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On the Rhetoric of “Inheritance” in Synoptic and Rabbinic Parables

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On the Rhetoric of “Inheritance” in Synoptic and Rabbinic Parables chapter 1 On the Rhetoric of “Inheritance” in Synoptic and Rabbinic Parables Eric Ottenheijm Scholars have long noted the similarities between the parables attributed to Jesus and those of the rabbis. Motifs and narrative patterns, as well as rhe- torical settings, delineate these two groups from late antique collections such as Epictetus’s similes or the fables of Aesop, and even from precursors in the Hebrew Bible.1 These early Jewish narrative parables, as I have labelled them, deploy kings, meals, slaves, households, father and sons, inheritance, growth, harvest, and precious commodities (e.g., pearls and treasures), and involve fic- titious but highly realistic narratives on such themes as losing and finding, re- quiring obedience, granting forgiveness, small things growing big, etc. Even the dramatic elements present in them, causing either surprise or shock, are not totally alienated from reality, as is rather the case in magical stories. So why did both Jesus and the rabbis prefer the type of the narrative parable so endowed with motifs of daily life circumstances?2 As simple as the question sounds, so hard is it to provide a clear answer. The synoptic “parable theory” (Mark 4:10–12; Matt 13:10–17; Luke 8:9–10) sug- gests parables as teaching the “mysteries of the Kingdom” to those among the folk willing to open up to Jesus’ teachings, whereas the rabbinic “theory” on parables (Song Rab 1:7–8) frames them as hermeneutical tools of Torah study as performed in Rabbinic elite.3 These traditions can be seen as “metatexts” that locate parables within the crystalized ideology of religious movements. 1 Parables in Tanakh appear to be the first ones in which human characters play a major role; see Gary Porton, “The Parable in the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic Literature,” in The Historical Jesus in Context, ed. Amy Jill Levine et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 206. However, these parabolic narratives lack a sustained nimshal or epimythion and moreover show a political rhetoric. 2 The term “narrative parable” was suggested in our application for the Dutch NWO proj- ect “Parables and the Partings of the Ways” (2014–2019), but it has also been used in Stephen I. Wright, Jesus the Storyteller (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014). 3 Ruben Zimmermann, Puzzling the Parables of Jesus: Methods and Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 70–72. For the rabbinic parables as a function of midrash, see Yonah Fraenkel, The Ways of the Aggadah and the Midrash (Hebrew), 2 vols. (Givataim: Yad La-Talmud, 1991), 1:323–93. The rhetorical-hermeneutical distinction goes back to him. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004417526_003 16 Ottenheijm However, the fullness of their rhetorical usage may not be exhausted with these passages, and the scholarly division of theological rhetoric versus exegetical tools as being the difference between the two corpuses may not fully cover the issue either.4 In fact, the respective sources show how initial functions of par- ables already yield to serve either the goal of religious practice (i.e., study) or of social memory and the construct of faith.5 Moreover, the shared preference for motifs and themes in their narratives rather points to the practice of what I would like to suggest is a regional genre that necessitates a social-rhetorical assessment of its use.6 This quest for social rhetoric will be the main issue addressed in this study. In order to carry out this task, I will assess the social location of the parable teller and his (implied) audience. This approach has the advantage of bypass- ing the issue of the etiology of parables, and instead focusses on parallel devel- opments and usages in different traditions. Even if it may be true that the Jesus parables constitute the earliest known corpus of early Jewish parables, with the genre appearing to have blossomed somewhat later in rabbinic circles, the coherences require such a functional approach, leaving aside aesthetically or 4 Zimmermann, Puzzling the Parables, 238–39, argues that Mark’s “meta-reflection” (Mark 4:10–12) rather intends to strengthen the audience to seek these mysteries of the kingdom through parables, embedding the parable in an overall gospel agenda. The chain of parables presented in Song Rab 1:1 expresses rabbinic ambivalence towards the parable and its ac- ceptance as a hermeneutical tool only; see David Stern, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 63–67. Cf. Fraenkel, Ways of the Aggadah, 1:326. 5 Ruben Zimmermann, Puzzling the Parables of Jesus, 86, reframes the form–critical notion of “Sitz im Leben” as “a typical situation for the passing on of tradition,” as a “mnemo- tope, a memory location that can be described ideal typically as a part of the formalized memory and is a component of the stabilization of cultural memory.” The quest for a pure form yields to the connectedness of memory and renewed performance of microforms as “memory forms” and thus as media of tradition (88). Such a “mnemotype” occurs in rab- binic literature as well, in function of study of the Torah and in the form of lemmatic literary forms; see on this Martin S. Jaffee, “Rabbinic Authorship as a Collective Enterprise,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, ed. Charlotte E. Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 28. These mnemotypes may very well be assessed as being a remembered part of the register of a sage’s form of teaching, as is clear as well for the Hillel tradition; see Eric Ottenheijm, “Hillel as a Teacher: Sayings and Narratives,” in Multiple Teachers in Biblical Texts, ed. Archibald L. H. M. van Wieringen and Bart J. Koet (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 207–224. 6 Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 37, 54. Cf. Porton, “Parable,” 209: “The parables abound in the Rabbinic documents from Palestine and Babylonia, so that given the Palestinian setting and the Jewish culture in which Jesus was raised, one would expect the ‘historical’ Jesus to have taught throughout his life by means of parables.”.
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