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- Herausgeber: IVP Academic
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011
Israel, the community to which Jesus belonged, took its name from their patriarch Jacob. His story of exile and return was their story as well.In the well-known tale of the prodigal son, Jesus reshaped the story in his own way and for his own purposes. In this work, Kenneth E. Bailey compares the Old Testament saga and the New Testament parable. He unpacks similarities freighted with theological significance and differences that often reveal Jesus' particular purposes. Drawing on a lifetime of study in both Middle Eastern culture and the Gospels, Bailey offers here a fresh view of how Jesus interpreted Israel's past, his present and their future.
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JACOB & the PRODIGAL
To
SARA JAN BAILEY
in gratitude for her living faith
her courage in adversity
her compassion for all who suffer
her tenderness toward every living creature
and her deep love for her family and friends
Contents
FIGURES
1. Topical arrangement of the “Travel Narrative”
2. Jesus’ call in two parts
3. The lost sheep (Luke 15:4-7)
4. Two renditions of the same story
5. Three Old Testament passages and Jesus’ parable
6. Movement in the three stanzas of Isaiah 55:6-11.
7. The good woman and the lost coin (Luke 15:8-31)
8. A drama in two acts
9. Repentance in Psalm 23 and Luke 15
10. The Servant Song of Isaiah 49:5-6
PREFACE
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to” interpret the parables, “it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account” (Lk 1:1, 3) of what I have learned about Luke 15 and of how the parable of the prodigal son is a new story patterned after the saga of Jacob.
For sixty years, from 1935 to 1995, my home was in the Middle East, first as a child and then as an adult. As an adult, teaching in Arabic Christian circles, reading Arabic and Syriac Christian literature from the early centuries, and trying to glean as much as possible from the extensive writings of the early rabbis, it has been my privilege to study the New Testament in the light of the cultural world of the Middle East. It is out of that background that I approach this topic.
For hundreds of years the Latin tradition has called this parable Evangelium in Evangelio (the gospel within the gospel), and so it is. But to discover its depths one must turn a number of corners in the mind while, at the same time, wrestling with a series of critical problems that the text presents even to a casual reader.
Jesus appears in the Gospels as a theologian who begins with a mastery of the tradition and then reshapes it by offering a new vision centered on his own person. This book will attempt to trace the movement of Jesus’ mind along one critical stage of that vision. It is my intention to examine carefully the way in which Jesus takes the great saga of Jacob and reflects it in a new story composed with himself at its center. Jesus walks on stage not as a different Jacob but, rather, as a transformed figure of the father (Isaac). Reaching this conclusion has required some patient “digging.”
Biblical exegesis is much like Middle Eastern archeology. The archeologist often returns, season after season, to the same tell, each year penetrating a deeper level of the ancient site in the hope of making a new and significant discovery. There is always the tantalizing possibility that the next dig may uncover a mosaic floor, a stone inscription or even a library.
For decades, the fifteenth chapter of Luke has been the center of my study of the New Testament.1 Until recently, I was confident that I had considered at least all the major interpretive options available. Then, after extended intense focus on this “tell,” I almost tripped over an ancient inscribed “mosaic floor” whose existence I had completely missed. For seven years, the British archeologist Howard Carter deliberately searched for the tomb of Tutankhamen and finally found it. I cannot take credit for such an intentional search because I chanced onto a treasure without even looking for it.
A gnawing hint of a connection between Luke 15 and the Jacob saga has lingered at the back of my mind for decades. This possible parallel was reawakened in my consciousness by a brief footnote in N. T. Wright’s book Jesus and the Victory of God.2 Wright observes that both Esau and the father “run, fall on the neck and kiss” a wayward younger son who is returning from a far country. This connection, along with the various “older brother” versus “younger brother” contrasts in the Old Testament, as they relate to the parable of the prodigal, has already been observed.3
But, to my knowledge, a full comparison between the prodigal and Jacob has not been pursued. In my personal study, a list of fifty-one points of comparison and contrast have gradually emerged. Because the fifty-one are interwoven, any discussion of them inevitably produces some overlapping.4 Furthermore, the full significance of these parallels cannot be captured in a single brief volume. Instead, I intend here to display the unearthed artifacts (as it were), with a few preliminary reflections on what they may mean.
Some of these parallels are heavily freighted with theological significance. Others appear to function only as threads that help bind the two stories together. Multiple examples of each type appear below. It will be argued that in Luke 15:4-32, Jesus of Nazareth addresses the scribes and Pharisees and through them speaks to the entire nation. He deliberately creates a new story patterned after the Jacob story and offers his people a revised identity story with himself at its center. As Wright says, “Most historical characters worth studying are so because they held mindsets that formed significant variations on the parent worldview.”5 These “variations on the parent worldview” are the subject of this monograph.
Another way to look at this task is to view the parable of the prodigal son as a story with three settings like three zoom-lens photographs of a single scene. Imagine being shown a photograph of a happy child on a swing. The picture has its own integrity and is a joy to behold. Then the photographer places a second picture beside the first; the second is the same scene but has been taken with a wider lens. Now it is possible to see the mother pushing the child on the swing and observe that the swing is suspended from the branch of a cherry tree in full bloom. The smile on the child’s face takes on new meaning, and the larger picture provides the viewer with additional delights. Finally, the photographer presents a third picture, which is still of the same scene. Only this time the shot is even wider, and it is evident that the cherry tree with its swing is growing in a zoo and that the child is looking at a baby elephant being cuddled by its mother. Once again the yet larger scene adds new and important meaning to the other two.
In like manner, the parable of the prodigal son can be studied on its own. Such a “close-up” is certainly valid. A wider “lens” shows the parable of the prodigal as part of the three lost-and-found stories in Luke 15.6 This is like looking at the child on the swing with the mother and the cherry tree in view. The third shot depicts how the parable of the compassionate father and the two lost sons, as I prefer to call it, is a reshaping of the saga of Jacob. This is akin to the third picture that shows the child on the swing in the zoo looking at the elephants. Examining the third picture is the major task of this book. It will be necessary to reflect briefly on the “close-ups” before getting to the “widest lens,” and perhaps a good starting place for the whole endeavor is to note a few unsuspected problems that the entire chapter presents.
The parable of the prodigal son appears to have no savior. The prodigal (representing one type of sinner) “came to himself” in the far country. Traditionally, this has been understood to mean: He repented. The prodigal eventually discovers that he can not be successful on his own feeding pigs and only then starts for home, where his father welcomes him. For centuries the father has been seen as a symbol for God. It seems, therefore, that God waits for us to return home and then welcomes us but does not go after us. The story appears to have no incarnation, no “word that becomes flesh,” no cross, no crown, no suffering, no death, no resurrection and no mediator between God and human beings. How can this be “the gospel within the gospel” when the gospel, as known throughout the New Testament, is apparently missing? But there is more.
The first two stories appear to be in conflict with the third. In the first two the “finder” does all the work. The good shepherd leaves his flock and goes after the lost sheep, “until he finds it.” The poor sheep cannot find its own way home. My Middle Eastern shepherd acquaintances tell me that a lost sheep becomes disoriented quickly and crawls under the nearest bush awaiting rescue. The good woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house and “searches diligently” until she finds her coin. The coin does not flip up out of a crack between the flagstones of the rough floor and land on the table. The woman must find it. Yet, on his own, the prodigal goes home from the far country. Is Jesus confused? These and other problems of interpretation will be examined carefully as we proceed.
But, as stated, the central thrust of this modest effort is to identify and reflect on the relationship between the saga of Jacob (Gen 27:1—36:8) and the parable of the father and the two lost sons. As observed, some have noted the phrase, “run, fall on the neck and kiss,” and others have identified the younger brother/older brother conflict that appears in both stories.7 This study will examine many additional observed points of comparison and contrast between these two great stories. The question of the importance of this inter-connectedness for understanding Jesus as a theologian and for comprehending his theology will be addressed. As N. T. Wright has written, “He [Jesus] was telling the story of Israel, giving it a drastic new twist, and inviting his hearers to make it their own, to heed his warnings and follow his invitation.”8
I hasten to add that this book will make no attempt at source criticism of the Jacob saga. Nor will it wrestle with the question of when the book of Genesis came together in its final form. Contemporary scholarship on the biblical account of Jacob is important but not for this subject. The focus here will strictly be on Genesis 27—35 as a story read by Jesus and his contemporaries in the first century. From the author of Jubilees (c. 150 B.C.) through to Josephus (c. A.D. 90) it is clear that first-century Jews knew the Jacob saga as a continuous narrative. The scribes and Pharisees who composed Jesus’ audience also saw it as a single story. Exactly how they interpreted it cannot be fully recovered, nor does it matter for the purposes of this study. What Josephus, Philo and the pre-Christian Jewish author of Jubilees did with Jacob’s story will be noted briefly. The fourth-century rabbinic commentary Genesis Rabbah will enter into the discussion. These works will provide a quick overview of other Jews, before and after Jesus, who also interacted with the Jacob story. It is my intention to narrow the subject to an examination of that which Luke records from Jesus in the parable of the prodigal son and how it compares and contrasts with Genesis 27:1—36:8.
Twentieth-century publications on the parables of Jesus are extensive. Craig L. Blomberg and others have ably reviewed the various authors and methodologies that have developed.9 I will not attempt a similar survey. And it is not my intention to debate with those who have disagreed with my published work on Luke 15. This brief study will explore uncharted territory rather than defend the past. As mentioned, current scholarship on the parables does not discuss this topic. It is my hope that the new ground broken here will be of use for the worldwide church, both East and West. The peoples of the Two-Thirds World, where the majority of Christians now live, easily understand extended family sagas and they, better than we, may be able to articulate yet deeper understandings of both these stories.
Luke 15 contains well-known “classical” tales. I have chosen the RSV as my text of choice because its style is more formal than many recent translations. On rare occasions I have made my own translations from the Greek text, and these will be identified as such.
Sincere thanks go to thousands of Arabic-speaking Christians across the Middle East with whom I have studied the parables for decades. My debt to them and to the rich Arabic Christian exegetical heritage can never be adequately expressed or paid. I am also deeply grateful to Tom Cousins, Harris and Susan Cummings, Eastminster Presbyterian Church, the Loch Raven Presbyterian Church, and Richard and Beverly Spaan for making possible the acquiring of special resources, and securing critical secretarial help needed for the research and writing of this manuscript. To all of them I offer my thanks. My gratitude must also be expressed to my editor, Andrew Le Peau of Inter-Varsity Press, for his vision, insight, patience and encouragement. My dear wife of fifty years, Ethel, has put up with more hours of discussion and lecture on Luke 15 than anyone should have to endure. Without her never failing help and encouragement this book would not have been written.
I invite you, gentle reader, to join me in pondering first the girl on the swing and then to look more intently to see her with her mother. The climax of the study will be an attempt to present the entire scene complete with the elephants in full view.
1
JESUS AS A METAPHORICAL THEOLOGIAN AND THE RABBINIC WORLD
What is theology, and what does it mean to be a theologian? Is theological meaning created by linking ideas together with reason/logic, ideas that may or may not have illustrations attached to them for clarity? In such a world, the illustration is sometimes useful but, in reality, nonessential and can be discarded once the concept is clearly grasped. The illustration becomes a delivery system for an idea. The creator of meaning who uses this method probably will not add an illustration if the concept is clear to the reader/listener without one.1 The idea matters. The illustration introduced to clarify or communicate that idea does not. This is a time-honored way to “do theology” and will continue to be important.
There is, however, another way to create and communicate meaning. It involves the use of word pictures, dramatic actions, metaphors and stories. This latter method of “doing theology” shines through the pages of Scripture. Dale Allison has written, “Meaning is like water: it is shaped by the container it fills.”2
The biblical writers and reciters make extensive use of metaphors, parables and dramatic actions. Jesus does not say, “God’s love is boundless.” Instead, he tells the story of the prodigal son. He does not say, “Your benevolence must reach beyond your own kith and kin.” Rather, he tells the story of the good Samaritan. He does not say, “Try to influence the community around you for good.” But he does state,
You are the light of the world. A city set (by men) on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do they (i.e., the women) light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. (Mt 5:14-16; author’s translation)
Thomas Aquinas created meaning with the masterful use of philosophical and theological language. Saint Francis affected the church and the world with powerful dramatic actions that have resonated for more than seven hundred years. It is easy to claim that Saint Thomas was a theologian while Saint Francis was a simple man who went about doing good. But such an equation is not adequate to the reality of the significance of these two theological giants. Both men created and communicated meaning, but in different ways, and each method is valid.
Jesus, as noted, was clearly a “metaphorical theologian” whose primary style of creating meaning was the skillful use of metaphor, parable and dramatic action.3 But is it accurate to refer to Jesus as a theologian at all? Theologians are known for changing their minds. They publish second editions of their works and describe themselves as “birds in flight.” Yet Jesus, reason some, was different. Being who he was, he understood the things of God instinctively and did not need to wrestle, like others, with how to understand or express divine truth. He was neither puzzled nor uncertain about the deep things of God.
The christological convictions that prompt the above reservations are important, and I share those convictions. But do we have the right to confine Jesus to the category of “simple carpenter”? Would not the “divine word made flesh” be the first to reflect deeply on the significance and meaning of that word? Could Jesus’ indescribable impact on history have been possible were he not a profound thinker?
The answers to these questions are clear. Jesus was indeed a craftsman. In Mark 6:3 he is referred to as a tektōn.4 This word is usually translated “carpenter,” but it can also mean a carpenter/builder or artisan. Traditional village culture in the Middle East uses little furniture. The Gospels rarely mention home furnishings.5 In short, a cabinetmaker would find little to do in a small village like Nazareth. But doors and roof beams are necessary in every house, and they require a woodworker’s skills.6 Jesus tells a number of parables that refer to the building trade (Mt 5:14-15, noted above; Lk 6:46-49 and parallel Mt 7:24-27). While he was growing up in Nazareth, the provincial capital Sepphoris was being constructed by Herod Antipas.7 Joseph may well have moved to Nazareth because there was work for a carpenter/builder in Sepphoris four miles away. But, carpenter/builders are generally known to be practical, non-intellectual types. Is it possible to envision a carpenter/builder as a theologian?
In the world of the rabbis, a scholar was expected to earn his keep by engaging in a secular profession. The Mishnah tractate Avot reads:
Make them [the words of the Law] not a crown wherewith to magnify thyself or a spade wherewith to dig. And thus used Hillel to say: He that makes worldly use of the crown shall perish. Thus thou mayest learn that he that makes profit out of the words of the Law removes his life from the world.8
From this severe stricture it is easy to understand that rabbis in Jesus’ day were expected to support themselves with secular professions. Engaging stories in the Talmud illuminate the strictly held principle of “no digging with the crown.”
Johanan ben Zakkai, a contemporary of Jesus, once lectured to his students in the shade of the temple. The learned rabbi was then criticized for having received material benefit from religious things. That is, he was accused of “digging with the crown.” Later rabbinic tradition excused him because what happened inside the temple was religious but the shade outside was not. The text reads:
It was related of R. Johanan b. Zakkai that he was sitting in the shadow of the Temple and teaching all day. Now here it was impossible [not to lecture], and he intended [to benefit from the shade], and is it permitted? But Raba said: The Temple was different, because it was made for its inside.9
The stipulation of “not digging with the crown” harmonized smoothly with the major task of the sages, which was to interpret and apply the Torah to everyday life. Thus, if they had one foot in the work-a-day world and the other in the world of the Torah and its law, it would be easier to make the connection between the two.10
Shemmai and Hillel, two of the greatest rabbis, lived one generation before Jesus. Shemmai was a stonemason, and Hillel probably earned his keep as a porter. Thus, Jesus (carpenter) and Paul (tentmaker) were not exceptions to the rule but were concrete examples of established practice. Unlike the contemporary Western world, the world of Jesus expected the scholar to be engaged in a trade such as carpentry. The question that naturally follows is: What sort of intellectual life would have been available to a young man growing up in an isolated village?
In Jesus’ day, across the villages of Galilee and Judea, there were associations of serious-minded Jews who called themselves the haberim (the companions/friends).11 The name was taken from Psalm 119:63, which reads, “I am a companion [haber] of all who fear thee, / of those who keep thy precepts.” These associations were composed of men who were employed in secular trades but who spent their spare time debating the Law and trying to apply it to their world. A young Jew in his early teens had the option of joining such a group. If he decided to do so, he was committed to becoming a “student of the rabbis” and participating in their discussions. Those Jews who wished to spend their spare time in activities other than scholarly debates were not a part of these associations. The rabbis called such types am ha-arets, “the people of the land.” This title was not a compliment, and considerable hostility developed between these two groups.12 It seems natural to assume that Jesus joined the haberim. The story about him in the temple at twelve years of age emphasizes his intelligence and his scholarly bent (Lk 2:41-51). With this pattern of culture in mind, it is easy to assume that Jesus went on to spend eighteen years in sustained discussion with the brightest and best thinkers in Nazareth and the surrounding villages. When, at the age of thirty, Jesus began his public ministry, he demonstrated time and again considerable skill in the rabbinic style of debating, and, therefore, it is not surprising that the community called him “rabbi.”
The title rabbi emerged in first-century Judaism as a title of respect for a scholar. Students used it for a teacher, and the community at large used it for the scribes and sages. Eduard Lohse states, “When Jesus is called Rabbi by His disciples and others, this shows that He conducted Himself like the Jewish scribes.”13 David Flusser, the able Israeli scholar writes, “It is easy to observe that Jesus was far from uneducated. He was perfectly at home both in holy scripture and in oral tradition, and he knew how to apply this scholarly heritage.”14 Flusser goes on to note that carpenters in particular had a reputation for learning. With this in mind Flusser then rejects “the common, sweetly idyllic notion of Jesus as a naive and amiable, simple, manual workman.”15
In summary, Jesus was a master in the use of metaphor, parable and dramatic action. His audiences were often composed of scribes and Pharisees. The reader of the Gospels needs to be aware that when a scholarly audience is specifically mentioned, it can be assumed that a sophisticated scholarly exchange is underway.16 When this assumption is made, new perceptions of Jesus and his message emerge. The following text provides an example.
Jesus’ first sermon and the crowd reaction to it are recorded in Luke 4:16-30. In that famous scene Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1-2. The text, however, is edited in four places. One phrase from the text before him is omitted. A line is borrowed from Isaiah 58:6 and added to the reading. One key word is changed from “say” to “proclaim,” and the final verse is cut in half. Who did the editing? The Mishnah stipulates that in any public reading of the Prophets, the reader is permitted some editing. The rules for the reading of the Torah of Moses were stricter.17 The editor of the text of Isaiah 61:1-2 that appears in Luke 4:18-19 (whoever he was) followed those rules, and thus, said editor is best understood to be a first-century Jew. Did Jesus do the editing? Or was it the apostles who remembered and later recorded, and edited, the scene and the text of Isaiah that Jesus read on that occasion? Or was it Luke who tried to summarize his understanding of what the ministry of Jesus was all about? If Jesus was no more than a simple carpenter, it is difficult to imagine that he was the editor. If he was a scholar with eighteen years of training in rabbinic thinking, then it is entirely reasonable to imagine him judiciously editing the text. The presuppositions we have about Jesus as a “simple man” or as a “serious theologian/scholar” determine the eyes with which we look at the text and how we understand it.
When the finely tuned nature of Jesus’ presentations to his contemporaries is examined within the world of first-century rabbinic scholarship, it is possible to see Jesus as the first mind of the New Testament and Paul as the second. From Jesus we have indescribably profound theological perceptions of the faith available to us.
As noted, the intent of this book is to examine how Jesus the theologian has created a new story, with himself at its center, which is linked again and again to the saga of Jacob. But such an inquiry is not possible unless we are confident that the Synoptic Gospels in general, and the Gospel of Luke in particular actually present an authentic account of what Jesus said and did! Strident voices on one side insist that Jesus left Spirit-inspired mental tape recordings of exactly what he said. Some scholars from the extreme on the other side insist that the Gospel records are imaginative creations by a second, third or even fourth generation of Christians who invented stories to meet their spiritual needs and that these stories have very little to do with the mysterious figure called Jesus who all but disappeared into the mists of time early in the first century. Yet others claim that the Gospels are a record (in story form) of the religious experience of the early Christians, not a record of what Jesus said and did. Is there any assurance of the authenticity of the Synoptic accounts as historical records of Jesus? To this question we now briefly turn.
2
THE JESUS TRADITION AND THE QUESTION OF AUTHENTICITY
For centuries the world of Islam has claimed that the Gospels are muharrif (corrupted) because they do not offer readers an accurate record of what Jesus said and did. For different reasons, some modern scholars have come to the same conclusion. The debate over the authenticity of the Gospels as records of what Jesus said and did raged over most of the twentieth century and continues on into the twenty-first. The issue is of the essence for all the material in the Gospels and for the subject of this book. Are the three parables in Luke 15 the theology of Jesus, or are they stories created by the disciples long after his time? Were they composed by Luke for Gentile readers and attributed to Jesus, or can they be traced to the “theologian of Nazareth”?
Having previously discussed these matters at some length in another setting, only a brief summary is necessary here.1 The following five important aspects of the topic need to be kept in mind.
JESUS THE RABBI
The rabbinic tradition was accustomed to orally passing on the sayings of the important figures in its tradition. After centuries of oral preservation, this material was finally recorded in writing, first in the Mishnah and then in the two Talmuds. The “movers and shakers” who fashioned Judaism, as it survived across the centuries, did not record their teaching in books. Minor scholars, such as Ben Sirach, composed documents, which were sometimes copied and preserved. But the teaching of the truly great early figures, such as Hillel, Shammai, Johanan ben Zakkai, Gamaliel, Simeon ben Gamaliel, Eleazar, Akiba and Judah the Prince were, for more than a century, remembered only through oral tradition. Although he wrote nothing, Akiba (first and second centuries) is quoted more than 270 times in the Mishnah alone. It can be assumed that over the centuries extra material was added to earlier tradition. But there was an earlier tradition to pass on, and that tradition was honored and preserved.
Indeed, within the rabbinic tradition the oral was the chosen method of preservation and transmission. The rabbis possessed written scriptures, but the sayings of the sages were by choice preserved in oral form for a very long time. There are two discernible reasons for this preference. If the material remained in oral form, the reciter could control who heard the sacred tradition. Unworthy ears would not be given access to it. It is far more difficult to monitor who will read a book; oral tradition demands a reciter. Furthermore, if the material is of an oral nature, the reciter can ensure that there is time for adequate explanation of that which has been recited. These two reasons are readily understandable to people the world over irrespective of their culture.
Every human being has a very personal sacred tradition that is almost always kept oral for the same two reasons. We want to control who will hear our most personal stories, and we want to make certain that there is an opportunity to explain the meaning of those stories if and when we choose to reveal them. That which all of us understand instinctively on the personal level functions on the community level in the Middle East. Like other well-known rabbis, Jesus attracted disciples. It is only natural to assume that he, like his contemporaries, deliberately passed on to them, in oral form, those insights into the mysteries of God that he considered important. In a monumental work of scholarship, Birger Gerhardsson has documented this entire process as it applies to the New Testament.2
THEHAFLAT SAMAR
Middle Eastern traditional culture as I have known it engages in what is called in Arabic haflat samar (party for preservation; pl. haflaat samar). All present at such gatherings sit in a circle and participate in a single conversation. No formal “storytellers” are designated as reciters. Anyone is free to participate. The purpose is to delight, entertain and inform the gathering. Jokes and casual stories are told at such occasions, but they are not considered important and the recitation of such material is not controlled. However, the proverbs and stories that form the identity of the community are preserved with great care, because through those wisdom sayings and stories the people in the community remember and affirm who they are. No one dares recite such stories carelessly, or change them at will. Doing so invites public correction and thereby public humiliation. The community exercises control over these, often centuries-old, stories. In the above-mentioned essays I have described how these social events function, what types of material are recited and the ways in which the material is controlled.3 But there is more.
REMEMBERING KEY PEOPLE AND EVENTS
As an amateur yet serious student of the American Civil War, I am constantly amazed at the sheer volume of material, which was preserved orally for half a century and longer, surrounding the key figures in that conflict. These recollections are called “reminiscences.” The Americans involved in the war knew they were experiencing events critical for their very existence as a nation. Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee and T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson were key figures in those events. Authors of books and essays on the American Civil War have drawn on these reminiscences, which flowed from people who knew and interacted with those towering personalities. Colleagues remembered what Lincoln and Lee said and did because of their pivotal roles in the conflict and because the conflict itself was an identity-forming epoch. Reminiscences of historic personalities were also passed down through the twentieth century.
Television documentaries made in recent decades about Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy naturally include interviews with eyewitnesses. In these documentaries people who knew these famous men are asked questions. As they reply, with recollections of fifty-year-old conversations or stories, their voices pick up, the pace quickens and their eyes begin to flash. How can they remember back that far? Why are these recollections so vivid? The answer is simple—the eyewitnesses know they are talking about key figures in critical events, and, as a result, their memories reproduce those sayings and stories with accuracy and ease.
Russian historian Edvard Radzinsky recently collected oral tradition about Czar Nicholas II focusing on the last six months of his life, a period for which there are almost no documents. Once the Russian public learned that Radzinsky was seeking information about the czar, individuals began to search him out and tell him their stories. The events they described had been passed from grandfather to son and then to grandsons and granddaughters for more than seventy years. They were recalling the czar! How could they forget?! Radzinsky was often able to confirm the material he heard by cross checking the same story as it came to him from a variety of sources. While there were sometimes differences, the similarities were striking. In the end Radzinsky produced a 430-page book, much of which came from seventy-year-old oral tradition.4 All of this took place among the Russians—without the controls I discovered in the Middle East. Was the Russian grandfather telling the truth or trying to impress his grandchildren? There was no surrounding community to correct the recitation. In the Middle East there is.
In the 1990s Winston Churchill’s granddaughter, Celia Sandys, set out to write a book about her famous grandfather. She intended to dedicate one chapter to the eight months Churchill spent in South Africa during the Boer War. Consequently, she traveled to South Africa to visit the places where Churchill was known to have been. During a national television interview she asked viewers to contact her if they had any information about her grandfather. They did. Sandys was overwhelmed and delighted by the deluge of calls, faxes and letters she received and decided to write not a chapter but an entire book about Churchill’s sojourn in South Africa.5 The book, now published, focuses entirely on the eight months he was in the country, and the information she gathered was almost all passed on orally, again, without any community controls. By the time those conversations and stories were related to her they were nearly one hundred years old. How could people remember? The simple answer is—it was Churchill! He was already a well-known figure when he went to South Africa. The question is: How could they forget?
The early apostolic community was composed of Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah of God. Not all their Jewish neighbors and family members endorsed that decision. Recalling and remembering the stories of what Jesus said and did was critical for their new identity as “messianic Jews.” To forget would be to forget who they were. Controlling the tradition of/about Jesus (with some freedom of individual expression permitted) was essential to that identity. Free composition would have been as unthinkable as it clearly became for Lincoln, Lee, Nicholas II and Churchill. These kinds of human realities need to be factored into perceptions of how and why the “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (Lk 1:2) managed to authentically preserve the stories of and from Jesus of Nazareth and pass them on to Luke and the other Gospel authors. Kelber has written, “Many of the individual disciples, apostles, prophets, teachers, and ordinary followers of Jesus will forever remain anonymous, but that is not the same as saying that the Jesus traditions are rooted in the anonymous matrix of the community.”6
LUKE AND THE “WE SECTIONS” OF THE BOOK OF ACTS
In the book of Acts, Luke occasionally uses the second-person plural pronoun we. Then, suddenly, the pronoun disappears. The sections where it is present have been called the “we sections” of Acts. Across the twentieth century a number of scholars put forth the idea that the use of we was simply a literary device that has little to do with history. In a recent essay Joseph Fitzmyer, the renowned American Catholic scholar, argues that on examination the evidence against historicity collapses. Fitzmyer concludes that Luke was an honest man who used we when he was with Paul and used he and they when he was apart from Paul.7 With this view in mind, the reader can trace Luke’s use of we on Paul’s last journey to Jerusalem. In chapter twenty-one “we” (Paul and Luke) travel to Cos, Rhodes, Cyprus, Tyre and on to Caesarea (Acts 21:1-8). Finally we arrive in Jerusalem (Acts 21:17-18) and are received by James and the elders. Paul is then arrested, taken back to Caesarea and imprisoned for two years. During this two-year period the pronoun we does not appear in the text. But when Paul demands that his case be examined by Caesar and that he be sent to Rome, suddenly “we” set sail for Italy (Acts 27:1). After that, “we” pass through many ports and are shipwrecked on Malta; finally “we” (Acts 28:14) arrive in Rome. Following Fitzmyer’s view of the historicity of these “we sections,” it is clear that Luke was with Paul on his last journey to Jerusalem. Luke had no access to Paul when the latter was arrested and imprisoned for two years. But when the authorities decided to send Paul to Rome, Luke was able to join him for the journey. Thus Luke, by his own indirect admission, was in Jerusalem from approximately A.D. 57 to 59.8 He was not, however, with Paul.
So what did Luke do for those two years? He was an educated man, probably a medical doctor. As well, he was deeply committed to Jesus and naturally was living as part of the messianic Jewish community (most likely) in Jerusalem. The simplest and most obvious answer to the above question is to suppose that Luke engaged in field research for his Gospel. Many people complete research some time before they are able to organize their findings into readable or printable form. I am not trying to solve the Synoptic problem (which Gospel was first and who copied from whom) here.9 Rather, I would note that, by his own indirect admission, Luke was in Jerusalem for two years, at a time when literally thousands of eyewitnesses to the historical Jesus were available to him. Thus, the stories of and from Jesus that he gathered at that time are early and reliable. For me, the key is authenticity not “tape recordings” of what was said and done. I am convinced that the Gospel of Luke is a primary witness to Jesus of Nazareth and a secondary witness to the theology of Luke. The material Luke presents was collected from living witnesses to the events described some twenty-seven to twenty-nine years after the cross and resurrection, which causes one to reflect on what Luke himself said were his sources.
THE “EYEWITNESSES AND MINISTERS OF THE WORD”
Luke is the only Gospel author who tells his readers about his sources (Lk 1:1-4). He affirms his knowledge of documents when he writes, “Many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us.” He then mentions “eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” The first is easily understood, but to what, precisely, does the latter phrase refer?
Initially, it can be noted that the phrase contains one definite article and two nouns. That is, Luke writes, “the eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” In nearly all cases in Greek grammar when a single definite article is followed by two nouns, the two nouns refer to the same thing. This means that the eyewitnesses are the ministers of the word and the ministers of the word are the eyewitnesses. The definition of the word eyewitness is clear. But what does the phrase “minister of the word” actually mean?
In Greek, the word minister is hypēretēs. The question then becomes: What is the meaning of the word hypēretēs in a first-century Jewish context? Hypēretēs is well known as the Greek translation of the Hebrew word hazzan. The hazzan was the single paid employee of a synagogue. He was not the head of the synagogue but rather its “minister” (hazzan).10 Of this official’s responsibilities, Shemuel Safrai writes, “The head of the Synagogue had an adjutant the hazzan (חזן), undoubtedly the ύπηρέτης of Luke 4:20, who acted as executive officer in the practical details of running the synagogue. . .. Officers with similar functions had been attached to the Temple.”11
In the New Testament the hazzan appears as an official both in the synagogue (Lk 4:20) and in the temple (Mk 14:54, 65). Among the various tasks the hypēretēs/hazzan of the synagogue carried out was responsibility for the scrolls. Again, Safrai notes, “During the era of the Second Temple and for a long time after, the chest with the books was brought in [to the synagogue] when required from an adjoining room and brought back there afterwards.”12
As Safrai noted in his reference to Luke 4:20, this official (hazzan) appears in the story of Jesus reading in the synagogue in Nazareth (Lk 4:18-20), where he is clearly the person in charge of the worship. In this text, English versions often translate hypēretēs as “attendant,” which sounds like some kind of a janitor. But clearly this official was the keeper of the scrolls and a worship leader. It is clear from Luke 4:20 that Luke knows and uses the word hypēretēs with its first-century Jewish meaning. How then can this same word best be understood in Luke 1:2?
In Luke 1:2 the person in question is a “hypēretēs of the word,” not a “hypēretēs of the synagogue.” Furthermore, the “minister [hypēretēs] of the word” in this text is also an eyewitness to Jesus of Nazareth. What conclusion can be drawn from this?
Putting all of this together, it is possible to conclude that at the very beginning the apostles and the rest of the messianic Jewish community (the earliest church) took a title from their Jewish background and reused it. They had no buildings and were not officially organized into synagogues, so a paid official (hypēretēs of the synagogue), who kept the scrolls in a chest that he moved into the middle of the synagogue for worship each Saturday, was unnecessary. Besides, they had no scrolls about Jesus. But they did have disciples of Rabbi Jesus who had heard him, had learned from him and could share their memories with others. These special eyewitnesses were given a title, namely, “hypēretēs of the word.” What word did they keep? These hypēretēs, who are listed by Luke as one of two major sources for his Gospel, appear to be the reciters of the tradition about Jesus, which is why they had to be eyewitnesses to qualify as hypēretai of the word. They were the guardians of the oral tradition from and about Jesus. When the community met for worship, they could not carry a box of scrolls about Jesus into the gathering, but the eyewitnesses among them could recite! Those who were not eyewitnesses, such as Luke, could hear what was recited, but only eyewitnesses had the title and the responsibility to pass on this sacred oral record in public. All of this is very Jewish. The students of Hillel and Shammai were contemporaries of these disciples and recited the traditions from and about their respective masters.
But twenty-seven years after the resurrection, when Luke arrived in Jerusalem, these “eyewitness and ministers of the word” were no longer young, and it was obvious that one day there would be no eyewitnesses left. What then could be done?
The messianic community could have opted to allow students of the students to continue reciting, which was common practice in the rabbinic world. But apparently the messianic Jews decided that the sayings of Rabbi Jesus were too sacred to allow non-eyewitnesses to do the reciting. There was only one other alternative: Authorize the composition of documents.
By the time Luke arrived in Jerusalem, the writing of such documents had already begun. Indeed, Luke affirms that “many have undertaken to compile a narrative” (Lk 1:1). The documents were in addition to the “the eyewitnesses and ministers [guardians?] of the word [about Jesus].” For two years he worked with these two sources (written and oral), and the Gospel of Luke is the result.
Finally, the same “ministers [guardians?] of the word” were not only important sources of information; they were also, inevitably, a board of review. When Luke finished, they almost certainly read the “orderly account” (Lk 1:3) that he compiled and edited. The community would eagerly await the review of Luke’s efforts. If he had used his imagination to create stories out of thin air, or manufactured accounts to express his religious experience, their response would have been:
We did not give Dr. Luke this material! It does not represent the Jesus we heard, knew and followed! We have not suffered and endured rejection for following someone’s imagination. We are committed to Jesus of Nazareth, and we know very well what he said and did! This document is a fabrication and we want nothing to do with it!!
If this had been the judgment of the people who gave Luke his material there would never have been a second copy of the Gospel of Luke. Theophilus might have enjoyed it, but the church would not have preserved it. The fact that the church did preserve it means that this group of specialists, knowledgeable about Jesus of Nazareth, were pleased with Luke’s efforts. It also means that authenticity for us is assured.13 Of course the final work represents Luke’s agenda. He recorded what he thought was important. He polished the language, organized the material, added his own interpretive nuances and created smooth connectives. But this editorial process does not mean that he created the material he edited.
This book’s discussion of the parables in Luke 15 proceeds with the full confidence that these three parables are stories created in the mind of Jesus, preserved orally by eyewitnesses and finally recorded in some kind of written form by Luke in Jerusalem no more than twenty-seven to twenty-nine years after the resurrection. All of which brings us to a consideration of the underlying culture of the stories themselves, and to this subject we now turn.
