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Memory and Jesus’ Parables J.P. Meier’s explosion and the restoration of the ‘Bedrock’ of Jesus’ Speech
Ruben Zimmermann Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz [email protected]
Abstract
This article interacts with John P. Meier’s view concerning the parables that can be shown to be “authentic,” i.e., shown to have been uttered by the historical Jesus. His highly critical and largely negative result (only four parables remaining parables of Jesus) demonstrates once more that historical Jesus research that is intrinsically tied to questions of authenticity has run its course. Such an approach can only lead to minimalistic results and destroys the sources that we have. By contrast, the so-called memory approach tries to understand the process and result of remembering Jesus as a parable teller. Collective memory requires typification and repetition in order to bring the past to mind in a remembering community. Parables as a genre are such media of collective memory that shape and form not only the memory itself, but also the identity of the remembering community. Thus, the many parables of Jesus in early Christian writings are more than ever an indispensable source for historical research on the remembered Jesus, a point that is demonstrated in the final section of this ar- ticle using kingdom parables as a test case.
Keywords
Jesus – parable – genre – John P. Meier – collective memory – historical Jesus research – history – kingdom parables
At the beginning of this essay I will set forth two contradictory statements:
First: The historical Jesus did not tell parables. Second: The remembered Jesus told many parables, in particular Kingdom-parables.
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In the following, these two sentences are developed in three steps. First, I will take up the thesis of John P. Meier’s latest volume in his work on the histori- cal Jesus, a volume that is devoted to parables. Meier is both a prominent and preeminent example of the manner in which parable research is applied to historical Jesus research. Second, I will present my own approach to the study of the parables within the context of the memory approach to Jesus. Third, and finally, the differences in the two approaches will be examined using the “Kingdom of God” parables as an example.
1 A Dead End in Historical Jesus Research–Engaging the Work of J.P. Meier
Throughout the various stages of historical Jesus studies, scholars have agreed that parables represent an authentic voice of Jesus.1 Parables were said to be the “bedrock”2 or the “core of Jesus’ speech,”3 perspectives that supported the view, as Snodgrass puts it, that “the parables are indeed the surest place where we have access to Jesus’ teaching.”4 However, this general consensus in scholarship has now been challenged. According to John P. Meier in his most recent book, volume 5 of the “A Mar- ginal Jew” series, with the subtitle “Probing the Authenticity of the Parables,” the historical Jesus did not tell parables—or, to be more precise, there are only four demonstrably authentic parables passed on to us. These “happy few,”5 as Meier calls them, are (1) The Mustard Seed (Mark 4:30–32par.), (2) the Evil Ten- ants of the Vineyard (Mark 12:1–12par.), (3) The Great Supper (Matt 22:2–14par.) and (4) the Talents/Pounds (Matt 25:14–30). Although Meier himself stated in vol. 2 of the Marginal Jew, “That parables were a privileged form of Jesus’ teaching is a fact accepted by almost all questers
1 See the brief history of research in R. Zimmermann, Puzzling the Parables: Methods and Inter- pretation (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2015), 58–74. 2 See the oft-cited statement of J. Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (3d ed. New York, NY: Charles Scribner´s Sons, 1963), 7: “The student of the parables of Jesus, as they have been transmit- ted to us in the first three Gospels, may be confident that he stands upon a particularly firm historical foundation. The parables are a fragment of the original rock of tradition.” (German “Urgestein”). 3 See F. Hahn, Theologie des Neuen Testaments i (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 67. 4 K. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rap- ids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008), 31. 5 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus: Vol. 5: Probing the Authenticity of the Parables (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 2016), 230.
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(1) Criterion of Embarrassment (2) Criterion of Discontinuity (3) Criterion of Multiple Attestation (4) Criterion of Coherence (5) Criterion of Jesus’ Rejection and Execution
It is readily apparent that the significant amount of the parable tradition found in the Matthean and Lukan Sondergut fails with regard to the criterion of mul- tiple attestation. “Only the Mustard Seed, as a Mark-Q overlap, clearly enjoys multiple attestation.”11 More difficult to evaluate is the question concerning “embarrassment”; for such a query, at its core, contradicts the multiplicity of
6 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew. Rethinking the Historical Jesus: Vol. 2: Mentor, Message, and Miracles (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University press, 1994), 145. 7 See Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 30–82. 8 This is the second part of thesis seven. It starts with: “Relatively few of the Synoptic par- ables can be attributed to the historical Jesus with a good degree of probability,” Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 48. 9 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 5. 10 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 12–17. In addition to this he also mentions the “Secondary (or Dubious) Criteria” including “Traces of the Aramaic language” and “echoes of the ear- ly 1st-century Palestinian environment” or “nature of a narrative”. Meier, however, states, that “secondary criteria offer no significant help in detecting parables that come from Jesus” (Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 17). 11 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 194.
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12 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 52. With regard to the parable of the leaven, Meier states, that “some authors claim that in ancient literature leaven was always as symbol of cor- ruption. Therefore, its appearance in the parable of the Leaven as a positive symbol of the kingdom of God is the sort of discontinuous and/or embarrassing rhetoric that one would expect from the historical Jesus. However, closer examination of the sources reveals that in the ancient world leaven symbolized a whole range of ideas, some positive, some nega- tive. There is nothing inherently embarrassing or shocking in the use of leaven as a sym- bol of the kingdom, and hence the argument from embarrassment or discontinuity fails” (Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 194). 13 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 54. 14 See Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 52–54. 15 Meier is fully aware of this status: “I dare to say, many non-Christians would probably be as dismayed as most Christians by the judgement that the parable of The Good Samaritan is a creation not of Jesus but of either the early church or Luke himself.” (Probing the Au- thenticity, 199). 16 See R.W. Funk and R.W. Hoover, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (San Francisco, Calif. Harper, 1997), 323–24 (in red font, which means the highest plausibility of authenticity); see also the list in Zimmermann, Puzzling the Parables, 68–69.
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The parable is embedded within a two-part controversy story, which, as a result of its parallel structure (Luke 10:25–37), has every appearance of hav- ing been composed by the evangelist. Meier observes: “The parable of the Good Samaritan … is thoroughly Lucan on every imaginable level: the macro- structure of Luke-Acts, the macro-structure of the Great Journey Narrative, the characteristically Lucan literary structure of introductory anecdote-plus parable… the typically Lucan vocabulary and grammar”17 and so on. The par- able draws on key Lucan theological concerns, such as caring for the marginal- ized and—perhaps most importantly for Meier—reflects Luke’s unique focus on the Samaritans, which stands in contrast to the “almost total absence of Samaritans and Samaria in Q, Mark, and Matthew.”18 Therefore, Meier concludes: “When one surveys all the Lucan elements that make up this literary-theological whole, one must ask why any critic would feel an imperative to discover some underlying, pre-redactional parable that Luke has reworded. Even if we suspect some such substratum, how could we ever discover what it was?”19 As a result, Meier arrives at the view that “the parable of the Good Samaritan is a pure creation of Luke the evangelist.”20 Meier pulls no punches and is relentlessly consistent in applying his meth- odology and following where it leads. By way of contrast, it is nigh on to in- comprehensible for Meier that Bernard Brandon Scott could contend that in the case of parables, authenticity can be assumed while inauthenticity must be proven. (According to Scott, “[For parables] the burden of proof [falls] on the one who would claim that the originating structure of a parable is not from Jesus.”21) We can be thankful for John P. Meier and for his courage and forth- rightness. I do believe that he has done Jesus and parable scholarship a great service, even if it may be in a manner quite different from what he intended. His unflinching application of the criteria employed in historical Jesus schol- arship reveals the conclusions to which criteria-based scholarship leads. The criteria approach to the historical Jesus can only achieve minimalist results
17 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 207. 18 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 205. 19 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 207. 20 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 51. 21 B.B. Scott, Hear then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1989), 63. Scott presents three arguments for this “reversal” of the burden of proof: 1. The parable genre is found in the Hebrew Bible but largely unkown in Hellenistic literature; 2. No parables are found in the Pharisaic-rabbinical tradition before 70 A.D.; 3. Parables are rarely found in the developing Christian tradition (they are pres- ent only in Q, the Synoptic Gospels, EvThom und EpJak), ibid., 63–64. This assessement is embraced by J.D. Crossan, “The Parables of Jesus,” Interpretation 56 (2002), 247–59, 249.
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22 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 54 (emphasis added). 23 Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 207. 24 See C. Keith and A. Le Donne (ed.), Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, London 2012. 25 C. Keith, Jesus’ Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee (Library of Historical Jesus Studies/Library of New Testament Studies, 413; London: T&T Clark, 2011), 47 (em- phasis original). 26 C. Keith, “The Narratives of the Gospels and the Historical Jesus: Current Debates, Prior Debates and the Goal of Historical Jesus Research,” jsnt 38 (2016): 426–55, here 429. 27 See the same conclusion in K. Wengst, Der wirkliche Jesus? Eine Streitschrift über die his- torisch wenig ergiebige und theologisch sinnlose Suche nach dem ‚historischen Jesus‘ (Stutt- gart: Kohlhammer, 2013); see the summary in R. Zimmermann, “Nur der gemalte Christus? Historische, erinnerte und erzählte Jesusbilder in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie 31 (2015): 31–63.
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2 Parables of the Remembered Jesus
My second statement at the outset of this paper was: The remembered Jesus told many parables. And “many” means—according to our Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu28—more than 100 parables, which are remembered as having been told by Jesus. In other words: Jesus was remembered as a parable teller. Independently of actual numbers, it is more significant that the fundamen- tal perspective upon and understanding of the transmitted parables changes within the memory approach. Before returning to the parables, it is impor- tant to make a few foundational observations concerning memory studies in general. Even though there are an increasing number of exegetes positively inclined towards the memory approach, it remains the case that relatively few take the media side of this process into account. According to Jan and Aleida Assmann and others,29 memory always needs media and form in order to be construct- ed, conserved, and communicated. Various forms, such as diaries, rings, pho- tos, or gravestones are used by individuals to remember biographical events. Thus, several forms of collective memory are used by different groups, and each group generates special forms which can be regarded as typical for a cer- tain memory and which help to construct the identity of that group. Regarding Christian communities there are also several forms through which the life and death of Jesus is remembered, e.g., liturgy or a mimetic ethos. Most accessible and available for us, however, is language-based memory, that is to say, texts.
2.1 Genres as Media of Collective Memories One of my own research interests within the Jesus Memory approach is to consider not only each form of “remembering” text, but in particular, genres as media of collective memories. My main hypothesis—which I have discussed in further detail elsewhere30—is that memory requires the repetition and
28 R. Zimmermann et al. (ed.), Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu (2nd ed., Gütersloh: Güter- sloher Verlag, 2015). 29 See A. Assmann, M. Weinberg and M. Windisch (eds.), Medien des Gedächtnisses (Stutt- gart/Weimar: Metzler, 1998); Medialität und Gedächtnis. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zur kulturellen Verarbeitung europäischer Krisen (eds. V. Borsò, G. Krumeich and B. Witte; Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 2001); Medien des kollektiven Gedächtnisses. Konstruktivität— Historizität—Kulturspezifität (eds. A. Erll and A. Nünning; mcm 1; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2004). 30 See R. Zimmermann, “Formen und Gattungen als Medien der Jesuserinnerung: Zur Rück- gewinnung der Diachronie in der Formgeschichte des Neuen Testaments,” in Die Macht der Erinnerung, (O. Fuchs and B. Janowski, eds., JBTh 22) (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 2007),
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typification of certain forms in order to gain collective meaning. The process of remembering thus inevitably leads to the development of certain forms and genres. Every cultural community possesses a basic inventory of conventionalized forms by means of which the past can take shape and can become an object of cultural memory. “The form is not reinvented over and over again. Instead, it exists within a tradition that requires and adopts it.”31 Modifying one of Jan Assmann’s terms, Astrid Erll and Klaudia Seibel have spoken of “forms of re- use” (Wiedergebrauchs-Formen) that prefigure cultural memory.32 Genres can be defined as such forms of re-use in which a genre can be described as the conventionalized form of a text.33 In genres, such as historiography or his- torical novel, this act of memory may be immediately understandable. How- ever, as Richard Humphrey states, there is little point in speaking of “genres of memory”34 because “memory and remembering … form the basis of any fiction and thus any fictional genre,” which means that “there are only genres
131–167; Ibid., “Memory and Form Criticism: The Typicality of Memory as a Bridge be- tween Orality and Literality in the Early Christian Remembering Process,” in The Inter- face of Orality and Writing, (A. Weissenrieder and R.B. Coote, eds., wunt 260) (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 130–143. 31 J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, 239. 32 See A. Erll and K. Seibel, “Gattungen, Formtraditionen und kulturelles Gedächtnis” in Er- zähltextanalyse und Gender Studies (eds. V. Nünning and A. Nünning; Weimar: Metzler, 2004), 180–208, 189, 191: “Wiedergebrauchs-Formen sind daher bedeutungsgeladenen (sic!) Träger von Ideologien des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, d.h. von Vergangenheitsver- sionen, Geschichtsbildern, Konzepten kollektiver Identität sowie von Wert- und Nor- mvorstellungen.” (“Forms of re-use are thus meaningful carriers of the ideologies of a cultural memory. They are carriers of versions of the past, of historical images, of con- cepts of collective identity as well as of concepts of values and norms.”) Jan Assmann named “Wiedergebrauchs-Texte, -Bilder und -Riten” (“re-use texts, images and rituals”); see J. Assmann, “Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität,” in Kultur und Gedächt- nis (eds. idem and T. Hölscher; Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1988), 9–19, here 15. 33 A. Erll and A. Nünning, “Gedächtniskonzepte der Literaturwissenschaft. Ein Überblick,” in Literatur, Erinnerung, Identität (ed. A. Erll; Trier: wvt, 2003), 2–27, here 10: “The concept of genres as ‘locations’ of memory … points paradigmatically to the variety and complex- ity of literature/memory relations.” 34 See H. van Gorp and U. Musarra-Schroeder, “Introduction: Literary Genres and Cultural Memory,” in Genres as Repositories of Cultural Memory (ed. idem; Amsterdam/Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 2000), i–ix, here iii.
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35 R. Humphrey, “Literarische Gattung und Gedächtnis,” in Gedächtniskonzepte der Liter- aturwissenschaft. Theoretische Grundlegung und Anwendungsperspektiven (eds. A. Erll and A. Nünning; mcm 2; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2005), 73–96, here 74. 36 See H. White, Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press, 1973/2014), 6–11. 37 See White, Metahisy, 7: “The Epic plot structure would appear to be the implicit form of chronicle itself. The important point is that every history, even the most ‘synchronic’ or ‘structural’ of them, will be emplotted in some way.” 38 Erll and Seibel, “Gattungen, Formtraditionen und kulturelles Gedächtnis,” 191: “Collec- tive identities, values, norms and the relationships between the sexes are not stabilized in memory cultures only by means of defined media of memory. Their formal processes such as parable, epos, allegory, tragedy and Bildungsroman contribute to the communica- tion of cultural meaning.”
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2.2 Parables as One Extraordinary Medium of Remembering Jesus In my view, the parable genre is one of the vitally important genres of early Christianity, which has been shaped and reshaped in telling and remembering
39 H. White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, Md./London: John Hopkins University Press, 1987). 40 A. Nünning, “Semantisierung literarischer Formen,” in Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kul- turtheorie (ed. A. Nünning; 3rd ed.; Stuttgart: Metzler, 2011), 603–604; see also regarding this term W. Schmid, “Die Semantisierung der Form. Zum Inhaltskonzept Jury Lotmans,” Russian Literature 5 (1977): 61–80. 41 See also Chris Keith, who dealt with the close link between historical approaches and form criticism, and in particular the criteria approach`s indebtedness to the old school of form criticism; Keith argued that the criteria approach shares with form criticism the theory that the narrative frameworks of the Gospels are a hindrance to asking historical Jesus questions; that is, the problem of “authenticity.” Nevertheless he showed that the memory approach confirms several aspects of form criticism. See Keith, “The Narratives of the Gospels,” 437–41. On the link between form criticism and memory see also the article from Alan Kirk in this volume.
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42 J.D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making 1; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerd- mans, 2003), 385; see also ibd., 698: “It can be affirmed with full confidence that the par- able was a distinctive feature of his teaching, both in the extended use he made of it and in its character as an extended metaphor.…, and there should be little doubt that we are in touch with the enduring impact left by Jesus.” 43 See for the following, Zimmermann, Puzzling the parables, 90–92. 44 See also A.D. Baum, „Bildhaftigkeit als Gedächtnishilfe in der synoptischen Tradition,“ Theologische Beiträge 35 (2004), 4–16. Engaging with memory-psychological research Ar- min D. Baum pointed out the great importance of figurativeness for memory. Metaphors, linguistic images, are much easier to memorize than abstract topics. 45 For further discussion of the criteria for defining a parable, see Zimmermann, Puzzling the Parables, 137–150. 46 See on this A. Kirk, “Orality, Writing, and Phantom Sources,” nts 58 (2012): 1–22; L.W. Hurtado, “Oral Fixation and New Testament Studies?” nts 60 (2014): 321–40.
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In parables one can quite clearly see what “semantization of the form” (see above) means. Memory does not utilize arbitrarily determined forms. Rather, it forms and shapes itself, to a certain extent, through these forms. This point can be made more concrete in two ways. The proximity to daily life as well as the openness to multiple interpretations not only makes variation in the process of repetition in individual remembrances possible but actually encourages it. Parables drink deeply at the well of the everyday. They are brought into new communicative situations through adapting to the changed situation of daily life. The inherent multiplicity of interpretive meaning due to the parables’ metaphorical elements and appeal structure can already be seen within the New Testament (cf. the questions of the disciples concerning meaning in Luke 8:9; cf. Mark 4:10) and also sets new interpretive possibilities into motion. Re- membering does not so much mean getting back into the past, but transferring the past into the present, as the terms recordari or er-innern’ demonstrate.47 Whoever has embraced or has been infused with the form of the parable will, in the process of remembering and re-telling, rightly carry out adaptations and assimilations. He or she will not simply recount a parable, but also retell and re-present it in new and different ways. Birger Gerhardsson maintains that “early Christianity felt itself entitled to formulate new narrative meshalim of the Kingdom, … meshalim created in the spirit of the master and according to the same lines as his own meshalim.”48 Such creativity is pejoratively labeled an “inflation of parables” by Meier,49 though in this formulation he portrays the manner in which he is captive to his idea of a limited origin. Yet, the semantization of the form can also be taken up in a different manner and in a different direction. One particular distinctive feature of the memory culture is that the parable texts were always linked to Jesus as the parable teller. One does not need to dispute that the original telling of the parable already con- tained a christological dimension.50 Yet, it is by far and foremost in the process
47 See J. Schröter, “Nicht nur Erinnerung, sondern auch eine narrative Vergegenwärtigung,” ZThK 108 (2011): 119–137. 48 Cf. B. Gerhardsson, “The Narrative Meshalim in the Synoptic Gospels,” nts 34 (1988): 339–362. See also Meier, Probing the Authenticity, 197: “For the sake of argument, let us accepts the common view that the chronological order of the Synoptic Gospels (plus the hypothetical Q document) is Q-Mark-Matthew-Luke. … If we grant this theory, an intrigu- ing pattern arises. In the first Christian generation, both Q and Mark are notable for the relatively small number of narrative parables they contain.” 49 Ibid. 50 See, for instance, C.L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables (2nd ed.; Downers Grove, Ill.: ivp Academic, 2012), 434. A stark contrast is found in the analysis of B. Gerhardsson, “The earthly Jesus in the synoptic Parables,” in Christology, Controversy, and Community:
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New Testament essays in honour of David R. Catchpole (ed. D.G. Horrell; NovTSup 99; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 49–62. “The striking result of our study is that neither Jesus himself …, nor the different elements of his activity and fate on earth are the objects of questions and elucidations in the narrative meshalim in Matthew. There has obviously not been interest in taking up these latter motifs and elucidating them with parables.” (Ibid., 58). The comments made here concerning Matthew also apply to the entirety of the synoptic parable tradition (ibid., 60f.). 51 See R. Zimmermann, “Pseudepigraphie/Pseudonymität,” rgg 4th ed. Vol. 6 (Mohr Sie- beck: Tübingen 2003), 1786–1788. 52 E. Jüngel, Paulus und Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zur Präzisierung der Frage nach dem Ur- sprung der Christologie (Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2; 6th ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 135.
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3 The Kingdom-Parables as Test Case
In this third section I begin with a statement arising from the above two sections with specific reference to the “Kingdom of God” parables: Only the remembered Jesus told “Kingdom of God” Parables! Following the vast majority of New Testament scholars, one can point out that the preferred theological subject of Jesus’ parables is the Kingdom of God (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ),54 a position that has been almost universally argued since the work of C.H. Dodd.55 Along these lines, Crossan observed: “There is very
53 E. Schweizer, Jesus, the Parable of God: What Do We Really Know About Jesus? (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1994). 54 See on the Kingdom of God, among others T. Söding, Lehre in Vollmacht: Jesu Wunder und Gleichnisse im Evangelium der Gottesherrschaft, in Communio 36/1 (2007): 3–17; also G. Vanoni and B. Heininger, Das Reich Gottes (neb 4; Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 2002). On the kingdom of God in parables, see, for example J.D. Crossan, In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus New York, ny: Polebridge Press, 1973; Nachdruck: Sonoma, ca: Po- lebridge Press, 1992, 23–36; J. Breech, The Silence of Jesus: The Authentic Voice of the Histori- cal Man (Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press, 1983), 66–74; A.J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000) 384: “The kingdom was certainly a main theme, even the main theme, of Jesus’ message.” Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 179: “Any number of parables could be labelled parables of the present kingdom, and to some degree all the parables presuppose that the kingdom of God is present in the activity of Jesus, even where the kingdom is not explicitly in view.” Also from the perspective of Jesus scholarship: P. Pokorný, “Lexikalische und rhetorische Eigentümlichkeiten der ältesten Jesustradition,” in Der historische Jesus: Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung (eds. J. Schröter and R. Brucker; bznw 114; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 393–408, 395: “Es ist kaum möglich, die Bedeutung der Reich-Gottes-Verkündigung in der Jesustra- dition zu überschätzen.” 55 See also the programmatic introductory sentence in C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the King- dom (Glasgow: Collins, 1978), 13: “The parables are perhaps the most characteristic ele- ment in the teaching of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels. … Certainly there is no part of the Gospel record which has for the reader a clearer ring of authenticity.”
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Q 13:18–19: Parable of the Mustard Seed Q 13:20–21: Parable of the Leaven Mark 4:26: Parable of the Mustard Seed, Mark 4:30: Parable of the Growing Seed
The Parable of the “Mustard Seed” appears in both sources; therefore, there are only three Parables in Mark and Q that explicitly relate something about the Kingdom of God.58 This is even more remarkable when considering the wide range and large number of parables actually found in these sources, as identified in the Kompendium: Out of a total of 28 Q parables,59 ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ is mentioned only in the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven (Q 13:18–19, 20–21). Out of a total of 17 Markan parables, the Kingdom of God is referred to only in the parable of the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26) and that of the Mustard Seed (Mk 4:30). Thus, of a total of 45 parables within the oldest sources, there are only three which can be entitled “Kingdom of God Parables.” What makes this reality even more striking is that despite this paucity of “King- dom” parables in Q and Mark, Q quite often speaks of the “Kingdom of God”60 and in Mark we find this theologumenon at central points in the Gospel (Mark 1:15; 14:25 etc.).
56 Crossan, In Parables, 23. 57 According to Dieter Roth, the Kingdom, however, can be seen to play a major role within Q-parables in a broader sense, see Dieter T. Roth, Parables in Q (Library of New Testament Studies; London: T&T, 2018). 58 One of the few scholars who named this evidence clearly was Charles Hedrick, see C.W. Hedrick, “Parable and Kingdom: A Survey of the Evidence in Mark,” in his Parabolic Fig- ures or Narrative Fictions? Seminal Essays on the Stories of Jesus (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2016), 26–51, here 30: “In only three instances does Mark specifically associate basileia with parables” (Mark 4:10–12, 26–29, 30–32). 59 In the Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu 28 texts for Q and 17 texts for Mark are listed as parables, see the tables in R. Zimmermann, Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, 59–60; 262–63. 60 Q 4:5; 6:20; 7:28; 10:9; 11:2, 17, 18, 20; 11:52; 12:31; 13:18, 20, 28; 16:16; 17:20–21; 22:30.
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What can be inferred from these observations? Should one conclude that the idea of the “Kingdom parables” is a pure invention of Mark, Matthew or Early Christian authors, as Hedrick did: “Thus the idea that parables medi- ate the sovereign reign of God, like the messianic secret, may only be an early Christian invention”?61 Within the memory approach, the source evidence can be interpreted as a unification of two currents of memory (Jesus the parable teller and the centrality of the “Kingdom of God” in Jesus’ ministry). This uni- fied memory is already to be found in Mark and Q. However, in the process of remembering the tradition was intensified. The idea of the Kingdom parables can be documented more nuanced in later Gospel traditions, particularly in Matthew.62 It was the first Evangelist who picked up the slight overlaps of two parallel currents of tradition (on the one hand, the memory of Jesus’ parable discourse, and on the other hand the memory of the constitutive meaning of the “Kingdom of God” in Jesus’ proclamation) and developed a theologi- cal concept. In parable introductions in Matthew, the “Kingdom of Heaven” is employed ten times as a frame of reference for the parables.63 For example, see “The Kingdom of heaven is like…” in Matt 13:24–30; 13:44; 13:45–46; 13:47–50; 13:52; 18:23–35; 20:1–16; 21:28–32; 22:1–14; 25:1–13.64 According to Dunn, “Mat- thew’s much more extensive use of the motif (‘the kingdom of heaven is like …) may indicate the technique of the story-teller retelling the parables as much as Jesus’ own characteristic style.”65 One can agree with Dunn’s judgment with- in the scope of Matthean remembrance: “Jesus was evidently remembered as using parables to illustrate or illumine what he had in mind when he spoke of the kingdom.”66 In this way, creative memory is shown to be established in the object itself. The form of the parable is considered to be constitutive for
61 Hedrick, “Parable and Kingdom,” 51. 62 See Matt 13:24–30, 44–46, 47–50, 52; 18:23–35; 20:1–16; 21:28–32; 22:1–14; 25:1–13; further- more John 3:3–5; Gos. Thom. 22; 64; 97; 98. 63 C. Münch, Die Gleichnisse Jesu im Matthäusevangelium. Eine Studie zu ihrer Form und Funktion (wmant 104; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2004), 144–50. 64 See also John 3,3–5; Gos. Thom. 22; 64; 97; 98. 65 Somewhat curiously, Dunn, at least in some respects, is hesitant to read any significance into this finding as he continues: “The point here is that it would make little difference either way: whether or not Jesus himself introduced all these parables (and others) with this formula, he was remembered as characteristically teaching about the kingdom by us- ing parables” (Jesus Remembered, 385). I would argue that it does make a difference and it brings the process of creative memory to the fore. 66 See Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 385; similarly M. Hengel and A.M. Schwemer, Jesus und das Judentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 398: “Auf jeden Fall blieb er (= Jesus) in Erin- nerung als der, der von der Königsherrschaft Gottes in Gleichnissen sprach.”
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Jesus’ speech about the Kingdom of God. In addition to the Jewish-theological tradition, it is the concrete world in which humanity lives on a daily basis that becomes the canvas upon which Jesus paints his theological message of the reign of God. This proximity to life and people is the deepest expression of “Emmanuel” (God is with us, see Matt 1:23), whose proximity to humanity is promised to the end of the age (Matt 28:20). Does this Matthean activity in the process of remembering mean that it is not adequate or true towards the “real” Jesus’ speech? By no means. As Antho- ny Le Donne stated, “(t)he historical Jesus is not veiled by the interpretations of him. He is most available for analysis when these interpretations are most pronounced. Therefore, the historical Jesus is clearly seen through the lenses of editorial agenda, theological reflection, and intentional counter-memory.”67 However, to avoid misunderstandings, this interpreted Jesus of the past should not be named “the historical Jesus” any more, but “the remembered Jesus.” The example of the “Kingdom of God” parables thus reveals that approach- ing the texts on the basis of the traditional criteria has a destructive element that ultimately destroys our sources and their contents. The memory approach, by contrast, interprets the extant traditions and brings them into contact with each other in a productive manner. Here, parables are a medium of remem- brance that serve as an example to highlight the manner in which the intensifi- cation and forming of memory68 takes place and to aid us in our understanding and appreciation of this process. Most important, however, might be, that the memory approach is confident that the process of remembering preserves true insights and impacts in the origins of these processes. Therefore, the memories of the kingdom-parables and parable telling in general, although intensified during the process of remembering, preserves an indisputable historical truth: Jesus was a parable teller.
67 See A. Le Donne, Historical Jesus: What can we know and how can we know it? (Grand Rap- ids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011), 134. 68 See here the circle-model of A. Le Donne, Historical Jesus, 79: “Each new cycle of the mem- ory process reinterprets historical memory. In most cases, several cycles of memory have occurred before ‘history’ gets written down. What this … illustrates is that history is an interpretive trajectory that is interpreted and reinterpreted with each new remembering.”
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