar but different relationships of Jews and gentiles to the law, but the value and validity of the law is positive and continuous. Is there anything else in 3:27–31 which indicates that this is the proper way to understand the difficult proposition about the law in 3:31? Yes, there are the prepositions, which correspond to Paul’s use of language regarding faith in 3:30. This attempt was first displayed in an article by Stanley Stowers in 1989, but Caroline Johnson Hodge has also elaborated on the possibility.25 In 3:22, Paul used διά to announce that God had included believers διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. In 3:25, he further stated that it was a conciliatory act through the faithfulness of Christ’s blood (διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι). Both instances concern God’s acceptance of gentile believers. This means that the last part of 3:30 follows logically from the preceding part, and it means that God will justify the gentiles (uncircumcised/foreskin) through their faithfulness (διὰ τῆς πίστεως). In 3:31, the interlocutor then asks if the law is suspended or annulled through this faith (διὰ τῆς πίστεως). The purpose of the question is to repeat the phrase of how the gentiles become justified – i. e., through faith (διὰ τῆς πίστεως). Paul rejects such an inference and states, to the contrary, that God’s justification of the gentiles διὰ τῆς πίστεως could, potentially, mean the suspension of the law, but it does not. It means, instead, that the law is upheld. How can that be? In 3:26, Paul used ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ to describe how gentiles should relate to the faithfulness of Christ: Gentiles are supposed to live “out of” (ἐκ) the faithfulness of Christ. In 4:14, Paul used a similar phrase, but this time to describe those who live “out of the law” (οἱ ἐκ νόμου). Those who live “out of” the law are the historical-ethnic Jews who live within the covenant relationship with the God of Israel. In 4:16, Paul then explains that God chose the present solution with Jesus to be on the basis of faithfulness, so that it might be a matter of grace (ἵνα κατὰ χάριν). This lies directly in continuation of God’s choice of Abraham and Israel in the Hebrew Bible, where God chooses and elects out of grace (cf. Rom 9:11, 15– 18). Now, God chose the solution with Christ, because he did not want the promise (ἐπαγγελίαν) solely to be for those who live “out of the law” (οὐ τῷ ἐκ τοῦ νόμου), but also for those who live “out of” the faithfulness of Christ and Abraham (ἀλλὰ καὶ τῷ ἐκ πίστεως). Consequently, what Paul plays on in these instances is 25 Stowers, πίστεως, 665–74; Hodge, Sons, 79–91.

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prepositions of lineage from a founding progenitor.26 God’s promise to the gentiles “springs from” the faithfulness of Abraham and Jesus. Obviously, the Jews are also blessed out of the faithfulness of Abraham, but Paul does not elaborate on this part of the equation, because he wants to explain the gospel specifically to the gentiles. Thus, Paul’s pattern seems to be this: Paul employs διὰ τῆς πίστεως consistently to illuminate how gentiles avoid the wrath of God through the atoning death of Christ. God acts in a righteous manner ( just and merciful) towards the gentiles through Jesus διὰ πίστεως. Furthermore, both Jews and gentiles live ἐκ πίστεως, though in different ways: Jews live ἐκ πίστεως of Abraham and ἐκ τοῦ νόμου, whereas gentiles live ἐκ πίστεως of Christ (and also of Abraham, cf. Rom 4). Hence, when Paul in 3:30 uses both ἐκ πίστεως and διὰ πίστεως (“out of” and “through”) the purpose must be to explain that God will justify the circumcised (historical-ethnic) Jews “out of faithfulness” (ἐκ πίστεως) and not “through Christ’s faithfulness” (διὰ τῆς πίστεως). Consequently, the historical-ethnic Jews still live in the covenant through their relation to Abraham. But now, God will also justify the gentiles “through” Christ’s faithfulness (διὰ τῆς πίστεως), which means that he solves the gentile situation and rectifies his merciful righteousness.

4.

Provisional Conclusions

According to the above outlined interpretation Paul does not suspend or annul the law in 3:31. To the contrary, Paul upholds the law. What do we make of this, then – which conclusions can we draw? First, the obvious must be stated: Paul upholds the law as he explicitly states in 3:31. Paul positions his gospel in continuity with Israel and the Judaism of his time. Second, the prophets and the law bear witness to the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Christ. This means that Christ and the law are not situated at oppositional levels.27 The faithfulness of Christ does not abolish the law but affirm – together with the law and the prophets – God’s past and present righteous acts. Third, because of the law of faith – which refers to or parallels the law of righteousness (νόμον δικαιοσύνης, 9:31) – boasting (for gentiles wanting to appear Jewish, cf. 2:17, 23) is excluded. Fourth, from the use of prepositions in 3:30 we learn that there are similar but different relationships for Jews and gentiles to Christ and the law. If this is the right interpretation of the difficult statement in 3:31, then how can it illuminate the conflict between the “strong” and the “weak” in 14:1–15:6?

26 Cf. Stowers, Rereading, 241; Hodge, Sons, 79ff. 27 Cf. Rom 10:4 on Christ as the τέλος of the law, where τέλος means goal.

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The (Mosaic) Law in 14:1–15:13

It might from the outset seem odd to relate the proposition in 3:31 concerning the status of the (Mosaic) law to chapters 14 and 15, since the term “law” (νόμος) does not appear in this passage. However, in this passage we are given valuable insight into the practical effects of Paul’s stance on the (Mosaic) law. In 14:1–15:6, Paul discusses law-observance in relation to food and Sabbath prescriptions, and he identifies practical consequences of his theoretical and theological instructions. The two topics directly referred to are the restriction of diet to vegetables as opposed to eating everything (14:2, 21), and the observance of certain days in preference to others (14:5). A third topic, the drinking of wine (14:21; cf. 14:17), may be purely hypothetical, since drinking is normally combined with eating.28 These questions must refer to Jewish scruples – either held by Jews or gentiles – concerning the consumption of meat considered unclean and the observance of certain Jewish feasts or fasts. The obvious reason for this is that Paul describes the issue as concerning purity and impurity in a specialized or technical Jewish sense by way of the word κοινός (14:14). In regular Greek, κοινός means “common” in the sense of “shared,” but in a Jewish context it means “impure,” and this meaning is unattested in non-Jewish Greek.29 Thus, the questions at issue in 14:1–15:6 concern prescriptions from the (Mosaic) law. The question now is whether the instructions Paul provides on these matters conform to the claims made in 3:31, or whether he contradicts himself and appears inconsistent in his thinking and practical advice.30

6.

Rom 14:1–15:6 – The (Primary) Purpose of the Letter

Some scholars doubt that Paul addresses specific problems in the Roman assembly in 14:1–15:6. These scholars claim that the paraenesis comes out as a generalized reprise of the argument in 1 Cor 8–10, or that it appears deliberately 28 This interpretation is preferred by John Barclay, Undermine, 287–308. 29 Cf. the same use in Mark 7:15–23; Acts 10:9–10; 11:5–9; 1 Macc 1:62. Cf. furthermore, Jewett, Romans, 859f.; Haacker, Römer, 277f.; Barclay, Undermine, 290; Esler, Conflict, 343; Byrne, Romans, 404; Fredriksen, Judaizing, 244. 30 Especially Heiki Räisänen and E. P. Sanders have argued that Paul was inconsistent in his theological reflections (Räisänen, Law, 11; Sanders, Paul, 102ff.), even though these accusations had earlier predecessors (cf. the critique of Rudolf Bultmann’s Theologie des Neuen Testaments by N.A. Dahl (Rudolf Bultmann’s Theology) and Johannes Munck, Paulus). The accusations against Paul’s theological capabilities resulted in some sort of collaborative apologetic attempt by a group at the SBL in four volumes to examine the coherence and consistency of Pauline Theology (Bassler, Pauline Theology vol 1; Hay, Pauline Theology vol. 2; Hay/Johnson, Pauline Theology vol. 3; Johnson/Hay, Pauline Theology vol. 4.

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oblique and thus opaque.31 Scholars like Robert Jewett and Wayne Meeks have questioned whether the letter to the Romans offers clear and sufficient evidence for a specific reconstruction of the Roman situation.32 According to Wayne Meeks and J. Paul Sampley, Paul identifies the situation more directly in his other letters than he does in Romans.33 The argument goes that Paul had never visited Rome, so his letter might more properly reflect his own life and ministry rather than any particular circumstances in Rome. Likewise, Robert J. Karris argued from his review of 14:1–15:13 that Paul was reiterating in a more generalized manner to the “weak” and the “strong” of Rome his exhortation to the “weak” and the “strong” of Corinth regarding meat sacrificed to idols.34 However, the peculiar details of Rom 14–15, and the differences between Romans and 1 Corinthians defy such a conclusion. The differences more than suggest different situations for the two letters.35 The passage in Romans differs from 1 Corinthians 8–10 in ways other than omitting certain items specific to Corinth. For instance, Paul never mentions food offered to idols in Romans, the possibility of eating in an idol temple, or the problem of “knowledge.” Instead, and moreover, he adds certain specifics to the Roman situation, for instance that the “weak” in Rome eat vegetables, observe days, and abstain from wine – features that do not characterize the Corinthian “weak.” These specifics thus work in a way to limit the applicability of the instructions to a specific situation in Rome, rather than widen it in a generalized way. Another important feature is the space Paul devotes to the problem and his careful descriptions of the opposing positions in the assembly. And he even numbers himself among the “strong” (15:1) within the conflict, which indicates that he is well aware of the issues involved. The rationale must be, then, that since he can predict his allegiance with one of the two groups in the conflict, he must somehow know where they stand. Otherwise it would cripple his case to use “false” designators. Thus, it adds to the specificity of the situation that Paul uses the designations “strong” and “weak,” since it would have been counterproductive for his case to drop these labels on the assembly had he not known these to represent specific groups.36 Finally, Rom 14–15 inhabits a prominent position as the climax of Paul’s exhortations at the end of the paraenesis. 31 Karris, Romans 14:1–15:13; Fitzmyer, Romans, 687. 32 Jewett, Romans, 834; Meeks, Judgment, 292. Cf. furthermore Sampley, Weak, 40ff. Cf. furthermore Byrne, Romans, 406. 33 Meeks, Judgment, 292. Meeks further warns against excessive mirror-reading, which certainly is warranted. 34 Karris, The Occasion, 65ff. 35 Scholars who consider Paul to address a specific problem in Rome, cf. Dunn, Romans, 2.810ff.; Haacker, Römer, 277; Keck, Romans, 334f. 36 Cf. Reasoner, Strong, 57.

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Thereby, it suggests an immediate applicability of these matters in the Roman assembly. Thus, the placement of these exhortations at such a prominent position must somehow reflect the community’s needs.37 Consequently, I take Romans to be a real letter addressing a real, specific situation and problem in the Roman assembly, and I consider 14:1–15:6 to reflect the specific conflict in Rome between the “strong” and the “weak.”

7.

Who Are the “Strong” and the “Weak”?

The traditional and most popular approach to the question of the identity of the “strong” and the “weak” in 14–15 has been to identify the “weak” as law-observant Jewish Christians and the “strong” as gentile non-law-observing Christians.38 However, the observance of Jewish customs does not necessarily require the presence of Jews in the Roman assembly. The Jewish customs identified in 14:1–15:13 are precisely the sort of customs observed by proselytes or “Godfearers” accommodating themselves to Jewish customs.39 And the controversies reflected in the passage are easily imagined among gentiles with differing perceptions of the (Mosaic) law. The question concerning the eating of meat could reflect whether or not the meat on the table was considered pure by those observing the (Mosaic) law on this matter. The problem would thus be one of commensality: how could law-observant gentiles participate in a meal hosted by someone who did not observe the (Mosaic) law in this matter: It is not a question of how to acquire kosher meat in Rome,40 nor is it a principled stance on vegetarianism or dietary asceticism.41 We have well-known examples of how someone faithful to the observance of the (Mosaic) law restricted their diet to vegetables and water when eating meals prepared by unclean gentiles (e. g. Daniel and Esther), and there are also first-century parallels to this solution in Rome.42 37 For a more elaborate critique of Karris’ position, cf. Donfried, False, 107ff. 38 Cf. Shogren, Kingdom, 242; Das, Solving, 108; Moo, Romans, 831; Esler, Conflict, 341ff.; Larsen, Romerbrevet bagfra, 280ff.; Thielman, Law, 162ff., 211; Barret, Romans, 235; Fitzmyer, Romans, 687; Dunn, Romans, 2.813; Keck, Romans, 335. 39 For discussions of what it entailed to be a proselyte and/or God-fearer cf. Cohen, Beginnings, 156–74; Nanos, Paul’s Non-Jews, 26–53. For the difficult decision of whether to call sympathizers of Judaism proselytes or God-fearers (cf. the example with the Syrian sympathizers described by Josephus in Bel. Jud. 7.45), see Goodman, Mission and Conversion, 87; Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 298 n33; Cohen, Beginnings, 159. 40 For discussions of this possibility cf. Larsen, Romerbrevet bagfra, 281; Dunn, Romans, 2.801; Watson, Paul, 95; Ziesler, Paul’s Letter, 322ff. 41 Rauer, Schwachen, 256ff.; Smithals, Römerbrief, 98 n16; Wilckens, Brief, 3.114; Jewett, Romans, 868. 42 Cf. Dan 1:8–16; Esth 14:17 LXX; Josephus, Vita 13–14; 4 Macc 5:2–36; Judith 12:1–4.

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Furthermore, in Against Apion, Josephus describes how many non-Jews observed Jewish Sabbath and food customs: The masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances; and there is not one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation, to which our custom of abstaining from work on the seventh day has not spread … and [where] many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed.43

Philo made a similar statement when he wrote: [Jewish customs] attract and win the attention of all, of barbarians, of Greeks, of dwellers on the mainland and islands, of nations of the east and the west, of Europe and Asia, of the whole inhabited world from end to end.44

Additionally, gentile authors like Juvenal, Horace, Ovid, and Seneca also attest to the popularity of Jewish customs among non-Jews.45 This applies equally to the observance of Jewish food laws as to the observance of Sabbath laws.46 Therefore, the content of 14:1–15:6 is completely comprehensible without the presence of any Jews, if we take the “weak” to represent law-observant gentiles and the “strong” to represent non-law-observant gentiles. All we have to do to reconstruct the Roman situation is to imagine some law-observant gentiles refusing to eat meat which had been provided by those whose law-observance they had reason to doubt. Thus, for the understanding of the present situation it is irrelevant whether the meat was from an impure animal, or an animal incorrectly slaughtered, or other dubious connections.47 What mattered to the people in the Roman assembly was that it was considered κοινός. The whole point of the passage would thus be that Paul does not require cultic purity practices of gentiles, which means that we should imagine the Jewish observances in view as practiced by gentiles affiliated with Judaism. The whole reason why Paul can speak obliquely about the “strong” and the “weak” without further qualification is that both groups are gentiles, but the “weak” observe Jewish cultic practices whereas the “strong” do not. Because the non-law-observant gentiles (in Christ) had stopped practicing Jewish customs, the on-going validity of the (Mosaic) law was at issue, since the law-observant gentiles still did. Such a situation would have led to tensions, and this would be a specific situation for Paul to intervene in, and write a letter with a specific occasion and purpose. It would be natural to take the observance of certain days (14:5) by the lawobservant gentiles as arising from the same set of scruples. It could easily lead to 43 44 45 46

Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.40; cf. 2.282. Philo, Mos. 2.4. Juvenal, Sat. 14.96ff.; Horace, Sat. 1.9.68ff.; Ovid, Am. 219; Seneca, Ep. 95.47; 108.22. Cf. Barclay, Undermine, 295 and 298, who brings examples from the above mentioned authors and discusses them. 47 Cf. Watson, Paul, 95ff.

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awkwardness if some did, and some did not, observe the Jewish Sabbath, if the assembly had to arrange a common meeting or social gathering. The fact that the problem concerns certain days indicates that the observance of days is a continuous and returning problem, which the observance of the Sabbath could obviously become. Thus, we may conclude that the problems Paul addresses in 14–15 concerns the observance or non-observance of certain aspects of the (Mosaic) law. The “weak” keep up Jewish kosher laws and observe the Sabbath, whereas the “strong” do not. The “weak” are law-observant gentiles who want to continue Jewish practices of observing the law, whereas the “strong” are non-lawobservant gentiles who does not want to keep up the Jewish practice of observing the law on these matters. And the tension between the two groups springs from this dissent.

8.

A Perspective from the Inside and the Outside

As we saw earlier, Paul states in 3:31 that the (Mosaic) law is still valid or upheld. The faithfulness of Christ incorporates gentiles into the family of Israel without making them Jews, but still partaking in the blessings related to Abraham.48 This means that God somehow engrafts the gentiles into the family tree of Israel (cf. 11:17ff.) as heirs of Abraham. However, in chapters 14–15, Paul seems, simultaneously, to consider the (Mosaic) law from an insider and outsider perspective of Judaism. From “within” Judaism, the (Mosaic) law is still valid and in force, but Paul equally maintains a suspension or abrogation of the (Mosaic) law, because the law (as an expression of God’s covenant with Israel) is not for gentiles. Thus, the (Mosaic) law is still valid for the “weak” if they want to observe certain days and abstain from eating certain food, as long as they do it in honor of the Lord (14:6); but the (Mosaic) law is equally suspended for the “strong” if they want to eat anything and not observe certain days, as long as they do it in honor of the Lord (14:6). Both groups give thanks to God, and both answer only to Christ (14:4). What matters is not the specific behavior which conforms to or repudiates the (Mosaic) law; what matters is loyalty to the Lord (14:18). Whether they observe certain days or (do not) eat certain food, such mutually exclusive practice should be made with reference to the Lord (14:6–9). Consequently, what Paul seems to be driving at is a logic similar to Gal 5:6 where he states that neither circumcision nor foreskin counts for anything, but only faith working through love. The logic undergirding chapters 14–15 in Romans comes to expression four times in the passage and forms and inclusio: In 14:3, Paul states that God has welcomed them (ὁ θεὸς γὰρ αὐτὸν προσελάβετο) – i. e., into the family of Israel as 48 Cf. Nanos, Question, 124; Hodge, Question, 153ff.

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heirs of Abraham – so they should act likewise (14:1). In 15:7, he states that Christ has welcomed them to the glory of God (ὁ Χριστὸς προσελάβετο ὑμᾶς ει᾿ς δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ) – i. e., into the family of Israel as heirs of Abraham – so they should also welcome each other (Διὸ προσλαμβάνεσθε ἀλλήλους). Thus, it is quite significant for these exhortations that Paul depicts the participants in the quarrel not by reference to their ethnic background, but by their relationship to Christ. This indicates that both “strong” and “weak” derive their identity from Christ. This tells us, equally, that both groups are gentiles. But Paul, as an “insider” of Israel κατὰ σάρκα can consider the (Mosaic) law from either perspective, since he is an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin (ἐγὼ Ἰσραηλίτης ει᾿μί, ἐκ σπέρματος Ἀβραάμ, φυλῆς Βενιαμίν, 11:1), but he is also apostle to the gentiles (ει᾿μι ἐγὼ ἐθνῶν ἀπόστολος, 11:13). He speaks as a natural insider to the ones defined as outsiders by the Jews, but his gospel concerns the inclusion of the ones outside, the ones who were not God’s people, whom God now will call his people (9:25).

9.

Proselytes and God-fearers?49

Paul writes with a sympathy for the views of the “weak,” as one who understands and appreciates their point of view, while he personally differs from it. He knows exactly how deeply rooted their convictions are and what Scriptural support they could claim, because he himself is a Jew κατὰ σάρκα. It is not difficult, then, to imagine gentile proselytes or “God-fearers” in Rome who continued their Jewish commitments after having accepted Christ as the Messiah for the gentiles, and who therefore judged the non-law-observant gentiles as sinners.50 These “weak” gentiles could easily judge non-law-observant gentiles as sinners or teach them about the (Mosaic) law (cf. 2:17–24), and Paul does not want to intimidate or antagonize them. After all, he did not found the assembly, and he explicitly states 49 According to Mark Nanos, a gentile becomes a Jew when he undergoes circumcision (Nanos, Paul’s Non-Jews, especially n5; Nanos, Conceptualization, 140). Thus, it logically follows, according to Nanos, that if Paul addressed proselytes (i. e., circumcised gentiles) he would not address gentiles anymore, but instead Jews. However, I would argue for a more nuanced and non-essentialist definition of proselytized gentiles as Jews. From a theoretical perspective, I endorse J.Z. Smith’s polythetic mode of classification according to which inclusion into a group cannot be established through a determinate number of attributes, and hence not through a “final” attribute such as circumcision (Smith, Imagining, 1–18). From a historical perspective, I consider the examples of seven different degrees provided by Shaye Cohen of “becoming Jewish” as evidence for the fact that even if a gentile converted to Judaism and became a proselyte, he would still not be regarded as a Jew equal (in social status, ethnicity, religion, etc.) to a historical-ethnic Jew (Cohen, Beginnings, 140ff.; especially 160). 50 Scholars who considers this option, cf. Byrne, Romans, 404; Dunn, Romans, 2.811.

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that he has written rather boldly on some points, because of the grace given to him by God to be a minister of Christ to the gentiles, so that the offering of the gentiles may be acceptable (15:15–16). Thus, Paul cannot be as outspoken, harsh, and direct in his exhortations to the Roman gentiles as he could in the other letters to his “own” assemblies, because this was not his “own” assembly, and he did not want to build on somebody else’s foundation (15:20). Therefore, in order to state his case and attempt to mediate in the conflict he must walk cautiously and neither alienate, antagonize, nor estrange the “weak” law-observant gentiles in Rome. If they were proselytes or “God-fearers” they had an interest in keeping up ethical, social, and theological relations with the Jewish society. And Paul would of course want to maintain and secure them in this relationship. But his gospel to the gentiles concerning the righteousness of God implies certain ethical, social/practical, and theological adjustments, and these are the ones he attempts to communicate to the Roman assembly in the “theological” (1–11) and “ethical” (12–15) part of Romans. Paul presupposes that the “weak” consider their vegetarian practices and observance of days central to their faith, because their lifestyle is “in honor of the Lord” (14:6). Thus, even if they were Jewish proselytes or “God-fearers,” they still considered themselves in some relation to Christ. If these “weak” ones were pressured to drop their practices, they might lose their faith (14:20–23). If the “weak” insist on observing certain days and abstaining from eating certain food, Paul allows them to do that as long as they do it in honor of the Lord. But it does not make sense to claim that the “weak” represent a historical-ethnic Jewish segment of the assembly, since Paul positions himself on the side of the “strong” (15:1). That Paul was on the side of the “strong” indicates that at least one Jew was reckoned among the “strong.” And even though there was no particular need in this context to declare his own position in the debate, Paul is quite unashamed to declare that he knows and is persuaded in the Lord that nothing is unclean of itself (οὐδὲν κοινὸν δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ, 14:14). He follows this statement up with the claim that “all things are clean” (πάντα μὲν καθαρά, 14:20). These claims constitute nothing less than a fundamental rejection of the (Mosaic) law with regard to issues concerning food; yet still, Paul does not tell the “weak” to stop observing the (Mosaic) law – he does not overthrow the law, but upholds it. Therefore, he carves out a position for imitators of Judaism to remain closely related to Judaism in an assembly where such behavior is not necessary. Additionally, the fact that Paul numbers himself among the “strong” indicates that he has not been arguing with the “strong” throughout chapters 2–11 in the diatribal dialogue. The focus of Paul’s discourse has been the “weak,” which is why the exhortations in 14–15 parallel the position of the pretentious gentile in 2–11. In 14:3, Paul appeals to the “weak” not to judge (ὁ δὲ μὴ ἐσθίων τὸν ἐσθίοντα μὴ κρινέτω) those who eat all food. The “weak” are the ones inclined to judge

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(cf. 14:3, 10, 22), and this echoes perfectly well Paul’s rebuke in 2:1ff. to the fictive pretentious gentile who wants to boast of his Jewishness: the one who judges others (πᾶς ὁ κρίνων), condemns himself (σεαυτὸν κατακρίνεις), because he does the exact same things (τὰ γὰρ αὐτὰ πράσσεις ὁ κρίνων). In 14:10, Paul asks why he passes judgment on his brother (Σὺ δὲ τί κρίνεις τὸν ἀδελφόν σου), and in 14:22 (and 14:4 (ὁ κρίνων) he almost verbatim repeats the address from 2:1 (ὁ μὴ κρίνων), which just as in 2:1 leads to a judgment of himself (κατακέκριται, 14:23). In 2:3, Paul explains that the one who judges will not escape the judgment of God, and in 14:10 he repeats that whether you judge your brother or sister, or whether you despise your brother or sister, everyone will face God’s judgment. In 14:23, Paul states that it will have fatal consequences for the “weak,” if they have doubts about what they eat, because they thereby condemn themselves. Such a situation, where a person “realizes” that he has acted contrary to the way he intended to, recalls the soliloquy of the penitent gentile in 7:7–25, because he confessed that he could not keep the law, even though he had given the impression that he could.51 Consequently, the problems in the Roman assembly seem to revolve around the fact that the faith of the “weak” is vulnerable.52 And this would match perfectly with a situation, where a gentile proselyte or “God-fearer” wanted to appear Jewish (and “calls himself a Jew” (2:17)) in order to gain or give the impression of ethno-socio-religious Jewish status, honor, and respect.

10.

Subjective Relativity, Rhetorical Softening, or Theological Inconsistency

Even though Paul holds his own opinion and positions himself among the “strong,” he allows an element of subjectivity in the definition of proper conduct relating to diet and calendar. In 14:14, he declares that food is unclean to anyone who considers it such. The same kind of reasoning is evident in 14:5–6 where the issues of days and food are paralleled: Each person must act according to his own conviction (ἕκαστος ἐν τῷ ι᾿δίῳ νοῒ πληροφορείσθω, 14:5). This means that anyone can act as he pleases – even if the effect is the opposite – as long as it is in honor of the Lord: Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord; those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord; those who abstain from eating certain things, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God (cf. 14:6). This individual stance towards moral issues is further reinforced in 14:22 when Paul states that 51 I take the speaking subject of 7:7–25 to represent the fictive gentile, Paul has been arguing with from 2:1 onwards. For a similar stance cf. Stowers, Romans 7.7–25, 180–202; Das, Solving, 212–35. 52 Cf. Barclay, Faith, 202.

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the faith of the individual is between himself and God (σὺ πίστιν [ἣν] ἔχεις κατὰ σεαυτὸν ἔχε ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ). The consequence of this is, then, that matters of diet or Sabbath cannot function as part of the defining structure of the assembly. Rather, the kingdom of God must be considered “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17). However, this does not imply a lack of moral seriousness. Each individual must live as the household slave (οι᾿κέτης) of the Lord (κύριος) (14:4) in anticipation of the final judgment, in which a personal account before God will be given (14:12). Everything must be done to honor the Lord and all actions will be judged by God (cf. 2:6–16). In this sense, living “inside” or “outside” the (Mosaic) law makes no difference. But the foundation upon which one enters into a relationship with the (Mosaic) law differs. As we saw in the analysis of 3:31, the (Mosaic) law can be viewed from different perspectives or contain different approaches. What matters to Paul in this passage is, then, that the Roman believers should “welcome each other” (προσλαμβάνεσθε ἀλλήλους, 15:7) and tolerate each other, even if they differ in observing the rules under discussion. The mutual acceptance requires, thus, that neither the “strong” nor the “weak” allow their convictions to determine the contours of the assembly. And in one sense, then, the law is overthrown, but in another it is upheld – at least for the “weak.” Since Paul requires both “strong” and “weak” to mutually accept each other and not judge or condemn each other (Μηκέτι οὖν ἀλλήλους κρίνωμεν, 14:13), he asks the “strong” to avoid acting in a way that would cause the “weak” to stumble or fall. He warns the “strong” not to act in a way that would result in the injury or destruction of the “weak” (14:15). Obviously, the “weak” were more vulnerable than the “strong,” and the “strong” might have pressured them (ἐξουθενεῖν, 14:3) to act contrary to their own convictions. Such despising could, potentially, result in the undermining of the commitment of the “weak” to the assembly. Thus, the situation seems to be that the “weak” law-observant gentiles were socially vulnerable and more easily induced to adopt the practices of the “strong,” rather than vice versa. Therefore, Paul instructs the “strong” to abstain from their despising and, instead, protect the law-observance of the “weak,” both for their own sakes and for the sake of Christ who redeemed them (14:15; 14:20). And since Paul does not return to the problem of observing certain days as more important than others (14:5–6), the accommodation of the “strong” to the “weak” – and thereby the confirmation of the validity of the (Mosaic) law – might in the end concern the practices of the “weak” in relation to food (14:15, 20). The instruction must be, thus, that the “strong” should cease to offer food at the communal meals, if the “weak” were unable to eat it (cf. 14:21). Consequently, when the two groups meet, the communal meal should consist only of food (and drink) which the “weak” could consume without having scruples. When they “welcome each

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other” (15:7) at the communal meals, the “strong” should adapt to the “weak” and allow for Jewish scruples to observe the (Mosaic) law.

11.

Do We Uphold the Law for the “Weak”?

How should we answer our title question and reach some sort of conclusion? First, we must consent that Paul protects the law-observance of the “weak” by insisting on the legitimacy of the instruction to the “strong” that they should neither despise the “weak” nor pressure them to change their convictions. In this sense, the obvious must be stated as in the case of the meaning of 3:31: Paul upholds the law (for the “weak”). His requirements of the “strong” accentuates the seriousness of the matter and underlines the continuity in both practice and theology with contemporary Judaism. Thus, Paul was not a Christian. The effect of his advice was that the law-observant “weak” gentiles were able to preserve their relations to the Jewish community when eating and attending synagogue gatherings, thereby enabling them to uphold their place and position in the Jewish community and preserve their Jewish identity. If this was the case, there might not be any reason why they should not also still circumcise their sons, pay their temple dues, and otherwise continue their Jewish life-style. Of course, the way in which Paul grants this permission is somewhat patronizing. He positions himself on the side of the “strong,” he affirms the mindset of the “strong,” and he designates the “weak” “the weak.” Consequently, Paul might grant the “weak” the permission to observe the (Mosaic) law, but his own theological taste tips towards the “strong.” Thus, his genuine concern to protect the validity of the position of the “weak” must be upheld, but his own conviction in the Lord is that observance of the (Mosaic) law regarding food may be abandoned (for the “strong”). Thus, he simultaneously upholds a position where the (Mosaic) law is annulled and in force, so he upholds the law for the “weak.” The effect of Paul’s instruction in 14:1–15:6 might have fatal consequences – in the long run – for the social and cultural integrity of the law-observant gentiles, even though I do not think Paul considered this a problem himself. What Paul does by taking the position of the “strong” is, effectively, to undermine the position of the “weak.” No matter how palatable his instructions were in the short term, they would have preserved the tensions within the assembly, which at some point could result in a difficult social choice between law-observance and nonlaw-observance. While he validates the expression of the Jewish cultural tradition by the “weak,” he relativizes its significance and undermines key aspects of its theological and intellectual foundation (for gentiles). Paul tells these “weak” gentiles that their law-observing commitment to the assembly is accepted, but

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not required, saying in effect that one can ignore or observe the Sabbath while in equal measure giving honor to God. And a final question where we speculate about Paul’s intentions in proposing this difficult position might help us conclude on these matters. Why does Paul maintain the validity and legitimacy of the law instead of telling the “weak” to stop following the law, since he obviously considers the “strong” position to be correct? I believe the reason is to be found on rhetorical grounds. Paul had neither founded the Roman assembly, nor visited it before. And he even sometimes indicates that his reputation or preaching was perceived as mixed or misunderstood (e. g., 3:7–8; 14:16). Thus, Paul had to proceed with tact, thoughtfulness, and finesse, embedding the ethical exhortations in a well-composed literary and rhetorically refined discourse. He could not just write to the Roman assembly as he did to the one in Galatia, thereby giving the appearance that he thought himself entitled to regulate their affairs in detail. He could not in a straightforward manner tell them what to do, but had to couch the instruction in generalized terms, and exemplify the problems through a literary and theological discussion with a fictive interlocutor not completely stupid, but nevertheless representing the position of the “weak” who needs instruction. Consequently, what Paul does in Romans is to present and formulate his exhortations in terms of apparent generality with the same kind of diplomacy or discretion that requires him to insist that all he has written was only a reminder (15:15). He walks a thin line of discretion between knowing the actual problems of the assembly, but not pronouncing directly upon them, and thereby dishonoring them, so he fared with tact, finesse, and a rhetorically refined and literary exemplified discourse. Consequently, he couches the exhortations in generalized terms, yet with enough specificity to indicate to the recipients of the instructions. However, in line with these speculations we must, simultaneously and firmly, accentuate that Paul has not yet in strictu sensu made the difficult social choice between law-observance and non-law-observance the defining feature of groupidentity an option. To the contrary, in Romans 14:1–15:6 he has made room for the observance of the (Mosaic) law for the “weak” gentiles. He has firmly established his position in continuation of contemporary Judaism by upholding the law, and there is no talk of a “third way” or a “supersession” of Judaism here. And we have to question whether this was an option at all in Paul’s mind: if Paul’s gospel was the inclusion of gentiles into the family of Israel, would the weight then be on the possibility of freedom from the law or the possibility of keeping up relations with the Jewish society and theology? We might, because of our Christian tradition, read more into the position of the “strong” than Paul would have allowed. After all, both “strong” and “weak” gentiles are merely wild branches engrafted into the holy and cultivated tree of Israel (11:17ff.). And there

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is no doubt in contemporary Judaism that the law was God-given, and observance of the Jewish way of life represented the most pious and virtuous mode of conduct ever conceived. All Jewish literature from the period gives witness of this – not least Josephus’ apology Contra Apionem, which properly claims that Jews are utterly committed to the observance of the law. Consequently, there might not be any paradox detectable in the passage we have studied, because the defining feature of Paul’s gospel was the relation to and continuation of Judaism. Therefore, it might not be as crucial a problem for Paul to uphold the law for the “weak” as it has become in our Christian tradition.

Bibliography Barclay, J.M.G., Do We Undermine the Law?, in J.D.G. Dunn (ed.), Paul and the Mosaic Law, Mohr 1996, 287–308. –, Faith and Self-Detachment from Cultural Norms: A Study in Romans 14–15, ZNW 104/2 (2013): 192–208. Barrett, C.K., A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, A&C Black 1971. Bassler, J.M. (ed.), Pauline Theology vol 1, Fortress Press 2002. Bell, R.H., Provoked to Jealousy, Mohr 1994. Bird, M.F./P.M. Sprinkle (eds.), The Faith of Jesus Christ, Hendrickson Publishers 2009. Boyarin, D., Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, The University of Pennsylvania Press 2004. Bultmann, R., Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Mohr 1948/53. Byrne, B., Romans, The Liturgical Press 1996. Cohen, S.J.D., The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. University of California Press 1999. Dahl, N.A., Rudolf Bultmann’s Theology of the New Testament, in The Crucified Messiah and other essays, Augsburg Publishing House 1974. Das, A. A., Solving the Romans Debate, Fortress 2007. –, Paul, the Law, and the Covenant, Baker Academic 2001. Donaldson, T.L., Judaism and the Gentiles, Baylor University Press 2008. Donfried, K.P., False Presuppositions in the Study of Romans, in K.P. Donfried (ed.), The Romans Debate, Baker Academic 1991 (1977), 102–25. Dunn, J.D.G., Romans, Word Books 1988. Eisenbaum, P., Paul was not a Christian, HarperCollins 2009. Esler, P.F., Conflict and Identity in Romans, Fortress 2003. Fitzmyer, J.A., Romans, Doubleday 1993. Fredriksen, P., Judaizing the Nations: The Ritual Demands of Paul’s Gospel, NTS 56/2 (2010): 232–52. –, Paul, the Pagans’ Apostle, Yale University Press 2017. Garroway, J., Paul’s Gentile-Jews, Palgrave Macmillan 2012. –, Neither Jew nor Gentile, but Both: Paul’s “Christians” as “Gentile-Jews,” Dissertation from Yale University.

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Goodman, M., Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire, Clarendon Press 1994. Haacker, C., Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 1999. Hay, D.M. (ed.), Pauline Theology vol. 2, Fortress Press 1993. Hay, D.M./E.E. Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology vol. 3, Fortress Press 1995. –, Pauline Theology vol. 4, Fortress Press 1997. Hays, R.B., The Faith of Jesus Christ, Eerdmans 1983. Hodge, C.J., If Sons, then Heirs, Oxford University Press 2007. –, The Question of Identity: Gentiles as Gentiles – but also Not – in Pauline Communities, in M.D. Nanos/M. Zetterholm (eds.), Paul within Judaism, Fortress Press 2015, 153–74. Hultgren, A.J., Romans, Eerdmans 2011. –, The Pistis Christou Formulation in Paul, NovT 22 (1980): 248–63. Jewett, R., Romans, Fortress 2007. Johnson, L.T., Rom 3:21–26 and the Faith of Jesus, CBQ 44 (1982): 77–90. Karris, R.J., Romans 14:1–15:13 and the Occassion of Romans, in K.P. Donfried (ed.), The Romans Debate, Baker Academic 1991 (1977). Keck, L.E., Romans, Abingdon Press 2005. Lampe, P., Die stadtrömischen Christen in den ersten beiden Jahrhunderten: Untersuchungen zur Sozialgeschichte, Mohr 1987. Larsen, K.B., At læse Romerbrevet bagfra, in T. Engberg-Pedersen/K.B. Larsen (eds.), Paulusevangeliet: Nye Perspektiver på Romerbrevet, Anis 2015. Lohse, E., Der Brief an die Römer, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003. Martin, B.L., Christ and the Law in Paul, Brill 1989. Meeks, W.A., Judgment and the Brother: Romans 14:1–15:13, in G.F. Hawthorne/O. Betz (eds.), Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament, Eerdmans 1987, 290–300. Moo, D.J., The Epistle to the Romans, Eerdmans 1996. Mortensen, J.P.B., Paul among the Gentiles: A “Radical” Reading of Romans, Francke 2018. Munck, J., Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte, Aarhus 1954. Nanos, M.D., Paul’s Non-Jews Do Not Become ‘Jews,’ But Do They Become ‘Jewish’?: Reading Romans 2:25–29 Within Judaism, Alongside Josephus, JJMJS 1 (2014): 26–53. –, The Mystery of Romans, Fortress Press 1996. –, The Question of Conceptualization: Qualifying Paul’s Position on Circumcision in Dialogue with Josephus’s Advisors to King Izates, in M.D. Nanos/M. Zetterholm (eds.), Paul within Judaism, Fortress Press 2015, 105–152. Nanos, M.D.,/M. Zetterholm (eds.), Paul within Judaism, Fortress Press 2015. Rauer, M., Die “Schwachen” in Korinth und Rom nach den Paulusbriefen, Herder 1923. Räisänen, H., Paul and the Law, Mohr 1983. Reasoner, M., The Strong and the Weak: Romans 14:1–15:13 in Context, Cambridge University Press 1999. Rodriguez, R., If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Cascade 2014. Rodriguez, R. & M. Thiessen (eds.), The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Fortress 2016. Sanders, E.P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Fortress Press 1977. –, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, Fortress Press 1983.

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Sampley, J.P., The Weak and the Strong: Paul’s Careful and Crafty Rhetorical Strategy: Romans 14:1–15:13, in M.L. White/L.O. Yarbrough (eds.), The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, Fortress Press 1995, 40–52. Shogren, G.S., Is the Kingdom of God about Eating and Drinking or isn’t it?, Novum Testamentum 42/3 (2000): 238–56. Smith, J.Z., Imagining Religion, University of Chicago Press 1982. Smithals, W., Der Römerbrief als historischer Problem, Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn 1975. Snodgrass, K.R., Justification by Grace – to the Doers, NTS 32 (1986): 72–93. Song, C., Reading Romans as a Diatribe, Peter Lang Publishing 2004. Stowers, S., A Rereading of Romans, Yale University Press 1994. –, ἐκ πίστεως and διὰ τῆς πὶστεως in Romans 3:30, JBL 108.4 (1989): 665–74. –, Romans 7.7–25 as Speech-in–Character (προσωποποιία), in T. Engberg-Pedersen (ed.), Paul in his Hellenistic Context, T&T Clark 1994, 180–202. Thielman, F., Paul and the Law, InterVarsity Press 1994. Thorsteinsson, R.M., Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography, Almqvist & Wiksell International 2003. Watson, F., Paul, Judaism and the Gentile, Cambridge University Press 1986. Wilckens, U., Der Brief an die Römer, Neukirchener Verlag 1978–1982. Williams, S.K., Again Pistis Christou, CBQ 49 (1987): 431–47. Zetterholm, M., Approaches to Paul, Fortress Press 2009. Ziesler, J., Paul’s Letter to the Romans, SCM 1989.

Runar M. Thorsteinsson

Jesus as Philosopher in the Gospel of Mark

1.

Introduction

Jesus of Nazareth has often been associated with Jewish/theological as opposed to Hellenistic/philosophical thought and way of life, not least because of the old Judaism-Hellenism divide, and the distinction commonly made between theology and philosophy. Recent research has revealed that these distinctions are highly misleading. Long before the first century CE, large sections of Palestine/ Israel/Judea were thoroughly influenced by Hellenistic thought and way of life, as were most areas around the Mediterranean, and the distinction between theology (or religion) and philosophy is by and large a modern phenomenon, more or less alien to Greco-Roman antiquity. However, while most New Testament scholars would in all likelihood consent to this new understanding, only a few have fully brought them into practice when it comes to the person and portrayal of Jesus. Most of the New Testament writings have been well studied in their Greco-Roman context, but when it applies to descriptions of the Jesus figure in these writings, especially in the Synoptic Gospels, the scholarly situation tends to be quite different. It seems that the closer one gets to the person of Jesus, the stronger the grip of the traditional Judaism-Hellenism divide, and the stronger the denial that early Christianity had anything to do with philosophy. The present article is part of a larger study that examines the ways in which early Christian authors may have associated Jesus of Nazareth/Jesus Christ with contemporary philosophical schools and figures.1 The aim of the study is not to deal with the “historical Jesus.” Rather, it is the Jesus of the gospels who is under discussion, and particularly the question of how the gospel authors portray the person of Jesus in comparison to portrayals of leading or ideal figures in the 1 The study goes under the title Jesus as Philosopher: The Moral Sage in the Synoptic Gospels, published by Oxford University Press (2018). It was financed by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), and took place at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University, and at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Iceland.

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philosophical schools. The focus is aimed at the philosophical context of the “literary” or “narrative Jesus,” that is to say, Jesus as portrayed by, in this case, the Synoptic Gospels. The primary focus is also aimed at the field of ethics and related fields. As for the philosophical schools, Stoic philosophy appears to be of particular importance here, since Stoicism was the most prominent philosophical school in terms of ethics and related fields, and because their ideas and doctrines about the ideal sage were most developed and best known. Questions that are raised in the study include the following: How does the author in question speak of Jesus in relation to contemporary philosophy? Do we see Jesus take on a certain “philosophical” role in the gospels, either by his statements and reasoning or his way of life? In what way is his teaching and conduct analogous to that of leading philosophical figures in Greco-Roman Antiquity, according to these texts? Conversely, in what way does his teaching or conduct differ from theirs? In general, what is the significance of Greco-Roman philosophy for early Christian understanding, narrative, and image of Jesus? It is one of the theses of this study that in addition to the moral demands of Jewish writings and traditions, early Christians drew on contemporary philosophical theory in their attempt to interpret and present the moral message and character of their ideal figure, Jesus Christ. In the following I shall focus on the Gospel of Mark and discuss three topics which are relevant for our question.2

2.

Jesus in the Gospel of Mark

Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is a character of strength and authority (e. g. 1:22). He is a character who follows a mission and he is very certain about his mission as well as his relationship to the one who sent him on that mission (9:37). He is frequently described and addressed as a teacher of the people (e. g. 2:13),3 a very popular one among the common people. In literary terms, Jesus is a “complex” character (i. e. with many traits),4 presented, for instance, as both compassionate (1:41; 8:2) and judgmental or even discrediting (3:33; 4:13; 8:17–18, 33). At times he is rather impatient with people, especially with his disciples (4:13, 40; 8:17–18, 2 Translations from the New Testament are those of the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted. Texts and translations of Greco-Roman texts follow the Loeb Classical Library, unless otherwise noted. References to Musonius Rufus follow Cora E. Lutz’s collection of the texts attributed to Musonius (referred to by number of discourse, page number[s], line[s]). Cf. Lutz, Musonius Rufus, 1–147. As for the edition of the text, Lutz follows Hense’s edition (except in a few cases). 3 Cf. also 1:21–22, 27; 2:13; 4:1–2; 5:35; 6:2, 6, 34; 8:31; 9:17, 31, 38; 10:1, 17, 35, 51; 11:17, 18, 21; 12:14, 19, 32, 35, 38; 13:1; 14:14, 45, 49. 4 See further Rhoads/Dewey/Michie, Mark as Story, 103.

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21, 33; 9:19; 14:37, 41), and sometimes he seems to suffer from quite sudden and surprising mood swings (8:33; 11:14). Correspondingly, he moves around very fast in the narrative of the Gospel. From 8:27 onwards the person of Jesus is increasingly described as a prophetic sage who recognizes his significance for the history of mankind (14:3–9). However, at the close of the narrative he reveals some signs of fear and distress (14:33–36; 15:34, 37).

3.

Ascetic Appearance

According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus wants his disciples to live ascetically and wear simple clothing on their missionary journeys around the world (6:8–9). Such clothing and way of life was characteristic of the Cynics who were widely known for their preferences in this regard.5 Some contemporary Stoics, especially those with Cynic leanings, are also known to have fancied this type of clothing and way of life, in theory at least. One of them was Musonius Rufus who taught his students the following: “Wearing one chiton is preferable to needing two, and wearing none but only a cloak is preferable to wearing one. Also going barefoot is better than wearing sandals, if one can do it” (Lutz 19.122.3–5). Since Musonius’ students were mostly upper class Romans6 it follows that they were not forced to appear in this way, that is to say, due to poverty. Rather, it was a recommendation of Musonius’ that they would choose this kind of appearance. According to their teacher, their clothing and behavior gave credibility to and attestation of their identity as philosophers. Seneca writes similarly, quoting Epicurus and then referring to the Cynic philosopher Demetrius: “‘Believe me [Epicurus says], your words will be more imposing if you sleep on a cot and wear rags. For in that case you will not be merely saying them; you will be demonstrating their truth’. I, at any rate, [Seneca says] listen in a different spirit to the utterances of our friend Demetrius, after I have seen him reclining without even a cloak to cover him, and, more than this, without rugs to lie upon” (Ep. 20.9). Epictetus, too, remarks that this type of appearance symbolizes the philosopher: “I have been condemned to wear a grey beard and a rough cloak”, he says (Diss. 3.1.24). In some respects, Jesus’ demand is somewhat milder than that of the Stoics – he does not recommend the disciples to wander around barefoot – but his command is clear: “He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics [= chitons]” (6:8–9). The text implies that the disciples could have chosen otherwise (they are not forced to appear in this way because of poverty – 5 Malherbe, Self-Definition, 49. 6 See Dillon, Musonius Rufus, 49–57. See also Lutz, Musonius Rufus, 18–20.

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otherwise there would have been no need to command them to cloth in this way rather than another), but that this is the way in which their master wishes them to appear while they are serving as missionaries and healers in his name. One might say that this was their preferred “uniform” as followers and co-workers of Christ. In light of the fact that the Cynics were famous preachers in the ancient world, the affinity with the typical Cynic way of appearance may have been considered to give credibility to the disciples’ role as wandering preachers7 – or not, depending on the Cynics’ refutation and acceptance (which, due to their ideal “shamelessness”, was not always that great).8 In other words, Mark may have been drawing on – for better or worse – contemporary philosophical traditions in his presentation of Jesus and his followers.

4.

Abandoning One’s Family

Jesus’ statements about families and their role for his followers are somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand he gives priority to the commandment that says “Honor your father and your mother” (7:10; 10:19) and he appears to consent to the rule that “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die” (7:10; cf. Ex 21:17; Lev 20:9). On the other hand he seems to reject his own family. In 3:21 we hear that his family wished to restrain him because, according to them, he was mad, which is consistent with Jesus’ words in 6:4: “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” Similarly, in 3:31–35 he responds in the following manner to those who informed him that his mother and brothers were looking for him: “Who are my mother and my brothers? … Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” In other words, he strongly implies that he has rejected his own family, at the same time as he forms a new “family” by extending the concept. This accords with Mark’s recurrent notice that followers of Jesus are expected to leave everything behind, including their family. Early in the Gospel Jesus calls James son of Zebedee and his brother John, and they follow Jesus at once, deserting their father in his boat (1:19–20). As 10:28 shows, this applied in fact to all of Jesus’ disciples: they all left everything behind the moment they became his followers.9 Jesus even expects people to deny themselves if they are to be his followers (8:34). 7 Similarly Downing, Cynic Preparation, 461. 8 See Griffin, Cynicism, 190–204; Krueger, The Bawdy and Society, 222–239. 9 It is true that the brothers Simon and Andrew, and James and John, did not leave everything because they had each other (so Ahearne-Kroll, Who are My Mother?, 10–11). Even so, it is

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Speaking in historical terms, it seems probable that Mark’s strong emphasis on leaving everything, including one’s family, alluded to situations where the Christ believers were compelled to do so (cf. 13:12), for example, when their closest relatives disapproved of their commitment to Christ. Mark’s purpose would then have been to prepare possible followers of Christ to abandon everything they had. However, there may be more to Mark’s account than this. It is possible that he is alluding to a philosophical topos that taught that the true philosopher must be ready and willing to leave everything behind for the sake of philosophy itself. As Epictetus clarifies, “the good (τὸ ἀγαθόν) is preferred above every form of kinship (πάσης οι᾿κειότητος)” (Diss. 3.3.5). According to the Stoic teacher, “my father is nothing to me, but only the good. ‘Are you so hard-hearted?’ Yes, that is my nature. This is the coinage which God has given me. For that reason, if the good is something different from the noble and the just, then father and brother and country and all relationships simply disappear” (5–6). Elsewhere he describes the philosophical “war” which should go on within each human being, concluding that “we must yield up the paltry body, its members, the faculties, property, reputation, offices, honours, children, brothers, friends – count all these things as alien to us” (4.1.86–87; cf. 4.7.35). After all, “being tied fast to many things, we are burdened and dragged down by them” (1.1.15). Furthermore, Epictetus underlines that the philosopher has great responsibility in this respect: Do you suppose that you can do the things you do now, and yet be a philosopher? Do you suppose that you can eat in the same fashion, drink in the same fashion, give way to anger and to irritation, just as you do now? You must keep vigils, work hard, overcome certain desires, abandon your own people, be despised by a paltry slave, be laughed to scorn by those who meet you, in everything get the worst of it, in office, in honour, in court (3.15.10–11).

It is likely that these discourses of Epictetus’ are passing on a philosophical tradition which seems to go as far back as to Socrates.10 It is interesting for our discussion of “family” in the Gospel of Mark that Epictetus also attempts to redefine the concept by stating that the ideal philosopher (the Stoicized Cynic) has made all human beings his children. The men he considers his sons and the women his daughters. When the philosopher censures these people he does it as a father and as a brother (3.22.81–82). However, we should note that, precisely as in the Gospel of Mark, there is a certain tension in Epictetus’ observations of family ties. In spite of the comments above on the family, elsewhere he stresses the duty to care for parents (3.7.26) and the duty to be active as a citizen (3.21.5–6).

sufficiently clear from 10:28 that the brothers themselves understood it so that they had in fact left everything. 10 Hommel, Herrenworte, 12. Cf. also Collins, Mark, 235–236; Barton, Relativisation, 81–100.

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Seneca, too, seems to be advocating rejection of parents when he writes to his friend: “but I myself pray rather that you may despise all those things which your parents wished for you in abundance” (Ep. 32.4). Similarly, he observes that the wishes on our behalf of our parents actually are hostile, and the environment in which we grew up is evil (60.1). In fact, it is rather “heaven (mundus)” that is “the one parent of us all” (Ben. 3.28.2). Much like Jesus in Mark, Seneca redefines the concept of family when he writes that no one has the power to choose their own parents, but it is in everyone’s power to choose a different household, a “household” into which one wishes to be “adopted,” and which becomes the greater the more persons one shares it with (Brev. vit. 15.3; cf. Ep. 73.7; 85.36). Seneca is referring to the larger philosophical “family” the part of which one becomes the moment one becomes a member of a philosophical school. This is his conclusion of the section: “The life of the philosopher, therefore, has wide range, and he is not confined by the same bounds that shut others in. He alone is freed from the limitations of the human race” (5). However, precisely as in Mark and Epictetus, there is a tension in Seneca’s treatment of the subject, for on one occasion he writes with emphasis: “not to love one’s parents is to be unfilial, not to recognize them is to be mad!” (Ben. 3.1.5; cf. 4.17.2). In his classroom with young Romans, Musonius Rufus posed the question if one must always obey one’s parents, whatever the circumstances. The case in question was a young man who wished to study philosophy but his father forbade him to do so. Musonius’ answer to the question was that it is indeed a good thing if people obey their parents. However, if the orders of the parents are morally bad one does not have to obey them. One should only obey orders that are good, honorable, and useful. Furthermore, if it turns out that the order or will of God opposes the order of a parent, one should always follow the former: your father forbids you to study philosophy, but the common father of all men and gods, Zeus, bids you and exhorts you to do so. His command and law is that man be just and honest, beneficent, temperate, high-minded, superior to pain, superior to pleasure, free of all envy and all malice; to put it briefly, the law of Zeus bids man be good. But being good is the same as being a philosopher. If you obey your father, you will follow the will of a man; if you choose the philosopher’s life, the will of God. It is plain, therefore, that your duty lies in the pursuit of philosophy rather than not (Lutz 16.104.30–106.1).

Moreover, according to Dio Chrysostom’s discussion of the ideal king, the king has more respect for friendship than kinship. The former is a greater good, in matters of which the king freely grants that he wishes to excel, something which he actually does: “he actually exults because young people love him more than they do their parents, and older men more than they do their children” (Or. 3.112). That is to say, young as well as old people seek the friendship of the

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king rather than the natural ties of the family. They do not directly reject their families, but for them another form of human bonds is of more significance. In the light of the above, it is not unlikely that in his description of Jesus and his followers Mark was applying a philosophical tradition that taught that if you had to choose between a philosophical fraternity and the natural ties of the family, you chose the former. It should be mentioned that Philo, who, needless to say, was well familiar with Greco-Roman philosophy, may have been influenced by such a tradition when he described the familial situation of the Jewish priests: “The Levites have left children, parents, brothers, their nearest and dearest, to win an undying portion in place of that which perishes” (Sacr. 129). That is to say, when the choice stands between family and friends, on the one hand, and the divine and everlasting, on the other, the Levite chooses the latter. Moreover, referring to the group of Therapeutae, Philo writes: “When, therefore, men abandon their property without being influenced by any predominant attraction, they flee without even turning their heads back again, deserting their brethren, their children, their wives, their parents, their numerous families, their affectionate bands of companions, their native lands in which they have been born and brought up, though long familiarity is a most attractive bond, and one very well able to allure any one” (Vit. Cont. 18). Compared to familial ties like those between children and parents, “to the right minded there is no closer tie than noble living” (72).11 In other words, the fellowship of those who live alike and live nobly is to be preferred above any family relations. However, we should also note that not every philosopher agreed with this understanding of family ties. According to Plutarch, friendship is just a shadow of that “first friendship which Nature implanted in children toward parents and in brothers toward brothers” (Frat. amor. 479D). If one disrespects this, one is unable to show any goodwill to strangers. And if an individual is on bad terms with his brother he cannot call his comrade a “brother.” The person who hates his brother is unfit to call himself a philosopher (479E).12 Also, one needs to pay due honor to one’s parents, to whom we owe our lives, for there is nothing more acceptable to the gods than this (479F). But it is by “steadfast goodwill and friendship toward a brother” that the parents are best honored (480 A). Returning again to the Gospel of Mark, it is evident that Mark’s Jesus does not agree with the Platonist Plutarch on this point, but rather sides with, as it were, the Cynic-Stoic standpoint that family ties are normally irrelevant. The caveat “normally” is necessary here because, as we saw above, there are some ambiguities in Mark as well as in the Cynic-Stoic discussion as to the nature of the relationship between children and parents. But all in all, it is clear that Mark 11 Cf. Collins, Mark, 236–237. 12 Cf. Betz, De fraterno, 241.

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agrees with the Cynic-Stoic description of the philosopher and his duties and his metaphorical family, and he may have done so in order to show that the fellowship of Jesus and his followers are at least on par with corresponding “families” of like-minded philosophers.

5.

The Philosopher’s Emotions

Mark’s Jesus is a man of emotions. As noted above, Jesus sometimes expresses himself in a way that indicates sudden mood swings (8:33; 11:14), even to the extent of losing control of himself (11:15–16). At times he feels angry (περιβλεψάμενος αὐτοὺς μετ’ ὀργῆς, 3:5) and grieves (συλλυπούμενος > λύπη, 3:5). Furthermore, at the close of the story, he shows signs of some fear and distress when his moment of suffering and death draws near (14:33–36; 15:34, 37). Some of these factors do not match well with contemporary philosophical ideals. Quite to the contrary, in philosophical circles, some of them were believed to characterize a person whose life was not guided by philosophical principles. This was especially so for the Stoics, according to whom anger (ὀργῆ) and grief (λύπη) were nothing but passions, that is to say, mental disorders. Against the Platonists, the Stoics held that one had to root out the passions, get rid of them, rather than attempt to control them. As Seneca says, “moderate passion is nothing else than a moderate evil” (Ira 1.10.4; cf. also 1.7.1–1.10.4). Even the ideal philosopher himself, Socrates, adventured not to toy with the emotion of anger, which demonstrates how futile it is to try to control the passions (1.15.3). As “the greatest of all ills,” anger has a special place among the passions because it is so difficult to deal with (2.12.6). Seneca heartily warns against anger and contrasts it with acts of mutual love and help: What is more loving (amantius) to others than man? What more hostile than anger (ira)? Man is born for mutual help; anger for mutual destruction. The one desires union, the other disunion; the one to help, the other to harm; one would succour even strangers, the other attack its best beloved; the one is ready even to expend himself for the good of others, the other to plunge into peril only if it can drag others along…. For human life is founded on kindness (beneficiis) and concord (concordia), and is bound into an alliance for common help (auxiliumque commune), not by terror but by mutual love (mutuo amore) (Ira 1.5.2–3).

According to Seneca, the sage will never be angry toward wrong-doers for he is aware of the fact that no one is born wise and that only a few turn out to be truly wise (2.10.6). As a matter of fact, “he is not the foe, but the reformer of sinners (non hostis sed corrector peccantium)” (7), and there is no just reason to “grow angry at universal sin (publico vitio)” (4). Hence, “if someone strikes you, step back” (2.34.5).

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It is often claimed or simply assumed that the Stoics wanted to root out all emotions, but that is a misunderstanding of the Greek concept of πάθος. In Stoicism πάθος refers to the passions, not emotions, the former being “mental disturbances” or faulty judgements manifested in “excessive” or “irrational” impulses, which the Stoics defined as diseases.13 But then the question arises: does the wise man feel the passions? He does, Seneca insists. Unlike some earlier Stoics (Polyb. 18.5), he maintains that the sage does indeed have feelings and does feel passions such as pain and grief (Ep. 9.3; 71.26–30; Const. 10.4; Polyb. 18.5–6). Nature is not transcended by human virtue, he states (Ep. 71.29). It is evident, the Stoic philosopher says, that those who argue differently have no real experience of passions like grief (Polyb. 18.5). However, it does not follow that the sage gives in to passions such as pain or grief. He does indeed feel the passions, but he does not permit them to affect him. As Seneca clarifies in De Clementia 2.6.1–3, the sage always tries to help people who suffer from passions like grief, because “he is born to be of help to all and to serve the common good (in commune auxilium natus ac bonum publicum)” (3), but he will not turn their grief into his own. He will not share their grief in the sense of becoming grieved himself; rather, he does help people dealing with their grief, but he does so with a totally tranquil mind. Put differently, the sage “will bring relief to another’s tears, but will not add his own” (2; cf. Ep. 116.5). Provided that Jesus does not give in to the grief alluded to in Mark 3:5, his manner does not go against the behavior of the ideal philosopher, that is to say, if we follow a contemporary philosopher like Seneca. The same holds true when in 1:41 Jesus “shows pity” (σπλαγχνισθείς) to a person (cf. also 6:34; 8:2). The ideal philosopher can and does have compassion for other people, as long as the compassion does not take hold of him entirely and turns into the passion grief. Mark’s description of Jesus’ anger, on the other hand, does seem to contradict the image of the philosophical sage, at least if we consult our Stoic sources. The Stoic image of the ideal philosopher does not seem to leave much room for passions such as anger. Furthermore, in 11:15–16 Jesus seems to lose control when he “entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.” It is true that Mark does not say explicitly that Jesus lost control of himself – Mark does not describe Jesus’ feelings at this moment – but according to most philosophers, his actions would have betrayed that this was an individual who lost control of himself, and therefore that the Jewish Messiah was guilty of something quite “unphilosophic.” If Mark was familiar with philosophical images of the sage he intentionally opposes such images in these passages. The same holds true of the passages where Jesus exposes himself as governed by sudden mood swings (8:33; 11:14). 13 See the discussion in Sandbach, Stoics, 59–68; Long, Epictetus, 244–250.

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Something completely different emerges in 4:38–41. According to that account, Jesus is sleeping in the stern of a boat when a great storm occurred, because of which the disciples became afraid and woke him up. Jesus then got on his feet totally calm and rebuked the storm so that it ceased completely. Seeing this, the disciples “were filled with great fear (ἐφοβήθησαν φόβον μέγαν),”14 fear (φόβος) being one of the primary passions in Stoic philosophy. Jesus’ disposition and actions in the story are in total opposition to fear. His frame of mind reveals a man who in fact knows no fear. In other words, he takes on the cloak of the ideal philosopher. However, elsewhere in the Gospel he acts like fear has taken control of him, even though the concept itself, “fear,” is not used in the text – the concept “grief” (λύπη), on the other hand, does occur. The passage is 14:33–36 where Jesus is described as greatly distressed when his impending fate approaches. He says to Peter, James, and John, “I am deeply grieved (περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου),15 even to death” (v. 34). Then going a little farther he “threw himself on the ground” (v. 35) and prayed to God that this “cup” might be removed from him, that is to say, that he might escape his imminent suffering and death. It is true that Mark softens his hero’s distress and agitation somewhat by including the words in Jesus’ prayer, “yet, not what I want, but what you [i. e. God] want,” but it seems clear that Mark is not identifying Jesus with a philosophical sage in this case. So also with Jesus’ final words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (15:34),16 words that are expressed in great pain, without any trace of self-control. A Stoic philosopher might have explained that fear is a contraction of the soul caused by the belief that something bad is about to happen.17 According to the Stoic, this belief is false, for the fear is not directed at something that really is bad, but at things that are morally indifferent, like pain and death. As in Jesus’ case, fear is the consequence of making too much out of things like pain and death. A close examination of these things will reveal that they cannot really harm a person, because they cannot affect the person’s essential moral being. They merely appear to be bad. But there are other emotions as well that Jesus expresses, like love. For instance, love is referred to in the story of the rich man who wished to inherit eternal life (10:17–22). In 10:21 Mark writes: “Jesus, looking at him, loved (ἠγάπησεν) him.” Is this feeling of love alien to Greco-Roman philosophers and to the ideal of the philosophical sage? Far from it. Some philosophers lay in fact great weight on love, especially the Roman Stoics.18 Thus, Seneca observes that “Nature begot me loving (amantem) all people” (Ep. 102.18).19 According to him, 14 15 16 17 18 19

“Filled with great awe” in the nrsv. A citation from Pss 41:6, 12; 42:5 LXX. Alluding to Ps 2:22. See Sandbach, Stoics, 61. See Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity, 28–29, 66–67, 156–166. My translation. The LCL translation reads: “I am naturally born to love all men.”

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Nature generated human beings related to one another (cognatos) and induced in them mutual love (amorem mutuum) (95.52). In other words, the concept of love is inherent in the Stoic teaching of the divine source of every human being and of universal humanity. Seneca’s objective was an “all-embracing love (amor) of the human race even as of oneself” (Clem. 1.11.2). Epictetus, too, emphasizes the concept of love. He even goes so far as to stress that the philosophical sage (the ideal, i. e. Stoicized, Cynic) must love (φιλεῖν) those who wrong him, even if they abuse and torture him (Diss. 3.22.54). He is obliged to love them as a “father or brother.” Thus, contrary to common opinion, contemporary philosophical ideals are fully in line with the feeling of love that Jesus shows to the person concerned. Whether Mark is aware of it or not, he places the highest ideals of Jesus Christ alongside the highest moral ideals in Roman Stoicism. To be sure, Mark uses the verb ἀγαπᾶν in this context, and not φιλεῖν, thus relating to the concept ἀγάπη which was commonly used among Christians and rarely by other groups, who preferred φιλία (and the verb φιλεῖν, although the verb ἀγαπᾶν is actually quite common in non-Christian sources).20 But the real difference between the two concepts, ἀγάπη and φιλία, is practically none.21 Instances of synonymous usage of the words (the verbs) include Aristotle, “To be loved (φιλεῖσθαι) is to be cherished (ἀγαπᾶσθαι) for one’s own sake” (Rhet. 1.11.17 [1371a]) and Dio Chrysostom, “It is somehow natural for the courageous to love (φιλεῖν) the courageous, while cowards eye them with misgiving and hate them as enemies, but welcome the base and like them (ἀγαπῶσιν)” (4 Regn. 4.15). In both cases, the verbs ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν are used as synonyms. The same holds true of the actual difference between the Latin amor and the Greek ἀγάπη/φιλία. Studies have demonstrated that these are also more or less equivalent.22 Taken together, one might say that there are “mixed emotions” in Mark’s description of Jesus’ feelings. Some feelings of Jesus fit well with images of the ideal philosopher, while others do not.

6.

Conclusion

In this article we have seen some examples of the possible ways in which Mark may have associated his ideal human being, Jesus Christ, with contemporary ideas about the ideal philosophical sage. While the discussion revealed some topics where this does not seem to have been the case, most of the topics showed close ideological ties that suggest that Mark intended the association to occur 20 Joly, Le vocabulaire, esp. 10–29. Cf. Stauffer, ἀγαπάω, 35–38. 21 See Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity, 158–159. 22 See Konstan, Friendship, 122.

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among his audience. All in all, the topics discussed above suggest that Mark inherited stories and sayings of Jesus, which he wanted to improve and tell as truthfully as possible, and he did so, among other things, by making use of philosophical traditions about the ideal sage.

Bibliography Ahearne-Kroll, S.P., “Who are My Mother and My Brothers?” Family Relations and Family Language in the Gospel of Mark, JR 81 (2001): 1–25. Barton, S.C., The Relativisation of Family Ties in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman Traditions, in H. Moxnes (ed.), Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor, Routledge 1997, 81–100. Betz, H.D., De fraterno amore (Moralia 478A–492D), in H.D. Betz (ed.), Plutarch’s Ethical Writings and Early Christian Literature (SCHNT 4), Brill 1978, 231–63. Collins, A.Y., Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia), Fortress Press 2007. Dillon, J. T., Musonius Rufus and Ecucation in the Good Life: A Model of Teaching and Living Virtue, University Press of America 2004. Downing, F.G., A Cynic Preparation for Paul’s Gospel for Jew and Greek, Slave and Free, Male and Female, NTS 42 (1996): 454–62. Griffin, M., Cynicism and the Romans: Attraction and Repulsion, in: R.B. Branham/M.-O. Goulet-Gazé (eds.), The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, University of California Press 1996, 190–204. Hommel, H., Herrenworte im Lichte sokratischer Überlieferung, ZNW 57 (1966): 1–23. Joly, R., Le vocabulaire chrétien de l’amour, est-il original? Universitaires de Bruxelles 1968. Konstan, D., Friendship in the Classical World, Cambridge University Press 1997. Krueger, D., The Bawdy and Society: The Shamelessness of Diogenes in Roman Imperial Culture, in R.B. Branham/M.-O. Goulet-Gazé (eds.), The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, University of California Press 1996, 222–239. Long, A. A., Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life, Clarendon Press 2002. Lutz, C.E., Musonius Rufus: “The Roman Socrates”, YCS 10 (1947): 1–147. Malherbe, A.J., Self-Definition among Epicureans and Cynics, in: B.F. Meyer/E.P. Sanders (eds.), Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 3: Self-Definition in the Graeco-Roman World, SCM Press 1982, 46–59. Rhoads, D./J. Dewey/D. Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (3rd ed.), Fortress Press 2012. Sandbach, F.H., The Stoics (2nd ed.), Duckworth 1989. Stauffer, E., ἀγαπάω κτλ, in: G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (ed.), TDNT (vol. 1), Eerdmans 1964, 35–55. Thorsteinsson, R.M., Jesus as Philosopher: The Moral Sage in the Synoptic Gospels, Oxford University Press 2018. –, Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality, Oxford University Press 2010.

Lauri Thurén

The Jesus of the Text Unmanipulated Parables as an Alternative to Historical and Theological Reconstructions

1.

Introduction

During the past decades, the search for the historical Jesus has witnessed great progress in methodology and the quantity of sources utilized. At this stage, there is a need for improvement, especially in the way this source material is used. In this article, I will address this issue from a specific perspective, asking how the synoptic parables can be used in the search for the historical Jesus. Typically, many of the parables in their current forms are assessed as anachronistically reflecting certain historical and theological issues after Jesus’ time. A few of these estimations will be critically scrutinized. The study of the historical Jesus has come a long way: from the optimistic Old Quest (1700–1900) to the pessimistic No Quest (1900–1950), the New Quest (1950–1980) as a facelift of the Old, and the more academically controlled Third Quest (1980–present), which focuses on Jesus in his Early Jewish context.1 The latest stage has generated substantial improvement on several fronts, especially since it is no longer guided as much by any particular idea or ideological or theological agenda. Scholars come from so many different backgrounds that the combined results can be assumed to be less guided by their relation to religious convictions.2 In addition, the methodological toolbox is now better equipped, and the source material is more expansive. This development has, in principle, led to more dependable results about what Jesus actually did or said, although the image of the historical Jesus is still far from unanimous, and serious challenges remain on several levels. 1 Brief illustrative overviews of the research history are provided by Srotmann, Der historische Jesus, 21–34; Baasland, Fourth Quest, 31–37; and Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus, 91–95; cf. also Holmberg, Futures, 888–90. 2 Charlesworth, Historical Jesus, 94–95, refers to Jewish, liberal, and conservative Christians, Roman Catholics, and various free thinkers.

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We may well ask: what now? Due to the variety of approaches and the increasing number of studies, Ernst Baasland laments that “it seems indeed difficult to find a new approach.”3 His suggestion is to revamp the whole “quest” to deal with the intentions of Jesus, while others want to change the focus on “Jesus remembered” or the like.4 Several other ways to mollify the hard historical question have been suggested.5 If the ultimate purpose is to discover historical information about Jesus with some reliability, however, obscuring or compromising the task may not be very helpful. Therefore, sophisticated studies under the umbrella of the third quest, as well as strictly historically oriented suggestions for the fourth, will not cease. One path forward regarding both the third and the fourth quests might be to pay more attention to the literary and persuasive characteristics of the key documents. It is my belief that these characterizations enhance their usefulness as historical sources. As an example, I will discuss the parables of Jesus in the synoptic gospels. I will not provide a full-scale attempt to assess the historicity of those parables, nor will I evaluate all the current (and sophisticated) approaches to such a goal. Instead, I will strictly focus on the text-internal material, using recent tools provided by modern narratology and argumentation analysis.

2.

Why Might an Existing Parable not be Original?

When searching for genuine words or ideas of Jesus in a parable attributed to him from a literary perspective, three issues must be addressed. First, is the parable comprehensible in its current form, or are there signs of corruption?6 Second, does the parable befit its persuasive and historical context, or are there signs of fabrication? Third, what is its relation to the possible synoptic parallels – are there signs of editing? Table 1. Problems with the Historicity of a Parable Type Symptom 1 Incomprehensible as such Incomprehensible in the 2 context 3 Different synoptic parallels

3 4 5 6

Reason Corruption Fabrication (parable or context) Editing

Solution Reconstruction Reconstruction/ rejection Reconstruction

Baasland, Fourth Quest, 31. Dunn, Christology. See Holmén/Porter, Handbook, Part I. To be sure, difficulty in understanding may be due to our lacking linguistic or cultural knowledge. Yet, if the best attempts to narrow these gaps fail, one must reckon with the possibility that the story is corrupt.

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In the first case, the storyline may be too difficult to understand (Type 1). The parable of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16:1–9) could be such a case. Perhaps the author received corrupted pieces of tradition, and was unable (or unwilling) to reconstruct a good story. Second, even if the storyline is reasonable per se, the parable may be incomprehensible in the context of the historical Jesus (Type 2). The parable of the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9–16), for instance, appears to contain information that only fits a later context. If this is true, later editorial material by the evangelist (or his sources) must be identified before searching for the original version. It is possible that the whole parable is a later addition. Third, even if it is reasonable in its historical context, the parable may have close, but not identical, synoptic parallels (Type 3). If the contexts resemble each other closely, a common source appears likely. The parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4–7; Matt 18:12–14) is one such example. In this case, it is possible that none of the existing versions are original, but a prototype must be reconstructed. In this article I will argue that reconstructions caused by Types 1 and 2 are often unnecessary and misleading, since many parables are comprehensible enough in their literary and persuasive context without the need for additions or reductions. If the internal logic of a story is lucid, and it meets the exigency presented by the evangelist, there is no need to alter the parable.7 Type 3 is a more intriguing case. When the framework stories of two resembling parables are dissimilar, it is feasible that all of the evangelists’ versions of the same basic parable are similarly historical, as they may have been originally told by Jesus on different occasions. Only when the framework stories are similar is a closer synoptic comparison required for historical reasons. Yet even in this case, the argumentative function of each version must first be assessed. As a result, I will argue that the parables that exist in the canonical documents make better sources for the historical Jesus than is usually thought to be the case. As a result, their authenticity is by no means postulated. As a talented storyteller, Luke may well have created coherent stories even without prior traditions. My only claim is that arguments based on literary or historical incomprehensibility must be re-evaluated on the basis of the parables’ literary and persuasive functions in their contexts. In the following section, I will discuss all of the three aforementioned problem areas (Types 1–3) in order to substantiate my hypothesis, and will estimate the impact of these results for the study of their relationship to the historical Jesus.

7 For example, see below the discussion about the Prodigal Son.

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Reconstructed vs. Empirical Parables

In order to understand the parables, and in order to regain the stories’ meanings as they were originally told by Jesus, scholars usually resort quickly to reconstructing them. The same applies to the search for the historical gospel writers —their ideologies and contexts—based on these parables. In one regard, these academic endeavors can be compared to the religious readings by theologians and Christian communities, who use the parables in the gospels as a source for different religious constructions.8 In both contexts, the existing stories are altered in order to become more useful for a specific purpose, which cannot be found in their real literary contexts. Yet, pursuing these text-external goals has meant in practice that the aims and messages of the existing Jesus (i. e. the literary Jesus character presented in the gospel texts) have, as a result, been disregarded to a great degree. My question is: What if this version of Jesus is sometimes closer to the historical version than the reconstructed one? During a comprehensive analysis of all 57 Lukan parables9 (and some of the Matthean parables10) in their rhetorical and argumentative context, I discovered that the commentators pay too little attention to the narrative, poetic, and argumentative work of the author. This negligence indicates that these parables may contain unused possibilities for studying Jesus’ message and thinking. Not only does the preliminary scholarly editing of the ancient documents weaken our possibilities to understand the message of a certain parable in its context, it is especially harmful that the historical information within the parable is simultaneously lost or corrupted, as hypothetical data is emphasized. Typical ways of manipulating the parable include (but are not limited to) the following: 1) The stories told by the evangelist’s protagonist are augmented by theological or socio-historical information, of which their implied readers were not aware.11 For the sake of interpretation, additional claims are made about the context, life, and exigencies of the figures within the parable.12 8 Thurén, Unplugged, 3–4. For examples of these practices concerning the Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), see pp. 54–55. 9 Thurén, Unplugged. 10 I have scrutinized the parables in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7) in Thurén, Parables in the Sermon. 11 It is common to read the parable of the Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) in the light of Jewish halakhic rules (Bauckham, Scrupulous), although Luke hardly assumed that readers would be cognizant of these rules. He had to explain to his audience more elementary things, such as, for instance, who the Sadducees were (Luke 20:29–33). 12 For example, in the parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4–7), a (good) shepherd is added to the story by most readers, even academic scholars, although there is no shepherd at all. Even more fatal to the storyline is a common axiom, that the victim in the parable of the Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) is a Jew (see Thurén, Unplugged, 59–61).

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2) Knowledge of later historical incidents cause the interpreters to label many parables (or parts thereof) as being later additions.13 3) Information within the parable is curtailed or modified. For example, Jesus’ striking exhortation to emulate the Unjust Steward’s behavior is explained away in various ways.14 4) Theological and historical axioms tend to overrule the existing parable and its context. The gospel writer’s reconstructed community and theology, and their effects upon the parable, or axiomatic knowledge about Jesus’ thinking, influence the interpretation.15 Even seeking coherence with modern religious or ethical standards blurs the interpretation of the original stories.16 5) Synoptic comparison leads modern commentators to overemphasize the alterations that the gospel writer has made to his explicit or reconstructed sources, although the putative readers of a gospel text were hardly cognizant of other versions.17 From the point of view of general literary research, these five methods of altering the original story are problematic. A literary piece of art ought to be studied in its own right.18 Although all of these five symptoms seldom occur within the same interpretation, it is difficult to find any scholarly scrutiny of Jesus’ parables that does not suffer from at least one of them. Yet, manipulating the source material not only unavoidably disturbs the interpretation of the parable, but also dramatically lessens the possibilities to utilize it for historical purposes. The reconstructions are usually motivated by the needs of interpretation. A central finding of my scrutiny of all the Lukan parables, however, was that no alterations are needed for this reason. On the contrary, when the goal is to understand a single parable, honoring the “director’s cut” (i. e. reading the existing document without modifications) is of great importance. This is seldom done, however, and the result is an immense variation of interpretations. Another reason for the diversity of readings is the custom of importing external data to the actual stories. Most of this additional information is unnecessary. Even if it is correct, it may be harmful, if Luke did not assume that his 13 For example, the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9–19) is explained as a later Christian narrative; see Thurén, Unplugged, 150 n. 5. 14 See Thurén, Unplugged, 107–47. 15 For example, Snodgrass (Stories, 720) laments that a straightforward understanding of Jesus’ command to use illegal wealth (Luke 16:9) makes one “shudder.” 16 See Thurén, Unplugged, 151. 17 For example, the parable of the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9–19) is interpreted in the light of Mark and the Gospel of Thomas. See Thurén, Unplugged, 150. 18 For literary approaches to the parables, see Hedrick, Parables; Many Things; Thurén, Unplugged, 6–9; 16–19. New Criticism emphasized the need to study the text without adding even correct information about the author’s life or the like (see Searle, New Criticism, 691–8).

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recipients were aware of it. He was an astute author, and there is evidence that he was cognizant of what his readers knew and what they did not know.19 Although they were not Palestinian peasants, he assumed that they would understand him. This is because stories suffice as such. Most fairy tales provide any audience with all the necessary information: flying carpets and speaking lamps can occur in exotic, oriental stories without distracting the mind of the listener who may be unfamiliar with such items. Thus unless proven otherwise, the information not provided by the author in the narrative and in its wider context (or not assumed to be already possessed by his readers) is superfluous. Klyne Snodgrass’s request to “breathe the air of the first century,” especially that in Palestine, before understanding the parables of Jesus, is misleading.20 The parables are like crossword puzzles. When one is given the liberty to draw new squares or delete existing ones, there is no limit to what one can do. If one has a clever interpretation that contradicts some utterance in the text, it is too easy a solution to claim that this utterance was added by the evangelist. Alternately, being assured that the evangelist himself was perplexed about the story and did not have a clue about its meaning, but copied it anyway,21 says more about the modern reader than it does about the document itself.22 While the author’s idea is thus irrevocably lost, so, too, may be the words of the historical Jesus. To be sure, there is no shortage of applicable literary methods to focus on the existing gospel text, and biblical scholars are aware of them. For example, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon reviews a great variety of them and mentions certain useful insights, such as “the parable should not refer but impel.”23 She even refers to American New Criticism,24 according to which the integrity of the text should be respected. Unfortunately, her own vision offers few tools for such a way of reading texts as historical sources. Struthers Malbon discusses widely the question of orality,25 although we by definition do not possess any oral version of the gospels. As Charles Hedrick points out, “the context in which we find the parables in the early Christian

19 Luke’s and his predecessor’s characterization of the Sadducees in Luke 20:27 indicates that, according to his assessment, they needed basic instruction about the religious groups in firstcentury Palestine. 20 Snodgrass, Stories, 25. 21 See Schellenberg, Which Master, 264, n. 1. 22 Bultmann, Geschichte, 199. 23 Malbon, New, 781. Oddly enough, standard literary approaches are called “New literary criticism,” due to Biblical scholars’ peculiar way of using the common name “literary criticism” for their own source analysis (ibid., 777). 24 Malbon, New, 780. 25 Malbon, New, 799–800.

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gospels are literary contexts.”26 The ancient sources as we possess them are hardly exact transcripts of older oral stories. Nor are they compilations of different written sources per se: presentations of the author’s (or his community’s) theology or the like. Regardless of their background, in their current form these narratives are independent literary pieces of art, of which each author is fully responsible to the tiniest detail. This almost self-evident fact is seldom taken into account. The parables are usually directly utilized as heaps of material for the historical author and the historical Jesus, instead of first focusing on the evangelist’s Jesus as a literary figure, or asking the evangelist’s persuasive goals and strategies for the audience implied in the text. First reading the parables as they stand in each document enables us to perceive the message and think of each implied gospel writer and his hero, Jesus. This means focusing neither on the historical Jesus nor on the Christ of the Church, but rather on the author’s protagonist who appears in the text. The information about this literary character can and should then be used for identifying and reconstructing the historical person beyond him, as far as his message and thinking appears to be coherent, meaningful, and not anachronistic. Hypotheses about later historical exigencies behind the parables should not be preferred, but rather used as a last resort. To summarize what we have covered so far: in order to find information about the historical Jesus, the parables in the main sources (i. e. the synoptic gospels) must first be studied as they stand. The parables ought to be seen as each author’s genuine and purposeful set of tools for shaping his audience’s values and behavior. One should first seek their function in their immediate narrative and argumentative context, and then within the whole document. If such a function can be found (in other words, if they work well within the context) there is less need for reconstructions. The result, in turn, may also have some bearing for historical questions.

4.

The parables fit the context of the historical Jesus

A typical way of misreading the parables is to label them at the outset as reflecting later historical events or ideological tensions. Such examples include the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, tensions between Christianity and Judaism, or between different Christian groups. Before resorting to such interpretations, which require adding information to the text, one should at least attempt to understand how a certain parable aims to function within the existing literary product. 26 Hedrick, Flawed, 3032.

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Anybody who argues that a parable pertains to questions that do not fit its literary context has the onus probandi. Before bearing that burden, it is useful to follow the existing narrative. There, Jesus is usually asked some simple question or provoked by some action. It would be odd if his response—a parable—dealt with the later fate of Jerusalem, Israel, or other far-reaching theological and/or historical claims. After all, these ideas would have made little sense to his partners in discussion. Consequently, scholars attribute them to the evangelist himself, or to some other source, but not to the historical Jesus. This comes close to circular reasoning. To be sure, the evangelist may have had some contemporary application in mind when he decided to include a certain parable in his book. This does not indicate, however, that such a parable would not befit the story world he has created, or its historical background. Typical examples of misreading the parables—concerning both their message and their historical value—are axiomatic Christological interpretations, which easily corrupt their function in their literary context. Below I will argue that grand parables about the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32) and the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) do not regain their meaning until they are cleansed of additional Christological or other dogmatic data. Correspondingly, to read certain parables as proclamations against the Jews and Jerusalem only blurs their meaning. Such are the parables of the Unfaithful Servant (Luke 12:42–48), the Great Dinner (14:16–24), the Talents (19:12–27), the Wicked Tenants (20:9–16), and the Fig Tree (21:29–31). The age-old, often unnoticed anti-Jewish ways of interpreting the Bible (and the still too common scholarly inability to understand the rhetorically colored language) both bias the way in which these parables are studied.27 If these parables are read solely within the context provided by the text, their relevance to studying the historical Jesus may be greatly increased. I will discuss these examples in the following section.

5.

The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32)

Luke’s longest parable tells about a reckless boy, his father, and the boy’s elder brother. According to the traditional allegorical Christian interpretation, the father is God or Jesus, the Prodigal Son is a repentant sinner, and the elder brother is a Pharisee, criticized by Jesus. For various reasons academic research occasionally suggests that the parable describes a situation that took place later than that of the historical Jesus. A key problem is the father’s overly mild attitude 27 For the arguably anti-Jewish language in the New Testament, see Luke T. Johnson’s excellent article “Anti-Judaism and the New Testament.”

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toward the elder brother, who thus cannot represent the bad Pharisees. Instead, a more sympathetic, yet erroneous, group must be found.28 Accordingly, the parable arguably deals with the relationship between Jews and Christians, or Jewish Christians and Hellenistic Christians.29 These readings are based on the problematic method of allegory, which disregards the actual context and directly identifies certain characters or details within the parable with real phenomena.30 These interpretations unnecessarily add external factors to the story. If read in its literary context, the parable makes perfect sense: Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees and scribes for welcoming sinners and eating with them (Luke 15:2), and he replies with three parables. Jesus’ goal is neither to describe God nor to denigrate his partners in discussion, but to defend himself against the charges. To this end, Jesus tries to persuade his antagonists to understand and even accept his behavior. The two introductory stories refer to what is self-evident: nobody would celebrate before finding what is lost. But the third parable meets the criticism better than the first two: contrary to the innocent sheep and coin, the Prodigal Son is just as guilty as the sinners in the context. Therefore, the reaction to his return is not self-evident, and Jesus presents two alternative solutions: to welcome him or to reject him. These options are personified by two characters. The antagonists are invited to choose the right role model. To this end, the father is presented in a more positive light than the elder brother. If the Pharisees and the scribes see the father as the hero of the story, they should now understand Jesus and even join the feast, since the father’s way of responding to a returning sinner resembles Jesus’ behavior in the context.31 If one abandons the axiom about Jesus’ highly negative attitude against the Pharisees, this story fits well with Luke’s narration about Jesus living in Palestine around the year 30 CE. His attitude toward the Pharisees is rather ambivalent, even optimistic. This must be taken into account when discussing to what degree the parable can be traced back to the historical Jesus.

28 Räisänen, Prodigal, 1617–36. 29 Niebuhr, Kommunikationsebenen, 481–94; Ollilainen, Jesus. 30 Allegory, or retelling reality with pseudonyms, means that a parable becomes but a claim and hardly has any real persuasive force; see Thurén, Unplugged, 19–22. 31 Thurén (Unplugged, 77–106) describes more closely the parable’s role in Jesus’ persuasive strategy.

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The Rich Man and Lazarus—Someone Rising from the Dead (Luke 16:19–31)

From the point of narratology, this is one of Jesus’ most misread parables. As Luke’s third-longest parable, it consists of twelve verses; nevertheless its scopus, the surprising turn determining the message, is often found already in the fifth verse (Luke 16:23), reporting rather stereotypically about turning the tables after death.32 Such a solution would make the rest of the story boring indeed, as if a standup comedian kept on telling a joke long after the punch line had been told.33 More likely, the biggest surprise is yet to come. Unfortunately, many interpreters are so fascinated by the first verses that they fail to remember this basic narrative convention.34 Another reason for curtailing the story may be the axiomatic labeling of discussion between Abraham and the Rich Man, or at least Abraham’s last sentence, as an anachronistic Christological addition to the story: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31). The verse is often later assessed vaticinium ex eventu about the resurrection of Jesus.35 The sentence makes perfect sense in the mouth of the Lukan Jesus, however, who is neither dead nor dying. Therefore it may have been uttered by the historical Jesus as well. First, the narrative would be artificially crippled without its last line. The parable’s structure and persuasive strategy resemble the preceding story about the Prodigal Son and his brother. Just like the father’s last comments in the corresponding aftermath in Luke 15:32,36 the discussion about loyalty to the Scriptures and reference to somebody rising from the dead serve well as the climax of the story.37 In both stories, the putative audience is taken by surprise. The stories should have ended with the reception of the Prodigal Son and by the punishment of the Rich Man. In both cases, the audience may start wondering why Jesus still keeps talking. This time Jesus suddenly inverts the goal of the parable: even the Pharisees who give alms are not safe, if they do not respect the Scriptures. At the end of the day, the parable is not necessarily an exhortation to give alms. Such a merely fictitious story would hardly persuade anybody, since it offers no 32 For ancient similarities, see Nolland, Luke, 826–27. Although no direct dependence can be demonstrated, the theme is hardly unique. 33 See Jeremias, Gleichnisse, 133. For a fuller discussion about this parable, see Thurén, Unplugged, 326–29. 34 See e. g., Snodgrass, Stories, 428–29. 35 For traditional interpretations, see Snodgrass, Stories, 419–36. 36 Pace Drury, Parables, 149–51. 37 Pace Leonhardt-Balzer, Wie kommt, 657.

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evidence for turning the tables after death. The parable may carry a strong message, however, for somebody who already holds almsgiving as a condition for salvation. Only in that case does it become a parable, illustrating the fate of those who neglect the Scriptures. Parables typically present examples that are not identical to the actual situation. Instead, they describe a different case, where a certain maxim applies. They often deal with commonly held values, as do references to different occupations or social practices in the shorter parables. Then the hearers ought to apply the same example to the case at hand. I have defined the parable’s persuasive function as follows: A parable alienates the audience from the discussed issue. They are supposed to accept a general principle in a different context, and this principle is then applied to the original issue.38 Second, the man rising from the dead cannot refer to Jesus, who is alive and well. His hearers could hardly anticipate a reference to his death, and neither do Luke’s putative readers. They are not told about Jesus’ resurrection until Luke 24.39 For them, the reference to a dead man’s resurrection denotes, primarily, familiar cases such as 1 Sam. 28.40 The parable can be understood based on previous knowledge of the Old Testament. It therefore befits Luke’s hero as he is presented in the text—perhaps also the historical Jesus. The traditional way of emphasizing the ethical message of the first part of the story is not overruled by this interpretation, just as the father’s warm welcome to the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:20–24) may function independently as well. These messages are in line with Luke’s general themes. Yet they are not supposed to diminish the importance of the parable’s proper meaning. In addition, they should not substitute the final climaxes so that these are labeled as later additions.

7.

Bad Servants (Luke 12:42–48; 19:12–27)

Two great parables report on a hard master, who returns unexpectedly and executes his treacherous subordinates: Luke’s seventh-longest parable, the Unfaithful Servant (Luke 12:42–48), and his second-longest parable, Minas (Luke 38 See Thurén, Unplugged, 369. 39 The Lukan audience might be different, but even for them, a reference to later generations (Nolland, Luke, 833) is misplaced. Luke’s Jesus seldom applies messianic prophecies to himself. Yet, his reference to Isa 24:7 in Nazareth (Luke 4:18–19) may enhance his authority. 40 King Saul was not helped by the spirit of the late Samuel, since he did not obey the prophet when he was alive.

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19:12–27). In the following, I will argue that these stories too make sense in their literary context without additional historical information. It is interesting to compare them with the Matthean parallels (Matt 24:42–51 and 25:14–30),41 but since the contexts are not identical, Matthew may present different historical versions of these stories.42 These parables are usually interpreted as being warnings against church leaders, or as eschatological prophecies against Israel or the Jews, justifying the forthcoming destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.43 When the parables are read in their actual literary context, however, these interpretations are anachronistic and superfluous. No Christian church existed at the time described by Luke, whereas the temple of Jerusalem was in good shape. When listening to a fictitious or historical narrative, the audience is expected to stay within the world of the story.44 Thus Jesus the Narrator cannot give guidance to the church or explain the destruction of Jerusalem. Even if Luke had such things in mind, the parables are better read first within their existing framework: by the story he is telling. There Jesus encourages his hearers (the disciples and other followers) to be vigilant, and warns them about wrong behavior in the absence of their master. This is done in the vein of prophetic traditions in the Old Testament45—no information about later incidents is necessary. Even if Luke has in mind readers’ aware of these incidents, they are still reading a story that took place much earlier. Any good story creates its own sufficient world, into which the readers are invited.46 No allegory is needed, either. The master is not identical with Jesus, God, or the Son of Man. The parables exemplify the Jewish qal wahomer reasoning (from the light to the weighty) manifested in the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9–16), as well: if an absent master will punish his bad servants, how much more so will God punish his own? Scholars have often found historical allegories in the parable about the Minas (Luke 19:12–27). There is a striking detail in the parable about the kingdom received by the master from a distant country. While this has created allusions to Herod Archelaos or somebody else in Herod’s family, no particular individual needs to be brought to mind, since such journeys were customary under Roman

41 Thorough comparisons are provided by Gerber, Es ist, 169–70, and Münch, Gewinnen, 250– 53. 42 For the synoptic challenge, see below. 43 Snodgrass, Stories, 528–29. 44 Neither Napoleon nor Disney fairies are supposed to use cell phones. 45 Snodgrass, Stories, 498–501, correctly refers to OT imagery. 46 See Segal, Cognitive-Phenomenological, 61–78.

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rule.47 In addition, the parable hardly anticipates Jesus’ “royal” arrival in Jerusalem, which ended the opposite way. This parable, too, is designed to be read in its context. According to Luke 19:11, some people believed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. Jesus reacts by telling a story in which some of the servants waiting for their master’s return did not use their time effectively enough, and produced no profit. Thus, the expectation of the approaching end is probably connected with such behavior; the parable aims to correct the situation.

8.

Prophecies against Jerusalem? (Luke 14:16–24; 20:9–16)

Two grand parables are commonly understood to be direct prophecies anticipating the destruction of Jerusalem: the Great Dinner (Luke 14:16–24) and the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9–16). Both are allegedly allegories portraying the forthcoming fate of Israel and its replacement by the Gentiles.48 Contrary to this reading, Luke presents each story in a specific situation, with distinct persuasive functions. Dissolving the parables from these settings and replacing them with anachronistic, hypothetical frameworks does injustice to the texts. Luke’s fifth-longest parable, the Great Dinner (Luke 14:16–24), reports of reluctant guests and the rich man’s surprising response to invite poor people instead. The parable is customarily seen as describing God’s rejection of the Jews and invitation of the Gentiles. Yet the story is comprehensible without such additional ideas. References to the Gentile mission or destruction of Israel would hardly make sense to Jesus’ tablemates in the narrative framework. The story demonstrates that the response to the invitation, rather than the status of those invited, ensures admission to the feast. Thus it deals with the topic of the identity of those feasting in the Kingdom of God, introduced in Luke 14:15. The logic follows the qal wahomer rule: if an earthly master can act in this way, how much more so can God? It is typical of Luke to let Jesus invite the unworthy to the Kingdom by healing the sick and proclaiming the gospel to the poor (Luke 14:4, 13). The parable supports this idea, and invites the audience to participate in it. No allusions to a Gentile mission or the rejection of the Jews are necessary. One may be tempted to connect the parable to Paul’s theological discussion about Israel and the Gentiles in Rom. 9–11: God calls the Gentiles only after the 47 See Nolland, Luke, 918. 48 Cf. Snodgrass, Stories, 316–17. Although he rejects the allegorical reading, he does argue that the parable “is about Israel’s response to Jesus.”

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Jews have rejected his invitation. There is an essential difference, however: whereas the master emphatically excludes those who were invited first (Luke 14:24), Paul proclaims that “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). Thus, at least for Luke’s readers, the primary meaning in the context is to be preferred. Luke’s final long parable, the Wicked Tenants (Luke 20:9–16), tells about reckless people who mistreat their landlord’s servants, collecting the rent for a vineyard. Eventually they kill their landlord’s son. Once again, the story ends when the landlord gets angry and “destroys” the tenants, giving the vineyard to other people. Typically, this parable is understood as a Christological prophecy against the Jews and Jerusalem, even if modern commentators mollify this interpretation toward a less anti-Jewish and anti-violent direction.49 These interpretations are based on several pieces of information, which are derived from outside the story. Alleged Old Testament traditions have invited interpreters to associate the landlord with God, the vineyard as Israel or Jerusalem, and the servants as the prophets. For the proper understanding of the parable, all of these allegorical allusions and anachronistic pieces of information are superfluous. Instead, one ought to focus on how Jesus’ hearers may understand the parable in the situation described in the framework story, and how Luke assumes his readers will comprehend it. To be sure, the vineyard may be known to readers with a Jewish background (or to people interested in Judaism) as a metaphor for Israel. The concept itself was so common throughout Mediterranean culture, however, that each time the vineyard was mentioned, Israel hardly came to mind. After all, neither Jesus’ nor Luke’s audience knew that the story would be included in the forthcoming New Testament and would eventually be studied on the same level as the Old Testament. Not until after the parable is there a direct reference to the Scriptures (Ps 118, quoted in Luke 20:17). Although the fate of Jesus is often seen as a key for understanding this parable, since Christian traditions connect the “son” with Jesus, Luke does not mention his death until chapter 23. Even if his audience is presumed to be aware of the passion narrative, this does not automatically have an impact on their reception of this preceding parable. Later, additional historical information has been found behind other details, such as the defeat of Herod Antipas in 36 CE, the death of Nero in 68 CE, and especially the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The audience of Jesus in the framework story, or the listeners of the historical Jesus, could not be 49 Thus Nolland, Luke, 953, argues that the reassignment of the vineyard refers to “the Christian leadership of the renewed People of God.” See also Oldenhage, Spiralen, 352; Snodgrass, Stories, 293–94, 296–97.

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cognizant of these forthcoming events, however, and neither could the putative readers of Luke’s story. Socio-historical details play a role for the putative audience only insomuch as they are supposed to be aware of them. For example, even though distant owners and lease arrangements are known issues, thus making the story easy to listen to from the outset, a good story does not need to reflect upon ordinary reality in every detail. Synoptic parallels and correspondence with the Gospel of Thomas play no significant role when the goal is merely to understand Luke. His recipients are not supposed to be aware of them. From their perspective, Luke is responsible for the story in every detail. Thus the alterations he has possibly made to the previous material are no more significant than other parts of the story. Modern religious ideals should naturally have no impact on understanding an ancient document. In order to perceive how the parable is designed to be understood by Luke’s putative audience, and whether this function has any historical relevance, one should not add to it any of the aforementioned external material. Instead, the parable should be read as an integral part of the argumentation structure, beginning from Luke 20:1, where the authority of Jesus and John the Baptist is discussed. Within this discussion, the parable simply illustrates and confirms a general rule: the messengers of a distant strongman should be obeyed. The general rule should then be applied to the ongoing discussion. If John, and correspondingly Jesus himself, are such messengers, the leaders ought to take their message seriously and act accordingly. Furthermore, the parable refers to God with qal wahomer logic: If a landowner will punish those who offend his delegates, how much more so will God? In any case, the parable does not prophey Jesus’ death, but serves as a serious attempt to make him heard. Jesus invites his antagonists to ponder the possibility that John was God’s messenger, and that he is as well. In that case, severe punishment threatens everybody who does not accept their message. Thus the recipients ought to accept them and their message, and act accordingly. Luke’s last tiny parable, the Fig Tree (Luke 21:29–30), has also been read as a reference to Israel: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. As soon as they produce leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.” But even this allegorical reference is superfluous.50 Jesus simply refers to something everybody can see, not necessarily to the Old Testament. Even if a fig tree there

50 Contra Nolland, Luke, 1008–09.

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symbolizes Israel, Luke’s addition of πάντα τὰ δένδρα (“all the trees”) indicates that for his audience, no precise symbolism is meant.51 My comprehensive analysis of all of Luke’s 57 parables in their literary and argumentative context has indicated that little or no later additional information is required in order to understand them.52 Each parable has a distinguishable function within its context, and its effect on the implied audience is mostly easily identified. They fit well into Luke’s general narrative without additional theories about later exigencies. They do not contain thoughts or details contradicting the story-world that was created by Luke. Thus, the axiomatic tendency to read some parables as later prophecies against Israel, or as describing the destruction of Jerusalem, appears to be too hasty, since they can be explained without such additional information. When each parable is read intact within its literary context, they appear general enough to be comprehensible and functional for a putative Lukan recipient. Such an individual is anyone within the Mediterranean culture with some knowledge of the Jewish culture during the first or second century CE. In this regard, dating Luke’s work is not crucial. Jesus’ historical hearers, viz. firstcentury Palestinian Jews, should hardly be excluded from that group. These parables thus provide at least a solid basis for the further search for the historical Jesus and the stories he actually told.

9.

The Synoptic Challenge

The hypothesis presented above can be encountered by referring to variations between the evangelists’ versions of the same stories. Some 77 percent (44 cases) of Luke’s parables are more or less common to other synoptic gospels, and their versions are not identical with those written by Luke. Even if they are comprehensible as such, one cannot avoid asking whether several different versions of the same parable within the synoptic gospels can all be original at the same time. It would be naïve to assume that each synoptic version of the parables reports ipsissima verba Jesu, originating from first-hand witnesses, accessed by each evangelist. More plausibly, the variation may bear witness to tradition processes and editorial work, either by the evangelists or their sources. Thus, even if there is no need to assess the parables or certain details therein as being later additions for 51 In the otherwise rather identical Mark 13:28–30 and Matt 24:32–34, there is no such generalization. For the synoptic comparison, see Dormeyer, Wir sind, 371. 52 Thurén, Unplugged.

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the sake of comprehension, the various versions may point to some traces of editorial work, whether due to artistic and/or theological needs, problems in transmitting the story, or the like. There is no shortage of dependable analyses of such developments, even if many studies are blurred by claims of narrative or historical incomprehensibility discussed above. Signs of editorial work naturally challenge the idea of utilizing single, unchanged parables as historical sources, or as models of how the original story might have looked. Nevertheless, this synoptic challenge is alleviated by the specific characteristics of the parables: they differ fundamentally from historical description. When the gospels describe a one-time incident in the life of Jesus, for example, his capture in Gethsemane (Mark 14:43–52; Matt 26:47–56; Luke 22:47–53), various versions cannot represent historical reality in the same way. The parable genre is essentially different, however. These stories resemble good jokes. If Jesus told a parable or a striking example once, he probably retold it on many occasions and for several purposes, especially in front of different audiences. In fact, it would be odd if he invented an appealing narrative that he only used once.53 Thus, dissimilarities between the parables in the gospels may sometimes—but not always—be due to the different original parables: the historical Jesus told the same story several times on several occasions. Thus, several versions of the same story can, in principle, be equally authentic. Hard evidence of such circulation is not difficult to find: both Matthew and Luke re-use some parables within their own presentations: the Bad Tree appears in both Matt 7:16–20 and 12:33; and the Lamp in both Luke 8:16 and 11:33. This empirical evidence shows how the same author re-uses a parable for different purposes. It is probable that the same holds true for the historical Jesus. There are also cases where two slightly dissimilar parables are told in two gospels for different purposes. It is typical that Matthew does not refer to Jesus when Luke does: see Crazy Salt (Matt 5:13; Luke 14:34–35), the Lamp (Matt 5:15; Luke 8:16), or Eye as a Lamp (Matt 6:22–23; Luke 11:34–36). Correspondingly, in Matt 7:16–20, the Bad Tree refers to other people, not to the audience, as in Luke 6:43–45. Again, the historical Jesus may have circulated his stories in the same vein. Even the narrative quality varies: the parable of the Two Builders in Matt 7:24– 27 appears to be inferior as a story compared to Luke 6:48–49. This does not indicate, however, that Matthew was a bad storyteller, or that either one made the original story better. What if Matthew simply was true to his source? In such cases, it is misleading to axiomatically assume that two evangelists have edited the same source for their own purposes.

53 See also Snodgrass, Stories, 25.

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Arland J. Hultgren’s best example of the evangelists’ editorial work is the parable of the Lost Sheep in Matt 18:12–14 and Luke 15:4–7. According to Hultgren, Luke emphasizes the “immense joy of the shepherd (symbolizing God),” whereas Matthew highlights “the urgency of the shepherd (symbolizing God)” in seeking the lost. Since Matthew’s version is more ecclesiological, Luke’s first version must be “closer to the original proclamation of Jesus.”54 Several points can be made against such explanation. First, it is based on a careless reading of the original versions. Neither story contains a “shepherd.” In Luke, the person seeking the sheep is “one of you”: i. e. a Pharisee or a scribe to whom he is telling the story. In Matthew, the seeker is τις ἄνθρωπος (“an individual”), i. e. anybody possessing sheep or in charge of them, and the hearers, who are his disciples, ought to identify with this type of person. Hultgren’s estimations about the functions of these stories are arbitrary, as well. Luke 15:7 does not emphasize that there is joy in heaven over a repentant sinner, but that there is more joy over one repentant sinner than over 99 righteous ones. In other words, it is more natural to seek what is lost and rejoice after finding it than to seek what is not lost.55 Matthew’s and Luke’s Jesus characters tell about the lost sheep to different audiences. The exigencies are different, the stories are not identical, and their functions probably differ as well. It is hardly advisable to attempt to harmonize these two stories into one original version, or to proclaim one to be more genuine than another. More likely, if the imagery has been used by the historical Jesus, he has done so on different occasions. As Nolland points out, the authors had access to more sources than we do.56 The reliable identification of editorial work or mere fabrication is difficult when only one source exists, although such can never be ruled out, either.57 More interesting are cases when a parable, the exigency, and the audience all resemble each other to a great extent in several sources, but the story still contains clear variations. For example, the parable of the Wicked Tenants is presented in an identical, one-time context in Mark 12:1–12, Matt 21:33–46, and Luke 20:9–19: the leaders are questioning Jesus’ authority in the temple during his last week in Jerusalem, and he replies with this parable. The storyline and the wording de-

54 55 56 57

Hultgren, Message, 2559. See Thurén, Unplugged, 86–89. Nolland, Luke and Acts, 1906–7. For example, suggesting that Luke has created an own “L-parable,” since it fits Lukan theology, runs the risk of circular reasoning.

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livered by Mark, Matthew, and Luke resemble each other without being exactly the same.58 Theoretically, there are at least three options: First, the evangelists rely on different sources, second, they or their predecessors have edited the parable, or, third, Jesus has told the same story on another occasion(s) as well, and some of the evangelists have used such a version. Regardless of the explanation, respecting each version of the principally same parables in different synoptic gospels leads to three different sets of parables. These compilations cannot be simultaneously historically original. Although such a result is naturally less satisfying than a single, reconstructed presentation, it offers a far more dependable basis for continuing studies.

10.

Impact on Other Material in the Gospels

What has been said about the parables may apply to other material in the gospels as well. One should ask how each narrative, as an integral piece of art, is designed to appeal to its implied, text-internal audience, before suggesting any later historical or theological influence. This may give some fresh air to old interpretations. For example, the chreiai, brief anecdotes about a particular individual, are the parables’ little sisters: short stories with a poignant punch line.59 Only their truth claim is different. The chreiai are presented as historical one-time incidents. Thus, only if a chreia has no differing versions and works well within its literary setting, a text-internal explanation suffices. There is no need to label it as a later addition, although such a possibility cannot be ruled out either. Furthermore, just like the parables, the chreiai too are told with a rhetorical purpose: to produce a maximal effect on the audience, not simply in order to share information. When three different versions of a chreia exists, behind them only one original story is feasible. Thus, Mark 12:13–17, Matt 22:15–22, and Luke 20:20–26 apparently report of the same occasion: Jesus’ enemies tried to entrap him by asking whether it was permissible to pay taxes to Caesar. The stories have slight differences. The possible reasons for the variations are the same as with the parables discussed above, but so is the effect on the question of historicity: strict respect for the authors’ versions leads in principle to three different historical Jesuses. In

58 The most important difference is that only in Mark will the new tenants pay their rent on time. By contrast, GosThom 65 reports a rather different version. For a closer comparison, see Oldenhage, Spiralen, 364–5. 59 See Hock/O’Neil, Chreia.

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this case the differences are minimal, which, however, is also not a positive indication of its historicity.

11.

Conclusion

Critical research has witnessed many Jesuses from the proclaimed to the remembered, from the historical to the real one. Such oscillation of the perspective, or shifting the burden of proof back and forth from those accepting historical information presented in the gospels to those denying it, hardly yields any new knowledge of the historical Jesus per se. The same applies to emphasizing certain aspects of his teaching and behavior, or imposing on him different roles such as rebel, philosopher, god, or Jew. It is possible that too little attention has been paid to the Jesus in the text, i. e. the three literary protagonists of the synoptic evangelists. It is my claim that reluctance to resort to reconstructions may help us to recognize reliable historical information offered by these explicit and empirical documents. Studying the Lukan parables as they stand, within their actual context, has indicated that they contain more of such material than is usually thought. To be sure, reading the text as it stands is not an easy task. The misleading title “Good Samaritan” effectively hides the parable’s actual plot. The parable of the Dishonest Manager appears so enigmatic that one is tempted to reconstruct a better version. The parable of the Wicked Tenants recalls so well the fall of Jerusalem that such allegorical references are hard to avoid. The Prodigal Son has given impetus to so many religious messages that it is difficult to read without these messages in mind. What has been said about the parables applies (with certain modifications) to other literary types within the gospels as well. Instead of taking them primarily as the author’s attempt to describe historical circumstances, or as his dogmatic proclamation, their narrative characteristics and persuasive purposes in their literary contexts ought to be identified and kept in mind. Their effect on the way the authors display Jesus must be considered. One prerequisite for a literary approach is respect for the integrity of the ancient documents. What makes sense within the author’s own story about the earthly Jesus must not be too easily labelled as a fabrication caused by some later exigency. First, each text should be read as an independent piece of persuasive artistry; only then can they be compared to one other. Perhaps this may help us attain information about the historical Jesus that has been missed by previous trends in scholarship.

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Bibliography Baasland, E., Fourth Quest? What did Jesus Really Want?, in T. Holmén/S. E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 31–56. Bauckham, R., The Scrupulous Priest and the Good Samaritan: Jesus’ Parabolic Interpretation of the Law of Moses, NTS 44 (1998): 457–89. Bultmann, R., Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, FRLANT 29, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1921. Charlesworth, J.H., The Historical Jesus: How to Ask Questions and Remain Inquisitive, in T. Holmén/S. E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 91–128. Dormeyer, D., Wir sind schon wer, in R. Zimmermann (ed.), Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007. Drury, J., The Parables in the Gospels: History and Allegory, Crossroads 1985. Dunn, J.D.G., Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 2nd ed., Eerdmans 1989. Gerber, C., Es ist stets höchste Zeit, in R. Zimmermann (ed.), Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007. Hedrick, C.W., Parables as Poetic Fictions: The Creative Voice of Jesus, Wipf and Stock 2005. –, Many Things in Parables: Jesus and his Modern Critics, Westminster John Knox 2004. –, Flawed Heroes and Stories Jesus Told: The One About a Man Wanting to Kill, in T. Holmén/S. E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 3023–56. Hock, R.F./E.N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, vol 1, Scholars Press 1986. Holmberg, B., Futures for the Jesus Quest, in T. Holmén/S. E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 887–917. Holmén, T./S.E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011. Hultgren, A.J., The Message of Jesus II: Parables, in T. Holmén/S. E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 2549–71. Jeremias, J., Die Gleichnisse Jesu, 2nd ed., Zwingli-Verlag 1952. Johnson, L.T., Anti-Judaisn and the New Testament, in T. Holmén/S. E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 1609–38. Leonhardt-Balzer, J., Wie kommt ein Reicher in Abrahamns Schoss? (Vom reichen Man und armen Lazarus), in R. Zimmermann (ed.), Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007. Malbon, E.S., New Literary Criticism and Jesus Research, in T. Holmén/S.E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 777–807. Münch, C., Gewinnen oder Verlieren, in R. Zimmermann (ed.), Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007. Niebuhr, K.-W., Kommunikationsebenen im Gleichnis vom Verlorenen Sohn, TLZ 116 (1991): 481–94. Nolland, J., Luke, WBC 35, Word 1989–2002. –, Luke and Acts, in T. Holmén/S. E. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Brill 2011, 1901–31.

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Oldenhage, T., Spiralen der Gewalt (Die Böse Winzer) Mk 12,1–12, in R. Zimmermann (ed.), Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2007. Ollilainen, V., Jesus and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Ph.D. diss, Åbo Akademi University 2008. Räisänen, H., The Prodigal Gentile and His Jewish Christian Brother: Lk 15:11–32, in Fr. van Segbroeck et al. (eds.), FS Frans Neirynck, vol 2, BETL 100b, Leuven University Press 1992, 1617–36. Schellenberg, R.S., Which Master? Whose Steward? Metalepsis and Lordship in the Parable of the Prudent Steward (Lk. 16.1–13), JSNT 30.3 (2008): 263–88. Searle, L., New Criticism, in M. Groden et al. (eds.), The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory, 2nd ed., The Johns Hopkins University Press 2005, 691–98. Segal, E.M., A Cognitive-Phenomenological Theory of Fictional Narrative, in J. Duchan (ed.), Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Perspective, Lawrence Earlbaum 1995, 61–78. Snodgrass, K., Stories with Intent: A Comprehensible Guide to the Parables of Jesus, Eerdmanns 2008. Srotmann, A., Der historische Jesus: Eine Einführung, Schöningh 2012. Thurén, L., Parables Unplugged: Reading the Lukan Parables in Their Rhetorical Context, Fortress 2014. –, Parables in the Sermon on the Mount: A Cognitive and Rhetorical Perspective, in R. Roitto et al. (eds.), Social and Cognitive Perspectives on the Sermon on the Mount, Equinox 2019.

Kari Syreeni

Divine or Human Emotions? The Character of Jesus in the Gospel of John

1.

Introduction

At least since Ernst Käsemann’s provocative essay on The Testament of Jesus, the Johannine high Christology has been a bone of contention among New Testament scholars. For Käsemann, John represented naïve docetism: his Jesus was “God walking on the face of the earth”1 and thus only seemingly a human being. In response to Käsemann, many interpreters have stressed the deeply human characteristics of the Johannine Jesus, or have argued for a balance between the divine and human attributes of Jesus.2 It would seem that a promising entry into the discussion regarding the divinity and humanity of the Johannine Jesus is to focus on the emotions of Jesus as described in the Gospel. Thus I will study the Gospel’s references to Jesus’ emotions – anger, love, etc. – to see how these reflect the divinity or humanity of Jesus. As will be clear, my point of view is redactioncritical. Before embarking on a study of the Johannine text, a few hermeneutical issues will be discussed.

1 Ernst Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17 (tr. Gerhard Krodel, London: SCM, 1968), 73. (Translation of Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17, Tübingen: Mohr, 1966.) 2 Typical examples are Marianne Meye Thompson, The Incarnate Word: Perspectives on Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, MA: J.C.B. Mohr Siebeck [Paul Siebeck], 1988) and Petr Pokorný, “Der irdische Jesus im Johannesevangelium,” NTS 30 (1984), 217–28.

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The Metaphorical Humanity of God

A full-length study on the emotions of Jesus in John has been written relatively recently by Stephen Voorwinde.3 His interpretation is mainstream conservative, or evangelical, so it comes as no surprise that he sees a substantial harmony and cooperation between the divine and human aspects of Jesus in the Gospels, particularly in John. His analysis is an attempt to pinpoint the difference and compatibility between the two aspects in the Johannine portrayal of Jesus. This raises fundamental questions concerning divinity. Does God have emotions? How do God’s emotions differ from those of humans – and how can we trace the difference? The God of the Hebrew Scriptures certainly has emotions,4 not to mention other human traits. However, the human characteristics of the Israelite God seem to diminish over time. There is a huge difference between the description of God walking in the garden of Eden (Gen 3:8) and smelling the pleasing odor from Noah’s burnt offerings (Gen 8:21) to the abstract image of God in Israelite wisdom literature. The decreasing humanity of God is also seen in classical Christian theology’s thought of an impassible deity, as Voorwinde remarks.5 At the same time, there is obviously a limit as to how far a Jewish or Christian concept of God can be freed from human attributes, insofar as the concept is still theistic, that is, as far as God is thought to be a person. At this point, cognitive scientists of religion might suggest that the image of an anthropomorphic god is created by the human psyche in the course of evolution. There is no need here to delve into such depths. Let me just mention the psychologist Valerie Tarico, a former evangelical believer and thus an outspoken skeptic, who has written a popular scientific series of texts and videos that focus on God’s emotions. I find one of her sharp formulations especially thought-provoking, namely that “the Biblical God is hopelessly human.”6 If “hopelessly human” means inevitably human, it makes a good point. The biblical God is inevitably human to the extent that he is conceived of as a person. And as a person, he is difficult to imagine without thoughts and emotions.

3 Stephen Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel (Library of New Testament Studies 284; London: T&T Clark International, 2005). See also Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotion in the Gospels (London: T&T Clark International, 2011), 151–213. 4 See Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel, 271–77 (Appendix 1). According to this statistics, the most common emotions of God seem to be anger and rage. 5 Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel, 33. 6 Valerie Tarico, “God’s Emotions – Why the Biblical God is hopelessly human (Part 1),” at the website ExChristian.net (http://new.exchristian.net/2010/09/gods-emotions-why-biblicalgod-is.html). Access date December 7, 2015.

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The way in which most readers of the Bible – and apparently most of its writers – have come to terms with the disturbing anthropomorphic descriptions of God is to recognize or assume a measure of metaphoricity. God did not “really” walk in the garden or smell the odor, because he does not have feet or a nose. The measure of metaphoricity varies depending on the nature of the description and the writer’s or reader’s sensibilities, although we seldom have means to ascertain the variation. When it comes to thoughts and emotions, it would seem that the measure of perceived metaphoricity is relatively modest. This is so because thinking and feeling are core elements in the concept of personhood. A biblical theist cannot but believe that God “really” knows everything, has plans and intentions towards people, and has feelings and proper responses to human actions. This “really” may, however,be somehow qualified, so that God’s thoughts are not quite like human thoughts, nor is God’s love or hate quite similar to human emotions. In Christian theology, one emotion of God, his love, has especially often been understood as opposite to human love.7 Even so, it cannot be conceived of as totally different from human love, or else it would rather seem like an Orwellian use of the concept of love. Since the special quality of God’s love has been claimed for the Johannine understanding of love, and is also one of Voorwinde’s main ideas in his monograph, I will return to this issue. At this stage, I only suggest that such differences or opposites are hard to verify. Instead, what seems to be used almost invariably as a criterion for distinguishing God’s emotions from human affections is that the former cannot, or should not, be questioned. Everything that God does, thinks or feels is justified and right. In fact, it is only to be expected that the “biblical” God’s plans, reactions and objects of love cannot be understood completely by human standards. Cognitive scientists hold that such “minimal counterintuitiveness” is in the very nature of superhuman agents.8 As Isaiah (55:8) puts it: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, 7 This idea has been promoted by Anders Nygren’s influential but contested study, Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna: Eros och agape (2 vls, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1930 & 1936). My references are to the English translation, Agape and Eros (tr. Philip S. Watson, London: SPCK, 1953). According to Nygren, agape is God’s creative and unconditional love: “God does not love that which is already in itself worthy of love, but on the contrary, that which in itself has no worth acquires worth just by becoming the object of God’s love” (p. 78). The desire-based and egocentric eros, by contrast, is “a love that is directed upwards, it is the soul’s upward longing and striving towards the heavenly world, the world of Ideas. (pp. 176–77). Nygren posits a contrast between the Christian agape and the Hellenistic (Platonic) eros, a contrast which is based on ideal (rather than concrete) types. Nygren points out that the eros motif found its way into Christian theology, too, which is hardly surprising (see Deut 6:4; Mark 12:30, etc.). 8 The minimal counterintuitiveness theory (MCI) posits that concepts that violate some, but not too many category expectations are more likely memorized, and thus more effective, than concepts that are fully in accordance with expectation s or include a maximal amount of counterintuive traits. A speaking animal or a flying carpet would be minimally counter-

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nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” Theologians, though, have often sought to minimize the counterintuitiveness of God by seeking justification for God’s strange-looking ways. A typical argument is based on God’s omniscience: if God seems to act or react in a way that challenges our normal expectations, or behaves directly against our human values, then the perceived arbitrariness of God must be due to our restricted human knowledge. If human beings knew what God knew they would not criticize him.

3.

The Metonymic Divinity of the Johannine Jesus

In John, and to a lesser extent in other early Christian gospels, there is a special twist in the God/human relationship in that Jesus has both human and divine characteristics. According to the Johannine prologue, the Word – Logos – was in the beginning with God (1:2) and then “became flesh and lived among us” (1:14).9 At the close of the Gospel, Thomas confesses Jesus as “My Lord and my God” (20:28). However, the equation of Jesus and God is ambiguous. Theologians may marvel at the mystery of God becoming a human being, but what happens is rather a split within the divinity. Instead of one God, John presents the duality of Father and Son. The Father stays in heaven, while his Son comes to earth. Although the Johannine Christology is “high” in that it stresses the pre-existence of Jesus, the basic scheme represents a developed form of the early “God sent his Son” Christology (cf. Gal 4:4). While Jesus the Son is in many ways equal to God, he is also subordinate to the Father (John 14:28 etc.). This ambivalence highlights not only the metaphoricity, but more precisely the metonymity of Jesus’ relation to God. To be the “Son” of God must be somehow metaphorical, or else God is understood in all too anthropomorphic terms. At the same time, the family metaphor allows for a metonymic use, where the divinity is extended from father to Son. The precise nature of the metonymity is necessarily unclear, as it oscillates between identity and difference. Due to the oscillation, Jesus appears to be a rather complex superhuman agent with both divine and human attributes. A further complicating factor is that the human

intuitive. For the theory, see Pascal Boyer, The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion (Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 1994); Boyer, Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits, and Ancestors (London: Random House, 2001); Pascal Boyer & Charles Ramble, “Cognitive Templates for Religious Concepts: Cross-Cultural Evidence for Recall of Counter-Intuitive Representations,” Cognitive Science 25 (2001), 535–564. 9 All biblical quotations are from the NRSV.

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attributes of Jesus may reflect a mode of divine adaptability, as Jason S. Sturdevant has argued for the Johannine Logos.10 However – and here we enter a classical, or as some may suggest old-fashioned, exegetical problem – it cannot be excluded that one reason to the complexity of the characterization of Jesus in John is due to the Gospel’s redaction-history.11 Many hypotheses concerning underlying sources and compositional stages have been proposed to solve John’s apparent literary aporias. A still greater number of scholars have recognized the possibility of a complex literary development but refrain from reconstructive attempts. Voorwinde is among the last mentioned scholars, and his decision to focus on the final Gospel is in itself methodologically sound. To interpret the emotions of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is tricky enough without adding one more factor into the interpretative grid. For better or worse, I have decided to include the redaction-critical issue. This is, first, because Voorwinde has shown that practically all passages where Jesus’ emotions are described in John have to do with the passion theme, and secondly, because I have in several articles argued that there is a late passion-oriented redaction of John and an early layer of tradition which did not have the passion storyline.12 This is not to say that the passion narrative is the creation of the late redaction. Neither does the passion redaction hypothesis mean that the motif of Jesus death is completely absent before the passion redaction. The hypothesis means only that the incorporation of the passion story into the Fourth Gospel is of late origin. We will see whether the redaction-critical viewpoint might help us understand the emotions of the strange Johannine God/man.

10 Jason S. Sturdevant, The Adaptable Jesus of the Fourth Gospel: The Pedagogy of the Logos (NTSuppl 162; Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2015). The concept of adaptability was a commonplace within Greek and Roman culture, referring in the widest sense to a person’s ability to accommodate to vatious people and circumstaces while maintaining a consistent character (p. 14). Sturdevant then focuses on the pedagogical/ psychagogical adaptability required of a good teacher (pp. 1–48) and Philo’s portrayal of the psychagogy of Logos (pp. 47–65). 11 It is hoped that Urban C. von Wahlde’s meticulous redaction-historical commentary on John and 1–3 John (The Gospel and Letters of John, 3 vls.; Eerdmans Critical Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich./Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2011) revitalizes this approach to Gospel literature. However, my own hypothesis deviates from von Wahlde’s more customary three-tired model (which comes basically from Bultmann and was developed, e. g., by Raymond Brown, roughly speaking: Signs Gospel – Evangelist – late redaction). 12 I introduced this hypothesis in the article “Incarnatus est? Christ and Community in the Johannine Farewell Discourse,” in Testimony and Interpretation: Early Christology in its Judeo-Christian Milieu: Studies in Honour of Petr Pokorný (ed. Jan Mrázek and Jan Roskovec; JSNTSup 272; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2004), 247–64. The hypothesis includes the assumption that the late passion redactor was aware of Mark and Matthew, but not of Luke’s Gospel.

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The Zeal of Jesus (John 2:13–25)

The first time Jesus’ emotions are mentioned in John is in the story of the cleansing of the temple, which is narrated right after the first “sign” at Cana. Now Jesus is in Jerusalem and apparently doing many “signs” (σημεῖα) so that many believed in him (2:23). Jesus, however, “would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (2:24–25). Such knowledge is clearly superhuman, and Jesus’ distancing attitude seems to stress his divine superiority. However, a rather different picture is given in the temple incident, which the narrator interprets in 2:17: “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” Surely zeal could also be a divine attribute, and no doubt Jesus’ action can be seen as manifesting God’s attitude towards the temple practice. Yet this only makes Jesus a human vehicle of God’s will, not unlike the Old Testament prophets. The violent story itself and its immediate scriptural interpretation speak for very human emotions and do not require that Jesus possessed superhuman knowledge. The scriptural quotation is from Ps 69:9 where it refers to human emotion. Other tensions can be observed between the sign discourse in 2:18–22 and the conclusion in 2:23–25: The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

The conclusion in 2:23–25 refers to many “signs” that Jesus was doing, but only one is discussed in 2:18–22, and this was a future event, which the crowds in Jerusalem could not have experienced in the narrative world. The narrator might have in mind the wine miracle at Cana, but even so the narrative is not quite logical, because the narrator does nothing to indicate that the Jerusalem crowds knew of that sign (which made the disciples believe in Jesus, 2:11). While the sign dispute does not fully cohere with the conclusion, it also stands in tension with the preceding cleansing story. Jesus’ temple action, as told in this story, was obviously intended as a cleansing and a restoration of the temple, whereby the elements of commerce were removed. The sign dispute, however, presupposes that the temple is to be destroyed and replaced with an entirely different entity, the body of Jesus. Although the cleansing of the temple could be interpreted (and obviously was interpreted by the narrator) as metaphorically denoting its replacement, the metaphor is rather strained: in the cleansing story

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Jesus acts towards the temple, but in the signs dispute it is suggested that “the Jews” will destroy the temple, viz. by crucifying Jesus’ body. There is also a remarkable shift in the portrayal of Jesus. The human (or perhaps diabolic) “zeal” is now showed by “the Jews” who will act as destroyers, while Jesus is the sovereign master who himself has the divine power to “build” the new temple (cf. 10:18). In v. 22 there is the specifically Johannine hindsight device that the disciples “remembered” afterwards, after the resurrection, what Jesus had done and how he fulfilled the Scriptures. In 12:16 the device is used in a most revealing way, as it is stated that the disciples did not “know” it at first; only after Jesus was glorified “they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.” Taken at face value which I think we should do, the remark indicates that the disciples were first unaware of Jesus’ last entrance and the accompanying events; that is, they learned afterwards not only the scriptural interpretation of the event (the things that “had been written of him”) but the very event (that which “had been done to him”). Since the entrance scene inaugurates the passion story, the disciples’ ignorance is quite remarkable. In 2:22, as well, the initial ignorance pertains both to the event (namely, that Jesus had said this) and its scriptural interpretation. But what Scripture is meant in v. 22? The best candidate is obviously the one cited in v. 17,13 but then the scriptural testimony is not about resurrection, or building a new temple. Thus the reference to scripture here seems a bit odd. The oddity may indicate that the hindsight device in v. 22 (possibly with v. 21) is the passion redactor’s remark, while the rest of the sign dispute reflects an earlier source. In 2:17, the disciples also remember a scripture that interprets an episode dealing with Jesus’ death. This time it is not said that they knew the event and its interpretation afterwards. Since the second remembrance remark (v. 22) comes soon after, and pertains to the same theme (Jesus and the temple), it is quite conceivable that the narrator meant v. 17 in a similar way. However, the difference in formulation, together with the above mentioned difference in the characterization of Jesus, may indicate that the scriptural quotation in 2:17 goes together with the event it interprets and thus represents an earlier stage in the Johannine Redaktionsgeschichte than v. 22. With these conclusions, we have discerned the following strata of tradition and redaction in John 2:13–25, with each layer having a distinct view of Jesus and his emotions: (1) The temple cleansing story (2:13–16) portrays Jesus as a prophet-like character. His emotions are not described, but the action speaks for itself and corresponds to the scriptural interpretation (2:17): Jesus’ “zeal” is so burning 13 Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel, 124.

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that it will eventually “consume” him. This interpretation clearly envisages Jesus’ death, and the cleansing story is readily understandable as a part of a passion tradition. Together, the story and its scriptural backing make clear that Jesus’ action in the temple was a major reason – or the reason – for his death. Whether this tradition is dependent on the Markan or Matthean passion narrative will not be discussed here, but the cleansing story with its interpretation suggests, on the one hand, that its general outlook resembles the synoptic parallels for its concrete, straightforward style and use of Old Testament quotations, while on the other hand showing some creative details that might be seen as narrative embellishments. The Christology of this piece of passion tradition is relatively down-to-earth, yet consistent with other Johannine layers in depicting the God of Jesus as “my Father” (2:16). (2) The concluding passage (2:23–25) is added to the preceding sign dispute because it deals with Jesus’ “signs” and people’s faith in Jesus as a miracle man. Yet Jesus does not seem to appreciate this kind of faith and “did not entrust himself to them.” Jesus’ distancing himself from the people and his superior knowledge of human beings (“what was in everyone”) point to a “high” Christology. The passage on its own does not presuppose the passion storyline. (3) The sign dispute (2:18–22) ties the three passages together by continuing the temple theme and enhancing its reference to Jesus’ death-resurrection, and by introducing the sign theme. The latter theme was already inaugurated in 2:11 (Jesus’ first sign in Cana) and is carried on in 3:2 (Nicodemus’ words to Jesus: “no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God”). This thematic coherence points to a large-scale planning, which would suit a late redactor. The late redactor need not have invented this piece of tradition though. Rather, it seems that the redactor already found the temple cleansing story with its scriptural reference, the sign dispute and the concluding passage about signs in his source and only added the typical hindsight device in v. 22. The redactor’s most important contribution was thus compositional. At this early stage of the Gospel story, he alerted his readers to the passion storyline and asserted that the death and resurrection of Jesus was a logical continuation of the story of the miracle man – indeed, it was to be his greatest sign.14 14 It was certainly not “some mistake” that the temple cleansing episode was placed here (contra J.H. Bernard, The Gospel According to John (ICC; Edinburgh, 1928), I: 88–89). I concur with those scholars who assume that the story was placed here purposefully by a (passion) redactor who also refashioned the Lazarus story in John 11 to anticipate Jesus’ death. In the original plan of John 1–12, the raising of Lazarus was the culmination of Jesus’ miracles – but in the final Gospel Jesus’ death and resurrection was reinterpreted as the greatest “sign.” See my analysis below.

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The passion redactor must, of course, somehow embrace the various characterizations of Jesus in the earlier Johannine tradition. His Jesus is a passionate prophetic character as in the temple cleansing story, but also a sovereign Son of God who is capable of raising his own body from the dead and, possibly, of orchestrating his own death through his adversaries (cf. the imperative “Destroy this temple,” 2:19!). Yet, as will be seen, there is more to the late Johannine characterization of Jesus.

5.

Jesus’ Anger, Love and Withheld Agony (John 11–12)

We must follow the Johannine Jesus through several journeys until his withdrawal “beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing” (10:40) and until his arrival at Bethany near Jerusalem (11:18), before the narrator is again explicit about Jesus’ emotions.15 The story of the raising of Lazarus is about Jesus’ friendship with him (11:3) and love for him and his sisters, Mary and Martha (11:5), but it is also about Jesus’ seemingly misplaced gladness (11:15) and disturbance (11:33–38). The most dramatic expression of emotions is Jesus’ weeping (11:35). In order to understand the last-mentioned feelings of distress, we must also consider 12:27 and a scene which the Fourth Gospel does not relate – the Gethsemane agony (Mark 14:32–42 par Matt). The raising of Lazarus (11:1–44) includes several rough seams and aporias, which to my mind cannot be explained without a redaction-critical sedimentation. All the tensions in the narrative cannot be discussed here, but many of them are present already in the opening scene: Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” (John 11:1–7) 15 The casual mention of Jesus’ tiredness and thirst (4:6–7) is not really a description of emotions, although it is interesting in relation to the humanity vs. divinity of the Johannine Jesus. The verses have been used as proof for Jesus’ full humanity, but in fact it is not told that Jesus drank water from the well, and when the disciples come to the well, Jesus is not hungry – he has some extraordinary, non-material (metaphoric) food, as explained in v. 34. Such tensions invite redaction-critical explanation. Obviously the early story-teller had no difficulty with Jesus’ tiredness and thirst. The redactor (of John 1–12), instead, portrayed a sovereign Jesus who did not need food.

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V. 2 – where Mary is introduced to the reader as the one who “anointed” Jesus – is a cataphoric reference to the anointing story, which will be narrated later, in 12:1– 8. Since the anointing narrative is clearly a part of the passion storyline, we have here an indication of the passion redactor’s keen interest in tying the raising of Lazarus to Jesus’ death and resurrection. This connection was not there from the outset. The raising of a dead man was rather the “sign” of a miracle worker, in fact his greatest sign – apart from the one suggested in 2:18–22. Originally, perhaps at an oral stage of tradition, the Lazarus story seems to have been about an ill man who died before Jesus had arrived to heal him. His sister’s or sisters’16 rebuke that he would have not died if Jesus had been there (cf. 11:21–32) would then be quite natural. Although Jesus, coming to his tomb and praying God, was able to raise him, such a story was not good enough to the subsequent Johannine author (of chs. 1–12). The author’s christological conviction made it necessary that Jesus had divine foreknowledge and knew that Lazarus was to die. Not only that, Jesus’ absence from the village where Lazarus lived had to serve a divine purpose. Thus Jesus purposefully “stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (v. 6) so that Lazarus would die and he would be able to raise him.17 When Jesus reveals to his disciples that Lazarus is dead, there is also a rather strange utterance of gladness (vv. 14–15): Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

Although Jesus is glad on behalf of his disciples, not because of Lazarus’ death, the utterance shows that the Jesus of this author (of John 1–12) was less concerned with the dead man and his grieving family than with the faith of his disciples.18 But of course, Jesus knew the whole time that Lazarus’ illness would

16 The presence of the two sisters in John’s sources has always been a puzzle for Johannine redaction critics. Von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, II:512–515, mainly suspects Martha’s presence in the source but concludes, rather hesitantly, that “there was some rudimentary mention of both sisters in the earliest version” (p. 515). Von Wahlde thinks that the latest author of John developed the role of Martha, because the high Christology in Jesus’ discussion with Martha would reflect the concerns of this late author. My analysis is that this Christology is precisely the hallmark of the pre-passion author. Of course, the simplest way to solve the puzzle is to assume that John knew Luke 10:38–42. I cannot here discuss the weaknesses of this hypothesis. 17 Jesus’ refusal to immediately do what other people expect, and then do it on its own initiative, is a typical narrative device in John 1–12. See Charles M. Giblin, “Suggestion, Negative Response, and Positive Action in St John’s Portrayal of Jesus (John 2:1–11; 4:46–54; 7:2–14; 11:1–44),” NTS 26 (1980), 197–211. 18 Sturdevant, The Adaptable Jesus of the Fourth Gospel, 89–90, manages to interpret even this feature as an instance of Jesus’ pedagogical concern for his disciples.

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not lead to permanent death (v. 4), but was to manifest God’s glory (v. 4)19 through his action. The high christological conviction has its most articulate expression in Jesus’ words to Martha in 11:25–26: I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

This Johannine creed need not be unaware of the passion-resurrection tradition,20 but it was not concerned with Jesus’ passion either. Quite the contrary, its main idea is that Jesus is the giver of life. Moreover, as in the prologue to the Gospel, Jesus is the Life of humankind. Through belief in Jesus everyone will take part of this eternal Life. The Light and Life of humankind will not be walking and working on earth forever. In 11:9 Jesus replies: “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.” This is a carefully crafted device by this Johannine author to convey the daylight scheme, which runs through John 8:12; 9:5; 11:9; 12:35–36.21 As the last instance of the daylight scheme shows, Jesus’ saving day work22 is drawing to its close at the end of ch. 12. The notion of Jesus’ refusal to go to Bethany directly had an undesired side effect. Such a behavior could be interpreted as Jesus’ indifference to the illness of Lazarus, which seemed all the more curious if Lazarus was his friend (ὃν φιλεῖς, v.3).23 The problem was especially acute for the passion redactor, for whom the 19 According to my hypothesis, ‘glory’ is a term typical for the pre-passion John, while ‘glorification’, (denoting Jesus’ and the disciples’ – including Peter‘s, cf. 21:19) death belongs to the latest stratum. Again, we see a dramatic reinterpretation of the pre-passion layer of John, where an earlier notion of the divine glory of Jesus becomes a sign of his death. 20 The qualification of ‘life’ as ‘resurrection’ is new in comparison with the prologue and would logically presuppose death. However, there is a difference between saying that Jesus is (the source of) resurrection and narrating Jesus’ own death. 21 See my article, “Working in the Daylight: John 9:4–5 and the Question of Johannine ‘Literary Archaeology’,” SEÅ 70 (2005), 265–79; esp. pp. 275–79. Von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, I:232–33, refers the ‘hour’ theme to the second, high-christological edition and the daylight scheme to the latest, third edition of the Gospel, seeing no breach between the daylight/working day scheme and the “night” of the passion story: “Thus, by building on the theme of the ‘hour’ of Jesus from the second edition, the third author presents the public ministry as a ‘day’ of twelve ‘hours’ in which ‘the light’ shines. The Passion is ‘the night,’ a time when Jesus demonstrates his love to the utmost.” However, this explanation ignores the rhetoric of the concluding passages in John 12, especially vv. 35–36, 46, where light and darkness are contrasted. In my analysis, the ‘daylight’ scheme comes from the pre-passion redactor and the ‘hour’ (of Jesus’ death) reveals the hand of the passion redactor. 22 The daylight scheme appears to elaborate on an earlier Johannine idea of Jesus’ mission as his ‘working’ time, which in turn is derived from Sabbath conflict traditions (Jesus works on the Sabbath, cf. 5:17). 23 Already the pre-passion form of the story probably described Lazarus as a friend of Jesus. This detail motivates the sisters’ (or Martha’s) plea and contributes to the psychological appropriateness of the long discourse between Jesus and Martha.

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love of Jesus, and the mutual love between the believers and Jesus, was a great concern. The redactor’s attempt to emend his source in 11:5 by stressing Jesus’ love (ἠγάπα) to both Lazarus and his sisters does not really help (in fact it only makes the tension worse) but the theme of love was vital on other accounts too. The passion redactor hardly made a deliberate distinction between φιλέω and ἀγαπάω, as if the latter were meant to describe divine love in contrast with human friendship. One observes that in John 11 the verb φιλέω is used twice when other people describe Jesus’ emotions (vv. 3.36), while the (passion) narrator uses ἀγαπάω in v. 5 in speaking of Jesus’ emotions. It may be that ἀγαπάω instinctively felt more suitable for elevated and more “theological” utterances, but in any case the two verbs have the same denotation. Another clash of emotions is evident in Jesus’ reaction to Mary and the mourning Jews in 11:33–37: When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved (ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι καὶ ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν). He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Commentators and translators have been puzzled by the expression ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι καὶ ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν in v. 33. The above translation (NRSV) tends to conceal the problem, as it makes the two verbal expressions more or less synonymous. Andrew Lincoln, for one, remarks that ἐμβριμάομαι “consistently refers elsewhere to expressing anger or indignation.” His second guideline is that this expression should be understood in light of the context, more precisely, in light of Jesus’ weeping (v. 35).24 However, Lincoln’s paraphrase of the shifting emotions raises a critical question. How is it that “Jesus’ anger and agitation … turn into open weeping” just because the Jews say, “Come and see”? The shift appears slightly less abrupt, if Jesus’ anger is understood as directed against death, and not against the unbelieving Jews, as a number of interpreters would have it. If Jesus’ weeping is also understood as “expressing his sorrow at the faithfulness he found all around him,”25 there would be no real shift of emotions at all. Such harmonizing interpretations are unlikely, however. Jesus’ weeping is regarded by the narrative Jews either positively as proof of his love for Lazarus, or scornfully as proof of his inability as healer. There is often deliberate irony in the narrator’s dealing with the Jews’ and other characters’ responses to Jesus, as they 24 Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John (Black’s New Testament Commentary; London – New York: Continuum, 2005), 326. Rather similarly Voorwinde, Emotions, 173–84. 25 Thus Colin G. Kruse in his commentary on John in The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids, Mich. – Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2003), 254.

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misunderstand Jesus yet somehow catch something of the true meaning without knowing it. If Jesus’ weeping was directed at the unbelieving Jews, their misinterpretation would be too massive to allow any ironic overtones. If, on the other hand, they understood rightly that Jesus’ weeping had to do with the death of Lazarus, whether it be a sign of love or helplessness, their misunderstanding would be only partial and could be a basis of some more profound understanding of Jesus’ reaction. Those Jews who appreciated Jesus’ reaction as a sign of love, would then be right, but would not grasp the whole significance of Jesus’ selfgiving love (cf. 15:13). Those who scorned Jesus would be right to the extent that Jesus did not prevent Lazarus from dying, but failed to see that Jesus was able to do much more – and perhaps, that Jesus himself would not be saved from death (cf. Mark 15:31: Ἄλλους ἔσωσεν, ἑαυτὸν οὐ δύναται σῶσαι). The expression ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν, which follows ἐνεβριμήσατο in 11:33, seems to strike a middle between anger and weeping and thus make the transition smoother. But still the turn from anger to weeping is strange. Therefore a redaction-critical explanation seems necessary.26 As Mark 1:43 and Matt 9:30 demonstrate, ἐμβριμάομαι is not unusual in miracle stories, whereas ταράσσω recurs in John 12:27 and 13:27 with reference to Jesus’ passion. I suggest that the earlier miracle story, and its more elaborate form shaped by the author of John 1–12, referred to Jesus’ anger at seeing the unbelief of the Jews. The passion redactor modified the description of his predecessor by introducing ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν and the mention of Jesus’ weeping. But why was Jesus presented in a way that seems to stress his weakness? In what follows, we meet again the self-confident miracle maker and God’s envoy, who gives orders to the mourning crowds and prays his Father just for their sake (vv. 38–44). What does the passion redactor mean by narrating Jesus’ temporary weakness? Or is Jesus really weak, so that “for once his iron fortitude deserted him”?27 The two later contexts where the passion redactor has Jesus appear “troubled” or “distressed” may clarify the point. The first pericope is in ch. 12: “Now my soul is troubled (τετάρακται). And what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your 26 A redaction-critical explanation is motivated also in light of the parallelism and clumsy repetitiveness of Jesus’ discourses with the two sisters. While the earlier redactor used Martha as the receiver of Jesus’ revelatory discourse, it was the passion redactor who employed Mary for his purposes. Sturdevant (The Adaptable Jesus, 146–147) explains Jesus’ weeping in terms of psychological sensitivity: “Jesus responds appropriately to Mary. She has not engaged him in dialogue, so he does not guide her with words; she has made an emotional expression, and Jesus responds in kind.” Ingenious as this explanation is, it does not explain why Jesus was “troubled” – here I think we need to consider John 12:27, which connects the reaction to Jesus’ death. 27 Thus Arthur John Gossip in The Interpreter’s Bible exposition on John (vol 8; New York – Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1952), 645.

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name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. (John 12:27–33)

The pericope is critical of Mark’s (or Matthew’s) Gethsemane story, particularly Jesus’ prayer that he be saved from the dreadful death. The Gethsemane story is removed altogether from John and its corrective is placed here. It is therefore uncertain whether we should think of Jesus’ reaction as a temporary distress which “immediately recedes into the background.”28 He has known all the time that the hour is coming. Here are several themes and expressions typical of the passion redaction. The “daylight” has changed into the dreadful but glorious “hour” of Jesus (cf. Mark 14:35), hinted at already in the insertion into Jesus’ first miracle (2:4).29 Instead of the divine “glory” that he revealed before his disciples and believers (1:14; 2:11;11:4–40), Jesus will be “glorified” – that is, crucified and risen.30 The witty “lifting up” language which otherwise – and presumably in an earlier Johannine tradition – might refer to ascension (cf. ch. 17), now expresses the kind of his death-resurrection. What is noteworthy in this context is that Jesus’ being “troubled” does not mean hesitance or fear. Rather, he is agitated31 and alert to a definite turn in his mission. By the same token, the reader of the Gospel is alerted to the importance of this turn. Another time Jesus was “troubled” was when he was announcing the betrayal in ch. 13: After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit (ἐταράχθη τῷ πνεύματι), and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples – the one whom Jesus loved – was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. 25 So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” 28 Lincoln, John, 351. 29 The passion redactor keeps reminding of this theme in 7:30 and 8:20, both times at the closure of Jesus’ speech. From 12:23 on (13:1; 16:32; 17:1) , the redactor indicates that the “hour” has come. 30 It is possible that the shift from “glory” to “glorification” was belongs to the pre-passion tradition, cf. 17:1–5. However, the paradoxical use of “glorification” as a reference to Jesus death (and resurrection) comes from the passion redaction. 31 Lincoln, John, 346, translates ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν in this way at 11:33.

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Again, Jesus’ emotion is hardly fear; rather he is in command (lit.: “Do quickly what you are going to do!”) and is fully aware of his destiny. The reference to Jesus’ spirit (τῷ πνεύματι) corresponds to the reflective ἑαυτόν in 11:33 and stresses the inner movement in Jesus’ mind. This mind, however, was not just a human psyche but a superhuman mastermind, on pair and above the satanic mind behind Judas’ decision and action. By showing Jesus’ psychic reaction, the narrator also makes the reader recognize the moment when God’s enemy enters the stage. It is, then, justified to see in 11:33, as the passion redactor understood it, a hint of Jesus’ own death. The references to Jesus’ troubledness and cry are strong indications of his foreknowledge and show the reader how much is at stake. The passion redactor’s idea of using the Lazarus story as a preamble to the passion story is evident in 11:45–46, 47–53 as well as in 12:1–8, where the Markan (and/or Matthean) anointing story is reworked by having the Bethany family act as Jesus’ hosts. The resuscitation of Lazarus now became the immediate reason for the plan to kill Jesus, and thus the temple cleansing story, which in the Markan tradition was the prime cause, had to be transferred to another place. There is one last theme in the passion redaction of John 11 that deserves attention, namely the love of Jesus for Lazarus and his sisters. This theme is introduced clumsily in 11:5, as we have seen. Why was it so important? The above pericope on the betrayal of Jesus (13:21–27) gives a hint. There another person is introduced as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Further hints can be read in 13:1, where Jesus’ love for his own is stressed twice. It is presented as an old theme there: and the reader is “reminded” that Jesus loved his own, and it is only added that he loved them to the end. The reader is invited to “remember” that this love of Jesus had been a theme in the preceding Johannine “book.” But the only narrative about Jesus’ love is precisely the reshaped story of the raising of Lazarus! To sum up, the story of the raising of Lazarus and its wider context reveal three main redactional layers, each having its distinct characterization of Jesus.32 (1) The underlying simple miracle story portrays a Jesus who has the extraordinary power to raise a dead person, but this Jesus is not omniscient. The notion of Jesus’ anger at seeing the unbelief of the crowds coheres with this rather human Jesus. Not believing in the miracle man’s power can be seen as a 32 It is instructive to compare the following diachronic, redaction-critical interpretation with Voorwinde’s synchronic understanding of the same passage (John 11): “Therefore, while Jesus’ love, affection, and tears are quite normal reactions and should be understood as such, the same cannot be said of his gladness, indignation, and distress. These emotions are not normal, but answer to another agenda. They are driven by Jesus’ foreknowledge.” (Voorwinde, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel, 186.) Since a synchronic reading lumps together all the different emotions – both the normal human and those based on divine foreknowledge – it is easy to reach the conclusion that Jesus’ human and divine attributes are neatly balanced.

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personal insult, although of course the anger may also be “on God’s behalf,” that is, an expression of God’s attitude to unbelief in his agent. (2) The redactor of John 1–12 has a much higher Christology, where Jesus’ omniscience is assumed and stressed – even at the expense of making Jesus’ behavior seem rather harsh according to human standards. (3) The passion redactor is responsible for turning Jesus’ greatest miracle into an anticipation of Jesus’ own death – the greatest sign of all.33 While the earlier redactor presented Jesus as the life-giver who himself is the imperishable Life, the passion redactor offers a paradox: Life comes from the death of the Life-giver. The daylight scheme of John 1–12 is turned upside down: Jesus’ decisive work is not completed during the twelvehour working day, but first in the dark night (13:30) of his passion and death. Although the passion redactor, too, wants to portray a sovereign Jesus, quite new emotions come to the fore. Jesus is a suffering God, vulnerable and distressed – but at the same time, victorious and unwavering in his mission. Another new emphasis is the love of Jesus. It is not just love for the Bethany family, but as the reader will learn, the self-giving love of one who will die for his own people.

6.

“The Disciple whom Jesus Loved” (John 13–21)

I have discussed elsewhere the problem of the unnamed but central character in John known as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” or also “the other disciple.”34 I will here briefly summarize my results and highlight their significance for the present study. Nearly all commentators have failed to take seriously the simple question: Why does the Beloved Disciple not appear before the passion story? It is customarily observed that this character is a privileged witness of key events in Jesus’ life, but the crucial observation is that all the key events pertain to the passion and resurrection of Jesus.35 Clearly, the Beloved Disciple is a passion 33 Von Wahlde, The Gospel of and Letters of John, II: 512, also confirms that “(i)n the first edition, the miracle had served as the last and greatest of Jesus’ signs. It was the culmination of all the signs Jesus had worked through mis ministry.” I only object to how von Wahle continues: “But it was also the sign that would lead to the decision of the Sanhedrin to put Jesus to death.” This is, according to my hypothesis, the interpretation of the Johannine passion redactor. 34 Kari Syreeni, “The Witness of Blood: The Narrative and Ideological Function of the ‘Beloved Disciple’ in John 13–21,” in Lux Humana, Lux Aeterna: Essays on Biblical and Related Themes in Honour of Lars Aejmelaeus (ed. Antti Mustakallio; PFES 89; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), 164–85. 35 Regrettably, even von Wahlde, The Gospel of and Letters of John, I: 329–337, neglects this when discussing whether or not the Beloved Disciple is introduced in the third (latest) edition of John: “However, the passages [about the Beloved Disciple] display remarkably little internal relationship to the third edition.” (p. 329) My hypothesis is that the late passion redaction needs precisely the Beloved Disciple to legitimate the passion narrative!

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witness, and at 19:35 he is the reliable eyewitness of the blood and water that came out from Jesus’ side at his death. The significance of that testimony is unfolded in 1 John 5:6–8: “This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.” Water as the means of salvation (through baptism) was common ground in the Johannine church and needed no special witness. The Spirit was an inseparable part of the water baptism (cf. John 3:5, “being born of water and Spirit”). What needed to be stressed in 1 John was that Jesus came “not with water only but with the water and the blood” – that is, the decisive salvific work of Jesus included his death.36 In the late redaction of the Gospel of John, the Beloved Disciple was needed to bear witness to the blood – the passion and corporeal death – of Jesus. It is not accidental that the unnamed disciple is a beloved one. The theme of Jesus’ love for his own is introduced by the passion redactor very poignantly at 13:1: Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

We now reach a better understanding why it was so vital to underscore Jesus’ love for the Bethany family. Otherwise 13:1 would seem rather strange, because Jesus’ love was not a fully developed theme before ch. 11.37 Obviously this theme goes with the idea of Jesus’ death: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (15:13). This self-sacrificing love is not restricted to the Beloved Disciple but pertains to all who have faith in Jesus. No reasons are given why precisely one of the disciples was loved by Jesus, and the redactor does not seem to stress Jesus’ emotions in this connection. The closeness of the Beloved Disciple to Jesus is evident in 13:23, where it is said that the disciple “was reclining 36 Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Forth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (2nd ed.: Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 203–04, thinks that the reverse order of water and blood in John 19:35 and 1 John 5:6 “is consistent with their respective christological emphases: the Gospel argues for Jesus’ messiahship and divinity while assuming his humanity was genuine (John 10:30, 33; 20:31), and the epistle emphasizes Jesus’ humanity against those who focused onesidedly on his divinity.” While this characterization of the Gospel and the epistle is on the right track, I cannot see that it is needed to explain the reverse order. It is only natural that blood is mentioned first in the crucifixion scene and the more surprising element, the water, after it. The order in 1 John is understandable on syntactic grounds and in light of the argument: the common ground is mentioned first, and the disputed element, placed poignantly in the last position in the sentence. 37 The passion redactor has edited the Good Shepherd speech in 10:11–18 to bring in a reference to Jesus’ death. Although the idiom ‘to lay down one’s life’ appears there, it is not explicitly interpreted in terms of love.

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next to Jesus” (ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ). However, we can hardly read any psychological notion into this remark, because the point is deeply theological: as the eternal Logos was in the “bosom” of the Father (ει᾿ς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς) before coming into the world (1:18), so is the Beloved Disciple in the “bosom” of the departing Jesus. This is a truly amazing relecture of the Johannine prologue, which did not look forward to any mediator or interpreter (ἐξηγήσατο, 1:18) apart from Jesus. While this first mention of the Beloved Disciple marks his birth as a passion witness, his status as a brother in Jesus’ new family is announced at the cross (19:25–27). If we try to depict the nature of Jesus’ love for the Beloved Disciple, it might be family love; but in John there is no clear difference between family members and friends (cf. 15:13).38 To summarize, the Beloved Disciple is the invention of the passion redactor and is designed to show the trustworthiness of the passion story. The very need to introduce such a character shows that the ‘passion turn’ of the Gospel was a novel and disputable invention in the Johannine community. Also, we now see that the passion redactor’s stress on Jesus’ love for his own was not an incidental emphasis in the Lazarus story.

7.

Love, Sorrow, and Joy (John 13–17)

In the farewell section (John 13–17) we again meet a relatively emotional Jesus. What is new, however, is that Jesus is involved in an intimate reciprocal relationship with his disciples. As I will argue, we see a kind of transfer of emotions, with Jesus being unusually sensitive to the distress of the disciples, comforting them, and trying to make them share his feelings. For this reason Jesus’ emotions cannot be isolated from those of his disciples. Unfortunately the redaction history of these chapters is extremely complex. For instance, while the first farewell speech (ch. 14) is, on the whole, relatively early and does not presuppose the passion storyline, it also includes later redactional layers, above all in its conclusion (14:27–31), which points directly to the passion story (Ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν, 14:31, cf. Mark 14:42). While the continuation of the farewell (ch. 15–16) and the final prayer (ch. 17) develop themes present in the first speech and have been inserted between 14:31 and 18:1, they represent mainly a non-passion tradition.39 My hypothesis is that the tra38 The peculiar Johannine combination of family and friendship has been studied by Alexsandar Gusa, Excentriske venner: om venskabet i Johannesevangeliet (unpublished PhD thesis; University of Copenhagen, 2005). 39 For my tradition- and redaction-critical hypothesis concerning the farewell section, see my “Testament and Consolation: Reflections on the Literary Form of the Johannine Farewell of Jesus,” in Houses Full of All Good Things: Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola (eds. Juha Pakkala

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ditional farewell speeches are redaction-critically later than John 1–12 but earlier than the passion redaction. The speeches take one step further after the closure of John 12. Jesus is now hidden from the world (12:36) and speaks as it were from eternity, beyond time and place (12:44–50) where he was in the beginning. Such a departure from the world was soon felt unsatisfactory, although it was a logical end of the story of the divine Son’s long working day on earth. For Johannine Christians, the burning question concerned the situation of the believers after Jesus’ departure. Surely Jesus would not leave without speaking to his own disciples. In the first farewell speech, Jesus assures them that although he disappears from the world, his own will see him (14:19). And although he is away, the Father will send another Helper, the Paraclete, in his stead (14:26). Thus they will not be left orphans (14:18). These general themes explain that the farewell speeches have a more intimate tenor than the rest of John. The intimacy is further enhanced by the elaboration of the changing relations between Jesus and the disciples, in part through a parent/children scheme and in part through a master/slave scheme. In both cases, a gradual maturation and growth of the disciples – from children towards adulthood, from slaves to friends – is envisaged, although the farewell speeches do not form an entirely logical developmental sequence.40 In the farewell speeches, the theme of God’s and Jesus’ love is not – not yet, according to my redaction-critical hypothesis – channeled through any special disciple, but through the group of disciples who represent the whole number of Jesus’ “own.” The chain from God to his Son is here articulated in terms of love and continues as Jesus’ love for his own. In this context, joy is introduced as a new emotion: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. (15:9–11) But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. (17:13)

and Martti Nissinen; PFES 95; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society, 2008) 573–90, esp. 586– 590. Consider also Ernst Bammel, “The Farewell Discourse of the Evangelist John and Its Jewish Heritage,” TynB 44 (1993), 103–16; p. 111: “There is, however, no doubt whatever that these chapters [John 18–19] were written by a different hand nor is there any indication that the unit of chapter 13–17 was composed with the intention that it would be concluded by an account of the death of the speaker which then came to be replaced by the passion story we now find in the following chapters. What we actually encounter in the farewell discourse is, we are driven to say, a hint of the ascension rather than of a violent death.” 40 See my “Partial Weaning: Approaching the Psychological Enigma of John 13–17,” SEÅ 72 (2007), 173–92.

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In both cases, the joy is described as Jesus’ joy, which will also become the joy of his own people.41 This participation in Jesus’ joy is based on the idea of an essential but differential unity: those who belong to Jesus partake of him as branches of the vine (15:1–10) just as the Father and Son are “one” but not identical (Jesus is the vine and God is the vine-grower). The ambiguity between oneness and differentiation leaves (conceptual) space to mutuality, and even transfer of emotions, so that the joy that comes from Jesus somehow (epidemically) spreads and contaminates his own. This idea is, however, hermeneutically and redaction-critically complex. In the final prayer (17:13), the joy of Jesus really seems to be his. Jesus rejoices because his mission is complete and he can join his Father. When the anxiety of the disciples is in focus, and especially when the shadow of the passion and death of Jesus is cast by the final redactor, the emotional motivation grows more complex. Against this background, the farewell speeches are Jesus’ attempt to comfort his disciples and his joy is rather a reflection of the joy his own should feel at his departure: “be glad as I am,” meaning: “try to be glad as I pretend to be.” The reverse emotional logic is the same when a parent leaving the children comforts them: “I am not crying, so you should be brave too, and we will see soon again.” If this interpretation is on the right track, then Jesus’ joy is, in part at least, a secondary or forced emotion. We have, then, to reckon with pretended or transferred emotions in the farewell section, but it does not follow that the redactor was wholly alien to having Jesus have strong feelings. It is in the essence of the literary form of farewell addresses that the speaker comforts the addressees, and shares, or pretends to share, their emotions. The sharing of emotions seems particularly strong in John 16:20–22, when considered from the viewpoint of the passion redactor who is responsible for the present shape of the Gospel: Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

Although this passage, in its pre-passion farewell setting, is clearly about the sorrow and pain of the disciples in their birth-pangs, it is likely that some kind of mutuality and shared emotions was intended already at this stage. Jesus felt pity for his disciples who had to undergo such a painful transition. For the passion redactor, however, the pain of giving birth may have suggested the pain Jesus felt when his hour had come and he was to birth his “children,” those who by 41 In New Testament letters the joy of the believers is a prominent topic (e. g., Phil 3:1; 1 Pet 1:8).

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believing in him and by partaking of his blood at the cross – and not only of the water baptism (cf. 13:10) – become his real friends, brothers, and offspring.42 There is one more hint in the farewell speeches where the passion redactor lets Jesus get emotional, although the emotion is not spelled out expressly by the narrator but only through Jesus’ words (16:31–32): Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.”

The passion redactor is critical of his predecessor’s positive view of the disciples’ ability to grasp Jesus’ message – a message that did not include Jesus’ death on the cross. The redactor now refers to the (Markan/Matthean) passion story by making the point that all the disciples fled when Jesus was arrested (although he admits later that Peter and the Beloved Disciple followed after Jesus, and that the Beloved Disciple was at the cross). The above cited verses indicate that Jesus knew how the disciples would react. Therefore Jesus was not surprised when the disciples left him alone.43 At the same time, Jesus reacted to the failure of the disciples and assured that he was not left alone: God was with him all the time.44 If we recall the parent/child scheme of the pre-passion farewell speeches, we observe that the passion redactor develops another emotional response to interpret the passion storyline. This response coheres, in a way, with the parent/child setting of the original farewell speeches, but now the parent is facing his death. In that situation, the parent’s last words imply a reproach and a bittersweet admittance of the inevitable. The children will continue their lives in their own houses, while the dying one will be left alone – or not quite alone, because he will join the ancestors (the Father). In sum, the farewell speeches give a more nuanced picture of the characterization of Jesus in the redactional layers after John 1–12. We are now introduced to Jesus’ joy for the completed mission and the anxiety of the disciples after Jesus’ departure. In the final redaction, part of the anxiety and perplexed feelings of the disciples appear to be transferred onto Jesus.45 Since the final redactor has to 42 Although this interpretation is unusual and goes against the grain of the text (which overtly deals with the disciples’ pain), the following observations should be taken into account: 1) The “hour” is the passion redactor’s key term for Jesus’ death. 2) The birthing imagery (present already in the pre-passion Johannine layer) highlights typically the effect of God’s or Jesus’ salvific activity, 3) The shift to first person in v. 22 (“I will see you again”) is unexpected. 4) There is a comparable ambivalence in the use of the (pre-passion) daylight scheme, e. g., 11:9– 10: the aphorism is not formally about Jesus but is applied christologically in its context. 5) The mutuality between Jesus and the disciples is especially strong in the farewell section. 43 Cf. Matt 26:31. 44 Cf. Matt 26:53–54 and John 12:29. 45 Would this be another, different kind of Jesus’ “adaptability”?

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somehow embrace, if only through reinterpretation, the previous layers’ characterizations of Jesus, the growing complexity of Jesus’ emotion is not unexpected.

8.

The Final Encounter (John 20–21)

The passion story46 does not describe Jesus’ emotions, but in the resurrection stories and in the appended narrative in John 21 we can sense strong feelings. The risen Jesus perhaps seems more human than ever during his earthly life. He is mistaken for a gardener, and he has still the wounds of crucifixion. In the last chapter, he shares an early breakfast by a charcoal fire with some disciples. His threefold question to Peter, “Do you love me (more than these do)?” might in other circumstances signal a large amount of human self-centeredness, but of course the dialogue is needed for Peter’s sake to counterbalance his three denials in the passion story and to qualify him as the future leader and martyr of the church. In addition to the fate of Peter, the fate of the Beloved Disciple is foreshadowed in the last encounter with Jesus. Again, the two disciples appear as a couple. Although Peter will be the leader, the Beloved Disciple remains the privileged one – not only as a reliable witness and Gospel writer, but simply as the one whom Jesus loved. Unlike Peter, this disciple never needed to assure his love for Jesus. The asymmetry of the love relations is easy to interpret as highlighting the divine nature of Jesus’ love: it seems divine because it is unmotivated the way God’s election is: “Jacob I loved but Esau I hated” (Mal 1:3; Rom 9:13). But of course, if we look at God’s inexplicable favor from the human end, it is not surprising at all. From the Israelite viewpoint it was only natural that God loved “Jacob” rather than a foreign nation. From the Johannine community’s viewpoint it was just as clear that the ideal originator of their Gospel was the chosen one. Having reached the closure of the Gospel, we can now summarize the main results of the analysis. We have observed a growing complexity in the characterization of Jesus, and a correspondingly greater variety in Jesus’ emotions. The miracle man of the early Johannine tradition does not show his feelings, apart from his anger at those who did not believe in his ability to perform miracles. He is a classic hero, human but with supernatural powers. The redactor of the main bulk of John 1–12 is concerned with high Christology, the “signs” of this Logos and Son of God, the belief Jesus receives among his disciples, and the offspring he 46 Although the passion story as a whole is not the late redactor’s creation, some traits – such as the presence of the Beloved Disciple and his superiority vis-à-vis Peter as well as the reshaping of the crucifixion narrative – come from his hand.

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produces during his twelve-hour working day on earth. His divinity is stressed at the cost of his human characteristics. The main bulk of the farewell speech and of the final prayer addresses the situation of the disciples who are afraid of being left alone after Jesus’ return (ascension) to his Father. The final redactor of the Gospel reworks the whole of John 1–12, adds the passion-resurrection storyline and the appearance stories, reshaping the farewell scene into a section that leads to the passion and resurrection story. Embracing and modifying previous traditions and sources, the final redactor comes with a more nuanced but ambivalent Jesus, who is still the master of his destiny but also vulnerable, troubled, and more intimately tied with his friends. The joy remains, but it is mixed with tears. The final redactor’s Jesus has learned something from what he suffered.47

Bibliography Bammel, Ernst, “The Farewell Discourse of the Evangelist John and Its Jewish Heritage,” TynB. 44 (1993), 103–116. Bernard, J.H., The Gospel according to John (ICC; 2 vls; Edinburgh, 1928). Bornkamm, Günther, “Zur Interpretation des Johannes-Evangeliums: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Ernst Käsemanns Schrift ‘Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17,’ in Bornkamm, Geschichte und Glaube I (Gesammelte Aufsätze III; München: Chr, Kaiser Verlag, 1968), 104–121. Giblin, Charles M., “Suggestion, Negative Response, and Positive Action in St John’s Portrayal of Jesus (John 2:1.11; 4:46–54; 7:2–14; 11:1–44),” NTS 26 (1980), 197–211. Gossip, Arthur John, “Exposition” on the Gospel of John (The Interpreter’s Bible vol 8; New York – Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1952). Gusa, Alexsandar, Excentriske venner: om venskabet i Johannesevangeliet (unpublished PhD thesis; University of Copenhagen, 2005). Käsemann, Ernst, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17 (tr. Gerhard Krodel, London: SCM, 1968. (Translation of Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17, Tübingen: Mohr, 1966). Koester, Craig R., Symbolism in the Forth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (2nd ed.: Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003). Kruse, Colin G., The Gospel according to John (The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries; Grand Rapids, Mich. – Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2003). Lincoln, Andrew T., The Gospel according to Saint John (Black’s New Testament Commentary; London – New York: Continuum, 2005). 47 Käsemann’s interpretation, then, suffers from too much emphasis on the early (i. e., prepassion) layers of the Gospel. In this respect I side with Bornkamm’s response to Käsemann. See Günther Bornkamm, “Zur Interpretation des Johannes-Evangeliums: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Ernst Käsemanns Schrift ‘Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17’,” in Bornkamm, Geschichte und Glaube I (Gesammelte Aufsätze III; München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1968), 104–21.

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Nygren, Anders, Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna: Eros och agape (2 vls, Stockholm 1930 & 1936). My references are to the English translation, Agape and Eros (tr. Philip S. Watson, London: SPCK, 1953). Pokorný, Petr, “Der irdische Jesus im Johannesevangelium,” NTS 30 (1984), 217–28. Sturdevant, Jason S., The Adaptable Jesus of the Fourth Gospel: The Pedagogy of the Logos (NTSuppl 162; Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2015). Syreeni, Kari, “Incarnatus est? Christ and Community in the Johannine Farewell Discourse,” in Testimony and Interpretation: Early Christology in its Judeo-Christian Milieu: Studies in Honour of Petr Pokorný (eds. Jan Mrázek and Jan Roskovec; JSNTSup 272; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2004), 247–64. –, “Working in the Daylight: John 9:4–5 and the Question of Johannine ‘Literary Archaeology’,” SEÅ 70 (2005), 265–79. –, “The Witness of Blood: The Narrative and Ideological Function of the ‘Beloved Disciple’ in John 13–21,” in Lux Humana, Lux Aeterna: Essays on Biblical and Related Themes in Honour of Lars Aejmelaeus (ed. Antti Mustakallio; PFES 89; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005). –, Partial Weaning: “Approaching the Psychological Enigma of John 13–17,” SEÅ 72 (2007), 173–92. –, “Testament and Consolation: Reflections on the Literary Form of the Johannine Farewell of Jesus,” in Houses Full of All Good Things: Essays in Memory of Timo Veijola (ed. Juha Pakkala and Martti Nissinen; PFES 95; Helsinki: Finnish Exegetical Society, 2008), 573–90. Tarico, Valerie, “God’s Emotions – Why the Biblical God is hopelessly human (Part 1),” at the website ExChristian.net (http://new.exchristian.net/2010/09/gods-emotions-whybiblical-god-is.html). Access date March 27, 2017. Thompson, Marianne Meye, The Incarnate Word: Perspectives on Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1988). von Wahlde, Urban C., The Gospel and Letters of John, 3 vls.; Eerdmans Critical Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich./Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2011. Voorwinde, Stephen, Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel. Library of New Testament Studies 284; London: T&T Clark International, 2005. –, Jesus’ Emotion in the Gospels. London: T&T Clark International, 2011.

List of Contributors

Morten Beckmann is Associate Professor at the University of Agder. Gitte Buch-Hansen is Associate Professor at University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Theology. Louise Heldgaard Bylund is PhD Candidate at Aarhus University, Department of Theology. Martin Friis is Part-time Lecturer at University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Theology and at Aarhus University, Department of Theology. Gunnar Haaland is Associate Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, Faculty of Education and International Studies. Niko Huttunen is Docent at University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology. Paul Linjamaa is Researcher at Lund University, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies. Jacob P.B. Mortensen is Postdoc at Aarhus University, Department of Theology. Halvor Moxnes is Professor Emeritus at University of Oslo, Faculty of Theology. Maria Sturesson is PhD Candidate at Lund University, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies. Kari Syreeni is Professor Emeritus at Åbo Akademi University, Faculty of Theology. Samuel Tedder is Teacher at the Theological School of Finland.

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Runar M. Thorsteinsson is Professor at University of Iceland, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. Lauri Thurén is Professor at University of Eastern Finland, School of Theology. Magnus Zetterholm is Associate Professor at Lund University, Centre for Theology and Religious Studies.